The Oil Society.

James Carville's famous campaign laser beam "It's the economy, stupid" should be revised and updated in 2008 to say "It's the oil, stupid." But no campaign manager will insist their candidate run on an essentially apocalyptic platform - saying repeatedly to all of us - "cheap oil is now gone. Forever. Adjust now, or else. "
But one should.

After hearing Mitt Romney say we are in trouble because of our dependence on foreign oil James Kuntsler makes the obvious point that foreign oil is not the problem at all . We have created an economy and a society which can't exist without oil. That's the problem. Further we refuse belligerently to even begin imagining what things might be like when oil becomes scarce. Which it will. Soon.

Oil cost $20 a barrel in 2001. 6 years later it costs $80.

That would be a price increase of 300 percent.

The problem is simple and painful. There is a limited amount of oil left in the ground. The demand for it is higher than ever before. The U.S. attempted to seize control over a large part of the remaining oil . We will get a return on our investment - eventually - sometime after we stop blathering about democracy, fall back into our "enduring bases" and the tribal wars we incited subside. (We may have to neuter Iran to speed this process.) But it won't be enough - and the price we will have paid for the oil will have been extraordinary. And the oil endowment of Iraq will only keep us in strip malls, petro fertilizer, and SUVs very briefly.
The housing market is one of many canaries in the coal mine. The ever falling dollar (propped up a bit, ironically, because oil is traded in U.S. dollars) is another.
Drive time is almost over.
Cheney must have figured this out at some point while ruining Haliburton in the 90's. (He has since made good.) The visionary nuclear engineer Jimmy Carter saw it coming 30 years ago.
The difference between Cheney and Carter? Carter believed the American Republic could survive if we adjusted our way of living. Cheney does not care about the American Republic.
He may care about the American economy. Or the American upper classes. Or the oil business. Freedom, the founders, and liberty are not high on his list.
THE SINGLE MOST PEACEFUL AND PATRIOTIC THING ANY AMERICAN CAN DO NOW IS COME TO GRIPS WITH THE VULNERABILITY OF THE OIL SOCIETY WE HAVE CREATED SINCE WE WON WORLD WAR 2 -and prepare for what comes next. Go here for a primer.