Global Ghost Town: Oil Crisis Requires New Vision
There is a crisis happening on a global scale, and we here in the United States
of America have a moral responsibility to take action to help alleviate global
food prices and ensure that millions of people do not suffer the ill effects of
hunger and possibly even starvation. We are all complaining about the high
cost of oil these days and how it is impinging on our budget, but in the
developing world this is having extreme consequences. The stark reality is
that three billion people on the planet earth live on less than $2 a day, and a
good portion of that money goes specifically to the purchase of basic food
grains to survive. As a result of the skyrocketing price of oil, the price of
food grains has risen due to commercial production costs and transportation to
as much as $800 a ton for rice which has led to food riots in the developing
world.
The reasons for high oil prices are complex, and due to many factors, but we
can take steps now to deal with the global oil crisis and help people in the
developing world avoid a worsening food crisis. One of the principal factors
in the current oil crisis is directly related to the US invasion of Iraq. The
war in Iraq, which administration officials believed would lead to democracy
and stability has instead resulted in civil war and prolonged military
expenditures. The financial uncertainty in the marketplace regarding the
instability in the middle east has driven oil prices even higher and the
worsening Federal debt, greatly impacted by the hundreds of billions of unpaid
dollars committed to the war effort has made the dollar less attractive to
global investors, driving down the value of the dollar in relation to global
currencies and discouraging investment.
With President Bush refusing to reduce troop commitments below 140,000 and
Congress seemingly unable to limit the power of the executive branch to spend
money we do not have on a war we do not need, the global markets are losing
faith in the security of the dollar and the American economy generally. This
situation has been further complicated by the credit crisis which has resulted
in hundreds of thousands of foreclosures and displaced as many Americans who
are having to scramble for someplace to live. The credit crisis, which was
permitted to go on for far too long due to the lack of oversight and failure to
enact basic regulatory responsibilities, is another factor contributing to the
weakening American dollar globally and lack of faith in the American economy
generally.
Then there is the lack of any long-term vision or reasonable central planning
in regard to domestic infrastructure and planning for the utilization of
limited resources. This is a long-term problem, which is fundamentally an
aspect of free trade policies and decades of deregulation and faith in a free
market policy to solve all problems. In order to get a grip on the reality of
an entire domestic economy that has been oriented toward free market economics
imagine the situation of a western gold mining town in the nineteenth century.
Many of these boom and bust economies were based on the immediate availability
of a limited resource which brought immediate corporate investment, short term
economic gain and left long term environmental disasters. In addition, when
the gold ran out, almost every gold mining town became a ghost town.
This is the reality of the current oil economy. Regardless of how you look at
it is that we are investing in a short-term resource which took millions of
years to develop and which we are now burning through in less than a century.
If we would like to avoid looking like a global ghost town we must begin to
take realistic steps now. The federal government is the only collective
entity, which has the infrastructure and collective wisdom to deal with this
looming crisis for which we have not to this date made any effective steps
toward resolving.
As a candidate for federal office I support investment in the alternative
energy infrastructure. We have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in a
war we cannot win and in the meantime oil corporations are making record
profits at the expense of the working people in this country. I say let's take
away their profits by investing in something they cannot profit from. The sun
is an unlimited source of energy and the wind is always blowing. Why are we
letting the oil companies and their investors get rich while at the same time
we are warming the earth with devastating consequences? It is because we have
continued to let the powers that be make decisions in Washington which are
always in the interest of free market profits without consequences. What we
need is to reign in the free market ideology which has driven us to this
precipice and begin to use the long term wisdom of a federal government that is
looking out for the basic needs of working class people, the environment and
the health and well being of everyone on this planet.
When we begin to treat the oil crisis like the problem that it really is and
begin to take realistic steps to find ways to power our automobiles, heat our
homes, produce our food and generate our electricity the people of the
developing world will thank us. We have had one of the strongest economies in
the world and we are resourceful and ingenious nation, always up for the
challenges that face us. I have faith that we can make the right decisions,
but we must take the right steps. We must move away from a free market
ideology with respect to energy and specifically oil and look toward government
investment in the alternative energy infrastructure. We need to end the war in
Iraq and stop acting like there are no consequences for spending hundreds of
billions of dollars that we don't actually have. We need to balance the
federal budget and restore faith in the economy for the global investment
class. We need to address the housing crisis in this country with stronger
regulation and no corporate bailouts for Wall Street investment firms that have
profited at the expense of the poor. We need to take a second look at how we
do our cities and ask if unlimited sprawl is really the best idea for urban
development. But most of all, we need to elect representatives to Washington
DC and to all levels of government who are going to have a long-term vision and
will vote for policies that are in the best interest of our country.
Chris Lugo for US Senate
9 Music Sq So #164
Nashville, TN 37203
615-593-0304
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.voteforpeace.info
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