>> ^bcglorf:

Thank you for your reply.

You made it clear that I may have made an error in my previous comment. I think I should clarify that what I meant by "personal transport" was light vehicles for personal uses, as is the minivan or motorcycle used to get to work, the store, not transportation in general, which I view as a different, though not unrelated, problem. Moving freight, airplanes and battleships requires different solutions (in my opinion) then the problem of getting your kids to the hockey game.

I think we agree that the transition from oil is an important issue. You seem to believe that better batteries (and electric engines) will solve every facet of every issue facing the end of oil, and that this will result in little or no social or political change or turmoil. While I deeply wish that the next century comes to be shaped after your expectations, I do not believe it will be so. I do not believe that batteries alone will solve the coming crisis. Even if energy storage technology was to rapidly become what we would need it to be, where would the energy come from if the source for more then half of our current use was to vanish? Replacing that energy by renewable means will require a huge amount of investment and several decades to implement.

What I see coming, is a myriad of interwoven problems of which the central spine is energy use. All of them are have energy use at the at the root of their problem. This is because oil has done more then just let people drive their cars around cheaply. Cities are no longer shaped after people's needs, but to suit the demands of the automobile. There has been a great deal of optimism in investing in electric cars to allow people to continue to access modern cities as they have been constructed.

"When people say that they want to go to the electric car, I love it! But remember, they say 'car' not 'truck.' A battery won't move an 18 wheeler. The only thing that will move an 18 wheeler is foreign oil, diesel and gasoline, and our domestic natural gas." -T. Boone Pickens (on The Daily Show)

However continuing to access these cities will get more difficult when costs of energy begin to come down from the bubble of cheapness that I and most of the people I know have grown up in.

"Consequently these (cities) will be places that nobody wants to be in. These will be places that are not worth caring about. We have about 38,000 places that are not worth caring about in the united states today, when we have enough of them we will have a nation that is not worth defending. -James Howard Kunstler on "The greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world."

Even if cities are reshaped for the new economy of energy, there is debate on what that will be. Some people believe that there will be a magic-pill cure, like super batteries that will allow life to continue as normal. This will not be the case.

"The central delusion that we're seeing right now is the idea that we can magically come up with a rescue remedy to continue running the interstate highway system and all the other accessories and furnishings of the happy motoring system. I happen to think that we're going to be very disappointed about that. In fact there are a lot of intelligent thigns we can do, but one of the least intelligent things we can expect is that we can continue happy motoring. You can demonstrate that you can run cars on hydrogen, cow shit and fried potato oil, but can run 230 million cars and trucks on it? Forget about it.

And then you get into political questions, like if driving becomes something only for the elite. Right now 4% of americans can't drive for one reason or another. What happens when that number becomes 13% or 27% of the people do you think that's going to be politically okay? It would create huge resentments and grievances against the people who can still do it." - James Howard Kunstler

But when I said that personal transportation is not the biggest issue, I meant it. People will be less concerned with their car or the "happy motoring system" if they are hungry.

"Food prices are rising and they're about to soar. There have been a lot of rising grain prices that have not been passed on to the consumer, they're about to be. High food prices always create political peril, as we've known since the French revolution at least.

The era of cheap food is over in this country, just as the era of cheap oil is over as well. (...) The old fix, ramping up production is not going to work this time, because cheap food depends on cheap energy, something we can no longer count on. Without reforming the American food system, it will be impossible to make progress on the issues of energy independence, climate change and the health care crisis because the way we feed ourselves is that the heart of all those three problems.

Let me explain. The food system, uses more fossil fuel and contributes more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere then any other industry. Between 17 and 34 percent. Meat production alone is 18 percent." -Michael Pollan, on The End of Cheap Food.

So when faced with the choice between fuel for their cars and fuel for their bodies, some will choose to fuel the car, leaving others to go hungry. And when people are hungry, they turn to first to the government for solutions. Governments know that they will need to bring resources to appease a population and avoid that political peril they have known about since the French Revolution. Remember that wars are always about resources.

"How curious, that the First World War is never taught in our schools as an invasion of Iraq. (...A reaction to) the Berlin-Bagdad railway, which commenced construction in the years leading up to the first world war," with the goal of bringing oil from Iraq to Germany. (-Robert Newman, A History of Oil)

"Oil is what drives the military machine of every country. It provides the fuel for aircraft, the ships the tanks for the trucks. The control of oil is indespensible. When you run out if your army stops." -Chalmers Johnson, Why we fight.

Oil is more then just a transportation issue. Riding the bus won't help much. The bus runs on gasoline, just like your car.

BRM - I don't think that was the point he was making - that if the US had not gotten involved in WW1, WW2 would not have happened. What he said was that US involvement in WW2 would have been hard to avoid, that is, I think he believes that this was a war effort he would have supported given the situation at the time. However he goes on to say (correctly I believe) that WW2 was a continuation of the first world war - Hitler was spawned by the severity and resultant resentment of the Treaty of Versailles. He does state that we could have stayed out of WW1.

Further, RP espouses a philosophy of nonintervention and strict adherence to the constitution, but that does not mean that the US could not intervene in a cause that the people felt was justified. Congress would simply have to stake their claim, take responsibility for it and declare war. Going to war because the king, er, the occupant of the oval office says so doesn't sound very American to me.

As for the social issues, I believe RP is not opposed to STATES taking the lead on these issues. He has consistently said that the federal government should not dictate these things from top down. In fact, his position is, the more complex and thorny an issue is, the more it should be addressed and handled at at the local level. That would mean that states would have different solutions to similar problems and we would essentially be "running the experiment" in parallell, not in series. That way, the results from different parts of the country could be evaluated and used to modify current state systems to come up with the best solution to that region's issues.

I may be reading more (or worse, something mistaken) into what his positions are, but I don't think what I'm saying and he is expressing are mutually exclusive.

International financiers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The international financiers or international bankers may refer to international finance institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, or national investment banks.

[edit] Conspiracy theories referring to international financiers

The term found some currency in conspiracy theorism. Adolf Hitler often blamed "international financiers" or explicitly "Jewish international financiers" for Germany's debt after the First World War. In a similar vein, Henry Ford's antisemitic writings (among them The International Jew) which referred to "international bankers", were used by Charles Coughlin for the same purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_financiers

The Iraq War's Other Front -- My Doctor's Office
By Larry Elder
Thursday, April 5, 2007

The "Bush Lied, People Died" yahoos lurk everywhere. Few can escape them.

Standing at the check-in window of my doctor's office, awaiting my annual prostate exam, I heard a staff member yell out with a smile, "Hi, Mr. Elder. How does it feel to be one of the last guys who supports the war?"

The 20-something-year-old receptionist, who was signing me in, then narrowed her eyes, and the volcano erupted. She tore into an emotional, convoluted, fact-challenged barrage against the president. He lied us into the war, and too many of our soldiers are dying. He's incompetent. He sent young men and women to die for oil and for Halliburton. While he plays commander in chief, the middle class shrinks. He cares only about the rich. His racism showed in his handling of Katrina. Yadda, blah, etc.

I tried to remain calm while considering the source. In general, depending upon the setting, I try to conserve my mood and my energy. But, then there are other times -- and this was one of them.

"You talked about the number of our military personnel who have died in Iraq," I said, "3,500 and counting." "Do you happen to know how many died in World War I?"

"No."

"What about Korea and Vietnam?"

"No."

" What about the Civil War -- both sides?"

"No."

"What about World War II?"

"No."

"We lost over 100,000 in the First World War, with a much smaller population than today. During the Civil War, 600,000 died on both sides, and the population was about 10 percent of today's 300 million. So, adjusted for the population, six million people died during the Civil War."

Soon the other staff members behind the receptionist began to listen, as did the patients sitting in the waiting room.

"By the end of World War II," I continued, "400,000 Americans died. Again, adjusting for today's population, that means nearly 800,000 people -- or less than one half of one percent of those killed so far in Iraq. Of course, every life is precious, but I suggest that before you talk about the 'huge' amount of deaths, you gain some perspective."

"But, what about the lies?" she said.

"Why bother," I said, "maybe my prostate could wait another year. I'll just go down and grab a hamburger."

But I said, "Are you familiar with the Robb-Silberman Commission that concluded the president did not lie about the intelligence on Iraq?"

"No."

"What about the Senate bipartisan panel that concluded the same thing -- that Bush didn't lie?"

"No."

"What about David Kaye?" I said.

"Who?"

"He's the guy Bush sent to Iraq to find stockpiles of WMD. While he didn't find stockpiles of WMD, he spoke of the possibility that Saddam transferred WMD out of the country during the run up of the war. Perhaps more important, he said that no intelligence analyst -- all of whom, by the way, thought Saddam had stockpiles of WMD -- felt pressured to lie simply to provide a motive for Bush to go to war."

"But, we have been in Iraq longer than we fought the whole World War II. This is crazy," the receptionist replied.

"Crazy?" I said, "I know of no stopwatch for war. During the Civil War, both sides expected it to last just a few weeks, no more than a few months. During the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington lost battle after battle such that some wanted him replaced by a more competent general. The early years of World War II seemed particularly gloomy, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't say, Well, we've been at this for a bit. Let's call it a day and go home.'"

That was too much for a guy sitting in the waiting room, who chimed in, "But the war has made things worse."

So now, I am getting it from all sides.

Turning to the gentleman, I said, "I guess you assume that everything was going swimmingly until Bush stuck a stick into the hornet's nest. Do you remember the 1979 seizure of American hostages, who were held for over 400 days? Do you remember the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia? Do you remember the attack on the Marine barracks during the Reagan Administration, or the attacks on our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya? What about the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993? Not to mention the attack on 9-11 that killed over 3,000 on U.S. soil. Yeah, if only Bush hadn't ticked off so many people, the Disney Company, by now, would've built a theme park in Pakistan."

And so it went. To paraphrase Osama bin Laden, if we lose the war in Iraq, it will not be lost on the battlefield, but in places like my doctor's office.

"Mr. Elder," said the nurse's assistant, "the doctor will see you now." And not a moment too soon -- for them.

Here is the plot summary, which gives the context for this speech, from imdb:


Plot Summary for
The Great Dictator (1940)

During the last days of the First World War, a clumsy soldier saves the life of devoted military pilot Schultz. Unfortunately, their flight from the advancing enemy ends in a severe crash with the clumsy soldier losing his memories. After quite some years in the hospital, the amnesia patient gets released and reopens his old barber shop in the Jewish ghetto. But times have changed in the country of Tomania: Dictator Adenoid Hynkel, who accidentally looks very similar to the barber, has laid his merciless grip on the country, and the Jewish people are discriminated against. One day, the barber gets in trouble and is brought before a commanding officer, who turns out to be his old comrade Schultz. So, the ghetto enjoys protection from then on. Meanwhile, Dictator Hynkel develops big plans, he wants to become Dictator of the whole world and needs a scapegoat for the public. Soon, Schultz is being arrested for being too Jewish-friendly, and all Jews except those who managed to flee are transported into Concentration Camps. Hynkel is planning to march into Osterlich to show off against Napaloni, Dictator of Bacteria, who already has deployed his troops along the other border of the small country. Meanwhile, Schultz and the barber manage to escape, guised in military uniforms. As luck would have it, Schultz and the barber are picked up by Tomanian forces and the barber is mixed up with Hynkel himself. The small barber now gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance to speak to the people of Osterlich and all of Tomania, who listen eagerly on the radio.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Very nicely produced. The idea of of weapons manufacturers being involved in promoting wars is certainly not new though. You can call it "war corporatism" if you want, but it used to be called the military-industrial complex. And around the time of the first world war, it was called war profiteering.

This piece is very slick, with a high production value, but is also high on assertion and low on actual information.