As of today, Thursday, May 22,
2008, oil is $133 a barrel (and rising).
According to Congressional
testimony Wednesday by an energy expert Gal Luft, when oil reaches $200 a
barrel, OPEC could potentially buy Bank of America with one month’s worth of
production, Apple computers with a week’s revenues and General Motors with
just three days’ sales.
Given the above, the US is in a
number of holes. There’s a hole named Iraq. There’s a hole named “oil
addiction.” And there’s a hole named the world. By that I mean the world is
being increasingly leveled out at the economic and educational level. Levels we
attained long ago. Were we have before taken our leadership for granted;
we now have company and competition.
Competition is a good thing; it
makes one sharper, more aware and more amenable to change. Or does it? All the
US has done is to keep digging.
A way out of Iraq would seem to be
obvious; instead the Bush Administration (if one can call it that) seems
oblivious.
Oil addiction? Instead the US car
manufacturers sell (and we buy) bigger cars and thirstier SUVs! The biggest
source of oil available to us is through conservation through higher and
tougher emission or CAFÉ standards, fuel taxes, and carbon taxes (Most cars emit
approximately one pound of carbon for every mile of city driving.). It is also
well known that 55 mph is the most economic speed limit; instead we have 70 and
75 mph limits all over this country.
As for the hole I identified, as
“the world” well, there’s really no way out of that one, is there? We have to
accept that we are no longer Numero Uno on the planet. This planet belongs to
everyone who lives here. The sooner we ALL learn that we have to take care of
it the sooner there will be peace upon it.
We just may have to talk and
negotiate with people who are very much unlike us, people who perhaps do not
like us very much. There’s an old saying, “To a person with a hammer,
everything’s a nail.” The “hammer” of our military superiority does not work in
all situations as we have found in Iraq. It is, in fact, promoting the
development of new and even more angry, desperate terrorists.
I for one cannot wait for a new
face to be presented to the world by the United States. Whether that face is of
an old and wizened warrior, a smart and tough woman or a young and hopeful
black man, I just pray it is not too late. We have to put down our shovels and hammers and extend the hand of
peace, negotiation, change and humility.
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