If you are old enough, and wise enough, to remember the Jimmy Carter years then you remember the fiasco that was his administration. But mostly, you will remember the so-called gas shortage or oil crisis with vehicles lined up for blocks waiting to buy gas. Remember the days when you could buy gas and the days you could not buy gas?
Back in those days, I was a credentialed broadcast news reporter. And something did not "smell" right. After a few weeks of snooping, nobody was able to convince me the gas shortage was real.
I spoke to a propane gas dealer who told me, off the record, (when I asked about the shortage) that all his storage tanks were filled to capacity and he had rail cars sitting on the local tracks filled with propane and he had just been notified that more was on the way.
Around 5 AM, one morning, I, personally, pumped gasoline from a gas pump with a hand-lettered sign on it stating the station was "out of gas." I knew the owner and had obtained the keys the evening before.
I heard of oil dealers renting storage space from farmers, in the tanks that would normally store the farmer's fuel for his farm equipment. I was not able to verify that story, but I knew a number of dealers and I did not doubt it then -- and I do not doubt it today.
I also heard, and saw, tankers pumping gasoline into abandoned underground tanks at old, rural, (closed) filling stations in order to store their overflow of gasoline.
An area TV station filmed tanker ships lying low in the water and anchored just over the horizon from the near-by port. It was reported they were ordered to do so while the companies waited for gasoline prices to increase... then they would sail into port and off-load their precious cargo.
I was convinced then, and I am convinced today, that THAT gas shortage - THAT oil crisis - was manufactured. We were drowning in oil and gasoline. I saw too much, I heard too much, and I experienced too much to believe otherwise.
I have come to believe it was the first attempt, by the government, to force Americans to cut back on oil consumption -- to learn to do with less. See, America's President was the DEMOCRAT, Jimmy Carter -- you know, another one who believes we must all learn to suffer equally, just like the current democrat in the White House, Obama.
The price of gasoline and other oil products is skyrocketing -- even as I write. The American consumer is being taken to the cleaners.
I don't blame the oil companies for our current oil crisis.
Look. America is awash in oil. We've got more oil than the Arabs! But - our government won't let us get to it -- and use it -- and flip the bird to the Middle Eastern Oil princes.
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. To our knowledge -- none has been extracted. With this mother load of oil why are we still fighting over offshore drilling?
Now. Consider this: The U. S. Geological Service issued a revised report in April of 2008 (It hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in the area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana. Take a look for yourself.
http://bakkenshale.net/bakkenshalemap.html
"The Bakken," as it is referred to, is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay, and it has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates the Bakken deposit at 503 billion barrels. This is light, sweet, oil that would be far, far, less costly to Americans than the oil we are importing today.
We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. We are talking more than 2 TRILLION barrels of untapped oil. Here are the official estimates: - 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia - 18-times as much oil as Iraq - 21-times as much oil as Kuwait - 22-times as much oil as Iran - 500-times as much oil as Yemen - and it's all right here in America -- in the Western United States.
Estimates tell us that that oil could satisfy America's need for fuel for up to for 2,041 years!
You can read about this, yourself, at the US Geological Survey website HERE.
So what the deuce is going on? I mean, why the heck are we Americans sitting on our hands and not DEMANDING that our government "cut the cr*p" and allow the oil companies to dig, and drill, for all this oil? WHY is the US continuing to ship our treasure and our blood to the Middle East -- and to our unfriendly southern neighbors -- for oil?
We are on the cusp of back-to-back recessions with the second dip looming today. The cost to Americans for oil is threatening to push us over that brink and into a recession that will, most likely, become a depression even worse than the one or parents and grandparents experienced in the 1930's.
Who's to blame? First we blame the environmentalists and others (including the US government) who have blocked all efforts to aid America in becoming independent of foreign oil! And second: If we are truthful, we must blame ourselves, as well, for allowing those people so much power and influence in the first place!
I must ask: Why are we allowing a small group of people to dictate our lives and our economy, indeed, our future as a viable nation?
It is past time to fight back America. Demand that the US Congress defund the Environmental protection Agency right off the bat. Get rid of it.
Just as important is the necessity to elect a President with the cajones to override the environmentalist and open up America to drilling and digging for our own vast reserves of oil sloshing beneath our feet and just offshore and under the tundra.
Understand this: The fantasy of wind turbines and solar panels is just that - a fantasy. The hard truth is - America needs OIL, and lots of it, to sustain our economy -- and us.
The time is exceedingly short. America is facing ruin in a depression, which lies just over the horizon. We have to act now just to insure our survival as a viable nation. Even now, we may have waited too long.
He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an "in the field" and "on-air" news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.
Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to "old Lutheranism" to express and exercise his faith.
Articles by J.D. Longstreet are posted at: "INSIGHT on Freedom" at: http://csadispatch.blogspot.com/ and at: "Hurricane Alley... by Longstreet" at: http://dixican.wordpress.com/ also at "The Carolina Post" at http://thecarolinapost.blogspot.com/ and at numerous other conservative websites around the web.
J. D. Longstreet archives.
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