November 12, 2007 at 07:38:10

America begins slide into third world status

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By Len Hart (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey. I don't believe in GOP coincidence theories. There are reasons for the sorry state of nation and state. GOP policies are injurious to the nation's fiscal health, its security, and the well-being of US citizens. The GOP is endemically corrupt and dishonest. I have stated and will repeat: the GOP is not a political party is it a criminal conspiracy not unlike that described by St. Thomas More in the England of Henry VIII.

...so God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth. They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be.
-Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

There is a reason "terrorism" is worse under GOP regimes. As an Iranian diplomat told me in Houston almost one year ago, oil is a curse. He was not alone. Many "industry-watchers" now use the term "curse" to refer to the nature of oil exploitation that democracy, public institutions, and civil liberties are often retarded because of it. Civil liberties are most often dispensed with altogether.

Oil wealth concentrates at the top. People in Venezuela, Nigeria, and Azerbaijan enjoy few benefits of oil production their countries. We now see in the US the unseemly spectacle that other nations have always known, that is, ruthless factions scrapping for control and riches.

What is needed is a radically different approach. A recent report quotes British energy economist David Fleming:

Anticipated supply shortages could lead easily to disturbing scenes of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month [2006]. For government, industry and the wider public, just muddling through is not an option any more as this situation could spin out of control and turn into a complete meltdown of society.
--British Economist David Fleming in Crude Oil: The Supply Outlook, Report to the Energy Watch Group, October 2007

We may have already entered the melt-down phase. For too long, Americans were just barely aware that the price they paid for gasoline was about one-third the price Europeans paid. But you have to credit the GOP with resourcefulness. The Bush administration delivered a message to the faithful: the war in Iraq would result in lower prices even as Bush cited every other reason for waging war. To assert that oil was behind Bush's war of aggression was tantamount to treason. It was unpatriotic. It was enough to get you pilloried and ostracized. Every SUV sported a flag.

Many worry about a "hard landing". Inflation and interest rates rise as the dollar falls. A collapsing dollar threatens to make of the US a third world nation, a "banana Republican" nation, if you will. Americans had grown accustomed to the accoutrements of empire. Oil and the lifestyle it afforded was cheap. The rest of the world had a stake in keeping us afloat. After all, they wished to export to the US. That will be impossible should the dollar collapse.

Per capita oil production peaked in the 1970s. Globalization was supposed to make us rich even as it lifted millions in the "third world" out of poverty and hunger. This has not worked out as planned. The Kucinich take on all that is correct. Recently, the one-two punch of corporatization and globalization has undermined US welfare even as it threatens to end in a global crisis of our making. [More and videos at the Existentialist Cowboy]

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Len Hart is a Houston based film/video producer specializing in shorts and full-length documentaries. He is a former major market and network correspondent; credits include CBS, ABC-TV and UPI. He maintains the progressive blog: more...)

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