Deniers!

Deniers

The conservative deny machine is running at break neck speed.

Two areas of denial are particularly galling, dangerous and pathetically sad:

1. In the past weeks we have witnessed tornadoes in the midwest and south of Biblical proportions. The storms are massive in size and scope, killing scores and destroying billions of dollars in homes, businesses, farms; etc.

Climate Scientists, because of the "deniers" have been slow to blame climate change for this catastrophe because of the political power of climate change deniers.

If one actually reads the science, the overwhelming majority of articles predict the exact extreme weather we are experiencing.

Tornadoes are not totally understood by science. However, the ability to predict them and warn the public has increased greatly in the past twenty years due to computer models, radar improvement and satellite imagery.

This statement sounds exactly like why climate change scientists have improved their projections over the years. Computer models and the speed of computations (crunching numbers) has enabled scientists to be more accurate in predicting the tragic impact of the damage man has done to his environment.

The facts are overwhelming that climate change is driving these "killer tornadoes" Last week temperatures in Texas were well over 100 degrees (in May!) and wind shear and cold air coming down across the great plains were huge. When these two temperature masses clash, the effects are tornadoes and bizarre, extreme weather (hail the size of baseballs; etc).

This hits the heartland of America, where most climate deniers live. Oklahoma is a hot-bed of those who think global warming is a "liberal plot", and today they tremble in fear of a climate change catastrophe. Ironic and tragic!

The deep south is treading water as the Mississippi River floods at a one in 500 years flood, while conservative deniers call it "just crazy weather". Huh? C02 attracts H2O molecules (every high school biology student knows this) resulting in a "greenhouse effect" that retains water in the atmosphere. Add heat to this and you get more rain. More rain means more water, leading to floods. Oh, I forget, this is all just a liberal plot!

And still they deny that which is killing them!

2. On the tax front, Orville Norquist (what a name for a political operative) is visiting the California Legislature trying to get all Republicans to sign his NO TAX INCREASE EVER PLEDGE.

This comes a day after the Supreme Court in a split vote declared California's prison system "cruel and unusual punishment" in that it is hopelessly overcrowded with Turkish Prison like conditions. In fact, the conditions are worse than Turkish prisons!

These conditions resulted from when Californians passing a host of punitive, stupid conservative laws in a paranoid "law and order-crack down on crime" reactionary spending spree that expanded the California prison population way past the revenue income to pay for it.

California, shudder, spent more money than it had! And conservatives led the way!

Anyone can get elected if they promise to cut taxes AND raise spending: George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan; et al. The problem is the bill for this foolish denying does not go away!

Because Orville is running around scaring Republicans to death with his no tax increase hammer, California has a prison system that jails far too many and pays for less, resulting in overcrowding and an unconstitutional system. The resulting budget deficits are chronic and forever.

And what do the deniers say? Cut schools, cut mental health, cut, cut, cut to pay for more prisons.

The deniers take absolute no responsibility for passing laws that were completely underfunded. They never do!

California led the nation into the cut taxes fervor, led by Ronald Reagan. An ideology has grown up that is so out of touch with reality, that it continues to create social and economic disasters, just like global warming, everywhere.

The nation is running a ruinous deficit caused by a President who started two wars, and a war on terror, while massively cutting taxes. And now, the deniers blame the current President who inherited it all. And what do they now want to cut?

Medicare and Social Security are the targets, blaming seniors for the deficit that their "entitlement" programs had nothing to do creating!

What did President George W. Bush want to "reform" and raid for funds to pay for his deficit; Social Security! Does anyone remember the famous "use my political capital" that attacked social security, trying to privatize it and pour money into a Wall Street that led us into financial disaster in 2007! Have you ever wondered where we would be today if your social security funds had been invested in Wall Street!

The "Little Hoover Commission" churns out conservative denier propaganda attacking everything public and unions in particular, saying they are the cause of the deficit, while denying the impact of mindless tax cuts.

It's the revenue stupid! Tax cuts, reduce money to government. If you spend at record levels, while cutting taxes, you get a.........DEFICIT!

And the deniers do the same thing they are doing with global warming, they look right into the camera and DENY that tax cuts are causing the deficit....it is all progressive program spending that causes the problem, they say. This is not only a denial, it is a LIE!

Today, I mean right now, people are DYING in the midwest, being chewed up by killer, monster storms fed by the engine of global warming. Today, I mean right now, children are starving in America fed by the engine of tax cutter conservatives, who don't give a damn who gets hurt with their maniacal ideology.

This denier mentality is nothing new for the conservative movement in the United States.

In 1940, conservative leaders were denying the threat of Hitler AFTER Germany attacked Poland and even Russia. Cons attacked and almost blocked the Draft, which passed the House of Representatives by ONE vote! This was in 1940!

Herbert Hoover, remember Hoovervilles, denied to the day of his death that Roosevelt had anything to do with ending the Great Depression, and helped establish the Little Hoover Commission, that has been denying reality ever since.

What is the matter with these people? I would never wish tragedy on anyone, but it is ironic that the areas of the country that house the core of the conservative deniers, is now getting destroyed by the very thing they deny. People are dying, being flooded into oblivion, and still they deny!

The problem is nature does not lie. When conservatives put their heads in the sand and denied the threat of Adolph Hitler, history could not be denied. Nature does not deny. Nature is nature, it is simply there, and if you pay any attention at all, it is showing you every day what is real, and becoming more threatening to man's very existence every day.

History does not deny it is there for all to see if only you read and think!

Oh, one last comment: Today I read in the N.Y. Times that deniers in Arizona (go figure) now are claiming the tragic shooting of the Democratic Congresswoman was all a government plot to build support for the President. The shooting victims apparently were all actors, the whole thing was staged. I suppose the killing of the nine year old little girl, the funeral; etc., is all deniable. These people are sick! And still they deny...

Character?

Character

Recently a "hit piece" of television "journalism" purported to expose the sins and personal lives of the Kennedy's.

The show was so controversial, it was produced by a right wing fanatic, that most mainstream cable shows would not touch it.

Rumors about the Kennedy's have gone on forever. The conservatives have loved to pound away at the alleged infidelities of the Kennedy's, especially President Kennedy.

Conservatives have harped on the need for "family values" in a holier than thou attempt to gain the high ground for elections.

Truth, of course, is not a value, because those who are being accused are all dead and cannot defend themselves.

Then there is Arnold. Gray Davis, was recalled as California's governor because of the "sin" of not balancing the budget and for the energy crisis of 2001. Both of these "crises" were not his fault, but the recall proceeded nonetheless.

In probably the worst case of political injustice and cynicism in the nation's history, Gray Davis was recalled successfully and Arnold was elected.

So, we got the man who promised to "blow up the boxes", to reform government, to add character to governing.

Meanwhile he was groping and screwing everything that walked. He impregnated one of his household staff, grabbed everything within reach, and even admitted to being in an orgy or two. He also admitted using steroids when he was winning bodybuilding contests.

And Gray Davis? Well, his biggest sin was than he was "bland". He was boring. He just was a governor.

If anyone believes Arnold's "story" that he had nothing to do with the recall, they also believe that Arnold is a moral man. He was in on the con; discrediting a sitting governor, to feed his endless ego.

Eight years later California is broke, its government is a mess. Arnold, true to form, played with the government, some would say fondled it, and ruined it.

And his reward? Well, he recently announced even more movies he will make, as the "governator".

And his conservative cronies, who engineered the whole thing? Why they are busy on hatchet jobs on dead liberal politicians whose indiscretions are at the very least fifty years old!

Character indeed!

Shoot Your Foot Off/Fox Commands It

Shooting One's Foot Off

Today, on the way to Mother's Day Brunch, I casually picked up a Tea Party Newsletter in our local restaurant. As I read it briefly, my wife warned me to, "Put it down, it will only make you mad."

I read a couple articles briefly. One was lamenting the "true cause" of the economic recession we are in.

The other lamented the huge tax burden Americans are laboring under.

Both topics are standard stuff for the tea party crowd.

But, I know both authors. They are regular working class people; not store owners, nor are they "professionals".

Redding, my home town, is a small city, very conservative since about 1970, and home to quite a large tea party contingent. Currently a big news item concerns a tea party member who was handing out leaflets at the city library. Some citizens protested, wanting to be left alone when they visited the public library. The ACLU and the Tea Party are both arguing that it is free speech, and cannot be restricted. I suppose they will win out, First Amendment and all.

I digress; the topics of the two articles in the newsletter was what most caught my eye; and ire!

The reason for the Great Recession is (are you ready?) THE UNIONS!

In spite of the fact that union membership is at its lowest point in fifty years, unions caused the Great Recession.

Of course this is utter nonsense. But, it echoes the propaganda of Fox News right down the line.

The other article lambasted the size of government, calling for immediate and deep spending cuts to "balance the budget".

Nowhere was there any mention of the true cause of the "deficit". Of course, it all is Obama and the Democrat's fault.

Wrong again. Over 70% of the federal deficit was developed during the Bush Presidency because of the tax cuts, and fighting two wars at the same time (plus spending like there was no tomorrow, giving tax benefits to every corporation on earth, deregulation of the financial sector; etc.).

Without wasting time refuting the same old garbage that Fox regurgitates every day, something else is really bothersome.

The people who wrote these articles are regular people like me, except not college graduates. They are parroting what they hear on Fox News almost like robots.

This robotic allegiance to untruth and lies is alarming. I see it everyday, when I approach conservatives they are united in their allegiance to Fox News talking points.

The power of propaganda is amazing.

These people are arguing exactly against their own self interest. Redding used to be a union town. Wages were good. In the last twenty years unions have been broken, poverty has exploded, unemployment is over twenty percent, and the tea party blames the unions?

There are no unions to blame!

And, what is worse, is a total misunderstanding of the tax burden in California and the nation. All statistics point to the current tax burden in the United States as being the LOWEST IN SIXTY YEARS!

You would never know that if you listen to Fox News, or the the tea party. California's overall tax burden is something like fifteenth in the U.S., remarkable since California is the most populous state. A conservative legislative minority, thanks to the 2/3 requirement to raise taxes, is right now stopping all constructive efforts to deal with the state's deficit, leaving only huge spending cuts as a remedy.

All of this will dramatically and negatively affect Redding, California, since state government and education are a mainstay of the economy. Hundreds of teachers have received pink slips. If that payroll is reduced, the effect on the local economy will be devastating.

In a very real sense, the tea party is shooting its members' feet off to spite their faces.

They are so brainwashed that they are literally working against themselves. And, they are working very hard, water carriers for the rich (who they detest by the way). But, they trust Fox News implicitly.

Which, of course, is exactly what Fox News works for. Fool all the people all the time, get them to vote against themselves, and the rich will get richer.

Pathetic!

A Great Day For America

A great day for America

I was called by my wife as I traveled to a golf tournament Sunday night. I could barely make out what she said. I finally got it; that Bin Laden had been killed. Then, I tried in vain to get F.M. radio for details. I happened to be in a mountainous area and could not get much in the way of updates.

The next morning, in the motel before the tournament, I was able to get Fox News and was stunned to see a commentary that George W. Bush deserved the lion's share of the credit for killing Bin Ladan because "water boarding" had been used to gain intelligence that led to the successful operation in Pakistan.

I tuned it to ABC news, since I am not a fan of Fox News. I wanted information, not politics at that point.

None of the other news channels mentioned anything about the intelligence that led to the operation. This was Monday morning, remember, and the story was still very fresh. All the channels were alive with news of the operation, who was killed, how long it took; etc.

As it has turned out, the first reports from the scene were contradictory; as is always the case in the "fog of war". Details are still being adjusted, as de-briefings proceed.

But, the Fox News thing that I originally discounted, is as usual taking a life of its own.

I played golf Wednesday when I returned home from the trip. I have several conservative friends, and could not resist but gloat a bit that the President (who they hate) got Bin Laden.

I did not say anything about the years of frustration of President Bush, who made the "Dead or Alive" statements, sent troops to Afghanistan, and never came close to Bin Laden. I never said anything negative about President Bush at all.

Their response was astonishing. The first thing out of their mouths was what I had heard on Monday in that 1/2 minute viewing of Fox News: that President Bush should get credit for getting Bin Laden due to the "water boarding" interrogation techniques used to get "vital" intelligence.

So, I got on the internet and started getting some facts. I discovered that President Bush stopped the practice of "enhanced interrogation" at least five years ago. I also listened to reports that described the vital intelligence that finally led us to where Bin Laden was hiding.

These facts contradict what Fox News so slyly started. The facts are that enhanced interrogation techniques stopped years ago. The "courier" whose name led us to discover Bin Laden's lair, was discovered by the denials of two terrorist captives, information that came from non-enhanced interrogation about a year ago.

Besides, President Bush stopped being President in January 2009. It is May 2011. That is over two years ago by my math.

How in the world can there be a connection?

Moreover, further reading shows that President Bush had it wrong, like all of us, believing that Bin Laden was in Afghanistan in a remote region, hiding in caves. That is what Bin Laden wanted us to believe. And that is what the intelligence community believed until about a year ago, when new intelligence led us to the all important courier (who was killed in the attack).

This is no slam on President Bush. He was operating with the intelligence at the time (not the contrived intelligence that led us into Iraq; which I don't forgive him for by the way).

There was NO effort by President Bush to go after Bin Laden in Pakistan. There were plenty of searches in remote areas, but none in Pakistan. The reason for this is because he had no reason to think Bin Laden was in Pakistan. That information came way AFTER Bush ceased to be President.

It is interesting to note that President Obama during the election, said that if Bin Laden was found to possibly be in Pakistan, he would order operations regardless of what Pakistan said.

And that is EXACTLY what happened.

And then there is Fox News or propaganda inc. Fox News are experts at planting the little lie in their viewer's minds, then building it into fact. My golfing buddies were adamant that water boarding was THE reason why Bin Laden was found and killed.

This contradicts facts and common sense; but is the "talking point" of conservatives who must be mortified that the "Muslim President" was successful in getting the most dastardly villain in American History since Hitler.

What is so disturbing is I was on the DEFENSIVE not the offensive immediately because of Fox New's propaganda. I had to dispel the lie. I had to do the research. They just mouthed the propaganda, the lie, and believed it.

This is the "fascist" threat I have been talking about in prior blogs. Political movements that deal in propaganda, lies and half-truths in an highly organized fashion, pushing a right wing agenda are fascist.

Fox News is a fascist organization. Now, this is not to say, they are Nazis. What I am saying is their political agenda and techniques are fascist in the classic political science definition.

This movement runs counter to liberal democracy. Fascism ultimately is the deadly enemy of democracy.

Fox News is a clever, highly motivate political organization, that deals in propaganda, not news, that feeds the fascist agenda in the United States.

They took what should have been and great day for America, and turned it into yet another twist of the truth for fascist political advantage.

He Lied

And then he lied

Today, former President George W. Bush was briefly interviewed on "Good Morning America" about a fundraiser he is supporting to help wounded troops. He was his usual jovial self, cracking a witty joke, that immediately put me at ease (I am reluctant to admit that). He looked great, relaxed; in stark contrast to President Obama who shows the stress of the office.

He was asked one political question, a softball question about gasoline prices. And then, in an instant the good feeling died.

He looked straight into the camera and, as usual, LIED.

The question was what should be done about rising gasoline prices. George W. hesitated, said he didn't what to get political (or something to that effect) and then responded, "The American People have to understand basic supply and demand. If you restrict supply you will affect demand."

I thought immediately there must be someone, or something that is restricting the supply. We couldn't be running out of gas, it is someone, a "you" who is causing America's pain.

And who is "you" I wonder? He could not help himself, he took a shot at the President even though he was in his mountain biking clothes.

He lied. He should have said, "Americans will have to adjust to and conserve the declining oil supply". He should have told the American people the truth, that worldwide demand is fast outstripping the declining supply. The United States has only nine (9) years of oil reserves left! That is NINE (9), not ninety!

The world's known oil reserves will yield increasingly reduced supplies for the next 100 years and then run out. That is 100 years! In the last 100 years the world has burned up the sweet crude oil in two world wars, in spasms of gluttony.

In 100 years it will be all gone, except of course for all those oil sand deposits, and oil shale, and oil miracles that conservatives love to scream the environmentalists are keeping away from us. More lies!

Every wonder why oil exploration is taking place hundreds of miles out in the oceans, in risky gambles, to find oil? Did you ever even ask why there are so many dry oil wells in Pennsylvania, Texas and California?

The "you" who is responsible for this, is US. The United States has approximately 2% of the world's population and consumes 35% of the energy supplies (that includes oil, coal; etc)!

These are the facts, no matter how many times the Exxon President goes on T.V. and tell us, with a sickening smile, that natural gas will power our nation for 100 years due to "technology" advances.

What he is NOT telling you is that your present car must be radically altered to burn natural gas, and the "technology" used to extract the gas locked in rock formations, known as "fracturing" is proving to be very dangerous to the environment and the water supply.

And "fracturing" uses huge amounts of water in areas that are often arid already. I guess we can go without water to get our precious fuel!

The Exxon C.E.O., who is being paid millions, looks straight into the camera and LIES.

The fact is, if you take a minute to THINK, is that natural gas is not a straight substitute for petroleum. I suppose airplanes can fly right now on natural gas? If they could, then why aren't they using natural gas now? They can't; he is lying.

No, this means all new engines, and a host of safety issues that we have not encountered. It won't be cheap. Do not trust his rich C.E.O. smile! And don't trust George W.; we did that more than once remember, with disastrous results!

Why don't both of these men look into the camera and say we need to conserve in the face of dwindling supply. We need to rebuild our public transportation systems, we need to go all in for solar, wind and other alternatives. We need to move freight back to the rails. We need to demand public rail transporation.

Oil will still be part of our future, but we need to adapt to its declining supply. We need to conserve. And, we will need to pay for all this. President Obama keeps telling us we need to re-invest in America. This is what he is talking about! He is not lying! And we hate him for it.

We did this before with Jimmy Carter. President Carter has the fantastic idea that oil was a finite resource, and the OPEC Cartel's embargo was a warning of what blind oil dependency could do to America's economy. We hated him for it, and voted for Reagan, who LIED. Reagan told us there was an ocean of oil, and it would never run out. He rolled back all the conservation efforts Carter had started, even taking the solar panels off the White House.

The Gipper, who lied all the time, mislead the American people, got them to trust him, and set us up for the disaster that is now happening. And who was behind him, rooting the lies on? The oil and gas corporations of course!

America is hopelessly addicted to oil. Our economy is fatally connected to a cheap energy that no longer exists , and we do a rotten job of conservation. In fact, we don't conserve at all! For forty years, since the OPEC embargo, we have driven faster, built bigger cars, and worse, moved nearly all our freight to the highways. We have burned precious oil at a ridiculous rate, as if there is no tomorrow.

Well tomorrrow is here. As long as we continue to be lied to, and worse believe the lies, we are screwed! This time the prices will not come back down. This time the reality of supply and demand, that Geoge W. commented about is here.

He did what he always did before...he LIED.

Birther Madness

Today I received an email from a man I quite frankly used to respect. He is a retired school superintendent, was president of a club I belong to, has a great sense of humor, and generally is a pleasant man to be around.

I have visited his home, met his wife; they seem like nice, decent people.

But he is a birther. He confronted me about a year ago, all excited that Obama can’t produce his birth certificate!

Frankly I had not paid much attention to the birther madness, seeing it for what it was (and is), radical right wing lunacy; conspiracy theory that attests to the panic they had pre-2010, that they were losing big politically.

The political motivations of what I perceived as bald faced lies were hugely transparent. At least I though most rational clear thinking people saw that.

Reluctantly I did some searching around the Internet to look into the lies.

It didn’t take very long before I was routed to WebPages that were filled with falsehoods, lies, and fantasy.

Then, I searched for fact based sites than operate to refute Internet lies. This was not hard to do at all, and I immediately found a host of sites that refuted what is basically birther lies.

Today, my friend’s email breathlessly proclaimed a story that Obama had not attended Columbia University at all, and in fact had mysteriously appeared in the mid 1980s and “nobody at Columbia” remembered him. Very mysterious, my friend proclaimed, and that is why conservatives like Donald Trump are “curious”.

I happened to remember a small issue in the 2008 campaign about a “theses” that Obama had allegedly written at Columbia that was un-American. As I recalled it was not a theses at all but a paper in an advanced Political Science class, that was anti-war in tone.

Obama claimed he had lost the paper, and his professor said he once had it but “threw it out” in a house cleaning.

Conservative pundits at the time accused the presidential candidate of covering up his un-American paper that he wrote at Columbia. The anti-Americanism of Obama was the gist of that lie.

Hmmm. He wrote the controversial paper at Columbia, and cons were making a big deal about it in 2008.

In 2010, the story has been resurrected that he never attended Columbia at all!

It appears the cons are trying to have it both ways, criticizing the candidate for a college paper he wrote, but now claiming he never attended the college at all. You can’t have it both ways!

So, back to the Internet I went and quickly found the absence of Obama at Columbia is pure fiction. In fact his roommate has come forward and told of his friendship with Obama the last two years at Columbia (Obama transferred from Occidental College in California as a junior). There is even a newspaper article he wrote that was published at Columbia, has been claimed by the Columbia Alumni Association as the “first Columbia graduate to be President of the United States” and so on (college transcripts, attendance records; et al).

So, I did something that cons do all the time, I papered my friend’s email with refutations of this nonsense, with links to many pieces of evidence that prove President Obama was: 1. Born in Hawaii in 1962. 2. Attended prep school in Hawaii, Occidental College, graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law. There are pictures, personal accounts; etc.

I then thought about my own past. I wonder what I would do if someone outright lied about my past, in an effort to portray me as some kind of mysterious threat, or undercover foreign agent. I have the yearbooks, I have the diplomas, but I would be highly upset, and would be very reluctant to discuss my past, in the face of outright lies. It is perfectly understandable that the President refuses to even acknowledge this nonsense. Of course, cons see this as a cover up.

I told my friend he was a fool, and our friendship had been jeopardized.

We all need to start doing this. If a conservative friend goes off into birther la la land we need to attack back with facts and figures. Ultimately friendships need to end.

Why? Because, and I have to warn you this is controversial, the tactics of the Birthers are exactly the same kind of propaganda lies the Nazi Party used to come to power in Germany. In that case, the Jews were the target, and German right wingers lied constantly about Jews causing the depression, Jews killing Christian children, Jewish conspiracies to destroy Germany; etc.

Progressive Germans at the time derided this radical foolishness as harmless, and suffered in concentration camps as a result.

America is no different. The Birther nonsense is not nonsense, it is a carefully planned propaganda war, directed at the President of the United States, African-Americans, and progressives in general.

The Birthers have shown they will do ANYTHING to discredit political opinion that does not merge with theirs. And worse, by stirring up irrational fears about the President, that he is somehow a foreign entity that mysteriously appeared to wreck havoc in America (the anti-Christ), they are purposely hoping some wing nut acts in unspeakable ways. In short, they are setting the President up!

If you don’t think this is the intent, remember what just happened in Arizona, where a U.S. Congresswoman was gunned down, with a nine year old, by a deranged man.

This is not fair, shout the cons. We didn’t put him up to it, he was mad.

Irrationality appeals to the irrational, the sick, and the perverted. The SS Storm troopers, supposedly Hitler’s elite, were irrational, sick and certainly perverted. Many of their members had been in insane asylums before Hitler came to power. Hitler was jailed during the 1920s for irrational behavior.

How else can you explain the systematic extermination of six million men, women and children? Madmen essentially took over the country and led it to ruin based on fantasy, lies and madness. There are several books about Hitler than chronicle his fantasy, his lies, his base madness.

Hate needs a fuse to start. The birthers are doing this on purpose to stir fear and hate

If we do not react and fight back against this, we could suffer the same fate as the progressive German of 1935.

It is called fascism.

Oil Fools

Oil Fools

In 1910 in Southern California the Lakeview Gusher poured thousands of barrels of oil onto the ground. It was the largest gusher in history. It was hailed as a technology breakthrough, perhaps foretelling the century long fatal attraction human beings have labored under with this remarkable yet destructive resource.

Because the drillers did not know how to cap gushers at the time, it went on for a year and a half. About 1/2 of the oil was actually recovered. The rest seeped into the ground,

The impact to California was remarkable, the price of gasoline and oil related products fell sharply. Of course, the amount of gasoline and other products in 1910 was vastly less than today.

For the next 100 years we have drilled, spilled, and tied our entire economy and culture to this "Black Gold".

The Lakeview Gusher should have been a warning as well as a boon.

One half of the oil was lost, soaked into the ground, turned into a black mist that floated around in the atmosphere for years.

But the worst thing was it gave us the impression that crude oil was unlimited. After all, something that could gush like that for 18 months must be limitless, right?

Wrong; what actually happened was a rare deposit was accidentally hit by the drill, and drained the reservoir completely. Other wells were drilled in the immediate area, with dry results.

Oil drilling is a risky business. For every gusher there are hundreds of dry wells. Oil is NOT a limitless resource and is fairly rare in the earth's overall resource scheme of things.

In 100 years mankind has used up about 1/2 or more of the earth's crude oil resources. And that was at a rate that for nearly fifty years was way less than the rate of use today.

Why? From 1910 to 1960 only the "developed nations" used vast amounts of oil. Oil fueled two destructive World Wars, helped kill millions of people, and after World War II helped rebuild and fuel the post-war economy that saw the largest economic boom in human history.

Now, scarcely 100 years after the Lakeview Gusher, we are hitting the wall of supply and demand.

We have tied our economic survival to oil, and are running out of it. The United States, where gushers were first found, has nine years of oil reserves left. THAT IS NINE (9) YEARS!!! Saudi Arabia, the ocean of oil capital, has about fifty years left!

Our entire transportation system is set on the automobile. We have closed our railroads to passenger travel (especially in the west), bankrupted our bus systems, and junked our electric trains (Los Angeles 1930s).

Yesterday I googled a bus ride to Monterey from Redding. One way cost $75.00, and took 18 hours. When I was in college during the 1960s, I would take the bus to San Francisco in five hours with a cost of about $15.00! And, I could go virtually any time during the day. Now, there are two buses a day. The train is worse, Amtrak still lumbers up and down the rails, but in Redding you catch the train (there is only one every 24 hours in either direction ) at 3:00 A.M. There is absolutely no timeliness to the trains either; they can be hours late. And, the trip to San Francisco (about 220 miles) can take 15 to 20 hours! You can drive it in four!

So, we have no choice. We have to drive.

Commuters in California average over forty miles one way to work (we have spread our cities out due to our love of cars).

Most are driving in cars that get less than 20 miles to the gallon, especially in slow rush hour traffic (10 miles an hour with countless stop and go's).

Do the math: 80 miles a day times 5 days is 400 miles a week. At about 10 miles a gallon this means 40 gallons a week at $4.50 a gallon is $180.00 a week times 52 weeks a year is $9360. Add to this the cost of the car, insurance;etc., and our addiction to the automobile is costing us 1/3 of our income a year (or more since the middle class wages have plummeted). Fun huh?

The United States burns billions of gallons of oil a day. We use 35% of the worlds petroleum every year. We do this because: one, we want to, we are addicted to our cars. Two, we have no choice. There are, the more west to go, literally no alternatives. Public transportation, thanks to American's infatuation with the automobile and the oil companies lobbying to destroy train and bus travel, is virtually nonexistent in most western states communities.

And we are fast running out of oil . We simply will not face reality that the faster we use it, the sooner all of it is gone.

Conservatives scream that we need to just drill more, the oil is there; we are allowing environmentalists to stop us from getting it. Really?

If that is true, then why are we having to resort to drilling hundreds of miles out into the ocean seeking another Lakeview Gusher. And, if we get lucky enough to find it, there is a large chance we will spill it (see BP spill, Gulf of Mexico).

The bottom line is that in 100 years human beings have used over 1/2 of the oil reserves up! And, with China, Brazil, India; etc; developing large middle classes, the world will use up what oil in left much faster than we did in the previous hundred years.

So, what do we do? Native Americans, when faced with the destruction of the buffalo herds on which they staked their survival did what all human civilizations do when resources decline, they declined. They starved. A few adapted, but basically their culture was obliterated.

And that will be our fate as well unless we wake up fast. Conservation should become the watchword of every American. We should demand that government get involved in public transportation in a big way, by putting taxes on gasoline and literally forcing us to conserve; investing that money in rebuilding rail and bus transportation. We need to force shipping back to the rails. This will be devastating to the trucking industry, but it is the most wasteful of all transportation modalities today.

You can move a ton of freight for about 75% less in energy use on a train compared to the thousands of trucks lumbering up and down our freeways.

And free enterprise cannot do this. Free enterprise is what got us into this mess in the first place. Free enterprise is the middle name of the oil industry, taking risks, failing most of the time, but then hitting a gusher and getting rich. This risky, destructive behavior has addicted the world to a resource that is fast disappearing, with no plan B!

We need to divert our money for freeways to rail renovation. We need to investigate bus trains, that still use our freeways, but have several "cars" that so hundreds can be pulled up and down the road by one engine!

Electric cars and hybrids need to be pushed and rewarded by government tax credits for those who purchase them.

In short, we need an ENERGY POLICY for the United States. We need to DEMAND this be done!

An energy policy has been stopped by endless lobbying by big oil, who has also adopted the Republican Party as their surrogate, blocking every effort to conserve oil in practically every way. As voters we need to stop rewarding this behavior. Nothing gets a politicians attention faster than voter approval dropping.

An old, but telling example, was the assault on the 55 miles speed limit that was adopted to deal with the OPEC Oil crisis of the 1970 and 80s. Conservatives (backed by the oil lobby) were successful in overturning the lower speed limit, resulting in billions of oil over consumed. That is oil we can NEVER get back. Mpg standards were set on the 55 miles per hour standard and people drive 75. They purchase cars that advertise 28 miles per gallon on the highway IF you drive 55. Everyone drives 75 and gets far less mpg and huge cost.

And who benefits from this? The oil companies of course. And what do they do with the excess profits (that even our oilman President George W. Bush was shocked by), they pour them into schemes to addict Americans even more hopelessly to their dwindling product!

Every wonder why would a business intentionally devise schemes to sell their product faster, which hastens their running out of it sooner? It is the same as running your lemonade stand when you were a kid, and selling all your lemonade in a day, buying candy with the profits, but not having any left to sell tomorrow. No candy!

We are selling our children and especially our grandchildren's future out every day we allow this madness to continue. Every day we worry about gas prices going up, but throw up our hands and say we are powerless to do anything about it, we guarantee economic disaster in our future. Every day we listen to the B.S. of limitless supplies of oil reserves in sand deposits in Utah, or unlimited oil in the Arctic, we hasten the beginning of the end of modern society,

Once the oil is gone, it will be gone. Your car won't run anymore. Planes will not fly. Trains won't run at all, much less on time. Truckers will not truck. The Ipad I am typing this on will never get out of China, where Apple now makes it, costing Americans jobs.

We will be broke, hungry and will encounter the same fate Native Americans on the Plains had when the buffalo ran out. We will die!