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CounterPunch
January
31, 2003
Blaming
Consumers for Capitalism's Wars
Are SUVs the
Reason for Bush's Iraq War?
by PHIL GASPER
At the massive January 18 antiwar demonstration
in San Francisco, demonstrators from a group called Environmentalists
Against the War carried placards blaming Sports Utility Vehicles
for the U.S. war drive against Iraq. "If War is Inevitable,
Start Drafting SUV Drivers Now!" said one sign. Another
showed a picture of a Ford Explorer and an oil drum, with the
slogan "Axle of Evil."
SUVs have come under attack from environmentalists
and other left-wing activists over the past few years--and not
only because these vehicles have become a status symbol for yuppies
flaunting their wealth.
Most SUVs are inefficient gas guzzlers
that produce disproportionately high amounts of carbon dioxide,
the main cause of global warming. According to the Sierra Club,
SUVs "spew out 43 percent more global-warming pollution
and 47 percent more air pollution than an average car."
And in his recent book High and Mighty,
journalist Keith Bradsher reports that SUVs "roll over too
easily, killing and injuring occupants at an alarming rate, and
are dangerous to other road users, inflicting catastrophic damage
to cars that they hit and posing a lethal threat to pedestrians."
Last month, Jeffrey Runge, administrator
of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said that
some SUVs are so dangerous he wouldn't ride in them "if
they were the last vehicles on earth."
But some critics have gone further. In
January, the Detroit Project--a group spearheaded by columnist
Arianna Huffington--produced two TV ads blasting SUV drivers
for damaging national security, on the grounds that money spent
on gas for the vehicles goes to Middle Eastern oil-producing
states that fund terrorists.
The ads were partly intended to mock
those silly government public service announcements that claim
drug users fund terrorism. But intentionally or not, the Detroit
Project ads promote a racist stereotype that Middle Easterners
are terrorists.
Underlying both the Detroit Project and
the sentiments of demonstrators who carried anti-SUV signs at
the January 18 demonstration is the belief that the Bush administration's
war on Iraq is motivated in part by a need to grab Iraq's oil
resources so SUV drivers can keep their vehicles on the road.
But pointing the finger at SUVs is wrong
for two reasons. In the first place, this faults consumers, rather
than auto manufacturers and oil companies, for the fact that
SUVs are inefficient. We desperately need more efficient methods
of transportation. But the big auto and oil companies contribute
millions of dollars to both Democrats and Republicans to prevent
the passage of tougher fuel efficiency requirements and air pollution
standards.
In addition, the U.S. "automobile-industrial
complex" has worked hard to undermine public transit and
research into renewable energy. And because auto companies earn
80 percent of their profits from SUVs and other light trucks,
they advertise them relentlessly to convince people to buy them.
If we're going to draft anybody first, perhaps it should be the
auto and oil executives.
But there's a second misconception behind
the idea that this is a war for SUV drivers. It is undoubtedly
true that a large part of the Bush administration's motivation
for going to war with Iraq is increasing U.S. control over Middle
Eastern oil resources. But this isn't primarily to satisfy the
needs of U.S. consumers.
Oil is the most important commodity in
the world, vital for both industry and the military. Even when
consumer demand was much lower, Washington still wanted to control
the world's oil supplies. In the 1940s, the State Department
described the Middle East's oil as "a stupendous source
of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in
world history." This is the reason why the U.S. has intervened
repeatedly in the Middle East over the past half century.
Capitalist economies aren't driven by
consumer demand, but by the need of capitalists to make profits.
If we want to change the nature of the system--including its
tendency to destroy the environment and its drive towards war--we
need to change the way production is organized, not point moralistic
fingers at SUV drivers or other consumers.
Phil Gasper
writes for the Socialist
Worker.
Yesterday's
Features
Muqtedar Khan
Heavy
Rhetoric, Wistful Thinking and Hydrogen Cars: a response to Bush's
State of the Union
William Hughes
An
Open Letter to France:
Justice is On Your Side
David Wilson
Meet
the Gloucester Weapons Inspectors: the Protest at the Fairford
Stealth Bomber Base
Anthony Gancarski
Free
Press? "There's No Damn Thing"
Josh Frank
Who Would Jesus Bomb?: 10 Reasons to Oppose War on Iraq
Abu Spinoza
Iraq: Web Resources
Dr. Gerry Lower
Class Warfare Against the Poor
Natalie Johnson Lee
Green
Party Response to Bush's State of the Union
Russell Mokhiber and
Robert Weissman
Stealing Money from Kids
Maria Tomchick
Bush's Smallpox Boondoggle
Paul di Rooij
War: It's Already Started
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