BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 11:55 AM

You're on Little Hawk. How exactly did anyone profit from putting PeaceKeepers in a country where the per capita daily GDP is less than a $1? You not only look there first, you seem to not need any evidence at all. Your faith is amazing.

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 12:09 PM

You're absolutely right. It is. :-) Actually, as regards Haiti, I only have certain suspicions about what might have happened or be happening behind the scenes there. I am by no means certain about it. There are also generally some bad guys on both sides of any of these issues, and I know that.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: MAG
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 01:18 PM

In the case of Haiti, my knee jerk reaction goes back to the fact that Clinton was criticized for his actions by the same folks here that backed Papa Doc, a bad guy if ever there was one.

And in Venezuela the energy people here have been on Chavez ever since he started exercizing control over their oil resources.

Bush's energy policy speaks for itself. a travesty.

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 01:40 PM

What do Clinton's actions have to do with Haiti today? Or when we intervened in 1981 or any of the dozen or so times before? Except to warn us there is no simple answer. Are we interested more in the opportuntities to abuse our political enemies or solving the problem?

I say if energy people here have signed the petition for the recall referendum in Venezuela, the NEC should through those signatures out.

Bush's energy policy speaks for itself and for all those damned SUVs and the people who's jobs are entirely dependent on the existance of cheap energy. And I don't mean Halliburton, but teamsters, iron workers, auto makers and most modern factory workers.

But you're right, perhaps we should fall back to Clinton's energy policy. Oh, wait. He didn't have one. What do you propose in it's place then? :D

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 04:50 PM

One has to really search to find out anything informed about Chavez in the US media. He was popularly elected based on his promises to reform the oil industry (which was controlled by the oligarchs).
during an attempted coup in 2002, hired thugs from his opposition opened fire on pro-Chavez supporters - the Whitehouse spokesman at the time said it was Chavez supporters who fired on innocent people.
(when in fact it was the other way around - proChavez people were firing back - of course the tv stations were already under opposition control)
- Chavez had advance warning of the coup attempt and kept several hundred soldiers in the govt building which stormed and arrested most of the coup plotters. Considering how much oil Venezuela had, most of the money went to a few rich families while the average venezuelan stayed dirt poor. The oil industry strike against CHavez is one of the few strikes in history started by the rich.

Of course he wasnt popular with the BUsh administration, because he was too outspoken against US policy.

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: MAG
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 05:26 PM

thanks for clarifying exactly where you are coming from, Strick.

anti-blue collar

pro-Bush and extractive industries

anti-Clinton, who was guilty of a blow job

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 05:55 PM

Amazing, MAG, all that from things I didn't say?

Do away with cheap energy, raise the price to $3 or $4 or $5 a gallon and call me with what happens to those blue collar jobs you assume I'm against. No love lost between me and the extrative industries, which are all essentially multinationals now anyway. What's interesting is how people who rail against energy policies and all those who try to implement them have so little idea of what would happen if they failed and who would really be hurt.

As for Clinton, I can't see what his personal faults have to do with his energy policy or lack of one. Besides, you've got it a little wrong. He was guilty of perjury and accused of multiple instance of sexual harrassment. Not hard to understand why anyone would be against that now is it?

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: MAG
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 05:59 PM

stuff it.

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 06:05 PM

Thanks for the stimulating, intellectually charged conversation, MAG.

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Peace
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 06:06 PM

Just wanted to cheer everyone up.


http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Home.html

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Home.html


If you thought Jaws was scary . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 06:30 PM

More like a Stephen King movie than the complete truth, but not entirely wrong.

Don't forget that China's hunger for oil is starting to outstrip ours. The next 50 years will be rather ugly.

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 07:20 PM

brucie's link has me thinking and for once I want to be relatively humble and sincere in reply. I simply don't think things are as dire as this guy predicts and I know several of his points are wrong. Here's what I mean.

1. While in the short run there's no substitute for oil in many appications, rising prices would encourage development of longer term alternatives and, more importantly encourage conservation. We're a spendthrift nation when it comes to energy. During the oil crisis that spanned much of the 70s, we sharply reduced our dependence on oil. There's more that could have been done and we've forgotten most of the lessons we learned then. We'll cut back when we have no other choice and, despite an intitial shock to the economy, probably learn to thrive inspite of it.

2. The author dismisses all the possible alternative out of hand. In the short term, that's true, but he misses a number of reasonable substitutions. For instance he says that coal isn't a substitute for use in transportation and that hydrogen isn't a substitute because we currently generate it from natural gas. It's prefectly possible to generate hydrogen from coal. Build a coal powered electrical plant and hydrolize water. It may not be cheap, but it's possible and economic at the right energy prices. The author says several other things that make sense in isolation, but not in the larger world. Fertilizer currently comes from natural gas. You could fix nitrogen from the atmosphere (more coal powered plants), a more expensive solution, but a real one. Likewise while pesticide come from petroleum products, there are alternatives. Ask any organic farmer. Then (don't hate me) there's always genetic modification to make plants fix their own nitrogen and make their on natural defenses. Ugly, but it beats starving.

3. I hate to say it, but if we get hungry enough, nuclear power's limitations will seem less important. Maybe we'll get lucky and "sono-fusion" will really work. For all it's potential problems, it would be a dramatic improvement over fission reactors.

I'd also argue that neither party has anything like adequate answers to this problem. Oh, and not all bacteria eat each other. :D

Subject: RE: BS: He kept Our Boys out of Haiti
From: Peace
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 07:38 PM

Strick: I too find his predictions a bit 'fast' or soon. However, we often mention the dream of using solar power, hydrogen, wind, other forms of fuel. However, the resaerch is lagging. Its application to industrial use just isn't there. We require the recognition that we have 25 years on the outside to not only 'solve' the problems, but also get the solutions in place.

The good estimates I've read by various 'experts' have the oil-crash year anywhere from 2012 to 2050. The really scary thing is that no one refutes that the crash will indeed come. I will likely be dead before that happens, but the kids I have or the kids I teach won't.

When I was a youth (I'm 56, so let's say 40 years ago) the figure that was tossed around and generally accepted--even by people who were down on the use of fossil fuels--was that the world would run out of oil within THREE hundred years. Holy sh!t. Time flies when you're havin' fun.

We have an associate problem that is little understood with regard to coal as a fuel. All coal ain't the same. If anyone thinks we have polution now, let's start burning coal. Or wood. I agree with what you posted. But the problem ain't goin' away, and we need answers faster than we're finding them. BM