Petropolitics?
Thomas Freidman made the above observation: He then ties in this quote:
When I heard the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declare that the Holocaust was a €śmyth,€ť I couldn€™t help asking myself: €śI wonder if the president of Iran would be talking this way if the price of oil were $20 a barrel today rather than $60 a barrel.€ť
In essence, the price of Freedom is directly proportional to the price of oil. And, he cites some obvious correlations. The ebb and flow of democracy in Russia. The actions in Iran. The actions in several parts of the world.
But, he also omits ( from the synopsis I have seen ), to very obvious situations that are running contrary to those observations. IMO, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, and even Afghanistan. In my essence, several countries are bucking the price of oil to freedom connection. Now, what I do agree with is something slightly different and a LOT older, basically, “He has the gold rules”. Now, you have to slightly modify that to fit my
actual philosophy to something like “They who has the gold THINK they rule”.
Now, that is a lot different than actually ruling. So, I really don’t agree with Friedman’s “petropolitics” as he’s describing it here. IMO, we live in the silicon age and the availability of silicon products is what’s directly proportional to freedom. Our obsession with oil just makes little Caesars a little braver is all.
