Oil Is Blood -- Promises to the Greatest Generation

As TransCanada gets its way with the remaining holdouts and gears up to start laying pipe, and as West River landowners get set to put their faith in Big Oil to "do what they say they're going to do," I stumble upon this 1943 RKO documentary/propaganda film richly titled "Oil Is Blood."



The narrator speaks of oil, in that great old language of the newsreels, as "the blood of this toiling, fighting old world," "the blood of the mechanized legion" in the form of "the tanks that soon will smash their way to Berlin."

Behind the superimposed stats from the Documentary Channel, this interesting archival tidbit shows some footage of wartime pipeline construction, "colossal surgery to give the earth arteries, arteries of seamless steel."

The documentary notes the sacrifice Americans used to make during times of war. "We give our present for the future, for the world's future in democracy." No mention of pre-emptive war and no-bid contracts for Big Oil. And that attitude doesn't seem to fit with the reception we "environmental wackos" get today when we suggest that tightening our belts and conserving energy might be the best route to energy independence.

Also featured: endless rows of jerry cans containing "Super fuel -- America's secret weapon!" to be used "in the peace to come... in machines yet to be built and at 40 miles to the gallon." Dang, where'd that super fuel go? Our grandparents who saw this film and fought at home and abroad to bring all those goals to fruition might be disappointed with us.