There’s a great article at Common Dreams today by Jeremy Rifkin about Bush’s lack of vision and leadership. Here’s an excerpt:
If I could get the ear of George Bush, for just a moment, I would say: “Mr President, if you had looked deeply into the eye of the storm, what you would have seen was the future demise of the planet we live on.” It’s time to tell the American people and the world the real lesson of Katrina: that we need to mobilize the talent, energy and resolve of the American people, and of people everywhere, to wean ourselves off the oil spigot that’s threatening the future of every creature on earth.
President Bush, spare us your homilies about American determination to “weather the storm and persevere”. Tell us the truth about why Katrina and Rita really happened. Ask us to consider a change of heart about our profligate, energy-consuming lifestyles. Call on us to conserve our existing fossil-fuel reserves and make sacrifices. Provide us with a game plan to move America to a new, sustainable energy future based on renewable sources of energy and hydrogen power. We’re waiting.
We’ll be waiting a long time, but not because we wouldn’t make sacrifices if asked, and not because we aren’t capable. We’ll be waiting a long time because our leader can’t see through his oil-smeared glasses to identify the problem. He has no vision of a post-petroleum based economy so, from his view, sacrifices are not necessary to develop new sources of energy. It’s no different than not asking us to sacrifice some money through higher taxes to pay for his war or rebuild a devastated city. Whaaa Whaaaa Whaaaaaa… What do you expect from a guy who was handed everything throughout his life? He doesn’t even know what sacrifice is.
Every time I read stuff like this I can’t help but thing how much better off this country would be if Al Gore took the oath of office in January 2001 instead of Bush. Gore would have urged all Americans to conserve energy and would have pushed for development of alternative energy sources. Take a look at this October 2000 comparison of their views on natural resources, energy, and the environment and see for yourself.
We are five years behind and have a lot of catching up to do.
0 Responses to “That Vision Thing is Sorely Lacking”