Comments on: Obama: America “Cannot Walk Away” From the Automobile

By: Spokker

Spokker — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:08:20 +0000

You may not like it. I may not like it. But if the man wants votes and a chance at a second term, he’s not going to tell Americans they might someday have to give up their cars when oil runs out and suburbia becomes unsustainable.

By: david_p

david_p — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:34:36 +0000

i plan to bike as far away from the automobile as i possibly can. i really like obama. a lot. he is a politician. he has a job to do. part of his job is to protect tons of american communities that thrive on the automobile industry.

if the bicycle industry were as important and politically organized as the automakers, you bet your sweet little brooks he’d be pandering to them.

it’s just reality. there are tons of great, honest, hard working people that work for crappy, crappy car companies. part of what makes america great is that we care about each other (or should). obama is doing his best to watch out for them, i think.

By: ubrayj02

ubrayj02 — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:23:28 +0000

The speech didn’t show me whether he “got it” or not. It showed just how trapped our political leadership is to the the way things have been in the 20th century.

The only “problems” that this mindset sees with the world are that things are changing, and so the “solutions” all have to do with making things go back to the way they were.

Our economy needs an ever growing source of energy to keep growing as it has. That source doesn’t exist. Somehow we’ll invent our way out of that one with billions to put algae poop in our gas tanks. No mention of ditching the high energy requirements our economy has.

We grow food using cheap fossil fuel, and have paved over prime agricultural land to build houses that are practically worthless without cheap fossil fuel. No mention of the U.S. massive industrial agricultural subsidies or suburban living arrangement.

I think it amounts to this: we’re going to be taxed in a post-carbon world (taxed by the government and by circumstances) to prop up an oil-era lifestyle and economy until we’ve totally destroyed our chances of keeping a moderately high standard of living for our descendants.

I am sick of hearing about all the homeowner entitlement programs! When will renting get the subsidies it deserves? When will moving closer to where you work become a tax benefit? When will riding a bike cut you more slack than owning a car? That would be change. This speech sounded like a lot of baloney to me.

By: nobody

nobody — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:56:01 +0000

I doubt he gets it, he never seemed to care about it. Even though he lived in Chicago, he definitely lived in the one area of inner city Chicago not really served by the el. Hence, he might give some money for mass transit, but not nearly enough to expand it (though I think he may help become responsible for the beginnings of a nationwide ‘high speed rail’).

By: Will Campbell

Will Campbell — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:51:52 +0000

I think Germany might have something to say about Obama’s contention that America invented the automobile. This may be the country that invented the automobile’s mass production, but it’s generally agreed that Karl Benz created the first gas-powered automobile in the mid 1880s.

By: Steve K.

Steve K. — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:42:58 +0000

I was extremely pleased with the speech. It’s been a long time coming. You may think it’s a bad thing he only mentioned mass transit once, but that’s already one more time than I’ve ever heard from a President before. That means it IS on his agenda. It’s only been a month on the job so far!

By: David Galvan

David Galvan — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:59:35 +0000

I was disappointed he didn’t mention mass transit more than that one time at the beginning. Was hoping he would get to it in his energy discussion. Specifically, I was at least expecting him to mention high-speed rail, since it was his office that pushed for the $8B in the stimulus package. . . but he made not a peep about it. Maybe because the Republicans have jumped on it as something they think of as pork, as wrong as they may be (McCain has been quoted as saying he’s angry that the extra money will all be used to fund a “light rail” between L.A. and Las Vegas. . . so he’s wrong on the facts, and doesn’t even know what mode of transportation he’s talking about. . . glad HE’s not president.).

I still have hope that he “gets it”, but I’m disappointed he didn’t talk about transit or HSR in the speech. Everything he did talk about deserved the priority it got, and he seems to be focussing his energy policy on modernizing the electric grid. But I no longer think the rumors of him making HSR a “signature policy” of his administration are true.

Still, in the end the speech itself doesn’t matter all that much. As a friend of mine once said: “If you want to know what this country cares about, watch the money. Everything else is just air moving.”