Friedman: Mother Of All Wake-up Calls Unfolding In Arab world - "America. End Your Addiction To Oil"

[Turborama]

Source: NYT Via The Houston Chronicle

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times
Feb. 23, 2011, 7:41PM

What's unfolding in the Arab world today is the mother of all wake-up calls. And what the voice on the other end of the line is telling us is clear as a bell: "America, you have built your house at the foot of a volcano. That volcano is now spewing lava from different cracks and is rumbling like it's going to blow. Move your house!" In this case "move your house" means "end your addiction to oil."

No one is rooting harder for the democracy movements in the Arab world to succeed than I am. But even if things go well, this will be a long and rocky road. The smart thing for us to do right now is to impose a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax, to be phased in at 5 cents a month beginning in 2012, with all the money going to pay down the deficit. Legislating a higher energy price today that takes effect in the future, notes the Princeton economist Alan Blinder, would trigger a shift in buying and investment well before the tax kicks in. With one little gasoline tax we can make ourselves more economically and strategically secure, help sell more Chevy Volts and free ourselves to openly push for democratic values in the Middle East without worrying anymore that it will harm our oil interests. Yes, it will mean higher gas prices, but prices are going up anyway, folks. Let's capture some it for ourselves.

It is about time. For the last 50 years, America has treated the Middle East as if it were just a collection of big gas stations: Saudi station, Iran station, Kuwait station, Bahrain station, Egypt station, Libya station, Iraq station, United Arab Emirates station, etc. Our message to the region has been very consistent: "Guys, here's the deal. Keep your pumps open, your oil prices low, don't bother the Israelis too much and, as far as we're concerned, you can do whatever you want out back. You can deprive your people of whatever civil rights you like. You can engage in however much corruption you like. You can preach whatever intolerance from your mosques that you like. You can print whatever conspiracy theories about us in your newspapers that you like. You can keep your women as illiterate as you like. You can create whatever vast welfare-state economies, without any innovative capacity, that you like. You can under-educate your youth as much as you like. Just keep your pumps open, your oil prices low, don't hassle the Jews too much — and you can do whatever you want out back."

It was that attitude that enabled the Arab world to be insulated from history for the last 50 years - to be ruled for decades by the same kings and dictators. Well, history is back. The combination of rising food prices, huge bulges of unemployed youth and social networks that are enabling those youths to organize against their leaders is breaking down all the barriers of fear that kept these kleptocracies in power.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7443183.html

[txlibdem]

1. It's instructive to remember who got us into this mess

Or, more accurately, who tried to get us out and then who was the fool that worked tirelessly to end all the policies that would have had us 100% energy independent by the year 2000, if not sooner.

Never forget: Reagan is the "culprit in chief" when it comes to the "current energy debacle"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x275660

[No Elephants]

2. President Carter told us long ago and formed the DOE to get us off oil.

Then along came everyone's favorite has been Grade B movie actor--and union head--and fan of Joe McCarthy