From Off-Shore Drilling to the Georgian War
The Moronic Party
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”
-- John Stuart Mill
Many years ago, during the 1970s if memory serves, neoconservative Irving Kristol, echoing John Stuart Mill, called his conservative party, the Republican Party, “the stupid party.”
Kristol was referring to the Republican’s inability to compete on the policy front. Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan led the Republicans out of the wilderness, but now Republicans have reverted to the stupid party, or more precisely the moronic party.
Take a minute to examine the presidential campaign propaganda that Republicans send around the Internet, and you will see what I mean. For example, recently while Obama was traveling abroad, showing himself to the remnant of our allies, Republican political operatives blitzed the Internet with the suggestion that Obama might not be an American citizen. Doubt was cast on either of his parents being American citizens. The message went on to suggest that Obama refused to produce his birth certificate. All the while, Obama was traveling abroad on a US passport, a document that cannot be obtained without a US birth certificate.
Considering that the Republican candidate, John McCain, was born in the Panama Canal Zone, only the GOP would be dumb enough to make an issue over whether the Democrats’ candidate was born in one of the 50 states.
The innuendo and negativism with which the Republicans are conducting their presidential campaign are unprecedented. There is no sign of issues in McCain’s Karl Rovian campaign. Issues have been superseded by hate, lies, and war.
Republicans stand for war without end, a police state to make us “safe,” and “energy independence,” which means drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve and offshore of Florida’s Gulf Coast beaches.
What Republicans really mean by “energy independence” is prevailing over environmentalists. Republicans lump environmentalists in the same category with abortionists, gays, feminists, food stamp recipients, trade unionists and terrorists. To a Republican, saving America means prevailing over these people.
The notion that Americans can achieve energy independence by drilling offshore wells and in the arctic is absurd. A number of experts have pointed out that the best data do not support any such possibility.
For example, Robert Kaufman at Boston University, citing US government data, reports that the US might have 40 billion barrels of oil in undeveloped reserves which are not off limits. Another 19 billion might be in off limit offshore sites and in the Arctic National Wildlife preserve.
All of this oil cannot be brought up at once, and apparently none before 2017. Bringing it all into production would, experts think, increase US oil production by 1-4 percent. In other words, nothing. Currently the US uses 21 million barrels a day, and the entire world uses 86 million barrels a day. At best, the Arctic Wildlife Refuge could by 2017 produce 1 million barrels a day, about one-twentieth of current US use and one-eighty-sixth of current world use.
This is not energy independence, and it would have no material effect on price. Indeed, the offshoring by US corporations of US jobs has a much greater effect on the dollar price of oil by inflating the US trade deficit and driving down the exchange value of the US dollar. But, of course, here we are talking about facts, and facts are of no interest to Republicans.
Republicans are interested in prevailing over the “bad guys.” The fact that the bad guys are Bush, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle, Billy Kristol, and other such is beyond the Republicans’ imagination. Bad guys are “towel heads” with beards and robes and are “over there” where they must be killed before the come “over here.” The extent of the Republican intellect boils down to “over here” vs. “over there.”
The other great bugaboo of Republicans is “the liberal media.” Fox “News” has Republicans convinced that “the liberal media” is endangering America by siding with terrorists.
Clearly, Republicans never look at “the liberal media.” It was Judith Miller at the “liberal” New York Times who served up as fact all the neocon disinformation about Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections. Without the New York Times leading the way, the neocons could never have pulled off their illegal invasions.
On July 18, 2008, the New York Times allowed the Israeli historian Benny Morris to spew lies about Iran that he used to justify an attack on that country possibly even involving nuclear weapons. This is the same New York Times that the idiot conservatives believe is part of “the liberal media.”
It was ABC News that served up the neocon disinformation that the anthrax had been traced to Saddam Hussein. And, today, August 9, 2008, as I write, it is the “liberal” Washington Post that has written an editorial urging the US to go to war with Russia.
With its editorial, “Stopping Russia: the US and its allies must unite against Moscow’s war on Georgia,” the Washington Post has established a world record for the maximum number of lies in the minimum number of words.
Except for the Washington Post, the entire world knows that Georgia (the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, not Georgia USA) initiated the aggression that killed Russian peacekeepers and hundreds of civilians in South Ossetia, peacekeepers who were there with the blessing of Georgia and international agreements.
The true facts are available all over the world press. But the “liberal” Washington Post serves up the lie that Russia has attacked Georgia and conceivably plans to conquer all of Georgia. “This is a grave challenge to the United States and Europe,” thunders the Bush Regime’s mouthpiece, aka, “the liberal media.”
Thirsting for blood, the “liberal media” declares: “The United States and its NATO allies must together impose a price on Russia.”
Here we see the combination of idiocy and delusion in one sentence. The United States has proved that it is incapable of occupying Iraq, much less Afghanistan. Russia has a large trade surplus. America’s NATO allies are dependent on Russian natural gas. Yet the “liberal” Washington Post wants a bankrupt US and “its NATO allies” who are dependent on Russian energy “to impose a price on Russia” for defending its peacekeepers!
Seldom has the world seen such total insanity as the neoconservative Washington Post, a propaganda sheet as far from “liberal media” is it is possible to be.
Georgia was part of Old Russia and the Soviet Union for two centuries. After Soviet communism collapsed, the US taxpayer funded neoconservative National Endowment for Democracy broke every agreement that President Reagan had made with Gorbachev and began using US taxpayers’ money to rig and purchase elections in former constituent parts of the Russian/Soviet empire.
The Endowment for Democracy purchased Georgia as a US colony. The affront to Russia was extreme, but at the time Russia was weak. Oligarchs with outside money had grabbed control over Russian resources, and Russia was in dire straits and could not resist American imperialism.
Putin corrected the situation for Russia.
Now using American weapons Georgia for reasons yet to be revealed has violated its own agreement with Russia and attacked South Ossetia, killing in the process Russian peacekeepers. Vladimir Vasilyev, chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for Security told the press: “The things that were happening in Kosovo, the things that were happening in Iraq – we are now following the same path. The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America.”
Yes, without America there would be no war in Ossetia and no war between Russia and its former constituent part.
Without America there would be no war in Afghanistan. No war in Iraq.
Without America there would not be 1.2 million dead Iraqis and 4 million displaced Iraqis. We have no idea of the toll on Afghan civilians, although women and children appear to be the prime targets of the US/NATO forces that are “bringing peace and freedom to Afghanistan.”
Recently, US Secretary of State Condi Rice said that the US government could not prevent an Israeli attack on Iran. Israel is an independent country, said the American Secretary of State. What an extraordinary lie.
Israel cannot exist without American weapons and money. Israel cannot attack Iran without overflying Iraq, which the US air force can easily prevent. It is clear as day that the Bush Regime has given the green light to Israel to attack Iran so that the Bush Regime can rush to “Israel’s defense.”
Meanwhile the “liberal” media is urging the US to get involved in a war between Russia and Georgia. The insanity will lead to the unloosening of nuclear weapons.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com