Journal for Bruce B. Salem

August 31, 2005

Some of the scenerio offered in the movie "Oil Storm" which was suppressed off mainstream networks has come to pass with the hurricane named "Katrina" that smashed into the Gulf Coast. New Orleans is 80% flooded because the levies failed and the supply of oil has been disrupted, and depending on what the real damage to the infrastructure is, could work out like the movie.

This all bodes ill for President Bush and the Republican Party because Bush is tightly bound to the fortunes of the oil supply. Some Democrats are already blaming Bush for the whole thing, including the hurricane, because they think it is due to Global Warming, something Bush doesn't wan't to deal with. That is a hard sell to people who only worry about the American standard of living and the comfort level to which they have grown accoustomed. If the oil supply is affected and prices stay high or get much higher, or Bush is percieved to not act quickly and decisively in addressing the disaster, he and the Republicans will get the blame, like it or not.

If it is felt by people that the fiscal policies and the Bush Energy policy not only have imperialed vital infrastructure, like the levie system around New Orleans, or the oil supply system, but that foreign policy is driven by the economic interests of oil companies who are close to Bush. This could be the bellweather of a large political shift.

The worst may not be over. The "Oil Storm" movie portrayed far reaching effects some of which could come as soon as next winter in the Northeast as the price of healing oil excludes old and poor people, some of whom freeze to death. Better hope for a warm winter. The movie actually didn't go far enough in playing out the possible effects. Prehaps to even get the limited play it got, the editors had to tone it down and have a return to the normacy that preceeded the events. The fact is that such a sequence of events could signal perminant change even beyound an economic recession or depression, not the least of which would be the political fallout.