Energy Policy

This talk of extending daylight savings time is so stupid I am almost speechless. What great difference will it make in the energy crises if I put lights on in the morning or in the evening? What a stupid ass token effort to appear to be concerned by renaming time rather than institute any actual measures to conserve energy. The last Democratic president I admired was Jimmy Carter who if you remember was dirty dealt by Reagan with arms for hostages tricks - part of being the "Great Communicator" instead of the epitaph he really deserved as the "Great Criminal". As the current energy crises is ignored by the media, we can only look back to the days of Carter with nostalgia when we had a leader who tried to remedy a situation rather than compound it. He, of course, was laughed at for putting on a sweater and turning down the thermostat and installing solar panels on the White House. Reagan pulled those panels down asap. Now we have a country run by two oil men willing to sacrifice American and Mideast life for his oil interests while showering billions in undeserved tax breaks on the same companies (even as they wallow in the windfall profits produced by $60-a-barrel oil). We are stuck with a leader who refuses to increase fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks, even though higher standards, by common consent, are the easiest, quickest and most technologically feasible way to reduce oil demand and cut foreign imports.


In 1977, Jimmy Carter said, "Each American uses the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil per person each year. Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden."
How much worse are things with the excessive consumption of the last 30 years. Today you need only look at the majority of homes being built, especially the higher end homes that are obscenely huge users of both utility and construction resources and have a SUV or two sitting in the four stall garage. Gone are the days of energy efficiency, welcome to continuous war for Halliburton and oilbuddies profiteering. Gone are the tax credits for alternative energy.


To tell the truth, I don't see that much difference between the current crop of democrats and the republicans - both lapdogs of big business, especially the oil companies. Clinton was more "big-business" than most republicans. Democrats are so worried they will appear weak, they turn out being as brutal as republicans, i.e. the war on drugs and military solutions to economic problems.