PIPELINES AND OTHER OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH

President Obama has an excellent opportunity today to, one, reduce some of our dependence on Middle East oil, and two, reduce unemployment by several thousand people. I am talking about good paying jobs of construction, driving, and all the management that those positions require. Of course I am talking about the Keystone pipeline from Canada to Texas. It should be noted that there exists today many pipelines in so-called environmentally sensitive areas. This proposed pipeline will have no more effect on this area than any of the others do now. For reasons that could only be political, Obama has refused to even consider approving this pipeline until after the election next November. The Congress, however, has snookered him into having to make a decision well before he would like to. He now has less than two months.

Let’s think about this. Who would be opposed to such an opportunity? What rational person could ever come up with any sane or logical opposition to this prospect of both jobs and energy? Well it isn’t the unions. No, they favor this job producer. The opposition comes from the so-called environmental movement. I say so-called because the environment is not at all what they are concerned about. No, they have a totally different agenda. These are the same morons who ride their bicycles in heavy automobile traffic headed for the recycling center to deposit their aluminum cans clad only in their little spandex leotards looking for all the world like  rejected dancers from a ballet company. We call them environmentalist wackos. Now please don’t get me wrong. I see myself as an environmentalist. The big difference is that I am also a realist. I believe in protecting the world and all of its natural resources. I don’t want to waste anything and while I love the natural world, I also love my fellow man. Oh, and by the way, humans are also a part of the natural world. If I have to pick between a snail darter fish and a human being, the fish is in trouble. If some lizard is compromised by our need to feed, clothe, and warm humanity, sorry Mr. Lizard. You lose. If that sounds harsh to you, too bad.

The truth of the matter of this pipeline is something quite different. The wackos don’t really care about fish or lizards. They just hate capitalism. They despise the thought of American exceptionalism. It has been said that the environmental movement is actually a refuge for yesterday’s communists. I have no proof, but it certainly makes sense to me. The real troubling part of all this is Obama’s willingness to put the environmentalist’s feeble concerns over what’s best for the American people. He has a real dilemma. Does he listen to the unions or does he ignore them in favor of the environmentalist wackos? And why does he want to wait until after the election to deal with this issue? Seems pretty clear to me. He just wants to get re-elected. After that he will not need his base, either group. But then I am something of a skeptic.

Here is something else for you to consider. With one little eruption of one little volcano in Iceland, more pollution is spewed into the atmosphere than all that the green movement could change in a hundred years. All the Prius drivers and bicyclists combined couldn’t change the effect of ten minutes of volcanic eruption. Reality sometimes sucks, huh?

This whole thing is obvious to any thinking person. Obama is trying to please too many of his base at the expense of the only people he should be concerned about, the American people. They are the ones who will judge his actions and will hold him responsible in November. Here is an excellent opportunity for him to show true leadership and get this pipeline going. The positives? Jobs, and energy. The negatives? A few disgruntled environmentalist wackos. Doesn’t sound like too tough a choice to me.

Ron Scarbro January 4, 2012