Lying, cheating... STEALing.

Realistically, we're not in any kind of "oil crisis." Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, ALL of them are pulling in tens of billions in profits. Yet somehow, they can't seem to lower gas prices because that's "just the way the market is."

But, as if the obvious collusion among oil companies isn't enough to rip you off and subsequently PISS you off, then they start in with these commercials. Paid for by ripping YOU off.

This "Energy Tomorrow" thing - I'm surprised nobody else is talking about it. You've probably seen this commercial - the lady comes on and talks about how we have enough oil reserves to fuel 60 million cars for 60 years - and enough gas to heat our homes for 60 years... but that some in our government just WONT let us drill for it.

There are some obvious distortions here:

a) They say in fine print for about 1 second that the figures come from the Dept. of the Interior - why's that important? The person that makes up those figures has been hired by President Bush and has strong ties to the oil industry.

b) Oil AND natural gas are added together for this information. There is not a debate in the public about natural gas - it is about drilling for OIL on the COAST in PROTECTED areas; so they are distorting/changing the base of the debate to prove a point. Common fallacy.

c) The figures they are using are how much we have IN ALL OUR RESERVES. Not in the protected areas. The amount in the protected areas in debate is a tiny fraction of her quote.

d) We have way more than 60 million cars - so the figure is completely misleading. In fact, there are more than four times that many cars. So, really there's enough oil to power all our cars for 10-15 years.. OVER time. This is essentially meaningless. Why? Well, the obvious answer is that it's not like they're gonna start drilling and then BOOM! Free oil for 10 years. This isn't some videogame where you pick up a pile of gold and it's suddenly all in your cache. This is more like winning a very small lottery, only a fraction of what it was advertised as, and having to receive the payments in small increments over the course of 40 or 50 years.

In other news, if you win and open up oil drilling, congratulations, you'll receive 2 cents off per gallon for a number of years. I'm sure that will really help those people who are struggling out there. "Hey mom, it now costs me only $49.90 to fill up instead of $50.00. Oh, boy, do I love Republicans! At this rate, I'll have a dollar in a few months!" Do they think everyone is just that stupid?!

The really upsetting thing, as I said before, is that they're using our money to run these ads. And in them, they're telling people that a majority of Americans agree. I would say nearly all Americans don't even understand. They are going to be mislead into thinking they agree because they want to do what can be done to lower energy costs; BUT they want real solutions, not some garbage scheme to get oil companies even richer.

Who profits from more oil drilling? The Americans saving a couple pennies over the course of years? Or the oil companies who can continue to rip you off and make tens of billions now with an even bigger supply? It's a distraction from green energy. An attempt to slow it down so that they can get every last penny out of petroleum before moving on.

Realistically, energy could be almost free. They could build a giant solar collector in the desert - they could build windmills across America (instead of paying farm corporations money to NOT grow anything to artificially boost prices). I say nearly free because you'd probably still pay energy companies for upkeep. But you ALREADY do that. And power plants today now are primarily based on coal and oil, they need a big staff to keep everything in check and transport the commodity and mine the commodity. But the sun shines, and the wind blows. It just does that for you. WHY wouldn't you take advantage of that like mankind has for so long? Because they've found a way to exploit people and they will continue to do it. This is so much bigger than energy...

They could divert funding to electric cars which could be powered by that nearly free energy. Then, travel would be free. People would have more money to spend. Or, what if you built your own windmill to power your house, and charged your car from your own wall outlet? The gas that costs you 200 a month... the money it costs you to power that home... All erased. More to invest in the market. Better economy.

That's the thing. Capitalism can so easily slip into Corporate-run government. If you desire progress and freedom and prosperity, you have to have a mechanism to keep the powerful in check. Think about it- how could we have new businesses if there were a handful of powerful corporations to take over every part of the market through buyouts, intimidation, taking over a bank and denying loans... or violence? How could we have new technologies if powerful corporations had so much influence that they were able to manipulate the government through lobbying and the people through false advertising?

My implication is not that there is some massive corporate conspiracy here... but the evidence clearly shows that things are trending that way. To be quite honest, I will suggest that this economic depression of which we're on the brink, should it happen, could potentially be the best or the worst thing for us. Obviously, yes, it's bad for people in the short-term, but maybe increased attention would clear the way for more government regulation - combined with all of this coming at a time where some reformer efforts are working to rid the government of special interests (such as the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act that makes government officials disclose their gifts from lobbyists to the public).

But, if you get someone like McCain in office, this could go the opposite way... Someone who doesn't believe in government regulation of the economy essentially would be handing over everyone in America to the big corporate power of the time. Companies that couldn't make it would be bought up by bigger ones. Corporate Darwinism. Except it doesn't mean they are the most efficient - it's just the effect of musical chairs. They had the power when the economy collapsed, so they took over. A handful of companies would inherit a workforce of desperate people, and a do-nothing President.

There is a lot at stake here. It's easy to say it all doesn't matter to our physical daily lives... but trickle-down economics does seem to work. Just, in the opposite way that Reagan was talking about. Instead of rich people getting rich and spreading the wealth, they kept it. Now, they have the unique opportunity to piss all over everybody. Trickle down economics, I guess.