Gotta Love This Clip - but it is sad too
 

Some of you may not like Jon Stewart, but I thought most of you would. The reason being that you may be car free or light for environmental and economic reasons:

http://www.good.is/post/the-last-eig...o-foreign-oil/

We (the US) are pathetic.

This is a promise that most certainly will be kept eventually. It is just a matter of using up all the oil those foreigners have in their wells and then we will stop using foreign oil. With fuel use becoming somewhat flat during the Obama administration, he really isn't doing his part to help us keep this promise.:innocent:

My thoughts exactly. So how come the car-free hippies in my neighborhood are always giving me a hard time about my Mercedez S500? :lol:

I think that somewhere along the line of all politicians careers they are selected by some secret corporate group to become congressmen, senators, or president of the USA. Then they are given pain drug hypnosis (a type of hypnosis that is infallible) and turned into super liars with no consciences. Some group somewhere in a secret lair pulls their strings so that they talk a great talk but always concede to the wishes of the banking and corporate masters.

If only Americans could become aware of this early in their lives and just stop voting for the mainstream parties. Then something would happen.

Unfortunately I didn't get this until I was in my thirties. In my forties I knew it without a doubt. The world is doomed. All I can do these days is what I believe is right. I've almost given up trying to convince others of anything. It seems most people aren't open to anything outside of their own belief system.

Oh yes... but let's not plan for it. Perhaps it won't happen in my lifetime.

I love the way Jon Stewart makes the decline of an empire seem so darn funny. :D

I couldn't get your link to play, so here it is direct from the Daily Show.http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/we...pendent-future

It really is sad. I suppose it's a combination of reasons. But I get the feeling that I, riding my bicycle, have really done more to reduce our dependence on foreign oil than 8 presidents could. It's darned little, but it's cut the oil consumption a bit.

You got it. That seems to shut down with the onset of puberty.

It isn't nearly that complicated... all you have to do is buy them off.

You're right that few people are open to new ideas. In the past, there was pressure on media to offer multiple viewpoints. Now, with so many options, people can tune in to outlets where they will only get their own views validated. It seems they are more locked in than they were in the past, but maybe it's just easier to see now.

But, strong party lines, or dwindling oil supplies don't spell the end of civilization. We won't act boldly until circumstances force us to act. But, we are capable of enduring severe hardships and solving seemingly insurmountable problems when the need arises. It may take war, a great(er) depression, famine, etc., but we've survived all those things before.

I was going to grab responses and comment, but all are very good and show an understanding of the situation here. I watched another video last night of a comedian talking about how miserable we are even though we have so much going for us nowaday (in a general sense of course - don't want to offend those that are truly in a bad state).

As one poster said earlier, all I can do is what I think is right. You can't convince others, but you can show the way. My guess is that most of you are not the norm in your neighborhood, family, city, etc., but are showing how things can be done differently. That is refreshing sometimes - that is to just do things the way you decide as opposed to the way everyone else does it. For example, I work in a field that promotes, builds, etc. public transportation yet there are maybe one or two of 50 or 60 that actually use transit - and that is only a couple times a year. You should have seen the look on one of my coworker's face when I said we were going to another city for a meeting using the bus. She was scared and I think fearful that someone would critisize us for doing so (slower?).

On that note, it would be interesting if not slightly off topic to get an idea of the things we do (the forum users) that buck the norm. These are things that some consider drops in the bucket, but are what I consider the right thing to do:

- I am prepared for a hurricane by (in part) having my house ready by installing shutters. 300 homes in my neighborhood and maybe 10 are ready.
- solar hot water (5 in my neighborhood)
- garden in the yard, plus orange, grapefruit, two peach, three fig, and two apple trees
- ride to work all but one or two days a (edit) month
- ride the bus for fun on weekends (often with the kids)
- recycle stuff (and carry it by bike to the center)
- shop by bike

Just to name a few "strange" things.

We as a species perhaps. But an awful lot of us individuals will die in the process.

There is a lot of prejudice against people who use public transportation and bicycles. In my office building there is a debt collections firm that pays minimum wage and requires no skills to get a job there. Almost none of the people who work there own a car, and my coworkers at my engineering firm always make fun of the people standing at the bus stop when they look out the windows. Basically the view is that if you take the bus, you're a pathetic loser here.

Bicycles are a similar situation. I was fixing a flat on my bike at work once and security came out because someone reported me as acting suspicious. They couldn't believe that a 350 pound person rode a bike to work. On top of that, they asked me where I worked and said I was lying when I said I was with one of the engineering firms, after first assuming I worked for the debt collectors. People simply cannot believe that I would do this voluntarily. It just does not compute to them.

There is no alternative to oil and the experts know this. However, it's more important for the president to give hope and make speaches then to tell the American public the truth.

It's been long known that the bicycle is the poor man's motorcar. The man riding a bicycle is too poor to afford the bus and is considered at the bottom. Given the option of being seen on a bus or a bicycle for transportation, the majority of the population would choose the bus.

Oil companies/producing nations are just as addicted to our money as we are to their oil, and they are going to try and keep the price of oil just below the cost of alternative energy.

When the cost of oil production gets to the point of it not being manipulated to being lower than alternative energies, then we'll probably then start seeing a more serious reduction in oil dependency.

No no no! Promises KEPT!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...er-to-reroute/ See? Cut out Canadian oil. For now at least.

Anyone remember Richard Harris in "A Man Called Horse"? His ascension to membership & manhood in the tribe was accomplished by being suspended by hunks of wood thrust through his pecs.

All WE have to do is own a car.

So -- when we wise up and dump the car, do we have to turn in our man cards? You'll get mine when you pull it from its hiding place nowhere near my cold dead fingers.......

(from a Russian character in a Stephen Coonts novel: "Grotesque stupidly Americans. . . . ")

Stewart almost made me have a stroke, I laughed so hard. America, not so much.

I don't know who you mean by "we", but obviously not all of "us" will survive a war or famine.

But whatever helps you sleep at night.... :rolleyes:

I think you're missing the point. In all of the speeches in the Jon Stewart clip, the presidents were trying to tell the American people the truth. Even Nixon and GW Bush (biggest 2 liars of the 44 presidents) were telling the truth for once. They were saying that we need to get off foreign oil, and they were outlining the alternatives (granted, some more reasonable than others.)

I really don't think it's fair to blame our leaders. Americans decided to buy into increased oil consumption all on their own. No president made anybody buy an SUV or vote against a millage election for public transit. We did it on our own. AFAIK, all the recent presidents have supported alternative infrastructure and public transit in the Transportation Bill, and all have visited or supported alternative energy start-up companies. I think all presidents have signed tax credits to help Americans conserve energy in their homes and vehicles too.

For once, the leaders were wiser than the people who elected them.

We're not allowed view this clip.

Maybe it's because we don't have any oil.

Here (in Ireland) it's all foreign, even yours.

Bingo. When gas was more than $4/gl and people were screaming bloody murder, I remember driving on the highway doing about 65 and being passed by nearly everybody doing 70+.

I don't mean to sound smug, but I remember being passed by everybody doing 15+. :)

Yeah but you burn your bogs.

That's probably why they don't have any oil. They burn it before it has a chance to fully develop into petroleum. ;)