Is the modern conservative movement really a front for the fossil fuel industry?

Great Debates
1

I thought we’d had enough of oilmen running US foreign policy after the Bushes and Dick Cheney. But now the Secretary of State is the former head of ExxonMobil.

“Conservative” “Republican” legislators in states like Wyoming and North Dakota are stridently opposed to renewable energy.

In the interest of private oil company, North Dakota has all but declared war on the Standing Rock Sioux, as described in this Daily Beast article (long, somewhat painful read):

My own state’s junior US Senator, Roy Blunt, is notorious for his love of money from anyone who belches pollution into the air. He married a tobacco company lobbyist, and he likes to brag about defending the coal industry, even though I’m pretty sure coal’s not* that* big an employer in Missouri. I hear similar attitudes from states in the Southeast and in the Rockies.

And of course, there was Tory PM Stephen Harper in Canada, who I am told went to a church that apparently believed that petroleum was a precious gift from Jesus Christ, a sort of Eucharistic sludge.

Is this what passes for “conservatism” now? And how do we get the word away from these weirdos?

2

I grew up in one state heavily dependent on the fossil fuel industry (Kentucky) and now live in another one (North Dakota). I think there are some things that need to be pointed out to help outsiders understand things. The coal, oil, and natural gas industries support large numbers of high-paying jobs, which are available to workers who weren’t lucky enough to be born upper class. They are the basis of the economy in the regions where they exist. As a result, they are popular in those regions. If one political party clearly stands in favor of these industries and one generally looks opposed, who do you expect to win in Kentucky and North Dakota? And in West Virginia, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, Alaska, …?

The idea that coal and oil industry lobbyists buy politicians with massive donations and that’s why politicians support those industries really isn’t true. There’s popular support, at least in the relevant regions. Hydrofracking lead to a huge drop-off in oil prices that has lasted for years. That’s pretty popular. People like paying less.

3

Most conservatives are not opposed to renewable energy. We’re opposed to the government ramming it down our throats.

If there is an actual market for that sort of thing, then we applaud the companies who are able to make it their niche.

4

I don’t think even a very friendly to the oil industry Democrat would had carried those states.

After being aware of what the fossil fuel owners or executives are doing for years (financing denier organizations, and politicians that are the same) the oil industry does more than just buy politicians.
Frontline
Climate of Doubt

5

This has to be told: currently most of the efforts by the energy producers are geared to ramming restrictions to alternative energy down our throats.

Again, I think you are not aware that many right wing sources of information are not telling you about the dick moves that the big energy companies are doing to prevent even that applause.

6

There are multiple, (often–not always–overlapping), aspects of the current political Right.
There are fiscal conservatives, there are cultural conservatives associated with the Religious Right, there are small government advocates, there are a few who regard major industry as a necessary supplier of GNP.

The conservative movement is not a “front” for any of theses groups, but a coalition of multiple groups whose goals are sufficiently similar that they tend to work together, politically. As a major source of money, the fossil fuel industry is one of several industries that are in a mutually supporting situation with the political Right. (Others include the automobile industry, the military suppliers, agro-business, etc.)

It is not realistic to regard the political Right as a “front” to any of them.

If one looks at the political Left, one can find similar related and sometimes overlapping philosophical trends and institutions.

7

And many of us non-conservatives agree with you 100%.

8

The American government and both major parties are a way of settling gentlemen’s disagreements in various sectors of capital, such as FIRE, agriculture, energy, pharma, the MIC, and others. What are we gonna do about it? I dunno. Tweet dank memes.

9

I am reminded of Leon Trotsky’s quote on War.

10

I’m both a conservative and a republican and yes, I feel like we are being used.

11

It’s a front for big business. It just happens that Big Oil is one of the ‘elite,’ along with Big Pharma and Big Defense.

12

What do Japan and Germany have in common?
(1) They have lots of brilliant engineers and scientists.
(2) They manufacture lots of wonderful cars.
(3) They have no natural oil reserves.

If these two countries cannot come up with a superior alternative to the gas powered engine, what makes you think that Big Oil is suppressing alternative energy sources? Wouldn’t they be using those alternative sources?

13

Exactly the same could be said of the heroin industry, or the street drug business in general. It pays great, doesn’t require a degree, and the damage it causes isn’t part of the business equation.

So what do you do if you have a regional economy whose product is slowly but inexorably destroying the planet? A product that was developed out of ignorance with no understanding of its environmental impact? I suppose one thing you could do is deny that there’s a problem and carry on. That’s the approach the Republicans have adopted. Where do you think this will end? Some of them have even threatened and harassed climate scientists to suppress information unfavorable to the fossil fuel industry. Do you think that’s wise and forward-thinking?

14

It might be worth acknowledging the vast degree of subsidies that fossil fuel development has received over the years; I’m genuinely interested, is there a way to quantify both?

15

So when the government spends $200 billion on renewable energy to lesson dependence on foreign oil it’s ramming it down our throats, but when it spends 5 trillion dollars on middle eastern wars to make the region stable enough to extract foreign oil, that’s just good business sense. Got it.

16

I really love the argument that we need to preserve [fill in industry doing irreparable harm] because employment.

About thirty years ago, the big-timber industry was brought to a halt in Northern California and the screaming about jobs has never stopped. Of course, the screaming would have begun something like ten years later when the last old-growth timber (coastal redwoods, mostly) was cut down… but hey, there would have been another decade of work before the mills closed down and the owners took their profits elsewhere, leaving unemployed lumberjacks and some really big fuggin’ stumps.

17

Yes, but this is the proverbial “push a button, somebody on the planet dies, you get a hundred bucks. Would you do it ?”. There are serious consequences for that drop off in price (much like there are for Walmart’s prices, too) for those who live next to it. And the Republican position is, what, “shrug fuck 'em” ?

18

Really, there is no such thing as a “conservative movement,” any more than there is such as thing as a “liberal movement.”

As to whether any specific movements, or special interest groups working on a specific concern, are “just a front” for someone else, that is a different question.

I personally think, that whether you are looking at concerns that are traditionally referred to as “liberal” or as “conservative,” that what happens MOST, is that groups SUCH AS the Petroleum Industry, will periodically try to USE other political action groups to further their own ends, by pretending to be their allies.

To say it more simply, I think it’s less that “conservatism is a front for the fossil fuel industry,” and more that people with political and/or financial interests, will often try to “catch a free ride” on other movements.

19

This. As I’ve been saying in another context, it’s not uncommon for groups with like goals to play off each other, use each others’ positions as leverage, and find that ‘a win for one is a win for all’ - a conspiracy of like minds and efforts, with little to no actual conspiring. It’s a mistake to try and treat them as independent elements, at least in the overall planning; opposition has to at least stall the other parties while one is defeated, or it’s just punching a pillow.

20

If it is, the people who bought those oil stocks low are going to make a MINT by next New Years.
…of course, the answer I Really wanted to give was “Well, that would explain the thousands and thousands of Angry Dinosaurs…”