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Imagine how this would disempower landlords if you could commute to either of those cities from anywhere between them.
Car dependency is about power, it’s about keeping workers vulnerable and reliant on constant employment to participate in society. The one thing the US and Canada has over other imperial powers is the obscene amount of space each state has at its disposal within the metropole with which to construct what really is an exceptional form of oppression. It’s important to recognize that when you’re talking about ending car dependency, this is an existential threat to either power, and they will treat it in kind.
There is convenience in the ineptitude of neoliberal politics in state-planning and infrastructure, which most people attribute as the cause of this development, but it’s crucial to remember that suburban sprawl and car dependency were state projects by the US and Canada in very much they same way neoliberal privatization is.
America is just a collection of subscription fees you must pay in order to survive. You need a car, rent, groceries, and bills at the bare minimum so you must have a job or you will die in the street.
Yes, and it’s important to identify why that happens and how it functions, not satisfy ourselves with the certainty that it is bad, or unjust, or unreasonable; which many of these posts end up doing.
The US is the way it is because that is what settler-colonialism and capitalism require to continue. Even when there were periods of “reform,” such as the labour and state policies of the welfare liberal era in the 1930s-40s (which is how suburbanism and car dependency came about), or the civil rights movements of the mid- to late-twentieth century (which is how neoliberalism and the liberal appropriation of social justice was achieved), victories in reform are inevitably eroded by these fundamental imperatives.
you must have a job or you will die in the street
And here’s the punchline: no more jobs!
How will meaningless stuff get done to build disposable products?
It’s the same everywhere. Not just American thing.
Though capitalism is pervasive globally, I don’t think it’s necessary to narrow our understanding of its specificities within the US metropole to be able to discuss the commonalities globally.
Car dependency is certainly more prevalent within the US than it is the EU, but even it’s presence in either takes on different forms and performs different functions. And then, the car dependency in the US is different from colonized spaces in Latin America, or between Latin American settler-colonial states like Brazil or Argentina.
We have the same car dependency issues here in Australia. I tried to go without a car once, and then I realised it would take me 2 hours and 2 transfers to go to work instead of a 30 minute drive. And good luck going to any appointment; you end up taking a lot of taxis
yes, it happens in many places. Except, Australia has just under 30 million people in it, where the US has 350 million. Additionally, the US is where the car industry and car-centric city planning emerged, and it did so within the context of a culture with not only a settler-colonial incentive to dominate space, but also a significant population of other oppressed groups who posed a threat to white supremacy, like African Americans. Even though both the US and Australia engage in imperialism, the US has a much more expansive and pervasive imperial presence globally. Consequently, suburban sprawl was as much an element of white supremacy within the metropole as it was a military necessity once WWII concluded and the US state became anxious about decentralizing its manufacturing industries.
So, even though car dependency exists in other settler-colonial states, like Australia or Canada, the context and conditions under which that car dependency is created and functions is substantially different.
The advantage of having an advanced economy is that you don’t have to have people living by the rules of the jungle anymore.
And it’s all shit that should be paid for with our taxes. But instead, they need to use that money to bomb kids on the other side of the planet.
Car dependency is about power
BAM
Nice try, commie, but a train doesn’t help GMAC make more car loans, nor does it help Exxon-Mobil sell more gasoline. Worse still, if people are commuting together they might build community and solidarity and then how will we keep them all working for 1/10 of the value they produce, huh? Next time think about Wall St before you go suggesting crazy ideas like high speed rail!
You also forgot about the private interests in building the rail. We can’t have the government doing this, that’s insane. Instead we need to find a way to funnel money to Union Pacific so they park their 2 mile long cargo trains for 3 hours blocking all amtrak trains. Then they can keep collecting maintenance fees which they pocket for decades until a train derails, at which point they begrudgingly replace some of the rotting lumber that’s been there for 200 years.
That’s the true american capitalist way. Anything else is just too expensive.
As a Londoner I can tell you straight up that commuting together does not build community and solidarity
That’s because English. I’ve had very nice journeys where I’ve chatted with perfect strangers on Spanish trains, and to a lesser extent in other countries in Europe. You do want to understand the unspoken codes that signal “let’s talk” or “leave me the fuck alone”. Same happens in bars, for example. But yeah, my experiences in trains in Spain have been generally great, with the odd near horror story.
California: Hang on, we got another rich land owner suing us because the rail path would cut through their lucrative almond orchard that they pump ground water to use for flood irrigation because fuck you.
Hold on we have this super genius that says mood lit tunnels with Tesla’s in would be even cheaper and faster!
I have the utmost confidence in the TSAs ability to make rail stations just as bad as airports.
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They already do the inspections for rail stations and they’re about 1/10th as annoying and time-consuming as the ones for airports.
Trains just don’t have the capacity for a 9/11 so I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Trains just don’t have the capacity for a 9/11
Not to bring down buildings, but in terms of terrorism they sure do.
Any modern 9/11 attempt will be made by cargo jet. So protection against aircraft bringing down buildings is provided by the US airforce, not the TSA.
I feel like you said “No” and then agreed with me.
I agree with your whole statement, but disagree if it is broken up into separate parts.
Passenger vector terrorism is equal on trains and planes (and busses to a much lesser extent). This is the TSAs area.
Infrastructure damage is much higher on planes, but this also applies to the 10% of flights that are cargo and the TSA has no influence.
For whatever reason it’s just not equal in the US as far as I’m aware. Maybe it’s a benefit of a society who thinks trains are lame.
When the train’s average speed is 50mph and no-one uses them then the target isn’t big enough for large scale terror.
Your position is very confusing.
Why would there be security checks at train stations? I know those are a thing in some countries, but this never made any sense to me. They aren’t where I live; a train can’t be driven into buildings and if something does explode on them (exactly as possible as in any crowd), the train will simply stop, not fall from the sky.
A similar number of people would be injured/die from a plane explosion as a train explosion.
Your arguments against no security checks apply equally to trains and planes (and busses).
Not really because an explosion on a train or bus doesn’t cause the entire vehicle to crash into the ground, only to stop. An explosion on a train or bus is going to kill or injure people in its radius of impact, but people sitting far away from it (granted: not many of those on a bus, but very much so on a long train) won’t be injured. On a plane, if that plane stops operating mid-flight, even people on the other end of the plane from the explosion are unlikely to survive.
An explosion in the front carriage of a train going 200mph is not going to be good for anyone travelling behind it.
OK, “won’t be injured” wasn’t exactly true; but they are still in a lot less danger than someone in the same situation on a plane. A train or bus can stop anywhere on its route if there is a dangerous situation, a plane cannot, so in my mind it makes a lot of sense that there are security checks before boarding a plane, but not when boarding a train or bus.
There’s no profit in building sensible infrastructure.
Only profit in endless wars against brown people
American here, we’re dumb.
Honestly I’d give shit like that a pass, silent letters are stupid and sometimes don’t even exist in certain spellings for the same word looking at you soder, sodder, solder. Also if anyone brings up the l in solder being pronounced, not in my dialect nor in most other older dialects I’ve encountered only the ones wherein they reromanticized random words.
We pronounce it in Australia
Pretty sure you guys were effected by the reromanticized effect, that broadly speaking started around the 1850s or so in England though wasn’t fully finalized until about the 1970s or so. Solder was just one of the more unified examples of a word being effected due to it being rarely used outside of blacksmiths up until the industrial revolution and it being a relatively easy thing to assume the l was pronounced by the developing metal working tradesmen unless the region had the soder or sodder spellings instead of with the traditional spelling.
Who cares? The point is that the spelling is better for us now. Dialects exist. Universalising English is stupid.
Oh most certainly but also I’m going to take every moment to shit on anything and everything the English aristocracy has ever done if it’s even the least bit stupid. I will shed the blood of Saxon men.
I reckon there are probably more valuable way to spend your energy than on policing spelling.
Its all the lead in the pipes, it makes the frogs gay with all the chemtrail fallout on this flat earth being watched by Jewish space laser satellites.
We’re dumb? I though we were winning!
Why use mass transit when AI transit do trick?
But how else am I going to show off my $60k+ 4x4 with $12k+
useless junkmodifications during my once-a-year trip to a national park?Just get a penile implant already. Then you can stop having to buy giant truck, guns and all that compensation paraphernalia. 🤪
You calling me small, boy?! /s
kek 😛
Yikes this comment section got flooded by car brains making some wild fucking claims.
Top comment for me is some boomer-brain ranting about the TSA ruining transit…by rail.
I wonder if it’s a brigade, bots, or trolls. I’m having difgiculty imagining they’re genuine commenters considering some of them are recommending cars on fuckcars.
But, but, but, trains are communism!
Seriously, though, far too many Americans still tie their identity to their vehicle. The stupid notion of rugged American individualism has really held the country back.
There are plenty of other things, but I’m just pointing out this one.
that’s probably not helped by trains being more expensive and slower than cars or planes, and not even letting you have any spontaneity in your trips.
I’m very much pro-train, but these are truths.
I wish trains were viable, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot by not competing for markets they are good at (like people without IDs, or people with large amounts of fragile cargo)
Easy, we’re idiots.
Well… you must remember, they are Ameicans, trains are COMMUNISM!
Also, the train might bring darker-skinned individuals to my neighborhood. Can’t be having that.
/s
I forgot to downvote your comment for the screenshot. Oh well. You get the joke.
Won’t someone think of the poor oil profits 🤣🤣
US consumes 20 million barrels a day. What, exactly, do you think this little blip of a train will change to that?
Ughh this comment section. Americans are so dumb?m, and yes I speak for myself as well. We have been so propagandized my exemptional individualism that when we’re presented with something that could benefit all of we turn and run. It’s so god damn stupid.
I found it entertaining how in the movie “HER”, Hollywood depicted a futuristic US American city. To that end they filmed in one of the one and a half subway lines of LA and used outdoor scenes from Chinese cities. Maybe that was just “woke” film making but maybe the stroad strip mall hell hole that makes up much of the US doesn’t really feel very futuristic anymore.
Other than the NIMBY-ism, lawyers all looking to make a shitload of money off the taxpayer by looking for reasons to delay the project, and the anti-mass transit attitude the US has…just look at the California high speed rail project mired in legal grifting for instance.
There’s generic American “we fuck up nice things becuase fuck the rules” attitudes. You can have nice high-speed rail in places like Europe or Japan, or high speed driving on segments of the Autobahn, because society has enough sense to not fuck it up. They’re not parking tractor trailers or cars on rail intersections causing crashes on rail like we have all the time in the US. People generally obey rules like keeping right unless passing, or not blocking the passing lane in Europe. In several shopping areas and airports they have people movers without steps that are ramps betwen floors. In the US it would be a very short period between the installation and some fool riding a skateboard or bike down the ramp and hurting themselves or other people - then come the lawsuits. Someone would probably punch an idiot trying to do that in Europe.
So yeah. Even if we could muster the political balls to build such a needed rail, and get the money for it (because it would have to be profitable of course), some jackass would light the track on fire, park a car on it, or who knows what other dumbassery, because fuck nice things.
This is doable, we just have to convince our leaders is bad for the environment, will hurt brown people, will get them filthy rich and also paint them fake gold and put Drumpfs name on each train
So yea, no,
Fucking AI an image of a gold train with Trump’s name on the side and get it trending.
We can always repaint it in a couple of years.
That’s actually worth a try.
