Obesity, Poverty, Transportation, Corporate Interests, and  of course, Irony  in a Response to Friend's E-mail

Not to surprise you or anything, but I'd mostly chalk up our obesity/unhealthyness compared to other Western countries to one thing: our extremely high use of the personal automobile. 85-90% of all trips in a car, compared to between 40 and 60% in Europe, depending on the country. Our transportation system is a huge part of our culture, and our transportation system embraces ineffieciency, waste, minimal human effort, and convenience. Is it any shock that our bodies and health would reflect this system?

Also, the transportation system is a huge drain on American wealth-- especially low-income earners. Depending on the size of one's vehicles, a fully insured car at $3.00 per gallon costs between 40 and 70 cents PER MILE to drive, according to AAA Basically, the car for most people takes up about a fourth of their yearly income (not sure if that's pre or post tax income). So, to maintain our largely private, ineffiecient, wasteful, lazy, convenient transportation system, Americans are making themselves poor. Relating it back to this article, we know that poverty and obesity share many links-- though we can not establish the direction of the causality, if casuality even exists.

Sidenote: I found it absolutely shocking to be in the ghetto in NYC (where Blaze lives), and see streets covered in trash, stick skinny kids running around, houses and apartments in shambles, moms with 5 kids, alongisde BEAUTIFUL, PIMPED OUT, SHINING, AUTOMOBILES.

Sidenote: Of course, the Government has a large responsibility in the design of our transportaiton system, in the policies (military intervention and presence in almost every country in the wrold) that make oil cheap. For me, however, I can't decide which is more troubling: that people don't demand bike lanes, sidewalks, reliable public transportation, walkable neighborhoods, healthful food, or that Government can't act in the people's interest and encourage these things. Well of course, people in many parts of the country don't believe that the Government should (or CAN) act in the people's interests. For the people who have that disposition, I suggest that they look at the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, which is populated with car dealership owners and asphalt association presidents, and ask themselves, in whose interest is that Government organiation working?

For me, it boils down to something like this. For better or for worse and regardless of whether the Left or the Right is in power, we are going to have a Government with a large presence. We can not go back to an anarchical society-- though I would wish for that-- based on local communities and perhaps cities and regions. Therefore, we must ask ourselves, in whose interest will the Government work? This of course, must be on an issue by issue basis. In terms of transportation policy in the U.S., it is clear in whose interest the Government has worked. In favor of the military industrial complex, in favor of large corporations, in favor of oil companies, in favor of fast food companies, in favor of big businesses over small businesses, in favor of Nationalism over Localism. Furthermore, I would hold that in regards to food system policies, drug policies, incarceration policies, the sectors in whose interests the Government has worked are largely identical.