Gas Prices Fuel Putin’s Propaganda on KUSI-TV
Hey folks! Yes, gasoline has become more expensive in recent months. Yes, the State of California just tacked another quarter to half dollar in taxes to your fill-up. Yes, it sucks to pay more.
But, don’t fall for the arguments being made by right wingers about these prices being Biden’s fault. First up, the man has no more control over gas prices than he does over what you choose to eat last night.
If you’d like him to be like certain tinpot dictators and bankrupt the treasury with price supports, by all means say so. Or tell us what taxes you’d like to raise or programs you’d defund
Secondly, the campaign blaming him for gas prices is in fact a psychological operation in support of the territorial ambitions of Vladimir Putin.
How do I know this? Because:
The righties are saying so, using language like the “liberal world order” to cloak their intentions.
Our gas prices are lower than most of the industrialized world.
“Liberal world order” is code for democratically elected governments. That’s why most of Europe has rallied to support the Ukraine resistance. And it’s no coincidence that a country’s support is directly related to its levels of democracy.
A case in point would be Hungary, where the checks and balances necessary for good governance have been steadily degraded in recent years. It’s no coincidence that the far right Conservative Political Action Conference held a worldwide gathering in Budapest earlier this year.
From the New Republic:
The hard-right’s growing affinity for Orbán’s Hungary should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed how the Republicans became Putin’s Party and how they have responded to the ongoing Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Think of Hungary in terms of Russia’s trajectory in recent years, during which Putin ushered in an era of global theft on an unimaginable scale, putting together a mafia state in which his handpicked oligarchs had monopolistic control of Russia’s strategic resources—an authoritarian kleptocracy in which billions in dark money were stashed in anonymous shell companies.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s rise to power used the defamation of billionaire George Soros (who hasn’t lived in his native country for decades) as the centerpiece of its campaigns.
It’s no small coincidence that far right US domestic groups (including the San Diego Deputy Sheriffs Association) have echoed the anti-Semitic tone and misinformation utilized in Eastern Europe.
Hungary remains in NATO as the Fox in the henhouse, allowing thousands of intelligence agents free access to international travel and abetting the money laundering keeping Russian oligarchs powerful.
The loss of Russian energy exports has impacted markets worldwide. Slowing these exports (China and India are getting petroleum on the cheap) is a means of punishing the Russian economy by depriving it of foreign revenues.
Most of the industrialized world have agreed to take this and other actions in response to the invasion of Ukraine. This Russian crusade is about challenging a democratically elected government; the initial battle plans for Ukraine included lists of elected officials to be replaced or killed. Putin’s apologists tried to justify their actions by complaining about pro-Nazi groups, organizations whose candidates polled in the low single digits.
Plus it’s safe to say the big dirty energy companies are leveraging shortages to gouge consumers for higher profits, although that is far from the whole story.. In California, Consumer Watchdog reports energy company profits from the first quarter of 2022 are as much as five times more than in the first quarter of 2021.
One of the excuses the Putin apologists are using for higher gasoline prices is that oil companies are being constrained from drilling by the government.
From CNN:
"Oil and gas companies do not want to drill more," Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, said earlier this spring. "They are under pressure from the financial community to pay more dividends, to do more share buybacks, instead of the proverbial 'drill baby drill,' which is the way they would have done things 10 years ago. Corporate strategy has fundamentally changed."
One of the starkest examples: ExxonMobil (XOM) last month announced first quarter profits of $8.8 billion, more than triple the level of a year ago when excluding special items. It also announced a $30 billion share repurchase plan, far more than the $21 billion to $24 billion it expects to spend on all capital investment, including searching for new oil.
Now, before I go too far down this rabbit hole and sound like a fanboy for NATO or a revived-from-the-dead cold warrior, let me say that there are larger issues involved with the use or support of military force.
Putin sees NATO both as a threat to Russian sovereignty and as an opportunity to return his nation to the glory it enjoyed during the height of the Czarist era. He sees democracies as weaklings standing in the way of a world where might and money are the driving forces of governance.
The short term response to his invasion of Ukraine is military force. I don’t like it, but have yet to see another response other than capitulation.
Long term the response must be economic. Russia and many of the world’s other autocratic states are propped up by the world’s reliance on dirty energy.
In fact, if you look at our domestic politics, a huge portion of the dark money chipping away at our democratic institutions comes via the dirty energy industry and its adjuncts. The John Birch Society’s programs (swapping out the word liberal for communist) have risen out of the Texas oil muck they were born in to become mainstream political thought for much of the monied political right.
So, speaking VERY simply, many non-fossil fuel advances are not only good for the planet, they’re also good for the cause of democracy at large.
In the meantime, look at media like KUSI and the New York Post’s editorializing for what it is: pro-Putin propaganda.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com