[Carfreeliving] War against the car
Hitesh Soneji
koolkwote at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 12 16:41:06 MST 2005
Anyone out there willing to write an eloquent letter to the
WSJ editors board?
--- "Brinkman, Cheryl" <Cheryl.Brinkman at McKesson.com> wrote:
>
>
> "I really can't even believe that the Wall Street Journal
> printed this
> tripe. This nutcase is really on the editorial board? "
>
>
> I had to check, just in case, yes he appears to be.
> http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006842
>
>
> I read something that said since people under 40-ish get
> increasing amounts
> of their news and info on-line, that the "old school" print
> media outlets,
> The Journal, Forbes, etc etc, exist only to assure the old
> white guys with
> money that their world is safe and not changing in any way.
> Pay no
> attention to the doom sayers, it's all right - it's like
> lullabies for rich
> people.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joshua Switzky [mailto:Joshua.Switzky at sfgov.org]
> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 11:31 AM
> To: Brinkman, Cheryl
> Cc: Carfreeliving at livablecity.org
> Subject: Re: [Carfreeliving] War against the car
>
>
>
>
>
> I really can't even believe that the Wall Street Journal
> printed this
> tripe. This nutcase is really on the editorial board? This
> is really just a
> cariacture, a joke. This guy probalby doesn't even exist.
> It's amazing how people can continue to trump the fantasy
> of everyone in
> their cars whisking along untrafficked rural roads with the
> wind in their
> hair, while a different reality greets them everyday.
> Someone ought to be
> doing psychological studies on this mass delusion and
> effective automotive
> advertising. And that Katrina bullshit -- what the fuck is
> he talking
> about? A car doesn't do you any good when the entire
> population wants to
> get on the road at the same time and roads are either
> impassable and
> flodded or gridlocked.
> -j
>
>
>
>
>
> "Brinkman,
>
> Cheryl"
>
> <Cheryl.Brinkman@
> To
> McKesson.com>
> Carfreeliving at livablecity.org
> Sent by:
> cc
> Carfreeliving-bou
>
> nces at livablecity.
> Subject
> org [Carfreeliving] War
> against the car
>
>
>
>
> 12/12/2005 10:55
>
> AM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I know it's the Wall Street Journal, not really a bastion
> of progressivism,
> but it's still shocking to know that a presumably
> intelligent person could
> engage in such simplistic thinking.
>
> I love the idea that New Orleans could have been evacuated
> if only everyone
> had a car. Houston tried that, it was called gridlock. We
> saw friends
> from Houston last week, they told us about their experience
> evacuating, 6
> hours to go 30 miles, a total of 16 for a normally 3 hour
> trip- the
> kicker: they took both their cars. Mom and son in one, Dad
> in the other.
>
>
> Sounds like the second graders are smarter then this guy.
>
> The War Against the Car
>
>
> November 11, 2005 ; Page A10
> Commentary - Wall Street Journal
>
>
> A few years ago, I made a presentation to my
> second-grader's social studies
> class, asking the kids what was the worst invention in
> history. I was
> shocked when a number of them answered "the car." When I
> asked why, they
> replied that cars destroy the environment. Distressed by
> the Green
> indoctrination already visited upon seven-year-olds, I was
> at least
> reassured in knowing that once these youngsters got their
> drivers'
> licenses, their attitudes would change.
>
>
> It's one thing for second-graders to hold such childish
> notions, but quite
> another for presumably educated adults to argue that
> automobiles are
> economically and environmentally unsustainable "axles of
> evil." But with
> higher gas prices, as well as Malthusian-sounding warnings
> about
> catastrophic global warming and the planet running out of
> oil, the tirade
> has taken on a new plausibility. Maybe Al Gore had it right
> all along when
> he warned that the car and the combustible engine are "a
> mortal threat . .
> . more deadly than any military enemy."
>
>
> * * *
>
>
> Welcome to the modern-day Luddite movement, which once
> raged against the
> machine, but now targets the automobile. Just last month,
> environmentalists
> organized a "world car-free day," celebrated in more than
> 40 cities in the
> U.S. and Europe. In the left's vision of utopia, cars have
> been banished --
> replaced by bicycles and mass transit systems. There is no
> smog or road
> congestion. And America has been liberated from those
> sociopathic,
> gas-guzzling, greenhouse-gas-emitting SUVs and Hummers that
> Jesus would
> never drive.
>
>
> It all sounds idyllic, but in real life this fairy tale has
> a tragic
> ending. As Fred Smith, president of the Competitive
> Enterprise Institute,
> reminds us, if the "no car garage" had been a reality in
> New Orleans in
> August, we wouldn't have suffered 1,000 Katrina fatalities,
> but 10,000 or
> more. The automobile, especially those dreaded all-terrain
> four-wheel drive
> SUVs (ideal for driving through floodwaters) saved more
> lives during the
> Katrina disaster than all the combined relief efforts of
> FEMA, local police
> and fire squads, churches, the Salvation Army and the Red
> Cross. If every
> poor family had had a car and not a transit token, few
> would have had to be
> warehoused in the hellhole of the Superdome.
>
>
> This month we paid honor to the heroism of Rosa Parks for
> fighting racism
> through the bus boycott in Montgomery. What helped sustain
> that historic
> freedom cause was that hundreds of blacks owned cars and
> trucks that they
> used to carpool others around the city.
>
>
=== message truncated ===
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