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Raging Pencils by Mike "nature boy" Stanfill

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Slip-Sliding Away


Not Fascism"If (Osama) bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he'd turn off the tap,'' said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. ''He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel'' -- about six times what it sells for now.

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If you're confused about what he meant by "six times what it is now" keep in mind this bit of conjecture was printed in the New York Times on October 14, 2001.

Yeah, tell me about it.

Please go read the whole story here.

The story is amazingly prescient, positing both the invasion of Iraq and Israel's waging outright war against the Palestinians for their territory.

The central issue, though, is the price of oil. Osama obviously understood that the way to cripple the West, and America in particular, was to radically raise the price of crude oil, and we're currently experiencing its implosive effects. In addition to the steep jump in the price of consumer goods we will likely lose Chrysler, and possibly even Ford and GM as well.

So you have to ask yourself - if bin Laden understood this   economic cause-and-effect relationship why didn't someone in government, like good old "Shotgun" Cheney?

The better question is: What if government officials knew this would be the result and didn't care? Perhaps it suits their ultimate purposes to kill the American auto and airline industries and everything tangential to it.

Considering the way the government has been crossing off the Bill of Rights one amendment at a time since 1982 it's clear the government thinks we've had too much freedom these past two hundred and thirty-two years. Perhaps this blatant manipulation of oil prices is just a grand attempt at destroying the last vestige of the middle class.

It's not that hard to believe, either. In the view of the corporations that run this country the vast non-affluent rabble that clogs their streets exist merely to be used and discarded. Pay them as little as possible and work them to death. If decent health care, higher education or quality food is beyond their means, that's their problem. And competition? Don't make them laugh. This rise in oil prices will gut the small businessman like a brook trout.

We all dream we can reach a better tomorrow if we elect the right people to public office, but the corporations build the voting machines, too.

You may think I'm painting a bleak picture, but I'm not. I'm taking a photograph. And more than just our heads have been cut off.

=mike=


end rant



Raging Pencils is a minor personal conceit of:

Mike Stanfill, Private Hand
Mike Stanfill, Private Hand
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www.privatehand.com



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