Compartmentalized Oil

Think Progress recently wrote this article illustrating how the compartmentalized authoritarian brain works. And not on something silly and superficial like whether half the population should have control over their own healthcare and not be called sluts or something. Hopefully the sarcasm of that statement shines through with all the intended gilding. All of the harm done by gop terrorists and their corporate sponsors is appalling, but at this point so many fronts are advancing that we have to triage.
Gas prices in my neck of the woods recently dropped to $4.17/gal from $4.25. If there were two levers a potential tyrant could use to bind and gag this country, they have to be energy and finance. Resistance is futile.
The only competition that seems to occur in American business today, or would rootless, transnational business be more appropriate, is who can suck the American people dry fastest. Not long after 9/11, when gas prices spiked to $2/gal from $1/gal, there was outrage and attempts to boycott and punish the bastards. None worked, of course, that would require overcoming the inherant cynicism and atomization that characterizes contemporary American society. But now, when it spikes to over $4/gal, there seems to be little focused outrage or even attempts to punish them. Is "punish" too strong a word? Does it simply play into the victim mentality omnipresent on the right? I don't know, but there seems little energy left to even try anything with every other problem plaguing our society. Problems aided and abetted by the corporate right and their kept politicians, if not outright caused by them.
Rational business sense would at least glance at the long-term, oil is a dwindling resource despite propaganda attempts to convince people otherwise. Even the unmistakable environmental damage done by oil should prompt at least a token PR effort to diversify. But no, these people running the oil companies are short-sighted beyond belief.
The glance at the long-term could take many forms, but short-term considerations like next quarter's profit margin and bonus mania dictates all industry actions. Textbook economics indicate that investment and diversification to maintain the firm's relevence should take its place alongside these concerns, but this is the real world. Five point eight billion in profit just this year so far, that could go a long way into research and investment into alternative energies, instead it just goes into the pockets of executives and investors. Kevin Philips has pointed out in his many commentaries on the subject that windfall profits have gone into bonuses, stock buybacks, and dividends. I guess if your rationality says to grab what you can now and the future be damned, this is entirely rational. And, oil company influence over congress ensures that propaganda instead of real debating points will spew from the mouths of traitors like rand paul and john kyl, preventing any serious changes.
This is where the compartmentalization comes in, as per ThinkProgress.
"[Rand] Paul argued Big Oil deserves even more favors from government, because they’re doing such a good job extracting wealth from American families:

'Instead of punishing them, you should want to encourage them. I would think you would want to say to the oil companies, “What obstacles are there to you making more money?” And hiring more people. Instead they say, “No, we must punish them. We must tax them more to make things fair.” This whole thing about fairness is so misguided and gotten out of hand.'"
Would anyone with a basic understanding of how "markets" actually work and a functioning brain really believe that the way to bring gas prices down or "create" jobs is to coddle oil companies more than we already do? This straw man about "punishing" success poisons all sorts of debate about the economy.
In practically the same breath, this walking, talking oil company mascot uttered this gem.
"Strangely, while Kyl and Paul called an end to oil subsidies indefensible, they used the opportunity to label clean energy tax credits “crony government.” During his clean energy rant, Paul said:

'It doesn’t seem to right that your tax dollars are sent to companies just because they’re big contributors.'"
I used to think it was extrordinary totalitarian discipline that allowed people to accept this kind of disengenuousness, but apparently if the RWAF hypothesis is correct it just comes naturally. Rand Paul is not an idiot, he knows his place as the kept politician puppet uttering all the right noises for his patrons. I believe the false equivalence he is trying to draw is that old chestnut about Solyndra. Pebble against a boulder of subsidization and policy. But republicans are not afraid to throw stones becaus they know Democrats are too polite to throw them back. It takes a firewall of compartmentalization big enough to hold back the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to swallow this sludge.


What would reagan do?