take for example the word "jurisdiction". made you chuckle, yeah?
what about "international waters"?
you know what else is a funny phrase? for, as "international waters" shows, words need not fly solo in order to be funny. the phrase "energy independence" i find hysterical.
what's this a-hole on about, now, you ask?
oh, nothing.
i simply find it to be a nagging curiosity how, in the last two hundred and twenty years or so, we have managed to accelerate the destruction of human kind, and the planet at large, at an alarming rate, over one simple thing...
...oil.
ah yes, the late eighteenth century. it was a good time, no?
the development of the internal combustion engine was underway, just waiting in the wings for the discovery of oil reserves to boost demand. the United States was just blossoming into its own little independent bloc of states. the indians still existed. the mormons didn't. texas was mexico's problem.
what a time to be alive.
but what the hell do i know? i wasn't born for another 200 years.
what i do know is that 200 years later, a smart ass little kid was born, somewhere in california, and ever since then he has been nothing but a miserable, depressed, bane on the existence of everyone he meets.
it's not uncommon for this fellow to field questions like, "what's your problem?" or "you got a problem?" or "you think you're better than me?"
to answer those questions in ascending order: sometimes, yes, i do think i am better than you. usually i do have a problem, yes. what's my problem? my problem is the crushing weight of the ponderance of the inherent misery in human existence bearing down upon my very shoulders every moment of every day. what's your problem?
to answer that question on behalf of mexico, 200 years later, texas is still their problem.
i realize that, geographically speaking, it is impossible for texas to get off mexico's back, but davey jesus crockett, texas, get off mexico's metaphorical back, already.
mexico's problem is that BritishPetroleum has "discovered" a massive oil reserve in the gulf of mexico, and the "approximate location" happens to be pretty goddamn close to "mexican territorial waters".
when it was discovered that cuba sat atop one of the largest oil reserves in the world what did the US do? fumbleruski!
so bitter are we still about the cuban-soviet ties during the cold war, that we sat on our thumbs and let cuba sell drilling rights to norway, brazil, and spain, then we bitched about how (even though the oil reserve is partially, and literally, under cuba, and fully within cuban territorial waters) we didn't have natural territorial rights to drill there.
boo fuckin' hoo. the edge of the reserve is only about 45 miles off the coast of florida, why can't we have it? no fair!
this is where i find the word "jurisdiction" funny. we sit back and bitch and moan that we can't drill in cuban waters because it's oh so close, we might as well just call it even, right? but by that logic, why can't we go up to canada and cut down their trees? it's so close, we might as well just say it's US territory. "your" trees, "my" trees, let's just call them "our" trees. now if you don't mind, we'll be taking "our" trees and shipping them to taiwan to turn into "our" swedish furniture. or for that matter, why can't we all just go down to mexico, bang some prostitutes, snort some coke, pack a bunch of unskilled laborers into the hatchback of a stolen chevy citation and... i've said too much.
you get the point. just because we want it, and it's almost ours, doesn't mean it is ours.
meanwhile, the petrolios are calling this discovery a big step toward energy independence...
...excuse me, i'm just laughing my ass off.
the first point i'd like to make is that there is no such thing as energy independence. energy, in the context it is used here (the kind that charges our iPods, and turns on the lights), is always dependent on something. either we're depending on the discovery of more oil, or the radioactive emissions of decaying matter, or the blowing of the wind. the list goes on, but energy like this does not occur naturally in any amount large enough to sustain a growing human population.
the second point i would like to make is that energy independence is not an ecological term, it is not green, it is not anything to be impressed by. energy independence is a slip of the tongue. when you break it down, energy independence, as a political term (and it is) is an admission that the fuckups and misdeeds of foreign affairs in the last 200 years or so, at least to some significant degree, were (are) in the name of search, seizure, and confiscation of energy resources.
now i'm not saying that "they" are saying that, should we achieve energy independence, we would cease military actions against foreign bodies, nor am i saying that world peace would follow independence from energy.
quite the contrary. for thousands of years we have found plenty of reasons and resources for which to kill each other (even in peaceful actions; the signs posted at the borders of the sierra national parks say "welcome to the sierras: land of many uses"). money, land, people (technically those could be considered the yield of resources, the source of resources, and the means to extracting resources, respectively, and what is oil but a resource?) and, most ludicrously, religion (but that is a whole other rant) have all been pretty high on the list of causes of death among humans. oil simply took a sudden, swift, and effective trip to the top of the list, and has reigned supreme by way of managing to combine all of those reasons into one big bloody unholy mess under one big black greasy umbrella. no, we won't stop killing each other come energy independence, we'll simply find another reason (perhaps this time over horse carcasses! how else will we sustain our burgeoning jell-O, adhesive, and processed meat industries? them hooves and rectums ain't free, ya know, and the arabs got them some real purdy horsies out there. i reckon they'd make a right tasty bologna sandwich).
but to get to the nuts and bolts of the matter, this oil reserve in mexico is not a step toward energy independence, it is another band-aid.
i see no feasible reason why we should even explore the option of drilling it. it is not a project that will yield lasting results. it will simply put off the inevitable even longer. it will placate us into believing that we don't need energy efficiency, or true independence from energy, or that we don't need to be concerned about the environment yet because we have a little more time before it all comes crashing down on us, and if we can put it off until after we are dead, it's not our problem, is it? that's our progeny's jurisdiction, now.
what's more, this reserve is very questionably close to mexican territorial waters, and the small patch of international waters that exists in the gulf. now, just because cuba got one over on us by existing on top of the last big oil discovery, let's not get all crazy and freak out over this thing.
i say who needs it?
let it be right where it is.
sure it would be smart business to pump it, then, instead of using it, to sell it off to other countries to pay off our debts, or even make a little cash on the side, but to what end? to serve as a blood diamond? a new and sinful penance for the sins of our fathers?
are we not one people, this human race?
should we all not advance at the same rate (too late for that, i know...)
why not take the money it would cost to begin a new drilling and piping operation in the gulf basin, take the time and effort and resources and man power we might put into dick wrestling mexico for jurisdiction (and if it does overlap international waters, what motivation does BP have for buying drilling rights from us, when they have every right to snatch it up for free?), why not take that money and put it into something a little more dependable?
renewables, healthcare, electrifying the auto industry, or the rail infrastructure, building efficient factories in the US to supply jobs, or invigorating school systems with well paid teachers, or up to date computers, science labs, or libraries, why not pay our debts to china by helping them build clean, humane factories with which to assemble our nikes and our lead based children's toys? why not invest in the farmers of central and south america, who every year scratch and claw to get by, so that trader joes can sell argentine blueberries out of season for 99cents a basket, or starbucks can sell a 64oz cup of colombian coffee for $4, and still make a $3.95 profit? or how about, instead of abusing cheap asian labor so that gap, and nokia can sell product(red) "for africa", we spend a little money to bolster support of programs like doctors without borders, peace corps, or any number of NGOs (shout out to village volunteers) that truly serve a purpose on the ground, and understand that "africa" is actually a number of different countries with different problems, not just one big darfur that needs a cuddly hug from bono?
but hey, i'm no oil baron, and i'm no politician, and i'm obviously no mexican (it's obvious, to look at me), so what happens with the gulf of mexico, and what lies beneath, and what prosperity that brings, well, i guess that's not my jurisdiction.
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