Gasoline Prices Are The Least of Our Problems
As prices at the pump inch up to $7 a gallon, there is no relief in sight. What causes the increase? Greed. Big Oil is making a killing, and you’re the dead duck.
Oil companies have been manuevering for more than 10 years for this happy day, and it is not because they want you to “Go Electric.” Big Oil is trying to make a killing off the environmental movement. They know that sooner or later everyone will stop using petroleum products. Meanwhile, they will mop up every dollar in sight.
We are currently confronting two major crises, advancing climate change and rampant inflation for gasoline, food, and other necessities, caused by our oligarchs wanting to make even more money. Working class people are being squeezed to the bone.
There is a solution that saves poor and working class people who can’t afford gasoline, and helps slow or stop climate change, at the same time:
First, the gasoline price hikes are caused by the greed of oil owners and executives plus their poor planning for the ending of the Pandemic.
This incompetence calls for these natural resources to be put under public ownership. This is not socialism, but the judicial use of our nation’s natural resources, as is done by many countries around the globe.
Second, the manufactured crisis of rising gasoline prices has created a groundswell of interest in electric cars, trucks, solar panels for homes and offices, and the conversion of small appliances to electricity.
It is the responsibility of government to encourage this trend with subsidies that make it possible for families to trade in their old gasoline-powered (Internal Combustion Engine – ICE) clunker for an electric (EV) vehicle.
You can see for yourself with the handy calculator the EPA provides which compares particular EVs and ICE cars. The EPA probably underestimates the lack of pollution from EVs since they are predicted, because of the lack of moving parts, to last much longer than ICE cars.
Third, subsidies should also be offered for the conversion of ICE cars to EVs. The process is relatively simple. It begins with ripping out the engine, transmission and drive train of ICE cars, and installing a battery and motors that fit on at least two wheels. The process is expensive when it applies to one car, but with government assistance, hundreds of cars per day could be converted to long-lasting and non-polluting vehicles. This would enable thousands, or millions, of low-income drivers to live without gasoline and frequent repairs.
Legislation and funding of solar panels on every home and apartment building in America could put us on the road to overwhelmingly clean power production. Imagine that in a few short years, we could be winning the only war that matters, the one to defeat drastic climate change.
How could the government ever afford to spend the billions needed to convert to electric cars and power? It’s easy if we stop sending billions to countries that could be attended to by the European Union.
By sending billions in blank checks and weapons of war, the US is prolonging the war in Ukraine, not stopping it. Buildings and homes are being destroyed in Ukraine, while they are simply decaying, along with the climate, in the US.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”
Was Joe Biden talking about himself when he uttered those words in Poland? It wasn’t Biden’s only gaffe of the day. Or perhaps Biden grabbing center stage at a meeting of the European Union is no longer considered to be a gaffe, it’s just the Empire doing business as usual. It’s Joe Biden putting those upstarts in their place.
NATO was maintained in place, as much to bring the Europeans to heel, as to protect from foreign enemies. In the last 20 years, the expansion of NATO has ensured that every government in Europe would be secure from its own people. The new far-right regimes in Poland, Hungry, and of course, Ukraine (the honorary NATO member) could not be dislodged by internal revolution nor external intervention.
For God’s sake, this man, Biden, cannot remain in power. Neither can Trump, nor Harris, nor Clinton. Where are the Roosevelts and Kennedys when we need them, with their commitment to the United Nations. With drastic climate change a short time away, and no leadership to speak of, our hopes of better lives for ourselves and our children are not realistic.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reversed the President’s ramblings on Sunday at a press conference where he claimed that US policy was not in favor of regime change in Russia. Earlier, Biden had also said Putin was a “butcher.” Apparently, there won’t be any warm and cozy evenings between heads of state at Camp David for quite a long time.
In the 1960s, we had the War on Poverty. In spite of its flaws, millions were pulled out of poverty, government programs taught people new skills, unions provided many new jobs with good pay, medical care and pensions, and everyone learned to work cooperatively with people from other races.
Unfortunately, that War was overwhelmed by the war on the Vietnamese people. The poor people in other countries that we mess with, the Vietnamese, the Koreans, the Ukrainians, the Iraqis, the Syrians, the Somalians, the Libyans, the Nicaraugans, the Venzuelans, the Salvadoreans, and so many more, have their countries wrecked when they encounter our “fix-it” program.
Meanwhile, we suffer too, as our cities decay and our people sink back into poverty.
We must stop our insane nationalism. America is not the greatest country in the world. Lately, it has been one of the worse. We must ban the export of military weapons and close military bases. There are nearly 1,000 bases, counting the secret ones, around the world. The military, the secret police, and the ordinary police should not run this country. But they do. We as a people will never amount to anything until we dethrone them.
