Remember the definition of insanity that we’ve all heard? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
Are you concerned about the rising price of gas? Unless you’re a 1 percenter (in which case you probably aren’t reading this anyway) you most likely are. The remaining crop of Republican candidates for president are all laying the blame at the hands of the current president Barack Obama. However, if you look at historical prices for gas over the last two decades, you’ll notice that they were relatively stable through the 90s before a steady upward climb in the past decade.
Data from Energy Information Agency, EIA.gov
The steady rise corresponds with the Bush administration’s drive to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. While correlation is never proof of causality, in this case there is more. The collapse of gas prices in late 2008 coincided directly with the overall collapse that resulted from the economic policies of the preceding years.
Of course all of that started with the steady drumbeat for war from the GOP neo-cons including Dick Cheney, Lindsay Graham, Paul Wolfowitz and so many others. The current spike in prices is happening at the same time that many of these same re-treads are back on the Sunday morning talk shows trying to make the case for an attack on Iran. This morning on Up with Chris Hayes, the host played a montage of the words from the cast of characters that took us into Iraq and the words they are spouting today. Check out the following clip, especially from about 2 minutes in.
Americans have notoriously short memories but this is a case when we need to remember what happened in 2001-2003 and make sure that we don’t let these morons take us into another needless war. If you want your gas prices to go down, tell every politician and pundit that’s arguing for an attack on Iran to stop and equally importantly lets make sure the Israelis don’t attack Iran either.
If you thought Iraq was a mess, Iran will be far worse if we go to war. President Obama is not to blame for the current spike in prices, it’s right-wing war mongers and the financial speculators that are trying to profit from the possibility of restricted supplies.
#politics #war #iran
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So true. Not to mention the fact that twice in VERY recent memory the Iranians themselves were rising up against this very government we now want to go to war with. Nothing brings a people together faster and harder than an external threat! If we truly want to have Democracy come to Iran we only need to flood it with cheap cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, and thoughts of Freedom – then stand back and let them overthrow the idiots in power. Far less expensive in every aspect than taking up arms!