$4 Gas: It's Our Fault

I noticed a gas station sign today here in Spokane. 3.99.9 for regular.

 

That's *very* exciting, Daniel. Has been over $4.50 here for weeks.

Yeah, if this being "our fault" is a surprise to anybody... wait until I tell you about the Easter Bunny. GREAT comic above! The difference this time? There really is no way for the pendulum to swing back the other way. Should would have been less painful if we'd stopped the pendulum the first time in the 70's.

Ya know... back in the 1940's more residences used solar to heat water than any other means. Then we found natural gas. Poof went the solar hot water industry. Sure would be nice to have had that infrastructure in place today, eh? In Isreal new construction is *required* to have solar hot water even though it became cheaper (up front) to do it other ways). Imagine that - a government decree that has foresight. That would never work here, of course. I mean... what's in it for me? Can you imagine our governement ever telling us that we MUST drive more efficient cars? Or *gasp* NO cars? ha.

Well, who's gonna laugh last?

 

It's not our fault. Gas would eventually be $4.00 a gallon at some point. It's our fault it happened as soon as it did.

 

It's our fault we were not ready for it. It's our fault we are dependent on oil no matter what they decide to charge us for it. It's our fault we are addicts.

 

Of course, there was not the China and Indian middle class explosion back in the 70's and the increased oil demand from these countries. There are MANY factors that went into this.

 

It's our fault that we're the only developed nation involuntarily refusing to extract our natural resources.

 

It's not my fault. I haven't driven a car that gets less than 30 MPG (and usually a lot more) in over 20 years.

 

Blame the media, too. They spend more time discussing political horseraces than they do on important issues like health care, gasoline consumption and global warming.

 

The US owns most of the resource rich land and grants leases to extract and permits to construct refineries.

Nationalize oil companies? Nice, then we can become just like Mexico, Russia, Venezuala, China and other Socialist Utopias, the liberal dream.

 

You're joking, right? Please say you're joking!

 

If I get lucky and get a school close to my house, I can bike. My current school is 12.5 miles away by freeway. I never checked the bus routes to see how many times I'd have to change buses or how long it would take, but I'm guessing 45 min to an hour to travel streets routes that take me 12 min. by freeway in my Prius. I bought the Prius in 2005 because I knew I'd be changing schools and didn't know where I'd end up and had to prepare for a commute. San Diego mass transit sucks. Plain and simple.

My school has opted to save money be discontinuing the Teacher Librarian position. So.....I'll be at another school in the Fall. Maybe as a librarian, maybe as a classroom teacher. But I have no idea what school I'll end up at. There are several newer schools in the area that probably have probationary teachers that have been RIFd. I may end up at one of them.

But I do not consider it my fault that the government and the corporations of the United States did not raise CAFE, provide me with efficient mass transit or provide me with an alternative to the ICE car. Toyota did and I bought one. I'd have bought an EV1 if GM had sold them. But they didn't and I don't lease. I didn't know about the RAV4 EV or I might have purchased one of them. I need something that I can drive on the freeway so your ZAP is out.

I vote, but my vote doesn't always prevail.

I've done more than some, less than others. I'm doing what I can.

I can't avoid oil but I didn't create the situation and given an alternative I'll take it. But I can't stop working nor will I sell my house and live in a cardboard box.

 

Typical neo-con straw-man "logic." According to this way of thinking, if we merely assert that a strategic resource under our land, which is necessary to the security and the economy of the nation, should by rights belong to the nation, we are told that this one sensible act would make us "just like Mexico, Russia, Venezuala, China." etc. Is anybody really dumb enough to think that nationalizing oil would make us start eating beans and tortillas, or that it would turn Michigan into Siberia, or that it would make us start speaking Chinese or overnight make us change our national pastime from baseball to soccer?

"Just like Mexico, Russia, Venezuala, China"??? The implication is that if we adopt one good idea from these countries, we'd become "just like them."

That argument would not even be worth replying to if there were not so many people in this country so thoroughly brainwashed that the mere use of the word "socialism" sends them into an epileptic fit.

No, nationalizing oil would not turn us into a socialist country. Would that it were so easy! Capitalist consumerism is the most efficient way to create abundant useless goods and services, and it is also the quickest way to deplete natural resources and leave the Earth a more barren place than you found it. Capitalism has given us computers and SUVs and iPhones, but it's also given us air in big cities that you cannot breathe, and $4 gas on its way to $15, and grocery stores chock full of foods that are 95% sugar with a little processed corn added. Are we really better off now than our grandparents were growing up? We can move 1,000 times faster, and we are always in a hurry and always late to get somewhere; our incomes are 10 times greater, and we are in debt up to our ears; We imprison a greater proportion of our population than any other nation in the world, and yet we live in constant fear of crime; we have GPS satellites that tell us exactly where we are, but we live our lives wishing we were somewhere else; as a nation we eat more meat than any nation in history, and we are unhealthier than we've ever been.

And all this is the inevitable legacy of capitalism. But the mere use of the word "socialism" sends fear down the spine of America. Our fear is what will ultimately destroy us.

 

It's our fault for electing the wrong leaders over and over again. We could have EASILY been completely energy independent by now had we elected the right leadership. You know the addage ... "America, we get what we deserve".

So instead of energy independence, we fight oil wars that waste hundreds of thousands (certainly millions before it's over) of innocent lives.

It's okay though ... since we're doing this killing in God's name.

... Brad

 

It's all my fault, all of it but who said $4.00 per gallon is enough, I want $8.00 per gallon and even then I might push the price higher.

I don't think it's a bad thing actually.

 

Yeah. I don't believe in smiley faces so my tongue-in-cheek posts sometimes don't come across that way...