Tag Archive | "Iraq"

Obama Begins Fact-Finding Tour

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Barack Obama earlier today launched his fact-finding tour with a brief stop in Kuwait and then off to Afghanistan. Next, he will visit Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England, not necessarily in that order.

Mr. Obama hopes thatb the tour of the Middle East and Europe will enhance his foreign policy credentials, confront questions at home about his readiness to be commander in chief, and signal the possibility of a new era in U.S. relations with the rest of the world.

   Obama at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait earlier today
Obama at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait earlier today

Obama meets a soldier during a breakfast visit to Camp Eggers in Kabul
   Obama meets a soldier during a breakfast visit to Camp Eggers in Kabul

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From ‘Straight-Talk’ To McSAME, and Now McBARACK

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Since yesterday, when John McBOMB’s chief economic adviser, the “Whining” Phil ‘McGramOfPot’ Gramm got thrown under the straight-talk express wreckage, McCain and Bush have been pivoting towards Obama’s positions on Iraq and Afghanistan, shamelessly trying to camouflage their moves with “benchMURK” talking points like a “general time horizon” for withdrawal from Iraq.

Monumental Blunder -- Bush, McCain
   Pic Courtesy: seedsofdoubt.com

Obama has consistently stated that he wants the U.S. to start withdrawing from Iraq for re-deployment in Afghanistan within sixteen months.

As Obama landed in Afghanistan today, the German magazine newspaper “Der Spiegel” reported that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told them that he supported Barack Obama’s proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months, essentially endorsing Obama, and slapping Bush upside the head.

al-Maliki said: “U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

Asked if he supported Obama’s ideas more than those of John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, Maliki said he did not want to recommend who people should vote for….”Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems.

Meanwhile, the White House said on Friday George W. Bush and Maliki had agreed that a security deal under negotiation should set a “time horizon” for meeting “aspirational goals” for reducing U.S. forces in Iraq.

In a speech earlier this week, Obama promised to commit at least two more combat brigades - up to 10,000 men - to Afghanistan, if he wins November’s election. He also said the US military should focus on that country rather than Iraq.

Copycat McCain upped the ante — to 3 brigades. Asked where he would get the troops while bogged in his “100 year Iraq war,” McCain said: “We need to work that out. We need to have greater participation on the part of our NATO allies, as I said in my opening remarks today and we need a lot more help.”

NATO Allies? You mean your cousins in Great Britain?

To the best of my knowledge the Brits are not thrilled at all with this illegal war.

In a campaign stop McCain said: “I know how to win wars. And if I’m elected president, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq.”

And my question is: Which WAR has McCain ever won?

Being caged like an animal in Vietnam — another illegal war that America lost, is not winning, in my opinion.

In Vietnam 2,000,000+ civilian lives were lost, most from South Vietnam. 58,000+ American soldiers also lost their lives in the war.

Just like in Iraq, U.S. military personnel often went on civilian killing rampages — For example:

The My Lai Massacre 500+ unarmed citizens of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), almost entirely civilians and the majority of them women and children were murdered by U.S. Army forces on March 16, 1968. Some of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, or maimed, and some of the dead bodies were mutilated.

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Vietnam -- My Lai Massacre

Nixonian cover-ups and protests followed world wide.

The Vietnam war started because American president Eisenhower did not want “communism to spread throughout the world” and eventually to America. Essentially the U.S. was asked by France, via NATO, to keep the communists from “taking over” the French “Colonial” Territory — Vietnam. A European colonialist (France) asked Neo-European-Colonialist (America) to help it maintain a grip on it’s illegally acquired colony, resulting in Vietnam being split into two, and causing Vietnamese to slit each others throats — just like the Shia and the Sunni have been doing in Iraq — the fruits of an illegal OIL war.

Of late, the U.S has been bribing the Sunnis with the almighty Dollar — hence the “artificial peace.

“Fear of Communism,”…”Fear of Muslims,”…”Fear of The Obama-Fist-Bump,”…”Fear of Islamo-Fascists,”…”Fear of Black Panthers,”…”Fear of Foreign Languages,”… “Fear of Mexican Immigrants,”…”Fear of a Black President,”…”Fear of Imaginary ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction‘” …RING A BELL?

Lynch them ALL!……AGAIN and AGAIN!

Hallelujah,… Sweet Home Alabama!

That’s what the criminal ‘High Cabal‘ a.k.a The Republican Party has drafted John McCain For — To beat up, lynch, burn, bomb, steal-oil-from and dominate everyone who does not toe the line.

You are either with us or against us.” — George Bush, November 6, 2001

The world and many Americans are tired of this Moronic Cowboy Republican Dictatorship, and Obama is a much needed fresh face. The whole world is desperately “Clinging To Obama,” and his current tour will only serve to stamp that point.

Contrary to what the right-wing thugs hope — Obama will shine in the Middle-East and in Europe, and will come home fortified and ready to thump McCain’s sorry ass in November — thoroughly well, with or without Hillary Clinton’s racist and un-principled “Angry-White-Whore” army.

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God Take Away Bush

   Pic Courtesy: seedsofdoubt.com

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George Bush: Contracepton = Abortion

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George W. Bush has been an unmitigated disaster as commander-in-chief, he leaves his successor with a quagmire in Iraq and a steadily worsening situation in Afghanistan. I just hope he doesn’t entangle us with a war with Iran before he leaves office.

Bush made a mess out of our foreign policy playing general, now he’s going to make a mess out of women’s health playing Surgeon General. Bush is lobbying for a proposal that would equate some forms of contraception with abortion:

“Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., blasted a Bush administration proposal Friday that would change the definition of abortion and, she argues, limit women’s access to contraception.

The draft proposal written by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), which began circulating around Capitol Hill this week, would require hospitals receiving federal funds to hire medical personnel who oppose forms of contraception including birth control pills.

But Democratic critics including Clinton warn that the Bush administration changes would have ‘damaging’ consequences on women’s ability to access birth control.” …Quotation from ABC News/Matthew Jaffe

A medical practitioner has a right to a personal belief that it’s morally wrong to take birth control pills, but he shouldn’t have a right to refuse to dispense a morning-after pill to a woman who has been raped. Medical personnel shouldn’t let their religious beliefs interfere with providing patients with the medication they need.

Leading Democrats have spoken out against Bush’s proposal that would change the definition of abortion, but McCain has been silent on the issue. This is the same John McCain who was rendered silent when a reporter asked why many health insurance companies cover Viagra for men but not birth control for women.

John McCain should be anathema to anyone who cares about issues that impact women, but many angry Hillary supporters plan to sit out the general election or vote for John McCain. These women are so infatuated with Hillary, it smacks of a cult of personality.

If John McCain is elected president we will remain stuck in Iraq for a hundred years, and women’s rights will be set back a hundred years.

Bush Abortion

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Bush has perverted, distorted and tarnished America’s image beyond repair

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The G-8 summit was Bush’s last hurrah as a world leader. What’s one thing he can do to strengthen his legacy?

Bush’s Mideast Dishonor

Writes: Sami Moubayed, in Damascus, Syria

I don’t think Bush needs to strengthen his legacy. It has already been deeply engraved in the history of the Middle East. George W. Bush has in fact ruined the Middle East.

No words can describe my anger at what the United States has tolerated or promoted in the Middle East under the Bush White House. The list is long: the war on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Falluja, Mosul, the war on Lebanon, Qana, and not to forget, the circus in Palestine, the killing in Jenin, and the siege in Gaza, topped with the elimination of Yasser Arafat, a democratically elected leader. These images have always reminded me of Sept. 11, 2001. The blood of these children—in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq—is no less valuable than that of Americans killed at the Twin Towers. Many Americans have been sending me “hate mail” recently, saying that the Bush Administration has been good to the Arabs and is trying to bring peace, security, and democracy to the Middle East. Sorry to tell them that this White House will be remembered for Abu Ghraib. It will be remembered for the atrocities in Gaza. It will be remembered for Qana.

Bush has perhaps single-handedly re-written the history of the Middle East—certainly against our will. This history has been very bloody and embarrassing for America, and it will affect America’s image for generations to come. Allow me to quote the former and legendary U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who spoke to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862 saying: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trail through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”

In our part of the world, Bush has marched into history in great dishonor.

Each country singled out by the White House as a haven for democracy and progress has been ruined, beyond imagination, by his policies in the Arab World. America’s image has been perverted, distorted, and tarnished beyond repair in the minds of the millions of Arabs and non-Arabs who are disgusted by all the bloodshed we are seeing in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon.

Australia welcomes WAR criminal Bush

Everybody in the Arab World holds Bush responsible for all of this madness, along with prime ministers Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Olmert. I always wanted to write to the U.S. President and tell him: “Think for a minute, Mr. President, about how history will refer to you 100 years from now. Will you be ranked among great men like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, or Franklin Roosevelt? What have they done for America and what have you achieved? Washington achieved independence for America. Lincoln fought the Civil War. Wilson won World War I and Roosevelt defeated Hitler in World War II. You ruined the image of your forefathers—the great men who founded and created the modern United States.”

To a mother whose child was killed in Qana, Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Bush, will all be viewed as criminals. A grief-stricken person will not differentiate between good and evil, or right and wrong. He or she will hold America responsible for the death of their loved ones. I personally have high admiration for the American presidents mentioned above. They were strong leaders with talent, principle, and character. Bush is responsible for ruining their image in the Arab World.

To prove my point, I repeat a phrase that I have used over and over again since 2004, quoting Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts who said:To many people in the Middle East, the symbol of America is not the Statue of Liberty but a prisoner standing on a box wearing a dark cape, a dark hood on his head, afraid he is going to be electrocuted.

Many discussions were held by American policymakers and intellectuals in the United States, after September 11, on one question: “Why do they hate us?” The answer can be summarized with one simple phrase: “Favoritism towards Israel.” What happened over the last eight years—in Palestine and Lebanon—was an unforgivable crime committed by Israel, under the watchful eye of the United States, thanks to Bush.

I received a very large amount of “hate mail” from Americans and pro-Israeli readers over the last few years in response to the series of articles I have written against the Israeli War on Lebanon, which coincides with July 12, 2008.

Impeach Bush NOW!

These readers were enraged by my condemnation of the United States and Israel, claiming that the “war on terror” was correct and justified. One reader wrote: “You are an ungrateful man and I am done reading your site” because of what I had just written about Israel and the United States.

At the same time, I received many, many e-mails from Arab readers who supported my arguments, saying that Bush’s bias against the Arabs was “an unforgivable crime”—in every sense of the world.

I happen to personally know many of the Arab readers with whom I have communicated. They are not turbaned and bearded fanatics who roam the world with guns, wanting to destroy Israel and the United States. Rather they are fine, Westernized, American-educated and highly cultured Arab men and women (many are actually not even Muslims) who have never carried a gun in their life. One addressed the Bush administration and cursed its policy-makers saying that they have “abused the names of the great men of American history.”

The colossal difference in views, and the accumulating anger on both sides, makes dialogue and understanding extremely difficult—especially in times of war; especially under George W. Bush.

One reader commented on my work, saying that he was “disgusted” because I was “demonizing the U.S. for trying to bring peace and democracy to the Middle East.” He added, “If you are too ignorant and too stupid to see that, then maybe you aren’t worth U.S. blood and gold.” Another reader added, and I quote him at length: “Go buddy up with Syria, go buddy up with Hizbullah, Hamas, Iran, and go live in a piece of … world that glorifies suicide bombing by children, glorifies naked anti-Semitism and ignorance of the Holocaust, ‘honor kills their women and forces them to wear burkhas. Go ahead and chose to keep your part of the world uneducated, unemployed, and hopeless. Go ahead and chose to keep the Middle East the gutter of the world while America has the compassion to try and help you by removing the cancer affecting your region.

In response, I write: What blood and what gold were spilled and paid by the Americans for the Arab World? I am astonished that an educated American would think in such a manner. America did not come to this part of the world to tutor or to educate. This is the biggest falsification brought to the world by President Bush.

Iraq was destroyed and looted under the Americans. There are over 10 people dying per day in America’s Iraq—so much for democracy and education. At one point it was more than 35 people dying per day in Iraq, meaning that more than one death occurs per hour in the “new and democratic Iraq.”

At one point more than 1,500 died per month in America’s Iraq. Mass graves—all created after Saddam Hussein, have been found in America’s Iraq, dug up by the Iraqis themselves under America’s watchful eye. Death squads are free to roam the streets, killing Iraqis by night.

Five years after the US invasion of Iraq, one cannot but wonder how the Americans missed a golden opportunity to create a secure democracy in the country to replace the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

Optimists in the Arab world, especially pro-Western and particularly pro-American Arabs, defended the United States until curtain fall, saying that it truly would root out terrorism from Iraq, and bring both stability and democracy to the Iraqi people.

Every one of those beliefs has been shattered - over and over again, since March 2003. As Iraq enters its sixth year since 2003, it is safe to ask: what has been achieved? What can I describe as American “compassion” towards the Arabs?

Apart from the downfall of Saddam, not a single achievement is noteworthy in Iraq. The country today is a “democracy” in civil war - a democracy where human life is being wasted, along with the dreams and security of the Iraqi people. Inasmuch as free elections are a great asset of which all oppressed people dream, they mean nothing if security is lacking.

History will not remember the free elections that took place in January and December 2005 as much as it will remember the notorious pictures of the torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The killings and the death squads that haunt the streets of Iraq will live much longer in the minds of Iraqi people than the image of Saddam’s statue falling in Baghdad.

American soldiers torturing (Lynching) Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison
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Bush’s America did not come to democratize the Iraqis. It came to expand its sphere of influence, replace that of the former USSR, control the rise of political Islam, rebuild the Iraq it had destroyed, make use of Iraq’s oil wealth, and safeguard the security of Israel. Must I remind my American reader of the scandals of Abu Ghraib? Those pictures alone show how much compassion the Americans have for the Arabs. Must I remind him of the killing of 24 Iraqis in cold blood by U.S. marines at Haditha in November 2005 or of the killing of 11 Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops in the village of Ishaqi in March 2006?

The Arabs remember too clearly that it was the Americans who initially supported Saddam Hussein’s rise to power in 1979, simply because he challenged Iran. It was the Americans who orchestrated the first coup d’etat in Syria in 1949, toppling the democratically elected president Shukri al-Quwatli and replacing him with General Husni al-Za’im, a stooge of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), because the latter promised to respond to U.S. needs in the Middle East. These were mainly a crackdown on communism, a ceasefire with Israel, and privileges to Tapline, a U.S. oil company.

The fact that Quwatli had been democratically elected by his people meant nothing to the CIA, the White House or the Pentagon in 1949. The fact that Yasser Arafat, another democratically elected president, was besieged to his office in 2001-2004 also meant nothing to the Americans who said that he was “irrelevant” and completely ignored him—along with the will and choice of the Palestinian people, because he refused to become an American stooge in the Middle East.

The Americans must give to win the trust of the Arabs.

Arabs will only begin to have faith in the U.S. and the Bush White House when peace is brought to the Palestinians, security is maintained in Iraq, and American statesmen show more interest in real Arab domestic issues and democracy.

The Americans have also failed to portray themselves as honest brokers in the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is the cornerstone of grievances to the Arab majority. The real problem that the Americans fail to understand is not Arafat, nor terrorism, nor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but land and freedom for the Palestinians. Once that is secured, a majority of Arabs will start to trust America.

The road to peace in the Middle East runs through Jerusalem, not Baghdad. On the issue of Palestine, there is consensus among the 200 million Arabs. Since September 2000, more than 50,000 people have been left homeless in Gaza alone. The Occupied Territories currently suffer from 40 percent unemployment, and in Gaza alone it is over 50 percent. When the intifada broke out in 2000, the poverty rate was 21 percent, and by December 2002 it had increased to 60 percent. In Gaza, poverty today is estimated at over 80 percent.

Due to terrible conditions, food consumption in the Occupied Territories has dropped by 25 percent, and half of the population currently lives off United Nations aid. Malnutrition among infants is 22 percent, the highest in the region, matched only in the Sahara Desert.

Bush Wanted For Crimes Against Humanity

The Israeli Defense Army has generated losses in Palestinian infrastructure estimated at U.S.$1.7 billion in 2002 alone. And that number is likely to increase, given the U.S. alliance with Israel and its generous donation of arms and money. When former secretary of state Collin Powell announced his plan for “democracy in the Middle East” in late 2003, he promised $29 million to promote a democratic culture to the Arabs. Whereas at the start of 2004, the White House gave Israel $300 million in donations to “help combat terrorism.”

In an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot, Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice once said, “I first visited Israel in 2000. I felt I was returning home, despite the fact that this was a place I have never visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel. I have always admired the history of the state of Israel and the hardness and determination of the people that founded it.” — Read: The tragic futility of Condoleezza Rice

No remark could have a worse effect on the inhabitants of the Middle East. Rice wrote her doctoral dissertation on the Cold War era and the USSR, and although she has a prestigious background in academia, she sadly has not read her Middle East history correctly. To the Arab street she is trying to appeal to today, the “founders” that she admires in Israel are nothing but invaders who realized early on that in order to survive they must uproot, kill and terrorize the Arabs and Palestinians.

Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s colonial department, said in 1940, “We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no other way [other] than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries - all of them! Not one village, not one tribe should be left.”

In 1948, there were 475 villages in Palestine, 385 of which were bulldozed to the ground by Israel.

In 1938, the “founder” Ben Gurion told the World Council of Poale Zion, “The boundaries of Zionist aspirations include southern Lebanon, southern Syria, today’s trans-Jordan, all of the West Bank and Sinai.” Ten years later, as premier of Israel, he said, “Our aim is to smash Lebanon, trans-Jordan and Syria. We shall establish a Christian state [in Lebanon], and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate trans-Jordan, then Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.” (Taken from “Ben Gurion: A Biography,” written in 1986 by Michael Bar Zohar). These words have had more of an impact on Arabs, even those who are moderate and Westernized, than the democratic promises of Rice.

As an African-American who grew up inspired by the American Revolution against colonialism, and as someone who has read, if not memorized the Bill of Rights of the U.S. constitution, how can Rice admire a people uprooting, terrorizing and “smashing” another people? — Read: Lynchings in America — A History Not Known By ManyAn hereditary trait that fully explains Abu Ghraib

1935 lynching of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
   1935 lynching of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

1919 lynching William Brown in Douglas County, Nebraska
   1919 lynching William Brown in Douglas County, Nebraska

1936 lynching of Lint Shaw in Royston, Georgia
   1936 lynching of Lint Shaw in Royston, Georgia

This is a question asked all over the Middle East, shedding a lot of doubt on Rice’s credibility when talking about democratizing the Arab World, and the support she has from her President. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the trinity that holds the U.S. together and defines its democracy, yet it has not been applied by the U.S.—Bush’s America—when dealing with the Middle East.

To make things clear to readers: I am not opposed to peace with Israel nor am I anti-Semite. One of my closest friends during childhood and young adulthood had a Damascene Jewish mother. She was a remarkable lady. I am someone who sees no difference between Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and Baha’is. All of them have the right to live in peace and security. When Arafat signed Oslo in 1993, I was one of those who strongly supported him. I still think it was the bravest decision he ever took in his life. Oslo was ruined not because of Arafat but because of the outbreak of the intifada on Sept. 28, 2000. The outbreak of violence started after Ariel Sharon’s provocation in visiting the al-Aqsa Mosque. A circle of violence started after that, and all hell broke loose in the Middle East after Sept. 11, 2001. Give me a peace-wanting government in the United States and I will support Syrian-Israeli, or Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. One of my favorite quotes was made by Yitzhak Rabin in 1993, during the signing of Oslo. He said, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.”

That was 15 years ago. These administrations, thanks to Bush, Olmert, and Rice, have spread nothing but destruction, setting Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine—and now possibly Iran—ablaze. That is their legacy. They have not surpassed “a time to hate, and a time for war.” They kept us at a “time to kill and a time to die” never bringing us a “time to heal, a time to laugh, a time to love, and a time for peace.

Note: The picture illustrations, supporting links and anchor text to external resources are by PoliticalArticles.NET.

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About The Author: Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst and historian based in Damascus, Syria. Moubayed is the author of “Damascus Between Democracy and Dictatorship (2000)” and “Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900-2000 (2006).” He has also authored a biography of Syria’s former President Shukri al-Quwatli and currently serves as Associate Professor at the Faculty of International Relations at al-Kalamoun University in Syria. In 2004, he created Syrianhistory.com, the first and online museum of Syrian history. He is also co-founder and editor-in-chief of FORWARD, the leading English monthly in Syria, and Vice-President of Haykal Media.

United States v. George W. Bush et al.



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Yeah Man!

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 Columnist - John Sammon
Columnist - John Sammon. Click to view larger picture.Yeah man! Gas prices, higher, higher, higher.

I’m lovin’ it!

The higher the better!

What this will do is cause more Americans to cease being mass consumption glutinous hogs, and will ultimately help to save the North Pole from melting.

Let me explain. I know full well this will result in my branding as a left-wing traitor by right wing mass consuming racist nuts (I’m actually a former conservative who left the Republican Party because of their lying and cheating and lack of morality).

You might also try and call me a “negativist” who enjoys the misfortune of others. I on the other hand view myself as a “positivist,” a person who can see great possibilities in supposed dire situations.

Oh, I almost forgot. Gas prices may also help Americans to reclaim the lost soul of their country, a country evolved into greed, of feeling superior to other less abundant countries because of our material possessions, and our frequent purchase of “things.”

Let’s say you’re a typical greedy fat upper middle class guy who buys a new car every year because you discard the old car like a toy you’ve suddenly grown tired of, and you currently drive a huge, gas guzzling four-wheel-drive Hummer, a vehicle as big as the German tank that invaded Poland in World War Two. You smoke cigarettes and discard the butts. You carelessly toss trash at the beach and eat rich calorie-laden junk food like a hog at a trough. You have a three-story house that burns more energy than the entire consumption of Nigeria (that’s a country in Africa for those of you right wingers who are mad at this piece).

You’re a gas guzzling hog.

Rising prices huh? You can’t afford to be a pig anymore like two years ago. You have to actually put yourself on a budget. To conserve. The C word. Not the C word. Not that! Oh the pain of it.

You drive less, which causes less freeway congestion and less greenhouse emission melting the Polar Icecap (our natural air conditioning down here). You’re forced to cancel that automatic yearly Hawaiian vacation which in turn puts less pollution pressure there.

The irony here is, and it’s a supreme irony, is you’re forced into becoming a conservationist kicking and screaming even though you don’t like it by the very same people who made you an oil addict in the first place…..the oil companies and their secret cartels and their Saudi Arabian robber barons and their Washington lobbyists.

You’re forced to cut back on your lavish lifestyle you hog. To you, more is always better. The things you purchase make you feel worthy, temporarily, until you have to buy more things, and the money. There’s never enough, even though you have more than you need.

Right now, there’s a Chinaman who used to ride a bike in Beijing, but who now drives a car. He also wants to be a glutinous hog like you.

In fairness, I drive a car, though I’ve always left personally a very small ecologic footprint. I seldom buy anything. You might describe my lifestyle as that of an “esthete,” or “Spartan,” or “Ghandiesk.” For those of you right wing haters who never read a book, Mahatmas Gandhi was an Indian leader who stressed morality and restraint.

All I can say to those to whom any form of idealism and not just thinking only of themselves is real hell……welcome to my world.

Some people will lose their jobs because of oil prices, but they were probably jobs centered around addiction to oil which was wrong in the first place. Jobs can be retooled to meet the new demand for conservation and ecologically friendly living.

Rising oil prices will force Americans to seek alternative travel, mass transit, fuel efficient and hybrid and eventually electric cars, which will improve air quality and slow global warming. It will also teach you, the glutinous hog, that the world isn’t your private oyster to be abused any way you see fit. That every little you thing you do has an impact. Ultimately, it will also force you to become more humane, more aware of others who are less fortunate.

Being forced to walk a little more may help stall that heart attack you the hog are now working towards.

Rising oil prices will also help end the economic-political strangle hold the Saudis and others have over us because we won’t need their oil. It will end their outsourced power and put them in their proper place among the community of nations.

I’m lovin’ it!

I hope gas goes up to $10 a gallon.

Like we used to yell at the football game, “hit ‘em again, hit ‘em again..harder…harder!”

Copyright 2008 Sammonsays

The Oiloholics

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