Why do we accept war-economy monopolies as if we are fighting "the good fight" all over again?  Why do we seem to fall for the same shite over and over again?
A solution to detangling the propaganda lies in the simple framework used for so long it has a Latin name: cui bono?  Who benefits?  or Follow the money (and you will see the most cynical conspiracy theorists outside of David Icke might actually be right).
Recently ExxonMobil posted the most profitable quarter in world history at $11.7 billion (beating their previous most profitable quarter and world record by $100 million).  Now, coupled with the very real gasoline price crunch, how is it these things are somehow unrelated?  In any other industry in the world, if the prices increase by several hundred percent while the company in question rakes in record-breaking profits, there would be a bloody revolution.  
Imagine, for instance that it now costs $1000 to get your drivers license renewed, and that the DMV announced record profits the next quarter.  I'd bet there would be some civil disobedience in response.
Yet, in this particular case, we are told repeatedly that "market forces" dictate prices, and the helpless oil oligopolies are merely playing their role in getting the consumer a product at a reasonable cost--and accidentally making record profits--while US lives are being lost in the heart (or liver) of the oil producing nations.  
As anyone who's ever heard the WuTang Clan can attest, this world is about making money.  If the most powerful people in the world are not using their power to accumulate wealth, then they are either insane or dead.  And yet, it is a kind of blasphemy to believe that US politicians (of one's own party) would use their clout to purposefully profit.  
It is my uncontroversial contention that we could significantly improve our republic if we could collectively pull our heads out of our asses when it comes to the most pressing issues of our time and simply follow the money.  War requires us to trash our guarded concepts of supply and demand in favor of no-bid contracts, and no-cost-is-too-high-for (insert ideological-fear-mongering fluff).  
But this isn't just about our wars, it's about every decision made to spend money, or to remove or institute protections to a particular business niche.  It has everything to do ANWR and coastal drilling bans as well as the mechanisms that allowed slanted hiring practices in the DOJ and the undisclosed roll call of oil lobbyists and executives who set energy policy with VP Cheney in 2001.  
How it is that our current administration never had a substantive conflict of interest case brought against them is bewildering.  Yet this pattern will continue "as fiercely as if it had never happened before" if we cannot see our own power structure for what it is.