There are massive entitlement programs and public subsidy for car driving that are overlooked routinely in the press and in the halls of power.

awesome idea.

the problem with the blog is you can't have a REAL conversation, cause in the real world I would have said "Carmax/donation" and you would have said "still supports car culture (though maybe not the donation, cause maybe it goes for the blind or something and they can't drive and only benefit from taking cars off the road; though it's debatable)" and then I would have said, "we'll then scrap it" and you would have said "that's what I was thinking!" and it would have been great.

yo so I've been 100% down with this idea the whole time (on my last bike I had this awesome hand made "Kill your Car/Build a Bike" sticker) and I get the premise behind it. Just thought it could be cradle-to-cradled, you know, complete. But you're on it. Keep stickin it to em, Browne.

I'll supply the ears and tail or maybe I can find a couple of dead rats to attach to the licker like a hat.

"Red Section, will start this Sunday, December 28, @ 6PM. Since we keep The Loft locked up during events, if you’re interested in attending, be there between 5:45 & 6 PM, when we’ll have the loading dock door open. If you arrive late, no worries, just call the number posted on the door and someone will come down and let you in. Access to the loading dock is on 4th Street, you can’t miss it, and there’s plenty of parking. If you only want to come to the second show, we’ll have the door downstairs open again at 7:45 - 8 PM, also, or you can just call up and we’ll open the door for you.

The films are free, and we’ll have snacks, a little booze and hot tea. It wasn’t actually that chilly in the Loft, but if the weather is cold, bring a jacket or a warm buddy."

http://xrl.us/beasjo

http://www.the-loft.net/

Browne

We have the same addiction. Bring a meal from the place that is causing you grief and I will smash it on the floor. To keep if from being wasteful I will leave the door open so the rats and roaches can partake in a meal after my performance. Or anyone who is willing to put on rat ears and a rat tail can lick it off the floor.

Browne

As far as performance art goes dismantling a car or smashing it up with a sledgehammer is hardly anything to get upset about. Chris Burden nailed himself to a Volkswagen, there's Ron Athey, and then there was those crazy Viennese Actionists.

It is one freakin car. It's not cars. If the idea of the car is that precious to you that me destroying one person who volunteers their car causes you some kind of alarm, I think you should sue GM and Ford for brainwashing you.

Show me anywhere online on my blog where I have ever said anything bad about people simply because they drive cars? I have always been about pointing out the truth in regards to Metro, corporation and capitalism.

Now on to my response to Ramonchu.

"Violence is violent, and though my anarchist teachings tell me "the urge to destroy is the urge to create", I can't help but think destruction able to take many, anti-violent forms. " ramonchu

I see your point, but if I'm creating something by destroying something that's not being wasteful or violent. I’m creating a conversation. And a conversation is something. Conversations are very valuable.

Yes I used a violent term, but sometimes strong language is needed in having a real conversation. Too many times we tiptoe around an issue and for what? To me politicized (not pc, but politicized to not be offensive) language in the long-term is more literally violent than the truth.

I use the term murder, because it is intentional (and goes with the post-post apocalypse theme, this is a group show, got to stick with the theme) and it is a short way of saying, "Hey I don't like you." And I don't like the car. I don't want to have a conversation with the car or for the car to act nicer, I just don't want the car around.

I want to create a dialogue on car culture. That's what I am trying to create. Maybe you don't agree with my way and you expressing that may make me think about more solutions, because I admit I throw an excellent party, but I do a bad job at cleaning up afterwards. Maybe I will inspire you to come up with your own way. (Maybe you can work on an actual concrete way to clean up the party after I'm done...)

These are all good things.

The turning the car into a benevolent tool has been marketed enough. The car doesn't love you. Car companies don't care about you.

I want to steer the conversation more to, cars are hurting the planet, sprawl that is created because of the idea that we all should have cars is bad and what can we do to stop this. What can we do to make sustainble living more inclusive and accessible?

There are plenty of people having the alt fuel and better gas mileage conversation and they have way more money (because the car industry will fund them) than the people who just don't see the car as a tool for anything good at all.

I don't like the direction that the alt transportation movement is going. I don't like this electric car, diesel car, borrow a car kind of mentality. To me that's like being a vegetarian who eats chicken.

Now LA is not at the point where everyone can not use a car (I am not talking to a the person who lives in the suburbs with little babies and a job that takes them two hours to get there and I think that’s vastly different that the vast majority of the people in this movement who go after that person as an easy target) but we're at a place where people who have professional jobs in the arts, media, education who live near downtown, Hollywood, parts of Pasadena and Santa Monica don't need to use a car. And I'm challenging that childless, local foody, claims to be green, pointing their finger and saying what other people should do to stop using their car (and borrowing their friend's car.)

If you are a democrat and you talk about green this and green that I'm challenging you to get rid of your car or stop beating us over the head with your green washing bs.

I've been in a car a total of at the most seven times this year and that's including cabs. My goal next year is to never step foot in a private vehicle.

I have a job where I travel. I travel from downtown to as far as Covina, Palos Verdes and Tujunga, if I can get around in this city without a car the person I described can get by in LA without a car.

Now as far as my murder your car project, well if I get a car (damn the gas prices for going down) I'm not going to blow it up. I'll just take it apart and possibly give the parts to an indy junkyard or possibly LA Trade Tech, I know they have an auto mechanic training program, but as far as me giving a car or selling a car to a place that encourages car ownership and that's all, well I can't do that.

I am pretty adamant about not allowing people (corporations) who do bad things the opportunity to use me in Green Washing activities.

If someone is going to give me their car to murder, it's probably going to be a car that if I gave it to someone or anyone gave it to anyone would cause that person more problems.

So the short answer to you question am I going to destroy the car and just throw it in the trash, no, but I will cut up your credit cards, fashion magazines, designer status shoes and clothes (i don't believe in providing needy people with status items.) Don't worry, I will use that for future art projects so it won't go in the trash.

Keep in mind my politics is encouraging conversations through my art and writing. I'm not very skilled in doing anything beyond that, which is why BusTard's suggestion that Metro hire me for anything is pretty much an impossibility. Unless they wanted me to create some kind of anti-car marketing campaign that would probably be tainted with some kind of vile kid unfriendly images.

Browne

To me, advocating mass transit is all about choice, and if people want to drive, that's their choice. With a viable alternative, many people will choose not to drive, and many people will.

I enjoy driving when the mood is right, when the purpose is right. I will not get rid of my '98 Honda Civic anytime soon, and that's my choice. I will continue to take the bus and the train for various reasons, and sometimes for no reason.

the thing i love about the internet is that paradoxically, although it opens up the entire world and all the people/things/ideas in it, it also elevates the micro-communal (here I am posting on a website about my neighborhood, about my lifestyle, with people very similar to myself and in close proximity); the idea seems to be "global-local", and I prefer the emphasis on local.

Consequently, I wanted to say something about the homogeneous blogosphere, but that's really another topic for another day. Quickly, see the "edupunk" buzzword/movement and perhaps, please, oh god, please, Obama's claim to bring broadband to all communities.

Ok, so what I really wanted to put out there (as per her own request), was a suggestion for Browne's car-kill project, her protest-piece against car culture.

Though I'm arguably the most rabid opponent of car culture, I remember the documentary "Who Killed Vincent Chin." The film is about a racist killing in Detroit in the 80's and peppered throughout the movie are scenes of out-of-work autoplant workers (relevant, as the man who "physically" murdered Vincent was just that) destroying newly imported, and out-selling-Detroit, Toyotas with sledgehammers.

Violence is violent, and though my anarchist teachings tell me "the urge to destroy is the urge to create", I can't help but think destruction able to take many, anti-violent forms.

This is a long way of saying, if she should find anyone willing to give her a car, I think Browne should donate it, or sell it at Carmax and put the money towards a good cause. This is because one of the most violent parts about consumer/car culture is the wasteful, throw-away pathology it feeds on and perpetuates, and so mimicking this would be, in Browne's case, counter productive.

Hoping to start a more pertinent and constructive, for Browne, dialogue (it is all about the process, RIGHT!?) so please respond...

If you're not part of the group that has dominated ever other group, then your voice certainly counts for a lot less, it would seem.

As a person who has done independently publishing (literary publishing, poetry, flash fiction etc...)the internet is awesome in getting info out and easier and cheaper. I still love paper though. Also I was talking to some people in parts of South LA and they told me they couldn't get high speed. That they pay for it, but can't get it at the highest levels, which means they can not get videos (you tube, daily motion) and graphic heavy sites take forever to load and that was shocking to me. That in LA there are portions of the city you can't reach. The people who I want very badly to reach.

And though I do like the ease of the internet, it's the perspective that I have an issue with. Even though I feel I'm very progressive and the internet is filled with very progressive people (and conservative.) We're all sort of the same person. Yes maybe I'm a black woman, but I'm a black woman with a particular background. I can't write on everything from every perspective without it being slightly tainted by my class and educational background. And of course it's always been like that in regards to who gets to be the purveyors of culture, but with the ease of the internet it seemed like you would have gotten a wider variety of voices, but as the internet is growing and matures it seems to be the same type of people who are allowed to have the loudest voice or any voice at all.

I’m a blogger. I'm a writer. I'm not trying to get into politics. I'm not a part of any organization. I'm not an expert. I am not in PR. I blog about (in an editorial manner) social justice and environmental issues. That is what I do. And people seem to go out of their way to not describe me in that way and I think it has to do with this idea that only certain people’s voices matter, even in the blogosphere.

Browne

Unless you've go disposable time and income, computer(s), digital cameras, audio equipment, and the expertise to put it all together, you're pretty much ass out in the cold with respect to blogging.

The upside is that access to a mass market (i.e. the entire world online) is a lot easier and cheaper than it has ever been before in the history of the world.

I spent months preparing to write a Wikipedia entry on "Bicycle Transportation planning in Los Angeles", before I had a kid and a small business. Now I can't dedicate any time to putting what I know and would like to share online.

Browne has a good handle, especially in that she comes from a higher-educated (she has a Master's degree), typical car-centric and upper-middle class demographic. Yet she has managed rather well, especially in that she has continued to further her education after having rid herself of a fine motor vehicle (back in 2006) and has since used Metro buses and trains—often at night on her way back from class.

If anything, Metro should hire her to do what its executives do not do, that Metro could get a feel for what public transit in Los Angeles is like for people who avoid the buses owing to the fear of riding the Shame Train.

Browne Molyneux
http://www.TheBusBench.com