The clearest, most concise explanation yet of why the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would ferry dirty tar-sands oil from Alberta to Texas, must not proceed. Yes, all this talk of “ending our dependence on foreign oil” is a LIE. Shocking? Wait, it gets worse. The pipeline would also threaten a geologically unstable area that happens to sit over the US’s biggest aquifer (also one of the largest in the world), and make the water undrinkable for about 23 million US citizens. AND, on top of everything else, it’s a job killer…and would make gasoline more expensive, not less so, those still unfortunate enough to be driving locally made gas-guzzlers. Because the US is still a net petroleum IMPORTER, and most of that imported oil comes From Canada and the Middle East. And because the oil from that pipeline, from Canada, would not be going to serve US needs, but would be converted into gasoline for the lucrative export market. (I had to laugh at the part about shipping it to South America. They have more than enough of their own in Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile…and now, Brazil. All South American countries would be more than adequately served from South American oil, refined and supplied by state-run industries! What would they need Texas-shipped gasoline for? Even Mexico and Cuba have plenty for their own needs, and won’t have to rely on the US for that. And Cuba will have help from Venezuela in developing and refining its own offshore oil, so US corporations will be out in the cold there.)
Yes, folks, this is the “ethical” oil that Ezra Fucking Levant is shilling his putzy ass off for. Seems so very ethical now, doesn’t it?
Wait, it gets worse. Let’s go back to the oil-baron threat again. You think it’s nothing serious? It got one previous US president assassinated for daring to oppose the barons. And his vice-president and successor, who happened to be from Texas, and very much in the pockets of the oil barons himself, was a key suspect in his murder:
Pay special attention to the part about Clint Murchison Sr., the oil king with connections to LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, and other shadowy figures of the Kennedy assassination. He was so intimate with them that they partied, and plotted JFK’s demise, at his Texas mansion. Was this where the order went out to kill Kennedy? Quite likely. Between them, the CIA, the Mafia, and the anti-Castro ex-Cubans, it was a perfect storm of colluding, and corrupting, interests!
And let’s not forget, Obama’s predecessor is a Connecticut Yankee from Texas. And yes, Dubya is himself deep in Big Oil’s pockets…STILL. As a wannabe oil baron himself, he was a bust, but as their patsy, he made out like a bandit both as governor and later, as a two-term unelected president.
Anyone who thinks Big Oil has clean hands, and isn’t above assassinating non-compliant leaders, really should watch The Men Who Killed Kennedy in its nine-episode entirety…and bear in mind that very little has changed in US politics since then. It will certainly put the enormous pressures on Obama in a powerful new light. And it will make clear why it is imperative for common citizens to oppose Big Oil and its inordinate influence on the politics of all North America. It is not an exaggeration to say that our entire democratic system is in grave danger from it.