Pillaging Ain’t What it Used to Be

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Pillaging Ain’t What it Used to Be

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For three days in New York, I walked, took taxis, hopped on thesubway, and bussed it to all my destinations. It was so convenient thatI didn’t even think about it until I returned to Los Angeles, and hadto fill up my 24 gallon gas guzzling SUV, which cost me well over $100to keep on the road.

Which makes it a good time to be a New Yorker, and a bad time to bean Angelino. Because New Yorkers don’t have to drive. Their publictransportation system allows them the luxury of being disconnected fromthe oil crisis. Where as in Los Angeles, the second largest city in thecountry we can’t transport a person from one end to the other in under3 hours because the folks in Beverly Hills with their $10 millionestates don’t want a train running through their yard.

I’m sure this is the point where an over obsessed eco-warrior whosemother chained herself to a gas pump and father was responsible fordumping red paint on Ga Ga Gabor’s mink coat will tell me that Ishouldn’t be driving an SUV. I should be hugging trees and carpoolingto work in Dicaprio’s prius.

But guess what? I don’t like the prius or coca-cola drinking polarbears. I like my SUV. I like knowing that when I drive, I can run aprius off the road. In fact, in a head to head combat, I will take downjust about anything in my path. Which is important to me because in LosAngeles nobody knows how to drive.

Which means that I just want cheaper oil.

But of course, we’re in an oil crisis which makes absolutely nosense. It’s like saying that there’s a shortage of hot dogs at theDodger’s game.

Everybody wants to point there fat little fingers at China and Indiabecause globalization combined with the influences of capitalism havecreated a thrid world middle class that’s sucking down the oil likechocolate milk through a crazt straw. But 2 billion people didn’t justhit the Communist lotto.

In the last 5 years, the price of oil has risen from $40 a barrel toa whopping $135 a barrel. And it’s not because bike riding rice farmerswant to buy hummers.

The problem is that the dollar is shit. If it had just kept pacewith the Euro we’d be paying $70 a barrel. But it didn’t. Becausethat’s what happens when you have trillions in debt, you borrow fromother countries, and then use that money to fuel a war that adds noattainable economic benefit to your country. Because it’s not like thegood old days where you could invade a country and then claim theirresources, like we tried to do with the sugar fields in Cuba, LatinAmerica, and the DR.

No we actually have to let Iraq keep their oil. Which means thatunless you’re the manufacturer of big ugly weapons that can killthousands of people at the flip of a switch, there’s really no money inwar anymore. Which is a shame because I think we would have been prettygood at rape and pillaging.