Egads, he's so good he's scary! Mark Morford make's you glad you're not on his wrong side, especially when he writes as he does in his attack on the new Hummer, in fact on all SUVs, and the perverseness of the very small world which created and continues to crave such monstrosities.
The illustrated and documented essay ends,
Perhaps it is worth noting, in this time of imminent, useless war, when our country is being run by, essentially, a failed Texas oilman, that it might be about time to rethink our all-American, bigger-is-better, screw-the-environment, high-fivin', the-world-is-our-prison-bitch mentality.Footnote: Anyone who has been to Europe, Asia, or in fact anywhere outside this country, in recent years knows that there really is another way to design the automobile in the global climate of today, but we never see those solutions in the U.S. They're too small, we're told.Perhaps this is the ultimate reminder the Hummer makes so explicitly clear. Perhaps this is why the SUV itself is such the ideal ethical lightning rod in today's global climate.
For in truth, it is exactly the mentality that gave birth to the SUV and the Hummer in the first place -- the weak ego, the need to strut a phony toughness, the insecurity, the patriotic narcissism, the false sense that all is solid and protected and that we care for no one but ourselves -- that has turned us into what we are today.
Which is to say, the world's bully, the preemptive superpower aggressor, the Great Antagonist, the most openly reviled nation on the planet, equal parts loathed and bitterly envied and grudgingly feared and desperately in need of a long, deep sociopolitical colonic -- to say nothing of a nice bicycle.