Saturday, May 22, 2004

SUV road bullies think they're being persecuted with high gasoline prices.

SUV drivers are in a total state of denial about the price of gasoline. First, they cannot bear to connect the dots between the gas pump & Iraq; for them, the very suggestion that the basic reason Americans are dying there is to get Iraqi oil back on the market is unacceptable. SUV drivers also cannot grasp that the consumption of foreign oil is not an American entitlement. China is now the world's second largest customer, & they got there without an automobile-based culture & economy. Europe & Japan haven't disappeared, & India is getting hungrier for energy. Sure, Bush can open up the oil reserves. If the Iraq War ever winds down, that will also free up more gasoline & maybe lower prices a bit. Temporary respites. We want the world to be democratic & capitalist, & the more we succeed - in the latter at least - the more oil the world will need. So if we want the oil in a seller's market, we have to compete for it. Which means our foreign policy continues to be determined by oil, & we have to go on sucking up to medieval regimes like Saudi Arabia; & use our military might to secure a Pax America not much different in purpose from the Pax Romana of Augustus Caesar.

SUV drivers who complain about what the price of oil does to their budgets should ask themselves why Ralph Kramden doesn't have a TV or telephone but Ed Norton does.Add YOUR comments here

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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson

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