Well, thanks for nothing...

Yeah, this is going to be another Bush-is-such-a-dick post, so if you don't care for that, move on right now...





Still reading? Okay. I came across an article today, quoting from an interview with our less-than-beloved President after the State of the Union Address. Now, granted, about ninety percent of anything Bush says lately, I just roll my eyes at and remind myself that he's not President for life. But this one REALLY got to me.

He was asked what he thought about Exxon Corp. posting WELL over $10 BILLION for the fourth QUARTER of last year (this is not an annual profit statement...this is just for 3 months!!!), at a time when the nation was wallowing in economic difficulties related to the price of gas at the pump (and heating oil and other petroleum products.)

Bush, a former Texas oilman, said of oil costs, "I think that basically the price is determined by the marketplace and that's the way it should be."

"I believe in a relatively quick period of time, within my lifetime, we'll be able to reduce if not end dependence on Middle Eastern oil by this new technology" of converting corn, wood, grasses and other products into ethanol, he said.

In his address Tuesday night, Bush had set a goal of reducing the nation's Mideast oil imports by 75 percent by 2025.

Yeah, that's all nice and well...but I'm in danger of going bankrupt RIGHT NOW because of the price of gasoline! And I sure as hell can't afford to move closer to work. And there's not enough federal funding to create a commuter transit system that is actually flexible enough to meet my needs. (Oh, wait...I CAN'T go bankrupt because the credit card companies successfully lobbied to make that next to impossible for the man on the street!)

I thought my government was supposed to take care of me, protect me from unethical businessmen (hell, they broke up Bell Telephones in the 70's because the company was doing basically the same thing with phone service that the oil corporations are doing with gasoline). There was a time when they prosecuted people for charging the kind of interest credit card companies are charging...it's called usury, and it is illegal (unless you're a credit card company who can buy laws to protect your indecent and immoral exploitation of people who don't grasp the concept of just what a credit card really is--a lease on your soul for the rest of your natural existence!)

Yes, I'm a believer in the free-market system, and I acknowledge supply-and-demand as basic principles. But when those principles are warped to the tune of $3.3 billion PLUS a month in profits, you're dealing with another principle...extortion! Our entire economy is based on transportation. Especially here in the West, people live sometimes an hour or more away from where they actually work (Why? Because housing prices close to large employment areas are ALSO out of control...I remember, back when they started developing the East Bench above North Logan, that there were quarter acre plots selling for $40,000! With NO road access built yet, NO power in place yet, NO sewer in place yet...five years before that, an EXPENSIVE home in the Logan area was $150,000...and in Northern Utah, Logan is still one of the cheaper places to live...provided you can find work in your career field there.) EVERYBODY drives out here, because NOBODY lives close to all the places they need to be. And, unless you've got hours to spend waiting for the bus, commuter options are non-existent (even if I did have time to wait for the bus, most of the time I wouldn't be able to use it...during the summer, one of my big jobs is to stay on top of the cleaning of costumes, and keeping stuff in good repair. YOU try hauling twenty-five pounds of dry cleaning to and from the park on a bus...or making an emergency run to the cobbler, when you've got an hour to get there, get the repair done, and get back to the park. IT AIN'T HAPPENIN', KIDS...) And the gas companies KNOW that there are thousands of people like me, who can't afford NOT to drive to work (which is where at least eighty percent of my driving has been in the last year)...so they're dipping into our pockets to line theirs, fat bastards that they are.

Sorry, I've been trying to keep some kind of positive spin to my writing (yeah, even my post about George Lucas was, in my mind, intended as a constructive criticism, not just voicing gripes). But right now, I'm feeling pretty damn screwed over...kind of like I'm being gang-raped by the credit card and oil industries, while the government is holding me down for them.

I guess I'm not as passionate as Kevin or Frank, because while I've been disgusted about the same stuff they've mentioned, I haven't been angry. It takes a lot to make me angry, really. Or maybe it doesn't.

It just takes a dick in the White House who doesn't give a damn about the common man he's supposed to be serving.