I really think this all comes down to a belief that Trump and many Americans hold, that oil is irreplaceable. They have convinced themselves, or have been convinced by others, that civilizations can’t exist without oil, and fossil fuels more broadly. Because of this belief, they’re betting hard on oil and gas. They want to take control of as much of the world’s remaining oil reserves as possible, both to secure oil for ourselves but also to restrict access to adversaries, like China.

But this belief is wrong. Civilizations can exist without fossil fuels, or at least with very minimal fossil fuel use, especially for energy. Fossil fuels are very inefficient and nonrenewable, in addition to being highly polluting. Renewables, like solar and wind, are much more efficient, especially for electricity generation. To generate electricity with fossil fuels, you have to extract the material from the ground, refine it, transport it, then burn it to boil water to generate steam to turn a turbine to generate the electricity. There are a lot of steps there, and a lot of the energy is lost in the process. With solar and wind, electricity is generated at the source. It’s true that solar panels and wind turbines are not very efficient at turning the wind and sunlight into electricity, but once the electricity is generated, all you have to do is transmit it to where it is either stored or used. Some energy is lost in transmission, but that’s true of electricity generated from fossil fuels, too. Renewables are simply more efficient. And, as the name implies, they are renewable. The sun will continue to shine and the wind will continue to blow for a very long time.

So as the world wakes up this realization, the world will continue to transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. That will reduce the demand for fossil fuels. The oil companies know this, that’s why they’re not in any great hurry to go and spend billions of dollars to significantly increase oil production. If they dramatically increase oil production, but the overall demand for oil doesn’t also increase significantly, the price for their product will fall. They don’t want to sell their product for less money, because that will reduce their profits. Lowering the price of oil sounds great to consumers of the product, who want lower gas and diesel prices, but the companies selling it don’t want that. Companies want to sell their product for the highest price possible, so they can maximize their profit.

The US is betting on a fossil fuel future, but we’re going to lose that bet. We’ve convinced ourselves, or have been convinced, that oil especially is irreplaceable and that renewables/electrification are a scam. We’re wrong. An electrified world powered primarily by renewables is the future. The longer we continue down this misguided path, the further behind the rest of the world we will fall.

Just because it’s a bad strategy doesn’t mean they won’t try it. In trying to figure out this administration’s next moves, using faulty logic might actually help. Kind of a, “if I were an idiot, what would I do,” sort of thing.

Iran could be our next target. Trump wants to cut off oil supplies to China. China does import much of their oil from Russia and Saudi Arabia, in addition to Iran and Iraq (Chinese oil imports from Venezuela had been increasing recently), and I’m not sure how they expect to stop oil from flowing to China from Russia and Saudi Arabia, but what is clear is they view oil as power and they want to weaken China by targeting their oil supplies.

Edit: Could this all be to build up our oil reserves, and restrict China from building up their reserves, in preparation for an eventual war with China?

There’s a theory that I’ve seen floating around the Internet for years now that the US could easily defeat China in a war by just cutting off their supply of oil. Maybe that’s our plan.

Unconfirmed reports to the Canary suggest that the US is withdrawing non-essential staff from its embassies in both Lebanon and Israel.

I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being true, but I’ll wait for confirmation.

I get what you’re saying but my dismissal of the idea that the Federal government was too powerful spanned decades and multiple presidential administrations, both Democrat and Republican. It hasn’t been until Trump, or more specifically Trump’s second term that I’ve even started to question it. So, for me at least, it isn’t merely a matter of partisan grievance.

I think it’s more a matter of seeing the incredible power of the Federal government fall into the hands of people whom I consider to be severely misguided, unhinged and wildly incompetent that is making me reconsider my position.

Does this qualify as intelligently arranging for the well being of citizens?

https://lemmy.world/post/41336318

So we just have to take the bad with the good? This woman’s life, and all the lives taken by the Federal government over the many years are just the price we have to pay for the privilege of having our “well being” managed by benevolent technocrats in the Federal government?

For my entire life, I’ve been hearing people warn that the Federal government was too large, too powerful. I never gave it much credence. I often dismissed these people as just paranoid weirdos. I’m starting to think they were on to something. It was relatively easy to ignore these folks when the Federal government was generally competent and stable enough, but now, perhaps the MAGA movement has exposed something.

Maybe the Federal government is too large and powerful. Maybe we do need a weaker Federal government. Maybe states should have more power, more autonomy, greater independence.

I know I’m going to get some reflexive negative responses to this, because it might appear that I’m aligning myself with some problematic right wing libertarians, but given all that’s happening I think the idea that the Federal government might be too powerful is a possibility we have to at least consider.

I am frustrated by the things that the MAGA movement does, led of course by Trump. But I am even more frustrated by the Americans who refuse to see the systemic failures that have made all of this possible, inevitable even. If you do not see by now that our governmental and political institutions and systems possess fatal flaws, and thus need to be changed, you’re part of the problem.

He’s going to do whatever he thinks he can get away with.

Are the other of the nations of the world really so helpless? Hopeless? If you want to roll over and die, that’s up to you, but if it were me, I would fight to the death, even and especially if it were a lost cause. I mean, look at the guerilla fighters who fought back against the mighty US in Vietnam or Iraq. They gave the US hell and they sure didn’t have trillions of dollars to work with. Sure, the guerilla fighters lost a lot, but they made damn certain that America didn’t “win.”

If you have a better idea, let’s hear it.

A coalition of nations that are opposed to imperialism needs to be formed. Only a world united against imperialism can stop these imperialist powers.

Exactly. The majority aren’t going to take action against something that isn’t on their radar. The majority may just be along for the ride, but that doesn’t change the destination.

Some Americans absolutely want this. But, yes, it’s probably not a majority. Of course, I don’t think the majority can, or will, do anything about it.

The world needs to take the threat of the US very, very seriously. Don’t assume that upcoming US elections will fix the problem. There’s no guarantee those elections will even take place. Take steps to protect yourselves now.

I guess the way I understood the original intent was that we were attempting to set up a bulwark against further expansion from European colonialism.

That was the original intent. That is absolutely true. But the doctrine has evolved or expanded since. One major addition was the Roosevelt Corollary, right around the turn of the 20th century.

The corollary states that the United States could intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries if they committed flagrant wrongdoings that “loosened the ties of civilized society.”

Eventually, the “wrongdoings” came to include anything related to the “spread of communism.”

I don’t think the average American citizen wants hemispheric domination.

That’s probably true, but some Americans absolutely do want that, and many of those people are a part of Trump’s political coalition. This new enhanced version of the Roosevelt Corollary is sometimes called the “Donroe Doctrine” or the “Trump Corollary.”

Your sentence about control over the Western hemisphere implies that the majority of Americans are pro-imperialist.

Aren’t they?

The Monroe doctrine has evolved since 1823. It has been invoked or used as inspiration or justification for US involvement, solicited or unsolicited, in the political and economic affairs of several countries in Central and South America, especially those with socialist governments.

Even major European allies, more cautious and measured in tone, carefully signaled concern about the operation’s legality while largely aligning with the U.S. on policy.

Grow a pair, Europe.

Is the edict not the Monroe doctrine? Or some modern iteration of it?