I think I'd like to be a full-time activist! (After I pay off my house, put Eileen through college, and buy a Tesla!) (Will I burn in hell with my fellow bourgeois scum?)
The way the world is going is so over-the-top insane that it's almost more than I can live with. We have, as a society, decided to trust corporations to take care of us and run our country and planet. That wouldn't be such a bad idea if they were able to do a good job of it. My growing interest in electric cars has really pushed me to a new level of hating the system we're living in.
Internal combustion cars look to me, a true alien sociologist, like something that should have been taken off the road and put in museums about 25 years ago. Think of the MILLIONS of cars stopped at red lights in crowded intersections right this second in Beijing, Los Angeles, Moscow, Bangkok, and Mexico City, their engines idling at 1,500 revolutions per minute, super hot air (wasted energy from gasoline) radiating from the outside of the engine and hot poisonous exhaust blowing out of exhaust pipes into the air. And all the people in all those cars are sitting there breathing that poison, plus dumping millions of tons of C02 into the atmosphere, intensifying the frequency and intensity of ongoing global climate change disasters.
Imagine the pile of junk these internal combustion cars carry: fan belts, radiators, radiator hoses, mufflers, oil filters, air filters, fuel filters, gas tanks, fuel pumps, oil pumps, water pumps, spark plugs, valves, timing belts, and much more.
Not that I think electric cars are the answer. Cars on this planet are immoral, period. It would take 5 Earths worth of resources for everybody to have a car, even an electric one. But electric cars just prove how incredibly PRIMITIVE, dangerous, and wasteful our internal combustion cars are, and how the corporations don't care in the least about us or our environment, just as long as they make profit now.
We must wrest control back from the corporations, or we are no longer truly Americans. We are much more like hamsters in a pet shop, dependent on the shop owner to fill our water bottles and give us enough food pellets to eat. Will they clean our cages or make us live in our own shit? It's up to them.
Revolution 2.0 anyone?
"Collect it All," "Process it All," "Exploit it All," "Partner it All," "Sniff it All" and "Know it All."--Leaked slides in Glenn Greenwald's book No Place to Hide, May 2014, showing the NSA's stated objectives
If Snowden’s fear was that Americans wouldn’t care enough to do something about the spying, then he doesn’t sleep at all.
ReplyDeleteIf Americans cared, there would be activist groups at least as well organized as the anti-GMO groups. The goal of such pro-privacy groups would be to track every CongCritter and Senator that voted for NDAA, extension,
Patriot Act, etc.... so that citizens would know just exactly who to give them the boot.
But it would seem that 90 -95% of the citizens, simply do not care enough about their privacy to refuse to re-vote their regional representatives who sold out the privacy of their constituents for the false promises of "security". Oh... sure, maybe 50% of the voters grumble about it, but are they refusing to put their reps back into office? I doubt it sincerely.
Tony
Hey Jeff, I got an electric bike. You should come over and check it out sometime. Lot cheaper than a TESLA and it will do 30 mph!
ReplyDeleteEric
i agree that cars are insane! why not organize our lives so that we could walk and take metro for everyday activities? save the cars for fun trips to the mountains or sea.
ReplyDeletealso, electric cars are not the answer, at least not until the electricity comes exclusively from solar power. most places in the world burn fossil fuels to produce electricity or even worse use fission! ( see the next article on fukishima)
dave fryer
Nice article. I noticed that you said you "almost" can't live with it. Isn't that the point? Only push them as far as they can be pushed but no farther. If you couldn't live with it then their policies and strategies wouldn't serve them well. Their slave base would drop like flies or revolt. If you're too happy, they aren't maximizing their opportunities. Right on the edge is where they want you. Profitable, powerful and prudent. That keeps em out of the streets and in their seats. This illusion of freedom and inclusion has taken thousands of years to perfect but they're damn close.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 7:51,
ReplyDelete"This illusion of freedom and inclusion has taken thousands of years to perfect but they're damn close."
Yes, this is the most elegant subjugation of humans ever, so incredibly much neater than gulags and death camps, and way more effective. And almost half of all American voters actually vote to dial up their oppression even higher (voting for Bush, McCain, Romney). We are so incredibly far from my goal of Revolution 2.0.
The thing about Revolution 2.0 is that IT TOO COULD BE INCREDIBLY SUBTLE AND ELEGANT, without a shot fired, like when the little boy calls out from the crowd, "The emperor is wearing no clothes."
Our oppressors number about .001 percent of our population. How easy it would be to topple them. Among us are a few brave and strong people who wouldn't mind just singling a few of them out and beating the shit out of them. They don't do it, though, because they don't want to be like poor Snowden, way out in front of the rest of the troops, all alone on the battlefield facing a very powerful and very scary enemy.
Jeff then Tony hit the mark, of course. On our Earthly search for who we are as regards privacy, environs, and social tenets, let's keep peeling the onion and find "first cause" in real time.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, "what'cha purchase with your mind brings the world that you find", and extrapolate cumulatively. Sure, we're dumbed down, but even with all the framing and related techniques and technology, we are here and got here by accepting other people's ideas and disregarding our own abilities to discern and make the obvious connections (all repurcusional and virtually exponential, either direction).
Again, the onion. The surface needs attention, always, but until those sources are ID'd and CLOSED, we will continue, to quote mee pop, "through the bulkhead sidewise".
We came a long haul, but wore out Mom Earth gettin' here. Will She and or we survive our self-education?! :-)
?Quien sabe? Not without some fun and bad humor thrown in...
Did you hear about the dislexic on the way to his dentist who had a car wreck and hurt his tooth? Yep, had a traffic occlusion. r r
--Hal
PS For a good time, dial www.nutritionfacts.org (!!!)
-Hal
How many Earths worth of resources would it take for everyone to own Hummer limousines? (When I'm president that's going to be the only car on the market)
ReplyDeleteMr. Syrop,
ReplyDeleteI like your post, but you fail to mention one key thing. The world can not exist without gasoline burning Harley Davidsons. You probably think I'm kidding, but I'm not, and I can't explain it in terms that you or your followers can understand. But I CAN beat the shit out of your enemies. Please send a list. Revolution 2.0, here we come!! Live to Ride, Ride to Live!!!
Well now, I see you are still planting the seeds of destruction for our very corrupt polititions/corporation but cars? What about my gas loving '65 chev ragtop? I'm kind to the enviro by restoring a junk car instead of getting a rice burner. [oriental car] As I get 14 mpg & rid the planet of mosquitos with my smoking rear tires & oil smoke I figger I be doing great correct? badBob
ReplyDeleteBadBob,
ReplyDeleteI think old cars are cool. It just doesn't seem right to keep making them that way. And Anonymous with the Harley, who posted right above you, makes a good point: "The world can not exist without gasoline burning Harley Davidsons." I tend to agree with that. But I'm amazed that someone would shell out for a high-end Mercedes or BMW nowadays when they could get a Tesla Model S for less money and have a much better car for it.
It seems only a few people understand that the electricity it takes to power an electric car comes from burning huges piles of coal. Great way to paint the sky black, you fools. On the positive side, I'm seeing more and more solar panels on buildings these days... could this mean there is hope for us after all?
ReplyDeleteYou covered a lot of bases here cuz, the big story being Snowden. A lot of good points in the comments on electric cars, I agree they must be solar to achieve worthy aims. I always believed the masses choose to be sheep, hence the need for a shepherd, religion, gods, and charismatic leaders. But to volunteer for fiefdom, to silence the chimes of freedom, for crucifying the messenger, these are the things that should make you retch. Good mind Jeff.
ReplyDeleteNever outlaw Harleys!
ReplyDeleteNever outlaw Harleys!
ReplyDelete