Americans must end our addiction to oil and corporate Democrats

[Enrique]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/16-3

(...)

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former senator from Colorado, can make a scapegoat out of former MMS chief Elizabeth Birnbaum, but nothing short of his resignation would indicate a change in the administration’s fundraising priorities. As Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has no doubt reminded the president, Colorado is rich in both fossil fuels and political donations from energy companies, so why would Obama want someone running Interior who comes from a state with little or no interest in coal, oil, or natural gas? Over the latest election cycle, from January 2009 to May 2010, the total contribution of oil and gas companies to the Democratic Party was $3.7 million.

Nevertheless, Obama says he’s determined to punish BP, plug the leak, and make sure that it never happens again. Two weeks ago, his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, described a president “enraged at the time that it’s taken” to halt the underwater oil gusher. How did Gibbs know this? Because he’s seen Obama’s “clenched jaw” in various meetings.

Yet Obama seemed utterly at ease — practically slack-jawed — on March 31, when he announced the expansion of offshore oil drilling, this to the dismay of his faithful environmentalist supporters.

No matter. Bipartisan Obama, the consummate corporate Democrat, could bask in the reluctant praise of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who called the plan for increased drilling a “step in the right direction.”

What has to change? To be sure, Americans must end their addiction to SUVs and other monster vehicles. The U.S., with one-twentieth of the world’s population, gobbles up one-fifth of world oil production. But Americans also need to stop electing regular Republicans and Democrats like Bush and Obama who will never ask them for any sacrifices, apart from money at election time.

So far, the only sacrifices I’ve seen are the ones made by the oil-rig workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion. They were sacrificed to a two-party oligarchy and a campaign-finance system that are leading us toward a very creative self-destruction.

[daleanime]

1. That would be a good start....

:bounce:

[mix]

2. k&r nt

[Child_Of_Isis]

3. Yes! We'll vote in non corporate Dems on our corporate electronic voting machines!

n/t.