RUSH: Let’s go St. Louis. Brian, hi. Thanks for calling the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for taking the call.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: A couple of times I’ve heard you discussing the $700 billion dollars and the Pickens’ plan and you’re discussing peripheral elements of it, things like, oh, it’s Americans paying the money and things like that, and I don’t think that’s the biggest issue. The biggest issue is he’s talking about energy independence. Now, isn’t the overall goal of energy independence a good thing, whether it be through increased domestic drilling, alternative energy sources, and all these other things, don’t we want to keep this flood of money from going overseas and wouldn’t it be better to keep it here in America?
RUSH: Not necessarily. That’s not an automatic axiom as far as I’m concerned. But my problem — because I believe in trade — we’re never going to have all of everything we need.
CALLER: No, but wouldn’t increasing it —
RUSH: But that’s not my beef with T. Boone. To call this a transfer of wealth is unnecessarily inaccurate and frightening to people who don’t understand it. It’s not a transfer of wealth. It’s an exchange of wealth.
CALLER: I would agree with that, but wouldn’t you rather exchange with the gentleman down the street rather than with the people overseas?
RUSH: No, not necessarily.
CALLER: Well, I guess maybe a small difference where I’ll disagree with you because if I could provide it domestically, if I could set up a trading system domestically with a domestic supplier, boy, I’d rather do that, help my fellow American put food on his plate.
RUSH: Dirty little secret. Let’s say we open up a bunch of new wells in the next seven or ten years and let’s just say hypothetically that we have doubled our domestic supply. That domestic supply, my man, is going to be on the world market. If we try to keep that oil exclusively for use in the United States, we are going to dramatically artificially affect the price. A lot of people think they’re being bamboozled into believing we drill our own oil, we keep it here. That’s not what’s happening ’cause it’s a global product subject to global market forces, therefore global price pressures and constraints.
CALLER: I wouldn’t argue with that at all, but we are then feeding more Americans, too, because more Americans are providing that oil. So why not have a bigger piece of that world supply?
RUSH: I’m all for having a bigger piece of the world supply.
CALLER: Great. But it sounds like when you’re sort of sticking at this Pickens’ plan in the bit it seems like the bigger issue that Pickens is bringing up is, let’s get independent with energy. And I’m all for that, and I think we ought to figure out the way to do that. And it will include more domestic drilling, as well as other alternative sources, and it sounds like you’re arguing against all that.
RUSH: No, I’m not opposed to independence. I’m not opposed to making sure we don’t depend — but the whole idea of dependence is a little bit of a straw dog, too, because we are a major buyer, they are sellers. They will harm themselves not selling to us. It’s never going to be the case, I don’t care how much he huffs and puffs, Hugo Chavez is never going to stop selling us oil, neither will our friends the Saudis and neither will whoever else we buy it from. Number one is Canada and Mexico, and the Saudis are three. Everything is too interlinked here. One of the myths surrounding this dependence on foreign oil is the lie that the Democrats tell that the money that we are spending goes to terrorists, that the terrorists are equipped with taking the money and so forth, because they’re poor, and they’re poverty stricken, and that’s why they hate us. I mean so much of this is convoluted. Terrorists, the leaders, are not poor. They’re not anything of the sort. I will continue this when we come back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
REICH: It’s not logical, Larry! I mean, what we know from the Energy Department and many —
RUSH: Stop the tape! It’s not logical to drill! So? I’ll tell you what, Labor Secretary Reich. Call the Saudis and say, ‘Stop drilling!’ You call Chavez and tell him to stop drilling, and you call the Canadians and you tell them to stop drilling, and you call the Russians and tell them to stop drilling, and you call the United Arab Emirates and the Qatar people and the people in Kuwait, you tell them to stop drilling. Then you call Ahmadinejad, and you tell him to stop drilling, and then you tell our friends in Iraq to stop drilling. Make everybody stop drilling! If drilling is illogical, then let’s stop it. This is insane. This is insane. Cue that up to the top. This is nothing more than the empty rhetoric of a political agenda which is devoid of any devotion to the principles of this nation’s founding. The rhetoric coming from the likes of Reich and these clowns on the left, is about nothing more than creating a more perfect socialist country (with them in charge of it). Let’s close the wells in California. Let’s shut down the wells in the Gulf. Let’s tell the ChiComs that they can’t drill with the Cubans. Let’s tell Mexico to stop drilling, Labor Secretary Reich. Now, he’s not this big a fool. Okay, maybe he is. Here’s the whole thing.
REICH: It’s not logical, Larry. I mean what we know from the Energy Department and many other sources is that if we drill for more oil right now we’re not going to see the results for seven or eight or ten years — and the results, say the Energy Information Administration, uh, are going to be negligible in terms of prices. I mean, the only way of weaning ourselves off the addiction of oil is to invest — as Senator Obama wants to — in alternatives. Uh, nonfossil based fuels. Uh, wind. Uh, biomass. Uh, water. Other fuels that will allow us over the long term to create five million new jobs to be the center of alternative energy for the country.
RUSH: All right. Now, here’s another thing. We all know what ‘addiction’ is, and we all know what addicts are like. Do you think of yourself as addicted to oil? Will you do anything to get a barrel of oil? Will you do anything to fill your car up with gasoline? Will you go out and steal from somebody to fill up your tank with gasoline? This notion that we are ‘addicted to oil’ is akin to saying we are addicted to air, or that we are addicted to water, or that we are addicted to food, or that we are addicted to sunlight. Oil is every bit as much a factor and presence of nature as is anything else that is found on this planet. Yeah, he said something about converting water into some sort of energy. We have states already suffering with water shortages as it is, some states are in droughts. They got water fights in California, got water fights going on here in Florida. In Georgia they’re monumental, and North Carolina already. All of this stuff that he mentions is a pipe dream! But here’s the second bite. Larry King says, ‘Well, wait a minute, didn’t therefore we make a mistake years ago? Because you’re talking seven or eight years. If we’d done this seven or eight years ago [meaning drilling] we’d have that oil now.’
RUSH: Stop the tape. Stop the tape. You just heard the former labor secretary in the Clinton administration, Robert B. Reich-h-h-h-h-h say that we did not — seven or eight years ago or ten or 15 years ago — invest in alternative energies, wind and solar. Yeah? Is that true? Really, Labor Secretary Reich? Would you tell me why I saw a bunch of damn windmills pockmarking the countryside when I arrived in California in 1984? Try 24 years ago, sir. Would you explain to me why there are windmills and all these other things? I had solar panels on my house in Sacramento in 1985, sir. Solar and wind have been around a long time, sir. For us to have windmills today, they had to be in the design stage and the permit process phase and all that years ago.
We have been investing in wind and solar for 25 years, sir, and we still cannot heat a home with it; we still cannot power an automobile with it; and we still can’t get even a kite off the ground with it. This, frankly, folks, it’s insultingly stupid and absurd, and they’re playing you for a bunch of suckers! ‘Frankly, Larry, big mistake we made was not investing in these clean energy seven or eight, ten, 15 years ago.’ We did! The dirty little secret is we’ve been investing in these things for years and they haven’t done diddly-squat, in terms of replacing oil, which is what these people want. This kick that they’re on to replace oil, where does this come from, even politically? Is there polling data out there that says a majority of the Americans hate oil, that the way to the White House is to demonize oil? Where did this come from? This is irrational. It borders on the insane to hate oil. A lot of things can damage things just like oil can, if it’s not properly contained and used. I just don’t understand this.
Well, I do, but I mean I’m trying to express my incredulity here at the absolute stupidity of assuming a position. This is like coming out against oxygen, or it’s like arguing against rain. It’s just silly! What is the damage? How has oil destroyed America? How has it destroyed people’s lives? It’s done just the opposite. Where does this come from? What in the world is the political calculation these people have to construct a presidential campaign based on the hatred of oil, as though oil itself is a conservative Republican? They’re treating oil as if it’s no different than Bush. They hate Bush; they hate oil. And both are irrational. Our buddies, our buddies at CNN, they’re preparing a retrospective special, ladies and gentlemen, on the disaster that was the oil spill at Prince William Sound or the Exxon Valdez. What they will not tell you is that if you go up there today, you won’t find any evidence of it, other than the stupid memorials that human beings built.
‘This is where oil was on the rock. This is where the otter got eaten by the shark when we threw it back in there, and the sea lion or whatever ate the otter.’ Nature cleaned up itself so damn fast. It was such a laughable thing to watch people with dishtowels and Dawn dishwashing detergent wiping oil off of the rocks at Prince William Sound. Oh, it was an unpleasant sight. Of course, the birds got oil on their wings, and it was not pleasant to look at, but it’s an accident. The skipper of the Exxon Valdez did not say, ‘I want to destroy America! I want to destroy Alaska,’ and then let the stuff go. But anyway, the sea eats oil. The sea eats oil alive. That place up there, nature cleaned it up faster than we ever could. Why in the world this abject hatred for a commodity? I mean, I can understand if you’re a little kid, and you don’t like peas or broccoli, but an entire political party and an ideological movement has now targeted oil as as big a threat to this country as conservative Republicans are! It’s hard to get your arms around it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Steve, you’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Yeah, Rush. It just drives me absolutely nuts to hear that $700 billion thing thrown around, as if that’s something that’s bad, because most of that comes right back to us anyway. I mean we got our good friends to the north, Canada, our rainy day friends to the south, Mexico, and when they get that money from us, they get the lion’s share of it, and it comes right back to our country in purchased goods.
RUSH: Of course, but it’s not just that. It’s not just that, Stephen. I understand your frustration, because, my brother, I am feeling it myself. It’s not just that the dollars that we send overseas come back. What do we do with the oil? The oil leads to jobs. It leads to productivity. It leads to the advancement of lifestyles. It leads to people having vacations. It leads to food making it to the market. It leads to the grocery store having food when you go to the market. This is all so Twilight Zonish. We gotta defend a commodity. It’s one thing to have to defend our ideology, now we gotta defend a commodity. Can you imagine if the liberals were attacking cotton? No different than this attack on oil. Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘But, Rush, but, Rush, but, Rush, this is all about global warming and the carbon footprints.’ That’s a hoax! It’s a flat-out hoax. It’s not about that. It’s about leftists who have lost their love for this country who think of their country as guilty of innumerable sins, and we have to pay the price, and we have to roll back our lifestyles. All these yahoos out there shouting, ‘We are 3% of the population of the world and using 25% of the world’s resources.’ Static argument, makes no sense, doesn’t explain anything without a dynamic analysis of it. Yeah, you know why?
Okay, we’re 3% of the world’s population, use 25% of the world’s resources, I don’t even believe it, but let’s accept it as true for the sake of it. You know why we do? ‘Cause we can! The others can’t! And what we do is in the interests of the betterment of all mankind! But if you don’t see America as the good guys, if you see Americans as racists, sexist, bigots, slavish homophobes or what have you, the way the left sees this country, this is why this election is so damned important. On one side, we have the fundamentals of the founding principles of this country under assault as they have never been before, by a bunch of people who don’t think this country the way it’s currently constituted is moral and just, ’cause it’s imperfect. So they want to try what has repeatedly failed every time it’s been tried worldwide throughout human history. And that is socialism, a large collectivist state making sure everybody’s happy, making sure everybody’s got the same amount of everything, same amount of education, same opportunities, same income, same house, same TVs, same cars. Anything less than that is imperfect and unjust. We’re dealing with a bunch of literal maniacs.
Mike in Amarillo, Texas, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Yes, Rush, glad to be able to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Talking about T. Boone Pickens, why is Obama talking about one of the richest oilmen in the country, who is trying to buy like 2,000 wind generators but he’s not going to put any on his property because he doesn’t like the way they look on his property?
RUSH: Well, I don’t know about that, but I will tell you why Obama is quoting T. Boone Pickens. And there is one reason he’s quoting T. Boone Pickens, that’s ’cause T. Boone is a Republican, and T. Boone has said two things that Obama likes, and he’s ignoring everything else that T. Boone has said. Obama loves it when T. Boone used that $700 billion transfer of wealth figure. We’re sending $700 billion over to enemies. He loves when T. Boone says that, but it’s not as T. Boone describes it. It’s not a transfer of wealth. It’s an exchange of wealth. We’ve been through that. Second thing he likes is when T. Boone goes through this notion of we are 3% of the world’s population using 25% of the world’s resources. Liberals have been using that since Paul Ehrlich back in the seventies. What T. Boone wants and what Obama doesn’t mention, in addition to natural gas, and in addition to T. Boone’s dream of his massive wind farm business, T. Boone wants to drill out the wazoo, T. Boone wants to drill for oil anywhere we can find, but T. Boone is saying we can’t drill our way out of this, and T. Boone says we can’t drill our way out of this because if we drill our way out of it, his wind farms are going to be less attractive.