This recently appeared in Wendy Williams’ blog. She is coauthor of the book Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound, now out in paperback — a fascinating and horrifying read.
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I’ve been giving lots of talks about Cape Wind around the country, and I can tell you — the American people are getting really angry. Both Democrats and Republicans are equally disgusted by what they read in our book about Cape Wind.
At this point, they’re angry about a lot more than Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney getting together behind the scenes or over dinner to plot about how to kill Cape Wind.
The average American has caught on to the fact that the above behavior is happening in every sector. Corporate behavior is simply out of control. The airlines behave as if passengers are little more than cattle. The insurance companies have doubled and tripled their prices. Food prices have sky-rocketed, while the farmers who grow the food see little in the way of increased money. (It mostly goes to speculators.) Gasoline prices are doing real harm to rural people, who have little in the way of discretionary income in the first place.
Meanwhile, the folks in Washington fiddle and fiddle.
There are some simple things a leader — a genuine leader, that is — could do to bring things under control.
How about, for starters, suggesting that all Americans who own a car give up one automobile trip this coming Sunday. Since a good deal of the current price of gasoline is due to speculators’ trading, imagine what would happen to the speculators if that happened. The price of gas would drop immediately.
And if a leader helped ensure that Americans kept up that kind of genuine grassroots pressure (as opposed to the “astroturf” emanating from fossil-fuel-funded outfits like the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound), the people themselves, with the right leadership, just might be able to bring this problem at least a little bit under control.
That won’t happen though. That’s because “leadership” is afraid to step out. Or more likely, just doesn’t want to be bothered. After all, if they want to travel somewhere, all they have to do is call up someone with a corporate jet, and they’re ready to ride …
