Happy Earth Day

Anatomy of the Great Bio-Fuels Scam

By Garrett St. James
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

April 22, 2007

Upon my first arrival to the city of Rio de Janeiro back in June of 2002, I wanted to visit the one place every tourist wants to see: O Cristo. So on a seemingly warm and beautiful day we made our way to the top of Corcovado. There it was, the giant world famous 125-foot statue of Christ the Redeemer, overlooking much of the city and Guanabara Bay. Armed with cameras, we quickly headed to the statue’s east side vista to take personal snapshots of one of the worlds most dazzling panoramic views. Except we encountered a problem: Directly below us, the city of Rio de Janeiro had disappeared.

The entire city and surrounding waterfront seemed to be enveloped in some sort of thick yellow cloud.

“....what is that stuff? Fog?” we asked ourselves but I knew better. Fog is a whitish grey while this was almost a solid yellow. It was smog. Oddly enough, an argument soon broke out because the Brazilians I was with kept insisting it was fog and not smog. This fog/smog soon became the main topic of the local news. Much to my chagrin, even the newscasters were calling it a “strange fog”. It became so bad that the airports also had to close. Rio de Janeiro had been engulfed in a yellow cloud but everyone seemed to be at a loss trying to explain it.

I stood fast to my “smog” convictions, though. I mean, come on, Rio de Janeiro is a massive metropolis coupled with typically lax third world Co2 emissions standards. It was a no-brainer and all you have to do is look at what a place like Mexico City experiences everyday. Heck it wasn’t only a third world problem, either. Cities such as Los Angeles and Rome often suffer from the same type of auto-pollution.

Nonetheless, my first trip up to the world famous O Cristo was ruined by smog. No spectacular photos could be taken and some other trip in the future had to be planned. However, after this brief ordeal I couldn’t help but feel somewhat annoyed by the local Cariocas who kept insisting it was nothing other than a “strange fog”. What the heck was wrong with those people? Why couldn’t they see and accept the obvious?

I quickly forgot about it though and it wasn’t until very recently, that I finally understood just what really transpired that particular June day back in Rio. Yes it was indeed smog but much to my own appalling ignorance, the smog wasn’t caused by typically lax third world Co2 emission standards. It was caused by Ethanol. Once I began to understand the history of ethanol in Brazil, the bizarre reactions of the local Brazilians began to equally make much more sense to me.

If you have been unfortunate enough as I have to being forced into watching hours of mindless TV in the last few weeks, it’s then you begin to see it. In between sporting events, reality TV, untimely celebrity deaths, Britney’s new style, dying pets, mass slaughter in Iraq and yet another lone nut shooting spree, you begin to catch it. At first you notice “the hype” with brief glimpses like the initial fat smatterings of a coming rainstorm. Splat… splat…splat…then the clouds really open up and it’s time to take some quick cover. We are arriving into what will soon be known as the Age of Bio-Fuels. The media on every single channel, in every magazine and newspaper is presently assaulting an unsuspecting and grossly ignorant public with the ominous specter of global warming and the “miraculous” virtues of bio-fuels.

“The days of fossil fuels are over! Make way for bio-diesel and E85! We will now be surely saved!” It’s all you see and hear. Celebrities, world leaders, the UN, politicians, newscasters, truck drivers and even CEO’s of Big Oil are touting it. It can only be described as an awesome and very well orchestrated propaganda blitz. Of course with every “orchestra” there must be a conductor. Who could supply the “sheet music” and lead this symphony that has the power to change the hearts and minds of almost every human being on the planet, virtually overnight?

Rather than going directly to the “who,” let’s first discuss the “how and why.” Now try to think back to the early 1970s if you can. The modern environmental movement “officially” began on April 22, 1970. It was called Earth Day. Afterwards, human society as a whole began to look at the world we live on in a very different light.

We had another genocidal egomaniac in the White House yet without a moments hesitation, Richard Nixon enacted some of the most sweeping environmental Laws passed by Congress: More than any other President in U.S. History. The Environmental Protection Agency was formed and countless regulations were created to protect lands and water resources from industrial pollution. It was America’s first full-fledged environmental crusade and everyone was in on it whether they were pro-war right wingers or peace loving hippies. We learned about the pleasant attributes of recycling and how not to be litterbugs. Another massive orchestration was in the works. Except the culprit was a coming ice age.

Now let’s fast-forward to September 2005. Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Louisiana Gulf Coast wreaking havoc for thousands of square miles. You must remember that Katrina had been scaled down to a category 3 hurricane by the time it made land fall. The destruction caused had also been long expected yet everyone kept saying it was a sign that mother nature was out of control. Or so we were constantly told. After watching the mayhem and carnage in the days and weeks following Katrina it became an obvious fact that the local, state and federal governments were too dis-functional to deal with the disaster. It also marked the beginning of the end of George W. Bush’s Presidency.

In between the images of flooded neighborhoods, stranded survivors begging for rescue and abandoned corpses, British Petroleum began running advertisements proclaiming that it was now nature friendly. Soon the smiley-faced add campaigns began to spread to other well-known sponsors of pollution and corporate hegemony. Overnight the phenomenon called Global Warming became a fact of life.

After all, blaming Global Warming for all of our troubles and failures was much easier to swallow than admitting to our own stupidity and arrogance. It also became the perfect enemy of the state. The people could begin to fear yet another omnipotent and unseen boogeyman bringing death and destruction to anyone at anytime and anywhere. If Global Warming could not be stopped then the human race would be faced with imminent extinction. A sense of foreboding doom settled across the land. Something had to be done! But what and how?

It was then that cable television began squeezing in little snippets of maverick billionaires, “I do whatever the hell I want” Ted Turner and “I am so super rich, hip and cool” Richard Branson, lecturing the human race about the grievous sins of industrial pollution causing global warming: Especially by Co2 emissions. For a couple of mass media tycoons it was easy to place the blame. What guilt could Ted Turner feel after inventing the 24-hour mind numbing propaganda machine? What pollution could Richard Branson be responsible for other than what his fleet of 1st class jets spewed into the atmosphere or corroding the radio airwaves with some of the worst music ever produced and marketed in the last 25 years? The stage had been set though and the symphony was tuning up.

Then things really began to roll with the release of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” After taking a dive during the 2000 election, the self-proclaimed creator of the World Wide Web and original poster child for global conservationism once again burst upon the scene.

“Oh Al, if only YOU were the President for the last 6 years, we wouldn’t be in this mess….” Yes Al Gore was coming to the rescue and he had the solutions. World peace could at long last be achieved and those poor drowning polar bears in the arctic would be saved. Carbon based emissions had to be drastically cut and alternative sources of energy needed to be implemented as soon as possible. It was time for America and the rest of the planet for that matter to finally “get with it.”

By early 2007, the symphony was getting louder and louder. The whole world was catching on to the new mania. People needed to be aware of their carbon footprints. The lights of the Eiffel Tower in Paris were actually turned off for a few minutes and British royalty would set an example by going an entire day without private jet travel. Serious times need serious sacrifices.

For anyone criticizing the “new religion?” They were to be instantly branded a heretic.

“Co2 causes global warming? Where are your facts? What about that thermonuclear ball in the sky, the sun? Isn’t it getting hotter?” some skeptics timidly asked.

“No, don’t be ridiculous! Scientific facts and further comprehensive research into the matter are no longer required. Now sit down and shut up before you’re thrown into the loony-bin!” was the answer. It was too big to be debated.

It’s a classic case of Problem-Reaction-Solution. The problem of course is global warming and the reaction is an overwhelming sense of panic and dread. The solution? Bio-fuels of course! Solar and wind power? That’s wimpy stuff and profits need to be made. Here’s how…

Scientists and engineers mostly under the pay of Big Oil over the past few decades have discovered various ways of producing alternative energies. Everyone knows that fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal are finite so eventually other sources of energy are going to be needed to drive the civilized world. What better and more profitable way to produce new energy supplies than by growing it year after year? Yes both cars and industries can be fed from the very same farm lands that people are.

These scientists and engineers have come up with all kinds of environmentally cleaner and economically cheaper methods of energy production such as harvesting wild grasses in already used up agricultural areas. Except that would be too easy and the fuels would be far too accessible to the public. Thus Big Oil has settled upon marketing such dietary staples like soy, corn and everyone’s favorite, sugar-cane. Now add GM seeding and it becomes another mega-business. It’s a win/win situation for those presently suffering from the messy financial pitfalls generated by solely relying upon fossil fuels. Earthquakes, hurricanes, strikes, wars and rumors of war can only make profit margins expand for so long.

One curious “sideshow” to all of this is the upcoming American Presidential Election of 2008. If people think it’s going to be about such polarizing issues like the Iraq War then I have some beachfront property in Arizona to sell you. This historic election is almost certainly going to be about Bio-fuels, especially ethanol and who will profit the most. Leading Democrats have no desire to leave Iraq, either. It’s just too profitable and we’ll continue to stay there until it’s not.

We all know the race began immediately after the elections of ‘06. Dozens of politicians from both parties have since piled on the “White House in ‘08” bandwagon. There are too many to discuss but let’s look at our mainstream media preordained front-runners instead.

Hillary Clinton: she’s the obvious favorite. Doing everything she possibly can to retain the 30 percent of the American electorate needed to whisk her right into the Oval Office. Thirty percent is no small amount considering only half of the USA’s eligible voters participate in general elections anyway. Hillary also knows a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton presidential legacy may be too much for most people to swallow. Continuing the same insane economic, domestic and foreign agendas that began with Reagan/Bush in 1981 seems downright difficult if not impossible. She definitely has her work cut out for her.

President George W. Bush wasn’t kidding when he declared that American motorists would be effectively weaned off of foreign oil by 2012. We are going to consume foreign made bio-fuels instead and the Bush dynasty plans to profit handsomely from it. Brazilian Ethanol is coming to America and it’s Hillary Clinton’s job to see it through. Those testy little trade tariffs need to be struck down first, though. If Hillary can’t do it then no one can.

Barack Obama: now here’s a guy who has come out of nowhere, hasn’t he? A seemingly real alternative for all of those Clinton haters in the Democratic Party, Senator Obama hails from a state that produces yet another crucial ingredient for ethanol: Corn. And the crop is grown just about everywhere you look outside of Chicago, Illinois. Barack Obama may come off as a good liberal and viable candidate for high office but he is charged with a much more important mission as well. It’s to ensure that American motorists will consume the lion’s share of homegrown corn-based ethanol. Senator Obama will do everything he can to keep those trade tariffs in place. The fledgling American ethanol industry depends upon it. Billions of dollars worth of potential profits are at stake.

Rudy Giuliani: thanks to George W. Bush, the Republican Party doesn’t have much of a chance of winning the Oval Office but we never know do we? Many crazy things could happen in the next 18 months. Bush could be impeached and this could disrupt everyone’s plans. The Democrats could also go down in flames like they have on several occasions in the not so distant past. Anything is possible and the former mayor of New York knows this. Rudy Giuliani has more or less become an effective insurance policy to maintain the present 37-year-old Bush-Clinton-Bush agenda: Especially if Hillary Clinton does indeed blow it.

Yes many conservatives on the political “right” find Giuliani to be rather “oily.” On the other hand the “anyone but Clinton” vote may be just enough to help him win.

Chuck Hagel: like Obama, the American ethanol industry has its own horse running in the Republican Primaries as well. No big surprise since the Senator comes from another corn producing state, Nebraska. The U.S. Senate’s second-ranking Republican is no friend of George W. Bush, either. This whole controversy about those two jailed Border Patrol agents is just window dressing disguising the very real ethanol fight raging below the surface.

At the moment Chuck Hagel is lagging far behind the respective front runners but this could soon change. Giuliani may very well still be the Republican front-runner by the time the Iowa caucuses roll around in January ‘08 but this is virtually Hagel’s home turf. They also like to grow corn in Iowa.

With Senator John McCain presently going down in flames with his increasingly moronic stance on the Iraq War and former Massachusetts Governor Mitch Romney an unknown despite his big Wall Street endorsements, Chuck Hagel could easily make it a two-man race all the way to the Republican Convention.

Bill Richardson: if you think the present Governor of New Mexico has joined the race to be the first Latino-American President in history, then think again. Every race needs it’s “wild card” and this Latino-American with a very Anglo-Saxon name definitely fits the description. Bill Richardson has been sent in by the Bush-Clinton-Bush axis to muddy the waters around Barack Obama’s campaign machine. Just take away enough of the liberal vote so Hillary can get “the nod” in Denver.

The great bio-fuels scam runs far deeper and reaches far wider than anyone can possibly imagine. The dire consequences will not only be trading one heavily polluting fuel for another at the gas pump but will also contribute to more genocidal socio-economic policies in the Latin American Third World.

Ethanol may seriously cutback on Co2 emissions but it produces ozone that in turn causes SMOG. We can only imagine what the already terrible air pollution of places such as New York City and Los Angeles will be like by 2012. By then we too will be suffering from a serious case of denial and call the stuff a “strange fog.” Not to say how much environmental contamination caused from the harvesting and production of bio-fuels in general. These particular crops will require lots of new land and petrochemical fertilizers to maintain them. The prices of common dietary staples and meats will also be effected when many agri-businesses and farmers realize it’s much more profitable to produce bio-fuels rather than food. We’re simply going from one disaster to another.

Yes Mr. Hugo Chavez, it’s all about feeding cars rather than people. Your good friend Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva over in Brazil knows this too. Not every Head of State gets an invitation to visit the US president at Camp David on a Saturday afternoon do they? You’re all reading from the same sheet music and are either wittingly or unwittingly working for the same old bosses. The real “orchestra conductors” are playing everyone like true maestros. Who could they possibly be? Read about the last hundred years of history and you’ll find that the same names keep popping up again and again. I like to call them Rockefeller Inc.

I’m not saying only the Rockefeller clan is to blame. Its extremely privileged brethren all over the world have been calling shots for quite some time. It’s their game or their racket whether it be the U.N., the CIA, The Federal Reserve, The IMF, IADB, OPEC and so on. The joke is definitely on us because the gentlemen over at Rockefeller Inc. have got us coming and going all the time. They have the power and ability to change things overnight. The rest are only distractions.

Rockefeller Inc. definitely has an agenda. It has very little to do with free market capitalism nor imperialistic nationalism. However it does have a lot to do with the total monopolization of industries and making the world one giant global plantation filled with serfs and lords. Take a big guess as to who is going to be which? Presently our new lords are doing everything they can to eliminate sovereign borders and enslave billions of people with the issuance of credit. They have already “Unionized” Europe into one huge socio-economic trade block and are now in the process of unionizing Africa, Asia and North America as well. Put these blocks together then what do you have?

For one example, check out the NASCO website for North America’s Super Corridor Coalition Inc. or NASCO to see some of what Rockefeller Inc. is presently up to. As far as they’re concerned, the United States, Canada and Mexico no longer exist. Interesting how that NAFTA inspired Super Highway traverses from the Mexican Pacific Coast right up and into America’s corn-growing heartland. I wonder if both Senators Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel know about this too…

As David Rockefeller wrote in his Memoirs (2002, Random House):

“For more than a century, ideological extremists from either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller Family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure…one world if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty and I am proud of it.”

Consider the source and Happy Earth Day.

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