Artist Entry: the_Network guitarist Kevin jabs the American idle

Forget the hacked off limbs. Forget about “Collateral Damage.” Forget the coffins. Forget the record oil profits. Forget the big contracts. Forget the widows and orphans. Forget the U.N. Sanctions. Forget the infrastructures! Forget all the valid reasons to storm the White House lawn.

Gasoline is $4 a gallon!

I get scared when the administration seems either too stupid or too lazy to even keep gas prices reasonable. Seriously.

Gas prices; the one thing that has the most effect on the most Americans, and the monarchy can’t, or won’t, keep them down. Have we become that passive; that complacent?

What also frightens me are many Americans’ reactions to the increased prices. The issue becomes another one of those annoying little conversation lubricants we love to whine to each other about. The planet’s natural resource, oil, and all that encompasses, is reduced to water cooler fodder. The most incendiary topic on the planet has been given a slot right between "American Idol" and baseball.

So forget water-boarding. Forget Guantanamo Bay. Forget Hurricane Katrina. Seriously, forget FEMA. Forget yellow cake and Valerie Plame Wilson. Forget the 9/11 Report. Forget Group Think. Forget the “liberal media.” Forget wire taps. Forget the orange and red terror levels. Forget Halliburton and Lockheed and Martin. Forget Afghanistan and Pakistan. Forget anything that requires the slightest bit of research and/or critical thinking.

Gasoline is $4 a gallon!

Shit, you might as well tell me that my "American Idol" vote doesn’t count. The gas prices are directly in front of us everyday and, eventually, people will have to pay attention. They literally won’t be able to afford not to. And when people take a little time to find out why their gas costs so much, perhaps they might stumble across some of the other above-mentioned topics.

Maybe a pizza delivery driver from Arkansas will read that a CIA report said that the U.S. sanctions placed on Iraq since the first Gulf War have resulted in the deaths of roughly ten thousand civilians a month. Maybe he or she will learn that the majority of those dead civilians were infants and the elderly.

Maybe a mechanic from Florida will read somewhere that a CIA report written before the U.S. attacked Iraq proved that Saddam Hussein had no means of making nuclear weapons and that the CIA agent who authored the report had their identity made public by someone very high up in the Bush administration.

Maybe someone will compare the U.S. media to Nazi propaganda. Maybe people’s anger will grow proportionately with their awareness. Maybe someone will knock the fucking water cooler over.

Like I said, gas prices are just one of those annoying things people like to whine about, myself included.