I have a sticker on my bicycle that reads "Oil Addict in Recovery." It's funny, and gets a lot of comments.
But to say that someone is "addicted to oil" is akin to saying "I am addicted to food I don't grow." Or music I don't make. Or beer I don't brew. Or automobiles I don't build. Embedded in this stupid assumption (actually, embedded in the entire WTO/world trading rules and accounting) is that nations trade, and they don't. People trade. Companies trade. Americans buy the oil and refined products they need. Nothing wrong with that (though there is a great deal wrong with folks who pay money for products made by Exxon or Petroleos de Venezuela and then still demand some say-so over how money that isn't theirs anymore is spent -- both "liberals" and "conservatives" have this problem). We can argue if we use fuel as wisely as we should (I see lots of government action and subsidies in the freeway and highway-centered car culture we've created in this country). But to say that we are addicted? Nope, not even close.
If the goal of the Bushies is autarchy in energy, well, that is unlikely. But that's not a real goal and our fake oil man of a president knows that. If the goal is lots and lots of gummint contracts and subsidies for everything from ethanol to hydrogen fuel cells, well, that's very likely. Eye on the ball. It is not some feel-good green agenda here at work. Nor even is it really an excuse for more war (they've got far better ones). It is contracts for well-connected companies, contracts to research and design things that will likely never work, contracts to squander money like there is no tomorrow. It is the Republican way of transferring wealth, from those who don't have much to those have a lot more, something the GOP has always been committed to and has always been very good at.
