Supply and demand = unfettered profits for oil magnates
The free market principle of supply and demand allows sellers to set the price for their products based on the willingness of the consumer to pay. But what of the willingness principle? When the product sold is one necessary to the society's survival doesn't some greater responsiblity accrue to the seller? Doesn't a moral principle come into play? The principle of fairness, equal rising of all "boats" when the tide rises? Or is supply and demand the all and everything of this life and this world, giving free rein to sellers to impose any price on products they wish? Can it be moral to make 400 percent profit, 1,000 percent profit, 10,000 percent profit when the vast majority of consumers suffer under the burden of those profits? Can it be fair for oil companies to reap staggering profits in a time of war, inflation and a social fabric already torn by the international and national political climate? Is it right that those who've the money to invest in this enterprise – drilling the earth for oil and refining the natural product into fuel – to create for themselves enormous wealth at the expense of 95 percent of the population? Must all sink beneath the greed of a few? Is it, as a film about Wall Street once stated, that "greed is good." That greed will make this country prosper? If so, then our national motto should be F#(# You, I've Got Mine, and our Pledge of Allegiance should read, "I shall crush all competitors in the name of my name, and for my own gain I will strip all and any of their monies for my betterment, the rest be damned!"
Let's just call ourselves who we are and what we've become. Greedy, insatiable cretins. And may the wealthiest win and poor shall inherit the dust.

As the facts leak out, it becomes more apparent that the Bush administration has played the American public like a fiddle, and that we've all been lied to, duped and used like cheap hookers for the gratification of a small cadre of Ivy League elitists
This today on the wire from AP:
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
Now I'm sure that all the Bush cheerleaders will breathe their last uttering "it's all a media plot to defile the GOP's magnificent agenda," but at some point people must actually see facts as facts, truth as truth and lies as just plain lies, not national security billboards that serve to protect us from ourselves.
How much of this bull@*#! will the lobotomized GOP faithful take before they finally wake up and smell the coffee? I asked this question two years ago and my answer then,sadly, is the same as now – limitless amounts. It seems to me that the nature of politics has become a life-or-death struggle between two factions; one that supports overwhelming government power, government with the authority to do anything it likes to anyone who opposes it, and one that believes government should be "for the people, by the people and of the people," to paraphrase a phrase I once heard in history class somewhere in the distant past.
The GOP lusts for absolute power; as Mr. Bush said, "It would be easier if we had a dictatorship," or something to that effect; and make no mistake, the GOP would love to have a dictatorship rule this nation, so long as it's led by a GOP slave. The Dems are nitwits, for the most part; spineless, unimaginative nitwits, as evidenced by their lack of action when confronted by the reckless, insane, blatantly abusive use of power by the administration. So forget them. The two-party system is going the way of the dinosaurs and soon will be nothing more than a bad memory, a footnote in the history of the world.
No, the factions I speak of aren't Republicans or Democrats, those parties are withering, aged, decrepit groups that have little difference between them and about as much relevance as a gnat on an elephant's balls has to your getting to work on time.
The factions I speak of are the awake and the sleeping: On the one side, we have the sleeping people of America, who stagger through life doing what they're told, never daring to waver from the dogma they've accepted from their parents, and their parents, and their parents, and an evil alien from the planet Glorxfloxscrigploz (whose agenda it is to nurture a planet of edible beings for sale on the galactic market to the highest bidders). On the other side we have the awake citizens of this nation; the ones who refuse to blindly accept the dictates of policymakers and legislators but, rather, who choose to THINK about what is happening and consider possible solutions to every given problem. The one's who leave well-enough alone when there is no problem, but who stand up and speak out when they see injustice or abuse in any form.
The sleepers and conscious, if you will, will decide the fate of this planet. And God help us all if the sleepers are allowed to make the BIG DECISION when it comes time to make it.