Affluent, lazy American society

[Mari333]

Not everyone is, I know, but the oil dependency of this nation is horrific.
Go into your supermarket, check out all of the plastic. Everything is wrapped in plastic. Everything. If theres an item wrapped in paper, it probably is from trees, not an alternative source, like hemp, which makes great paper.
As long as we are this dependent on oil, and no one in leadership states "we must change our lifestyles to be less dependent on petrochemicals", we are doomed to be in oil wars, vicious ones with the world.
The US public is unaware of the devastation of peak oil, and unaware of the fact this whole war was about oil reserves for the US and Israel.
Bottom line, its going to be up to the people to change the way they live.
I can hang my clothes on the lines, I can take less showers and be fine. I can ask for my deli goods be wrapped in paper. I can walk instead of drive, I can bring my own bag to the store, I can buy used clothes instead of new clothes. I can eat less. I can cook outside on a fire. I can do a lot.
if people just choose to change their lifestyles, a lot could be accomplished. It could be touted as patriotic to be less dependent on ME oil.
Otherwise, neverending wars.

[wtmusic]

1. Most important of all

Don't drive an SUV (unless you're really, really vain and need that kind of thing to function in society)

[Grown2Hate]

7. No offense meant at all...

but what's the whole line against SUVs? Granted, some (if not MOST!) are horribly inefficient, but I've seen some smaller SUVs that get FAR better gas mileage than most CARS I've seen (25/35 was the best I've seen I think, and that blows away my car). Shouldn't that be taken into consideration? Because some families need a bigger vehicle. I do LOATHE seeing a whole ONE person driving around in a HUGE, fuel-hogging SUV, but I don't get the hate towards ALL SUVs. Just asking, not trying to piss anyone off. Thanks!

[cornfedyank]

12. when i was a kid it was a long way to town

i grew up on a farm. when i was a kid we went to town once a week, usually saturday, sold the eggs and bought groceries. maybe an ice cream cone for the ride home.

as the times changed i remember when dad said, "ok we will go to town once a day so make a list".

next it was drive to town just to see what was happening, two, three times a day. hell i didn't know any better.

now i've tried to start thinking before i make the trip, but there are 300,000,000 other people on this ship we call America. It will take an inspired and inspiring leader at the helm with an enlighted crew, congress, to change direction.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

18. Because the Detroit automakers said that a 40 mpg standard is feasable...

But they refuse to do it.
They get a major tax credit for them because they are classified under the "light truck" catagory, and if you "use it for work" you can get the tax credit, while people who buy regular automobiles.
The whole concept of a "sport utility vehicle" when a major percentage of them never leave the city is laughable. People drive like they're invincible in them; on major city highways the flow of traffic is usually 10-20 mph higher than the speed limit, so you know they're not getting the posted gas mileage.
While I refuse to try to forbid anyone from buying something like that, I have to shake my head at the people who are firmly convinced that it's the ONLY vehicle that will fit their needs.

[Skittles]

19. they are a symbol of American excess and greed

f***ing road hogs

[doni_georgia]

22. Exactly

I have an SUV that gets 22 mpg. I have three kids, a husband and a dog. There are times when we all need to go somewhere together. Our other car gets 35 mpg, and we use it for errands and such, and my husband commutes to work in it. I work 4 miles from home, so I drive about 8 miles a day. I figure between the two of us our vehicles average better than many people with two cars. We also cut corners else where. We don't do a lot of unneccesary driving. Someone who has an ecconocrate can use a lot more gas a week than I do. It's more about your driving habits.

[Warpy]

11. It aint what you drive so much as

...how and where you drive it. I drive a Ford Ranger, 4 chipmunk model, but drive it so infrequently and over such short distances that I average 3 months to a tank of gas. My other vehicle is an electric scooter, which draws a whopping 25 watts at full charge, and I'm planning to get a solar charger as soon as I can afford one.

People who insist on going far out of town so they can afford a huge heap of pretentious masonry with a yard big enough for the kiddies to run amok in are commuting as much as 50 miles each way. This is nuts, and uses more gas for an econobox than my less than efficient Ranger does in that 3 month period.

However, I never see an H2 that I don't want to ram a potato up its tailpipe, just on general principle...

[arcane1]

2. your average Murkan would rather kill people for petroleum...

than wash a goddamned fork once in a while. Don't you know that, by being born in the US, you have a GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to drive 65, guzzle all the gas you want, leave all the lights on, and fill your house with disposable plastic bullshit?

We must kill anyone who intereferes with this right, that our founding fathers fought and died for


/sarcasm off, now I can :puke:

[DBoon]

3. Only since we have lost our other rights

The ones that depend on being knowledgable about the world at large, being able to logically formulate opinions about it, being able to express those opinions openly and (through democratic processes) being able to make those opinions count.

The rise of private consumerism parallels the fall of public political participation.

[arcane1]

4. keeping us full and happy

like zoo animals, so we won't notice the bars on our cage...

[soleft]

5. Ari Fleischer said our lifestyle is blessed

And Bush clearly seems to feel his wars to maintain it are blessed as well.

[loftycity]

6. Mari you are so right--The plastic use has increased, it is every where.

Plastic containers for Chips?
We have to get on the Wind power and all alternative energies.
Did you know their is enough wind in North Dakota to fuel the entire US. Build those wind turbines. Don't the politicians get it that this is one of the many windfalls? Universal Healthcare also.
Tons of jobs and new inovations. Hope they can figure out the obvious and soon.

[hughee99]

8. Wind power?

The country has plenty of wind, and hot air (comming mostly from washington) but have you ever heard of a wind farm being built without a lot of controversy? They've been trying to put one up in my state (Massachusetts) for about 4 years now and it isn't even off the drawing board yet. The people who live in the mansions in that area feel it will be "unsightly". Wind power, like most other alternative energy sources always comes down to NIMBY (good idea, but Not In My Back Yard). I'm sorry to say it but one of those people against it is going to be our next president.

[Mari333]

10. I own 13 acres, its all wooded

in Michigan, its also covered right now on the sides of the road where I live, with tons of plastic..people throwing it out of their cars, like pigs, and not caring. I have to get up the energy to go and clean it up every week, and today Im tired.
The irony is Im tired because I have a kid in Baghdad who is there only to protect CEOs and their profits for the oil in Iraq. This crap about "creating a democracy" is horseshit.
I remember, when I look at my own life, where I can stop using petrochemicals. and there are PLENTY of places.
Dont buy plastic anything if you can help it
buy in bulk
cook your own food
cook outside
dont buy anything you dont need
I know Im not perfect, but I can try.
if everyone tried, it would make a difference.
when you think of dead Iraqi children dying and dead soldiers dying so you can use all that plastic or fill your tank, I would think it would make people stop and think when they behave like hogs at the trough.
Oh wait, unless its THEIR kid.

[stellanoir]

9. legalizing non psychoactive hemp is the only way. . .

we will be able to redeem our culture and our economy.

Legalize the good stuff later. Just to save family farms, growing hemp for paper, fabric, and rope would help so many.

But under the control of the powers that be, it's far fetched at best.

The strangest thing I've heard about it recently is that those sufferring from terminal diseases when prescibed refined pharmaceutical THC say that it's too strong and they can't function or self regulate (unlike the polluters). They'd rather smoke a joint. So the active ingredient in marijuana is legal, but only when refined by pharmaceutical companies, but the weed is not. Dumb, dumb, dumb. . .

[Serenity-NOW]

13. ding ding ding! FINALLY!!

I've been lobbying my less than effectual Central committee on exactly this issue out here as a way to a) create jobs and b) reduce dependancy and c) utilize the most patriotic plant known to the USA. Seems like a real no-brainer but it falls on mostly deaf ears.

My pet projects locally:

1) mobilize voters to defeat curious george
2) utilize rice straw for housing
3) grow industrial hemp
4) GO SOLAR

[cmf]

14. The right to consume

It seems like this is the only right that most Americans care about these days. The right to buy anything they want to. Who cares about freedom of speech or a right to not be spied on by the government? If we're not doing anything wrong, then what do we have to worry about? As long as we can drive our H2's, then everything will be a-ok. :puke: The consumerism so rampant here makes me sick.

[prodigal_green]

15. lower sperm count too

the prevalence of plastics has been linked to lower sperm counts in males of all species because the certain chemicals behave as pseudo-estrogens.

So, you see, the problem is self-healing: if we keep using plastic and petrochemicals, there will be fewer of us to use it and in the end, less plastic consumed.

[Eurobabe]

16. not only that but uptick in thyroid problems

because of the endocrine disruptors in plastic.

[Mari333]

17. back in the 50s

when I was a kid, post WW2, is when convenience and plastic materials made their big boom. The war dept didnt know what to do with all those chemicals, so they made the USA dependent on them by forging them into products. Now we are so dependent on them we dont know what to do without them. When I go into a mall (which I dont anymore) I always see the beginning of a landfill. same thing when I go into a store. I know the stuff will be garbage someday.
and US citizens want to kill for this? they dont mind their own sons and daughters dying for this? or other people dying?
they continue to WANT to be dependent on the Mideast oil..the only way to wake them up is to either draft their sons and daughters for the oil war, or tell them upfront...You want to get out of the Middle East problems? change how you live

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. Yeah, I am trying to cut back on plastic and paper products

It's tough, though. And just going shopping is a haul in the car. We live 40 minuted from the nearest good-size grocery store.

[Mari333]

21. I know its hard, its like we are set up to fail for corporate profits

get cloth bags, bring groceries home in them. save the old plastic bags, reuse them. use waxed paper instead of plastic. buy in bulk, which saves on the driving time, stuff like that.
I think people can do it, and it would probably save a hell of a lot moneywise for people, plus if it were touted as patriotic NOT to be dependent on ME oil, people might change.