Oliver Stone - Shaping The Things To Come

Oliver Stone is an influential shaper of public thought.

His movies, which include Natural Born Killers, Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Nixon, and W will be viewed by hundreds of millions of people, not just in the US, but all over the world. The people who see his movies, see the world through his world-view.

What is his world-view? What does the man think?

See: Oliver Stone: US should nationalize oil resources

LONDON – The Gulf of Mexico oil spill shows that the United States should follow the example of South American socialists in nationalizing its energy industry, filmmaker Oliver Stone said Tuesday.

The Academy Award-winning director of "Born on the Fourth of July" and "JFK" said that America's country's natural wealth was too important to be left in private hands, telling journalists in central London that oil and other natural resources "belong to the people."

"This BP oil spill is typical" of what happens when private industry is allowed to draw revenue on what should be a public good, Stone said.

"We shouldn't make this kind of profit on oil or on health or on war or on prisons. All these industries should be public industries."

Stone, 63, is in the British capital to promote his documentary, "South of the Border," which tells the story of firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his left-wing Latin American allies.

This man makes movies. His movies shape people's understanding of reality. What kind of world will his viewers make for our future?

More Oil Rigs Preparing to Leave The Gulf

See: Diamond Offshore Drilling Announces New Term Floater Commitment

Devon was one of three operators of Diamond Offshore rigs that invoked a force majeure clause in their contracts, claiming that the drilling moratorium would prevent the rigs from working. Diamond Offshore said late last month that it does not believe a force majeure exists under the terms of those contracts and is working with its customers to assess each situation.

[Emphasis is mine-Syrah]

This was at the bottom of a Wall Street Journal article published on the 9th.

Democrat President Obama's disastrous handling of the oil spill, particularly in his strange and oddly tenacious attempts to shut down all deep-water drilling in the Gulf, will have long term consequences for the US and for the world.

Its a big planet. Those oil rigs can be moved anywhere in the world. We are very likely to see a number of them end up off the coast of Brazil much to the benefit of Petrobras and its investors.

The US can profit from the Oil in its territories, or not. It looks like Obama and the Democrats would prefer that the US is made even more dependent on foreign sources of oil.

The Oil Rig Exodus Begins

See: First rig sails away over drilling ban

"There are two types of rigs in the deep-water Gulf today: those that are leaving the country and those that want to, because with this moratorium hanging over their heads, they simply can't go back to work," Brady said. "I'm afraid this is the first of many rigs and many American jobs to leave the Gulf."

The first rig to leave the Gulf is headed for Egyptian waters.

The Democrat Obama Administration is going to destroy the US Deep Water Drilling industry.

HT: to Squatch at C2

Will The Democrat Administration Destroy The US Deep-Water Oil Drilling Industry And Increase US Dependence On Foreign Sources Of Oil?

The Democrat Obama Administration has asked a Federal Court to reinstate its deep water oil drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico.

See: Obama Asks Court to Reinstate Ban on Deepwater Drilling

The Interior Department, which oversees oil and gas exploration on public lands and offshore, is charged with the “prudent and safe” management of those resources, the court filing said.

“A short-term suspension of deepwater drilling while safety regulations are updated is necessary to achieve that goal,” the document stated.

In his original decision to grant a preliminary injunction against Democrat President Barak Obama's Deep-Water Drilling Moratorium, Judge Feldman wrote: This Court is persuaded that the public interest weighs in favor of granting a preliminary injunction. While a suspension of activities directed after a rational interpretation of the evidence could outweigh the impact on the plaintiffs and the public, here, the Court has found the plaintiffs would likely succeed in showing that the agency’s decision was arbitrary and capricious. An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.

The world does not sit around on its thumbs when Democrats try to stop things. The Democrats only have jurisdiction over so much of the world. The rest of the world can and will move on.

See: Stop the oil, not job creation

A prolonged moratorium would only make an awful situation worse.

Before the administration takes action on the moratorium, here are questions that decision-makers should ask: What would an extended moratorium on deepwater drilling really mean for the country? Are the perceived benefits worth the real costs?

The spill is already taking an enormous toll on the people in the communities around the Gulf that depend on the jobs and wages that deepwater drilling provides. If the moratorium overcomes the current legal challenge and is reinstated, this toll would only increase.

Oil companies cannot let their rigs go idle in these difficult economic times. If they are denied access to Gulf resources even for a short period, they will take their operations to promising new locations off Brazil, West Africa or China and sign new leases.

Once the rigs leave the Gulf it becomes very tough to get them back. Tens of thousands of Gulf residents are directly — and indirectly — employed by the offshore industry. When the rigs leave, so will their jobs. The scenario has been rightfully compared to the auto industry leaving Detroit.

If this moratorium debate drags on, the rest of the nation could get hit as well. Without this critical source of domestic, affordable fuel, we would be forced to import even larger amounts from overseas.

We already spend $1 billion a day on foreign oil. With a moratorium, that number will rise and our dependence on OPEC grow. Both outcomes increase our energy and economic insecurity — moving the country in the wrong direction.

Interestingly enough, and one possible explanation for the Democrat Administration's urgent and tenacious efforts to put in place and keep in place, a crushing moratorium on US Deep-Water Oil Drilling, may lead back to one of its largest campaign donors, George Soros.

In another part of the world, off the coast of Brazil, large deep-water oil deposits have been discovered. Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant is poised to begin exploiting those oil deposits. Interestingly, George Soros is one of Petrobras' largest investors. As with Petrobras, George Soros is also one of Obama's and the Democrat Party's largest “investors.” Petrobras needs some deep-water oil drilling rigs to become available so that it can exploit its rich deep-water oil deposits. The Democrat Administration's devastating drilling ban has made many of those deep-water oil drilling rigs available.

Better yet, once those deep-water oil drilling rigs are moved and put inplace far abroad, the US fields that they had served will be effectively shutdown for many years to come, increasing the market value of all of that foreign deep-water oil, and the value of George Soros' huge investment in Petrobras, all that much more.

Is the tail waging the dog?

See also JCM's: C2 Saturday A.M. Bulldog Edition for more on the odd Oil Spill Clean-up problems and the strange connections between George Soros, Barak Obama, the Democrats, and Brazil's Petrobras.

Is There A Soros Connection To The Offshore Drilling Moratorium?

From: The Drilling Ban Is Soros' Bonanza

If the moratorium stands and energy prices rise, the only ones to profit will be foreign-owned companies such as Petrobras and investors such as George Soros, who has an investment in the oil giant in the neighborhood of $900 million. Yes, the same George Soros who also is a major investor in the Democratic Party and President Obama's 2008 campaign.

Soros would love to see domestic offshore drilling shut down and those three dozen deep-water rigs sitting idle shipped off to the coast of Brazil. He has a huge investment in both Petrobras and the Democrats. He expects a return on all his investments.

While we track the trail of oil gushing from Deepwater Horizon, we should also follow the money that will be gushing into George Soros' bank account, courtesy of the U.S. government and the American taxpayer.

What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[Additional]

From: Moratorium Won’t Reduce Drilling Risks

Nor is it clear, if the moratorium went into effect, the pullback would be all that temporary. For one thing, the moratorium is contingent on a special commission making yet more safety recommendations in six months, but there is no guarantee they’ll be done by then. Meanwhile, there are only so many floating rigs in the world, and Brazil, for instance, has just embarked on a $200 billion drilling program. (You read that right: $200 billion.) It takes a month to move an idle rig from the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil, where it will likely stay for years. So a six-month moratorium would quite likely have far greater effect on American oil production that it would seem at first glance.

So again,- What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[Additional]

From an article in the Wall Street Journal, published in August of 2009.

See: Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

And again we should ask, - What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve?

[UPDATE - Monday, June 28th, 2010 - 13:00]

Wow.

JCM at Correspondence Committee just pointed me to a post that he put up on this subject back on Saturday the 19th.

See: c2 saturday a.m. BULLDOG

I don't think any of this was planned. Obama is relying on process instead of action. A process which bolsters his contention that fossil fuel is bad, and that we need huge "investments" (read taxes) to get to alternative energy sources.

The drilling moratorium sounds like "action" but again is process, a process which directly or indirect benefits some of his closest advisors.

The advice he is getting is both process oriented, and tainted.

The result is not fixing the problem, but supporting other agendas. I do not believe it is a conspiracy in that there was or is a "plan." It is like with much of the left a "distributed conspiracy" that a bunch of individuals with similar goals, working each on their own little piece to push events in a way that matches their worldview.

A perfect storm of events, personalities, ideologies, and agendas driving the outcome toward what they prefer.

I agree. Not a conspiracy so much as tainted advice and the natural outcome of a group of people working from a shared world-view.

There is also a lot at stake.

I think that we should keep all of this in mind along with the tenacity the Administration has displayed in its efforts to keep the Moratorium in place, even after it has been overturned by a federal court.

What purpose does the Offshore Drilling Moratorium serve? Why the urgency to reinstate it?

The Gulf Of Obama Oil Spill Crisis

The Gulf Oil Spill Crisis belongs to Obama and the Democrat Party, not BP.

Politics, nothing else but politics, made the spill much more of a disaster then it needed to be. For that, the blame belongs to Obama and the Democrats, not BP.

BP was blocked from bringing in outside assistance by the Democrat Obama Administration. From that point forward, the responsibility for the disaster belongs to no one but Obama and the Democrat Party.

See: Avertible catastrophe

In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

(You should read the whole thing. I would have quoted the whole thing, which covers more than I have cited, but the Financial Post deserves the traffic. Give them a visit. It is worthwhile.)

For some people, specifically meaning Obama and the Democrat Party, politics is more important than effectiveness. BP may have been the source of the spill, but they are not the reason it has become a disaster. Obama and the Democrats own this disaster because they prevented BP and other outsiders from helping to mitigate it.

The Obama Administration is the most partisan administration that this nation has seen since Johnson, and the most progressive since Wilson. For them, Politics trumps everything. Obama and the Democrat Party are the reason this spill has become a disaster.

Remember that in November.

Repay Obama and the Democrat Party for their role in turning the Gulf of Mexico into an ecological disaster zone.