News
& Politics
- July 2008
By LauWanzer Quince
I am writing this letter as an insider who worked as a scientist and in engineering for two decades doing work for the petroleum and fuel industries to address the secret agent causing the Soaring Consumer Gas Prices occurring at the gas station pump. For over two months now, I have written letters to the U.S. lawmakers on Capital Hill about this national issue of oil refiner gas price fixing that seems now to be picking up a head of steam on Capital Hil to ask for change in the way congress legislates, and government agencies lower the boom on oil refiners price gouging of all petro chemical and oil/gas based products.
I worked as an analytical chemist in the petroleum industry for Citgo Petroleum in the mid '90's in Cicero, IL. where I analyzed petro-chemical products. I have also tested aerospace vehicles (retro rockets) and GEO satellites (propellant) fuel, hydrazine, used in NASA's space shuttle at IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) Research Institute; and I have performed research and development in alternative energy sources like fuel cell technology at IGT (Institute of Gas Technology) in Des Plaines, IL for the USDOE.
I am only pointing out my past technical experience in the fuel industry to let you know that I am quite familiar with the goings on from the base-ground level, and if you don't mind good, let me step up to some of the real issues involving the oil industry refineries cost price-fixing that ripple down to the average American gas consumer.
Why are the oil industry companies nationally allowed to carry out the straight up crooked and unfair schema known as "zone pricing"? In this diabolical non-free market competition schema, the continental US is broken down into some 10 odd price zones where the individual oil processing refiners are allowed to set there on prices in those individual zones unregulated for the petro chemical products that the oil refiners sale processed gas blends to their member and associated gas wholesalers and gas service stations, not to mention other oil products used in plastics and petro-synthetic clothing stuffs that rises up the prices of clothing appeal and other petro-chemical based merchandise that is manufactured, and its ill effects, monetarily, on retailers as well.
The oil refiner's price fixing goes unregulated by the individual States Attorney (S.A.) in each state. Both the US Attorney and the individual S.A.'s are not acting as watch dogs over the oil industry companies that are running a virtual monopoly on the price of gas and oil costs that are changed at the whims and caprices of oil industry executives. This is the reason why from Chicago to Phoenix there can be seen a consumer price differential of as much as $2.00 at the gas pump.
Now you know the reason why no uniformity exists in the cost and price structure for gas that consumer pays across the independently petroleum refiner ran and controlled pricing zones from region to region setup throughout the continental U.S. by oil corporation owned petroleum refiners by design. The American republics perception is clouded, for the feind mechinations of fat cat oil industry executives' orchestrations in architecturally styled, plush and expensive La Princesa de Cuba cigar smoked-filled corporate board rooms atop scrappers in the sky.
The cover needs to be blown off why this is not revealed to the average American citizen who is deleteriously affected by the hidden gas price fixing that is emanating back at the refiner level of petro chemical product processing.
Accountability from U.S. lawmakers, and most of all the US news media responsibly reporting enlightening and informative news stories on the subject to American citizens, is legally mandated to stop and out law such unfair and unscrupulous practices by oil industry monopoly barons as "zone pricing".
Sincerely,
LauWanzer Quince
" Industry sources state that a 24 hour black only news network might cost at least $100 million to get off the ground and then cost an additional $7 million per hour of original programming"
By Mychal Massie
There's a conservative joke poking fun at liberal media that predicts coverage of an impending apocalypse would have the headline "World to End: Poor and Minorities Hardest Hit."
Despite his tenure as a Republican congressman, it seems J.C. Watts never heard that joke. Then again, maybe he did and just didn't understand why it's funny.
Watts recently announced his intention to start the Black News Television Channel - a news network targeted at blacks. An agreement has already been made with Comcast to broadcast the channel in cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Washington (but not New York City) as early as next year.
In an interview with the New York Post, Watts explained: "Our community features millions of people with all kinds of backgrounds. There's a much broader segment of the population than what we see in mainstream news."
Watts says he wants to get beyond the coverage that he implies too often links black faces to negative things such as crime. While breaking the media of its "if it bleeds it leads" mentality would be a meritorious - if not Sisyphean - effort, Watts faces obvious stumbling blocks such as cost and content.
Industry sources cited by the Post suggest it might cost at least $100 million to get such a network off the ground and then cost an additional $7 million per hour of original programming. There is also the problem of finding quality talent not already locked into a contract elsewhere.
Currently, black cable channels such as TV One and BET are largely devoid of news programming. BET had a nightly newscast that was cancelled years ago. BET President and CEO Debra Lee said at the time: "With 24-hour news networks and everyone getting news off the Internet, our audience doesn't want to wait until 11:00 pm to find out what the news is."
Commenting on the Watts idea, Mark Jurkowitz of the Project for Excellence in Journalism suggested to the Post: "The question is, could it work on a regular basis?" Likewise, Marc Krein, an associate professor of journalism and broadcasting at Oklahoma State University and a veteran of the now-defunct Major Broadcasting Cable Network, told The Oklahoman: "I also question whether a whole network needs to be dedicated to it or whether some of these other networks can dedicate some specialized programming."
Why do it al all? Spinning the news on a black fulcrum is too costly - both in price and for race relations.
Besides the obvious opportunity costs of investing the hundreds of millions of dollars it will cost to start and maintain the network that could be spent elsewhere, the question begging an answer is what exactly constitutes "black news."
There are things that happen to black people in black communities that don't really have an impact on the rest of America, but that doesn't mean they should be provincial to black America. News happening in America is American news, and it should be everyone's concern.
When Hurricane Katrina destroyed the overwhelmingly-black Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, it was reported as an American story and not just for blacks. Likewise, the recent tornadoes in predominantly-white Iowa are not just a concern for white America.
There is quite simply no purely black news just like there is not a purely black sun, moon and stars. There are certainly aspects of stories that may be of more interest to people of a certain race, but it does not justify setting up separate but equal news networks by race in order to discuss it.
Division among the races is a favorite topic of the major media. How are we going to overcome divisions if blacks are supposed to have their own channel for news and the current news channels are to be regarded as only expressing the views of the white majority?
If J.C. Watts wants to see more positive reporting about blacks, he should use his considerable cache to get the heads of Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and the major networks on the phone. Perhaps one or more of them will give him a show.
Luring black America to a segregated source of news, however, is not the answer.
"The startling change is that it is no longer systemic white prejudice, but rather a systemic black prejudice against those who strive for success that accounts for many of the lingering problems plaguing black America"
Black America is still not free. Despite the abolition of slavery and passage of civil rights laws, something still holds people back - themselves.
That's the view of psychologist Dr. James Davidson, Jr., who says a major problem facing black America is an attitude of self-defeat. He explains his views in his new book Sweet Release: The Last Step to Black Freedom (Prometheus Books).
Raised in a poor community himself, Davidson paints a bleak portrait of the world he escaped: "Legions of teenagers, pregnant or orchestrating their lives towards pregnancy, stroll shamelessly through our streets. Single-parent homes dominate our neighborhoods and typify the deficient rearing grounds of most of our children. Black males - little more than sperm donors - wander the streets engaged in an interminable adolescence."
Davidson believes an attitude of defeatism and hostility by blacks toward fellow blacks who, after earning success, are accused of failing to "keep it real" to be at the root of this social disaster. He finds people falling into two categories: "advancers," who are "industrious, hardworking and up to freedom's challenges" and "delayers," who feel "entitled, negative and self-defeated." Advancers reject myths of an unbeatable system, avoid the pitfalls of vice and work hard. Delayers do the opposite, to the extent that they even discourage friends and family from striving to escape poverty.
To explain why someone would choose such a deeply flawed environment, Davidson cites comfort and familiarity. Believing the game of life is stacked against them, someone with a victim mentality finds an odd sense of security by limiting their choices.
The dangerous indulgences stereotyping some black communities are delayers' norm: "Partying and all other forms of avoidance serve as ego defense mechanisms - that is, if I stop partying/having constant sex/getting high/working on my jump shot/being criminal, then I must... get out there to challenge others for jobs and careers." Staying put is an easy option.
In contrast, pursuing success places responsibility squarely on the advancer's shoulders, often straining or breaking family and community bonds.
Davidson knows he will be pilloried for saying this. He was denounced in 1993 for his book Prisoners of our Past. An Amazon customer review of it said he "would have been a good house negro back in the slave days... Does he understand slavery and oppression scared [sic] us mentally?... This book could have easily been written by a racist white man."
Davidson believes the criticism he receives comes because he stands in direct opposition to the tactics and ideologies of the preachers of "separatism and non-acceptance." His personal rise from squalor to success discredits their rhetoric.
"White liberals and black separatists," Davidson also points out, share "an agenda that proffers up black people as perpetual victims. Both are invested in keeping us dependent or struggling or downtrodden or angry... Black overachievers... cannot rely strongly on either white liberal support or black separatist acceptance.... [because they] do not fit a prescribed way of being black."
But, although he criticizes liberals, Davidson is quick to note he is no conservative. He writes: "My behaviors and ideas [are] anything but conservative. Trying to improve one's social and economic lot by rejecting traditional societal and black community standards for achievement seemed antithetical to [being] conservative."
The apolitical goal of Sweet Release is to create advancers: "What you seek is simply not in the 'hood. It never has been, and it never will be... We must now move beyond our own remaining chains, beyond the mental barriers that keep so many of us constrained in our thoughts and deeds."
One key suggestion is to reject the concept of a collective, binding black identity. "Be what you want. Marry whomever you want. Believe what you will. Behave as you desire," writes Davidson. "Because when the time comes for you to die, all those who restrict you now will not be able to hand you another life to live as your own. It will be you dying."
While recognizing America is imperfect, Davidson points out it is not the nation it once was. The black middle class is constantly growing and successful blacks are no longer "trailblazers" because the trail is already blazed.
The startling change is that it is no longer systemic white prejudice, but rather a systemic black prejudice against those who strive for success that accounts for many of the lingering problems plaguing black America.
