Let 'Em Eat Cake

After a few days in Moulton, I got a creepy feeling like one gets from watching, "On the Beach," or "Andromeda Strain," for the first time. That feeling is the startling intrusion of the idea that sometimes really bad shit happens and it has an aftermath.

These gas prices are felt most by our rural brothers and sisters, like those in Moulton, who are kind of a canary in a coal mine. Let's say they are fighting for air right now.

People are literally scared. If a guy can't afford the gas to get to work, and to put an adequate amount of food on the table, (never mind the a/c in 100-degree weather) that's about as real a problem as life ever poses.

These are the things that begin the ranks of the Democrats to swell. Face it, God, gays and guns don't put food on the table. Patriot zygotes aren't such a burning issue when there's no gas to burn. When people get hungry, it tends to clear the mind of unnecessary clutter.

So, the congress hauled the oil exec's up to the Hill the other day for their semi-annual blow jobs, and quite out of nowhere, Maxine Waters from Californie blurted out something about "socializing" the oil industry, which she finally stammered into, "taking over" their businesses. Although, I found getting the exact quote on-line impossible, I heard the statement played over and over on right wing radio. Needless to say, Rush and everybody in the Republican propaganda industry's head exploded.

Before registering my support for such an idea, let me remind people that some goods and services are so crucial to the interests of the public that they can't be entrusted to a few private individuals: blood supplies, health care, some transportation systems (food delivery) and energy. I don't care how rabidly Republican one might be, one wouldn't want private sector services for national security. Why should something like energy be different when "peak oil" predictions tell of a population die off due to scarcity of oil by 2050? It might be true that cigarettes don't cause cancer and global warming is Al Gore's conspiracy to enrich himself, but I doubt it. Why take the chance?

Actually, an oil executive said something in testimony that day that I find a lot more offensive than Water's remark that is just as true. He reiterated the industry mantra that oil companies do not serve the public, instead they are obligated to their shareholders.

Just keep telling yourselves that fellas.