All I can think is, they're not serious, right?
With gas prices shooting into the stratosphere, Republican senators have figured out a way to ease the American public's fears: Give 'em some fast green.
Yes, the people elected to represent us apparently think of us as chimps in some Skinner experiment. If they propose to send taxpayers a hundred dollar check around the end of summer--by which time a tank of gas might itself cost a hundred bucks--they think we'll be so grateful we'll forget all about high gas prices.
Or the addiction to gas-guzzling vehicles that is adding to those prices.
Or the fact that instability in the Middle East is also adding to those prices, instability largely caused by the Republican administration's Iraq shenanigans.
Pardon my French, but fuck, fuck, FUCK! Have these people no shame? My favorite part of this whole proposal--which was unveiled with great fanfare at a press conference, exposed in broad daylight as though there was no need for embarrassment--is that the total costs of this scheme haven't actually been figured (!), but that it should cost less than twenty billion dollars.
Whaaaaaa?
As I'm reading all this, I'm thinking, okay, they've finally gone over the deep end. They've finally turned into comic book villains, so outrageously over the top that nobody could possibly take this seriously.
Because people aren't stupid. They won't put up with this shameless pandering. They know when people are lying to them.
They know, but so what? Three, four, ten bucks a gallon, we're still going to drive. It's what we do. As Americans, we're conditioned to instant gratification. (The Skinner/chimp thing applies here.) As a culture, its almost impossible to change. Call it lethargy or call it entropy, but the only way this country is liable to ring any meaningful changes is to collapse on itself. No Cassandra-like warnings are going to dissuade us. We've got things to do, and we're going to keep doing them until...well, until we can't anymore.
Sorry. I know this is depressing. And boy, I'd love to find some cause for optimism. But...said it before, say it again: We're hosed.
