Tonight ABC News aired a feature about "America's best-selling car." Um, except it's not a car.
And that's the problem.
Mitt Romney and John McCain and Mike Huckabee are traversing Michigan talking jobs, tring to coax votes in tomorrow's Republican presidential primary. (That's funny: millionaire, starched-shirt Republicans talking to laid-off workers.). So, ABC figured they'd take us to the assembly line of "America's best-selling car." The bit, linked above as a video clip, depicts hard-working folks, and smart technology. I have no problem with any of that. (ABC News's "24" segments are a good approach, in theory.) Both of my parents worked in factories, and they had to quit school after eighth grade during the Great Depression. I don't belittle or demean the workers or what they do. I myself have worked in a factory. Tough stuff. Or unbearably tedious. Or dangerous (my mother got her arm ripped in a machine the plant was trying out; human guinea pigs. They docked her pay for going to the doctor's. Really. This was not 1898, the Age of the Robber Barons. This was a shop with a union in the early 1980s, for God's sake!).
My whole problem is what the story did not say. Why is Ford now trailing Toyota? Why are people losing jobs? Why are politicians lying when they promise they can redeem Detroit from its woes? Why was none of this asked?
How long does everyone think a TRUCK will remain Ford's best-selling vehicle? And why should a truck be America's best-selling vehicle?
I don't get it. Oh sure. Some people have a real need for this vehicle and its strength and power and gas-guzzlingness and its fortresslike protection and its virile potency. But most people don't. And our politicians (except for Bill Richardson, who has dropped out of the race) pander to the public by decrying so-called soaring gas prices (soaring compared to what? based on what value? still cheap compared to thrifty Europe), a mythos perpetuated by the word choices of newscasters and news writers.
My neighbor across the street loves his beautiful F-150. Loves it.
But I certainly don't see him hauling timber or cinder blocks every weekend.
It's all about a John Wayne fantasy of manliness (many women want to partake of the same fantasy), and Manifest Destiny and power and strength and indomitable force and We Are Number One and Who Are You to Suggest Otherwise, It's My Right, Title, and Heir.
Illusion. Illusion. Illusion. Illusions blessed and endorsed by our politicians and entertainment barons (it ain't news, really). They dare not offend our fantasies or break the spell of our collective psychosis.
So, it isn't what the so-called news says, as much as what it doesn't say or how it says it.
And to think, people think there's a liberal media bias. The media is too lazy to have a bias (or for some traditional grammarians: "The media are...").
There. I feel better. But only slightly. Because nothing was accomplished by this. Nothing at all.
(For the record, I own a 1999 Ford Contour with 93,700 miles and my car before that was a Ford Escort station wagon and my son owns a 2006 Ford Focus.)
7 comments:
If you feel better, something was indeed accomplished.
Patti,
Perhaps so, perhaps so; keeps one from going so-called postal. Man! I just posted, and ZAP! a comment from you. BTW, I did think of Ralph and his need for a certain type of vehicle to accommodate his wheelchair.
thank you, PK, for thinking of his need - he would not be able to go anywhere without that honking thing.
He'd have to call paratransit (shudder). Been there, done that.
I've never driven it, only backed it out of parking spaces when moronic drivers park right next to the doors that the lift comes out of, despite a sign telling them not to...
I'm with you - America's attitude towards the motor car is a scourge on this planet. Those stupid trucks are increasingly seen over here and I hate them with a passion. At least some London boroughs make them pay more for their parking permits and congestion charge, but the government is still pissing about with taxing them to kingdom come.
Puss
america's love with the automobile started with mr.ford way back when and has been perpetuated with this consumerism society...mtv generation of i want it now and no one can tell me any different - the isolation of the family that included the grandparent in the home or close by...ahh now my head wants to explode..smile
BTW - i drive a VW jetta TDI filled with biodiesel...and my child who owns his own cabinetry business drive a ford biodiesel truck
Never truer words spoken..well, probably. Anyway, living "up north" there are many people that actually need trucks or larger 4-wheel drive vehicles - one of the farmer's friends, I've been told. However, real estate slime - er - sales people who live just outside of town do not need Hummers to drive to work.
I will admit to loving fast cars - which are usually gas eaters - and now drive a van that can hold 6. I combine my short trips and drive only when necessary so I can get the 25mpg.
My grand-dad worked in the mines and was very pro-union and never voted Republican. He, like you, wanted to know how someone who didn't have to raise his own food and who had a maid to iron his shirts could understand the difficulties of those who had to decide whether to feed his family or get new tires for his car.
Thank you for allowing me to rant.
Good for people to know.
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