If you ask anyone who they think runs our country, you’ll get an answer close to either: the government or the President. Then you can ask, well, who tells them what to do? The typical answer then is, “the people.” I don’t think this is necessarily true.

Think about it. How many options do we really have for presidency? Before anybody can blink, there are four men or women and then there are quickly two. That’s not really a mass pool to choose from. Also, they are all very far right or far left during candidacy and then after one is elected, they move right back to the middle. All of the candidates are basically the same people. We truly don’t have a voice; we are merely given that illusion.

Questions I often ponder are the likes of why aren’t all cars run on electricity, why don’t we harness wind power fully? If wind power was harvested fully in only three average-sized states, we could power the entire country solely on wind. But wind isn’t our only option. There is water, tidal, and solar power as well. There really is no reason for us to not have begun to eliminate the use of fossil fuels for energy. Oil is projected to run out by the year 2040. That’s bad news for all involved.

If you find the true meaning of efficiency, you’ll find that being efficient is eliminating as much waste as possible. With our technology nowadays we should be extremely efficient, more than ever. The fact is we are more wasteful than ever.

Why is this? Why don’t politicians pass laws to implement more efficient energy sources? To rid the highways of gasoline cars would take only a decade.

Before we can answer this we must first explore who is really writing our laws and legislation. The top 1 percent of our nation own 42 percent of our wealth. And for some odd reason the top 1 percent has had a very steady and heavy decline for taxes. They own almost everything, and they pay less and less taxes. If you believe taxing the rich more is a bad idea, you’re dead wrong. They have the money, not the lay people. And who pays for the campaigns of politicians? Billionaires. Rich 1 percent billionaires. And in turn for the campaign help, politicians pass legislation in favor of these rich gas and oil tycoons.

David and Charles Koch have been rich for a long time, because of oil and gas. They are among the 10 richest men in the United States. Just as one small example, they have paid $67 million since 1997 to groups that deny climate change. It’s people like the Koch Brothers who run everything. They own the news networks, have direct pull over politicians, and even own the patents to battery-powered vehicles.

Now let’s ask ourselves again, who is really running this country?