Sunday, March 27, 2016
A Rich Man Suggesting We Take the Money Out from Under ISIS Oil
I found it ironic that Trump would think to deny one of the big sources of income for ISIS by taking their oil away from them. Especially in as much as he would do it via a mini war on certain regional oil sources. If you see oil as a sort of industrial age drug you get a sense of just how rich (all puns intended) this bit of irony is. Just consider that part of why we are still fighting in Afghanistan is to eradicate opium production because, of course, it is also a potent radical Islamic funder.
That he would also go about this in an even more ham handed fashion than we are already fighting drug our wars, which have not worked for the last three or four decades, is clearly, if an more indication was needed at all, reason to see him for the uninformed buffoon that he is. And one need only consider the different nature of the world's oil addiction, as opposed to its, as well as our, drug addiction.
On the one hand, by trying to destroy the radicals production of a thing, you are, in effect, declaring it illegal. And by any sane standard, as far as the planet is concerned, all fossil fuels ought to be illegal. Going cold turkey on fuel, though, presents far greater problems generally for the world's economies than trying to make however many millions addicted to hard drugs would; not that doing the latter is cost free of course. The crime and incarceration that the drug war has caused has already been well documented. It's just in the comparison between the two that the latter will still be fairly small potatoes.
What we see at work here is another example of short sighted declarations of intent made mostly to pander to the passions of the moment; shooting from the hip as it were to knock down straw dogs the general population has been made so fearful of, all without any effort at all at understanding either what causes the fearful thing, or what "destroy it all and let God sort it out" thinking for a solution will do as far as just making things a great deal worse than they already are.
What would really have been surprising here is Trump first declaring that he would mandate the government to start an ever increasing tax on all fossil fuels, both on the production and consumption sides; a tax that might start low initially, but grow fairly quickly. And then take the proceeds of that new income and spend it only on the development of a comprehensive fossil fuel replacement,,, Like, say, hydrogen produced by wind turbines at sea, for example. And he would do this, instead of going to a carbon credit trading market system, so that this new source of fuel could be managed by a nation wide, and hopefully a world wide as well, public power utility. One that would not have profit as a part of its mandate at all.
Why you might ask? Because that's the only way you will ever take the "Big Money" profiteering aspect that has always been a part of the energy business since day one of the industrial revolution; not to mention the power brokering aspects of cartels to influence world politics. And therein lies the main reason why he will always be a part of the problem regardless of how he might suggest to take money away from our enemies: The fact that making money in the first place will always be the most holy of hollies; the sacrosanct dogma of absolutes for which any who would even begin to question have to be labeled blasphemers.
Just remember that the reformers who want to decriminalize drugs do so because they want to take away the main aspect of what makes them profitable in the first place. And, as far as that goes, I am in complete agreement. For my way of thinking, however, if you really want to take away all aspects of the motivations of money, as well as the hindrance towards solutions that a "cost" based mentality unavoidably creates, you really need to start thinking about why you keep a money based economy going in the first place.
Donald Trump Lays Out Foreign Policy Plan, Including How to Fight Terrorism
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump suggested that he would destroy oil fields in the Middle East, saying that they're a primary source of income for terrorist groups such as ISIS.
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