Gas Prices

The way news editors are covering the rise in gas prices would lead one to think that we are in the midst of the Great Depression, things are so bad. And the way newspapers are framing it -- pointing out the suffering of individuals or delicate businesses -- is the weakest attempt at a consumer sob story ever.
First, we pay ridonkulously less per gallon than virtually any other country in the world, and that's taking into account a slew of other factors, cost of living, taxes, etc. In fact, the only thing it doesn't take into account is our anemic investment in alternative transit.
We are only one of the few to have no gas tax I heard today; we consume, what is it now -- 25 percent? -- of the world's oil supply?
All this for a bargain retail rate of $3, maybe $4 a gallon.
I'm not saying some people whose lives depend on the use of vehicles aren't suffering, they are.
But are they a majority? No.
We are leading charmed lives. And those of us born into those lives -- the ones who got a Toyota at 16, take public transit optionally, fill our tanks at Exxon weekly -- we are just awakening to our individual dependence. And that dependence has empowered large companies, whose greasy existence is entirely due to our crack-like dependence on these luxuries.

Meanwhile, the idea of giving up what has always been ours -- a car, gadgets, convenience --, well, let's just say scoring a $100 check and drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge, two of the hundreds of colossally granchildren-screwing moves currently under consideration-- is much easier to swallow.

So we continue hearing about discussions with OPEC; we in no way comprehend the oil distribution system, we are devoted to the idea that we cannot change our national psyche when it comes to growth, urban planning, and automobile use, and we convince ourselves that greed will always win out. How unimaginitive, boring and lazy.

The things we do to prop up flimsy, fucked and ultimately doomed systems.

But we don't have to. Really, we don't.