The Oil Drum | W: "It's Going to Be a Tough Summer" (and a late night open thread)

205 comments on W: "It's Going to Be a Tough Summer" (and a late night open thread)

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Jack Greene on April 24, 2006 - 12:49am

This is silly.

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prole on April 24, 2006 - 12:56am

Not silly at all, see my post below.

The evidence is in - the Republicans stole the 2004 election.

Read Fooled Again by Mark Crispin Miller.

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fleam on April 24, 2006 - 2:12am

More like the Dems handed it to him, Kerry was and is an unstable nut - more so then Bush. Why didn't the Dems run Gore again? They'd have won with him IF he were against the war.

I'm getting sick of seeing the Dems say they're not happy with the way the war is being run because...... .they'd draft more working class kids (not their own kids!) and send 'em over there and kill more Iraquis. Why, Kerry'd have had us in Iran and Syria by now.

It never occurs to them that maybe no wars for oil and looking at an orderly powerdown and a flattening of the class structure might be the way to go.

Today I heard that the Dems are behind a movement to subsidize cheap gas in the US even more than it's already being paid for. Motor on! Drive your SUV down to that polling place and vote Dem! And since you're passing the army recruiting office on the way, better sign up your kid(s), we're gonna need them....

I am not at all happy with the neocon takeover of the Republican party but I think the Dems are dead as a political party.

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Don in Colorado on April 24, 2006 - 2:26am

To tell you the truth, I think the Republicans are dead, too.

Bush seems to rule by naked power, fear and lies. Maybe that's the only thing that will work any more.

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fleam on April 24, 2006 - 4:06am

Well that does lead up to where I was going, both parties are more the enemy than the friend of the common man. A new party that really takes off will be populist.

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Dragonfly41 on April 24, 2006 - 7:02am

Where's the American Chavez when you need him? [insert sarcasm...well...maybe not]

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Leanan on April 24, 2006 - 8:52am

Not that populism will help.

Here's the result of populism:

Specter: U.S. should consider windfall oil tax

Leading GOP Senator blames reduced competition for high oil, pump prices
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a windfall profits tax, along with measures to stem concentration of market power among a few select oil companies, could offer eventual relief to consumers hurting at the gas pump.
"I believe that we have allowed too many companies to get together to reduce competition," Specter said.
They get together, reduce the supply of oil, and that drives up prices," he said.

A Republican, calling for more taxes on big business. Amazing.

But it won't help...unless we use those taxes to prepare for peak oil.

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jkissing on April 24, 2006 - 1:33pm

Of course it helps,and in many ways. Direct taxes on oil companies reduce profits and therefore reduces their incentive to look for oil, thus driving prices higher. This in turn reduces consumption/gw. Meanwhile, higher taxes will (mostly) reduce the deficit, just as it did when Clinton raised taxes, which puts the us in better position to do something when po becomes widely accepted.

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Subkommander Dred on April 24, 2006 - 9:40am

Fleam;
A new party that is not only populist, but reveres constitutional rights as well as individual liberties. I've had this rather insane idea of late of running for congress as a 'guerilla' candidate, complete with three piece suit and ape mask. Considering the incumbent in my district (a true mountain of intellect Virgil Goode (R) Virginia's 5th congressional district) and the sorry assemblage of Democratic challengers, I fear the election shall be little more than a tag-team cage match between the traditional parties. As always with professional wrestling, 'The Fix is IN!'

Subkommander Dred

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prole on April 24, 2006 - 7:17am

Your comments do nothing to add to the dignity of a discussion on the sanctity of elections and the election process.

If the election process is easily compromised by electronic voting systems, then all is lost.

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Leanan on April 24, 2006 - 7:39am

I don't think Kerry's an unstable nut. He seems very stable and grounded to me, all things considered. Also very smart, and very decisive when push comes to shove. He has a talent for quickly and correctly analyzing a situation, and acting when everyone else is still trying to figure out what's going on.

But he's not the best public speaker, and his New England style is a bit off-putting to the rest of the country. He's not a very good candidate, I freely concede. I think he would be a very good president, though. He could be made to understand the problem we face in peak oil. (Simmons thinks Bush just didn't get it, and I'm inclined to agree. The man has simply lost too many brain cells to drugs and alcohol.)

Whether Kerry or anyone else could do anything about peak oil is a different question, of course. I suspect we need another Clinton - someone with far more political skill and charisma than Bush, Gore, or Kerry have. Someone who could win people over, and convince them of the need to make changes.

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Subkommander Dred on April 24, 2006 - 9:31am

Fleam:
As much as I hate to admit it, Brother Fleam is correct;
The Republicans are goons, and the Democrats are all on the take. As for me, I am taking my money out of politics, real estate and the stock market and have started betting heavily on junior high soccer.

Subkommander Dred

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Twilight on April 24, 2006 - 7:17am

Regardless of whether you believe there was widespread systematic election fraud, there are millions of us who do - and that alone ought to be enough to scare the heck out of everyone. This is not the forum to get into such theories, but I have plenty of evidence that goes way beyond "silly" to back it up. When combined with what I see as the utter failure of both political parties, I feel totally disenfranchised from the US political system - and I'm not alone in that either. How do you expect any effective solutions to any of the crises we face with a large part of the public feeling so marginalized?

When I worked for the DoD, we were told we had to avoid even the appearance if impropriety. It was good advice, and it's telling that our present electoral system isn't even bothering to try.

I have never missed voting in an election - it was important to me. I may vote this time too, but it is far from important to me now. Mostly I'll be just going through the motions because it costs me little to do so - I have no expectations that it will matter at all.

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Mad Maxout on April 24, 2006 - 8:04pm

I always vote, though it sure seems that the past two elections were as rigged as a Saddam Hussein election, just a little slicker. I vote just to get my 2 cents in on a political season of unintended comedy. On a more serious note, I sure can't blame you or others with being disgusted with the process.

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fallout on April 25, 2006 - 2:49pm

I still work at the DoD, and they still tell us to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Talk about hippocracy!

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mcgowanjm on April 24, 2006 - 10:47am

If voting could change things, it would be illegal

It's not who votes, it's who counts the votes.

As Prole so adequately lays it out what else besides
the end of the Age of Oil could make sense of the Utter
disregard of the American People's opinions.

James

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205 comments on W: "It's Going to Be a Tough Summer" (and a late night open thread)

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“Of all races in an advanced stage of civilization, the American is the least accessible to long views… Always and everywhere in a hurry to get rich, he does not give a thought to remote consequences; he sees only present advantages… He does not remember, he does not feel, he lives in a materialist dream.”

—Moiseide Ostrogorski (1902, 302-303)