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It's not about trite, black & white "good" and "evil" guys. It's not about who is the bad guy, as that's just a label. It's about identifying the real problems and creating policy or taking action to reduce or eliminate them.
There's really no debating the existence of global warming at this point. Its existence is not significantly under discussion in the responsible scientific community anymore. Sure, the Bush administration can trot out 'experts', but this is the same administration who recently tried to claim that under Bush, America's wetlands have made a comeback....only to be pressed on the issue and be forced to admit that by 'wetlands' they literally mean water hazards on golf courses and sewage reprocessing fields. (Also the administration that wants to triple the allowed arsenic in rural water supplies because it's cheaper than cleaning up the water.)
Given that we -are- doing long-term damage, the analogy to dictating how France runs its economy is not apt. I live just north of San Francisco. I'd be pretty ticked off if something France was doing was increasing the chances that the Bay Area will get hit by a bad earthquake.
As regards the oil companies, I have lots of issues with them (mainly in the areas of environmentalism and human rights...they can be real bastards to locals in third world countries), but I don't see how we can begrudge them making their profits. It's not our oil. We don't have some right to it and to act as if we do, especially when most of it comes from foreign countries, is just the kind of attitude that makes so many people in the rest of the world hate America. If you don't like the price or can't afford it, modify your lifestyle. If you're not willing to modify your lifestyle, suck it up and pay. Anyway, fundamentally, gas prices track oil prices, and the oil companies don't have much say in what they pay for crude.
And finally, I'll give you a nice, selfish reason why we should all celebrate the inevitable rise in oil (and thus gasoline) prices: As oil prices rise, other energy alternatives become increasingly economically viable. High oil prices = increased research by energy companies, governments, and other companies into non-oil energy sources. The faster the world can end its dependence on oil, the better off we will all be. There are very real economic consequences for -everybody- of $200/barrel oil with no practical alternative, and simply awful consequences for the poor of the world (drastically increased starvation, for instance, since fertilizers will become too expensive for them to use, cutting food development significantly).
Yes, it sucks shelling out at the pump. But let's not forget that our big cars and energy-wasting lifestyles have a price for the rest of the world. Americans (I am one of them) are addicted to oil, and we (including me) have shown an inability or unwillingness to reform our behavior out of compassion or simple moderation. Think of high oil prices as an intervention to help us break the disease that is our addiction.
--matt
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