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ALL_ABOUT_OIL

                                             July 30, 2007

In the circles I frequent, the fact
that the Iraq war appears to really be
"all about oil" is an inditement.

For many people, it's a justification...
though you won't often hear them say it.

  "But we need the oil don't we?"

   Actually, no
   we don't.             Here "we" = the
                         United States
   Most of the                                         WHOS_WE
   imported oil the
   United States
   uses comes from
   the same
   hemisphere, e.g.
   Latin America.

     It costs money to ship, and there's
     no reason to bring it all the way
     from the Middle East.

     Oil is, however, a global market,
     and a restriction in the supply               Noam Chomsky argues
     in the Middle East would certainly            that really "it's all
     bid up the price of Latin American            about" maintaining the
     oil.                                          power to set oil
                                                   prices, and that is
        But it just doesn't matter that            making more sense to me
        much *who* the oil is sold to,             these days.
        as long as it's sold to someone.

        And if the goal of the Iraq war
        was "cheap oil for the US", it would
        appear to have been a huge failure.
        However, if the goal was high profits
        for major oil companies, then it was
        a resounding success.

        The idea that the Powers That Be
        care at all about the life of           Note: there is also
        the American Consumer would seem        another myth (or so I
        to be somewhat naive.                   suspect) that oil is
                                                needed to *grease the
          Modern American is more about         economy*: "High gas
          bleeding the middle class, while      prices" lead to
          maintaining corporate welfare for     recession...
          the well-connected.
                                                         (with consequences
                                                         that might even
                                                         "trickle up" to
                                                         our over-lords?).

                                                Myself, I doubt it matters
                                                that much.  High gas
                                                prices would change our
                                                behavior, it would make
                                                some things more valuable
                                                that others -- it's not
                                                at all clear to me that
                                                these changes would be
                                                "bad for the economy".

                                                    Perhaps: bad for
                                                    suburbanites that
                                                    want to cruise
                                                    through life
                                                    without thinking
                                                    very hard...

     And further: the idea that
     cheap oil is *good* for
     the United States seems
     dubious: the gas burning
     life-style that America                          By the way: I do
     embraced after WWII has                          think that we have
     many, many problems                              a choice about oil
     associated.                                      burning.

     The first ones everyone thinks of are              The "peak-oil"
     pollution and involvement in                       faction likes to
     politically unstable regions of the                claim we're at
     world, but I'm not even sure that                  the end of the oil
     those are the worst.                               era, like it or not.

        Higher on the list, I would put                     Never bet on
        "the destruction of community".                     a resource
                                                            shortage.
          THE_DESTRUCTION_OF_COMMUNITY




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