I keep hearing idiots claiming that there's just no way to get energy as cheap with renewables. "How will we survive?" they ask, if we don't have the cheap energy that oil represents. "Oh, no! Oh, no! Our economy will collapse!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!"

Bullshit, I say! There is nothing cheap about oil. When you start placing the cost of military adventures in the Middle East on the balance sheet (where it belongs), then suddenly gasoline is not costing you just $3.30 a gallon anymore. How much tax money has been wasted in effectively subsidizing the price of gas at the pumps over the last century? Consider - for a moment - all the money that's really needed to prop up our dependence on fossil fuels! And this isn't even looking at global warming and its potentially devastating economic impact in our not-too-distant future.

How convenient that the true cost of oil can be hidden! And how convenient that the same pernicious cabal of corrupted, sociopathic miscreants who are connected to the oil industry are also connected to the military industrial complex. So, when they provoke war and unrest through brinkmanship - by declaring various nations "evil" and by touting objectives of "regime change" in sovereign foreign nations - they make more money from inflated oil prices as well as inflated military budgets and juicy contracts to clean up the mess they worked hard to instigate.

And then, here's a simple truth that most people have not yet taken to heart: OIL FUNDS TERRORISM. There is no way that you can scale back funding of terrorism without scaling back the use of oil. So, if you're really still more interested in a "War on Terror" than the inordinately more righteous War on Oil, realize that the first true victory in that battle will only come with the thorough evisceration of our oil-corrupted politcal leadership and their gaggle of energy industry cronies. Indeed, the very ones who proclaim to be so fervently prosecuting the campaign against terrorism are, in fact, complicit in the creation of the problem.

Perhaps it is time for us, as common people, to borrow an idea from the ruling elite. Perhaps we can take a page from W's playbook and turn it around in a manner that the military industrial leadership never anticipated. The so-called "Bush Doctrine" embraces a notion of pre-emption. Perhaps we should take the opporunity in our lives to exact our own personal preemptive strike against oil, rather than waiting for oil to shove us into the next corner as pleases it.

Get a hybrid, drive less, insist on telecommuting more. Buy less plastic crap... buy less crap in general... buy less in general. Spend time thinking about the next way you will avoid using oil. Vote.