Democracy Waning, oil drilling and the fictious fish.

Wikopedia describes a "red herring" as "a technique used in literature to mislead the audience." It also describes it as "a logical fallacy in which one purports to prove one's point by means of irrelevant arguments."

There have been many recent cases of red herring in our politics.

I was listening to my roommate tell the old one about John Kerry when he said I voted for it before I voted against it. Now my roommate was saying "see this is a example of Kerry's flip flops".

I thought on this and said "well then the republicans who were in the senate at that time must have voted against it before they voted for it so were they all flip floppers too?"

My roomie was aghast. "No" he said.

"The Republicans Senators would never have voted not to fund the troops. It was Kerry who flipped flopped".

But, I said if Kerry voted for the 87 billion supplemental package and the Republicans who were at the time were in the majority voted for it then wouldn't the bill have passed? Why would there be a need for a second vote? The one Kerry voted against?

My roomie was stunned and wandered off muttering. No way was I right. He was choking on his serving of red herring.

Now we fast forward to 2008. The price of oil has risen over 200% since Bush took office.

The Republicans have no one to run for president and nothing to stand for. So they have grasped on to Off shore oil drilling. This not homosexuals, or guns or religion will propel them and their flawed candidates into to office.

Now the oil companies already have 68 million unused acres of space to drill for oil This includes off shore in the gulf of Mexico. But they haven't used these sites. The truth is that the oil companies don't have the tools or rigs to do more drilling and they have little capacity to process more oil to gas than they are doing now.

Under cover of the a afore mentioned imaginary red fish they have used their influence with the republican party to suggest our problem is that we don't have enough places to drill right now and that's what is keeping prices high. Supply and demand.

If we could only" let the US drill off the coast of Florida" like Dick Cheney said the Chinese are doing in the 90 miles between the U.S. and Cuba. (This was later changed to like the Chinese were planning to do once someone actually questioned the statement from the dickster.)

Can you smell the herring ? The Chinese are not drilling 90 miles off our shores. There are already open oil leases in the gulf that big oil is not taking advantage of and of course the biggest fallacy Is that U.S. doesn't drill for oil. Oil companies do.

The oil, if found off the coast will sell at the exact same price as oil from Iraq or Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that that oil will come in about 10 years and will probably lower the price of gasoline at that time about $0.05/ gallon.

The lie is that somehow this oil will make us independent and it is echoed by the low information voter.

Drill they say drill in ANWR, drill off the coast. its safe, safer than ever before.

They site the fact that Hurricane Katrina along with clearing out all the poor people proved that oil rigs were safe from the storm. I even heard one republican strategists say "not one drop of oil was spilled during the disaster.

Actually over 40 rigs were destroyed during Katrina and Rita. 127 reported spills of oil from pipelines and drilling rigs. Oil spills visible from space and most of the oil never recovered.

It was a mess but again for those who feast on the herring of red, facts only get in the way.

Democracy Waning OUt!