We Could Get Out of the Middle East

by paradox

I am discouraged at flinging out there the most obvious of truths and would normally meander along, but at the encouragement of Professor Juan Cole I will put forth the most elemental solutions for our problems inå the middle east: get out and stay out.

Huffing realists would instantly inform this hippie treehugger that of course we need the middle east for petrochemical fuel, we can’t survive without it, in the last 30 years 2 wars in Iraq, an unending war in Afghanistan and an incredible drone war encompassing lord knows how many countries and costing at least $3 trillion dollars is totally completely worth it. Really.

As the broken bodies come home crushed in spirit too, watching the smog turn browner in the warming air, hordes of livid humans lashing out in vivid cruelty while the ships steam on and the missiles fly, yes, it is so easy to accept it so casually as just the way things are, American, this is your world so shut up and cringe along with it.

We don’t need the middle east for petroleum fuel, by all the atoms in the universe we don’t, we have the solution right in our hands with electric cars and a solar conversion. At this point the realists in the past always said that’s so very nice to wish the world was a better place, dreamy liberal, so move along while ExxonMobil buys Congress.

Problem is along with all the wars and blood and casualties and trillions of dollars spent for nothing but smog that of course Al Gore has been right all along, global warming is real, climate change is brutally forcing home a physical and mental reality that we cannot burn oil or gas as fuel anymore, we convert to renewables or all that we know is gone for our children.

We would leave behind that filthy, loud, spewing engineering turd of incredible danger and damage, the awful internal combustion engine, what a grossly inefficient mechanism to convert energy. Electric cars have no transmission, no oil, no cooling fluids, no exhaust system, just a beautifully simple motor of awesome efficiency that rates them always at above a theoretical 100 mpg.

We would leave behind this sickening support of monarchies and thugs in the middle east, as a people and country we’re a lot better than that, and whomever says this unending secret war of drones is a totally cool new thing, well, we would leave behind that terribly dangerous warfare along with all the rest. Remember what real peace felt like?

We would leave behind this terrible guilt we’re ruining the planet and federal budget for nothing but insanity and climate change, how good it would be as Americans to be really working for a future that truly works.

We don’t have to even convert to 75% to be the hell out of that cauldron in the middle east, at 50% oil reduction we start to cruise on domestic supplies, eventually getting to 100% as we stop another stupid insanity, petrochemicals are far too valuable to burn.

Fully 30% of the domestic oil demand goes to making plastics and carbon materials, at least ExxonMobil, after their screeching and rending, will exist as a company, many sweeping tides of change have obliterated companies and industries completely.

Getting out of useless horrifying wars does not mean being an isolationist toward our allies, the President can still strut around with aircraft carriers if the impulse arises, but as we burn less and less oil and gas the middle east will simply fade in strategic importance.

We will lose nothing as a people, we still get our cars and freeways and cup holders and sprawl. We will in fact prosper as our people get holy employment instead of body bags in the solar conversion, and a fun little fact of renewables will start to sink home: they’re free and never go away, the sun always shines and the wind always blows, free of costs, I wouldn’t lie. Our economy and landscape will bloom in a new efficient way that doesn’t horrendously bleed a trade imbalance.

It has been a horrific spring and summer of terrible political news, the supreme court has run off the rails with lying insanity again, some saying this is a perfect motivator for the midterms. Sorry, cringing from abuse can indeed be motivating but it’s nothing compared to real hope, real change, and real honesty that brings peace and clear skies by getting out of the middle east. Offer Americans real change that works by starting the solar conversion and getting out of the middle east, that’s how you sweep midterms in smashing victory.