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March 29, 2008
'Pretty Soon It's A Movement'
The-People-Against –Combustion-Engine-Cars-and-18-Wheel-Trucks' Economic Rebirth and Movement
Today's New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/business/10transit.html... ) heralds the dramatic increase in public transporation's ridership across the nation....as gasoline climbs to $4 per gallon and as futurists predict $200 a barrel oil by the end of this year. Not just local buses, but ridership on Amtrak, Greyhound.
I think we should get on and to the head of this bus, here in the Midwest, USA.
Perhaps other Enquirer readers will remember (then) MI State Rep. Richard Fitzpatrick trying to generate interest in a high speed train system in Michigan and nationally, in the mid to late 80s. Generated about as much interest as a 1-year T Bill.
Me, I'm thinking about starting a new organization. A coalition. A Movement. Right here in buckle of the rust belt. First notch on the Bible belt. Reverse gear on the economic transmission belt.
The Movement’s goal would be to phase out combustion-engine cars and most 18-wheel trucks,
And do it in 20 years.
No, not another Jimmy Carter-esque ‘turn down the lights and don’t flush the toilet so much in the White House effort.’
A homeland version of the Marshall Plan.
Or the kind of focused, sustained effort that saw the United States in just five years during WWII produce 296,429 airplanes, 102,351 tanks, 372,431 artillery pieces, 47 million tons of artillery ammunitions and 87,620 warships.
Think about it. We could do it.
Might not be so bad. The pain would ease. The wounds heal. We'd adapt.
And be better off.
Huge savings that could be redirected to public education, health care, and other needs.
Less waste of resources like oil, steel and other metals.
We might tear up, and plant wheat and corn on, on some of the million miles of concrete highways and parking lots that cover our landscape.
The US could adequately feed all its own people, plus feed the one- half of today’s total world population that's been born into poverty and hunger just since JFK was President.
Get us off the Arab nations’ oil/gravy train.
Make the dollar and the Treasury T-Bill worth something again.
Retrain and employ auto related workers, many who are already losing their jobs, into energy-efficient professions (including cars) that have a future.
Build up world class public transportation in all our communities and link major population centers through high speed, cheap rail.
Strengthen short truck transport.
Lower smog and air pollution by more than half.
Sounds impossible.
A peace symbol from the past. A hippie. Flower in his hair. Country Joe. Frank Zappa. Arlo Guthrie.
On second thought, maybe we could still get Arlo Guthrie’s help.
Remember Arlo?
What he suggested in his funny, antiwar song “Alice’s Restaurant,” 41 years ago, that describes, over 18-minutes, how he got arrested by Officer Obie for garbage littering, and as a result, was turned down for the Vietnam draft when he went to the military induction center?
And if two people, two people do it (go to the Vietnam War draft induction center and sing ( the song "Alice's Restaurant") in harmony,
And three people do it, three, can you imagine,
three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,
I said fifty people a day
walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may think it's a movement”
*Lyrics from Alice’s Restaurant, 1967
They’d think it was a movement:
The-People-Against –Combustion-Engine-Cars-and-18-Wheel-Trucks' Economic Rebirth and Peace Movement
Now, if we can just get the Chinese to go along.
Neehow, Beijing?
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* r.e. Song Alice's Restaurant. In the mid 80s, my two sons were about 6 and 9. We'd travel by car from Michigan to Missouri to visit their grandparents. We would'nt be in the car for 30 minutes before one of them said: "Dad, put on Alice's Restaurant!." So in would go the audio tape; and we'd listen to Guthrie's wacky, wonderfully amusing and irreverent musical monologue, which has just enough bathroom humor in it, too, to get my kids rolling on the car floor in the back seat.
To both watch and listen to Guthrie recently performing a slightly didacted and more politically correct 'Alice's Restaurant,' click on:
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