"Burr:... We have a middle class. China and India desperately need to create a middle class or their government is in jeopardy. So, China is sitting over there, Communist government, totally different than democracy. Odd that they would need to create the same thing we create in a democracy, which is a middle class, so people are happy so they don’t want to overthrow government.

Part of creating a middle class is owning an automobile. So China is putting a thousand new cars a day on the road. It’s pretty easy to extrapolate from that what their fuel needs are going to be in the coming years, which gives you some insight about why they’re so aggressive, not in buying oil today because supply and demand today is fine. This is what OPEC can’t figure out. We’re pumping more than what you’re using, the price should be down here. China’s out here, ten years out, saying we want to buy all your oil. And I might add, at such a level of commitment that they are willing to go in front of the Security Council of the United Nations and vote against sending U.N. forces to Darfur to stop genocide because they don’t want to jeopardize the contract that they’ve got with Sudan for oil. So this far exceeds the energy policy of a country, it has now gotten over into the human rights policy of the world’s interest in Sudan."

Did anybody read this stuff? A US Senator stating that " ... they (the Chinese)... need to create the same thing that we (by "we", I take it he means the ruling elite in our country) create in a Democracy, which is a middle class, so people are happy, so they don't want to overthrow the government"

Then he goes on to say how "Part of creating a middle class is owning an automobile", which he then observes, leads the ruling elite in China into making a self-serving decision to allow millions of innocent people in Darfur to be slaughtered so that their (the ruling elite in China) oil contract with Sudan is not theatened, which of course is necessary for them to "create" (the illusion of) a "free" middle class ... "free" because they have the right to purchase an automobile and gasoline from the ruling elites, so that the ruling elites can continue to live lives of unimaginable wealth and power without the masses being desperate enough to overthrow their government and hoist their heads up on a pole.

Does the sarcastic expression "we, the sheeple" have any more significant meaning to you now?

Clearly, the form of government - whether communism, democracy, socialism ... whatever - seems secondary to the reality that you have a ruling elite to attempts to control the masses in their own self-interest, even to the point of committing blatant and grievious destructive acts of immorality against innocent people.

Sound familiar?