I remember being a camp counselor at a Salvation Army when I was 19. We were on a bus and the campers (most of which came from poor families) were boasting about how much money their parents make. One gregarious kid proclaimed that HIS dad made $100 a week! The other campers listening jeered him with comments like “No Way!” “Uh-uh!” These kids didn’t get expensive Christmas gifts or $200 checks from grandma for their birthday. Of course, I’m sure their parents made more than that — way more — but in the children’s innocent world, $100 was an almost unimaginable fortune.

George Bush pays lipservice to funding domestic social programs, money to combat AIDS in Africa and his most absurd proclamation, research into alternative energy sources. The Bush family made their fortune from OIL, for God’s sake. The fox is telling you he’s going to increase security at the hen house.

There’s a short play by David Mamet called The Water Engine. This small-time inventor creates a cumbustion engine that runs on ordinary water. Amazing right? It solves half the world’s problems right? But before he can get his plans out to the public/patent office, he’s murdered and the plans destroyed by powers in the energy industry. What would happen if we found a cheap and plentiful source of energy like water? The Bush’s and everyone like them, all the oil companies would be BROKE (well, I’m sure they have a nice savings account). In the real world Bush and his handlers, his family and his oil buddies have NO INTENTION of reducing our dependence on oil (note that the phrase is always “dependence on foreign oil.”)

It would be like me finding a $100 bill on the street during the day camp. I split it up and hand a kid $5, a lot of money to him, while putting the other $95 in a slot machine. That kid thinks I’m the most generous person in the world, but in fact I’ve hardly given him a paltry sum. Bush may propose millions of dollars to alternative energy research, but just ONE of his tax breaks in the Interior Department’s budget, a reduction in cost for drillion on public land, will save oil companies (and cost America) SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS. (source – Joe Klein, Time Magazine 3-6-06) That’s a savings — that means with a budget deficit, taxpayers will be paying that back with interest. All this while oil company Exxon posted the highest one-quarter profit ever. By any company.

At best, the Republicans will give oil companies money to do their own research into alternative energy. Ever seen one of those alt-energy commercials on TV? They’re always touting some oil company’s voluntary research into other forms of energy. Why? Because they KNOW oil will not last forever. They KNOW it will be replaced by something better and cheaper. They just want to make sure they’re the ones making the money from the technology. And that suits the powers that be just fine.