by Ted Sherman

Created on: February 15, 2007   Last Updated: March 19, 2008

It is nothing but a stop-gap measure. Hillary, usually a loud proponent of ridding the US of all oil dependency, is just proposing a smoke-and-mirrors shift where the money will still be in the wrong greedy hands. Now, she seems to be winking at the fat oil cats with her proposal. While most of US oil continues to come from foreign kingdoms and dictatorships, Hillary's proposal doesn't address the fact that we will still be at the mercy of those people.

Suggestions to open the enormous offshore and Alaskan oil fields have always been shot down by politically influential faux environmentalists and tree-huggers, including Hillary. As long as those explorations are blocked, the US will continue to be blackmailed by foreign oil-rich countries and their money-hungry associates in the US oil industry.

The US was first made painfully aware of its dependency on foreign oil in 1973, when the Arab countries suddenly cut back the supply. It caused worldwide panic, started the trend of increased prices at the pump and, worst of all, political and economic turmoil that is burning up the Middle East today.

Certainly Hillary is right about suggesting the US government levy excess income taxes on oil company profits to create funds for scientists to come up with alternative fuels. But why wasn't this critical need addressed 34 years ago when the US should have certainly realized that oil blackmail would become the normal situation in dealing with OPEC and other foreign regimes?

Hillary and her husband were part of the problem for at least eight of the past 34 years. Now her proposal is obviously a bid to grab potential voters in her Presidential bid. I guess we should all be grateful that someone, for whatever her reasons, has come up with one way which could help lessen America's dependence on foreign oil.

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