Eric Massa on “President Gas”
you have to have a party
when you’re in a state like this
you can really move it all
you have to vote and change
you have to get right out of it
like out of all this mess
you’ll say yeah to anything
if you believe all this but
don’t cry, don’t do anything
no lies, back in the government
no tears, party time is here again
president gas is up for president
I just got off the phone with Eric Massa, retired Navy Commander who is challenging Randy Kuhl, and the Psychedelic Furs’ “President Gas” kept coming to mind. Why? Here’s Massa on the reason we’re soon to be facing gas over $4 a gallon:
I don’t like being partisan but we must understand how we got here. The president stood in the shadow of the World Trade Center towers and committed us to war without [authorizing anyone] to pay for it. He has mitigated that debt by devaluing the dollar, which has been devalued the past two years by 50-60%. OPEC countries largely have moved away from using the dollar as their trade currency and use the euro instead.
This morning Shell and BP (British Petroleum) announced record earnings. This is unheard of. It is profiteering at the pump. They are given tax incentives to drill for new oil. Petro is at $110 a barrel. They don’t need our tax money. The economic policies of George Bush and his rubberstampers are very directly responsible for the increase in the price of gasoline.
I asked Massa if he had pumped his own gas recently and he said:
Yes. I just filled up my mini-van, which has an [extended tank] and $75 did not fill it up.
Massa went on to discuss the devaluing of the dollar and Kuhl’s practice of blaming Speaker Pelosi via the “Pelosi Premium”:
[President Bush has] devalued the dollar by unrestricted borrowing and spending. He has made sure that we import everything. We imported more food than we grew ourselves [last year] for the first time in history. Blaming our economy on Nancy Pelosi while providing tax subsidies for oil companies [is wrong]. This is just a Karl Rove-contracted campaign. George Bush and his majority have been in charge for seven years.
Massa makes a good point: blaming Pelosi for the price of gas given that we’ve had nearly eight years of Bush and his policies is convenient scapegoating. Americans may buy the high gasoline out of necessity but I doubt they will buy the Republicans’ excuses.
I wish that we could convince the DOT to install bicycle lanes so that people could bike to and from their place of employment. This would ease up the congestion on the expressways, save a shitload of money for consumers (in gas), create a healthier environment in which we can live, and create a bunch of healthier, fitter people.
How on earth could it be a bad thing? But I’m sure there are a bazillion EXCUSES as to why this can’t happen.
We’ve built ourselves into a jam, haven’t we? Almost all of the houses, shopping and jobs built in the last 50 years are only accessible by car. Most people simply don’t have a realistic transportation choice. After decades of complaining about sprawl, I should probably feel vindicated by the gas shortage, but I don’t. I just feel sad that we blew it, that so many of us are locked into automobile dependence.