Deceitful Solutions To America’s Energy Dependence

Of all the US presidential hopefuls and not-so-hopefuls, only Representative Dennis Kucinich — a less than not-so-hopeful candidate — has clearly stated time and again what this Iraqi adventure is all about. A single word: Oil. He says it and repeats it with no “strings attached.” Kucinich is his own man; a man of principles, religious and otherwise; a man of peace; a man of strong beliefs in the betterment of our human construct. What he repetitively fails to address is the American gluttonous addiction to petroleum products, and he remains silent on the much heralded clean and renewable energies that are nothing but a charade whose only purpose is to throw the wool over the eyes of the American people as mega-corporations, agribusiness, and investors through land speculation are swallowing immense profits, while there is literally no chance that ethanol can ever substitute gasoline to power motor vehicles. Kucinich could do a great service to his fellow citizens if he spoke frankly about the tremendous energy challenges that the country faces.


On January 8, 2007, Kucinich gave a powerful speech, almost an orison, to Jesse Jackson’s Wall Street Project Conference, Sheraton New York & Towers. He showed once again that he has a clear understanding of the increasing fracture that exists between the very few and the large majority of Americans. He offered a Rooseveltian agenda, a sort of modern-day New Deal. However, all he had to say about energy issues is that he wanted “cleaner energy, greener energy.” Nothing else. His speech, almost 2,200 words long, did not contain the words gasoline or petroleum products or oil consumption. The only reference to oil was when he explained how wealth was consistently redistributed upward. “Our electric utilities, our gas companies, our oil companies accelerate wealth to the top,” he said — and that’s all he said.

As much as he is aware that the reason the US Military is in the Middle East and stuck in the Iraqi dry mud has much to do with the control of oil, access to the oil spigot, and profits, he only looks at the trees and ignores the forest, which is the gargantuan consumption of energy — almost all coming from fossil fuels — that we have come to depend upon to perpetuate our way of life with the catastrophic consequences on the climate of the earth (global warming). In turn, he advocates “cleaner” and “greener” energy, buzzwords that in all practicality mean ethanol and biofuels — Dennis Kucinich represents an Ohioan district and is campaigning in Iowa, two states that are beneficiaries of the “clean” and “green” ethanol craze promoted by agribusiness, farming interests, and both political parties. Not once has he addressed the most fundamental question that, in the words of Michael Doliner, “if there is to be a peaceful solution it will have to be a conscious worldwide plan to power down.” (See “Oil And War,” Swans, February 12, 2007.)

Swans