What is Digg?71 Comments
- DangerCollie, on 07/01/2009, -11/+50I think everyone suspected that was one of the real reasons. Now the Chinese are going to get the oil leases without investing a dime or one life.
Way to go Republicans! Put us on the edge of bankruptcy, get thousands of our people killed, kill millions of Iraqis, then hand the only resource worth anything to the Chinese.
You rewl! - BBE1965, on 07/01/2009, -7/+35Oil is indeed the Devil's excrement and corporations are handmaids.
- norman619, on 07/02/2009, -2/+25My god you’re a political lemming. You honestly think the Reps were the ones to blame? BOTH parties gave their OK for the war. Fact is there is very little difference between politicians from both parties. The "fighting" between the two is political BS for our benefit. As for who's to blame for the government being on the edge of bankruptcy you again show your naïveté or stupidity. This mess we find ourselves in isn't the result of the last 8 years. If you bothered to do some REAL research you would have found this started a LONG time ago. Our government has been addicted to living well beyond it's means ever since it learned it could borrow money from other countries to pay for programs we could not realistically afford. This was decades ago. Economists have been trying to warn us about the out of control spending but the public and, obviously, our government have largely ignored them. I suggest you check out I.O.U.S.A and a documentary called Maxed Out. Both spell out the financial problem our country is in along with the path we took to get here. This is not a political party issue. This is a government issue and WE the people are largely to blame. We allowed this craziness to go on for decades. WE kept and keep reelecting these self-serving scum into office. Then ignorant people like you chose to see things in terms of parties and buy into the BS they have been feeding us with the help of an obedient media which cares more about ratings than reporting the truth.
So in short, wake the hell up and do some homework. Stop being lazy and buying the propaganda designed to distract you from the real problems. - govtdoesnotwork, on 07/02/2009, -2/+15The brutal dictator in question wanted to sell his oil for Europe's version of monopoly-money instead of the traditional, green paper version. Being a brutal dictator? No problem. Using something other than USD for oil sales? Problem.
The Chinese are so much smarter than our politicians it's not even funny anymore. - novenator, on 07/02/2009, -3/+15medelling, although technically you are correct, the Democrats have been FAR more financially responsible than the Republicans. In fact, due to the insane belief in 'starve the beast', fiscally conservative is now synonymous with borrow and spend policy.
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/3056/nationaldebt ... - inactive, on 07/02/2009, -1/+12Well duh, how should this be news to anyone?
Corporations have always controlled the American political machine. Why the ***** do you guys think they spend all that money lobbying and bribing the government? Every political clique is in the pockets of some corporations or another, including the current presidential administration. - spookyttws, on 07/02/2009, -3/+13Wait, so Bush had ulterior motives?
- NorthMass, on 07/02/2009, -4/+14I think the Democrats are more fiscally irresponsible, but I don't think that really matters to be honest. Both parties are absurdly fiscally irresponsible, they are both doing a terrible job.
@novenator
That graph does show that Bush was horrible when it comes to economics and rightfully so, but Clinton's balanced budget was a clever lie. They don't include social security and medicare accounts in their budget, which Clinton had heavily borrowed from to make it appear that he balanced the budget. Of course Bush did the same, but he still had deficits. - piattorney, on 07/02/2009, -1/+8Like no duh
- darkhero, on 07/02/2009, -1/+8Why I am not surprised.
- kaelyiesta, on 07/02/2009, -1/+7Please. Oil is a tool, a material. Only certain humans can be validly blamed for these particular problems.
- hangingchad, on 07/02/2009, -0/+6But, but, but..Bin Laden......terrorists...and WMDs...ummm, I mean ...Saddam bad...and the Iraq.......and and....Freedom Fck Yeah!!!!
We rule. - paulsmith288, on 07/02/2009, -0/+6"govtdoesnotwork, Iran is also selling oil in Euros, so if that plus the oil was the reason we attacked Hussein, why have we not invaded Iran? Their meddling in Iraq would have provided enough semblance of an excuse to do it."
The whole world knows the USA will be invading Iran in the next few years. If the US Army was bigger it would already be happening. - twiztidsinz, on 07/02/2009, -2/+7War makes profits... creates jobs temporarily and artificially... and, as clearly shown, allows money to be sent to particular companies.
Good luck proving it, but with all the no-bid contracts being sent to a company that has pretty direct ties to the now former President and VicePresident, it's kind of hard to not get a hint of corruption / laundering / other less-than-legal going on's.
War is a GREAT way to make money... if you're in the right position. - govtdoesnotwork, on 07/02/2009, -0/+5I'd go with paulsmith on this one. It's not like we had a problem with Saddam's brutality, or we'd have issues with Saudi/etc. brutality too. The dollar system NEEDS oil to be priced in USD to function properly.
I'll also note for the record that nobody's taking issue with the Chinese part of my comment... - dvsbastard, on 07/02/2009, -3/+8Is that an oil reserve in your pocket... 'cause I'd love to tap that ass...
- Barackalypse, on 07/02/2009, -3/+8But you said it yourself, now the Chinese get the oil, so if the goal was really oil access, why risk a war and a new foreign Government and a bidding process when you could simply lift the economic sanctions on the current dictator in exchange for him dealing with your country's oil companies? Its like saying slavery was the reason for the Civil War, if slaves were the issue, Lincoln could have simply bought them all and freed them for a lot less than the cost of a civil war.
- anonymousmedic, on 07/02/2009, -1/+5Ugh. This site is a conspiracy theorist blog in disguise. It's an easy enough tip off, though, when you have books about the "New World Order" being plugged by the website. Of course, this being DIGG, Americans are all amoral monsters who are only interested in what black gold can be found underneith a country. The rest of the world has such an honorable record of acting as a peacekeeping entity. Just look at the oasis that is Darfur.
- Barackalypse, on 07/02/2009, -4/+8I guess that makes the Government the Devil's hands or his legions.
- brownsound00, on 07/02/2009, -2/+6Surprise surprise...
- DrVic, on 07/02/2009, -0/+3The blood of innocent civilians is on their hands. May the rot in hell.
- Barackalypse, on 07/02/2009, -1/+4Any Government spending makes profits for somebody, so why should we be any more skeptical of the Iraq war than were of the TARP bailout or Obama's health care reform? Some companies all stand to benefit. The fact is, the surest way to make sure the Government's influence isn't being used to unfairly enrich some people at the expense of others is to limit the Government's influence.
- Barackalypse, on 07/02/2009, -2/+5That doesn't make any sense, we're the reason for the economic sanctions on Iraq, we could simply have gone to Saddam and said "Hey, we'll lift the sanctions on you in exchange for you doing business with our oil companies". Fighting a war was the most stupid possible way to gain access to the oil for our companies, since its now a competitive bidding process instead of a quid pro quo with Hussein in exchange for dropping the sanctions. If you goal is dirty backdoor dealings like this article suggests, a dictator like Hussein is far preferable to a foreign Government that hates you because of 6 years of occupation.
- pagno, on 07/02/2009, -1/+4What?! Never saw that coming.
- sndream, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Well, if you followed the news. Things are really not happening according to plan.
- DankBuddz, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Oh, now I know why you trolled my comment about weed being a religion. Because you're a ***** idiot.
- funkyloki, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2I'll take it one step further. It doesn't ***** matter who we elect into office. It doesn't matter how idealist they are, how many good works they have in plan, none of it. They are not the ones in power anymore, nor are We, the People. The true owners of this system are the lobbyists for the special interests, the corporation citizens. Power corrupts, and these people are real good at offering the deals of corruption, selling them with pretty bows and fancy words, all used to keep things exactly the way they are.
Get rid of lobbyists in Washington, get rid of the ability of corporations to be recognized as citizens, and everything will change. Good luck with that though. - smbober, on 07/02/2009, -2/+4If you change the headline to: "Eager to Tap Iran's Oil Reserves, Execs Call For Invasion", you would have an Onion article. Too bad this is real life.
- Barackalypse, on 07/02/2009, -1/+3govtdoesnotwork, Iran is also selling oil in Euros, so if that plus the oil was the reason we attacked Hussein, why have we not invaded Iran? Their meddling in Iraq would have provided enough semblance of an excuse to do it.
- ZenMojo, on 07/02/2009, -1/+3Not just deficits, but debt. Reagan tripled it. H.W. increased it. And Dubya tripled THAT. Carter...well, he paid it down quite a bit.
Makes you think. If every Republican in the last 20 years not only raised the national debt but skyrocketed it unfailingly, why do Republicans think they're not full of *****? - anonymousmedic, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Don't worry. That was decided at the last Bilderburg meeting. /s
- inactive, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Yeah, he's very "interested in science and programming." He reminds us of that in every single post. Why? Because he's bat-***** insane.
- Nedd8, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Thanks midget, shocking report!
- ZenMojo, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Parties are the problem. When we talk about how horrible Republicans are, we talk specifically about the organized power structure in which the Republicans reside and how it has created an insular, corporate-aligned center of gravity. This is not to say that I despise everyone who votes Republican. I actually like some Republican politicians. But the nature of the Republican Party as it stands is one defiant to all sensible and ethical thinking in my regard.
That said, it is not to say that Democrats are individually all below the evil powermonger barrier of the Republican Party standard. While the majority of Democrats have supported and and proposed bills that I find ethical and responsible while the majority of Republicans have fought them, I find some votes from people like Hillary Clinton to be unconscionable and designate them as such.
In short, to claim that any Party can be blameless is pointless. But to claim that the minority in a Party is to blame, that is reasonable. And to claim that the majority in a Party is to blame, that is reasonable. And if the majority of a Party is to blame, then does that not say the Party has been commandeered and is now itself to blame? So when one comes out against "The Republicans" but supports "The Democrats," one is not saying that all Republicans are evil and all Democrats are good. Rather, the Republicans have shown that they wield power collectively in a detrimental way while the Democrats have shown no such malice as a PARTY even if several of their members have as well. - ZZeke, on 07/06/2009, -0/+2ZenMojo - The longer intelligent people like you cling to the false left/right paradigm and insist that one of these two completely corrupted "parties" is better than the other, the longer the world will have to wait for the US to come to it's senses. It's not even about 3rd parties, it's about holding ALL politicians responsible for the actions they take in our name. I was a registered democrat for many years, but I got real tired of having 50% (at the very least) of my party representatives vote with the herd. Seceding the 2000 election in FL when we KNEW their was voter role tampering, and the blind vote for the patriot act after 911 was about all I could take.
Enough is enough already, stop accepting the "lesser of two evils" and start demanding true representation and accountability. Nothing's going to change for the better until you do. - smdyson, on 07/02/2009, -1/+3Thank you for saying this so I didn't have to.
The two party system is just a means of getting the cattle in our country to think we can make a difference when we vote. Bush's spending was out of control, so a democrat gets voted in so that means change, right? Wrong. The same policies are still in effect and out of control spending is still intact. We are still in 2 wars, and Gitmo is still open among other detainment centers.
But, the public is too stupid to realize that both parties carry out the same policies!
Go on thinking that party loyalties mean ***** in this country. It seems to making a lot of progress! - theNazz, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Too bad that Dick Cheney had Judge Scalia (the scumbag) legally hide his Energy Task Force report or else we would have had a smoking gun much sooner and could have avoided two lost cause 'wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan...
- govtdoesnotwork, on 07/06/2009, -1/+3ZenMojo, to be fair to the Libertarians, Bob Barr was installed with a lot of money. They got bought, and they know it, but even so, it took Barr SIX ballots to beat the rightful Libertarian candidate, which was Dr. Mary Ruwart (she'd have also been a FAR better VP candidate than the nutcase Barr selected). Libertarians have conventions where ***** is actually DECIDED, rather than traditional corporate-sponsored pre-scripted BS-sessions like the "major" parties have had for the past couple of decades.
Dr. Ruwart and I both worked for Paul throughout the Republican primaries. If I had spent the money I spent on Paul to go to Colorado & campaign for Ruwart, I could have possibly affected the outcome in her favor. If we were gonna lose anyway, and we were, I certainly love Dr. Ruwart, and I'm at best lukewarm on "accidental discharge" Barr. - kaelyiesta, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Not quite. We also have a great system set up to incorporate other governments into economic and trade models as well. We don't have the reserve currency and the petro dollar for nothing, you know.
After WW2, we(or rather, our government at the behest of the fed and the global banking institutions) did a lot of neo-colonialism around the world. Got governments to sell their oil in us dollar denominated currency in exchange for having us drill it for them, got nations to follow the economic policies set by the IMF/world bank, and basically set ourselves up to be the consumers through debt which we could sustain through the fed. Removed our currency from gold and it basically gave us a free ride, disconnected from any grounding force save anger of foreign nations. As bad as our debt and trade imbalances look today, they would have been that much worse had we not played this economic version of 3 card monte. It's amazing that there is any incentive by foreign governments to continue this game with us, other than fear of short term pain of restructuring their industries I can't see why they would.
So a more adequate comparison would be the mafia. We don't really protect, we extort. If anyone else disturbs our turf, we break their knee caps to keep our 'clients' able to keep paying. - mfc5200, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1They pretty much paid for the entire war, what are you talking about?
- govtdoesnotwork, on 07/06/2009, -1/+2Buried. I'm not a "sore loser," I'm an "I told you so" libertarian. Actually, Dave Barry
http://www.reason.com/news/show/32270.html
told the first President Bush what to do about Saddam, but since I agreed and spread the word & Dave and I were 100% right in retrospect, I really DID tell you so. If that makes me "sore," so be it. But we *still* told you so. - crickey23, on 07/02/2009, -1/+2You forgot the /s.
- blubolt, on 07/02/2009, -1/+2your an idiot. every time you "crush" an extremist - 2 more appear
- BotchaMcCoola, on 07/02/2009, -1/+2But the "patriotic" military and MIC fought hard against it. I wonder if their multi-trillion damages to the US economy could be blamed on mortgages somehow?
- werberg, on 07/02/2009, -6/+7America as a world police. /s
- smdyson, on 07/02/2009, -1/+2Good *****. Do you really think democrats give a ***** about you either? Do you think just because someone says they are a democrat that they are concerned about your well being? You're an ignorant person.
Democrats and republicans in our government don't give a ***** about us. They care about their pockets getting lined by lobbyists to the tune of millions. - fukijin, on 07/02/2009, -1/+2Wow their evil plan worked. We're paying more for oil now than we'd ever guessed after the invasion...
This is a bunch of peurile crap. - 123bucklemyshow, on 07/02/2009, -1/+2You should have said "cause I'd love to tap that gass" you see gass is more funnier because it begins with a consonant. other than ass starting with a bowel.
- Joe_rigby, on 07/02/2009, -5/+7A timeless quote that bears repeating:
"***** Bush"
- The world - monvalley, on 07/02/2009, -1/+1So what is wrong with that? They have something we what, so why shouldn't we take it? This is what our government does all the time. They want the peoples money so they take it in the form of taxes. I've told them many times I don't what them to taking what is mine and they do it anyway. They tell me I have more than I need and other people have less than they need so it is my duty to give my mney to them so they can redistribute it. Aren't we doing the same thing with oil?
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