A lot of memes jumped on yesterday’s oil pipeline fire in the Gulf blaming things like capitalism or Exxon lobbyists. But the gas leak was from Pemex, the Mexican state-owned oil company. Pemex is an example of actual socialism in practice, not capitalism.
▪️Pemex says it took more than 5 hours to put out, but the fire now appears to be extinguished. Pemex blamed a gas leak from an underwater pipeline for sparking the blaze, although the Mexican oil regulators claimed the incident “did not generate a spill.” No injuries were reported.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fire-offshore-pemex-platform-gulf-mexico-under-control-2021-07-02/
▪️Pemex was created in 1938 when the Mexican President signed an order expropriating the assets of foreign oil companies (mostly British and American) and barred any foreign oil companies from operating in Mexico. In other words, their government stole the equipment and effort of those companies and socialized their oil industry, much like other Middle Eastern nations and Venezuela did.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/mexican-oil
▪️Pemex has a long record of major accidents in its facilities and a terrible track record on pollution.
🔹In 1979, an explosion at their Ixtop well in the Gulf near the Texas coast was the largest oil spill at the time. Oil spilled for months. At the beginning, 30K barrels/day spilled into the Gulf. Pemex then pumped mud into their pipes, which only reduced it to 20K barrels/day. Relief wells were eventually drilled, reducing it to 10K/day, which was still catastrophic. 71,500 barrels washed up on US shores, polluting 162 miles of waterfront. This devastated the sea turtles in that region, taking decades to recover.
🔹In 1984, their poorly managed facility in Mexico City went up in flames, setting off a series of massive explosions killing more than 500 people. Another 200 were killed in an explosion in Guadalajara in 1992.
🔹Unguarded pipelines were attacked by Mexican terrorists in 2007, causing leaks and explosions. Later that year one of their rigs also collided with a drilling platform, killing 22 workers.
🔹Pemex dumped chemicals into the Coatzacoalcos River killing most of the fish and bankrupting local fishermen. During the worst periods, the river would catch fire every couple months. Nearby groundwater was also poisoned, leaving residents without drinking water or irrigation for farms.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ko_mAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&dq=pemex+socialized&source=bl&ots=OQrxdohzx5&sig=ACfU3U2IqLuNdEkzOvI1Imzm3aDiLzgsMw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjV85DjnsfxAhVKkWoFHTfRCaQQ6AEwEXoECBgQAw#v=onepage&q=pemex%20socialized&f=false
▪️When private companies have spills, they are generally held accountable for damages and reparations. For example, BP put aside $20B within weeks during their Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. In contrast, Pemex invoked sovereign immunity and refused to pay almost anything in their Gulf spill.
▪️Similar stories occur with many state-run and socialized oil companies. There is seldom accountability, because it requires the government to punish itself. Good luck getting China to pony up money for damages if a SinoPec spill causes damage to your property or nation.
▪️But yet the belief still exists that it’s capitalism which is the source of pollution in the world. This sometimes reaches absurd evasions as with Chinese Communist Party officials who long claimed that pollution couldn’t exist in socialist countries because it was an “evil inherent in capitalism” even as they saw environmental devastation before them on a massive scale.
As with the leftist freak out over “banned books” this is not banning books, it’s still easy to get Harry Potter and bookstores should be able to limit whatever books they want for whatever reason. But not only does it show a double standard, the rationale is far less justifiable than removing certain content from school libraries. At least there the justification was the content of certain books are inappropriate for children, clearly not every book should be available in a school library. Here, there’s no argument about the content they just don’t like the author’s politics!
Because news came out about his letter to the FBI, revealing he was a nutcase. The letter was rambling and incoherent, claiming he was trained by the US military off the books, and that Walz had instructed him to kill Amy Klobuchar so he could run for Senate. None of it made any sense (Walz is not running for Senate) and none of the assassinations made any sense, even in a diabolical way.
Nearly all of his hit list was Democrats (including Walz) and abortion clinics, but he was supposedly working for Walz?! Plus, one of the guys he killed wasn’t even on his list, and others were no longer in office or deceased. None of it makes sense from any coherent angle.
Basically, it appears the guy was mentally ill and neither the left or right can use the incident to push their agendas anymore, so the story was dropped.
This is so dumb. First, this means LA began as Spanish land founded to support Spanish missions (i.e. colonialism). Which contradicts their entire premise. But the reality is that Los Angeles is a quintessential American city.
▪️When the US acquired California in the 1840s, LA was a small town of less than 2,000 people. It was basically nothing. It became large only after the gold rush and the railroads completed in the 1870-80s, which brought thousands of new settlers and a booming commercial center.
▪️But LA had a major issue limiting its growth, no water. It wasn’t until Mulholland found a water source and built an aqueduct down from Northern California that LA had the infrastructure to grow into a major city.
▪️Then, a combination of oil, real estate and the film industry caused it to boom in the early 1900s. Post WWII, industries like aerospace continued its spectacular growth. Calling this “Mexican land” is a brain dead take. Neither the Mexicans, Spanish nor ...
