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http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/08/20_fumes.htmlThe rising price of gasoline troubles Americans, because it threatens our sustaining, cultural illusion of our freedom of mobility -- a commercial con job that, over time, has served to transform us from the citizens of a sprawling republic into de facto slaves of the corporate classes. Our masters have the mobility -- we have a long commute.
How, in any way, shape, or form, are American freeways free?
A commuter has as much liberty languishing in a traffic jam, as does a cow in a cattle drive. Incongruously, large numbers of Americans continue to see themselves as cowboys -- as, all the while, they allow themselves to be prodded along like cattle. Though they may see themselves as rugged individualists, riding over the expanse of the open prairie, their corporate cattle masters see them as mere commodities on the hoof whose hides and hinds only exist for their value on the so-called open market.
Interstate travel is emblematic of the manner by which an oil dependent existence has dehumanized us all. For example, any situation, as is the case with interstate highway travel, in which, to momentarily stop, or even to slow down is to risk death, should be regarded as an affront (if not absolute anathema) to the mind, heart and soul. When the landscape, through which we pass, is reduced to a meaningless blur, our lives grow indistinct as well. We are incessantly told, and, sadly, far too many of us have been convinced, that the same disastrous fate will overtake us if the engines of global capitalism were to slow down even a bit. well done and chilling. give it a kick :kick:
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