[lutherquick]

I give this analogy because I believe it is very accurate.

I compare US energy demand to cancer.

Cancer has several stages.
But the last stage (#4) is called "Metastasis" and it's the last stage that spreads over the entire body and kills the very host that is giving it life, thus killing itself.

Metastasis is where cancer spreads, as if with tentacles, it reaches all over the body and invades and penetrate into lymphatic and blood vessels, circulate through the bloodstream, and making the situation terminal. At this point the adrenals, liver, brain and the bones are invaded.

The US economy has been using dollar hegemony coupled with foreign policy based on double standards and hypocrisy in order to reach far for such energy, literally energy from all corners of the planet.

The US economy will not change, it will not try to lower it's need of imported energy or imported finished goods. It will not happen in a purely voluntary method. The only way this change can be induced is when the entire planet plunges into a steep decline of peak oil. At this point the US economy will stutter, hopefully because of it's massive reliance on energy inefficiency in suburbia that it will suffer demand destruction first and strongest than the rest of the planet.

In the end, we can only hope that the cancer will die, not the entire body, not the other organs.

America needs energy, and she will kill Iraqi women and children to get it. She will pump NGO money into places like Venezuela, Ukraine, Georgia and around Chechnya because that energy belongs to America. Cancer doesn't negotiate, as Dick Cheney said "the American way of life isn't negotiable".

Ultimately we hope that economies and nations will consume only (mostly) renewable energy, and stop the exponential growth as Albert Bartlett pointed out.

Washington DC cabinet meeting, oval office meetings with the CIA, are going to be very creativity, with fantastic imagination and innovations in story telling and fairy tale engineering. You think "wmd in Iraq" or eluding that "Saddam did 9/11" was a stretch? Wait till the cancer starts to lose her metastasis, we ain't seen nothing yet.

[Fishman]

she will kill Iraqi women and children to get it

Nasty note there buddy. Saddam killed over 600,000 over 20 years with an average of 30,000 a year. Even given the numbers of the war and Iragis killing Iragis the death rate has been 15,000 or less a year. First time in history a war has actually lowered the death rate. You think all the other oil importing countries aren't the same?

[Zentric]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fishman', 's')he will kill Iraqi women and children to get it

Nasty note there buddy. Saddam killed over 600,000 over 20 years with an average of 30,000 a year. Even given the numbers of the war and Iragis killing Iragis the death rate has been 15,000 or less a year. First time in history a war has actually lowered the death rate. You think all the other oil importing countries aren't the same?

[FairMaiden]

Last time I checked, the USA wasn't responsible for saving innocent lives spent in power struggles of other countries...or wait...except in oil rich countries where they have an interest. Personally, I feel sorry for the American soldiers who have died defending the American way of life. They are the ones who have been lied to and sacrificed. Not much different than what Saddam has done to gain control over his enemies in his own country.

[lutherquick]

Folks,

Don't be confused, America is a great country. But we are in a terrible position where we can't follow our ideals because we need oil/gas/finished goods to consume... Our addiction has made us distort our good values...

We look at Iraq and see what we need, period. And we do whatever we need to get it. We can say all the bad things about Saddam, fine, and I agree, but ask most Americans and they go along with the brewhaha that Bush started, and that was "Saddam did 9/11"...

Think about it. 9/11 happened and now we are stuck in Iraq, simple. And more of our beloved troops die, for what?

It would be much cheaper and humane to not suport Saddam in the first place like we did in the 1980's, and stick to our values... but no... Saddam was water boy for America, a yes man, and he told us what we wanted to hear...

We now have squinty Rummy complaining to congresses about heads being chopped off in Iraq, yet we forget about the scalping we did to the American Indians...

When it's all said and done, we have values, but it depends... so long as those values don't get in the way of our growth.

I wonder how much more war we realy need for our apitite and consumption? When is it enough? When will go back to the good things that made America great and innovate our way out of this "peak oil" problem. How many more Rummies and Cheneys from the "old economy" ready and lined up to kill more in the world so America can grow? Are all these "old" men so afraid of the future? Can't they help America become modern and get off of imported energy? Are they so old that they can't create anymore and change from within?

Hypocricy can go just so far... I think Amrica is reaching the end of this double standard.

[pup55]

There have been a number of periods like this in US history, where the situation is so screwed up that a paradigm shift, to use the overworked phrase, occurs and rebalances everything.

One was in the 1820's. Jacksonian Democracy via Wikipedia basically the previous system of elitism, cronyism and political patronage was so bad it had to be thrown out and replaced with something that resembled a two-party system with representatives chosen by the "common man". This was not all good (particularly if you were a native american).

One was during the period from 1853 to 1865. The outcome depended a lot on your point of view. It was either a violent dictatorial response to the desire of a few of the more humble states to exercise their democratic rights of independence and self-determination, or a noble movement to rid the land of the plague of slavery. In either case, money was at the center of the whole issue.

Another one was during the earlu 20th century, 1900-1910. Corporate greed got to such an extreme that it caused a political backlash that led to massive fair labor, pure food and drug, and antitrust legislation.

Another one was from 1929 until 1939. In that case, the economy was so screwed up by 20 years of exploitation, speculation and corruption that the whole system was on the verge of collapse, and the nation was up to if not over the edge of revolution in a couple of places (Detroit--UAW strikes and Washington DC--"bonus army" riots, to name two).

The mess we are in actually started in 1980, or maybe a little before. At the root of the whole thing is oil and money. It's hard right now for us, observing it first hand, to judge the seriousness of it.

In any case, in each of the instances above, a leader rose up who was able to appeal to the sensible middle of the country, and by virtue of popular support, overcome the prevailing hubris and straighten the system out, temporarily.

In many of the cases, this did not happen until conditions got so bad that people were taking to the streets and/or taking up arms.

In each case, the hero is so esteemed to either have his image carved in Mount Rushmore or featured on a popular coin or currency. Jackson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, F Roosevelt.

So it will be interesting to see what comes out of this. We are not (quite) up to the point yet for people to take to the streets. When this starts to happen, we will all know it.

[Matrim]

Are all these "old" men so afraid of the future? Can't they help America become modern and get off of imported energy? Are they so old that they can't create anymore and change from within?


No they all just got rich of oil and would like to continue getting rich off oil.
And if I had the coin they had I wouldn't be the least bit scared of the future, I'd be prepared. As I'm sure they are.