$5 a gallon? Get it over with

Bring it on - $4 a gallon, $5 a gallon - the higher gasoline prices climb, the better. Let's go, let's just get it over with.

The sooner we get clobbered, the better. Right now, we're just sleepwalking. We're spitting out our hard-earned dollars like ATM machines. We're numb and dumb, waiting slack-jawed for somebody, somewhere, to do something.

Nobody's doing anything. Nobody's going to do anything. Until we make them, that is.

Most of Massachusetts' politicians occasionally chirp and squawk about the price of gasoline and diesel fuel and heating oil. But their reactions are muted and slightly out of touch with the urgency their gas-poor constituents feel. On controversial issues, most of Massachusetts' legislators are more likely to hold conferences and seminars and issue reports than they are to take an actual stand. Where were they when North Adams' Mayor Barrett wanted the Attorney General to conduct a state investigation of the pricing policies of local gasoline chains? Their silence was deafening.

Even at the very top of the political food chain, most of the ideas put forward by our national leaders amount to little more than political posturing. Sen. McCain

thinks we should get a little holiday from gasoline taxes. Isn't that daring? And the House Republicans want Speaker Pelosi to release the Democratic Party's "commonsense plan" to lower gasoline prices that they claimed they had two years ago. They're probably fine-tuning it.

Not to be outdone, a group of U.S. senators recently sent an angry letter to President Bush. In it, they said they would work to block arms sales to OPEC nations that wouldn't jack up their production numbers in order to help lower prices. Describing the letter, New York's Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) said, "The Saudis and Big Oil are in cahoots and this administration has coddled them both for far too long." You be the judge - is this a serious proposal to help the American consumer or politics as usual?

The truth is that our politicians are doing very little because there is very little they can do. The oil companies are just too big, too globalized. America buys most of the world's oil, it's true. But an increasingly mechanized and technologically aware India is starting to buy a lot, too. In a country of 1.1 billion, it doesn't take a big uptick in oil consumption to spike demand.

No matter how tough-talking our leaders try to sound, there's not much effect a U.S. politician can have against market forces of that magnitude.

We're busy ignoring reality, but we won't be able to keep our heads stuck in the sand much longer. Some international analysts expect oil to double in price to well over $200 dollars a barrel over the next four to five years. We're nervously tiptoeing around the gasoline pumps, waiting for a dip or at least a plateau that more than likely isn't ever going to show up.

It isn't all gloom and doom. The dollar will get stronger once the banks hit a quarter or two of financial calm waters. America is stumbling right now, but we are still the world's largest, most aggressive, most successful economy.

When we finally wake up, we'll do what Americans do best. We'll figure it out. We'll beat the oil companies at their own game. We'll park our gas guzzlers and only buy the most ruthlessly fuel efficient vehicles on the market. We'll get serious about mass transportation. Solar and wind and hydro power will be perfected. We may even find a safe nuclear path to the future.

But first, like television's reality show drug addicts, we need an intervention with our oil habit. We need to get slapped silly before we'll change our wasteful ways.

So bring it on. We've got to get started.

Bill Donovan is a regular contributor to The Advocate. Send feedback to news@advocateweekly.com.