When will the Democrats get it?
There is no gasoline price gouging in the United States. Gasoline prices are high because Americans want more of it than the market can deliver.
The ad for Minnesota Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar on Kos's front page is very dangerous for Democrats, is definitely irresponsible in its inaccuracy, and has the potential to destroy any hope we have for a progressive energy policy.
Want to understand more? Flip below the fold.
This is essentially an issue that boils down to the core failure of our nation's energy policy, and the framing traps that Democrats so easily fall in to.
First, American energy policy is lopsidedly supply-sided - that is, when we want more energy, our first thought is to just make more. We all know how making more translates: making more = endless wars in the middle east; making more = gross human rights violations in Nigeria, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, etc.; making more = threats to drill in wilderness like the Arctic Refuge and the Rocky Mountains for marginal (read: expensive) suppplies; making more = bulldozing everything we hold dear to make way for drill bits, roughnecks, and - yes - record profits for Big Oil.
By accusing Big Oil of price gouging, we are essentially denying the root cause of high prices: Americans want more energy than the world is prepared to provide us with. We are sucking on a straw that is drawing from a dry well, and we have the audacity to accuse the well of ripping us off? It's directly analogous to a heroin addict complaining when a dope dealer's next delivery is interdicted by the police. The addict is, of course, NEVER to blame for his or her jones - it's always someone else's fault.
Well, sorry, folks, but that's not the way it works. High gasoline prices are America's fault - in fact, they're the fault of each and every person who drives a car. Why?
Because we drive down the street to the 7-11. Because we drive four blocks to pick up the kids, or mail a letter. Because we drive to work alone in an SUV. Because everything we do - our lifestyles, our development patterns, our very "culture" - is based around being able to drive wherever we want, whenever we want.
I hope I don't have to explain why this is patently absurd.
But when we accuse Big Oil of "price gouging," we fall into a fatal trap: Big Oil has a ready response. "Yes, prices are very high, and we regret that. But they're only high because ...
ACCESS ... ACCESS ... ACCESS!!!
This is Big Oil's talking point for price gouging: If we would only let them drill in the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or the middle of the National Mall, prices wouldn't be so damn high.
I'm assuming that's not the solution Kossacks are looking for, and I hope that Democratic candidates for Senate - along with existing Senators - recognize that progressives do NOT want more drilling to be the default position to solve our national energy idiocy.
High prices tell us something about our behavior that no other signal can tell us: that is, we need to change our behavior. We need to change the fuels we use. We need to use more public transportation, and ride our bikes, and walk more. We need to car pool. We need to get Detroit of its lazy ass and make them make cars that get 100 miles per gallon (technology whic, BTW, exists TODAY).
But if we keep falling into this trap that high energy prices are somehow due to greedy oil companies - and, make no mistake, they are greedy, but they're not to blame - we will NEVER be able to advance these kinds of solutions, because we stick ourselves in the frame that the problem is high prices, rather than irresponsible policies; and we let Democrats off the hook for giving us a real, progressive, 21st-centure energy policy that helps us kick the oil habit once and for all.
So ... Dear Amy Klobuchar, please remove the ad you have on DailyKos and replace it with one that is accurate, does not fall into Big Oil's trap, and that points the way to a real solution to our deadly addiction to oil.
That is all. Thanks.