Reply #23: I appreciate what both

[Beam Me Up]

you and coco are saying.

I'm an old hippy myself; but I am thoroughly disillusioned with the kinds of change that have allowed us as not only a nation but as citizens of this Earth to get in the untenable predicament we are now in. WE KNEW HALF A CENTURY AGO that building a complex civilization on nonrenewable resources would lead to precisely the kind of global tensions we are now facing. And yet all this time we've ALLOWED the moneyed, ruling elites to silence us or obfuscate our message or buy us off. Good god almighty, in barely more than ONE generation a small percentage of the global population has consumed HALF of the oil reserves on this planet. Think of it, an ecological legacy meant for all humankind for the whole of history--gone! And it isn't because we didn't KNOW better. We did. Intelligent, forward looking people have known and have spoken out. But, because what they were saying didn't fit with the bottom line of the ruling elites, they've never been given center stage, never been allowed into those arenas of government from which conservative environmental policy could be implemented. We could have begun building renewable energy ifrastructures 30 years ago. It didn't happen BECAUSE there was TOO MUCH PROFIT IN OIL.

We're now ALL suffering the price for this short sighted greed and the price we are paying in lost incomes and lost lives and lost liberties and the very real threat of never ending and very likely escolating war is nothing compared to what is ahead of us and those who come after us. As the price of oil goes up, our economy is going to contract--and the taxes to pay for social services is going to contract right along with it.

If not now, when, granny?