Six-steps to end addiction

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Hans Noeldner offers this polemic on the U.S. addiction to oil:

Here's a six-step program to withdraw United States armed forces not only from Iraq, but from the entire Mideast:

(1) Withdraw our nation's demand for Mideast oil. This will withdraw our #1 strategic interest in the Persian Gulf, and thus remove the #1 reason for our nation to meddle and manipulate those nations and peoples. You and I can vote against demand for Mideast oil by withdrawing ourselves from filling stations.

(2) Withdraw our financial support for Mideast governments. The colossal flow of oil money to despots in this region has financed great corruption, strife, and violence. The peoples of the Mideast deserve a chance to find their own way – free of our nation’s meddling. You and I can support these reforms by withdrawing our dollars from oil companies.

(3) Withdraw ourselves from our cars and SUVs and RVs and airplanes and riding lawnmowers and motorboats and other fossil-fueled toys a lot more often. This is the only way we can slash our oil imports in a hurry. Will you and I have to sacrifice? Will it be inconvenient to not jump into our car every time we turn around? YES! But not as inconvenient as spending a year of our life in a foreign nation wearing body armor in 120 degree heat while indignant natives are trying to blow us up.

(4) Withdraw our demands that our politicians lie, sidestep, sugarcoat, spin, one-up, dumb-down, coddle, entertain, and flatter us. Would we-the-people have abided a President who exhorted us to repress our wanton energy consumption during the greatest peacetime expansion in history – and thereby throw our SUV-manufacturing, suburbia-building, drive-everywhere economy into recession? Would we have tolerated candid warnings from his successor that he was about to encircle Mideast oil fields with several hundred thousand additional American forces because you and I covet ever more imported oil?

(5) Elect leaders who tell us the unpleasant truths we are loath to hear: overcoming our addiction to oil is going to hurt; it will cause widespread economic shocks; it will demand sacrifices and profound lifestyle changes from those of us at home. We must listen to leaders who remind us of our duties rather than leaders who sanctify our bloated resource demands. We must follow leaders who envision a just and sustainable future based on reality rather than leaders who cling to hallucinatory dreams of limitless material growth. Then we must join with leaders who challenge us to greatness rather than leaders who indulge our self-righteousness and narcissism. And when I say “we” I don’t mean someone else; I mean you and me.

(6) That’s it! When we-the-people have withdraw the reason for our nation to occupy the Mideast; when we have withdraw the reasons to lie about why we invaded in the first place, when we have withdrawn our excuses to not sacrifice or transform ourselves, then the bridge will be revealed for the men and women in our armed forces to come home.

Hans Noeldner is a Trustee in the Village of Oregon, Wisconsin. The views herein do not necessarily represent those of the Oregon Village Board.