Monday, March 9, 2009

Even the Devil Can Hire a Pretty Spokeslut

"Here's the good news about energy: ExxonMobil's profits for 2008 were well over forty billion dollars!"

If you have seen any of the news shows on any of the channels, then you'll recognize the Oil Slut.


The folks at "energy tomorrow dot org" have put up a spiffy web site and are pouring millions of dollars, with all of the abandon of a leaking supertanker, into a PR campaign whose main message is "drill everywhere."

What those putzim hope you never figure out is that petroleum is a commodity. When demand for oil spikes again, everyone in the oil business from the people pumping it out of the ground to the refiners will make a shitload of money and it doesn't matter where they are in the world. When you deal with commodities, even purely local action has an effect on the larger prices, which is what Wickard v. Filburn was about. If crude oil goes to $150 a barrel again, we all will be paying well over $4 for a gallon of gasoline again, and it won't matter at the pump whether the oil wells are in Oklahoma, the Gulf of Mexico, Russia or Saudi Arabia.

What the Oil Slut and the other the folks at "energy tomorrow" are fighting for is a larger share of that $150 and that is all. There is no patriotism driving their message, only greed.

Oil is a commodity that is sold on a world market. Once you understand that point, a point that the oil industry is spending millions of dollars to obscure, then you can understand that there is no difference between reducing our dependence on foreign oil and reducing our dependence on oil. Then you can understand why the words "alternative sources of energy" strike fear into the hearts of the Oil Slut and her employers.

Heart-stopping fear.

5 comments:

  1. The President should retroactively tax these oil pigs for windfall profits. And subsidizing the industry with even one penny is just wrong.
    You simply cannot tell me that gas prices surged upwards of $4 a gallon, then suddenly dropped back to normal because of diminishing demand.
    It's bullshit and it's got Bush's name all over the steaming pile of it.

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  2. Back a million years ago when I was on bedrest during one of my pregnancies (oh, the joy of motherhood), we had no cable. I was bored out of my mind and started watching As the World Turns. The actress who does these commercials was on ATWT. Now I'm even more sickened when I see them than I was back when I was pregnant, hot, bored and watching soaps.

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  3. You had me at "Spokeslut," Comrade. And your well-made points about the oil industry and economy win my heart completely.

    Let's chant it together: alternative sources of energy! Now let's work to convince the Conservadems that they must support alternatives.

    And Ms. Zipdrive's comments receive a hearty hear, hear! too. Let's do it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And gosh, freezing in the dark is so fun.

    Have any of you even the least smattering of education in economics? If they can't make any money pumping it, they're not gonna bother getting it out of the ground. If they don't get the stuff, we can't buy it. Maybe there are electric trains where you live but most places, it's still internal combustion if you've got to travel farther than shank's mare will take you and you haven't a spare $100K for an electric sportscar with limited range..

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  5. And do you understand the point about oil being a commodity?

    ReplyDelete

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