This is an excerpt from an interview with James Kuntsler. the author of "The Long Emergency".  Though his cause has been Peak Oil, it's interesting to note what he has to say about how our leaders (on both sides) have ignored the redevelopment of our railroads to haul more passengers and freight. 

 

The full interview can be viewed at: http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/36308/

 

BA: For young progressives who want to slow the rate of global warming and want to strengthen American communities following the principles of new urbanism, it seems like such a colossal problem to tackle. What can our readers do on the local and national level to change this pattern of development?

 

JK: Okay, I will give you a very specific answer to that. And I preface it by saying that the political progressive wing of American politics really ought to be ashamed for being as feckless and foolish as it's been in the last several years by not paying attention to any of these issues. And, one of the signs of that is what I'm gonna say next. We have a railroad system in America that the Bolivians would be ashamed of. There isn't one thing we could do in this country that would have a greater impact on our oil use than restoring the American rail system to something like a European level of service. It's something that we know how to do, the infrastructure is laying out there waiting to be fixed and re-used, and the Democrats are not even talking about it -- and I'm a registered Democrat -- and it ticks me off. I would like to see the politically progressive kids out there start militating to restore the American railroad system. The fact that we're not even talking about that shows me how un-serious we are.

 

I have read Jim Kunstler's opinions in his books and his blog (Clusterfucknation) and he has pretty consistently advocated the view that rail and rail transit will play a huge role in any Peak Oil scenario. He is correct to point out that politicians (especially Democrats) don't seem to get it and keep on proposing "solutions" that are either a variant of the same old s____ or pandering.

 

Witness the latest statements USDOT Sec Mineta, who is calling for congestion solutions that are nothing more than more highways and airports with a few buses thrown in. Oh be still my beating heart. Aother idea floating around is the gas tax rebate. Republicans proposed a $100 rebate, only to be met with a Democratic counter proposal that calls for a $500 rebate. How nice. The Repubs are pandering and the Dems are treating us like a high price hooker. I feel like I'm being had by a snake oil salesman.

 

And where is the media??? Despite the obvious connection between extreme and increasing auto dependency and high oil prices, they have yet to look at anything other than ethanol or hybrids. Duh!

 

Meanwhile what could be at least a partial answer to the oil mess---the only one the gets us out of our cars---is ignored. Among land transportation, only rail can be powered by other fuels, an important advantage. We could be doing things like raising the gas tax to discourage unneccessary driving, while cutting income taxes to compensate. TEA-21 could be amended to emphasize fuel-efficient modes, we could take any number of small, intermediate steps to add train service or other approaches that would show the public the government is trying to address the problem,  but nooooooooo...

 

I am afraid that this nation is so dominated by oil industry types and highway lobbyists that we will crash head-on into a real Peak-Oil scenario totally unprepared. We will probably end up at war to assure a steady supply of oil for our addiction. Think Iraq was only about "regime change?" Think again.

 

The public isn't going to have much to say until things get really grim since they have been propagandized from birth that the SUV is synonomous with travel. "Transit? What's that?" At that point, public outrage might force those who favor the status quo to give in or be forced out, leading to wholesale change. For me, that day won't come a minute too soon.

 

 

Here is another commentary from Kunstler from his blog:

 

Progressism

 

Is it even possible these days to define a valid doctrine of political Progressivism? The notion of Progressivism per se really comes from that brief and amazing period in the early 20th century when technological advance was lifting so many out of misery that social justice actually began to seem a plausible political goal rather than an idealist fantasy, and social reformers raced to catch up with the advances of telephones, motorcars, and sanitary engineering.

 

    Progressivism also may have been fatally tied to the accompanying reality of robust industrial economic growth, which itself was tied to abundant new energy resources, mainly oil. The belief that more of everything would become available raised the moral issue of allocating it fairly. Since we now face declining energy resources, and perhaps long-range economic contraction, we would appear to also now face the awful task of allocating less of everything -- which may be as impossible in practice as it sounds.

 

    So the question now might be: what kind of economic justice is possible?

 

    The group that used to composed the broad American middle class of industrial workers and managers is disintegrating economically. What will concern them in the years just ahead will be their ability to barely hang on to what they've got, including the roofs over their heads and their health. They will be in no mood for a political movement that is preoccupied with pseudo-psychotherapeutic exercises in self-esteem building along racial and gender lines.

 

    Allocating scarcity will probably be impossible on the grand scale, which is the federal level. The Republicans have succeeded in recent year by enabling the allocation of false wealth, credit, but their ability to continue that will come to an end with the housing bubble implosion, which will destroy the presumed value of the main asset all that credit has gone into: suburban houses. When that happens, there will be nothing to allocate but grievance.

 

    True Progressivism sought justice in human affairs, that is, in socio-economic relations that people had some control over. What can we hope to control now? Not the price of oil in worldwide markets.

 

    The entire thrust of American life the past forty years has been toward the privatization of public goods. That is why suburbia will turn out to be such a fiasco -- because the public realm, and everything in it, was impoverished, turned into a universal automobile slum, while the private realm of the house and the car was exalted. The private goods of suburbia will now have to be

liquidated and we will be left with little more than parking lots and freeways too expensive to use.

 

    A true Progressivism of the years ahead has to begin by concerning itself with a redefinition of what our public goods really are -- and in practical, not abstract terms. That's why I harp on the project of restoring the railroad system. Not only will it benefit all classes of Americans in terms of sheer getting around, but it would put tens of thousands of people to work at something with real value. It would also begin the process of healing public space ravaged by cars for almost a hundred years.

 

    A true Progressivism would concern itself with the comprehensive reform of all land use laws, policies, codes, and tax incentives that promote more new car-dependent suburban development. A new Progressivism would put dwindling public monies into the re-activation of our harbors and shipping infrastructure. We're going to need it. It would direct remaining agricultural subsidies into explictly organic, local farming enterprises, not to the Archer Daniel Midland corporation. It would revive the legal practice of restricting monopolies in business. It has to lead us in the direction of making other arrangements for how we live.

 

    The obvious problem, of course, is that the American public doesn't want to make other arrangements. It wants desperately to hold onto the old arrangements. The nation is stuck with its enormous investments in car-dependency, and what has remained of our economy lately is devoted to creating even more of it -- in the face of signals that we won't be able to run it no matter how much people like it.

 

    Progress isn't what it used to be, and it isn't what it seems. If Americans get what they deserve they may give up on both progress and justice.

 

 

   

 

 

May 14, 2006 in Commentary on Current Events | Permalink | Comments (331)

Science Fiction

May 8, 2006

    Riding the van out of the airport Friday night to the Park-and-Fly lot, with the planes floating down in the distant violet