The private automobile is the core product of corporate capitalism. Without it, the system would be in perpetual Great Depression. It simply must dominate in at least one of the three "developed" areas. Hence, it is pushed, and people use it. To change this, we would need conscious class struggle from below. It won't change through small projects here and there. We must demand truly equal non-automotive infrastructure spending. IMHO, this demand will become necessary as the impending 50-percent rise in petroleum combustion gets going. Climate change will force the issue, I think.
Portland, Oregon, by the way, is quite massively over-rated by "new urbanism" outsiders. This ain't no transportation/city planning paradise. It's simply 10 percent better than Denver and Phoenix. And we have water and trees. That's all.
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of frank scott Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 3:01 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] Re: stupid americans?
"...I understand that many (if not most) Americans are too stupid and lazy
to figure out how to use public transit..."
foreigners and ignorant people might believe that, but most others know that public transit doesn't even exist for millions of americans, and when it does, it costs so much and takes so much longer to get anywhere that it might as well not exist, except for affluent people who can enjoy it as a leisure activity, re; light rails, ferries...
that is the social plan, enacted with a vengeance since the end of war two, to destroy public transit and switch to the private form, with suburbanization and automobilisation finally making it next to impossible for people to survive without driving...
there are signs of change, but that's true of just about everything, and probably not noticed by, um... stupid, lazy folks?
fs
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