The democratic process of which we are so proud produces so-called political leaders whose primary interest is trying to get re-elected without the conceptual leadership skills that we have had in the past.

We have become a nation so impressed with the alleged superiority of our form of government that we have stopped doing what has to be done to keep our way of life where it should be.

When Col. Edwin Drake discovered oil in western Pennsylvania in the 1870s and oil was found in large amounts in Texas sometime after, we as a nation somehow assumed that was all you had to do. We are the greatest country and empire the world has yet seen, yet we are nationally forgetting that you have to get information, evaluate it and demand that something be done about it. We cannot sit back and wait for a small army of lobbyists to tell our Congress what to do.

We have lost Congress to the lobbyists and “tree huggers,” so our chances to properly use our energy resources are years out of date.

The cost of food distribution has gone up on everything we eat. The airline industry is clearly in serious trouble. The supply-and-demand situation for gasoline is legitimate, and the threat can only be met by coming up with more sources of gasoline and building more refineries.

Write a short note to your senators and congressmen telling them you want the drilling sites under our control opened up and drilling begun as soon as possible. At the same time, we must continue to negotiate aggressively with the Saudi Arabians and Iraqi governments to acquire oil at a reasonable price as soon as possible.

The time for being polite is over. We need this, and we will use whatever leverage is available to us to get oil.

• Sen. Richard Durbin, 332 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., Washington 20510
• Sen. Barack Obama, 713 Hart Senate Office Bldg., Washington 20510
• Rep. Bill Foster, 2034 Rayburn Office Bldg., Washington 20515
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi, 2371 Rayburn Office Bldg., Washington 20515
• Charles Barr, Jr.
St. Charles