Yesterday we saw a Ford Excursion that looked much like the one in the picture. It had a significant lift kit raising it to tower over the cars around it. It sported a huge brush guard made of several hundred pounds of welded steel. This machine was truly a weapon of mass destruction. What possible other use could it have?
This machine shows a lot about the individual who owns and drives it. Lack of empathy. This person has a total disregard for the safety with whom he shares the road. The attached photograph shows the result when an Excursion deliberately climbs on top of what appears to be a relatively large car. What happens in a high-speed collision with a smaller car?
The owners of large SUVs and trucks often cite safety as the reason they drive such a large vehicle. However, vehicle safety studies have proven that in single-car accidents, SUVs are less safe than cars because the increased risk of turn-over accidents – a relatively dangerous type of accident. Another extremely form of accident is the side-impact. In these, the occupants of the vehicle that is hit has virtually no chance of survival.
These grotesque cars are a metaphor … no … more like a symptom of what ails America. That vehicle made me realize the reason I will leave the US if George W. Bush wins re-election. It is because such an election result shows that the arrogance, ignorance, selfishness, stupidity, and callousness exemplified by the owner of that monstrous Excursion we saw at the Central Market parking lot. The mindset that makes it OK to drive around in vehicles that destroy the environment, use up an unconscionable amount of natural resources, and is obviously unsafe to everyone that shares the road with it is the same mindset that makes it OK to vote for George Bush. Because nothing shows more about how selfish you are (if you actually have an economic benefit from a Bush administration – something that would require that you are pretty much in the top 1% of wealth), or how ignorant you, You blindly look the other way as the Halliburton goons rob our country, destroy our relationship with our allies, prosecute personal vendettas at the expense of over a 1000 US military lives and tens-of-thousands of Iraqi lives, and curtail the civil liberties that generations of American soldiers, lawyers, protesters, and politicians have fought for. And you don’t care a scintilla for the environment. Nor do you care about the welfare of your fellow Americans who have lost theirs jobs and don’t have insurance. That is what this election is about. In a nutshell, its about preservation of selfish interests for the few at the expense of the safety and welfare of the environment and fellow human beings, on the one hand, or building an America where the environment is safeguarded and nurtured, where the safety and welfare of fellow citizens is protected, where civil rights we take for granted as US citizens are not curtailed, on the other hand.
If you vote for Bush you are simply an arrogant callous selfish individual without a scintilla of care for your fellow human being, American or foreign, the civil rights that are the core of American values, the environment of the world we inhabit. If you are in the rich minority who would actually benefit from the re-election of the president, Shame on you! If you are not in that privileged minority of the super rich, well then you are just plain dumb. Shame on you, all the same!
Just as I shriek in disgust and fear when I see a Ford F-350 4x4 or Ford Excursion or Chevy Suburban or, especially, a Hummer H2 barreling down the highway into my rear-view mirror, I shutter at the thought of having to share a country with people who consciously vote for George Bush. I’ll leave. Hopefully, the family I wish to protect from the selfish bastards who put grotesquely unsafe SUVs on the road and from the selfish bastards that will take my tax dollars to enrich Halliburton while killing Iraqis, will come with me. For no more do I wish to share the road with a Hummer than with a person who votes for a W.
Or we can fight back. We shouldn't have to tolerate SUVs with rigid grill guards. Something that the driver of this vehicle has now learned the hard way. Is there a political metafor there too? (All joking aside: this is actually how our allies the Israeli military deal with Palestinians who drive around in vehicles with rigid grill guards.)
