We are facing soaring food and energy prices. No, they are not going to go down later as we may have seen in the past. We have issues on the front burner that are, and will continue to, effect our current way of life as we know it. That is fact. That is about survival.
Now, if you want to call me a doomer misanthrope because you either do not see that fact yet, or you are in a privileged financial position that allows you to afford the luxury of sustaining a mere illusion, then I have covered what you have to say and you can go away now. Thanks for reading this far! If you are in some form of delusional denial, then go find a place where you can support your fantasies in a way you are most comfortable with. You probably need your due placation more than we need your response.
If you don't understand what I am talking about, either go shopping for food and PAY ATTENTION
or read up on the reality to distract you from detracting, here:
http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=104http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117608539258763747.htmlhttp://dissidentnews.wordpress.com/2007/05/02/biodiesel-and-ethanol-crop-prices-soar-push-food-costs-up-globally/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/25/nfloods325.xmlhttp://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/06/forget-big-oil-food-prices-soar-due-to.htmlhttp://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0613/p01s01-usec.htmlWages for many are stagnant, and have been for many years, in relation to the cost of living. Any hopes of a good pay increase are merely wishful thinking if we look at the relationship of the minimum wage to the current cost of living as it increases rapidly before our eyes. While there is much attention on the war, (and rightly so) along with the rogue Administration that is spearheading the changes we see in our lives at every step of the way, (and not by accident) we look to a potential changing of the guard, (hoping that might be the case before something interferes with what we expect) and what it might offer us.
The current Administration has been strongly behind bio-fuels. Those fuels are now affecting the cost of the food we eat while doing very little to offset our use of petroleum. We are now paying dearly for this greenish idea, and we will continue to pay as we watch the price of a meal steadily rise upwards to the point where any necessity or luxury will hold less sway over the ability to put food on the table than ever before.
Now, if you and your family cannot go without food to eat, (and I don't know of any who can) and you sincerely need energy to stay warm/cool and move your body to necessary places, then we have some issues on the level of our organisms that somebody who truly represents us must be able to articulate and address with viable solutions.
The rest is academic in light of what I relate above. We are currently, (to the non-ostrich types) in several forms of crisis that don't just require attention and action, they absolutely require privatization to a high degree. We should not fiddle while Romerica starves and is paralyzed in the process.
As for gas prices, you can either look at what you are paying for fuel, electricity, and heating, or you can look it up. Either way, it is going to continue to go up, not down. Peak Oil deniers don't seem to see the relationship of supply and demand here.
So, when you face the facts and live them, where do you go from there? When you are over the illusions and delusions and accept what is really going on, can you get over the bummer of having been so naive and start to move on and get active about your circumstances because you finally know where you are? Or do you continue to allow yourself to put the lives of your family and yourself on the line for the sake of other agendas and concerns that are not ever going to trump pure and simple survival?
We have to be able eat affordably! In order to maintain anything above a rather primative existence, we also need to be able to cool and heat our homes, as well as transport ourselves to and fro, affordably!
Is your candidate addressing these immediate concerns right now, or avoiding them because they are not yet in the spotlight or on the provided table? It seems to me that it is hard to do all the other things in life that is expected of us in modern society without enough food or energy, (the expected return on our investement into the whole game) to allow us to do so.