GREG JERRETT: Riding in SUVs with bin Laden

Nonpareil Staff Writer 01/10/2003

If you smoke a joint, are you sponsoring terrorism? If you drive a sport utility vehicle are you as good as flying planes into buildings?

Author and columnist Arianna Huffington has done what any good author and columnist should do this week. She irritated a whole lot of folks, defended her position well on countless news programs and stood tall before the man when she unveiled a series of commercials based on a column she wrote last summer. The commercials mimic the Bush administration's anti-drug commercials. You know, the ones that said you as good as blew up the World Trade Center towers if you ever smoked a joint.

Few people complained when the anti-drug commercials came out. After all, illegal drugs don't fund quite as many political campaigns as the American auto and oil companies. A healthy auto industry is a symbol of American prosperity; it's a key economic indicator and people want to drive what they want to drive with no guilt trips.

A healthy illegal drug culture is pretty much the opposite of all of that with the possible exception that people want to shoot, smoke, snort and pop what they want to shoot, smoke, snort and pop with no guilt trips either.

Huffington inspired two commercials paid for entirely by private citizens. Each is a take-off of a similar anti-drug/terrorist commercial.

No. 1 shows George at the pump filling up his SUV, blithely ignorant of world politics. A precious little girl "draws the picture" for us. "This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive who bought the oil to make the gas that George put in his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV."

Oh my stars and garters, how offensive.

No. 2 is a bit funnier. It shows a number of people, one at time, rationalizing their decision to drive SUVs and copping to their culpability in terrorist acts.

"I helped hijack an airplane." "I gave money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country." "I LIKE to sit up high." "I blew up a building." "What if I need to go off-road?" and the narrator asks "What is your SUV doing to our national security?"

Now, if there is one thing I know, it's that people hate to be made to think, especially when they might be made to think, "Hey, I'm a hypocrite." If there are two things I know it is that fried pie is good.

Perhaps the single most important thing we can do as right-thinking, spiritually advanced sentient beings - besides enjoy fried pie - is to know ourselves, justify our moral beliefs and act according to a standard of behavior that can be equitably applied to all moral individuals. When we fail to live up to our own standards, we SHOULD be ashamed. We SHOULD feel guilty. We SHOULD change. Otherwise, what's the point of religion, philosophy and mothers?

When confronted by challenges to our morality, we rationalize. We blame others. We attack examples. We expose the politics of our enemy. We don't try to live up to our own standards, though.

In World War II, there was a popular public service announcement or PSA that said, "When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler." People did it because they were willing to sacrifice.

I remember after 9/11, everyone was utterly willing to make any sacrifice to help out. Now encouraging fuel efficiency makes you a suspect. Hmmmmmm. Why is that?

Well, for one thing, automakers and oil companies didn't own as many politicians as they do today. Corporate loyalty has outpaced patriotism.

Many network affiliates who ran the Ad Council anti-drug PSAs will not run the anti-SUV PSAs. I have yet to see one locally except as part of a news program.

Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said Arianna Huffington is "out-voted every year by Americans who buy SUVs for their safety, comfort and versatility." He did not add "much in the same way that the Bush administration is out-voted every year by people who buy crack, crank, pot, coke and smack, because they REALLY like to 'sit high in traffic,' too."

Huffington is abrasive, but essentially correct to point out that SUVs, like drugs, are a lifestyle choice made by people who want stuff more than need stuff.

There is no proof that SUVs are safer, there is only the assumption that bigger and higher IS safer. Remember that sometime if you are cornering and roll your SUV, which is four times more likely to roll than the average car.

The issue here is fuel efficiency, national security and patriotism being undermined by pride. SUVs place you in a class above, literally and figuratively. Those are petty concerns when we should all be doing more to use less fuel. So why is it so blasted hard to get anyone, including our government, to do anything about it?

Republicans and Democrats alike voted last year against a bipartisan bill sponsored by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts that would have raised fuel-efficiency standards. Why? California was hammered by the feds for taking the initiative on this issue. We will drill in the Alaskan wilderness to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, but it is crazy talk to promote fuel efficiency?

As long as politicians have their campaigns bought and paid for by auto makers and oil companies, the rhetoric will fly fast and furious. Until we do what's right because it's right, we shouldn't take it personally when we're accused of riding with Osama because we choose to only get 9 m.p.g.

- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be reached at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com