We are all captives of Big Oil. Most people know that. Our whole economy is built on oil, cars and other spin-offs that will go up in smoke when we can't do oil anymore, either because it is too costly or runs out. The graphic above signifies president Trump's desire to roll back all restraints on drilling offshore. Actually, Trump would drill on Park Avenue if there was enough of the sticky stuff down there. So why ask questions of Axios?
Subtle or not
The idea of rectitude at Axios seems to be that if you are open and aesthetically hip, oil advertising can be OK.
Instead of running horrible banner ads of things that yell at you, Axios just integrates it into the text of its newsletters. Newsletters are among their prime means of reaching us. So you could be reading along and then -- BP invests in the US -- between paragraphs of news and comment.
Sorting it out
Today BP is bringing us Miike Allen's Axios Top Ten. My question is not whether the sponsorship is harmful or not. I assume that oil is indeed a harmful reality and that its role in the economy is to delay sanity, ecology and other positive developments. My question is whether Axios can say in so many words that we are captives of big oil. It is sort of like asking South Africa if it was at one point a captive of apartheid.
The answer is 'yes', but the problem with oil is getting an admission.
What would saying 'yes' mean?
To admit we are captives of big oil could mean working to move beyond it. It could mean thinking along the lines of cyber communities. If I am Axios it could mean giving as much attention to the detrimental and harmful effects of our oil-based economy as to other matters.
It could mean risking its livelihood. In a sense, this is a universal question because as James Dean cried out in "Rebel Without a Cause" we are all involved.
This morning
Today Mr. Allen says Russia is the swamp and the GOP is mad because it is Russia that is holding back the Trump agenda. It is more likely that Trump and the fallacious premises of his enterprise are to blame for the failure.
In other words, if you see big oil as the culprit, you understand that the world is not exactly on board with the BP agenda. Axios this morning seems to be at least prospectively on board with the Trump agenda.
Comey mood swings
Allen, like the ny times, lavishes substantial space on an inconsequential story. Someone felt Comey was disturbed by Trump's aggressive efforts to elicit a little loyalty. No news anywhere is still no news.This story was worth notice, not the lead status the Times gave it -- which is probably why Allen rewrote it.
1 big thing: The Swamp https://t.co/WqW6DPQE2p #axiosam
— Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) May 19, 2017
Ailes kudos
Allen follows with a list of quotable things regarding Roger Ailes who died yesterday at 77.
This is the man who gave Nixon the Southern Strategy that was a forerunner of Trump's Birther Strategy which is the basis of his apparently legal election. There is more but I think the initial question is partially answered. I do not expect Axios to explain why we are indeed, almost all of us, captives of big oil.
