How could the U.S. oligarchy not be enthralled with knowing that their profits can be enhanced by stirring up trouble with Iran?

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The price of oil is destroying the economy for the working folks of America. They have us good now. It would take a social, political, international upheaval to get the price of a gallon of gas to go below $2 again. They've been floating the prospect of $4 a gallon. They say prices may hit 80 or 90 dollars a barrel.

The U.S. supply is up. On Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that commercial inventories in U.S. of stored crude rose by 3.2 million barrels to 346 million, the highest level in nearly eight years, since 1998.

Compare the $70 something we're being charged now for a barrel to the $15 a barrel in '98, and we're left with nothing but the Bush wars to blame for the price of gas today.

Can anyone really show that demand has increased at such a rate to justify the price increase from 2005 when oil was about $28 a barrel? Do we really believe that the price of gasoline jumped so high from glut levels of 2005 due to 'demand'? Even with all of the profit taking?

I don't. That's the 'demand' lie, in my opinion. I understand refinery pressures, and I understand the problems with production in Nigeria and elsewhere that would affect the supply.

What I don't understand is $70 a barrel. All of the factors like demand should have been sustained by $50 a barrel oil. How did it get to $70? Doesn't profit-taking play a large role here? Isn't the market using 'unrest' as an excuse?

How could the oligarchy not be enthralled with knowing that their profits can be enhanced by stirring up trouble with Iran? It would be silly to think they didn't plan this all along. Virtually nothing gets done in America that doesn't enhance their wealth. If war wasn't good for their profits they wouldn't go there.

In 1998 we had a worldwide oil glut. OPEC didn't seem to want to do a thing about it. Prices fell to amazingly low levels, rising a bit in 2005. Then OPEC scrambled to slow production to keep the price from falling again. There was the view that if OPEC produced all they could the glut would continue and worsen, driving prices down further. OPEC was quoted at the time saying that, even if they wanted to produce more oil, they would have trouble finding buyers.

In the markets that was a bad thing. To the consumer, it rocked. Now we have demand in the U.S. increased by about 2% from the 2005 level, according to the International Energy Agency. Would a 2% increase in demand support a $40+ rise in a barrel of oil?

I don't believe that oil is running out so fast that we can see the tail of the dragon, even though it is obviously a finite supply. Some, most notably those who believe the world's capacity to find and produce oil has reached a 'peak', claim that high prices are the only way we have to curb demand. The argument carries that until we find a way to replace or supplement oil and gas the prices will continue to rise. Increased production, it's said, will not work anymore to drive prices down because the world supply is now heading unabated toward its permanent state of extinction.

It's been said that this is a good thing. Folks should use less, and high prices will force them to do that. That's true, of course, but I wonder what will happen if and when we reach the point where consumption has been whittled down to nothing but necessity. Many have stated that there will be a recession at that point, or a depression. Oil prices as high as $100 a barrel and the rumored $4 a gallon would devastate most of the working-class American's budgets. Not to mention the devastating effect on all of the goods and services which rely on fuel.

I believe that oil producers have figured out how to manipulate production levels to make it appear that they can't keep up with demand. I don't think that we can blame the gas price on 'Peak Oil" at this point. But, I realize that many disagree.

There is a view that cheap oil encourages waste. I think there is an obvious truth to all of that. But, I don't think that it's fair or prudent to rely on crippling gas and oil prices to force reform of our energy infrastructure. Consumers aren't in control of the market; they are almost completely at its mercy, save their own efforts to use alternatives and conserve.

Its not like oil executives are clucking their tongues at increased consumption and demand. It not like they are going to use the increased profits to undermine their own industry. Indeed, the oil industry often invests in alternatives just to prevent them from seriously competing with their main cash-cow.

If we were really serious about forcing the industry to reform we would tax them and use the money to undercut their monopoly by investing in available alternative energy resources and developing others. Instead, many are sanguine as high gas and oil prices threaten drive the most vulnerable among us into financial catastrophe, because of this notion that it will curb demand and somehow force the switch to alternatives.

But, I believe there is a point where there can be no further sacrifice from consumers for an industry that is more than content to take the increased profits from expensive gas and oil and put it in their own bank accounts. If production is the problem with prices then we should find a way, at least for the time being, to increase it. If we want to force a shift in our energy resources then we should make certain that is established and underway before we abandon consumers to what is clearly profit-taking and greed from an industry which has little reason to shut down the good thing it has now.

What happened between the period of relatively low prices and now? 9-11 and Bush's militarism happened. 9-11 and Bush's mismanagement of the economy pushed us into a recession. Gas prices started to rise. There was almost no effort made to halt the rise except for some token moves by OPEC around election time in the U.S. to increase production.

Now we have the news that the U.S. crude supply is high, with refined supplies too low for it to make much of a difference today. But, there will be an after-winter drop in demand and refinery issues should be resolved in the next quarter. So, there will be a downward trend in prices.

There will be an effort to keep those prices high. Not for the environment. Not for the sake of some sanity on the part of oil executives who have seen the light about our wasteful ways. The price is kept high to feed the record profits that they have enjoyed throughout our struggle with expensive gas.

I agree that we waste too much oil. But, there millions of Americans whose gasoline bills are stretched by normal, necessary driving. The effect of high oil includes other uses like heating, and also hits the industries who rely on a low gas bill to survive. There's a point where technology hasn't caught up with the ideology of conservation and alternatives to oil that makes all of the finger-wagging about consumption seem misguided. We still need oil and gas to survive.

We could likely sustain high prices for a determinate time if the goal was truly a shift to alternatives. But, until there is some true path to all of that, a high price of gas will only shrink demand as far as folks actual needs allow. There's little point in forcing responsible users to pay for some punitive, corrective notion of conservation when the overall industry takes the profits off of the top. They're not going to make any substantive investments that would undermine their own oligarchy of greed.

I remember the cockiness from the conservatives before the war as they gloated over the prospect of the U.S. taking over Iraqi oil. I know they're not all wealthy. These prices have to be putting the squeeze on so many Bushites, in so many ways.

Bush didn't say it outright, but he wanted to get his hands on Iraq's oil. I won't say that he quite knew what HE was going to do with it, but Cheney did. Right from the start he brought in the oil executives and they literally mapped out their plunder of Iraq's oil fields.

But, it's been a disaster for oil prices. And the silence that went on for so long was from the same bunch of Americans who voted for this regime, and expected that all of the macho talk about rolling over the evil Iraq was real.

Their fantasy came true. Liberals were pushed aside, moderates got to practice their conservatism in the open, and Bush Fonzerelli sent his boys (and girls) to rumble. Their target crumbled right away. Saddam retreated to a hidey-hole. That's the history. So are those amazing photos of him submitting himself to the de-lousing like a lost child.

Iraqis, though, would not willingly submit themselves to our invasion, and we were never welcomed to stay.

How stupid are the average Bushites? Stupid enough to believe that multi-national corporations, oilgarchies, Exxon, Mobil, Shell, BP . . . would actually take what they gained by the sacrifice of our soldier's lives and the lives of those they were tasked to kill, and use it to lower our gas bills.

Are they really that stupid? Yup. Are they wising up? I would hope so.

Mission Iran. Oil prices going back up through the roof. Neonuts blame the rise on 'Middle East' unrest, tension, violence, uncertainty. Those Bushites, though, have got to be looking at the next round of military action and saying to themselves, this can't be good for my wallet.

I saw a lot of expressions of nationalism from Americans for years after 9-11. There's still a hardcore percentage of them who have convinced themselves that Iran is coming to kill their God, and I know it won't take anything for them to get behind another crusade against evil. But they've got to wonder just how this president let things slide so far that we're talking nuclear war again.

It's not like we've been toiling within the isolation of a cold war for decades like before. Anyone with a memory can recall the salad days of the Clinton era of peace and prosperity. Sure, the Clinton bunch wagged around our nation's defenses like typical imperialists when it suited them, but their most prominent doctrine was one of reserve and diplomacy. It was no accident that a great deal of the world seemed to be working together then.

President Clinton spoke to the British Houses of Parliament, London, U.K., November 29, 1995:

"For the first time in half a century now, we can put our children to bed at night knowing that the nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union are no longer pointed at (our) children."

Americans knew and felt the difference. The attacks on 9-11 scared some Americans into going along with chasing 'terrorists' to Afghanistan, knocking a dictator out of power while we were at it . . . and there's where they were left hanging. Bush has done nothing to bring our nation back to the security of the Clinton era which preceded his ascendance to office. He's hell-bent on muscling around, itching for a fight while most Americans who backed him up are waiting for the payoff.

No bin-Laden. The Iran thing is completely removed from that.

No 'democracy' in Iraq. How the hell are we going to rustle the Iranians into seeing things our way?

A billion dollars a week spent for the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bombings all over Iraq, soldiers still dying almost daily, and they say that all of this war-making hasn't intimidated anyone who would do our nation and our citizens harm. We've inflamed violence with our military meddling and muckraking. This can only get worse.

I'll bet there are more than a few bushites who wish their glorious leader would just shut up and stand down from all of the world-crusading he's doing with our soldiers and our money. I'm hoping that, at long last, this sneering frat-boy is wearing thin on folks who didn't think Bush could do any wrong, and cheered him on as innocents overseas found themselves at the destructive point of his politics.

I'm hoping they've finished playing cowboy. I hope they realize they've paid everything they have for their war games with their hard-earned contributions to the government going right into the oligarchy's pockets, and because they've come to realize that Bush sucks at every single thing he does.

Authors Bio:
Ron Fullwood, is an activist from Columbia, Md. and the author of the book 'Power of Mischief' : Military Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying the Price