OIL  (CONT)

and soaring prices? Obvious questions, but don't ask a Democrat. Although many ordinary Americans have little difficulty connecting the dots (to use a currently popular expression) linking blood to oil, the Democrats, with few exceptions, refuse to ask any deep or probing questions about the economic architecture of the New American Empire.

Thus John Kerry has waffled between advocating an energy version of Fortress America (via the integration of Canadian and Mexican oil resources) and complaints that the Bush administration hasn't put enough pressure on OPEC, especially Saudi Arabia, to expand production. One of the richest members of the Senate in history, Kerry seems congenitally allergic to the kind of anti-corporate populism and bold muckraking that has made Michael Moore an international anti-Bush icon.

Too bad. A genuinely progressive candidate might have found a rich precedent in the proceedings of a celebrated 1930s Senate investigation into the role of the international arms trade in fomenting war and intervention. The Nye Committee, named after the senator from North Dakota who chaired it, probed deep into the shadow world of arms dealers and munitions corporations. Is there any less urgent need to call today for congressional hearings into the oil industry's comprehensive corruption of US foreign policy?

Mike Davis is the author of 'Dead Cities: And Other Tales', 'Ecology of Fear', and co-author of 'Under the Perfect Sun: the San Diego Tourists Never See', among other books.

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