In the midst of our rejoicing, however, we should take time to think beyond the immediate victory. We should ask ourselves the hard questions: What has precipitated our recent conflict with nations of the Arab world? What has dragged thousands of our best young men and women halfway round the planet to fight and die in a strange land? Who’s to blame for all the consternation?
I’ve about decided that Henry Ford is the most likely suspect. He’s the guy who forced us to drive automobiles.
Before you write me one of those “You %#X$%!” letters, let’s ruminate for a moment. Who consumes the most disproportionate amount of the world’s resources? Regardless of your politics, you know the answer as well as I.
I learned in freshman history that most wars are fought over access to resources. Germany, Italy and Japan were the original axis of evil, and what those countries and their leaders wanted was oil. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in order to grab their oil. The first George Bush drove Saddam out of Kuwait in order to get the oil back. Saddam had it for a while. We have it now. It’s ours. That’s how it works these days.
In the area once known as Palestine, it seems the scarcest resource is land. The Israelis have claimed much of it, and the Palestinians want it returned to them. That’s simple enough. But then we buy oil from Arab nations, they buy weapons from us and other Western nations, and for each weapon they acquire, we feel obliged to give Israel a better one. Arab nations support the Palestinians. We support the Israelis. And so forth.
The other piece to the puzzle is media. Ronald Regan is generally credited with bringing about the collapse of Communism, but he had a lot of help from Western media. It must have been irksome for Muscovites to queue up to buy toilet paper and then go home to watch the Ewings frolicking on “Dallas.” Media has Americanized almost every nook and cranny of the planet. If folks in the Third World didn’t know how well we live, maybe they wouldn’t be so irritable.
Unfortunately, the poor in many countries have adopted our materialistic measure of happiness and success, which is a standard of living they will probably never obtain. Since the oil we’re buying from rich Arab countries is a non-renewable resource, they must be aware that they can’t sustain their standard of living forever. They can’t help but notice that we’re gobbling up the source of their wealth.
All this consternation is caused by the automobile, and I haven’t even touched on the social and environmental problems created by the internal-combustion engine. There’s one obvious truth: We’re willing to pay almost any price to keep our cars on the road. What all this means is that we live in an environmentally unsustainable society.
Maybe it’s not all Henry Ford’s fault. Maybe it’s my fault. Or yours. Every time we crank up our automobiles, we exacerbate the situation. What’s sad is that we’ve known this for decades, and we’ve done little to correct the problem. Our attitude toward the fat-cat American lifestyle is one of nonchalance. We’re wasteful. So what? And other than maintaining a state-of-the-art military, we have no immediate plans to moderate our consumption of oil.
I’m not getting rid of my car. Are you getting rid of yours?
Stephen Smith is a professor of English at Sandhills Community College. He can be reached at travisses@hotmail.com.
