If I recall correctly, the US used to have more of this type of oil, that depleted, so now they still have all the refineries on the east coast and need to import it.
I've known for a while that our refineries are tuned to lighter "sweet crude" than what Canada or US produces, and long have I thought that a more benevolent, heavy-handed government should incentivize our domestic industry to handle our own oil for national security.
What are do people do when their government and capitalism fails them?
Hopefully by then humanity has managed to get educated and learned to cooperate and share.
Funny that you assume education will lead to some sort of egalitarian society. What do you think the point of modern education is? We all get the course in evolution and natural selection. We all study history. We all fraternize and learn the little political games or we drop out. Some of us recieve a degree in hard knocks. Why shouldn't the educated be more cutthroat than the rest of them?
Capitalism falls back to fascism to protect wealth, time and time again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Club_...
(personal commentary/context: I want more energy production of any economically viable category: wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, natural gas, etc. I have no blanket opposition to offshore oil drilling or offshore wind energy)
Unfortunately as a society we keep moving further and further away from the foundations of a functional society based on a representative government and considering the general welfare.
- I was able to make money off of this
- This pissed off the people I don’t like
None of this should come as a surprise. The scoundrels got the mob in power (again) and they’re just going to keep breaking things and stealing the money until stopped or dead.
I hope.
The Democrats are hardly perfect, and I wish we had something better to oppose the Republicans, but let's at least acknowledge who the real villain is.
Googling and LLMing around it allows normal sea operations in the Gulf so drilling is possible etc. Interesting. So they’re going to try to get more oil out of there?
Can’t say I trust their competence very much here. It’s more likely to be a carve out for a friend than anything else and I’m pretty pro deregulation in general.
This kills that on multiple fronts.
> Fact-checking Donald Trump's claim that wind turbines kill whales
Who said anything about "us". Every action taken by this administration is specifically for self-enrichment (directly or to cronies/patrons), the destruction of things that they deem "woke", and the punishment and persecution of their perceived enemies and non-humans.
I wish that was hyperbole, and that I could be proven wrong.
https://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/centerpiece/fall2...
She uses terms like "us", "we", "collective", but who are these? All the constituents, the people, in their totality, they are not, for people are not a homogeneous mass. In practice, it, along with democracy, just becomes a nice rhetoric device for stripping people of their rights.
Democracy was never really a good solution to an inclusive society-wide governance system. Most successful implementation even need to add limits to it to prevent the mob rule that's a feature to it. Some try to pretend it is anti-authoritarian, because the members get a vote. But that vote only matters when the voter is part of a majority. If they aren't, they might as well not even have it. That alone already creates a hierarchy. And it only gets worse: most people belong to minority of sorts, and they, by design, get alienated. This means that the doesn't really represent anyone... other than itself, very much like a corporation.
Which leads to the final point: capitalism (in the Marxist sense of the word) isn't antidemocratic. Democracy isn't in opposition to corporatocrocy, it requires a corporation large enough to own everything. Thus, dare I say, the democracy she seems to envision might as well be one of the forms of ultra peak capitalism.
If you're on about Pinochet, he only embraced market reforms 3 years after coming to power and came to power directly by a military coup. Business leaders had basically nothing to do with it.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-feds-plan-to-start-dilutin...
Boy was I wrong. His name will be studied for decades to come in all the worst ways.
And Americans are supposed to understand this, but largely don't. Kind of like lots of people love the founders in theory, but act like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would have loved a theocracy. And basically don't know anything about stuff that would have influenced them, like the Commonwealth and the Glorious Revolution.
It's an absolutely literal Confederacy of Dunces.
Trump is the first honest one, he's not a hypocrite, he's just a good old war criminal. His autobiography could be called "Mein Wahrheit."
Truth is not even vaguely relevant to anything out of that man's mouth.
He's also a hypocrite (he wields Christianity like a weapon but is not a believer), talks about law and order but believes it doesn't apply to him, etc.
If I had to use one word in that vein it would be "clear". He makes it very clear who he is and what his values are.
I reject the notion that Trump is in any way honest just because he is openly corrupt. Accepting open corruption because one has seen imperfections in other characters is a path to simply accepting autocracy.
Neither side is honest, it's just a matter of framing and perspective.
This is basically the opposite of what any kind of reasonable long term thinking would argue for.
Seems about right.
The US is the largest oil producer, but also still one of the largest oil importers, and oil prices are set by a global market, so the phrase "energy independent" is at best an accounting trick.
The only way we can get truly energy independent is by electrifying most non fossil fuel requiring end uses and supplying that electricity with renewables or nuclear (from domestically sourced uranium) - basically the direction China is going.
Then we could perhaps decouple a bit from the global oil market assuming our domestic supplies could be channeled towards things like plastics and jet fuel that are hard to replace.
Otherwise we are stuck with the global oil market and its price risks. Reducing animal protection in the Gulf won't change that because US oil producers won't drill unless the can sell at the global oil price.
Why would an oil company go through the trouble (and expense) of oil exploration and extraction if they don't have the right to sell it to the highest bidder anywhere in the world?
Every day is a new embarrassment law or action like this for America until then. I’ve never felt lower about America in my lifetime. The hope I had, the pride I felt in America, is gone, chunk by chunk, piece by piece, every day.
Not for no reason either. Turnout was 64.1%, so really it's the active decision of 31.9218% of voters (voting eligibles) culminating in this. Kind of a pattern with modern democracies if you check.
Not that passively endorsing this by not voting when the opportunity was there would be much better though.
I do think regular variety elections are generally representative though. I just also see value in keeping these asterisks in mind.
However I agree with your premise - trying to remove abstaining voters from the math is incorrect. Abstainers are explicitly making their view known.
That view is "I don't care, but are equally good or bad". (Which in turn demonstrates a profound ignorance of what's going on - and frankly folk that unconcerned should probably not pick a side.)
I believe it's fair to say "America voted for this". America is a democracy and the voters spoke. Of course it's not unanimous but majority rules.
And it's not like his campaign was disingenuous. The man was on display, and most of the things he's done were signaled clearly in the campaign. (He's long been against foreign wars, so the Iran debacle seems out of character, but then again it's in line with his dictator instincts, and he desperately needs a distraction from the Epstein files.)
It’s true trump is bad but so is genocide. Really hard to make the case of the lesser evil when it’s just variations on top tier criminality. You have to offer something to voters.
E pluribus unum
https://academic.oup.com/book/44680/chapter-abstract/3787689...
*Democracy is not a spectator sport*. You don't get to complain about corrupt politicians and then go on to make excuses about why you can't vote. You're wasting your citizenship. Either go vote or move to a dictatorship where voting isn't a concern.
I voted against Trump 3 times. But people outside of the US should definitely act as if they cannot trust the US. Because they can't. I mean ffs we collectively elected him twice.
The underlying point is that the American public voted for this. They saw his first term, a million people dead from covid, and thought to themselves "I want more of that guy". And if they can elect this person, what might the next one look like?
In one short year every country on earth has put the US in the "unreliable trade partner" box. (Even Canada. Canada!). That damage will last for decades. The big winner here? China. They're hoovering up goodwill all over the place.
Killing USAid not only killed a major purchaser of US farm surplus, it woke up a lot of grass-roots agencies to the need to diversify funding. Lots of soft-influence lost overnight, and it's not easily coming back.
I don't think the animals that may go extinct care about the distinction.
Oil is in the way out. Only countries addicted to oil don't see that. And the Americans are addicted to oil.