Why I drive - thoughts after a road trip

            Recently completed a cross-country road trip, pleasure being ancillary.  My fellow travelers and I were at times outnumbered by hurtling trucks operating under business mandates.  We cast up our exhaust naively, our relation to the greater world intangible to our minds but still deliberately obscured by those operating according to the business prerogative.  We passed or were passed by cars from distant states, the people inside sometimes engaged in happy and animated conversations.  Other outsiders we pass have grim-set faces as though travelling towards some unwanted task.

            Many of the out of state people including us are chasing opportunities, performing business only in a different way than the truckers.

            Consider what is wrought in the name of the auto.  We’ve weaved asphalt ribbons across the country, fetish objects derived from Middle Eastern tars.  The ancients in Iraq used this resource too, ruins today featuring bitumen used as a sealant.  In the open farmland of Nebraska the farms all rely on fossil fuels to run their farm equipment and fertilize their crops.  The landscape could not exist as it does without oil.

            Why question driving?  My Catholic background must bear the appropriate blame: guilt may be the result sundry actions.  The environmental movement is the updated guilt-bringer – perhaps you’ve felt it, the twinge when throwing away (like, in the trash) a plastic bottle or aluminum can.  In eliciting a response the greens are as successful as the Kochs.

            I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that imperialist hardships imposed abroad correlate to greater freedom at home.  The control and manipulation of other countries has provided an unparalleled lifestyle that feels good to live, though of course I am questioning it – founding something good on a crime is bad.  Ignorance is washed away and no foundation for an argument.  That a crime has occurred is not mitigated by degree of severity and some of the crimes are great.  How do you differentiate between a foreign policy that kills, like pre-2003 sanctions on Iraq, and policies strictly for monetary benefit – well in the case of Iraq our policy to bring Saddam to heel was ultimately related to oil, money and control.

            Driving settles down into the background of our daily lives – traffic conditions are talked about in the breath after an observation of the weather.  Drive times are calculated into many decisions.  When deciding where to work, where to live, where to recreate – perhaps the need to drive, the hassle or potential hassle of it, is an inducement to stay home and watch TV.  Houses have become our “third place” – instead of restaurants or cafes we have our well-equipped and stocked-with-brand-name-frozen-meals kitchens.  Fitness gyms are incorporated into people’s homes.  Most popular and what is most used is the home theater – trips out to real theaters just practice for the appreciation done at home.

            Who would volunteer to be car-less?  Who doesn’t have far-flung family members?  Fuel has proved to be in this case a tax on the human heart – hard to countermand something if it is right on this level.  I will not stop driving.  I will appreciate what it brings and continue to be aware of what goes on in the world to allow for this gift.

DeChristopher compared with David Icke and his ilk (but hey, I like Icke!)

   

            Could there possibly be a link between Tim DeChristopher and David Icke?  Perhaps similarities – both are fighting an organization (perhaps a loose but effective organization in TDC’s case and a concentrated and effective organization in DI’s case) that is bent on running the world while also destroying the world.  Both have clear outlines of actions needed to be done in order to stop this organization.  Both see an end game of strife and population loss.
 

             Tim DeChristopher: climate activist.

 

             David Icke: proponent of radical views that fall under the aegis of conspiracies.

            Must say that Tim D is much more rational – in the sense of the word rational intending prosaicness.  Do corporations want to reduce the population of the world in a focused and genocidal set of plans?  For Tim D and for most people if population decline happens it will be merely a byproduct of inattentiveness to climate/environmental concerns.  People will die if the too-big-to-fail food chain suffers and major disruptions occur via, say, drought or extreme weather events.  Any human misery will be the cause of corporate overreach and the collusion between corporations and consumers that sees people (right now corporations fall under this purview) not planning for the future and only thinking about their next paycheck whether it be to have money to buy that new consumer product or to have money to simply survive.  The world is a complex system run by people with an understandably small capacity for foresight and a very large capacity for greed.

            That the world is complex, perhaps David Icke would not argue.  That there is a guiding hand behind that complexity, however, is what he has staked his career and reputation on.  A DeChristopherian, prosaic worldview would posit corporate rule based on directed corporate action to raise profits/please shareholders/subvert democratic processes.  Icke sees a malign group of people associated with secret societies whom are aligned with otherworldly, demonic actors bent on evil and control.  A prosaic, but still radical view, sees corn syrup added to the food supply to boost corporate profits, the health of the consumer be damned.  On the other hand, folks in David Icke’s coterie see the introduction of corn syrup (and any other food additive – or even chemtrails) as a means of intentionally killing off a large part of the population.

            Re: population decimation, the perceived stakes of Tim and David are equally high.  But they care, both of them.  They care about the present population and care for everyone comprising it.  DeChristopher is actually going to seminary to, in part I’m sure, better understand the moral dimension of the climate argument.  David Icke has us all being connected by cosmic thread – a cosmic thread in need of defense against evil.

            Let’s take an agnostic view.  Let’s hold judgment on Tim and David’s views – chances are most Americans do this already.  The roads that these two gentlemen take are different, separate roads, neither travelled by many folks.  And understanding their views is one thing – living in a way that addresses the issues raised is another.  DeChristopher and Icke both walk the walk.  Interesting the answer to the question that will be asked of both: “Was he right?”.