Ban the Car!

As the world seemingly helplessly awaits the environmental devastation that will follow upon the introduction of millions more automobiles in China and India, a rare window of opportunity has opened here in the United States. To use one of the captive clichés of the moment, a crisis can represent an opportunity. GM and Ford are virtually bankrupt. Deservedly so given their sociopathic extraction of profits from gas-guzzling SUVs over the last two decades. Rather than re-tool for more fuel efficient automobiles, (a feat everyone acknowledges they could never do as well as the Japanese in any case), they should begin now to turn their manufacturing potential to the construction of rail cars and other modes of public rapid transit.

It is all but certain that one hundred years from now (assuming the planet survives) the era of the privately owned and often single driver ridden automobile will be looked upon as a time when mankind irrationally put profits before the physical and mental health of the planet. Driven by sheer arrogance and greed, the industrialized nations (most egregiously here in the U.S.) disinvested in and even conspired to destroy a range of mass transit ranging from the old and efficient urban trolley systems toailing subway systems.

To look at photographs of the streets of Beijing, for example, just a few short years ago, with tens of thousands of Chinese citizens riding bicycles through the city’s broad thoroughfares, and compare them to current photographs which show those same thoroughfares now clogged with private automobiles is a tragedy in the making. Beijing’s air is already among the most polluted of all major cities. Within just this short time frame, respiratory diseases and obesity have risen in China. When challenged on pursuing such a course, China, along with the rest of the developing world, glares back at our hypocrisy. We have spent decades banging the drum for the American model of prosperity, and now that it is within their reach, the developing nations seem stubborn in their determination to be just like us—regardless of the costs. We have set a dangerous example.

The election of an African American to the presidency, married to the descendant of a slave, has pleasantly surprised people around the globe. We have shown how, in the worst of times, the nation has the ability and the will to recreate itself. How impressive would it be if the United States—long as much identified with flashy chrome and fin-laden gas-guzzlers as with Cokes, Levis and Marlboros—should renounce the waste of the past, acknowledge the private automobile as a luxury the planet can no longer afford, and turn its productive capacity to the creation of a mass transit matrix that would make even the Japanese with their clean, safe and efficient bullet trains, envious?

“What about all of those employed in the auto industry and its satellites?” The estimated three million jobs in the industry could easily be employed in the manufacture and maintenance of thousands of vehicles of mass transit. Only the extortionist oil corporations and insurance companies and the irresponsible advocates of planned obsolescence will suffer—a fate long overdue for them. A capitalist version of a car-free modern nation is possible. Profits can be realized, just as they once were in the rail and trolley age. Socially responsible profits, that is.

“How will you wean from their cars the tens of millions of Americans who have come to associate their cars with fundamental freedom of choice and freedom of expression, almost a God-given right?” Since we have no commissar of transportation who could merely make the automobile illegal by mandate, the public will have to be educated to the real costs of maintaining the present course. In addition to the initial cost of purchasing a vehicle, add the cost of fuel, maintenance, insurance, bridge and highway tolls. Add the loss of over 42,000 deaths each year (down from its 1970 high of nearly 55,000, a figure that matched the total loss of Americans in the Vietnam War each year) and the countless others who are injured. Add the liability and medical insurance costs. Add the cost of roads and infrastructure. Add the damage to the environment, the air pollution and the quality of life in cities and towns. Add the waste of precious and limited natural resources that will never be recaptured. Add the tendency to urban and suburban sprawl and poor planning that grows out of the necessity of incorporating the automobile into the equation. Add the noise. Add the parking tickets. Then imagine being unburdened of all of this and being able to walk a short distance and board a modern, fuel efficient and quiet mode of transportation that will get you wherever you want to go in a fraction of the time it currently takes. Just imagine. Science fiction? A utopian dream? No, one way or another, it is our inevitable future. And, who can tell? The American people may find healthier outlets for their desire to express themselves.

The Cure: Part II

As one observer has put it, "If the whole world wants to live like the United States, the planet is doomed." The fact is that having even one nation like our own, with a mere 5% of the global population, consume as much of the world's resources and, in the process, create so much waste and pollution is dangerous enough. The prospect of China's (at least until now) growing middle classes all acquiring automobiles is a frightening one. In just the last five years or so, Beijing's roads, once crowded with bicycles, have begun to be clogged with traffic. Less exercise and a fatter diet have produced a new generation of Chinese children plagued by childhood obesity. Needless to say, air pollution in Beijing has worsened. Progress?

Just as Einstein's scientific discoveries led to nuclear weapons, the introduction of methods to create relatively cheap, internal combustion-driven, privately owned vehicles has led to wholesale devastation. The automobile creates pollution in myriad ways. It has allowed urban and suburban sprawl to eat up more and more of our landscape; it uses up very high percentages of the world's natural resources both in its operation and in its manufacture. Not content with making such an innovation merely a means of transportation that could be privately owned by individual citizens, the industry here in the United States put forth the automobile as a status symbol. Even if an argument could be made that having individuals owning and driving their own vehicles, willy-nilly, as their impulses led them, a rational approach would have dictated a simple machine that was safe, got good mileage and lasted indefinitely--basically a Volkswagen with brains. Opposition to this approach, (which, frankly, I cannot recall any real voices for), came from the obvious sources--the automobile companies and, of course probably most significantly, the oil companies. For the average American, the right to own and operate an automobile is God-given. It is not merely a symbol of freedom, it is an enabler of freedom--freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom to be frivolous if one wishes with one's own hard-earned cash. As a status symbol, the automobile has no parallel. A small luxury apartment on wheels--leather upholstery, climate control, sterophonic sound, DVD players, GPS instruments. It is probably safe to assume that, for many Americans, the interior of their automobiles is far better appointed than the interiors of their homes or apartments. Thus, the automobile is the ultimate escape. It does on a far broader scale what fashion and cosmetic ads do for women--create an alternate universe that is uncluttered, clean-lined and unrelated to the grungier, sweatier aspects of being a living organism.

The Obvious--and Unspeakable--Cure for the Economy

Think monorails, bullet trains and trolley cars. Think the abolition of the privately owned automobile. Then think clean air, freedom from petrofuels and economic rebirth. Go ahead, city-dweller, look outside your apartment window and find that there are no vehicles parked on the street any longer. Suburban and rural America, look a bit farther and see that where once there were highways clogged with automobiles, the former roads have become the paths of monorails and bullet trains. The air is clean, and it is quiet now. Peace and reason have been restored.

I have watched them all, all the talking heads on C-Span, CNN, Charlie Rose; I have watched Paulson, Bernake, Greenspan, Krugman, even the two Greenbergs, "Ace" and "Hank". All of them talk of a credit crisis, of investing in banks which will in turn give loans to "small businesses" and "individuals." On the one hand, we are told that a depression has been averted. On the other hand, there are tough times ahead, a recession that can last--depending on which head is speaking--anywhere from eighteen months to five or more years. It should come as no surprise to any U.S. citizen that thirty or forty percent of our GDP has come from "finance" over the last few decades. While the scam lasted, those astute enough to have ties to the financial world were accustomed to getting 35% returns on their investments. Unlike the robber barons of old, however, the creators of the vast fortunes that were accumulated left no monuments akin to the libraries, museums and other public venues that we associate with the older barons. Instead, what we became used to was disinvestment in the social good, an almost infinite imagination for waste of the nation's treasure through the purchase of cheap goods, so-called McMansions and gas-guzzling SUVs.

Ultimately, there will be only one remedy for the crisis--government investment in infrastructure. It is a notion that is often pooh-poohed since "it will take too long to matter." The obvious objection to government investment in infrastructure is that it smacks of socialism. Those old enough to remember or educated enough to have learned about the Great Depression can recall the WPA, Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, which put thousands of Americans to work and helped to build infrastructure which the nation still utilizes today. The WPA, of course, was described by conservatives as socialistic (if not communistic) in nature. Although one can currently get away with talking about "nationalizing" banks and other institutions, this term, until lately used mostly in sentences that also contained the words Venezuela and Chavez, became acceptable since it was the richest elements in the country that were the beneficiaries. Of course on the spectrum of acceptability, nationalism is more acceptable than socialism in the United States--for now. Note, however, how little time it took for the former term to work its way into the public consciousness when no alternative seemed available. I would predict that a similar fate awaits the notion of socialism. The counter-revolution led by the Reaganites, the Thatcherites and the Friedmanites will prove, fortunately for the fate of the nation--and the planet--to have been short-lived. And for the same reasons; the planet can not survive the planned obsolescence and other capitalist schemes driven by greed at the expense of public health and safety.

To be continued...

The Rape of America

The American financial "system" has brought shock therapy to our own shores with a vengence. A Nuremberg style trial should await all those who participated in the greatest theft of a nation's resources in the history of finance, yet that is unlikely to happen in a country with one party rule, particularly when the elected representatives of both parties have been bought by the very same participants in the theft. Under the present political arrangement, the citizenry is essentially powerless to protect its interests. Any hope for a remedy is now years, perhaps decades in the future. The candidates of both parties have reacted to the financial crisis with warnings of the further sacrifices that average Americans will have to make. While McCain, (who revealed his true disdain for the democratic process when it gets in the way of his ambition by selecting as his running mate an individual who believes in creationism and speaks in tongues), is deeply embedded with the same constituencies who could tolerate the demise of constitutional government over the last eight years, Obama is merely the fancy creation of the old Northeastern Republican establishment. The Democrats are not an opposition party as much as they are in the business of maintaining the illusion of choice. It is an illusion that will now be even harder to maintain. Stripped of that illusion, the United States' truly oligarchical nature should become clearer and clearer--even to our heavily propagandized electorate. What is called for now is the creation of a people's party.

Democratic Convention Anti-climax

It is a symptom of the time in which we live that the Democratic convention currently taking place in Denver has been almost entirely cleansed of any real conflict--or reality. This is, of course, an historic moment, the nomination of the first Black American for the office of president. And, yes, there is a palpable tension suffusing the event as the nation waits to see if race will spell failure for the Obama candidacy. For some, this is tension enough perhaps. On the other side of the same coin is a sense that this may be too good to be true. Many Americans dare not--not quite yet--savor with anticpation the excitement that would attend an Obama victory in November. We shall see. Tension enough for any one year may be the decision made by those who craft these events.

It is also true that if we look back to conventions past, what has typically taken place in the arenas housing such events is a lot of silly behavior--silly hats, signs, painted faces, balloons, oompah music, the works. While some may recall the floor fights that have taken place over seating various Southern delegations, or anti-war chants, or tense negotiations over votes, those old enough to recall those phenomena have now lived long enough to know that the 1960s were a special time not likely to soon be repeated. This year is the fortieth anniversay of the 1968 Chicago riots. In those days, we watched not just the convention floor, but the demonstrations in the streets, demonstrations in which scores were injured by an overzealous Chicago police force set loose upon hippies, yippies and more serious protesters by the inimitable Mayor Daley. Daley's tactics provided the occasion for one of the most memorable moments to take place at any convention--the heroic cry of protest made by the usually urbane senator from Connecticut, Abe Ribicoff in which he accused Daley of employing "gestapo tactics." It was a response so appropriate to the moment that David Brinkley announced the gesture as "gutsy." None of this can take place in the present climate because if the rulers of this nation learned one thing from those years, it was that it had to repress such expression--and it has done so completely, surgically. Naomi Klein likes to make the connection between the policy of "shock doctrine" and the actual use of shock therapy for its effectiveness in sedating troublesome individuals. We have been sedated.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/abrahamribicoff1968dnc.htm

And, thus, though perhaps we can forgive stage sets that resemble those of game shows, though we can forgive the usual hoopla surrounding conventions, the balloons and the music, the platitudinous, condescending rhetoric, what we should not be so ready to forgive is the surgical removal from the convention of just about any reference to the tens of thousands dead Iraqis, the trillions misspent, the dissolution of constitutional safeguards, the police state apparatus, the destruction of government institutions designed to regulate against excess the profiteers and protect the citizenry, the outright corruption and theft that has so particularly, so poignantly, characterized the last eight years.

Just as the government learned from the war in Vietnam that it is dangerous to have real coverage from the battlefields of our adventures overseas and began to limit news from the battle lines, to "embed" journalists with the troops, it has also learned that disingenuity, euphemism, double speak, if necessary, pure drivel is preferable to real political discourse. At least one stolen election, a multi-billion dollar security apparatus which we were asked to believe lost track of terrorists taking flight training, a "war" (oh, how we love that word) on the terrorists whom we could seek out, if we really cared, with good, old-fashioned police work, two sovereign nations attacked thousands of miles from our shores,with threats against a third, and a kind of rampant corporate theft that has created the greatest gap between rich and poor in the history of the planet--this is the legacy of the last eight years.

As I write, there are a couple of evenings left to this convention. We shall see.

Kosovo vs. South Ossetia

Did the Bush administration really believe that the Russians would take the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without a response? It is interesting to note the reaction of our secretary of state to the declaration by Russia that it is granting recognition to South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. She and the rest of the administration she serves apparently believe that it is still 1992, that perhaps it would always be 1992 and that a debilitated Russia shorn of its empire would forever remain docile and in a state of shock. And, although relations between Yugoslavia and the U.S.S.R. were less than close, it is hard to believe that the caper the U.S. and some of our European allies, particularly Germany, acted out in the course of bringing democracy to such stalwarts of the philosophy as Croatia and Slovenia could fly today as it did in the immediate aftermath of the cold war. One lasting heritage of our intervention in Kosovo under the Clinton administration is Camp Bondsteel, perhaps the largest U.S. military compound in the world.

When Kosovo, considered the spiritual locus of Serbian culture, declared its independence from Serbia, the U.S. rushed to recognize its independent status, and most of our Eropean allies followed suit. On the other hand, when South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared their independence from Georgia, Ms. Rice stated that the move would not stand, that it was a violation of Georgia's "territorial integrity." A short time after Tblisi launched a rocket attack on South Ossetia, President Bush got out of his ringside seat at the Beijing Olympics for a few moments to declare that the Russians seemed confused, that the cold war is over as is the era of "spheres of influence," an artifact of the nineteenth century. For the leader of a nation that maintains one thousand U.S. military bases around the world to declare that the era of spheres of influence is over offers a rare linguistic challenge. How characterize such a statement? Disingenuous? Chutzpah? Orwellian? And for whose benefit would such remarks be made?

Death of a Christian Knight

Communism had no greater foe than the Catholic Church. From the time of the Reformation and, later, the period of the French Revolution, Rome understood that its battle with those who marched under a red flag posed what is nowadays called "an existential threat" to its existence. Although liberty, equality and fraternity had been put to rest in 1815, two hundred years of seething ferment in the West ultimately produced the Russian Revolution and the very real possibility of the old guard being entirely eradicated around the globe.





Now, not quite twenty years since the demise of what some might call the great socialist experiments, those of all political coloration have begun to come to terms with what appears to be the victory of "free enterprise" in every corner of the globe with the exception of such roaring mice as Cuba, North Korea and the Islamic protestors against modernism. Most of us were taken by surprise. Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, who on the left would have, could have predicted the demise of communism? Yet, when it occurred there was no shortage of those who would make claim to having foreseen its inevitability. The New York Times celebrated the occasion by giving space on its first page first to one of its own, the late R.W. Apple, who called it the greatest historical event since the revolutions of 1848. Then, upping the ante, the Times gave the same space to Solzhenitsyn, who proclaimed that what we were witnessing was not merely the fall of the Soviet Union but the demise of the whole romantic revoltionary tradition, that what events illustrated was that the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789--liberty, fraternity and equality--were at bottom incompatible.





There have been many candidates for hero of the counter-revolution--from Pope John Paul II to Ronald Reagan, from Milton Friedman to Margaret Thatcher--but many Americans will harbor the not so secret suspicion that but for William F. Buckley and his influence, the hammer and sickel might still be waving above red square and half the people on the planet.



Bill Buckley was indeed the ultimate Christian knight, so much so, in fact, that I suspect he knew the truth about himself and his movement. He was too much of a gentleman to tell a really big lie.

The truth is that none of these figures can truly take credit for the victory of capitalism. That capitalism wins all of its battles through the reckless application of capital itself. Money talks.

On the Other Hand...

not all of the apparatchiks of the Bush administration are without ego. R. Nicholas Burns can be counted on to function as the official liar of the White House. He is a champion at disinformation presented with a winning smile. He is also proof that there is in fact a permanent government, since Burns served as ambassador to Greece.

When Israel was bombing the hell out of Gaza and then invaded Lebanon, it was little Nickie's role to repeat as many times as he could in as many media venues as would have him, "Hezbollah started it." This is the dark side with a smiley face label.

Although he has supposedly resigned from public service roles which essentially had him looking for ways to antagonize reason in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, he has surfaced to go on the record in support of Kosovan independence. This should be rich. If anyone wants to know what is really going on in that section of the world, read Chalmers Johnson. In his work, he alludes to the fact that the military base in Kosovo (a five star accomodation for our fighting men and women) is in a class with the Great Wall of China for the ease with which one can spot it from outer space.

Even Jeffrey Sachs' "shock treatment," it appears, was not enough to entirely subdue the Russians, so now we will really teach them a lesson. We have more sabers rattling through the air right now than a performer at the Peking Opera. Missiles in Belarus and the Ukraine, Kosovan independence, shooting down errant satellites. Prod the Russians enough, and who knows, we could get a real war going.

Who Are Those Guys?

You know, when men in real authority need attack dogs, the quality they most seek is loyalty. A corollary of loyalty of the kind that is required to carry out dirty jobs is a high threshold for disapproval. There are men who are used to not being admired for their charm, who, knowing this, will be determined to succeed, to allow success to serve as compensation for lack of grace. Such men are dangerous men. They simply don't care what people think of them. In Gonzales, Chertoff and Mukasey we have men who are emblematic of the type.

Need to work outside of the constitutional framework, Mr. President? No problem. Need to stonewall, temporize, resort to equivocation, be disingenous, use Orwellian language? None of these are a problem. I'm the man for you.

If the day comes when I have to fall on my sword, swallow the bitter pill, you will be able to count on me. I will take the bullet for you.

This will not make me attractive, not make me appear heroic in the eyes of most men, but they always looked upon me with disdain in any case. What I will get in return is a page in the history books. What I will get in return is the opportunity to be in a position of such power that I will be able to put some of the charmers in their place. What I will get is the sweet smell of the power trip that I could not get any other way. When I enter a Georgetown restaurant, the taste of the Bordeaux will be all the sweeter for the knowledge that there are men and women in the room who recognize me and who recognize in me the power to destroy.