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NEW ORLEANS
A Casualty of Oil Dependence
Richard D. Masters, ICHC September
2, 2005
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Few realize that the flooding of New Orleans was avoidable.
The federal
funds won by the efforts of the Army Corp of Engineers
and designated for the strengthening of the levee system that
protected New Orleans were used instead to help finance a war
closely tied to securing foreign oil supplies. Now we are
faced with the loss of a major city, at a cost greater than
9/11 and Hurricane Andrew combined.
When our government places foreign
nation building above our own -- to the point of losing an
American city - then we must reconsider what we are doing. We
are now engaged in a policy of perpetual warfare where the
United States funds both sides of the conflict, one through
taxation to support our military efforts, the other through a
"prosperity tax" paid on every barrel of Muslim oil
we import.
But Americans need energy, not oil.
If we are fighting a war for oil, we need to ask ourselves
"Who are we fighting this war for?" and "Why
are we not moving aggressively toward energy
independence?"
All international conflict appears to
stem from oil greed or oil envy - and it would be relatively
easy and profitable
to remove our nation from this accelerating spiral toward
disaster by building an all-electric
economy based on renewable domestic energy. With wind,
solar, geothermal, hydro, advanced battery technologies and
production of electric fuel (hydrogen) via electrolysis, we
could do this in as little as ten years.
But look what we are doing instead.
Our elected representatives behave as
if they were owned by lobbyists from big energy companies.
Their decisions are based on what is good for the
profitability of the existing energy structure instead of
providing for a new energy base that will secure the future of
the citizens they are sworn to represent.
So they diverted funds that would
have ensured New Orleans' survival toward a
highly-rationalized scheme to instill democratic ideals on
religious fanatics, part of a desperate, incredibly cynical
attempt to hang onto Middle East oil supplies controlled by
brutal anti-democratic despots. They then wastefully piled
billions onto a preposterous Midwest corn-ethanol corporate
welfare scheme -- this after failing to provide simple
production tax credits in 2004 to enable the financing of the
next generation of wind power!
Both the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory and a Stanford research group have shown that wind
alone could power America many times over, but the
Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who plays a
key role in sending our sons and daughters to fight in the
oil-rich Middle East, waged a disingenuous
personal war against windpower after accepting huge
donations from the coal lobby.
Instead of moving America toward
energy independence, the so-called "Energy Bill" was
used primarily as a vehicle
to transfer immense wealth to big oil, coal and
nuclear while tossing scraps to the cheapest
technology available to put electrons on the grid:
wind.
The money spent on the Iraq war so far is
equivalent to the
cost of establishing hydrogen fueling stations across America.
But all this pales in comparison to the enormous 'prosperity
tax' placed on the American people by imported oil with the
blessing of America's leaders.
As we watch New Orleans sink and
burn, and brace ourselves for further repercussions of
dependence on centralized oil in the form of fuel shortages
and damage to the economy, this should impress upon us the
fact that we need better leaders. Leaders with vision who put
love of country first. Leaders who refuse to sell themselves
to the highest bidder. Leaders who are intelligent enough to
recognize the path to energy independence is that which is
most cost-effective. Leaders who will leave a legacy of
prosperity, not ashes.
But the future for America is grim
unless and until we demand these leaders.
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