Greg Palast

BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast came through town recently for another benefit for KPFT while promoting his new book, "Vulture's Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores." From Greg's talk Thursday evening, several people running free belong in jail, and I believe it. Justice in this nation has become warped.

The Occupy movement could be seen as an outgrowth of the kind of muck that Greg has been raking over the past 8 years and 3 books. The 1% fucking the 99% fits Greg's narrative to a "T." Somehow, we have to remove the corporate shills that currently infest Congress, but that's only one piece. The US is already far down the rathole.

You can download or read online Chapter 1 of Greg's new book by clicking here. It certainly leaves you wanting more. The Vulture's Picnic site is here.

OK, just one thing we learned Thursday evening from Greg: two years prior to the Deepwater Horizon "accident" (Greg calls it a "homicide"), BP experienced a catastrophic failure on a rig in the Caspian Sea, and the equipment that failed in the Deepwater Horizon was the same kind of equipment that failed in the Caspian Sea. BP said they'd never seen anything like what happened to Deepwater Horizon. Lying sacks of shit.

And I had one other revelation Thursday evening. It wasn't anything that Greg said exactly, but I suppose listening to him helped to trigger it...

We all know that powerful interests have been funding climate change skeptics, prominent among them Exxon and some "think tanks." Let's just say "Exxon" for brevity. So, Exxon has been paying people to actively dispute the findings of climate scientists, sowing dissension in the country and in the Congress, paralyzing those who could be and should be taking action, actions like limiting greenhouse gasses or aggressively switching to alternative energy sources.

It is in Exxon's interest to paralyze Congress. It's not that Exxon doubts that climate change is real and happening, they just don't want anything done about it. Exxon employs many engineers and scientists who know the science is accurate. They know that increased greenhouse gasses will continue to warm the atmosphere and melt the ice caps, revealing brand-new sources of oil, but without that pesky ice pack, it's easier to drill for oil.

So they are willing to let the ice caps melt (and sea levels rise, whatever) so that they can more easily access the oil in the polar regions. If that's not short-sighted and damn near suicidal, tell me what is.

That may not be any kind of revelation to you, but somehow it all became clearer to me last night. Greedy, cynical bastards. And so far they're getting away with it.