Sunday, August 10, 2008
Anti-Oil Message Oozes into the Movies
The “Bourne” movies successfully transformed Matt Damon from a Hollywood actor with an image of a wimpy punk, fit only to play genius janitors (“Good Will Hunting”) or crazed rich-kid-wannabees (“The Talented Mr. Ripley”), to a real gosh-darn action hero, by golly! Sounds good, but…
He can’t seem to leave the whacko, “PC” (politically correct), anti-oil message behind.
The message in “The Bourne Supremacy” is subtly woven into the plot. As we learn more and more about amnesiac Bourne’s past, we find that he was assigned by our CIA as part of the Treadstone team to assassinate a Russian who was critical of – you guessed it – “Big Oil,” specifically, the privatization of Russia’s oil fields after the collapse of the – gasp! – U.S.S.R. (it collapsed? yes, but not forever, as recent actions in the former SSR of Georgia attest). The newspaper headlines slide by pretty fast, almost like a subliminal message, as Bourne scans for information at the local library, so it took me a couple of viewings to piece everything together. (Since I rarely go to theaters, I just caught this recently while watching the movie for the second time – the first time was about a year ago.)
It seems that, according to the movie, a Russian interested in oil field leases, teamed with his CIA buddy to arrange the assassination of someone standing in his way and trying to build up public opinion against him. They targeted this naysayer. This was Bourne’s first non-training mission. Once in his target’s hotel room, he discovered that the target’s wife was there. Surprise! He has to do some quick thinking. Aha! Kill the target, then make it look as if the wife killed him then committed suicide. (No matter that there was a young daughter who would forever live with the false knowledge that her parents died like this. Oh, well – collateral damage. Few assassinations go exactly as planned, I guess. Wouldn’t know since my career has taken another path.)
Oil is quickly replacing money as “the root of all evil” in Hollywood-controlled movie productions and from them into people’s minds.
Unfortunately, nothing reliable and without side-effects has yet replaced oil to make the fuel to run my car. Ethanol is a pipe dream that, if fully realized, could result in massive food shortages. Electric cars won’t run without electricity, and since the anti-nuke/anti-windmill/anti-anysensiblesolution crowd is still going strong, there may not be enough both to charge up our cars and maintain our modern lifestyle in our homes (refrigerators, cooking ranges, microwaves, washers, dryers, TVs, computers, etc.). Of course, we’re all just a bunch of energy hogs that need to stop using such a huge chunk of the world’s resources – not!
Matt Damon better be investing his income wisely. If he keeps up his anti-oil stance, there won’t be enough energy in any form to make movies nor to show them – whether it’s in theaters or at home.
By the way, this movie came out in 2004, and the Russian government, led by then-President Vladimir Putin, began the process of nationalizing the oil fields in 2004. Gee, what a coincidence! Here’s another: One of the “crimes” that YUKOS, the largest oil company and Putin’s first takeover target, was convicted of was “nonpayment of a tax bill far exceeding the company’s profits.”
Sound familiar? It should.
Exxon, the current whipping boy for the anti-oil crowd, will pay out $40 billion (worldwide) in taxes for 2008. They paid $19.828 billion so far this year while earning $11.68 billion in their second quarter this year (assuming that the first quarter was about the same, they paid about $14 billion in taxes MORE than the profits they earned). Yet, Congress and Presidential-wannabee Obama are calling for more taxes to cut down those “obscene profits.” Exxon earns much of those profits outside of the U.S. and pays taxes to the respective governments. (Get more details at Mark J. Perry’s blog.) But, again, Congress and Obama don’t care. Exxon pays more in taxes than the bottom half of the income earners in the U.S., but that also doesn’t matter.
How long would your local grocery store stay in business if, for every dollar they took in above their expenses (i.e., profit), they paid out $1.50? How long could you survive if, for every dollar you earned above what you need for the basics (food, housing, utilities, healthcare, clothes), you had to pay out $1.50?
It’s time for all of us to get some sense. We are following in Putin’s footsteps. Our Congress is coming closer and closer to trying to nationalize our oil companies. Don’t believe me? Check out this FoxNews item. It seemed to have slipped by the other news outlets unnoticed. Yeah, right!
Gotta go hog some energy now.
Copyright © 2008 A.C. Cargill
A.C. Cargill resides on the East Coast for now, has lived in several locations, including Europe, and uses her background in technical writing, including researching topics online, along with her degree in Philosophy and English, to point out good ideas that aren’t so good afterall. She and her hubby also have a fun blog that takes a little lighter look at the issues: Break Time Topics (things to read while you take a break to enjoy your morning coffee of afternoon tea). Also, don’t miss her on Townhall.com.
He can’t seem to leave the whacko, “PC” (politically correct), anti-oil message behind.
The message in “The Bourne Supremacy” is subtly woven into the plot. As we learn more and more about amnesiac Bourne’s past, we find that he was assigned by our CIA as part of the Treadstone team to assassinate a Russian who was critical of – you guessed it – “Big Oil,” specifically, the privatization of Russia’s oil fields after the collapse of the – gasp! – U.S.S.R. (it collapsed? yes, but not forever, as recent actions in the former SSR of Georgia attest). The newspaper headlines slide by pretty fast, almost like a subliminal message, as Bourne scans for information at the local library, so it took me a couple of viewings to piece everything together. (Since I rarely go to theaters, I just caught this recently while watching the movie for the second time – the first time was about a year ago.)
It seems that, according to the movie, a Russian interested in oil field leases, teamed with his CIA buddy to arrange the assassination of someone standing in his way and trying to build up public opinion against him. They targeted this naysayer. This was Bourne’s first non-training mission. Once in his target’s hotel room, he discovered that the target’s wife was there. Surprise! He has to do some quick thinking. Aha! Kill the target, then make it look as if the wife killed him then committed suicide. (No matter that there was a young daughter who would forever live with the false knowledge that her parents died like this. Oh, well – collateral damage. Few assassinations go exactly as planned, I guess. Wouldn’t know since my career has taken another path.)
Oil is quickly replacing money as “the root of all evil” in Hollywood-controlled movie productions and from them into people’s minds.
Unfortunately, nothing reliable and without side-effects has yet replaced oil to make the fuel to run my car. Ethanol is a pipe dream that, if fully realized, could result in massive food shortages. Electric cars won’t run without electricity, and since the anti-nuke/anti-windmill/anti-anysensiblesolution crowd is still going strong, there may not be enough both to charge up our cars and maintain our modern lifestyle in our homes (refrigerators, cooking ranges, microwaves, washers, dryers, TVs, computers, etc.). Of course, we’re all just a bunch of energy hogs that need to stop using such a huge chunk of the world’s resources – not!
Matt Damon better be investing his income wisely. If he keeps up his anti-oil stance, there won’t be enough energy in any form to make movies nor to show them – whether it’s in theaters or at home.
By the way, this movie came out in 2004, and the Russian government, led by then-President Vladimir Putin, began the process of nationalizing the oil fields in 2004. Gee, what a coincidence! Here’s another: One of the “crimes” that YUKOS, the largest oil company and Putin’s first takeover target, was convicted of was “nonpayment of a tax bill far exceeding the company’s profits.”
Sound familiar? It should.
Exxon, the current whipping boy for the anti-oil crowd, will pay out $40 billion (worldwide) in taxes for 2008. They paid $19.828 billion so far this year while earning $11.68 billion in their second quarter this year (assuming that the first quarter was about the same, they paid about $14 billion in taxes MORE than the profits they earned). Yet, Congress and Presidential-wannabee Obama are calling for more taxes to cut down those “obscene profits.” Exxon earns much of those profits outside of the U.S. and pays taxes to the respective governments. (Get more details at Mark J. Perry’s blog.) But, again, Congress and Obama don’t care. Exxon pays more in taxes than the bottom half of the income earners in the U.S., but that also doesn’t matter.
How long would your local grocery store stay in business if, for every dollar they took in above their expenses (i.e., profit), they paid out $1.50? How long could you survive if, for every dollar you earned above what you need for the basics (food, housing, utilities, healthcare, clothes), you had to pay out $1.50?
It’s time for all of us to get some sense. We are following in Putin’s footsteps. Our Congress is coming closer and closer to trying to nationalize our oil companies. Don’t believe me? Check out this FoxNews item. It seemed to have slipped by the other news outlets unnoticed. Yeah, right!
Gotta go hog some energy now.
Copyright © 2008 A.C. Cargill
A.C. Cargill resides on the East Coast for now, has lived in several locations, including Europe, and uses her background in technical writing, including researching topics online, along with her degree in Philosophy and English, to point out good ideas that aren’t so good afterall. She and her hubby also have a fun blog that takes a little lighter look at the issues: Break Time Topics (things to read while you take a break to enjoy your morning coffee of afternoon tea). Also, don’t miss her on Townhall.com.
