Title: You all have a choice
Tags: Alternative Fuel Politics Gas Prices Ethanol Gore Clinton Obama McCain Pump
Blog Entry: Please let me preface this with the now obligatory, “I am not whining about gas prices! And, I am NOT advocating the use of alternative fuels.” I am merely making comments and writing about personal observations. Again, I am not trying to offend tree huggers and political activists, so please remain calm. Keeping all this “automotive” is of course the intent. In this political season I have been drawing some parallels, and couldn’t help but observe similarities between the American gas buying, and thereby using, public, and the American political voting public! Stay with me here, it’s convoluted but it makes perfect sense to me! I recently read a number of articles, all of which are readily available to anyone with a simple Google search, about how Brazil is essentially self sufficient, as far as fueling their cars is concerned. They have enough of their own gasoline, largely because they use a substantial amount of ethanol that they produce cheaply enough, and in enough quantity from sugar cane, to satisfy their motoring public. You can almost hear the tree huggers swooning at the prospect of this here in the USA, but of course there is always another side to the story. Anyway, what does this have to do with politics, enthusiasts and the price of gas. Choices! You see, we have as many choices if we want them, as Brazil! You can’t tell me that if Brazil can figure it out, that we can’t! And that’s only because we are supposed to be the greatest industrial nation in the world, and until fairly recently, didn’t we produce most of the cars in the world? I know we don’t now! And, didn’t we play a big role in beginning the business of owning our own cars? And, don’t we have more miles of roads than any other single country, and perhaps more cars per capita, etc, etc, etc? I had to clarify that all before I get emails from Brazilians who used to live in Massachusetts and moved to California! I’m NOT trying to offend Brazilians. In fact, with my new found knowledge, I kind of admire them. Anyway, like I said, choices! We have probably the three WORST, least qualified, candidates running for president right now and one of them will actually be the next president! But, and this is the clincher, not because we do not have alternatives! Just like alternative fuels, like Brazil has, (they cracked that nut!) ( I love that pun!) But because we do not CHOOSE to go to the alternative! I don’t have to get into all the reasons why Obama, Clinton and McCain are essentially the worst candidates that are AVAILABLE, and that is the key word, my enthusiastic friends, AVAILABLE! There simply are more qualified people, even employed in current government that could run this country, but for very good and sound reasons, they are far too smart to subject themselves to the ridiculousness of the political system, just to get to the position whereby their intelligence and experience could do some good for this country. So what do 100 million, or so people in America do? They go to the polls and vote for one of those three! And what do those 100 Million or so American people do at the gas pumps everyday? They fill up with one of the three overpriced octanes available! The funny thing is, in both instances, there is an alternative available! Voters can actually, at the polls, WRITE in a candidate. We could actually all write in “Mickey Mouse”, and if enough people wrote in “Mickey Mouse” then guess who would become the next president? Yes. You get the point! Anyway, all this hand wringing on the news everyday, all this talk about gas tax holidays, and about the big bad oil companies, and the conspiracy theories, and that’s a whole new blog in itself, is really quite silly! There are plenty of alternatives! Remember Brazil? But, it’s easier to just complain and pump! We drive up to the pump, we look at our choices, we make our pick and off we go. Political candidate for president or gasoline for the car. We will simply take one of the choices in front of us, and complain about it in our spare time and of course blame our politicians, who we freely chose. Then we will whine about the oil companies who are screwing us because we freely buy their goods at market price.
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