I dunno, Art, your stricture seems to foreclose a full discussion of the problem. The special interests and their political henchman that did so much to get us into this mess remain powerful, and overcoming their resistance is key to solving the problem.

The diary made it sound as if Americans have been completely apathetic about dependence on oil for the last three decades and more. But we know that that's not true--a great many of us have been deeply concerned the whole time, but not being oil company CEOs or politicians of a certain persuasion, we had no power to deflect America from its suicidal course.

Seems my hands are tied if I can't ask the question "How do we overcome the implacable opposition of Republicans to doing anything meaningful to address the problem?"

To nibble at the edges of the question, I don't know if that's what McBush had in mind specifically. It seemed at the time simply machochistic posturing, declaring that we'll suffer and bleed until the end of time rather than admit that George Bush made a stupid mistake. But maybe there was a deeper meaning there. Still, if so, that demonstrates a breathtaking lack of imagination, staying the course--sucking down oil like there's no tomorrow--rather than taking the obvious step of reducing our consumption of oil and thus the hold the Middle East has over us.

The diary suggests that dependence on oil forces an imperialistic or hegemonistic mindset on us. It's worth wondering whether that isn't exactly what neocons want, and that opposition to reducing our dependence on oil isn't intended to push America in that direction. That would be evilly Machiavellian, but not entirely out of the question.

I guess I'm finding it impossible to address the question without involving politics, which risks the charge of "finger-pointing", simply because the problems is, at heart, a political one. We've known for three decades what we had to do, there's no ambiguity about it and the steps we need to take are obvious. What else but politics can explain the failure of common sense?