Oil, Smoke and Mirrors – an on-line video

This video is interesting and well done but I have reservations about it. You’ll have to watch it to see what I mean. I’d love to know your thoughts on it.

http://www.oilsmokeandmirrors.com/

It tries to make a connection between Peak Oil and 911. The basic idea is that 911 was a put up job to give the US the excuse to wage war in Afghanistan and Iraq with the long term and largely hidden agenda of controlling sufficient oil to help the US avoid the coming consequences of Peak Oil.

I have a problem with most ‘conspiracy’ theories because, while they may sound entirely logical and plausible within their presentational context, once you look beyond what’s been said and consider the wider implications, things become a lot less plausible.

I always think of Roswell, New Mexico in this connection. The idea that hundreds of US military personnel have kept the secret since 1947 and never revealed a cover-up at Roswell is impossible to believe. And the idea that an alien spacecraft crashed there and hundreds if not thousands of pieces of debris were picked up and not one person pocketed a memento is also not reasonable.

So, here we have 911 and the idea that the government, because of a long-term goal to corner oil for the US, had to have a plausible reason to attack Afghanistan and Iraq and therefore decided to aid terrorists to strike the twin towers – it is all too fantastic. Think of all of the people who would have had greater or lesser amounts of insider knowledge of what was going on. Are all of them going to go to their graves as tight lipped patriots? I doubt that in any group of 100 people, you could be assured that all of them would make it through the next year on something like this without spilling the beans – much less five years.

Our government is just not that smart and just not that informationally waterproof. Remember bombing Cambodia, remember Watergate and remember Iran-Contra – those were big secrets and the way they came out was a bit like watching the Keystone Cops in action.

There was a section in this film where they said that the current tightening of laws, the ignoring of the Geneva Conventions and the abrogation of our personal rights (by mechanisms like the Military Commissions Act of 2006 – though they did not mention that act by name here), are part of a long term plan to have control mechanisms in place so that when the problems of Peak Oil begin to manifest and the inevitable social unrest ensues, they will already have the necessary structures in place to control an unruly population. Well, that sounds pretty frightening until you think that in a little over two years, the current administration and most of what it wrought (other than the justices it appointed), may well be history and dust. For this idea to hold together, you have to accept a conspiracy so wide that it encompasses the width and breadth of both parties. Nope – I don’t buy it.

I think it is all much more likely that our government *is* trying to gain control of oil for strategic reasons but that they are simply reacting to opportunities, like 911, as they’ve presented themselves. I also think that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is very dangerous to our personal freedoms but that these things are borne of governmental hysteria and come and go as the pressures and the administrations come and go. That’s poor solace to those who might get imprisoned during such a period of hysteria, though.

If I had to pick out a more insidious danger, I’d say that it is the foisting off on the American public of voting machines full of proprietary software. If the governing party and its proxies gets control of the companies that make these machines, and if they move with sufficient stealth, they may win all the important elections from here on out.

Let me know your thoughts on all of this.

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