Al Gore You're Still the One
(To the tune of You’re Still The One by Orleans)
by Gary Cobb
We've been behind you since way back when
Even though you say you won’t run again
We just want you to know, after five hard years
You're still the one, that can take away our fears
You're still the one that can right the wrong
Still the one that can make us strong
America needs someone, and you're still the one
We still think about Florida every day
We won’t get over it no matter what they say
It was you who won, as all the recounts show
America lost that day and we just want to let you know
You're still the one that the voters meant
The one we elected president
We still need someone, and you're still the one
You're still the one who can make things right
Still the one who can lead the fight
We still need someone, and you're still the one
Changing, our world is growing warm
Even though you gave alarm, it grows on
You're still the one that we sorely need
Still the one who can truly lead
We still need someone, and you're still the one
You're still the one who can fill the niche
Still the one and we don’t want to switch
We still need someone, and you're still the one
You're still the one that makes us shout
Still the one that we dream about
Al, we need someone to run, and you're still the one...
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
The Selling Off Of America
The wheels are coming off our country - and they're being sold to the highest bidder.
Why are so many American citizens, hard working, middle income people, helping those in power to dismantle our country and send it reeling into bankruptcy, selling our assets piece by piece to multi-national corporations? Who are these people among us who support this, who march willingly to their own imprisonment, poverty and slavery? Who are these people who are willingly handing our country over to the international corporations and the robber barons, singing their praises as our country is being deconstructed and destroyed? Who placed this veil over their eyes? Who hypnotized them? What strange power over our fellow Americans has made them believe they are saving our country while they are destroying it? Is it some kind of national psychological disease that has no cure? Is it right that we who see the truth and remain immune to this disease have to suffer along with those afflicted?
Even the conservative Heritage Foundation complained about a 33 percent expansion of the federal government since 2001, and other conservatives are questioning the corruption and our Bush-inflicted massive debt - and that was before the Katrina spending. "Unless lawmakers make difficult decisions now, they will dump the largest debt in world history into the laps of the next generation". Where is all that money going? It's going to the big corporations that control our congress and the Bush administration cronies. It's going to corrupt elected representatives. Corporations make the laws - not us. Corporations own America - not the people.
A powerful, corrupt and uncompassionate wealthy class will eventually completely dominate a powerless and poor underclass - just like today in China, and other third world nations - and just like Europe during the middle ages. America is already getting difficult to recognize. Read the evidence of how we are being destroyed.
They Privatized the Medical System and now over forty million Americans cannot afford healthcare. Our Sisters of Mercy have sold out to The Sisters Of Greed. Laws are being promoted (by pharmaceutical companies) to prevent Americans from buying cheaper drugs outside the US. Lobbyists for big pharmaceuticals own our elected officials. Healthcare corporations and insurance companies have steadily increased healthcare costs to previously undreamed of profit margins while industrial manufacturing and service companies are colluding to push the burden of healthcare on to the employee. The poor and jobless are left to the ravages of disease and to working the system to get what coverage they can. An underground of many of those who are dispossessed by the system has found ways (with the help of unscrupulous attorneys and doctors) to tap the system through the courts many illegally ending up on social security disability. The rest scrape and suffer in an attempt to survive.
The privatization of America's healthcare can be compared to China's massive national healthcare system that made amazing strides from 1952 to 1982 doubling the life expectancy of citizens, dramatically improving infant mortality rates, eradicating and controlling infectious disease, etc., and providing exceptionally good and easily affordable healthcare to all citizens. And then they began the privatization of the Chinese economy in an effort to reduce the role of the central government. The health care system was put up for sale. Disaster!
This is from the New England Journal of Medicine: "The recent history of the Chinese health care system offers a number of lessons for observers in The US and elsewhere. It seems clear that the radical privatization of health care systems carries enormous risks for the health of citizens and for the stability of governments. In fact, an overriding lesson of the Chinese experience is a warning to the rest of the world: if leaders anywhere care to, they can mimic and even exceed the inequities and inefficiencies that the US health care system has exemplified for so long. " http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/11/1165
They Privatized Agriculture and now 80% of our food is produced by large corporations - factory farms. America's family farms were once the pride of this nation. The healthy food crops once carefully and proudly produced by small farmers who cared for the wellbeing of their local communities has been replaced with bio-engineered mutant varieties, plants that are covered and ingrained with chemicals to promote growth and are engineered to grow quickly and produce their own disease and insect fighting properties. However those same properties are not only making the plants unhealthy for bacteria and insects to eat but are also a danger to all animals including most specifically humans. Corporate profits have priority over health and environmental concerns. The dangers to a society of placing food production in the hands of a few giant corporations are many and severe. Mass produced food that freely uses chemicals and growth hormones has already had a detrimental impact on our health, our soil and our environment. The dangers of taking control out of the hands of a nation's citizen farmers and relying on scientifically mutated, corporately owned seed strains has huge and scary implications for mankind. http://www.ecologycenter.org/basil/
They are Privatizing the Prison System. Companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) build bigger and bigger prisons to increase earning potential and then make sure each new cell is filled to reward shareholders. Overzealous and corrupt prosecutors and police cooperate to fill the cells of city and county jails to overflowing as evidence that new and larger jails must be built. They have almost privatized our judicial systems as a result. http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/karyl.prison.pdf
They are Privatizing the Water . "If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water." ~ Serageldin. Maybe long before that. In 1998 the World Bank predicted the global trade in water would soon generate revenues of up to $800 billion a year. Two years later, at a World Water Forum in the Hague, a triumvirate of multinational water companies backed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) successfully strong-armed the UN into defining water as a human need (which can be sold for profit by private companies) instead of a human right (which means people are ensured equal access on a nonprofit basis). Right now in Nelspruit, South Africa, residents now buy their drinking water from the Biwater corporation, and are all but dying of dehydration. The problem isn't water flow but cash flow: Poor residents can't pay privatized rates. It's a scenario that's beginning to play out all over South Africa and soon all over the world. Corporations that have the right to withhold healthcare for those who cannot pay are now allowed to control and withhold water. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0527-05.htm and http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/science/water/kbakker.htm
Will they next attempt to privatize air? Will each person be charged an inhalation tax?
They are Privatizing Electric Utilities. The US has been aggressively pursuing deregulation and privatization of service sectors for years. What were once public utilities are being offered up and handed over to private corporations at a federal, state and local level. The stated rationale for this is similar to deregulation in that corporations in an environment of a raised level of competitiveness, will lead to improved levels of efficiency and productivity resulting in lower prices overall. Typically consumers rights are sacrificed, eventually you pay more and more for electricity and oligopolies are eventually formed. This is just more evidence of corporations controlling our government. Once these things are done it is almost impossible to reverse them short of a revolution. With the new Energy Bill we can expect to see it pick up speed. California http://www.igtn.org/pdfs/114_USprivatization.pdf was a test case that failed.
They want to Privatize Social Security so the corporation doesn't have to pay any taxes at all. Companies are steadily ending all pension programs. With the dismantling of Social Security investment bankers and stockbrokers can prey on the ignorant and uninformed. The majority of people are against this corporate scheme, but be careful of our elected reps, they could blind-side us with a subtle alternative that would eventually destroy social security. Remember, our government is owned by corporations.
http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=503
They want to Privatize the United States Postal System http://www.postalemployeenetwork.com/privatization.htm Corporations are allowed and encouraged to compete with the US Postal Service so that eventually it will fail. It's on the way, just ask any postal worker. Fed Ex, UPS and other large corporations will eventually end up taking over and just like other privatized social services, prices will go through the roof - not come down like they like to promise.
They want to Privatize the Elections. It has already been proven that electronic voting machines are easily compromised and programmable. The corporate owners of these machines can offer an election to any group or individual that pays the price or is in their favor. The election in Florida and the one in Ohio were both pivotal states in the effort to make sure George W Bush won the White House. Both had electronic voting machines supplied and serviced by corporations who have a vested interest in the Republican Party and George Bush. At some point expect to see private companies completely in charge of conducting elections and counting ballots. That's when you'll know our country and its citizens have been sold lock, stock and barrel to the corporations. http://www.votersunite.org/info/PrivatizationOfElections.pdf
They are slowly Privatizing the Military. This is a huge danger. Right now in Iraq, between the logistics giant Halliburton and a myriad of armed security companies, private military contractors comprise the second largest "force" in Iraq, far outnumbering all non-U.S. forces combined. There are as many as 100,000 civilian contractors and approximately 20,000 private security forces. Private armies have no allegiance to anyone other than their paymaster. Corporations are not patriotic and most certainly are not democratic. Corporations that have their own armies are more like dictators of third world countries and religious cults that have complete dominance of their people. Our present all volunteer military is close to being a private army right now. These poor young people are completely indoctrinated and loyal to those that pay them and hold complete dominion over them. They are paid security forces. Members of the National Guard, the citizen army, on the other hand has been protesting and speaking out. There's your clue as to why we need a draft so that the military is not made up entirely of automatons and paid mercenaries.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/reform/training.htm
They are beginning to Privatize Police Protection. In the future the local government police forces all will be paid mercenaries, guard units that report to a corporate master who will demand "production and profit goals" be met. The privatization of the military is washing over to American streets. These Wal-mart cops will be ex-military, merciless drones, heartless automatons just like those employees of Blackwater now operating in Iraq. Shockingly, they are already on the streets of America. See these links. http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/today_in_dc_com.html http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/22/opinion/main878822.shtml
Who Are "They"?
"They" are those who control America's and the World's wealth, those who direct and lead the large multi-national corporations. Those who are paid obscene salaries and manipulate the financial institutions and the stock market. Enormous profits are generated on the backs of the poor and middle working class who have no power to oppose them. "They" are also elected representatives who are the worst scum, those that pretend to have the voter's welfare as their top priority but who predominately serve their own interests and those of the corporations that own them through campaign contributions and the promise of lucrative lobbying positions or a lucrative position in the corporate world after they leave office. There is a hierarchy of "theys" that permeate our culture and have no loyalty to our nation or sense of duty to anyone but themselves and their kind. See Controlling corporations and restoring democracy
"They're" goal is apparently to concentrate the greatest amount of wealth in the hands of a select few people with the ultimate goal, not unlike that of the super-villains of Batman and Superman comic books, to rule the world. The near-term goal would probably be to make America a model of present day China. The most wealthy live in the megalopolises such as Shanghai and Beijing. These cities sprout soaring, glass shelled skyscrapers and business centers that make even London, Paris and New York look modest by comparison. The bulk of the 1.3 billion citizens work at sweatshop wages, 900 million alone live in rural poverty reminiscent of the world's most forgotten regions.
This is not to indict all corporate leaders and all elected officials but most certainly the majority of them. We still have some decent examples of humanity on this planet, but unless we unite as a people and begin fighting off the shackles of fascism that are being forged for us by corrupt corporate and government leaders - we are doomed. This country belongs to us, we the people. Our government is supposed to serve us, not corporations and those who can afford to bribe them. It's up to each of us to stand firm and tell them, this country is not for sale.
Gary
"We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them." - Eric Heubeck, Free Congress Foundation a right-wing stink tank speaking of cultural institutions
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Grover Norquist, Field Marshall of The Bush Plan, radical right wing strategist and President of the corporate front group, Americans For Tax Reform.
Why are so many American citizens, hard working, middle income people, helping those in power to dismantle our country and send it reeling into bankruptcy, selling our assets piece by piece to multi-national corporations? Who are these people among us who support this, who march willingly to their own imprisonment, poverty and slavery? Who are these people who are willingly handing our country over to the international corporations and the robber barons, singing their praises as our country is being deconstructed and destroyed? Who placed this veil over their eyes? Who hypnotized them? What strange power over our fellow Americans has made them believe they are saving our country while they are destroying it? Is it some kind of national psychological disease that has no cure? Is it right that we who see the truth and remain immune to this disease have to suffer along with those afflicted?
Even the conservative Heritage Foundation complained about a 33 percent expansion of the federal government since 2001, and other conservatives are questioning the corruption and our Bush-inflicted massive debt - and that was before the Katrina spending. "Unless lawmakers make difficult decisions now, they will dump the largest debt in world history into the laps of the next generation". Where is all that money going? It's going to the big corporations that control our congress and the Bush administration cronies. It's going to corrupt elected representatives. Corporations make the laws - not us. Corporations own America - not the people.
A powerful, corrupt and uncompassionate wealthy class will eventually completely dominate a powerless and poor underclass - just like today in China, and other third world nations - and just like Europe during the middle ages. America is already getting difficult to recognize. Read the evidence of how we are being destroyed.
They Privatized the Medical System and now over forty million Americans cannot afford healthcare. Our Sisters of Mercy have sold out to The Sisters Of Greed. Laws are being promoted (by pharmaceutical companies) to prevent Americans from buying cheaper drugs outside the US. Lobbyists for big pharmaceuticals own our elected officials. Healthcare corporations and insurance companies have steadily increased healthcare costs to previously undreamed of profit margins while industrial manufacturing and service companies are colluding to push the burden of healthcare on to the employee. The poor and jobless are left to the ravages of disease and to working the system to get what coverage they can. An underground of many of those who are dispossessed by the system has found ways (with the help of unscrupulous attorneys and doctors) to tap the system through the courts many illegally ending up on social security disability. The rest scrape and suffer in an attempt to survive.
The privatization of America's healthcare can be compared to China's massive national healthcare system that made amazing strides from 1952 to 1982 doubling the life expectancy of citizens, dramatically improving infant mortality rates, eradicating and controlling infectious disease, etc., and providing exceptionally good and easily affordable healthcare to all citizens. And then they began the privatization of the Chinese economy in an effort to reduce the role of the central government. The health care system was put up for sale. Disaster!
This is from the New England Journal of Medicine: "The recent history of the Chinese health care system offers a number of lessons for observers in The US and elsewhere. It seems clear that the radical privatization of health care systems carries enormous risks for the health of citizens and for the stability of governments. In fact, an overriding lesson of the Chinese experience is a warning to the rest of the world: if leaders anywhere care to, they can mimic and even exceed the inequities and inefficiencies that the US health care system has exemplified for so long. " http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/11/1165
They Privatized Agriculture and now 80% of our food is produced by large corporations - factory farms. America's family farms were once the pride of this nation. The healthy food crops once carefully and proudly produced by small farmers who cared for the wellbeing of their local communities has been replaced with bio-engineered mutant varieties, plants that are covered and ingrained with chemicals to promote growth and are engineered to grow quickly and produce their own disease and insect fighting properties. However those same properties are not only making the plants unhealthy for bacteria and insects to eat but are also a danger to all animals including most specifically humans. Corporate profits have priority over health and environmental concerns. The dangers to a society of placing food production in the hands of a few giant corporations are many and severe. Mass produced food that freely uses chemicals and growth hormones has already had a detrimental impact on our health, our soil and our environment. The dangers of taking control out of the hands of a nation's citizen farmers and relying on scientifically mutated, corporately owned seed strains has huge and scary implications for mankind. http://www.ecologycenter.org/basil/
They are Privatizing the Prison System. Companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) build bigger and bigger prisons to increase earning potential and then make sure each new cell is filled to reward shareholders. Overzealous and corrupt prosecutors and police cooperate to fill the cells of city and county jails to overflowing as evidence that new and larger jails must be built. They have almost privatized our judicial systems as a result. http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/karyl.prison.pdf
They are Privatizing the Water . "If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water." ~ Serageldin. Maybe long before that. In 1998 the World Bank predicted the global trade in water would soon generate revenues of up to $800 billion a year. Two years later, at a World Water Forum in the Hague, a triumvirate of multinational water companies backed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) successfully strong-armed the UN into defining water as a human need (which can be sold for profit by private companies) instead of a human right (which means people are ensured equal access on a nonprofit basis). Right now in Nelspruit, South Africa, residents now buy their drinking water from the Biwater corporation, and are all but dying of dehydration. The problem isn't water flow but cash flow: Poor residents can't pay privatized rates. It's a scenario that's beginning to play out all over South Africa and soon all over the world. Corporations that have the right to withhold healthcare for those who cannot pay are now allowed to control and withhold water. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0527-05.htm and http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/science/water/kbakker.htm
Will they next attempt to privatize air? Will each person be charged an inhalation tax?
They are Privatizing Electric Utilities. The US has been aggressively pursuing deregulation and privatization of service sectors for years. What were once public utilities are being offered up and handed over to private corporations at a federal, state and local level. The stated rationale for this is similar to deregulation in that corporations in an environment of a raised level of competitiveness, will lead to improved levels of efficiency and productivity resulting in lower prices overall. Typically consumers rights are sacrificed, eventually you pay more and more for electricity and oligopolies are eventually formed. This is just more evidence of corporations controlling our government. Once these things are done it is almost impossible to reverse them short of a revolution. With the new Energy Bill we can expect to see it pick up speed. California http://www.igtn.org/pdfs/114_USprivatization.pdf was a test case that failed.
They want to Privatize Social Security so the corporation doesn't have to pay any taxes at all. Companies are steadily ending all pension programs. With the dismantling of Social Security investment bankers and stockbrokers can prey on the ignorant and uninformed. The majority of people are against this corporate scheme, but be careful of our elected reps, they could blind-side us with a subtle alternative that would eventually destroy social security. Remember, our government is owned by corporations.
http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=503
They want to Privatize the United States Postal System http://www.postalemployeenetwork.com/privatization.htm Corporations are allowed and encouraged to compete with the US Postal Service so that eventually it will fail. It's on the way, just ask any postal worker. Fed Ex, UPS and other large corporations will eventually end up taking over and just like other privatized social services, prices will go through the roof - not come down like they like to promise.
They want to Privatize the Elections. It has already been proven that electronic voting machines are easily compromised and programmable. The corporate owners of these machines can offer an election to any group or individual that pays the price or is in their favor. The election in Florida and the one in Ohio were both pivotal states in the effort to make sure George W Bush won the White House. Both had electronic voting machines supplied and serviced by corporations who have a vested interest in the Republican Party and George Bush. At some point expect to see private companies completely in charge of conducting elections and counting ballots. That's when you'll know our country and its citizens have been sold lock, stock and barrel to the corporations. http://www.votersunite.org/info/PrivatizationOfElections.pdf
They are slowly Privatizing the Military. This is a huge danger. Right now in Iraq, between the logistics giant Halliburton and a myriad of armed security companies, private military contractors comprise the second largest "force" in Iraq, far outnumbering all non-U.S. forces combined. There are as many as 100,000 civilian contractors and approximately 20,000 private security forces. Private armies have no allegiance to anyone other than their paymaster. Corporations are not patriotic and most certainly are not democratic. Corporations that have their own armies are more like dictators of third world countries and religious cults that have complete dominance of their people. Our present all volunteer military is close to being a private army right now. These poor young people are completely indoctrinated and loyal to those that pay them and hold complete dominion over them. They are paid security forces. Members of the National Guard, the citizen army, on the other hand has been protesting and speaking out. There's your clue as to why we need a draft so that the military is not made up entirely of automatons and paid mercenaries.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/reform/training.htm
They are beginning to Privatize Police Protection. In the future the local government police forces all will be paid mercenaries, guard units that report to a corporate master who will demand "production and profit goals" be met. The privatization of the military is washing over to American streets. These Wal-mart cops will be ex-military, merciless drones, heartless automatons just like those employees of Blackwater now operating in Iraq. Shockingly, they are already on the streets of America. See these links. http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/09/today_in_dc_com.html http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/22/opinion/main878822.shtml
Who Are "They"?
"They" are those who control America's and the World's wealth, those who direct and lead the large multi-national corporations. Those who are paid obscene salaries and manipulate the financial institutions and the stock market. Enormous profits are generated on the backs of the poor and middle working class who have no power to oppose them. "They" are also elected representatives who are the worst scum, those that pretend to have the voter's welfare as their top priority but who predominately serve their own interests and those of the corporations that own them through campaign contributions and the promise of lucrative lobbying positions or a lucrative position in the corporate world after they leave office. There is a hierarchy of "theys" that permeate our culture and have no loyalty to our nation or sense of duty to anyone but themselves and their kind. See Controlling corporations and restoring democracy
"They're" goal is apparently to concentrate the greatest amount of wealth in the hands of a select few people with the ultimate goal, not unlike that of the super-villains of Batman and Superman comic books, to rule the world. The near-term goal would probably be to make America a model of present day China. The most wealthy live in the megalopolises such as Shanghai and Beijing. These cities sprout soaring, glass shelled skyscrapers and business centers that make even London, Paris and New York look modest by comparison. The bulk of the 1.3 billion citizens work at sweatshop wages, 900 million alone live in rural poverty reminiscent of the world's most forgotten regions.
This is not to indict all corporate leaders and all elected officials but most certainly the majority of them. We still have some decent examples of humanity on this planet, but unless we unite as a people and begin fighting off the shackles of fascism that are being forged for us by corrupt corporate and government leaders - we are doomed. This country belongs to us, we the people. Our government is supposed to serve us, not corporations and those who can afford to bribe them. It's up to each of us to stand firm and tell them, this country is not for sale.
Gary
"We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them." - Eric Heubeck, Free Congress Foundation a right-wing stink tank speaking of cultural institutions
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Grover Norquist, Field Marshall of The Bush Plan, radical right wing strategist and President of the corporate front group, Americans For Tax Reform.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
High Gas Prices - Good For What Ails Us?
With all the divergent claims and forecasts made by "the experts" concerning world oil supplies the average person has to wonder if any are telling the truth. However one thing seems certain. Even though many of you might disagree, the rise in gas prices are long overdue and once we get accustomed to higher prices they should stay up and not go back to previous levels. The fact is we should have been paying more for gasoline a long time ago just like most other nations on this earth have done. In the past, because of our economic and military clout the United States has been successful at holding down the cost of oil and gas price at the pumps and has kept energy costs low as a means to fuel our economy. That's all changing as pressures from a growing world economy are coming to bear. As more and more jobs are moved to other nations, as the dollar continues it's slide and as America continues to borrow money from other nations (one feeds the other) our debt could reach the point of no return.
Oh we'll survive, no question about that, but as the saying goes, it won't be your grandfather's Oldsmobile. Ironically, that familiar saying used to denote substantial change for the better, but it can be used today to suggest an ominous prevision. Not only is an Oldsmobile no longer what it used to be, it also no longer exists. The first mass produced automobile (That's right, it wasn't Ford) and the first to use chrome and offer an automatic transmission, anyone my age would have never believed the Oldsmobile would fade and die before other less noteworthy brands - but it did. And few today could ever conceive a time when America might not be the innovative, economic and military powerhouse we have come to accept as our destiny, but it can happen. And it will if we don't wake up to reality.
Since so many manufacturing jobs are being transferred to low wage nations, more and more the building of suburban houses and all their accompanying infrastructure has become the basis of our national economy. This careless concern for energy conservation along with out of control spending may give the rest of the world reason to conclude that the US has poor economic prospects, and therefore other nations will feel a steep disincentive to continue investing in our debt and equities. The loans will dry up and foreclosures will be filed.
There are some who are calling to mind the economic crisis that caused the demise of the USSR. Most agree the former USSR became financially stretched and went into an economic tailspin trying to match the US in a strategic arms race and while funding a huge military to maintain control of it's various territories. In addition they were fighting the 10-year war in Afghanistan. Does this feel eerily familiar?
Certainly the US economy is nowhere near the state the USSR was in but pressures from the new global economy are forcing the US to change in many ways that threatens our way of life. High energy consumption and the decreasing availability of oil will continue to cause world conflict between nations and will change almost every facet of our life and in the products we produce and consume. As a nation, we and our leadership seem completely unprepared and unwilling to admit that the way we live is a problem, that we can't continue to binge on oil as if there is no tomorrow. Before the hole becomes too deep and suffering becomes unbearable, we need to seriously address developing hydrogen power and other alternative energy sources, and establish mass transportation systems as Europe and Japan has done. We also need to restore passenger railroad service and address urban sprawl. As Robert Kennedy Jr. has stated "Our nation's sense of identity is now tragically linked to a living arrangement that has no future."
The feeble step to confront this problem of energy self-sufficiency by drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR) is a sad commentary on the Bush administration and their unwillingness to confront the energy problem head on. ANWAR contains an estimated four billion barrels of oil. Since America uses over 20 million barrels a day (one billion every fifty days), ANWAR represents about a half year's supply. This amounts to emptying the piggy bank to stave off eventual starvation when the hard work of planting and tending a garden is the only real alternative. We should be immediately taking the more difficult steps to wean ourselves from our addictive dependence on oil before the required steps become so drastic they create chaos and extreme suffering. Responding to energy needs by invading and taking control of the oil rich nations of the middle east (and perhaps South America in the future) is not the legacy we should want to pass on to our children and not the way we should want other nations to view us.
Burning fossil fuels have created a greenhouse effect that most scientists now agree is the cause of the dangerous global warming that we are beginning to experience. Warmer ocean temperatures are spawning more volatile hurricanes, melting the world's ice caps and creating other erratic and destructive weather patterns. Dependency on oil increases the likelihood of further military entanglements, and threatens the economy with inflation, high interest rates and risky foreign indebtedness. Oil profits from middle east nations fall into the hands of extremists and fuel their acts of terrorism against us.
A higher gas tax that would help maintain gas prices in the $3.00 per gallon range would not only increase the demand for more energy efficient automobiles and public transportation systems, it would also help reduce urban sprawl and provide revenues to help finance research and development of alternative energy systems. The benefits of all this would help establish new technology and jobs. As a stop-gap measure, Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana has been promoting a "bridge to the future" in the form of zero-emission coal liquifaction. This process, that was developed several decades ago, converts coal into individual hydrogens, oxygens, and carbons that allows for synthesizing diesel, gasoline, and aviation fuels. Governor Schweitzer claims there is enough coal in Montana alone to supply the United States energy needs for the next 30-40 years. In the meantime we could be developing a combination of clean energy sources including bio-diesel, wind power and hydrogen power.
As our own Al Gore and many other visionaries have warned, failure to plan ahead and act immediately to move towards energy self-sufficiency is foolish and by delaying in this effort we are causing dangerous injury to the world's environment. America stands by and continues to gobble up oil while other nations are taking the initiative to develop the technology to survive without it. They have the foresight to see that whoever commands and applies these technologies will create new industry and grow and invigorate their economies while creating a healthy environment for their citizens. America should be setting the example for others and should be leading this effort, but instead has moved down the wrong path.
Gary
Here are two reports that support my view.
Gas Taxes: Lesser Evil, Greater Good
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/opinion/24mon1.html?th&emc=th
Iraq Invasion May Be Remembered as Start of the Age of Oil Scarcity http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/20/MNGJKBS9PM1.DTL
Oh we'll survive, no question about that, but as the saying goes, it won't be your grandfather's Oldsmobile. Ironically, that familiar saying used to denote substantial change for the better, but it can be used today to suggest an ominous prevision. Not only is an Oldsmobile no longer what it used to be, it also no longer exists. The first mass produced automobile (That's right, it wasn't Ford) and the first to use chrome and offer an automatic transmission, anyone my age would have never believed the Oldsmobile would fade and die before other less noteworthy brands - but it did. And few today could ever conceive a time when America might not be the innovative, economic and military powerhouse we have come to accept as our destiny, but it can happen. And it will if we don't wake up to reality.
Since so many manufacturing jobs are being transferred to low wage nations, more and more the building of suburban houses and all their accompanying infrastructure has become the basis of our national economy. This careless concern for energy conservation along with out of control spending may give the rest of the world reason to conclude that the US has poor economic prospects, and therefore other nations will feel a steep disincentive to continue investing in our debt and equities. The loans will dry up and foreclosures will be filed.
There are some who are calling to mind the economic crisis that caused the demise of the USSR. Most agree the former USSR became financially stretched and went into an economic tailspin trying to match the US in a strategic arms race and while funding a huge military to maintain control of it's various territories. In addition they were fighting the 10-year war in Afghanistan. Does this feel eerily familiar?
Certainly the US economy is nowhere near the state the USSR was in but pressures from the new global economy are forcing the US to change in many ways that threatens our way of life. High energy consumption and the decreasing availability of oil will continue to cause world conflict between nations and will change almost every facet of our life and in the products we produce and consume. As a nation, we and our leadership seem completely unprepared and unwilling to admit that the way we live is a problem, that we can't continue to binge on oil as if there is no tomorrow. Before the hole becomes too deep and suffering becomes unbearable, we need to seriously address developing hydrogen power and other alternative energy sources, and establish mass transportation systems as Europe and Japan has done. We also need to restore passenger railroad service and address urban sprawl. As Robert Kennedy Jr. has stated "Our nation's sense of identity is now tragically linked to a living arrangement that has no future."
The feeble step to confront this problem of energy self-sufficiency by drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR) is a sad commentary on the Bush administration and their unwillingness to confront the energy problem head on. ANWAR contains an estimated four billion barrels of oil. Since America uses over 20 million barrels a day (one billion every fifty days), ANWAR represents about a half year's supply. This amounts to emptying the piggy bank to stave off eventual starvation when the hard work of planting and tending a garden is the only real alternative. We should be immediately taking the more difficult steps to wean ourselves from our addictive dependence on oil before the required steps become so drastic they create chaos and extreme suffering. Responding to energy needs by invading and taking control of the oil rich nations of the middle east (and perhaps South America in the future) is not the legacy we should want to pass on to our children and not the way we should want other nations to view us.
Burning fossil fuels have created a greenhouse effect that most scientists now agree is the cause of the dangerous global warming that we are beginning to experience. Warmer ocean temperatures are spawning more volatile hurricanes, melting the world's ice caps and creating other erratic and destructive weather patterns. Dependency on oil increases the likelihood of further military entanglements, and threatens the economy with inflation, high interest rates and risky foreign indebtedness. Oil profits from middle east nations fall into the hands of extremists and fuel their acts of terrorism against us.
A higher gas tax that would help maintain gas prices in the $3.00 per gallon range would not only increase the demand for more energy efficient automobiles and public transportation systems, it would also help reduce urban sprawl and provide revenues to help finance research and development of alternative energy systems. The benefits of all this would help establish new technology and jobs. As a stop-gap measure, Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana has been promoting a "bridge to the future" in the form of zero-emission coal liquifaction. This process, that was developed several decades ago, converts coal into individual hydrogens, oxygens, and carbons that allows for synthesizing diesel, gasoline, and aviation fuels. Governor Schweitzer claims there is enough coal in Montana alone to supply the United States energy needs for the next 30-40 years. In the meantime we could be developing a combination of clean energy sources including bio-diesel, wind power and hydrogen power.
As our own Al Gore and many other visionaries have warned, failure to plan ahead and act immediately to move towards energy self-sufficiency is foolish and by delaying in this effort we are causing dangerous injury to the world's environment. America stands by and continues to gobble up oil while other nations are taking the initiative to develop the technology to survive without it. They have the foresight to see that whoever commands and applies these technologies will create new industry and grow and invigorate their economies while creating a healthy environment for their citizens. America should be setting the example for others and should be leading this effort, but instead has moved down the wrong path.
Gary
Here are two reports that support my view.
Gas Taxes: Lesser Evil, Greater Good
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/opinion/24mon1.html?th&emc=th
Iraq Invasion May Be Remembered as Start of the Age of Oil Scarcity http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/20/MNGJKBS9PM1.DTL
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