Off the Rails: PDF | Print | E-mail

Off the Rails: PDF | Print | E-mail
Political Views
By Greg Palast
Translation






Big Oil, Big Brother Win Big in the State of the Union
by Greg Palast

There was that tongue again. When the President lies he's got this weird nervous
tick: He sticks the tip of his tongue out between his lips. Like a little boy
who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat.

In his State of the Union tonight the President did his tongue thing 124 times
-- my kids kept count.

But it wasn't all rat-licking lies.

Most pundits concentrated on Iraq and wacky health insurance stuff. But that's
just bubbles and blather. The real agenda is in the small stuff. The little
razors in the policy apple, the nasty little pieces of policy shrapnel that whiz
by between the appearances of the Presidential tongue.

First, there was the announcement the regime will, "give employers the tools to
verify the legal status of their workers." In case you missed that one, the
President is talking about creating a federal citizen profile database.

There's a problem with that idea. It's against the law. The law in question is
the United States Constitution. The Founding Fathers thought the government had
no right to keep track on a citizen unless there is evidence they have
committed, or planned to commit, a crime.

But the Founding Fathers didn't imagine there were millions and billions of
dollars to be made by private contractors ready to perform this KGB operation
for the Department of Homeland Security, tracking each and every one of us to
keep tabs on our "status."

These work databases will tie into "voter verification" databases required by
the Help America Vote Act. And these will tie to the databases on citizenship
and so on.

Will Big Brother abuse these snoop lists? The biggest purveyor of such hit lists
is Choice Point, Inc. ? those characters who, before the 2000 election, helped
Jeb Bush purge innocent voters as "felons" from Florida voter rolls. Will they
abuse the new super-lists? Does Dick Cheney shoot in the woods?

There were several other little IEDs (improvised execrable policy devices)
planted in the State of the Union. Did you catch the one about doubling the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve? If you're unfamiliar with the SPR, it is supposed
to be the stash of oil we keep in case the price of crude gets too high.

Well, the price of oil has been horribly high but Dick Cheney, the official who
sits on the Reserve's spigots, has refused to release the oil into the market.

Instead of unleashing the Reserve and busting Big Oil's price gouging Bush will
double the Reserve, which will require buying three-quarters of a billion
barrels of oil. This is a nice $40 billion pay-out to Big Oil from the US
Treasury. Compare this to the President's health insurance plan which will be
"revenue neutral" -- that is, have a net investment of zero.

But the $40 billion in loot the oilmen will get from us taxpayers for doubling
the Reserve is nothing compared to the boost in the worldwide price of crude
caused by this massive, mad purchase. While the Congressional audience didn't
even bother polite applause for the reserve purchase plan, there's no doubt they
were whooping it up in Saudi Arabia. Clearly, the state of the Saudi-Bush union
is still pretty good.

But why end on a cynical note? I must admit I was moved by the President's
praise of Wesley Autrey, a New Yorker who, last month, threw himself on top of a
man who had fallen on subway tracks -- and held him between the track rails as
the train passed over them.

While the President properly acknowledged Autrey's courage in saving the man who
fell on the subway tracks, Mr. Bush still did not explain why Dick Cheney pushed
the man in the first place.

Greg Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse : Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China
Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08 and other Dispatches from the Front
Lines of the Class War. NY Times Bestseller





Tags: Greg Palast State of the Union
Comments
Written by Emily on 2007-01-25 01:10:22 IP: 64.180.177.119
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Beautiful, as always. Thanks.
Written by wand on 2007-01-25 16:55:10 IP: 64.59.144.23
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I find myself arguing with a whole bunch of people on the left who know things
that aren't true. I'm both amused and surprised not only at the ignorance out
there, but the confidence with which it is bandied about.
Written by ksec on 2007-01-25 16:57:46 IP: 64.59.144.23
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Its kinda funny because its so predictable.

Bush is a fool because he knows hes a liar and so does everyone else watching
him lie. Only a fool believes a fool .


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