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HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.

Weekend Edition April 22-24, 2006

No Relation Between Policy and Reality

Bush Passes the Buck on Soaring Gas Prices

by BILL PAHNELES

The other day during a brief press opportunity, President Bush expressed his concern about rising gasoline prices, assuring Americans that his administration feels the public’s pain, while laying out three reasons for rocketing prices of the past two months.

First, it’s those damned Chinese and Indians, trying to be more like us.

Second, it’s you and me, driving more because the weather’s nice..

Finally, high prices result from the (otherwise) routine change from winter- to summer-blend gasoline.

The standoff with Iran over its nuclear program didn’t even merit mention, as if Bush’s recent threats are directed a Martians.

Today, however, the AP spun the story thusly: "Crude-oil prices broke through $75 a barrel to hit a new record Friday, fueled by concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and tight U.S. gasoline supplies."

It isn’t as though people don’t recognize the difference between what Bush says, and reality on the other side. We’re just resigned to this administration making up its own narrative to keep things bobbling along–at least until the next disaster.

What’s odd is the AP’s own construction of a narrative that–if not in total agreement with the administration’s–makes Washington out as a passive, rather than active, player in the story.

Whose concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, after all, is driving this "crisis," anyway?

So far, Iranian nuclear "threat" is premised on a fanciful scenario where the mullahs or President Ahmadinejad acquire a nuclear weapon, and promptly, without heed to consequences use it to annihilate the state of Israel.

On the other hand, the Bush administration’s neo-con cadre is fully prepared to conduct a "preventive" strike against Iran–perhaps using nuclear weapons–to promote world peace and non-proliferation–and just incidentally remove a regime that has been in their sights at least as long as Saddam.

The oil markets are, understandably, jittery at the latter prospect–far more than the former. They, of course, understand the downside of an attack on Iran–in a way the Bush administration is hoping the American public will not.

One can only hope that the American public is at least self-interested enough to comprehend what, in the past couple of months, has propelled those rising gas prices.

Otherwise, as the old Greek saying goes, he who doesn’t have sense has feet.

BILL PAHNELAS can be reached at: wpahnelas@gmail.com.