JCSBimp's Hexagonal Orthogonal

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You need us! AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT!

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Some of the people on my LiveJournal flist might remember me posting there about ads run on WTOP by some organization of the petroleum lobby, advising us not to let our legislators take us “back to the seventies” with “outdated” plans to increase taxes on oil and natural gas companies. I challenged the claim the ads made that “America needs more energy, not less,” because I believe that what we need more of is NEW sources of RENEWABLE energy, and LESS dependency on resources we may dangerously deplete within the lifetimes of us or our offspring, resources whose price is often controlled unscrupulously.  We also need, frankly, service stations supplied by oil companies that encourage them to carry ethanol, rather than discouraging the spread of the use of that renewable fuel.

Well, the same advertisers are at it again, and this time their tack is quite clever. The ads now running on WTOP news now start off by asking who has ownership in America’s oil and natural gas industry. Their answer didn’t surprise me, given the lead-in: We do. That is, if we own mutual funds or a retirement account, we have a stake in the industry. Also, pensions for teachers and firefighters depend on the industry as well.

I half expected to hear them say, “If you reduce your dependence on oil or your stake in our industry, cute little puppies and kitties everywhere will die.”

I know from having learned about addictions that depending on something doesn’t make that something good. And a symbiosis can occur between the addicted and the addictive agent, whereby the agent will send strong messages to the addicted’s brain giving lots of reasons not to kick the habit. Sometimes the agent can threaten the body of the addicted: “If you reduce your dependency on me, BAD THINGS will happen.”

It’s a racket, perpetuated by an addicted populace and powerful companies maintaining that addiction. Skyrocketing prices and global warming aren’t enough to keep the efforts to reduce our dependency from looking like partisan agendas. Who’s listening past the messages? Who’s looking out for us? Hillary? Barack? John? Mike? Or do we dare to hope for better and look to all the “sane” world like we’re throwing away our vote?

Okay, that’s my opinion. If you’ve heard those ads too, feel free to chime in. And you can go to http://www.energytomorrow.org and get their indoctrination information straight from the tap.

(Also posted to my LiveJournal weblog.)

JCSBimp

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2 responses to “You need us! AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT!”

  1. scooterbird
    scooterbird

    I’m not sure if I want to have the President “looking out” for us. We should be able to get past the hype and make coherent decisions about what we want for our country. A good barometer is if it’s what people want for ourselves, rather than what corporate entities and small clumps of moneyed elites want for us…

    Ultimately, we must remember to control the government ourselves. If we cannot do that, then the government itself needs to be changed. No pushovers, no compromises, no lesser-of-two-evils. Just get them all out and find people who’ll do the job.

    Reply
  2. gitarfan

    You do understand that ethanol is NOT the be all end all fuel you want it to be. We can’t put enough acres in production to make it worthwhile. Grain commodity prices are already going through the roof because of the ethanol scam. Service stations that do carry ethanol have very poor sales. We would be better off using natural gas for car fuel and building more nuke plants than wasting money on ethanol. But even to get there, we still need oil to make the transition. So what did we do? Make it harder to develop domestic reserves and try to raise taxes on domestic companies all the while sending more and more money to OPEC. Large chunks of energy company stocks are owned by mutual funds and IRAs. To then attach an ad hominem attack to that shows your intellectual dishonesty

    Reply

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