^ a row and the dollar and the economy crashing; we are definitely living in interesting times.  One of my favorite reads is the “Asia Times” and Pepe Escobar has a very interesting article regarding Iran’s oil bourse and the fact they are no longer selling oil for US dollars.  Here’s a link to the article...worth the read and the interesting times will continue for some time.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JB21Dj07.html

Check this out: http://beerdoctor-beerdoctor.blogspot.com/

Condoleeza Rice is nice, but a prefer A-Roni…

This is not a new phenomenon.  Once upon a time it was timber that fueled international cartels.  Think ancient Cyprus at the dawn of metal smelting...all the way through the New Forest laws of Medieval England.

Google the Hostmen of Newcastle and their stranglehold on the coal trade.

The Robber Barons of the great locomotive age also come to mind.

Or the great electric cartels at the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th, when the decision between petroleum and electric to power the dawning automobile age was being made.  General Electric had plans (and operational prototypes) to install electric hydrants for battery recharging along city streets.  Early electric vehicles outperformed internal combustion, and the polluting effects of internal combustion were well known.

Henry Ford made his name by taking on the ALAM trust (operated by the electric cartel).  Around 1914, he and Edison were near their grand plan to give America an inexpensive electric vehicle...they saw clearly the stranglehold that the oil economy would put on America.  Edison even envisioned an America of decentralized power.  His West Orange home became a working prototype, operated by batteries and recharged with a small generator.  He hoped to replace the generator with a windmill, but never got that far.

The oil companies of today are direct descendants of every other energy cartel; their allegiance is to profit.  And their willingness and ability to manipulate government is hardly new.  It is the same story, told over with a new cast of characters.

If we peel back the whole GWOT overlay, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan reveal themselves for what they actually are: the titanic clash of Oil Giants co-opting State powers and vying for control of our planet’s oil—“market penetration” by military means (nothing new).

The real, true “strategic” objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan:

- de-nationalize their oil industries

- expel “foreign suitors”

- hand-over control to “our” Giants (and their related service and subsidiary companies: Exxon, BP, Haliburton, Bechtel, etc., etc.)

Unravel the tapestry of lies in which these military conquests are cloaked, and examine how control of oil (in Iraq) and “the pipeline” (in Afghanistan) has changed as a consequence.

This (latest) US/British conquest of Iraq, in particular, then reveals itself for what it is: one of the biggest armed robberies in all of human history (the biggest, thus far, of this nascent new century).  What is the “2nd-largest oil reserve” on the planet worth?

And to have exploited our collective shock, and grief, and outrage in the wake of the monstrous savagery of 9/11—cloaking this out-and-out oil grab behind the ruse of “fighting terror” . . .  Every epithet of disgust and outrage falls short.

And yet . .  Just as McCain is catching flak, in some quarters, for his “anti-torture” rhetoric; just as there is a political block in this country that is “down” with torture — so, too, many are tacitly “down” with the unvarnished oil-grab aims of Bush/Cheney & Company.

“So we had to launch an aggressive war (’the supreme international crime’) — with as many as one million dead; several million ‘displaced;’ a-trillion-dollars-and-counting spent — in order to maintain our lighted, heated, air-conditioned, TV-watching, web-surfing, SUV-driving, plastic-and-pesticide-laden lifestyle. So what?”

google:

Terrorized by “War on Terror,” by Zbigniew Brzezinski

The So-Called “War on Terror,” by Richard Behan

Crude Designs, by Greg Muttitt

Slick Connections, by Erik Leaver and Greg Muttitt

Cheney’s Energy Task Force

“Bridas, Unocal, Afghanistan”

“But who will back up Uncle Sam except ordinary American soldiers and taxpayers who sacrifice to fight and fund battles that have nothing to do with their national interest?”

Scheer does indicate here the extraordinary fleecing that our fighting men and women and we the taxpayers take at the hands of the plutocracy.

Case in point: our blood and our taxes support the imperialistic adventures engaged by our purchased politicians. For the oil companies, we fight for their advantage and pay the bill for the fighting. The result, we pay them inflated prices for the privilege. To add insult to injury, our children and our grandchildren pay well into the future for the privilege of supporting oil interests.

Another example, we pay for regulatory agencies that represent the companies they’re supposed to regulate. We get lead in our children’s toys. Tainted meat is sent to our schools. Toxic drugs are approved by our FDA.

Our national forests are sold to Bush buddies. Drilling destroys our public lands. Again we pay for the cleanup.

FEMA gives the middle finger to the poor in New Orleans, those still alive anyway. Mobile homes are bought at high prices with toxic materials in them. FEMA knows this from the beginning and after two years begins to do something.

All this traces back to Bush who will never lose a nights sleep over any of it and who will never be prosecuted for any of his corruption, numbering in hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions in our money.

Is anyone mad yet?

The man that actually did demand Euro for his oil was Saddam Hussein in 2000. At first, his demand was met with ridicule, later with neglect, but as it became clearer that he meant business, political pressure was exerted to change his mind. When other countries, like Iran, wanted payment in other currencies, most notably Euro and Yen, the danger to the dollar was clear and present, and a punitive action was in order. Bush’s Shock-and-Awe in Iraq was not about Saddam’s nuclear capabilities, about defending human rights, about spreading democracy, or even about seizing oil fields; it was about defending the dollar, ergo the American Empire. It was about setting an example that anyone who demanded payment in currencies other than U.S. Dollars would be likewise punished.

Many have criticized Bush for staging the war in Iraq in order to seize Iraqi oil fields. However, those critics can’t explain why Bush would want to seize those fields—he could simply print dollars for nothing and use them to get all the oil in the world that he needs. He must have had some other reason to invade Iraq.

History teaches that an empire should go to war for one of two reasons: (1) to defend itself or (2) benefit from war; if not, as Paul Kennedy
illustrates in his magisterial The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a military overstretch will drain its economic resources and precipitate its collapse. Economically speaking, in order for an empire to initiate and conduct a war, its benefits must outweigh its military and social costs. Benefits from Iraqi oil fields are hardly worth the long-term, multi-year military cost. Instead, Bush must have went into Iraq to defend his Empire. Indeed, this is the case: two months after the United States invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food Program was terminated, the Iraqi Euro accounts were switched back to dollars, and oil was sold once again only for U.S. dollars. No longer could the world buy oil from Iraq with Euro. Global dollar supremacy was once again restored. Bush descended victoriously from a fighter jet and declared the mission accomplished—he had successfully defended the U.S. dollar, and thus the American Empire.

As of December 2007, Iran began trading oil in Euros.

Please read the following link:
The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
http://www.energybulletin.net/12125.html

I don’t know about everyone else, but I know I am sleeping better in the knowledge that with oil at this obscene level due to Bush/Cheney Reich being a member of the OPEC cartel, that Congress is swinging into prompt action to save our economy. By holding public hearings televised to millions about whether a dumb jock pitcher juiced himself up on steroids or not, and conducting an investigation into the NFL destroying tapes of a football team stealing signals of another team. Hallelujiah, we are saved by the Jackass party we put in there to clean up Washington.

The most important cause of $100 price of oil is the fact that the U. S. government now supports the cartel OPEC by being a de facto member of OPEC via the Iraq occupation
You know that when the U. S. government occupied Iraq in March 2003, it took over all the functions of the government, including the membership in OPEC.  The US/Iraq delegate to OPEC has always voted for the price-raising oil production cutbacks.
You may also know that the U. S. government in Iraq has contributed to these cutbacks by reducing the oil production from the pre-invasion level of 3 million barrels per day to the current level of less than 2 million.
The U.S. government provides intelligence and enforcement support to OPEC and its allies—as a “duty” for its occupation.
The antitrust laws need to be amended to prevent the U.S. government from helping any cartel anywhere in the world, including OPEC and its allies.  Without this cartel enforcement by the U. S. government, the price of oil will fall precipitously.
The publics of the world are losing tens of billions of dollars monthly, and money is going to dubious regimes on the Persian Gulf and their allies such as Russia.
Congress needs to investigate.  The antitrust laws need to be amended.  Who in Congress will speak up?  What Presidential candidate will speak up?