Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Just a tiny drop of what Old Salt will need to learn about by Marie K. Tuesday, August 26, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re We're #1 by Old Salt Talk about hating America!!! Just a lot of anti-American diatribes. Putin should send you some ruples to say thanks for helping Russia and working to make everyone believe the USA is evil. You are just losers unwilling to stand up for your own nation but last time I checked America is #1 in freedom and wealth and charity and moral standing.Before I write another sentence let me assure you that I haven't spent a large part of my life discovering the WRONGS committed overseas due to bad US foreign policies and then exposing them because I hate America. Just the opposite. I want to see the country I was born in stop its wrongdoing and even right those wrongs. I want it to behave with honesty and decency. That would be REAL greatness. I can also assure you that it's never been easy discovering those wrongs. It's very sad and depressing. It's given me periods when I really could NOT handle any
The article puts it this way: there's been a "profound shift in power" that has pushed the original seven sisters "on to the sidelines and into an existential crisis." Then it says that the new sisters are "overwhelmingly state-owned" and that "they control almost one-third of the world's oil and gas production and more that one-third of its total oil and gas reserves. In contrast, the old seven sisters ... produce about 10 percent of the world's oil and gas and hold just 3 percent of reserves." It seems that because the old sisters "sell not only oil and gas, but also gasoline, diesel and petrochemicals," their revenues are "notably higher than those of the newcomers." A quote in the article says: "'the reason the original seven sisters were so important was that they were the rule makers; they controlled the industry and the markets.'" So where did they go wrong? First off, as the International Energy Agency (IEA) points out, in the past 30 years 40 percent of new production came from the industrialized nations while "90 percent of new supplies will come from developing countries in the next 40 years." OK, so why haven't the original seven sisters gained control of the new supplies as they have no doubt tried to do? The article comes up with the idea of the "resurfacing of the resource nationalism that began in Mexico in the 1930s" to explain the shift in power. In fact, what these national oil companies are doing is "banding together to develop each other's reserves," a win-win way of behaving instead of the US's constant use of zero-sum strategies (where one wins and one loses). Then, the article has the gall to criticize these countries for using their oil and gas earnings for social programs. But moving on, the article does admit that the "international oil companies," i.e. the old seven sisters, "suffer from their 1980s and 1990s reputation as haughty and patronizing business partners." Of course, that is a huge understatement of what they actually did as John Perkins in his book, The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, points out. This Guardian article dated Jan. 28, 2006 about Perkins and his book offers some idea of what the CIA, the NSA (National Security Agency), and the "hit men" did. It seems that the hit men among other things bribed and also threatened leaders in order to get them to cooperate with "Uncle Sam and our oil companies." Of course, those who didn't cooperate had to be removed. Then, the CIA turned up to cause coups, rig elections, or assassinate some. The leaders that they "got to" did as they were told and accepted large "development" loans from the World Bank, for example. This money could then be used for the "projects" they were pushed into doing so that the money flowed into US companies. Once the countries were indebted, they had to pay off the loans. This led to such actions as austerity programs, fuel price hikes, and public sector wage freezes. Alternatively, they could raise the money by accepting US military bases or by selling off their oil and other natural resources. It seems that if all of this mayhem wasn't enough and/or if the leadership held out against the pressure, then the US military was sent in as we see in Iraq. As I've written before, other military actions include using mercenaries and/or providing arms to provoke or intensify fighting among those already divided such as those subsistence nomadic herders and subsistence settled/semi-nomadic farming tribes in Darfur, Sudan, in conflict due to drought. I assume this divide and rule tactic is there to slow down Sudan's development. It could also be there to put pressure on the leadership to do whatever the US wants as Perkins has written. I think you get the picture. So start reading. Good luck to you. By the way, don't forget to find some pictures of how the world's really really really poor live, pictures of babies damaged by the DU (depleted uranium) the US uses in Iraq, pictures of those the US is torturing, and a few pictures of those mansions our own leaders live in for comparison. Be sure to use your imagination when you read about some US mercenaries somewhere or some statistics of those bombed by the US. I mean really picture in your mind what they are doing or what is really happening. I look forward to hearing about the progress you are making. Marie K. P.S. Related to the NIOC of Iran and the South Pars natural gas field, the "world's biggest," I saw this headline -- Turkey to invest billions in S. Pars. |
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