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An Angry Car-Hater Responds

ETS!,

To force people out of cars is not going to work?! Considering just this one little point in the big issue of cars, capitalist lifestyle, and the effects our behavior has on the rest of the planet and its inhabitants, let me just say this: While we can't even just once a week walk one inch to the next corner shop, most people on the planet are glad to reach clean drinking water, many with a bucket in their hand and on foot (and I am not deeply going into the subject on why some of us are more privileged to exploit people and planet than others).

To say it is impractical to get people out of their cars is utterly selfish, white capitalist thinking. Yes, WHO ARE WE TO CHANGE? It is so easy to rely on alternative fuels as a way out since it does not involve altering our lifestyle and way of thinking. After all, we are the small workers, the little people for nothing to blame, it is all the big fat oil and car corporations fault, the pollution, the war...they should provide us with cars running on carrot juice and we would gladly be good global citizens, but sorry, no one can touch our relationship with cars or we go mental. If you ever end up being "dragged kicking and screaming into public transit," why don't you think for one second and then be grateful you do not have to walk?

Too privileged to think.

Johanna, carless survivor of Seattle

G.P. responds: Hey, Johanna, congratulations! You're carless! You're obviously morally far superior to me. At the moment I have a catheter. I'm a double-organ transplant survivor, and facing additional major surgery. If you think that makes me a selfish white capitalist: FUCK. YOU.

You missed my point entirely. I said many folks wouldn't give up their cars; you've made an excellent moral case (with which I agree) for why they should. Big difference. To pick another random example, morals don't put food on the table, and if I have a working class job in Seattle, and kids (which makes house-sharing or apartment-sharing problematic), the most affordable housing is in the burbs, 20 or more miles away, not in Seattle. If the suburban bus routes aren't convenient (and many of them aren't), forget it. And if the kids have to come along, or there are heavy packages to haul? You know the answer. As is, "all" I'm saving on my KBCS trips is a fair amount of physical distress and a third of my day's waking hours spent riding a bus.

Yeah, we norteamericanos have a lot of privilege, extracted from the blood of the planet and the rest of its peoples. That awareness, in itself, will change the behavior of very few people. I'm guessing that you're under 50, healthy, and are raising two or few (probably no) kids. That's privilege, too. So stop sneering, and start thinking about helping to design transit solutions for our region, geography, and economy as they currently exist, privileged history and all. That includes trying to get people out of cars, sure; but it also has to include solutions for the many, many folks who can't or won't.

The Tunnel and the Canal

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the proposed waterfront tunnel and the proposed expansion of the Panama Canal (complete with a third set of locks) both carry about the same $5 billion price tag? (Give or take a hundred mil or so?)

And as a daily traveler through the never-ending, never-progressing light rail construction mess on Martin Luther King Way; I couldn't help but think after I saw the Rolling Stones show last month that if Mick Jagger and his crew of 500 construction workers were working for Sound Transit instead of being on tour, the MLK Boulevard would be finished by now.

The only thing that is clear in all this is that drug use apparently has not waned. -Ben Schroeter, Seattle

G.P. responds: If the residents along MLK Blvd. were primarily white, it would be finished by now.

Is This One of These Furriners Trying to Vote?

G'day ETS!,

I want to thank you for continuing with your voters guide. As I now live in Australia and am far removed from the daily hype on the Seattle streets, I rely (as you say not to) on your information. I figure that I've "done my research" by having read your paper for well over five years. I usually agree or empathize with ETS! so reckon you won't lead me too far astray. I'm looking forward to next year's vote. Cheers,

-Morgen

How Not To Support Troops

Editor,

So Kerry made a really stupid comment this week. But we can't let Bush claim the high ground on supporting the Troops. Here's his record:

* Not sending enough in the first place to secure the country. No guarantees, but there were plenty of people in State who warned against it, and analyses that showed what happens if you don't have enough.

* Framing the body armor issue as "you have to go with what you have." Maybe so. But no effort by the administration or DoD to do anything until the soldier broke the story. But then where was the effort to respond? It got bogged down because leaders didn't really care. Most recently, the Pentagon implemented the new rule "families can no longer send armor."

* Efforts to cut back on veterans' benefits.

* No request of us civilians to do anything whatsoever to sacrifice-even if token-on behalf of soldiers.

* Demonizing grieving moms (e.g., Cindy Sheehan).

* Hiding flag draped coffins from the press; criminalizing photos thereof. Oh yes: choosing war as the first, instead of the last, option. I think we can conclude that Bush and Rumsfield don't care about the troops and anytime they claim they do, it's very cynical on their part. They only care about the symbolism of 'troops." They are more focused on the political outcomes.

-Kim Gould, Seattle