Source – rielpolitik.com

– “…What we really need to take away from the black refinery smoke that clogs our sky’s and fogs our mind, is that we are subsidizing this dog to the tune of 10 million dollars each and every minute of every day. Just think about that for a brief lucid moment and you will see the gluttonous, bloated, welfare Queen in all her glory, and our part as whimsical court jesters in this woeful Shakespearean tragedy”

‘Big Oil’ and the Carbon Dating of Humanity 

Rebel without a Car…

A generation ago, independence, machismo and the wanton desires of rebellious youth, could all be tightly packaged behind four tires & a steering wheel. Freedom, adventure, and the open-road were the indomitably hallmarks of ‘Americana’ and the imagery was skillfully interwoven into the psyche of most impressionable young men, of which I was one.

Nothing depicted the raw, man/machine interplay better then Steve McQueen’s testosterone-powered joy-ride through the hillside streets of San Fransisco – it would become the very definition of ‘cool’…

the imagery was all there, the Mustang he commandeered was a weakly veiled analogy to the frontier days that best defined America, so young and full of promise.

America’s industrial might and economic prowess was intrinsically interconnected to the rise of ‘Big Oil’ and Detroit’s big three auto makers: Ford, General Motors & Chrysler (…and for a time American Motors) The privately-owned automobile was an indomitably post-war symbol tied to the notion that society would enjoy virtually unlimited freedom of movement and individual opportunities presented far afield were all possible and within reach.

Today one could argue that this same sense of personal emancipation is often best realized by pursuing the exact opposite of those long-held sacred ‘truths’. Rising costs on all fronts associated with car ownership in many cases now acts as an anchor rather than a means of escape. Add to that the grid-lock drivers face everyday in most highly urbanized centers, along with hyper-vigilante policing and multi-draconian rules of the road, and we start to get a torn and badly faded picture of our life as Jack Kerouac…

The automobile heralded in an economic expansion never before seen in the annuals of human history. Industry used the nations abundant and resource rich domestic supply of ‘Black Gold’ to fuel factories and put America to work. Giving rise to a fully integrated new citizen able to purchase and consume the fruits of there own labor.  Ingenuity and Innovation was to be at the forefront of this grandiose state of nation building, and America went on to rule the roast building even bigger and ever better.

Hemp For Victory…

Henry Ford had designs to go into full production of his prototype Hemp car, understanding the base material to be more durable and cost effective then aluminum or steel. Like his European predecessors, Diesel and Wankel, the automobile would be able to run on a variety of combustible fluids, but was specifically designed with Hemp fuel in mind. An equally abundant, domestic fuel source that offered the added benefit of also being a renewable cash-crop.

(Ding Dong) The Wicked Weed is Dead…

George Washington, the nations first American President was a hemp farmer, as were many other men of prominence & position throughout the 19th century. Indeed, the very fabric of this new fiscal world depended on it  – The monetary notes which bore the Seal of Congress, were in fact made of Hemp. This resilient, multi-purpose industrial crop so vital to the Allied war effort was to be relentlessly attacked as a social scourge that threatened the very fabric of a nation. From its humble beginnings as a natural, centuries old medicinal tonic, to its durability as a fiber compound, Hemp had occupied a valuable and respected chapter in Americas early history – but no more.

The effective, well-financed lobbying efforts of both Oil Baron’s and southern Cotton King’s would play a decisive roll in the eventual outlawing all Hemp production and effectively anchor the world economy to the bow of ‘Big Oil’ and its multi-tentacled interests. Those interests would eventually go far beyond the dry dust bowl frontiers of the American mid-west straight to the highest echelons of Industry, academia and government. It wasn’t long before an all powerful cabal of interconnected vested interests were capable of holding a nation hostage and quite literally over a barrel…

No More Grease Monkey’s, But Still Lots of Grease…

The incestuous alliance between the Wall Street lords of high finance and the ”Seven Sisters’ of Big Oil would prove to be skillful, central players in this grand new game of ‘realpolitik’. This would eventually give rise to competing national power centers generally localized in the mid-west & southern energy producing states, competing both for access to resource rich lands and the strings of government oversight.

The oil lobby was successful beyond all measure, due mainly to deep-pocket politics and the nations overriding national security interests pertaining to energy security. In many California cities, electric street car infrastructures were ripped up to make room for the thousands of automobiles which were soon to descend on America’s streets. In city after city local public transit options were shelved of severely curtailed to make room for America’s burgeoning appetite for novel gadgetry and television-hyped consumer goods  – nothing personified that better then the sight of blond hair dancing in the wind, down a long ribbon of road in a fire red American-made convertible.

By now the richest fortunes in America had been made by way of the rough and tumble world of this notoriously uncertain, bang and bust industry. Great fortunes would be won and lost in a high-stake game of ‘poker’ and often one dry hole away from financial ruin,  the ‘wildcatters’ loved those odds and wore it with pride and distinction. This brawny, gut-level approach to doing business seemed like a perfect fit for the equally volatile world of state and national politics, in fact, high office in many states was already a clan-based ‘blood sport’ where the bulging envelopes of gratuitous cash would be welcomed and prove to be an economic mainstay for many politicians.

The Geopolitics of Big Oil, or…What’s MY oil doing under YOUR soil?…

While control on the home-front was key to the the continued dominance of the industry, further afield the rich oil basins of central Asia and Middle East would come to dominate the geopolitical agenda throughout the 19th & 20th century. The rise of the oil-rich oligarch fiefdoms supported by the might of American military power proved to be the template on which the global post-war economic model was fashioned – a protection rack if ever there was one.

In this carnival of contrived economic madness which we have collectively paid a King’s ransom to attend, Big Oil runs rough-shod over an increasingly  defenseless planet, overthrowing any nationalist regime that would attempt to stand in its way. The history of the rise of contemporary America and it’s allied nation states is this rather unpalatable truth – the global reach of Big Oil has for the better part of two centuries super-seeded the collective will of an entire planet, playing off shallow and petty regional differences for maximum profit by virtue of perpetual war.

Pigs With Lipstick…

Nothing has really changed in a 200 plus years of fossil-fueled lunacy, we still for the most part drive carbon-emitting rust buckets, but pay exponentially more for the pleasure (…or pain) for all the talk of high performance, re-engineering and ‘new’ ultra-sleek designs – it’s still just another pig with lipstick.

We expect bigger (…make that smaller) and better from technology, and want it yesterday at half the price, why then are we seemingly joined at the hip to an industry still modeled on the sensibilities of a Precambrian Jurassic Park?, – could it be that Big Oil is but the last of the big and bad of these willy, dangerous predators?

Thankfully there has been a definable sea change in today’s youth who view car ownership not in a total positive light, equating car ownership more as an instrument of employment rather then the means of person freedom as in generations past. Yet as a society, we still willing drink the cool-aid every time the latest sporting models are paraded off the production line. It is us – you and me – who give this beast life, by virtue of the fact that we are the end buyers of so much junk. Now that cars are the price of an average family home in 1980, and still depreciates at free fall speed in the first three years of ownership, how do we keep convincing ourselves that this is still an essential national economic driver? The only case that can really be made, is that the ‘driver’ is a rip-roaring drunkered, hell-bent on destruction, and headed straight for the dumping ground of history.

Yes, the stock market still continues to magically rises along with the stubbornly high price of gas (…while a barrel of oil sells for less then a third off of its 2007 highs), are we then to assume that by the graces of the gods, the sun will never set on Big Oil? No matter how many times we dilute ourselves into thinking that our boxed-in, carbon-dated, reality-tunnel is somehow working for the betterment of mankind, we march to the somber tune of the funeral procession that marks our own demise.

OIL: The Heroin of the World…

What we really need to take away from the black refinery smoke that clogs our sky’s and fogs our mind, is that we are subsidizing this dog to the tune of 10 million dollars each and every minute of every day. Just think about that for a brief lucid moment and you will see the gluttonous, bloated, welfare Queen in all her glory, and our part as whimsical court jesters in this woeful Shakespearean tragedy.

(Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m a minute, says IMF – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuel-companies-getting-10m-a-minute-in-subsidies-says-imf)

So why have we not progressed to that bright and glorious post-war future we read about over malt’s and Elvis. In a word, Collusion. Collusion between Big Oil moneyed interests and Big Government moneyed interests (…generally considered one and the same) and the wholesale sell-out of America and the bigger world it was tasked to mentor. This terminal cancer of ‘Big Oil’, has seeped into all aspects of everyday culture and life, and like a coiled python brushing ever so softly against our skin until firmly positioned to exert but minimal force to make us docile and obedient once again – we comply or die

Stop me before I drive again…

Arguably oil got us to the party, but it doesn’t get to take us home…

Great visionary minds and true humanitarians like Buckminster Fuller and Jacque Fresco showed us what was possible, less for the will to achieve it – an true American clique if I ever heard one – but truer then at any time in history. We’ve spend the heart and soul of a nation to build it and now watch as we are lapped by Asian Tigers and former vanquished foes. we must stop the bleeding, and the only way to right the road is through innovation and co-operative effort, in so doing, we will embrace the dynamic, unlimited future which lay’s just ahead.

http:www.rielpolitk.com