http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj_2XnjlQGs

"This is how the American people have become some of the most naïve and gullible folks in the world"

Some are. Others are in active denial. The immorality of empire is too painful to confront.

"Or should we be wondering about their [people in the press] motivations as well?"

Yes, we should. The MSM is an intergral part of the empire. The main purpose of the major media is to maintain a culture that permits the continuation of imperial crimes.

Does anybody in America remember the secret meetings Cheney had with the oil execs, the first month after he was appointed VP? That was about the same time, Bush insiders like Richard Clark tell us, that planning began for the Iraq invasion. I wonder what Exxon and their oil industry friends were discussing with Cheney in the white house?

cheney wasn't sitting in those closed-door energy meetings discussing sports.

So we would have been spending $275 million a day in Iraq for the past six years if they only grew turnips there, and had no oil?

And what of the man-made 'global warming' hoax which the MSM promotes ad nauseam, and this site propagates unfailingly?

Global warming Hoax? Hmmm. I think you've benn listening to Sean Hannity too much and not the vast majority of scientists and climatoligists out there.
As for the MSM 'promoting ad naseum' this so-called hoax, then why is the same MSM completely void of the solutions to the crisis? (i.e. immediate reduction of fossil fuel consumption through the use of fuel efficient cars). In fact it is the mainstream media that continues to pretend that an actual debate is still going on about global warming when anybody worth their scientific weight has concluded otherwise. Somebody is reading too much Michael Creighton out there...

cicero confused writes... ""This is how the American people have become some of the most naïve and gullible folks in the world"

Keep in mind that no other nation on earth has been subjected to the sophisticated and well-funded campaign of misinformation as much as the American public has been. My experience travelling is that citizens of other nations succumb even quicker to the lies of the American MSM than Americans do, but fortunately for them it is far less frequent overseas and it has differing news sources.
Americans may be naive and gullible, but no less so than anyone else. You won't find CBC, Al-Jazeera or any slightly left leaning media in the US. The lack of an opposing view in the US that can reach mass viewership is completely absent. This is simply not the case abroad except in some third world, iron-fisted dictatorships. And the public in those unfortunate countries at least are constantly aware that they're being fed a pack of lies.

I think many Americans don't want to hear or talk about the "oil question" because they're afraid it might screw up the possibility of ..... bringing back cheap oil! Yeah, let's pretend it's about freedom and all that other noble shit and our reward for "liberating" the country will be access to all that Iraqi oil. Yeah, that's the ticket.

When I read "Inside the Company: A C.I.A. Diary" by Phillip Agee in 1975 and I learned about the lengths to which we were going to control the press in Quito, Ecuador I immediately asked myself the question, "If they are doing all this to control the press in Ecuador, what must they be doing in places like Chicago."

So for generations we have had a completely one sided view pushed in our faces.

The recent chaos in economic markets and currency exchanges and food shortages and wars that aren't going as planned lead me to believe that the current system, even though we are not allowed to even mention that there are other ways of organizing a society, is hardly the end of history.

Why not organize along a socialist model?

alexnosal, the words are not mine. I was quoting the article and commenting on it.

The answer to the question posed in the headline is:

Because there is too much money already made and waiting to be made by doing so and, besides, the oil companies have the power to literally (read of the exploits of John D. Rockefeller) or figuratively destroy those who get in their way.

Only very few experts understand that "drilling for oil in Iraq" is a somewhat of a gamble. The so-called "proven reserves" of Iraq were not obtained by scientific methods but by something close to voodoo. It has long been known that oil-producing countries greatly exaggerate their proven reserves (example: Arab Aramco) to attract investments. Furthermore, the "giant" (defined by production of 300,000 or more barrels per day)Iraqi fields are quite old. Mosul came into production shortly after World War 1! Kirkuk was discovered in 1927 and is probably already past peak production. Rumaila North, a relatively minor "giant" field, is from 1958. Rumaila South, an even smaller field, was discovered in 1953. It is far from clear whether these fields need water injection to maintain gas pressure. I fervently hope that the "thieving four" will actually lose money in Iraq. Wouldn't that be a gas?

poopdeck June 23rd, 2008 4:31 pm

You know your oil, hats off. Lose money? What a delightful thought for their efforts.

"then why is the same MSM completely void of the solutions to the crisis?"

There so far hasn't been enough evidence provided or enough agreement in the scientific community to declare it a crisis as near as I can tell. But the MSM will be the last to tell you in any event.

sorry cicero... my mistake.

For Lee Raymond, first of all it wasn't Saddam Hussein who nationalised Iraq's oil it was his uncle who was running Iraq until Hussein took over in 1979. Secondly, any oil holding country worth their salt would nationalise their oil, given the raping and pillaging going on by the multi-nationals backed up by their governments. It's funny how we constantly hear about the "nationalised oil" of countries we don't like, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Lybia (now back in the good books as their crude, like Nigeria, is about the lightest sweetest on the planet) etc. but nada about those who are on "our side", Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE etc.

The southwest desert of Iraq might (and that is a big "might") have some potential for new oil. Their existing fields need some serious attention and technlogical upgrades are a must.

Anyone who didn't think oil was at least a part of this mess is dreaming. The multi-nationals bathtubs of reserves are seriously degraded and they need more reserves to call their very own and shore up their inventories. With these contracts Iraqi reserves will hence forth be included in the big oil companies' annual reports under their reserves reporting. Simple as that....

Iraq hasn't had its oil fields at peak production for at least since the 1980s. And I think I read somewhere that the oil companies didn't pump at peak production before that. Because of the Iraq-Iran war, then the crippling sanctions, then the invasion, Iraq hasn't produced at peak, so they should still have a lot of oil left.

Remember that the oil companies aren't paying for this invasion, we are. They socialize the costs and privatize the profits.

The most pathetic thing is Americans who support the war thinking that "their" oil companies will reward them with cheap gas. Suckers!!

"I fervently hope that the "thieving four" will actually lose money in Iraq. "

Wait a minute, I thought it was *impossible* for an oil company to lose money! :-)

"One of the best examples of this new credulous model of journalism is how the motivation for this Iraq War..."

Actually, the best example of this new credulous model of journalism is referring to the illegal invasions and subsequent illegal occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as two "wars."

The truth is this: The United States of America is not officially, nor Constitutionally, in a state of "war" with any nation on Earth. Period.

Any "journalist" or "reporter" who continues to refer to the two illegal occupations as "wars" clearly isn't interested in truth, justice and accountability.

"And one of the verboten topics is oil. Do you notice how it is almost never mentioned in the press as a real reason we went into Iraq. When is the last time you heard any major media outlet talking about it? Was there ever a magazine cover that asked — Was it About the Oil? Can you imagine Wolf Blitzer asking this question of a government official?"

Our gas prices have been rising since the Iraq war. If we went in for the oil, then we would have gotten more oil, and then there'd be more to sell, and then it'd be cheaper.

We don't need oil as much as we think. We can build more nuclear reactors and then improve battery technology so that we can have fast and efficent electric cars and trains.

People are stupid. I wish everyone in the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as Libertarians and Socialists and Communists and Constitutionalists... I wish they'd all just shut up and drop out of their movements. It's a waste of time, politics is. You're wasting your life. Care about something more important. Enjoy life. Try to improve it. All you guys care about is "winning."

The Iraqi people want us there. Most of them are not fighting us.

Jews are supposed to live in Israel. We're probably just fighting these Middle Eastern wars for them because so many of those countries want Israel dead.

Israel would be more powerful and less defenseless if its expatriot Jews would just go home. Then they could use their intelligence to focus on their own problems instead of the random problems of gentiles.

http://shabot6000.com/archive.php?id=164

NBC=GE
ABC=Disney
CBS=Viacom
Fox=Rupert Murdoch

You will hear ONLY what they want you to hear. Soon you will think what they want you to think. Ultimately you will do precisely what they want you to do...By then they all will have merged.

Thank you Nietzsche. You should add to the list:

NBC=GE
ABC=Disney
CBS=Viacom
Fox=Rupert Murdoch
NPR=CIA

You could also expand upon the meaning of the list:

NBC=GE= nuclear arms maker
ABC=Disney= nuclear arms advertiser, 1950's pro-Cold War public opinion organizer
CBS=Viacom= nothing to report, other then Doc Phil is a egomaniac role model
Fox=Rupert Murdoch=advocates nuclear war, almost
NPR=CIA=false flag liberal station carrying pro war propaganda labeled as 'lefty' subtley moving the debate 'righty'