The economy's four-wheeled golden shackle

We have let ourselves be made victims and now find ourselves trapped by an economic reality: cars create jobs

The Straight Goods Cyber Forum
with Larry Solway

Commentary:

  You know how an idea gnaws away at you until finally you can't avoid it. A few weeks ago a remark on the MacNeil-Lehrer Report on PBS observed sadly that Americans were quick to adorn their cars with flags to display their patriotism but were slow to demonstrate their patriotism. I have paraphrased.
  There is a difference between patriotism displayed and patriotism demonstrated.
  The paradox is that patriotism was too easy if all it was was putting a flag on your car's radio antenna. Real patriotism, he said, would be to care enough about the country to stop driving vehicles (also adorned with flags) that wasted fuel, polluted the environment, and added to America's huge trade deficit.
  Canada bottom of the barrel on green issues- Janice Harvey. When it comes to the environment, Canada's effort is dismal.

You get to be skipper because you have invested thousands, maybe tens of thousands, on the most impractical, wasteful, damaging, dangerous method of moving people and goods

  Patriotism displayed is easy. Patriotism demonstrated is too hard.
  Fast forward to the awful news that 1500 people in Oakville will be out of work when Ford closes a plant; to the sabre-rattling by the irrepressible Buzz that Ottawa must take action; to the musing (predictably) in the Globe and Mail that American companies like to make cars here because the workmanship is better, the costs are lower, and the government pays for medical costs. The auto pact, a casualty of NAFTA was supposed to allow Canada to build cars in a quantity more or less equal to what we bought. That number has been far surpassed as we export far more than we buy.
  But the reality, and maybe it goes back to flag flying, is that the entire North American economy, is bound inextricably to the car. It is tied to it not only by economic reality, but also by a "belief" in the primacy of individual need and will, the need and will to be the captain of your fate. You get to be skipper because you have invested thousands, maybe tens of thousands, on the most impractical, wasteful, damaging, dangerous method of moving people and goods.
  So we have built for ourselves a golden shackle - economic and personal. What would we do if we fought the growth of the car business? What would we replace that creator of jobs and wealth with? How would we use the manufacturing capacity that might be lost?
  We have made ourselves s willing victims of marketing. At the Detroit Auto Show Daimler Chrysler unveiled a super pick up truck that goes from 0 to 100 km/h in 5 seconds! All the TV adds from "zoom-zoom" for Mazda to the gratuitous selling of power in the latest sports-ute to the high speed capability of the latest from Germany to the ego-bursting retro of the Chrysler PT Cruiser, which after all is nothing but a jazzy body on a Neon, another Chrysler failure.
  I have moved to downtown and will sell my house. Unfortunately it has only a one-car garage but the driveway has been widened to accommodate two vehicles. So the "complete" car-bound family can park their status symbols for all to see, to envy. To emulate, and to use for trips that might be more easily made on foot or by transit.
  Am I just a silly old fart turning his back on reality? Am I, as John Downing of the Sun writes, one of those left wing, car hating, and bicycle-riding socialists? He has it down pat.
  Final note: when I ran in the provincial election I fulminated about the rich with their sports utility vehicles. One of my campaign workers said "Careful about that. There are a lot of auto workers who drive those things." But hey - did the CAW vote Left? In Durham Region, where General Motors is, they sent us two Tories, Jim Flaherty and Janet Ecker.
  And at Detroit, Generous Motors unveiled the platform of the future, which would use fuel cells. It's only about 20 years away. Buy that time everyone will either have choked to death on fumes or will have forgotten the promise of an end to the internal combustion engine.
  We have let ourselves be made victims and now find ourselves trapped by an economic reality: cars create jobs. Help!!

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