I have a dream too.

tim_wand

I don't want to trivialise the fact that its the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther Kings speech, and I am in no way suggesting that racism is still not an every day occurrence in our society even in the 21st century.

But I have been thinking lots of late about what actually constitutes a civilised society.

It occurs to me that more and more our foreign policy is based on how much of an interest we have in a certain nations supply of petro chemical resources or logistics, and whether we intervene or not has little to do with humanistic principles and everything to do with how it effects those in charge of the upper echelons of our economy.

I served in Op Granby (Gulf War 1990-91) and at the time as a young idealistic service man believed righteously that we were deployed to liberate Kuwait. In retrospect I feel now we were doing nothing more than protecting George W Bush and his friends in the Petro Chemical industry.

American foreign policy to which we are to oft aligned seems only concerned in Protecting Israeli interest in the Middle East. Where is Obama's response now his red line is crossed?

The major money producing industries of the Western World seem to rely on a vestige interest in maintaining and promoting a Petro Chemical fuelled existence.

I am convinced that we have the resources and the knowledge in the West of being able to sustain ourselves on far more environmentally friendly technologies than those we rely on oil from the Middle East to feul.

Development of such technologies would surely give us a double advantage of not having to be reliant and therefore sensitive to regimes in this region or the need to get involved in their politics or at the very least if we did so that it would be for the right reasons.

It would appear to me there are too many in the West with a vested interest in instability in the Middle East to sanction or advise support based on a purely humanitarian agenda.

An example of this would be Saudi Arabia's statement that any European aid withdrawn for Egypt as a sanction would immediately be substituted with Saudi funding.

We have let the Saudis get away with all sorts in the UK for fear of offence and withdrawal of Oil supplies,.

I can think of no better reason why we should not drive forward with investment in technologies which don't rely on Crude than this.

The Arabs could just then sit on their pile of Sand and rotting Fossils and not hold the whip hand over the rest of us.

sloppyschleckonds

My next car will be a Tesla

Frank the tank

tim wand wrote:

I don't want to trivialise the fact that its the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther Kings speech, and I am in no way suggesting that racism is still not an every day occurrence in our society even in the 21st century.

But I have been thinking lots of late about what actually constitutes a civilised society.

It occurs to me that more and more our foreign policy is based on how much of an interest we have in a certain nations supply of petro chemical resources or logistics, and whether we intervene or not has little to do with humanistic principles and everything to do with how it effects those in charge of the upper echelons of our economy.

I served in Op Granby (Gulf War 1990-91) and at the time as a young idealistic service man believed righteously that we were deployed to liberate Kuwait. In retrospect I feel now we were doing nothing more than protecting George W Bush and his friends in the Petro Chemical industry.

American foreign policy to which we are to oft aligned seems only concerned in Protecting Israeli interest in the Middle East. Where is Obama's response now his red line is crossed?

The major money producing industries of the Western World seem to rely on a vestige interest in maintaining and promoting a Petro Chemical fuelled existence.

I am convinced that we have the resources and the knowledge in the West of being able to sustain ourselves on far more environmentally friendly technologies than those we rely on oil from the Middle East to feul.

Development of such technologies would surely give us a double advantage of not having to be reliant and therefore sensitive to regimes in this region or the need to get involved in their politics or at the very least if we did so that it would be for the right reasons.

It would appear to me there are too many in the West with a vested interest in instability in the Middle East to sanction or advise support based on a purely humanitarian agenda.

An example of this would be Saudi Arabia's statement that any European aid withdrawn for Egypt as a sanction would immediately be substituted with Saudi funding.

We have let the Saudis get away with all sorts in the UK for fear of offence and withdrawal of Oil supplies,.

I can think of no better reason why we should not drive forward with investment in technologies which don't rely on Crude than this.

The Arabs could just then sit on their pile of Sand and rotting Fossils and not hold the whip hand over the rest of us.

I will get out on a ride with you one day fella and mull some stuff over a bit of coffee and cake.

hipshot

Interesting post. Basically agree with all of this.

tim wand wrote:

The Arabs could just then sit on their pile of Sand and rotting Fossils and not hold the whip hand over the rest of us.

All of the major Oil Arabs are just puppets, pockets stuffed with USD in return for political support and the suppression of their own people. The only resistance is coming from Syria and Iran hence the hostility towards them. If anything the West has the whip hand over the Saudis not the other way round. It's the oil lobby and the Israeli lobby in the US that needs overcoming before any progress can be made.

DM222

hipshot wrote:

Interesting post. Basically agree with all of this.

+1

crumbschief

Saw your avatar,still making me laugh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uSTOHa4Im4

lawrences

If they weren't oil rich they would be classed as a terrorist nation.

Committed several war crimes a few years ago with the use of incendiary missile attacks on civilian areas yet nothing's seemed to have been done about it.

tim_wand

I m not sure if Middle age has driven me to Cynicism or Idealism. But what I witnessed the other night in Syria (Obviously via media channels) just made me despair.

As an ex service man mobilised to action on what I always believed were noble intents, I really do now feel sick to the core by the rhetoric and inability of our so called leaders to defend the truly vulnerable of this World for fear of upsetting Economic allegiances.

The United Nations , What a Joke!!! I first joined the British Army in fear of a Cold War as part of NATO and now we need the ascent of Russia and China to act "legally" to save the lives of Innocents!!!

I m going to get this quote wrong but hopefully I will convey the sentiment.

" In order for evil to flourish all is required is for good men to look away"

I think nowadays its more a case of " In order for evil to flourish all that is required is for a few shisters to make a profit "


P.s Frank lets spin a wheel before either the summer or my mood gets too dark,

meursault

We need to analyse the root of the problem. The way society is organised. Then we can move forward. It's the position Malcolm X was gravitating towards before his death.

tim_wand

meursault wrote:

We need to analyse the root of the problem. The way society is organised. Then we can move forward. It's the position Malcolm X was gravitating towards before his death.

I don t think the powers that be will allow such analyse , Look what happened to Malcolm X, look what has resulted from the "Arab Spring" its the same old story time and time again.

13 of the last 20 or this countries prime ministers attended Eton, nearly all were Oxford or Cambridge educated, God only Knows how many MPs have secondary jobs or consultancies in either petro chemical or arms manufacturing industries, and the position in the U.S senate is even worse.

It would be interesting to see what would have Prevailed if Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and even John F Kennedy had succeeded into later life as to what impact they would have had on today.

I m no conspiracy theorist but I m sure there is a common reason why they did not!

Maybe they were the "Good men that evil didn't want watching"

Or more to the point who are their contemporaries today?

Nobel Peace Prize winner Barrack Obhama and Middle East Peace Envoy Tony Blair.

I apologise for mentioning them in the same sentence as the above.

Mikey23

Yup, inequality and oppression is what 'western civilisation' was founded on and what enables to thrive. In a sense we all look away. The stuff that is going on in Syria right now is downright shocking but we don't act because its not in our interest to do so. Noble intents are always the propaganda and the lie

ballysmate

What do you honestly expect western countries to do? Invade Syria? Give untrained rebels arms to take on a regime that can and does deploy chemical weapons?
The UN was set up by people who, looking back, were naive idealists. It really is useless, with its passing of resolution after resolution. On the world stage, the only powers are economic and military. There are only a handful of countries who can exercise the former and probably the same bunch who could exercise the latter in any meaningful way. You are right that the world looks on, sat on their collective hands, but by that you mean the West, as nobody else seems interested in intervening. Any intervention would be blocked at the UN by China/Russia, so any action would be outside UN sanction, so we would be waging an illegal war.(What a bizarre term). That would be right popular with the man on the street in the UK wouldn't it?
After Granby, there was thought of invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam. It was quickly realised that the only forces that would be supporting such a venture would be US and UK, the rest would pull out. So the Kurds and other minorities had to endure almost another decade of atrocities before the world developed the political will to remove Saddam. I have to nail my colours to the mast and say that I was in favour of the Iraq invasion, because as I have said elsewhere, I believe that the strong should step in to protect the weak. But we quickly went from being the good guys to be seen as the bad guys, invading not liberating. I see no different outcome for Syria and God knows what regime would be ushered in.
The OP reeled off some notable names. MLK, yes a great man. But Malcolm X, the black supremacist? No better than a white supremacist. JFK? You don't buy into that Camelot crap do you?
I really don't get the self flagellation that we in the west go in for concerning the state of some regimes. Some people want to lay the blame for the world's ills at our doorstep, and in my opinion, unjustly so.

VTech

Ive spent the last ten years of my life working with various companies on fuel efficiency and test cells.
There is only one issue that ever comes up in these debates that holds ground with any government, no matter the country and that is ability to tax.
It is with the lack of ability that brings the issues we are currently facing. I cant/wont go into some of the facts surrounding fuel, environment etc as you probably wouldn't believe me anyway but all is not so clear.
What I can say is that there is already in production zero rated fuels and sustainable power sources and the only issue around non-production is taxation.

If any of you are in or around vegas in the first week of November get yourself over to the SEMA show at Las Vegas Convention Centre for the speech by these guys; http://www.cleangreenengines.com/our-products/

Peddle Up!

As the greatly-missed comedian Linda Smith put it, "the problem is that our oil is under their sand".

tim_wand

Peddle Up! wrote:

As the greatly-missed comedian Linda Smith put it, "the problem is that our oil is under their sand".

What a great Woman she was, such a shame she was taken so early, it was her Presidency of the BHA , that really got me interested in Humanism (After as stated on here in other posts, my problem with prescribed religion)

I possibly shouldn't have alluded to Malcolm X earlier in this post, but at least these figures (MLK, JFK et al) seemed to act with no other agenda than the courage of their convictions.

pliptrot

I love all the stuff about conspiracies and Government control and so on,.... we could invent a water engine but then there'd be no value in it because it couldn't be taxed...blahblahblah....
The simple truth is that money talks and the world runs on cheap energy, with oil and gas being the cheapest. America leads the way, of course, with the all that matters is money way of thinking. Bhopal? F^ck 'em, uncivilized, poor foreigners. Piper Alpha? Working class oiks. No one was ever prosecuted for either of these disasters, and compensation paid was derisory. Now, when it's a foreign company in the US, their approach is somewhat different. BP and the Deep Water Horizon has seen endless litigation and amazing compensation claims. Got what the US wants? Then do anything you like. Just sell it to them cheaply. You haven't got what they want, and you're not prepared to suck up? You're done for.

VTech

Here is no conspiracy theories about affordable and sustainable fuels.

the playing mantis

regardless of ulterior motives, i dont think you can lump gulf war 1 in with the iraq invasion.

bally, you say you support the strong standing up for the weak, so wanted to get rid of saddam. however whoever was in charge would be persecuting some faction internally. its pointless getting involved in these internal squbales, especially when we should get our own house in order.

not nice, but thats what i think.

ballysmate

I agree that it may be idealistic when I say the strong should look after the weak and I agree that Iraq turned out badly for lots of reasons. That is why I would be reluctant to commit forces to another venture, unless there was no option. But at what level do you say enough is enough? If another Hitler was to rise to power, where would today's generation draw their line in the sand?

the playing mantis

i dont know really. outward aggression for sure, like the invasion of kuwait, but the whole ethnic cleansing situation is dodgy. the current situtions are not examples of this though imo.

bernithebiker

VTech wrote:

If any of you are in or around vegas in the first week of November get yourself over to the SEMA show at Las Vegas Convention Centre for the speech by these guys; http://www.cleangreenengines.com/our-products/

Vtech, it's all very well getting hydrogen fueled engines to work well in a fixed environment (eg. generators), but for a mobile application (eg. cars) they just haven't figured it out yet. Hydrogen is very voluminous and very tricky to store and transport. You also need a fair bit of energy to make it.

IF there was a realistic alternative to the petrol/diesel engine, don't you think the Yanks would have brought it to market by now? It's not like they enjoy being in thrall to the Arabs.....

VTech

bernithebiker wrote:

VTech wrote:

If any of you are in or around vegas in the first week of November get yourself over to the SEMA show at Las Vegas Convention Centre for the speech by these guys; http://www.cleangreenengines.com/our-products/

Vtech, it's all very well getting hydrogen fueled engines to work well in a fixed environment (eg. generators), but for a mobile application (eg. cars) they just haven't figured it out yet. Hydrogen is very voluminous and very tricky to store and transport. You also need a fair bit of energy to make it.

IF there was a realistic alternative to the petrol/diesel engine, don't you think the Yanks would have brought it to market by now? It's not like they enjoy being in thrall to the Arabs.....

There are sustainable fuels, it's the yanks ( well, oil companies) who do not want it bought out.
Also, you need fuels that can't be homemade so as to guarantee tax ability, after all, we can't just mine gasoline from our back yards

bernithebiker

VTech wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

VTech wrote:

If any of you are in or around vegas in the first week of November get yourself over to the SEMA show at Las Vegas Convention Centre for the speech by these guys; http://www.cleangreenengines.com/our-products/

Vtech, it's all very well getting hydrogen fueled engines to work well in a fixed environment (eg. generators), but for a mobile application (eg. cars) they just haven't figured it out yet. Hydrogen is very voluminous and very tricky to store and transport. You also need a fair bit of energy to make it.

IF there was a realistic alternative to the petrol/diesel engine, don't you think the Yanks would have brought it to market by now? It's not like they enjoy being in thrall to the Arabs.....

There are sustainable fuels, it's the yanks ( well, oil companies) who do not want it bought out.
Also, you need fuels that can't be homemade so as to guarantee tax ability, after all, we can't just mine gasoline from our back yards

There is still no realistic alternative to diesel or petrol as an automotive fuel.

pinno

Crunch time is coming. The rise of India and China means that the use of fossil fuels will peak and then we will be in an oil crises of epidemic proportions. I do agree that we try our utmost to keep the right side of the OPEC countries and this underlines the international hypocracy when it comes to human rights.
Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Uganda, China, Bosnia etc etc etc. No political will to sort massive abuses of human rights when its A not in our interest to do so and B Not in within our power.
Iraq and Afghanistan is a complete and utter f*ck ups - do you really think that active aggression towards Syria is going to have a long-term and positive effect? On paper, the idea that we must punish those who use chemiical weapons becasue if we don't, 'in the future blah blah'.... is all very well but without unequivacol, unanimous international consent, has no substance and will bring no long term peace. It is a can of worms, partly of our own making (again).

VTech

The answer is a question......."why" ?

Peddle Up!

pinarello001 wrote:

Crunch time is coming. The rise of India and China means that the use of fossil fuels will peak and then we will be in an oil crises of epidemic proportions. I do agree that we try our utmost to keep the right side of the OPEC countries and this underlines the international hypocracy when it comes to human rights.
Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Uganda, China, Bosnia etc etc etc. No political will to sort massive abuses of human rights when its A not in our interest to do so and B Not in within our power.
Iraq and Afghanistan is a complete and utter f*ck ups - do you really think that active aggression towards Syria is going to have a long-term and positive effect? On paper, the idea that we must punish those who use chemiical weapons becasue if we don't, 'in the future blah blah'.... is all very well but without unequivacol, unanimous international consent, has no substance and will bring no long term peace. It is a can of worms, partly of our own making (again).

Human history mate. Business as usual.