War on Americans

By
Dr. Luis Contreras
-
963

If you pluck a chicken one feather at a time nobody notices. Benito Mussolini

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in her 2019 book Fascism: A Warning quoted Mussolini, the first fascist, and said Trump is destroying the American democracy one feather at a time.

Italy’s Mussolini, Germany’s Hitler, and Spain’s Franco, and other authoritarian leaders, claiming to have simple solutions and blaming others for their problems, were freely elected by the people. In 2016, Trump blamed President Obama for making bad agreements and accused China and other nations of taking unfair advantage of America. Trump promised to make “beautiful deals to make America great again.” Trump is a fraud and a failure, a pathological liar who can’t be trusted. Complex problems are solved by expert teams, not by amateurs.

Today, the world is at high risk of a major oil war, and Americans are facing imminent threats of increased carbon emissions and pollution.

Why are “Americans” blindly following Trump?

This is an important question. Why did Germans follow Hitler until the end?

The world has changed, from production and consumption using the Earth as a free resource and dumping ground, to protection of what we have left. The impact of decades of pollution and carbon emissions can’t be ignored. America has failed to adapt, using false economic monthly numbers to pretend the economy is growing, everyone has a decent job and a promising future. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a government agency, paints a rosy picture of the economy and the stock market is used to prove growth, but these numbers are as meaningless as the average price of a pound of bananas.

Trump lives in the past when oil was used as money, protected by a massive military and never-ending wars. Trump thinks he is above the law, and admires Vladimir Putin, Kim Jung Un, and other dictators who do whatever they want. Trump wants to stay in office and uses federal agencies to get his way, a clear abuse of power.

Carbon emissions are increasing

Australia is burning, Indonesia is drowning, and Jakarta is sinking. This is a climate emergency. The extraction, transportation, storage, and combustion of oil and gas increases carbon emissions.

We will never run out of oil and gas, most of it will be left in the ground as stranded assets. In 2019, there were 26 global discoveries of conventional oil and gas, totaling more than 100 billion barrels, including Iran with 55 billion barrels.

There is a glut of oil and gas in the market from fracking America, but Trump wants increased fracking to show economic growth in 2020 to get another term.

Methane leaks in storage, transportation, and distribution of natural gas are dismissed to pretend this is the fuel of the future. Solar and wind generation and storage, electric vehicles, and mass transportation are discouraged to increase the use of fossil fuels.

New pipelines

Last Thursday, Trump proposed to expedite oil and gas pipelines without consideration of their impact on land, air, water, and wildlife. Trump wants to exempt all federal agencies from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations.

Follow the money. In 2016 Kelcy Warren, Energy Transfer Partners CEO, gave millions to Republicans, including $5 million to presidential candidate Rick Perry. Energy Transfer started building the Dakota Access Pipeline. January 2017, ignoring the Standing Rock Water Protectors’ sacrifice, Trump approves DAPL completion and Keystone XL. Trump names Perry to head the Department of Energy. December 2019, Perry leaves DOE. January 2020, Kelcy Warren puts Perry on the Energy Transfer Board. January 2020, Energy Transfer wants to double the capacity of DAPL, while Plains All American builds a line to connect Diamond with CapLine to the Gulf.

Who are you going to believe?

Claim: “We have some of the cleanest air and cleanest water on Earth, and unprecedented economic boom,” said Trump last week on NEPA.

Facts: Trump has increased carbon emissions, pipeline wars, economic sanctions, destruction of cultural sites, and poor public health. Americans are paying billions of dollars, 100 percent of all import tariffs. The boom is coming out of our pockets!

Dr. Luis Contreras

25 COMMENTS

  1. As of today over 370 people have seen this op-ed

    I was hoping to get a few nasty comments

    All comments are welcomed, they are posted after the Editor reviews the content, your email is kept confidential. Thank you.

  3. Lots of good insights here.
    ‘Only’ a third or maybe 40% of Americans follow Trump blindly. Too many. How is it possible to reach them? Must overcome FOX News.

    • FOX News has done a great damage …

      It is easy to dismiss Trump … but he is giving power and money to his followers. Mega churches put on the best show in town, social clubs paid with our taxes

      It bothered me to hear him speak at Davos about “we are comitted to conserve the majesty of God’s creation” along with Clean Coal and LNG

      Thank you for your kindnes

  4. Thank you Doc. Farmers I’ve seen are trying to sell their round-up ready and totally sterile and poisoned soils. Bc of years of herbicide and pesticides use to grow ethanol (a water guzzler) fuel source that even ruins small motors, corn for animals that humans consume etc.
    Toxic soils cannot grow organic food that markets are demanding. Half of Costco fruit and veggies are organic and many are imported from South America or places that didn’t destroy their souls with Monsanto, Dow, sygenta, DuPont, adm, Bayer toxins that are supposed to feed the world.
    So much BS out there. Thank you for noticing and caring.

    • Thank you Susan, how can we not care?

      Soil health and healthy food, not oil pipelines, is what we need … we will never run out of oil

      Small scale organic farms, and farmer’s markets are better than Big Ag

      Let’s rise together, there is no other planer

  6. Did Trump win the trade war?

    NO, he does not care about the American working people – only the billionaires. All Trump wants is good looking results for the next 10 months!

    Trump uses the fake monthly unemployment rate to claim the economy is booming.

    Month to month variability is just random noise. Year to year, including wages, and using REAL numbers should be done

    The fake unemployment rate (showing headcount not wages or quality of life) ignore the people working several jobs and the many people who have given up. It ignores people incarcerated, disabled and many others.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/opinion/trump-china-trade.html

  7. Who pays for the $28 Billion farmers’ bailout to Big Ag?

    You do!

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved $28 billion in market facilitation payments to American farmers to offset negative effects of the U.S.-China trade war, with about $19 billion paid out through the end of 2019 and the rest coming this year.

    And according to Hope Pjesky, a rancher and wheat farmer from Oklahoma, not only has that amount not been enough for most farmers — it wasn’t even worth it.

    “After all that’s happened with trade recently, I don’t think those will continue in future years,” Pjesky said on Yahoo Finance’s On the Move. “And I don’t think that most farmers really thought that it was worth it. It wasn’t. I know the big overall number looks huge to people, but it really wasn’t enough to help most people.”

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trumps-farmer-bailout-trade-war-125117923.html

  8. China is not the only one dealing with tariffs

    France and everyone else are impacted

    Trump’s European Tariffs Could Be Devastating for the Portland Restaurant Industry
    With a new proposed tariff on European wine imports, the entire food scene is facing a disruption of seismic proportions, with the implementation of 100 percent tariffs on imports from the European Union.

    That includes all wines: those celebratory bottles of Champagne next to oyster towers, the weeknight bottle of tempranillo at the neighborhood tapas bar, those Alsatian rieslings beloved by wine geeks.

    The cause is an ongoing conflict between the United States and the European Union over subsidies granted to EU aerospace company Airbus. In short, the Trump administration sees the subsidies on Airbus as a leg up for Europe that the U.S. didn’t get, so the U.S. decided to heavily tax European products to even the playing field.

    Though the fight is entirely unrelated to wine, those retaliatory tariffs on European products will hit American bars, restaurants, and importers with potentially thousands of jobs lost, according to publications like Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and the New York Times.

  10. Is the trade deal a done deal?

    NO, say farmers:

    “Given the numerous deals that have been reached and then breached in the past two years, we are also skeptical,” the National Farmers Union, which advocates on behalf of almost 200,000 American farm families, said in a statement. “And without more concrete details, we are deeply concerned that all of this pain may not have been worth it.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-15/trade-deal-s-95-billion-commodity-centerpiece-already-doubted?srnd=economics-vp

  17. When candidate Trump went to visit Mexico’s President Enrique Peña, he begged Peña not to mention the Wall in public comments. President Peña recognized the threat and avoided a confrontation. Peña paid dearly, he was criticized by the Mexican press.

    In hindsight, Peña made a wise choice. Trump has been ruthless with our allies, and sided with our foes. Trump is like the schoolyard bully taking lunch money from children. Trump is an insecure child and a dangerous mafia boss.

    https://youtu.be/WOGNUVG5SFw

  22. Of course not all Americans follow blindly, but is hard to be around those who do

    Few people post comments, I would appreciate nasty, negative comments, along with others. Thank you

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