So i was motoring around the other day with the radio tuned to 550-AM in Wausau, home of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage. The morning show host Pat Snyder had an expert from a right-wing think tank on. This guy was ranting about the high oil and gas prices and how it’s all the work of “speculators.”
You see, on 550 AM, there is no oil supply problem, no problem with demand outstripping what is being pumped out of the ground each day. I’ve called Pat Snyder a few times and personally corrected him (”no, Pat, that’s simply not true”) when he allows as to how there’s plenty of oil out there just waiting to be drilled–especially in environmentally-sensitive areas of the USA.
So the right-wing think-tank pundit, whose name i never did hear, gave an explanation for the high fuel prices that you’ll hear frequently from Pat Snyder, then later in the day from Rush, and a little later from Sean. The line is this: there’s plenty of oil, but these speculators are driving the oil and gas prices through the roof with all their nefarious speculating, using leverage no less. Oh my God! Leverage! This, the pundit asserted, should be outlawed.
Yes, i too am waiting for the day when speculators’ use of leverage is outlawed. When leverage is outlawed, only outlaws will have leverage. Bumper sticker: “They can have my leverage when they pry my cold, dead fingers from around it. Using leverage.”
Snyder, the host, then offered a few softball questions to get the pundit talking about the need to be drilling for oil off the coast of Florida, the midwest (i kid you not, the midwest), and the Holy Grail of the right, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR. There were also comments from the guest about the lack of refineries in the USA, and you’d have the environmental extremists to thank for that, not the industry.
Apparently these guys still have not gotten the news that at its very peak, ANWR would be delivering no more than 1 million barrels a day. If that. If the oil workers can even drive out on the permafrost to build all that infrastructure, because as you know (but right wing pundits do not know), the permafrost is thawing so badly that the oil companies have less than 6 months of workable time driving about on the permafrost setting up infrastructure, doing maintenance, etc. at Prudhoe Bay.
In the world of WSAU-AM 550, there is no approaching peak oil. Global warming is a liberal urban legend. The global food crisis, if it is even noticed, is caused somehow by liberal do-gooders. The problem with the US dollar crashing is the result of some sort of mischief caused somehow by liberals, liberal bankers that is, those damn bleeding heart liberal guys who run huge investment banks and hedge funds. You know the type.
So why is there a radio station in our area which has as its mission the propagation of blatantly misleading information? And why does it apparently enjoy high ratings even when the Brewers aren’t on? Are people deliberately seeking to be misled?
If the so-called “drive-by media” as Rush says, is so liberal, then a station like 550-AM would be an anomaly, wouldn’t it, because “liberal” wouldn’t be the first word you’d use to describe the station. But no, 550-AM is not an anomaly. Almost all of our media, from print to radio to television, is owned by a small oligopoly of media corporations, none of which pass muster to be included in the liberal camp.
I would argue that it is not in the interest of these corporations who own these media to have the general population become unnerved by the prospect of the global peak of oil production, or to become agitated about the need to stop global warming, or to begin to question and doubt the debt-slavery system. The population needs reassurance. Otherwise, both consumer confidence and more importantly, investor confidence, would plummet, and people would stop buying things. Or, more importantly, they’d start selling what stock they have out of fear.
So the new mission of the corporate media is to reassure the public, that is, the consumers and the investing public, regardless of the underlying facts in the world. Therefore, there is no prospect of a peak in oil production. Global warming is a liberal urban myth. The US currency is bottoming out and will soon be stronger than ever. Housing crisis? What housing crisis?
In the world of corporate media, 550-AM in Wausau, WI carries on the mission just as it is expected to do by the Board of Directors. What you’re hearing every day, 24/7, is Boardspeak. I wouldn’t rely on that as a building material for your world model.
Bobby G.