A LITTLE ON MY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Well, I suppose I couldn't last forever as a political ambivalent on my blog. After all I hold a degree in the science of politics. True, I twice (or maybe just once, I forget) attempted to start a regular "column" titled "Political Roundup," but that petered out when I had to leave work to go get a haircut, didn't finish my post on John Bolton, and slipped into a blogexile.

Spurred on by my slight mention of the current oil situation, I feel it's about time I strip off my skin a bit. Plus I'm bored and inside tonight -- I never mastered that "doing things alone in public" thing.

Let me start by linking a current column for your perusal. It's from the NY Times' Thomas Friedman. While I don't always agree with him, I find him intelligent and capable and able to put forth an argument, which as a student reared in political science with some English in there, I appreciate it.

I used to not have a position on gas prices or energy consumption. I saw it more black/white, something essentially causing harm to the environment for our distant decendants and a necessary evil for us today. Lights don't just turn on with the flip of a switch with no consequences. Same with everything else that is a technology we use today. Understatement, right?

In terms of oil, though, I never fully understood the situation, where it came from, how we got it, what it cost, etc. But over time, I've come to have a grip on the info.

Friedman has convinced me over the last six months about his new movement: geo-green.

It doesn't have much to do with Republicans or Democrats, more with the U.S. v. the world, or at least the corrupt regimes around the world who happen to sit on oil reserves. His argument is that if we reduce the price of oil through myriad ways that we have at our disposal, we can affect more change around the world than, say, through the domino effect of democratizing the Middle East.

A la Friedman:

Yes, there is an alternative to the Euro-wimps and the neocons,
and it is the "geo-greens." I am a geo-green. The geo-greens believe that, going
forward, if we put all our focus on reducing the price of oil - by conservation,
by developing renewable and alternative energies and by expanding nuclear power
- we will force more reform than by any other strategy. You give me $18-a-barrel
oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All
these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the
gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up
their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people
can compete. It is that simple.

Though I like his theory, I do not think it is that simple. Nothing ever is. And this is not to say that I am for converting all of our energy into wind power or some shit like that. But I think that reducing oil consumption and driving down the price of oil, and weening ourselves off our need for imports, we can affect great change. And I'm disappointed that President Bush is not doing more -- nee anything -- on this front. Now, I know he had a sentence in one of his States of the Union about hydrogen fueled cars, but it doesn't become policy once it leaves his mouth. I would be willing to bet that whatever monies he "earmarked" for that end were either forgotten come budget proposal time or were greatly reduced. My point is that it seems his energy policy is only to help the oil companies that once helped him out when Harken and Arbusto went belly-up. I don't necessarily think there is some evil hidden agenda, but I do think he is rendering progress impotent.

Drilling in ANWR, which I was for, then against, and now 100% for again, will not solve this problem we face. But it will help. We need to tie this to conservation as a society to affect real change. With low mileage standards, high oil prices, the technology to help out the everyday American from wasting so much money on gas at the pump, we are sinking ourselves deeper and deeper into the rabbit-hole. China and India are developing like crazy, and are pulling greater shares of available oil than ever before. Soon they will be a real threat to us in terms of oil consumption. And then where will we be?

Paul Driessen, a former Sierra Club member, is an enviro who provides an interesting commentary on the ANWR situation. It helped bring me back to pro-drilling. The co-founder of Greenpeace, who is now against the program, saying it has become antithetical to it's stated mission, backs Driessen's views. I think that says something about the state of the energy debate and that once again, people and positions do not fit nicely into camps. There is gray matter everywhere.

To bring this meandering post to a close, I will say that we have to take a cold hard look at our energy policy because we are not going anywhere, and we will only get company at the top of the consumption list. Things are ramping up, not down, and we are spending huge sums of money to drive twenty miles a day. What can we do? What must we do? I do not know these answers, but I demand they be asked to the people who do. What will it take for Congress to put this on the schedule? It's easy to blame the majority party, but honestly all it takes is one person in Congress (ok, let's be honest, a Senator) to do a PR dance and get this issue in the ongoing national discussion. It seems like we have one dominant issue per week. Let's affect some real change. Who among us wouldn't like to see lower gas prices and true international regime change at a quicker clip than Baghdad. I'm not slighting the operations in Iraq (I'm for them) but they are taking an awful long time. Are they still at their Constitutional Convention? Let's go. But that's for another day.

Sorry for the incomprehensibility. I may edit later. I reserve that right.