World War III? I'm scared...

It only took some anarchist shooting a minor Austrian aristocrat in Serbia to start World War I. The economic hardships of the Thirties and lingering, unsolved problems from that useless slaughter led to the Second in which over sixty million died. We’re now facing a critical situation that could easily lead to a Third, and our leaders seem to be doing a better and better job screwing up that situation with every day that passes.

The Middle East is blowing up in our faces. Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Queda. They all seem determined to butcher as many of their perceived opponents as possible as the West stands by and wrings their hands in helpless, clueless distress.

There’s only one thing to do. Get off oil—as soon as possible! The only reason the region holds any interest to the West is petroleum. And we all are the users and abusers, all of us who drive monster SUVs that get 10 miles per gallon, who drive when we should walk, who go to work one to a car, clogging highways and polluting the air, shooting up once a week like heroin junkies as we fill our tanks. It’s time to stop this insanity. We need to kick our oil habit. At some point the Arab states are going to realize they can cripple us in just a few short months by refusing to sell us oil, and then this country will spiral into chaos in mere weeks—forget drugs or gangs, those would be minor ripples compared to a serious oil shortage. If we keep pissing them off it’s only a matter of time before they react. And make no mistake, even moderate Arab countries are growing ever more leery of supporting our misguided policies. They have conservative constituencies of their own to deal with and if it comes down to their own survival, you can bet the Saudi ruling family and other ‘friendly’ governments will act in their own interests, not ours. And if you think that would hurt them economically, all they need do is look East to the Chinese, whose ecomomy sorely lacks for petroleum; they’d be eager to snap up any supply the Arabs didn’t want to sell us.

So better beware America, the oil addiction of ours is going to come back and bite us in the ass, hard like a pit bull that won’t let go. Maybe we can’t go cold-turkey, but we can certainly wean ourselves off this dangerous habit.

So what’s the solution? Alternative energy. We need to get going on efficient technologies that use something other than petroleum. You want jobs? This would create thousands. You favor education? We’d need more scientists and would have to fund education. You want America to stay a world leader? This would help do it; others would be coming to us for our technology. You want a cleaner environment? This would reduce pollution. All of these positives lie in exploring alternate energy.

So why the hell aren’t we? Because of big oil--watch ‘Syriana' if you have any doubts about that. We need to kick big oil out of Washington D.C. if we can’t get big oil out of the hair of our government, be prepared. For lots of things, all of them bad. You under thirty, maybe even forty? Get ready for a new draft (you girls too, by the way). Get ready for escalating warfare, get ready for thousands, maybe millions of deaths. Get ready for a conflagration in the Middle East. And get ready for what could quite possibly be the next World War, this time a religious one, the Christian West versus the Moslem East.