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An 8 March letter addressed to the editor by the Los Angeles TimesThis perfectly captures the lies and delusions into which leftists have to sink when describing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
“The Biden administration and those who support the policies to keep a lid on oil prices are literally trading dollars at the pump for human lives,” wails a reader from Redondo Beach. “If you really want to help the people of Ukraine, stop complaining about gas prices.”
Meanwhile, a new Quinnipiac University poll discovered that, even with gas prices at record levels, 78 percent of Americans support the idea of banning imports of Russian oil — and the price increases that would result — in order to support the Ukrainians.
Unfortunately, as gratifying as these sentiments may be to President Pass-the-Buck and the noisy special interests that engineered his election just over a year ago, they’re completely undercut by two baseless assumptions.
First, while banning Putin’s oil may be a useful symbolic gesture, there’s precious little to suggest such a step would have any impact on Russia — which could easily sell the U.S. share to our feckless, oil-starved European allies — let alone help the besieged Ukrainians.
Lest we forget, oil prices in the U.S. had already more than doubled in just the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency — long before Russian artillery had fired a shot into Ukraine.
And secondly, there’s even less evidence from which to conclude Biden “support(s) … policies to keep a lid on oil prices.”
It is actually the exact opposite.
Both the president and environmentalists within his base want to see gas prices go through the roof. Is there any other reason for the president’s eagerness to end drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), and put the Keystone Pipeline on hold? Is there any other reason to cancel oil and gas leases?
Maybe Biden can’t reverse all these catastrophic decisions overnight, but he could certainly set the wheels in motion and put the world on notice that America intends to explore, drill, pump, and ship its way back into energy independence in record time.
Only he — and those holding his purse strings — don’t want to.
While Biden is beholden philosophically to green activists, the real money comes largely from the leaders of Big Labor — to whom Biden promised on the campaign trail to be the “most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.”
In accordance with a July 2020 Article PoliticoThe issue of environmentalism is a matter where organized labor is divided. They note that:
“Broadly, the split among unions is most marked between trade unions whose jobs are tied to the fossil fuel industry and those representing the service sector, like healthcare, government and custodial workers.”
Simply put, the leaders of private sector unions, although liberal in nature, distrust clean-energy efforts because they are afraid that green companies will create millions of manufacturing jobs.
These concerns are not shared by government employee unions. The product for them is regulation and bureaucracy. Government grows new members dues-paying because of this.
No surprise that the public sector union leaders have little concern for their members’ welfare and wishes is not surprising. Organizations like SEIU, AFSCME, and the various teachers’ unions long ago abandoned worker advocacy in favor of lining the pockets of their leadership and advancing a decidedly socialist political agenda.
Including bankrupting the country’s private-sector energy industry.
“The Biden master plan is for American oil and gas production and consumption to go to zero over the next 15 to 20 years,” writes syndicated columnist Stephen Moore. “How do you achieve that goal? By making oil and gas so expensive and so unavailable that Americans are forced to use alternatives.”
In the abstract the argument makes almost sense. Once you’ve swallowed the climate change narrative hook, line, and sinker, and anointed yourself the savior of the planet, it’s easy to conclude future generations will erect monuments to your foresight and willingness to impose a little short-term tough love on the unbelievers.
The problem with such a strategy — in addition to the very real possibility your core assumptions are actually wrong — is that not everyone is willing to play the game by your rules.
For generations, green policy zealots have portrayed their ideology as fundamentally moral. They shame anyone else who views things differently as heretics and paid shills for energy companies looking to make a buck from Mommy Earth’s rape.
These past weeks have however shown that the unavoidable, terrible consequences of handing power to children who are not prepared and political opportunists has been revealed in Ukraine.
The bloody reality is that Vladimir Putin couldn’t care less what the climate change alarmists think, even should their Chicken Little predictions happen to prove true. The only thing he knows about Putin is his desire to rebuild the Soviet Union. Neither the United States nor NATO can help him because he sacrificed the immense advantage of energy independence in favor of political expedience.
It’s no longer an academic exercise, and this isn’t about polar bears and pretty flowers. You are the naïve, self-indulgent fantasies of the Left are directly responsible for the wanton slaughter playing out in real time before our eyes — and it’s liable to get much worse before it gets any better.
You must hold them accountable for once.
Jeff Rhodes, Vice President News and Information at Freedom Foundation is Jeff Rhodes. www.FreedomFoundation.com
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