OIL BUSINESS IS A RELIGION

The world has become a prisoner of OPEC’s oil oligarchs. However, demand and supply dynamics are not at work in this case. The game is being played by the corrupt minds of small men.

It is ironic that, as globally connected as we claim to be, we become more morally disconnected with each passing day. Here’s a bold statement: there is NO shortage of oil in the world, only short men with corrupt minds.

Let us not forget that the pandemic disrupted the daily flow of coins into the oil oligarchs’ piggy banks. 2020/21 were not good years, but they all managed to stay afloat. We are now in Act 2 of As the World Turns, and the players are squeezing the jugular of humanity by inflicting pain on those who need the resources the most. If Covid did not kill you, the price of oil will.

So the real and big question isn’t the predictable behavior of the worthless few, but why does the World bequeath its vital resources to a few who hold it hostage for its own survival?

Andrew Vachss, the writer, summed up the greed of corporate oligarchs perfectly when he said, ” In my world, people are always plotting. You have no idea of all the crimes people in business commit every day. Like it was nothing. Or there’s a set of special rules for them. Remember when Bush made that whole speech about ‘corporate ethics’ last year? What a fraud. You think stuff like Enron or WorldCom is an aberration? It’s only the tip. Business is a religion. Probably the only one practiced all over the world.”

How truthful is that?

(c) 2022. All rights Reserved. Seti

BRITAIN HAD THEIR BREXIT, NOW AMERICA IS HAVING THEIRS

I have been away for a while preparing myself for some final exams I took for a degree. I was silent on my blog but I was very much awake  by the events over the past few months , and none so prominent than the election in the USA. 

What a connnundrum that was.

I distinctly remember the national remorse in the UK after their emotional vote to leave the EU.  The nicotine from the coffee the Brits drink took some 24 hours to take effect.  People were asking what happened as if they took a sedative to go vote.  It was something half of the country regretted and the other half were  understandable euphoric. That event in their history is now etched as an event never to be forgotten. It was a shock event with repercussions.

Months later the US is having the same symptoms  to their event.  What happened is the question asked by 59% of the people. The glamourised talk of the “smooth transition” from Obama to Trump has not been smooth and in 10 days since January 20 the homeland is undergoing a shock event of immense proportions. 

So it was very interesting to see these comments from a noted professor that seems to put some explanation to the symptoms Americans are experiencing. 

I think if you are American you should read this as  hidden within her thoughts is a silver lining. 

Kwesi  

An important message from a historian:

From Heather Richardson, professor of History at Boston College:

“I don’t like to talk about politics on Facebook– political history is my job, after all, and you are my friends– but there is an important non-partisan point to make today.

What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night’s ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries– is creating what is known as a “shock event.”

Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order.

When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies. As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.

Last night’s Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it.

Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.

My point today is this: unless you are the person setting it up, it is in no one’s interest to play the shock event game. It is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won’t like.

I don’t know what Bannon is up to– although I have some guesses– but because I know Bannon’s ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle– and my friends range pretty widely– who will benefit from whatever it is.

If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been tricked into accepting their real goal.

But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event.

A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union.

If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln’s strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power.

Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members of those groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all Americans to have equal economic opportunity. Once they began to work together to promote a fair economic system, though, they found much common ground. They ended up rededicating the nation to a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it.”