Let’s attack the gas pump

America’s majority mentality has been slipping more rapidly of late. Polls are showing citizen evaluations of important — even urgent — issues appear to be skewed.
Deep thinking has lost its gravity to the extent that only the surface is thought to be important.
Consider, for example, the gas pump.
The gas pump controls how much money will be drained from the car owner’s wallet. Emotions and frustrations for the most part have been rising and falling with gas prices.
And herein lies the problem. Emotions and frustrations are the surface factors controlling America’s mainstream mentality today. And that type of mentality is poll driven.
Polls have captured America’s normal ability to think for itself.
Consider the U.S. economy.
Every proven method of measurement for months indicates productivity is at an all-time high, employment is at an all-time high, and yes, even profits are at all-time highs.
One of the best measurements of the economy is the stock market, and it is at an all-time high. By the way, more than 65 percent of the investors in the stock market are from the vast middle class. Add to this the fact that consumer confidence is at an all-time high.
On two recent occasions, President George W. Bush has made widely broadcast statements about these very points, plus the fact that more than 5 million new jobs have been created in a little more than 18 months.
Within hours of these positive economic reports, polls, universally, reveal that more than 55 percent of those polled believe the economy is poor or worse. Could there be any relationship to percentages, hammered into our minds daily, with respect to President Bush’s disapproval rating? The worst insult to America’s cultural and intellect came this past weekend.
A poll asked, in effect, which problem are you most concerned about, the illegal immigration problem (an invasion of the United States by millions of aliens that would destroy our culture) or prices at the gas pump?
The majority answered: “prices at the gas pump.”
Finally we have identified the problem. It’s the gas pump!
Reduced to this level of mentality, only elementary methods can be understood.
A is for apple, B is for ball, C is for courage and P is for placebo.
Apples are healthy. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, maybe.
Skipping the next two words, which contribute nothing to the evaluation of the leadership qualities of the Republican majority in Congress, we come to the operative word placebo.
Dr. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., feeling your pain, has a prescription (he says will help relieve the pain) that is intended to treat a deep malady which, according to the polls, has penetrated one of America’s most vital organs, the gas pump.
This malady of the gas pump is caused by malnutrition, the need for more of a vital nutrient, petroleum, generically known as “oil.” This malady is indeed rare. It is not caused by an abundance of rapidly replicating germ cells. It is the shortage of the “oil cells” that has the congressional leadership doctors baffled.
Hence the prescription, rather, a placebo, that Dr. Sen. Bill Frist is offering.
The prescription goes directly to the suffering patients’ most vital organ, in this case, his pocketbook.
Dr. Sen. Frist prescribes a diet of $100 checks for each person who has suffered an attack caused by a gas pump.
Checks for several hundred million sufferers would total a mere $20 billion or so. Add to this another $5 to $10 billion for government employees to locate the victims and deliver the checks.
There is one other congressional stalwart, flaming liberal Sen. Chuckie Schumer, D-N.Y., who is offering legislation to kill the big oil companies. A complete breakup of big oil companies would do wonders in hastening the death of the gas pump.
The balance of Congress, both sides of the aisle, remains in a trance of premature senility. Visions of Nero dance in their heads.
In all fairness, two heads in Congress have risen above this sea of energy insanity. Senators Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., are demanding that Congress support oil exploration in every area of U.S. jurisdiction, especially offshore, where Communist China and Communist Cuba are taking the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas resources, drilling just 50 miles off the coast of Florida.
At this point, President Bush must step up to the plate and declare a national emergency for energy, thus opening the doors for development of all energy resources of America.
Otherwise, Nero will prevail.
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I welcome your comments at eralphhostetter@yahoo.com.