Truman said “no”, Eisenhower said “yes”

On this day in 1953, the CIA staged a coup in Iran overturning its democratically elected leader.

We have been paying the price for this illegal act ever since.

Why did they do it?

Iran nationalized its oil. What does that mean? They told British Petroleum “the oil in our country belongs to us.”

This caused British Petroleum (BP) and the UK government to flip out.

They went to the US and asked to different presidents to intervene. Truman, to his great credit, said “no.” Eisenhower said “yes.”

The country was given over to the corrupt Shah who in exchange for billions in bribes and arms gave turned the country’s oil over to BP. To keep control over people who never elected him the Shah employed CIA torture experts to help set up a secret police.

And we wonder why there is turmoil in the region.

Unfortunately this “success” led to other CIA supported coups – in Guatemala, in Indonesia, in Vietnam, in the Congo, in the Dominican Republic, in Brazil, and in Chile.

Between 1947 and 1989, the United States tried to change other nations’ governments 72 times. Most of the attempts failed.

Everyone knows about water turbines.

Here’s an absolutely ingenious way to harness the power of flowing water.

Water pipes!

There’s water flowing through them all the time.

Why can’t that flow be used to power turbines?

It can, thanks to a company called Lucid Energy.

Great idea.

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Murdered by an oil company

On this day in 1995, the Nigerian government – under the direction of Shell Oil – assassinated Nigerian environmental leader Ken Saro-Wiwa after a show trial and a rushed execution.

His crime?

He successfully – and peacefully – organized his people to demand their rights in the face of an ecological holocaust perpetrated by Shell Oil.

From the members of a relatively small ethnic group in Nigeria, he organized 300,000 to march (more than half the adult population), forcing Shell Oil and the Nigerian army out of a region they were looting and despoiling.

Shell then collaborated with the Nigerian government to paint Saro-Wiwa and other leaders of the movement as terrorists and murderers (sound familiar?)

There was a global outcry about Saro-Wiwa’s treatment and eventual murder including a call by the Clinton administration to the United Nations to condemn the executions and embargo sales of weapons to the country’s military.

Interesting enough, one of the media outlets that did not cover this widely reported story at the time was Wired Magazine (though the Japanese licensee of Wired did posting a photo of an effigy of Saro-Wiwa hung from a San Francisco Shell Oil gas station.)

Two of the key editorial contributors to Wired in those days, Stewart Brand and Peter Schwartz, were at the time in the employ of Shell Oil through a company they founded called Global Business Network. An examination of the exact nature of one of Mr. Schwartz’s projects with Shell at the time will prove illuminating.

Because Saro-Wiwa was so successful in his work, he been largely written out of history.

However his legacy is massive.

According to Roy Doron and Toyin Falola:

“Saro-Wiwa’s most important legacy was the push to hold corporations accountable when their operations violate local or international laws and the companies hide behind a complicit or ineffectual government.”

Further:

“In 2013, a Dutch court found Shell guilty in destroying the livelihood of farmers through oil spills and inadequate responses. The ruling was upheld on appeal in 2015. Earlier this year, Nigerian groups were allowed to proceed with a similar case against Shell in the United Kingdom.”

It’s simple: We want their oil

Here’s a reality check…

Venezuela was considered an economic basket case…as far back as the early 1960s… when the US oil industry controlled the country.

So what’s really going on there?

Would you believe that the US news media is not telling the whole story, much less anything approximately the truth?

It’s simple: Venezuela has a lot of oil and we want it.

So what’s up with Oliver?

He’s an entertainer…and a lazy one.

Someone else wrote this script for him and he’s just reading it. He’s that kind of guy.