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Oil in the Bakken Formation, email, and Republican Propaganda

Submitted by Ken Watts on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 19:10

THE REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA MACHINE is alive and well. The McCain campaign makes untrue or misleading claims in public—that are, say, 20% extreme, and whoever writes those emails or starts the whisper campaign pulls out all the stops.

I'll give you two of the latest examples, but first I want to be clear about a related point.

It's common today to say, whenever a politician or party or group lies, that it happens on both sides of the aisle. This approach seems to be led by the press, who like to give the impression that they're impartial.

Also, it's partly true.

Everyone lies from time to time, or, at the very least, says something that turns out later to not be strictly true. I am quite sure that if someone took the trouble (and they will) of going over Obama's campaign with a fine-tooth comb, they would find places where the truth was stretched a little, or a fact was wrong.

This just means that those people are human beings, and when a great deal is at stake politically, humans have a tendency not to be as careful as they might otherwise be.

You've lied, I've lied. If you claim you haven't, you just did it again.

But there is an enormous difference between that very human quality and the consistent policy of truths and half-truths that has been the hallmark of the Bush administration, and now of the McCain campaign.

Sarah Palin has recently tried to portray Obama as, of all things, a terrorist. She knows he's not, but she also knows that some voters may believe it just long enough to help McCain in the election.

This is a character issue. She is lying through her teeth, repeatedly and intentionally, just as McCain has sponsored lie after lie about Obama in campaign ads. The press should go after them, without any cowardly side-remarks about "all politicians". All politicians may occasionally tell a lie; but all politicians do not make it the backbone of their campaign.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Palin says terrorist, and the propaganda mill starts putting out rumors, with the result that there are now voters who believe that Obama isn't a citizen, and has a plan to help the terrorists win.

They do it in a way that can't be traced back to McCain, but they do it nonetheless.

And, once again, this is not something that happens on both sides.

I used to be a conservative, and many of my friends still are, but I have a great many more liberal friends. In spite of the fact that my liberal friends outnumber my conservative friends by about six to one, and forward me emails all the time, I have yet to get a single liberal email that attempts to sway me with intentionally false information, and yes, I check them all.

I am ashamed on behalf of my conservative friends, who are not the kind of people to tell a lie. The conservative spin machine hands them professionally written emails, disguised as personal communications, and uses their good intentions to spread those lies.

The most recent case in point is the email that's been circulating about an almost unlimited supply of oil in the Bakken Formation. It's intended to back up McCain's push to concentrate on oil drilling as a solution to the energy crisis.

I'll quote a bit for you:

1. The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oilmen knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota; western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana ... check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

'When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.' says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.

'This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,' reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada.. For years, U.S.oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.

2. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from TWO YEARS AGO, people!

U.S.Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World!
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006 Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:

-8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
-18-times as much oil a s Iraq
-21-times as much oil as Kuwait
-22-times as much oil as Iran
-500-times as much oil as Yemen- and it's all right here in the Western United States.

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this!? Because the democrats, environmentalists and left wing republicans have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil.

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
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Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to.
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Got your attention fired up yet? Hope so! Now, while you're thinking about it ... and hopefully so.. do this:

3. Take 10 minutes and compose an e-mail; fax or good old-fashioned letter to all your friends and associates. Alert them to the fact that democrats and 'liberal' republicans have been and will continue to obstruct all plans to make America independent of foreign oil. The only solution is to vote all democrats and Marxist oriented republicans out of office.

If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle
yourself the next time you want to complain about gas prices .. because by doing NOTHING, you've forfeited your right to complain.

Pretty convincing, yes? That's because it's what Snopes calls "partly true".

This is one of the favorite tricks of the Bush/Rove right. Find a fact that you can show to be true, and stretch it to the breaking point.

Just to be clear: the basic claims of the above email are:

  1. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that there are 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken formation.
  2. According to the Stansberry Report, there are another two trillion barrels under the Rockies.
  3. Liberals and Democrats have been obstructing any and all attempts to make America energy independent.
  4. The only solution is to vote all democrats and liberals out of office.

All of the above are distortions, most with just enough truth to make them believable.

Lets take them one at a time:

  1. The Claim: The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that there are 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken formation.

    The grain of truth: With new methods of extraction, and the higher price of oil, which means we can afford to spend more on the extraction process, the amount of oil we can get at is more than it was. Also, there was a report from the EIA in 2006, which mentioned an unfinished study (the researcher had died) that contained estimates between 271 and 503 billion barrels in the Bakkan formation.

    The full truth: That very same report said that the study was incomplete, that it had not been peer-reviewed, and that the USGS (US Geological Survey) had decided not to publish it. The report went on to say that the USGS would be publishing an updated assessment in about a year.

    When that assessment came out in 2008, it estimated the actual amount at around 3.65 billion barrels—less than 1/100th of the 503 billion the email propaganda claims. This is about enough to supply the United States for just one year, not 41 years.

    And, of course, even if we eventually extracted all that oil, it would take years and years to do it.
  2. The Claim: According to the Stansberry Report, there are another two trillion barrels under the Rockies.

    The grain of truth: The Stansberry Report does say that.

    The full truth: The name, "Stansberry Report," sounds very official, but the Stansberry Site is actually just a sales pitch for an investment newsletter. It's advertising copy designed to get people to buy. It claims there's a secret government report about all this stuff, but offers no link to that report, or any information about how to get it. I have no idea whether the newsletter is legitimate or not, but as a source for the claims in the email, it's about as good as saying your used-car salesman told you so.
  3. The Claim : Liberals and Democrats have been obstructing any and all attempts to make America energy independent.

    The grain of truth: There is some difference between Democratic and Republican approaches to energy independence.

    The full truth: Obama and McCain are both interested in energy independence, and both have plans for that. Both plans include a variety of energy sources. McCain's plan emphasizes oil, and includes other sources, while Obama's plan emphasizes other sources, but includes oil.

    The reason for this difference is not about energy independence, but about the best way to achieve it. The candidates disagree to some extent on the means, but not at all on the goal.
  4. The Claim: The only solution is to vote all democrats and liberals out of office.

    The grain of truth: None.

    The full truth: If there is any danger on the question of energy independence, it comes from the Republican side. These are the people who have been in bed with the big oil companies for the last eight years. In fact, one main reason for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam had nationalized Iraq's oil. The invasion wasn't aimed at the United States getting that oil, but at the big oil corporations getting at it.

    Don't be surprised that the Republican candidate would like us to stay dependent on oil. Those corporations will need a market if they're going to continue contributing big money to Republicans. And the U.S. is one of the biggest markets there is.

In short, the EIA does not estimate that there are 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken formation, the Stansberry Report is not a reliable source for this kind of information, Democrats and liberals are in favor of energy independence, and the Republican party has the most to gain by extending our dependence on oil.

The email is wrong on every important point.

But the Bush/Rove/McCain political apparatus doesn't care. They know that enough people will believe it without checking, because it came from someone they trust.

We need to become active citizens, who will check before hitting "forward", or, if we don't have time to check, not hit forward at all.

Too much is at stake for us to be manipulated this way.