--- James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> Well, OK then, why don't you stop consuming, and
> we'll come back to this question in two months or
> so, to see how you fare. If you want some tips on
> how, just have a look in your fridge and cupboard.
> Anything you bought there from a shop was almost
> certainly delivered by van or lorry (nobody yet has
> suggested railway lines to shops). Those are the
> things that you think you can live without.
Sometimes I wonder what dark motives lie behind what people say or write. I've posted a number of rather lengthy missives on the subject - to the point of shivering in my shoes awaiting Doug's wrath - and in not a single one of them I suggested stoppping consuming and getting rid of the cars. Au contraire, I was quite explicit that I propose changing the mix - fewer individual autos, more public transit - and made a clear distintion between cargo transport on people's transport in terms of efficiency. In other words, I have no quarrel with lorries - except perhaps the road manners of some of their drivers ;) - all I am saying is that the US (not necessarily Europe) can do much better by reducing their use of individual passenger cars (not lorries!) and increasing their use of transit .
I presume you read all that, since you reply in the very instant your name was mentioned in this context. That suggests that you either do not pay any attention to what people say, or feel some emotional urge to defend the car just as the gun nuts in this country feel an urge to defend the gun. In their paranoid minds, there is no difference between a rational approach trying to balance the interests of gun owners and public safety, and a total ban and confiscation. Either/or, white or black, everything or nothing, we win or we loose, no middle grounds, no compromising.
That makes me wonder what is your motivation of taking such a hard and uncompromising line on this issue. Do you or any anyone in your family have any connection to the auto or oil industry? Or is automobile your fetish? Or what? I am curious.
PS. For the sake of fairness, let me disclose why I root for public transit in the US, and what I dislike about cars. I benefit from public transit financially, it saves me a lots of money, about $500 every month, 12 month a year for the next 30 or so years I am "expected" to live, which is needed to buy and maintain a car.
On the emotional side, I like relaxing while I am traveling, looking around me, observing things taling to people instead of being alone and focused on the driving.
I am also attached to my civil liberties and do not like giving them up for the "driving privilege" which in this country entails "implied consent" for cops to stop me whenever they see it fit (i.e. when they can come up with a "probable cause"), demand an ID, test my body, search my property without a court warrant, and confiscate it as an "accessory to crime" if they "find" drugs in the trunk. Nor do I like the idea of giving up my right to a jury trial in the kangaroo "traffic courts." Yet I am forced to give up all these civil liberties if I want to move around in the United States, because in most places I have no other alternatives except walking. I think this poses a far greater threat to civil liberties than any government spying on alleged "subversives." I do not know about the UK, but in this country when your drive, you basically throw the Constitution through the window.
Wojtek
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