The Worldwide "Hostage" Situation

The world is being held hostage. Not by some Islamic or bible-thumping, evangelical fundamentalists or by rogue military generals planning a coup d'etat to overthrow our current leaders. The entire world is being held captive by a small amount of fortunate people who control the flow of petroleum to the world's population.

In America, the price of gasoline has more than doubled in the past year to more than $4 a gallon. I read than in Europe, the price is now the equivalent of $7 or so due to higher taxes imposed on gas. Truckers on both continents are protesting that their livelihoods are at risk if the government doesn't intervene. Meanwhile, OPEC is laughing all the way to their Swiss banks.

Let's look at a few facts:

1. FACT - Venezuela isn't going to help us out with more petroleum unless we kiss up and probably even stop embargoes on their buddy Cuba
2. FACT - I don't think the Iranians are going to help any Western country
3. FACT - I think the jig is up on stealing Iraq's oil. Everyone is on to us.
4. FACT - The US won't release any significant amount of our reserves. This is probably a good idea considering the fact that we've pissed off the entire world and may need this fuel for future military use to protect ourselves.

I don't get it. For decades, the general world population has been aware that the world's oil flow is controlled by a few oil countries and several oil barons clever enough to get in bed with them. When I was in school and first learned about the existence of OPEC, I could not comprehend how the entire world could just accept that a small number of people control the world's petroleum supply. I get the idea of supply and demand but what if...

What if the product wasn't oil? What if it was water? Or air? What then? Would we simply accept the minority controlling the water or air intake of the majority? Would we just sit there and pay $7 for the equivalent of a gallon of air and stand by as the price continued rising? Would we drink water a drop at a time because our weekly paycheck couldn't afford a proper week's supply?

Maybe I've seen too many science fiction movies in my youth, but I still don't understand how we simply accept being controlled by the greedy oil mongers. This can't be fixed in a day as it isn't a situation that happened overnight. This is decades of control that has simply been accepted like some petroleum version of Stockholm Syndrome. For too long we have just accepted the status quo when it came to gas. You know that quote that says "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing man that he didn't exist?" This is OPEC's greatest trick. Convincing us for decades that there is tons of oil and they will keep us in good supply for years to come. Then setting prices higher and higher while limiting the amount released to the world market.

Is it just that we, as a population, are mindless automatons and accept whatever is put in front of us? If we couldn't buy a pizza, would we simply accept bread and not complain?

Maybe acceptance isn't always such a good thing...