Instead, they are mumbling something about exploring ANWR which might take 12 years to bring online if it were lucrative and feasible, which all independent indicators say, not! Of course they want to take a $25 product and sell it to SIX BILLION people at triple its value. According to documents published October 18, 2001 (Oil Omissions) the fear machine was already spewing lunacy about "Osama bin Laden taking control of Saudi Arabia." It goes on to say he wants oil to be $144 a barrel. Mind you, not $143 or $145.
These are all easy solutions from a jawbone position. I am sure experts would have many more ways to push down the price and put controls on both OPEC and consumption.
One thing Olson didn't cover was the possibility of a corporate coup taking over the United States government. He said the privileged group would be well-financed and organized. But I guess like all good Americans, he assumed the players would be trying to take crumbs, not the entire pie. And to leave something for future generations. Therein, is where I take exception to Olson's constant use of the word "rational." Earning a living is rational. Breaking our treasury is not.
Yet the solution also lies within Olson's words and within us - the latent groups and the forgotten groups. We are the groups subjected to Executive Branch control over what media shows (no Dover Air Base, no Politically Incorrect, no Dan Rather and no more Ted Koppel on Nightline). Over the introduction of no-paper electronic ballots. Over blatant attempts to dismantle entitlement programs dating back to FDR and LBJ. Over the lessening of taxes for the rich, while a decade goes by without .25 toward the minimum wage. Over staging a war on a first-strike against a sovereign while sending the recruits to the field without proper armor. Over running up a debt that will equal all the money ever spent from 1791 until 2001 by the time Bush leaves office, with nearly $10 trillion in current debt and anyone's guess what it will cost to make reparations and pay the future medical costs of at least 500,000 veterans. Over unholy legislation by pseudo-Christian men on Capitol Hill who have sex with Pages and whose friends like Reverend Haggard are checking into gay motels out in Colorado, while Pat Robinson is saluting the death of blacks in New Orleans as God's work. Over the cutting of funds to America's schools (unfunded mandates) and giving less to universities and fewer Pell Grants in order to try and garner better registration in the military. Over the assaults upon our judiciary by Ashcroft and Gonzales. Over the fact that Bush did not veto a single bill (except one that would not give federal money to stem-cell research to possibly cure AIDS, Alzheimer's and Diabetes and the other to not fund his beloved troops) - while signing hundreds of signing statements to disregard any law he saw fit. Over ass-fuckings with broomsticks in Iraqi jails or covert cells on remote Cuban beaches, where we hold everything without trial - except our American values and principles. Over there . . . where Condi Rice was (shhh, don't tell) a Chevron Oil executive and member of the board of directors until she joined the presidential team.
There on Olson's Page 166, where he states, "there are multitudes with an interest in peace, but they have to lobby to match those of the special interests" that may on occasion have an interest in war.
Latent groupers stand up. Free-Riders, this ride is not free. Use your unions, or what is left of them, to upend the Congress as it was in November 2006. Use your buying power to boycott sponsors and networks that allow sub-humans like Anne Coulter to even appear over publicly-owned airwaves. That goes for Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, too. Use your cars to park and get some fitness by walking when possible. Use your fingers to dial your representatives daily and to type letters to Congress and your newspapers. Use your children to not enlist, forcing a national draft that will allow no deferments for anyone of any class (this might end all US involvement in wars).
And to the forgotten groups who suffer in silence, (Olson, Page 165): You don't need a lobbyist. You need an honest Congressman, Senator, President and judiciary and you need to work to reverse the damages of Gerrymandering and promote free elections. You need to find a way to pass a Constitutional Amendment for term limitations and we need to stop talking about absurdities like woman's inherent reproductive rights instead of a focused sane dialogue on energy, defense, and the other things above.
On Election Day 2008, we need to symbolically stand at the shores of Boston Harbour, enjoying a cup of tea, as we dump their oil into the water and set it ablaze. Mostly we need to remember that there will always be the Senator McCarthys, the Richard Nixons, the Ollie Norths and the chickenhawks like Bush-Cheney oil cabal, you know, the powerful and the organized “privileged group†who know the rules of The Logic of Collective Action.
This report is dedicated to Temple Political Science Professor, Dr. Michael Hooper.
