Imperial Realities
That Will Never Be Fairly Discussed in the Mainstream Media
A barrel of oil, fed into a machine such as my car, produces ten man-years of work. Not only does it provide ten man-years of effort, but it produces feats that humans cannot, such as driving down a highway at 70 miles per hour. That is why Bucky Fuller said that if oil was priced at the benefit that it provided humanity, it would cost a million dollars a barrel. We currently pay $70 for something that provides a million dollars of benefit. That explains everything about the West’s involvement in oil-rich nations.
When Winston Churchill converted the British Navy from coal to oil in 1911, the Middle East’s fate was sealed. Five years later, the British and French conspired to carve up the Ottoman Empire into easily controlled oil states. Oil politics has dominated the region ever since, and everything else has been a sideshow.
The USA reached peak oil-extraction rates in 1970, and our standard of living has declined ever since, as we mine the dregs of our hydrocarbon deposits. Globally, Peak Oil was reached in 2006, and oil will be almost completely depleted on Earth by the end of this century. For nations that did not give American oil companies a free hand, we overthrew their governments, as we did to Iran, as the CIA’s first such operation. When “necessary,” we would send in our military to overthrow targeted oil-rich nations, such as Iraq and Libya, which were catastrophes for the peoples of those nations.
Detroit has been suppressing high-MPG technologies for a century, and Dennis Lee’s effort was the latest that I am aware of. The sitting American president’s energy advisor was a fan of Dennis’s efforts, but when David Rockefeller got involved, it was over. It was far from Dennis’s only run-in with the Rockefellers.
While oil politics dominates international relations, American neocolonial activities are not confined to oil. Everything imported to the West from poor (AKA not industrialized) nations has blood on it. Most of the world’s poorest nations export food to the USA, orchestrated by Western banks in a novel form of slavery. The mainstream media is a pure propaganda organ on these issues, covering up or cheering along genocides that benefit corporate America.
These are imperial realities that most Americans are oblivious too, as the American Empire chugs along, as we make Earth uninhabitable. It does not have to be this way, but it will take an unprecedented act of integrity and sentience to right the ship. I am trying one way, and we will see how it goes.