The perversion of U.S. democracy to serve oil interests like BP went into high gear under former Vice President Dick Cheney. Dallas-based Halliburton, where Cheney worked prior to the 2000 election, made equipment and chemicals used in oil drilling, and sold to producers including BP even though Halliburton had no experience in the petroleum industry.
Later during the 2000 election, BP exerted significant influence over politics through its campaign contributions. That is not too surprising when you consider that in the late 1990s BP had acquired Amoco and Atlantic Richfield, two companies which had been players on the U.S. electoral scene and which had made political contributions. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, BP ranked fourth amongst oil and gas company contributors in the 2000 elections, with donations totaling 1.1 million. Two thirds of that amount went to the GOP.
Cheney was grateful and never forgot the favor: in early 2001 the Vice President set up an Energy Task Force seeking to design a national energy policy. In a slap in the face to democracy, the Task Force was never open to official public comment and kept all its deliberations secret from the public. At the time, the White House claimed that turning over its records from the Task Force would impede its ability to get candid advice.
The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.
In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.
In addition, Cheney had a separate meeting with John Browne, BP's chief executive, according to a person familiar with the task force's work; that meeting is not noted in the document.
Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on the document. She said that the courts have upheld "the constitutional right of the president and vice president to obtain information in confidentiality."
I guess the current system of law is a bit flawed?
"A bit"?
Our entire system of 'law' consists of the haves getting their way, and getting what they want, and the disfavored and powerless getting the shaft. The Law is just another mechanism the perps use to control people.
Remember Orwell's comment: "For a picture of the future, just imagine a boot stomping on a human face - forever."
I just heard on NPR a report that up until this weekend, the oil spill disaster had been measured exclusively from a single video.
Yesterday they released a new video which confirms the original.
And the audio clip of the audio news release involved some agent saying stuff like, "Look. You see here? That's the oil. So you see? This is really happening. Just look right here. See that? That's oil."
It was pathetic. It sounds like a great deal of video-assisted hypnotism to me.
And this was my comment about the original video, posted here on May 12:
Oddly, it looks like billowing smoke through the air, not thick, oozing oil pushing its way through water, which would provide some resistance. It looks as if it is moving freely, in an unimpeded manner.
By contrast, we know that water at this depth is a crushing weight on something, preventing free and easy movement.
fbenario: that "a bit" part was supposed to be sarcastic. I know I sux at sarcasm :(
From my understanding of the whole situation and from looking at the video is there is a real leak only the media is not allowed to see just how bad it really is or what exactly they are doing to stop it. This oil spill also seems to be putting small fishing companies almost out of business, which would be a plus for Monsanto and the rest of the big agri-food businesses that already own most of the worlds food supply. This incident might be used as an excuse for a government takeover of BP and the rest of the oil industry like they took over General Motors, for example. I would also like to add that BP oil is a corporate member of the CFR, so they are obviously involved in this as well.
I don't even know who is the bad guy here - if not both - but apparently the US coast guard is out to arrest CBS news employees for trying to film what's happening. So you might be right about there being a cover-up.
hoi.polloi @ May 20 2010, 10:46 PM wrote:
I don't even know who is the bad guy here - if not both - but apparently the US coast guard is out to arrest CBS news employees for trying to film what's happening. So you might be right about there being a cover-up.
That news might just be propaganda that makes it seem like there truly is a big disaster being hidden from the public eye, and also to bolster the public trust in the media as looking out for the truth.
"It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true." - Henry Kissinger
hoi.polloi 4 May 20 2010, 10:46 PM wrote:
I don't even know who is the bad guy here - if not both - but apparently the US coast guard is out to arrest CBS news employees for trying to film what's happening. So you might be right about there being a cover-up.
That news might just be propaganda that makes it seem like there truly is a big disaster being hidden from the public eye, and also to bolster the public trust in the media as looking out for the truth.
Very well could be.
It's another one of those giant walls of media protected by armed guards. There could be nothing inside or a BAE Systems battleship armed with UK soldiers. We don't even know!
(Sorry. Most likely nothing, but I couldn't help but add a speculative idea of what's going on.)
hoi.polloi 4 May 20 2010, 10:46 PM wrote:
I don't even know who is the bad guy here - if not both - but apparently the US coast guard is out to arrest CBS news employees for trying to film what's happening. So you might be right about there being a cover-up.
That news might just be propaganda that makes it seem like there truly is a big disaster being hidden from the public eye, and also to bolster the public trust in the media as looking out for the truth.
Very well could be.
It's another one of those giant walls of media protected by armed guards. There could be nothing inside or a BAE Systems battleship armed with UK soldiers. We don't even know!
(Sorry. Most likely nothing, but I couldn't help but add a speculative idea of what's going on.)
It's easy to offer up speculation when we don't have much truth available on which to base anything beyond speculation.
"It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true." - Henry Kissinger
hoi.polloi 4 May 20 2010, 10:46 PM wrote:
I don't even know who is the bad guy here - if not both - but apparently the US coast guard is out to arrest CBS news employees for trying to film what's happening. So you might be right about there being a cover-up.
That news might just be propaganda that makes it seem like there truly is a big disaster being hidden from the public eye, and also to bolster the public trust in the media as looking out for the truth.
Very well could be.
It's another one of those giant walls of media protected by armed guards. There could be nothing inside or a BAE Systems battleship armed with UK soldiers. We don't even know!
(Sorry. Most likely nothing, but I couldn't help but add a speculative idea of what's going on.)
It's easy to offer up speculation when we don't have much truth available on which to base anything beyond speculation.
There could be a giant sea monster trying to eat Alabama! Thanks, oppressive Orwellian system for protecting us from the truth! :P
Here is a link to what is described as a continuing live streaming video of the oil leak at the bottom of the sea. Any thoughts on whether it is trustworthy?
It's common knowledge that:
a) The Rothschilds own Reuters, which is one of the agencies at the heart of the mainstream press.
B) The Rothschilds own British Petroleum, which is being portrayed in a negative light in the mainstream press.
So -- why would Rothschild-controlled/influenced press portray a Rothschild-owned company in a negative light?
I love how this happens on April 20th. Those who rule over us love that date. A short list:
-Columbine Massacre
-Apollo 16 Moon Landing
-Johnson Space Center Shooting
-1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion
-Sacred "holy-day" (holiday) for the pot movement
-Adolf Hitler's birthday
And on the topic of dates/numbers, the death count is an eyebrow-raiser: 11. One of their favorite numbers -- right up there with 13, 7, 33, etc.
We should investigate these victims -- is the world being sold another whopper? If there is a massive oil spill in the gulf, then why are beaches in Texas and Florida not closed?
So hydrocarbons are still leaking from the malfunctioning Blew Out Preventer, BOP, in the Gulf of Mexico, GoM. We are now told that the coast of Florida is threatened as the ‘oil’ is ten or twenty miles away there.
Oil? What is leaking out from the BOP is a mixture of hydrocarbons and water. The hydrocarbons are in solid, liquid and gaseous form. Evidently the gaseous part just bubbles away (even if BP ignited it on the surface for whatever reasons). What about the solid/liquid hydrocarbons? Well, the ones with density >1 will remain on the bottom of the GoM (and be destroyed by biological action there). The ones with density <1 will float up on top of the water and will also be destroyed by sunlight and biological action.
It is a fact that extremely little ‘oil’ has reached and polluted any beaches of Louisiana. Of course the authorities have stopped local fishing, which is good for the fish and bad for the fisher. But a little hydrocarbon does not damage the fish. To stop fishing is just propaganda that some action is taken! Really stupid action! Tourists have also been chased away for unclear reasons.
We are shown photos of ‘oil pollution’ being trapped/recovered but the boats/equipment are small and you wonder where the ‘oil’ came from. We are told that BP is spraying the ocean with some stuff that breaks down the ‘oil’ but we don’t know if it is true. It is pretty hot down in GoM now (>35?C in air, 30?C water) so any liquid/solid hydrocarbons with density <1 break down quickly. The hurricane season will speed things (cleaning) up.
I cannot see the problem actually! Short selling BP shares would make you quite rich, though.