Things That Give Me Gas

So, I drop my kids at school this morning and I've got the radio on and I hear this ad. Scroll down to the radio ads and play Massive New Taxes on Energy.

Since I'm in the entertainment industry, maybe I listen to these things in a different way, because I'm usually trying to critically deconstruct media to see if there are particular techniques I want to use in something I'm working on. So maybe the irony of the ad doesn't strike you. The irony of the petroleum industry trying to dodge taxes by putting together a reactionary, fear-mongering ad. The irony of the ad running in the same week as the anniversary of the Valdez disaster.

Perhaps the record profits that oil companies have been racking up have escaped your notice. Could it be that you don't realize those profiteering companies fill the automobiles produced by the very same auto industry the government is currently propping up? Don't you get that your tax dollars are fueling (pardon the pun) the same industry that's spending millions of dollars on advertising to get us to help them avoid taxes?

If you've been reading this blog at all, you understand that it's not exactly a small list, that list of things that piss me off. And I don't want to sound like a total wingnut. If you drive a truck or SUV for some business, I've really got no problem with you. On the other hand, if you're a single suburban salary-boy or girl, do you really need all that steel to drive your ass back and forth to work? Don't you see you're part of the problem? You're not keeping Detroit and its workers in business, you're keeping Exxon and its shareholders rolling in green. While the economy is in a downward spiral.

The old adage used to be middle-aged men in sports cars were trying to compensate for something. What about all the 110-lb women driving Yukons or Hummers? What are they compensating for?

Ask yourself this: when the auto industry goes under (SAAB, anyone?), who do you think is going to be in line for the next round of bailouts? When Exxon comes calling, will we have the courage to ask them what happened to all their windfall profits that they never re-invested in R&D or alternative energies?

Don't listen to their ads, this is not an industry that needs government protection; the consumers have been protecting them for too long. Don't listen to their simple-minded patriotic appeals: it's not the American way to shelter a profiteering company and its shareholders. They are not a grass-roots non-profit company looking out for your future. They're one of the few industries not feeling the pinch, yet, and they're making money off of people who don't want to take responsibility for their actions, and they're raping the planet while we fiddle.