<This Week in Petroleum 12-12-07 The Oil Drum Freedom from Oil - a review>

155 comments on DrumBeat: December 13, 2007

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

SacredCowTipper on December 13, 2007 - 12:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Corruption

That is the beginning, middle, and end of our troubles. We either clean house in 2008 or we sink like a stone. We can't restore the velocity of money, such as it will be post peak, if every uninvolved party can get in the middle of someone else's business. There is great need to cut away deadwood in both the business and political realm.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
shaman on December 13, 2007 - 12:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have to disagree with your assesment, SCT. What happens in the 2008 elections in the U.S. is about as close to irrelevant as can be. The structure of our government mediates against anything but reform. The "founding fathers" knew this and designed it that way. Their expectation was that should the government truly get in the way of effective change, that the people would overthrow it.

But the real problem has little to with our government, it has to do with broader constructs of our society as a whole (and as we spread it globally). The government is a lever to effect social change, but its reach and impact is limited. You can hypothesize all the wonderful policy changes you like, but unless the broader culture supports that change, you are merely spitting into the wind.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
SacredCowTipper on December 13, 2007 - 12:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yes, my unstated assumption is that mobs of unemployed people are going to want change. They won't like it when they hear it means powering down, but if there aren't any alternatives ...

Well, I can hope, can't I?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
oldhippie on December 13, 2007 - 12:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It would be refreshing indeed to see a mob. That would
mean that ordinary people had understood something,
had thought something. It would mean that a mob had
hope, purpose, direction.
I expect something more inchoate than a mob.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
shaman on December 13, 2007 - 12:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

yeah, but being unemployed allows for so much more time watching TV...

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
710 on December 13, 2007 - 5:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

A few years ago there were plenty of mobs in Argentina who widely protested corruption, indeed protested the entire system. And a few short years later, the public were voting for the same corrupt officials. Source: The Take, by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
oldhippie on December 13, 2007 - 6:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

For a rather different take on political
suicide and how a polity terminates, see
Aristotle, The Politics (suggest McKeon trans)

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
oldhippie on December 13, 2007 - 6:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Oops, should be a reply to hightrekker below

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
hightrekker on December 13, 2007 - 12:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

SCT--
There is no evidence reformist policies work (just take a look around).
Systems rarely commit suicide. All major changes politically happened in the streets outside the system. American, French, Russian Revolutions had nothing to do with reform within the system. It can go the other way also, as the Spanish Civil War proves.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
WNC Observer on December 13, 2007 - 12:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Getting rid of the two corrupt political parties is the only way we are going to have any hope of getting rid of corruption in politics. The only way that is ever going to happen is if people stop voting for them. This means first of all telling the people that keep screaming that a vote for a 3rd party or independent candidate is a "throwaway vote" to shove it. The only throwaway votes are the ones not cast at all or the ones cast for the perpetuation of this corrupt system.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
stevelevine on December 13, 2007 - 1:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I'm not sure we are talking corruption. Reid simply doesn't seem to have a killer instinct, and is forever blinking in the face of adversity. The GOP sees that, gives him a head fake, and he crumbles.

Steve LeVine, author
The Oil and the Glory
http://www.oilandglory.com

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
MacDuff on December 13, 2007 - 2:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I am dubious of that assertion - the Dem's rely on the same large contributors (corporations and wealthy patrons) that the Repub's do

I think going into this the Dem's knew it was safe to support the bill, because they knew the Repub's would filibuster it - OR if it somehow squeaked through, Bush would veto the bill. This way the Dem's can say "WE all voted for it!" but oil gets to keep it's nice fat subsidies...

win-win for everybody but the American people - in other words, business as usual

Our companies are like that guy looking at that last tree on Easter Island, ax in hand - and our "representatives" are some chief standing at his side reminding him how important building the stone Gods are to the economy of the island

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

155 comments on DrumBeat: December 13, 2007

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version