What do you think about the Keystone pipeline? Is the reality what you think it is?

If you listen to the GOP you'll get a different story on a different day about why the USA needs the Keystone pipeline expansion.

They'll say that the USA needs it for energy independence. They'll say that the USA needs it to develop our resources. They'll say that the USA needs it for the jobs it will create.   Now they say we need it to make Russia weaker.

What is the reality.  The reality is their big donors in the Oil and Gas industry want it so they can make more money.  Plain and simple.
Let us look as some facts that are easily understood that show how much of a lie the GOP is pushing and how many Americans are swallowing it hook line and sinker.

So lets take point 1.  The pipeline doesn't help with energy independence.  The primary purpose of the pipeline is to get product from Canada to refineries in the gulf.  That refined product is then shipped around the world in a globally controlled market. Some of it will stay in the USA but the cost at the pump is the same regardless if the product came from a well half way around the world, from a well a thousand miles away or from a oil well 15 minutes from the refinery and your local petrol station.

On to point 2.  The fact is the pipeline will service mostly product from Canada.  Many people don't realize how much fossil fuel Canada has.  Mostly because up until recently it wasn't cost effective to extract and refine.  The oil isn't what you might think. It isn't like the oil Jed Clampett found while shooting at some food.  This stuff is dirty dirty dirty. The chemicals and processes they use to make it be able to flow through the pipelines makes it even worse.

Point 3.The jobs the pipeline will create are 2 kinds.  Short term construction jobs that go away and don't actually contribute in the grand picture.  The 2nd is the jobs created by the inevitable spills that will occur.  Some how I'd rather not have to employ people to clean up these environmental disasters.  First off our tax dollars goes into that clean up.  It isn't like Exxon flips the bill for the entire clean up.  Fuck the "clean up" is often a joke.  Many of them have the offending companies shrugging their shoulders how it could even be done leaving a natural disaster not only for you but your children when they are all grown up.

Point 4.  It won't make Russia weaker.  The global market for oil is controlled in ways you wouldn't even dream of.  Production is controlled to control prices.  No one in the gas and oil industry want to really compete.  They don't produce to capacity because that just drives down the price.  They keep the demand high so they can maximize their log term profits.  Russia will still drill, refine and sell the same amount of oil at the same price regardless of the situation with Keystone.

Lets move on to safety.  How many pipeline incidents do you think happen in the USA?  You might be able to think of a handful you've seen on the news if you are lucky.  But the reality is that there about 300 every year amounting to about 250 million dollars a year in property damage and around 20 deaths a year and almost 100 injuries directly attributed to the pipeline incidents.

Currently our refineries aren't laying dormant.  They are receiving enough product from existing pipelines and other transportation methods.

The fact is that this just reduces the cost for the oil and gas manufactures.  You might think this would drive down prices but this isn't a capitalistic market.  Free market principals do not apply here and any savings gained goes straight to the share holders, executives.  The consumer sees none of that.

You can be for or against the pipeline.  That is your choice.  But the GOP and their lies about why it should go ahead?  You should only swallow that if you like the taste of shit.

Sarah Palin will have you think environmentalist are complaining about nothing that "That earthworm can take one for the team" Note Sarah Palin doesn't care about the environment because she believes that the rapture is right around the corner.  Fuck why should she want an Earth where her children can raise their children when she thinks they'll all be brought up to heaven ahead of us heathens, that want to protect and preserve our environment, who will sit under judgement of Jesus for 1,000 years before getting our souls completely destroyed. That is going to happen any day now according to people like her.  How anyone could want a politician that actively promotes the idea that the world needs to come to an end is beyond me.  Up to that point she thinks she might as well get as rich and powerful as she can.