Ten Best Reader Comments of the Week!

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted August 25, 2007.

This week, AlterNet readers took on war and peace, an unraveling debt crisis, poverty and wealth, Bratz dolls and cave-man diets, and they responded with the usual blend of keen insight, wit and that little soupçon of raving madness that makes internet discussion boards so zesty.

So, without further ado, onto the comments of the week. First up this week is guybjones, who responded to Michael Klare's piece, "The End of Easy Oil," with a lament about short-term thinking:

The U.S. is in a bad position here, and no amount of good ol' fashioned can-do optimism is going to get us out of it. A fatal combination of hubris, indifference to environmental concerns, arrogance, sense of entitlement, lack of foresight, laser-like focus on short-term corporate profit, and the election of a craven and blindly pro-corporate political leadership over the last 30 years means that the country is amazingly ill-prepared to face the realty of peak oil.

Instead of investing in high-tech rail systems to serve the busiest national travel routes, promoting local mass transit efforts, and raising gasoline taxes to encourage conservation and fund alt-energy initiatives, the U.S. has been sitting on its ass, pouring billions into highways and continuing the national obsession with the automobile - 17,000,000 new ones bought each year, roughly. […]

We should have commenced planning for this right after the '73 Arab oil embargo, or, at the latest, during the '79 energy crisis. Pres. Carter sort of attempted to get the ball moving in some way, but was stifled by industry in his efforts to do so. Once Reagan came into office, the game was over.

The incandescent light bulb is still around - why? Why the hell hasn't it been banned? Why are plastic bags still in use? How much effort would it take to fix these problems, if we had true leadership and a committed will in the Oval Office? I don't think it would be that hard.

Speaking of bad energy policy, we ran an op-ed written by seven vets fresh from Iraq, describing what they say is a futile situation. SDogood responded like this:

Damn this administration for putting us in the middle of a situation that has existed for centuries. And for what? Oil interests that want to milk every drop from the existing infrastructure before investing in other energy sources.

This leadership, elected by an easily bought populace, will be vilified by future Americans for having been unwilling to rule with foresight. Short term profit has superceded logic and reason, and yet they have the nerve to label as 'un-patriotic' anyone who points out their destruction of American ideals.

We were Iraqi oil customers. We do not belong in Iraq as occupiers, and we do not need to risk OUR sons in a battle that is not ours. How we handle the problems we created in Iraq? One way is not to let the people who CAUSED the new problems by their incompetence, do anything else. No matter what, this administration should not be allowed to propose or adjust anything. The 'imperial' President must be stopped by the Senate, for the sake of the country. We are beyond Democratic and Republican labels, our nation is at risk.

Iraq was also the subject of Penny Coleman's article on military training, "War Psychiatry and Iraq Atrocities: How Killing Becomes a Reflex." It struck a cord with readers, including fearlessflower:

If we are going to turn soldiers into killing machines, we better make damn sure their training includes understanding the definition of legal warfare, as set forth in our Constitution and International Law. Our Constitution demands we abide by the "Supreme Law of the Land" that includes honoring any foreign treaties we have signed. In case anyone has forgotten, that includes the Geneva Convention banning torture and the use of weapons like depleted uranium and cluster bombs, both of which have been used in Iraq, not to mention the targeting of civilians.

War is a horrible thing and our Founding Fathers knew this. That's why they made it a laborious process to go to war, involving debate and evidence-gathering so that all the circumstances and consequences and alternatives could be thoroughly considered first. The evidence is indisputable now that our President personally manipulated and fabricated the justification to go to war in Iraq, deceiving Congress and interfering with their responsibility to come to a decision based on reliable evidence. George Bush's "Macho-ization" of the presidency has had disastrous consequences and turned our once respected Republic into the equivalent of a diabolical out-of-control Lone Ranger. A sign I saw at a rally lays things out very well: "Impeachment: The Cure for Mad Cowboy Disease!"

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