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America's deadliest sin: petro-gluttony

17-04-05

A noted columnist, thrice Pulitzer-prized, has now “plagiarized” an old idea: mega-taxing gasoline at the pump. Such advocacy, for all the trimmings and apparent good reasons, never had much popularity with politicians before. Perhaps Mr. Friedman can bring some originality in 2005 and obtain a better media reception… although we seriously doubt he’ll find much support from the oil-intoxicated average Joe.

America’s love affair with the automobile, a beautiful and lasting courtship entering a fifth generation, has finally matured into a sordid affair… a true fatal attraction.

As Americans have grown older, half their memories carried to old age have stamped in them models and makes… always traveling on four wheels and a tank with enough gas to get them to their happy or sad destinations. Unfortunately that low-to-high octane need has evolved beyond the realm of transportation to a symbol of independence and personal identity connecting us, as if bio-mechanoids or Borg, to a brain center: the gas pump. The addiction is about to experience some dramatic change. But… is it an addiction?

An old friend who teaches geology at a Brazilian university thinks he has a better name for it. As a doctoral student in California during the 1979-81 petro-crises, he does remember those long lines at the pump. He also recalls how politicians then denounced the oil-dependence… and their patriotic pronouncement of never-again. “More than an addiction,” my friend states,” Americans’ gasoline consumption is a deadly sin; a sin committed through ignorance, unrestrained hedonism, and lack of political leadership.” A mouthful coming from an ex-pat who is well aware that acceptance of criticism is not an American virtue… never has been.

We seem to march masochistically towards economic doomsday, closing our ears to the prophets sent to us by the god of common sense. On occasion we have even had political leaders doing the heroic thing, telling us the truth… not just what we wanted to hear. But as many kings did in ancient times with messengers bearing bad news, we have a way of terminally-dealing with leadership that reasons our needs instead of rationalizing our material wants. No better case than Jimmy Carter and his political decapitation in 1979 after the prophetic malaise-speech. No, we don’t like criticism from any quarter, and do not welcome prophets of doom… not from without, not from within.

One can envision the late Walt Kelly telling us from swamp-heaven: “As it was half-century ago, America keeps meeting its enemy, and the enemy continues to be us.” If we can identify the problem, and have the means to solve it, why are we so lax? If we now import over 60% of the petroleum consumed, are we so blind as not to see the ticking time-bomb in front of us? It should be obvious that international producers are likely to keep prices increasingly higher while protecting their diminishing supplies. For all our technology and smarts, it’s the OPEC nations that are forcing their optimal econometric models on us… only winners at our end: the rapacious oil industry and those in Washington clearing obstacles for them.

If curbing consumption is what we are after, I, like Tom Friedman, have a suggestion to make. The US spends more on “defense” than the rest of the world combined. And there is no secret to the fact that much of thávez’ presidency, Europe was skeptical as to what social and economic changes could take place to improve conditions for every Venezuelan. And it wasn’t just the European Right that was thinking that way, but the Left as well. That image started to change, according to Madame Cauwel, after the April 2002 coup d’état. Now we look at Venezuela in a different light, she said, knowing that there are changes taking place in the nation, with a process to integrate all sectors excluded in the past, such as the native people and the humble classes… getting them to know and enjoy their rights.

Perhaps what had greatest resonance for me was Cauwel’s acknowledgement that Europe and much of the world recognize that Venezuela is being forced to confront the US in defense of its dignity, and a foreign policy that is generating a positive image about the Bolivarian Revolution and its objectives, something that is finding solidarity throughout the world: a changed image for a changing nation.

Unfortunately for Chávez, he is not going to have clear sailing in his quest for what one would hope to be a model revolutionary socio-economic evolution (no contradiction in terms intended). The turbulent waters from the menacing North and the hurricane winds from a well-entrenched upper-middle class can combine to capsize his ship of state. But if he proves to be a good tactician, and enlists the better nature of that sizeable, fence-sitting professional class, he can moderate the winds… and calm the to legitimate, if controversial, claims on behalf of people of his faith in al-Andalus (flamenco-land)… and everywhere else in Spain.

Spain, with only one-third of the total Muslim population claimed by the United States, although with twice the proportionality (2% versus 1% for the US), had the act of terrorism not only denounced by imams and faithful alike, but by a reliable ruling on a point of Islamic law, a fatwa.

Why did the first fatwa anywhere in the world against Osama bin Laden originate in Spain just one year after the horrific 11-M attack? Why didn’t it originate in the United States sometime during the three and one-half year lapse since the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Perhaps the answer resides in how both the people and government in each country behave towards Muslims and Islam.

The Islamic Commission in Spain just acknowledged that while in the United States disproportionate legal measures were taken after 9-11, which were in great part responsible for the prejudicial castigation of Muslims nationwide, the attitude from both government and people in Spain was positive with no apparent rejection towards Islam or its faithful from the rest of the population.

But perhaps the greatest difference in treatment has been observed with the press; the muffling of Muslim voices by the American mainstream press vis-à-vis more open, if reserved, dealings with the Spanish press. Escudero, who often has been very critical of the Spanish press, still has managed to get through his message about Islam, an Islam which in almost every point of reference, including equality for women, is said not to be in conflict with Spain’s Western ways. That seems to contrast with the muffling experienced by Islamic spokespeople when trying to carry a similar message in the American press.

Escudero, Brzezinski and all other voices of reason deserve to be given a chance, not silenced because they represent dissent… for only when those voices are heard that democracy will have a common meaning for all of us.