[Dialogue] Petrodictators

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

Hi Jim,

I just got around to reading your response to
Friedman's article.  I think you are right on target. 
I like some things Friedman has done, but this is
totally off base.  Chaves may be the most caring of
the heads of goverment in the hemisphere.  The
language (evil, devil) he used at the UN was probably
counterproductive for what he wants to promote, but
the theme of his arguments are true.  Keep up your
good reflections.

Charles Hahn

--- Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl at new.rr.com> wrote:

> Sometimes I wonder how this kind of nonsense sees
> the light of day.  
> Ahmadinejad and Chavez dictators?  These Presidents
> who were elected by 
> overwhelming majorities in countries are called
> dictators by a 
> journalist in a nation where its own leadership was
> not elected by the 
> popular vote nor does the leadership, acting very
> dictatorially,  
> respect the international and national laws? 
> Friedman's hypocritical 
> condemnations of the actions of the twice
> democratically elected Chavez 
> trying to influence other national elections fly in
> the face of the US 
> of A which itself has sponsored a military coup to
> oust Chavez not to 
> mention brutal CIA coups in other Latin American
> Countries?  The Chavez 
> who has done more for the impoverished people of
> Venezuela using the oil 
> revenues than the Crawford Ranch vacationing, draft
> dodger whose tax 
> cuts ruin the nation's educational and health
> systems for 20 million 
> children?  If Chavez is a buffoon; Bush must be a
> complete  moron or worse.
> 
> Ahmadinejad doesn't question the happening of the
> holocaust as much as 
> saying that if the Europeans and Americans were so
> devastated by the 
> event why did they have to punish the Palestinians
> by taking their land 
> away when setting up the state of Israel?  Why
> didn't they create the 
> state in the US or Europe?  And is Iran really
> building nuclear 
> weapons?  Do we continue to buy into Dubyah's
> propaganda machine that 
> claims, even against numerous reports by IAEA
> inspection teams in Iran 
> saying the contrary, Iran is enriching uranium and
> building bombs?  
> Another set of fictitious weapons of mass
> destruction story?  Is it the 
> ploy to using nuclear weapons against Iran?
> 
> America's oil problem is not the problem of the oil
> producing nations no 
> matter how much Friedman tries to blame them for
> causing fluctuating oil 
> prices.  The profits the Iranians made off of their
> crude oil all of 
> last year was less than the third quarter profits of
> the US and British 
> oil companies.  The high prices the Americans pay at
> the pump mean 
> fabulous wealth to Bush's supporters in the oil
> business.  The real 
> Petrodictators are not the legitimate international
> leaders hated by 
> Bush and his cronies, instead, it is the capitalists
> who corrupt ours 
> and other governments with their enormous
> petrodollars.  According to 
> our foreign politics, ruthless dictators which
> actually exist are 
> inconsequential unless we have some national
> interest in their 
> countries, they are welcomed to stay and rule. 
> Likewise if a 
> democratically elected government conflicts with US
> interests or their 
> demise promotes political agendas, they are likely
> to be hurt or 
> destroyed until we get our way.
> 
> I'm sorry, but in this article, Friedman has not
> only crossed the line 
> of sanity but seems to have dropped of the edge.
> 
> Jim Baumbach
> 
> FacilitationFla at aol.com wrote:
> > This is SOOOO true.
> >  
> >
> > Fill ’Er Up With Dictators
> >
> > By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN 
> >
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
> >
> > Published: September 27, 2006
> >
> > Are you having fun yet?
> >
> > Skip to next paragraphWhat’s a matter? No sense
> of humor? You didn’t 
> > enjoy watching Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
> addressing the U.N. 
> > General Assembly and saying of President Bush:
> “The devil came here 
> > yesterday, right here. It smells of sulfur still
> today.” Many U.N. 
> > delegates roared with laughter.
> >
> > Oh well then, you must have enjoyed watching
> Iran’s President Mahmoud 
> > Ahmadinejad breezing through New York City,
> lecturing everyone from 
> > the U.N. to the Council on Foreign Relations on
> the evils of American 
> > power and how the Holocaust was just a myth.
> >
> > C’mon then, you had to at least have gotten a
> chuckle out of China’s 
> > U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, trying to block a
> U.N. resolution 
> > calling for the deployment of peacekeeping troops
> to Sudan to halt the 
> > genocide in Darfur. I’m sure it had nothing to
> do with the fact that 
> > the China National Petroleum Corporation owns 40
> percent of the Sudan 
> > consortium that pumps over 300,000 barrels of oil
> a day from Sudanese 
> > wells.
> >
> > No? You’re not having fun? Well, you’d better
> start seeing the humor 
> > in all this, because what all these stories have
> in common is today’s 
> > most infectious geopolitical disease:
> petro-authoritarianism.
> >
> > Yes, we thought that the fall of the Berlin Wall
> was going to unleash 
> > an unstoppable wave of free markets and free
> people, and it did for 
> > about a decade, when oil prices were low. But as
> oil has moved to $60 
> > to $70 a barrel, it has fostered a counterwave —
> a wave of 
> > authoritarian leaders who are not only able to
> ensconce themselves in 
> > power because of huge oil profits but also to use
> their oil wealth to 
> > poison the global system — to get it to look the
> other way at 
> > genocide, or ignore an Iranian leader who says
> from one side of his 
> > mouth that the Holocaust is a myth and from the
> other that Iran would 
> > never dream of developing nuclear weapons, or to
> indulge a buffoon 
> > like Chávez, who uses Venezuela’s oil riches to
> try to sway democratic 
> > elections in Latin America and promote an economic
> populism that will 
> > eventually lead his country into a ditch.
> >
> > For a lot of reasons — some cyclical, some
> technical and some having 
> > to do with the emergence of alternative fuels and
> conservation — the 
> > price of crude oil has fallen lately to around $60
> a barrel. Yes, in 
> > the long run, we want the global price of oil to
> go down. But we don’t 
> > want the price of gasoline to go down in America
> just when $3 a gallon 
> > has started to stimulate large investments in
> alternative energies. 
> > That is exactly what OPEC wants — let the price
> fall for a while, kill 
> > the alternatives, and then bring it up again.
> >
> > For now, we still need to make sure, either with a
> gasoline tax or a 
> > tariff on imported oil, that we keep the price at
> the pump at $3 or 
> > more — to stimulate various alternative energy
> programs, more 
> > conservation and a structural shift by car buyers
> and makers to more 
> > fuel-efficient vehicles.
> >
> > “If Bush were the leader he claims to be, he
> would impose an import 
> > fee right now to keep gasoline prices high, and
> reduce the tax rate on 
> > Social Security for low-income workers, so they
> would get an 
> > offsetting increase in income,” argued Philip
> Verleger Jr., the 
> > veteran energy economist.
> >
> > That is how we can permanently break our oil
> addiction, 
=== message truncated ===>
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