Finger Pointing at the USA (sorry)
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HighLordDave
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You'd better watch out for injecting serious discussion into a spam-hijacked thread. I promised Witch King I wouldn't do it again, but since he's not here, I'll go on.Originally posted by K0r/\/f1@k€$
This is a serious point by the way.
It's bigger than Dubya or any other president (although the president does set much of the agenda for the nation). It's about changing the basic precepts in people's daily lives. We, as a society, have to consciously decide to be nicer to the planet.Why doesnt Dubbya divert his defence budget into something with a little more long-term effect?
Al Gore was the most environment-friendly candidate that has ever taken the field and had a legitimate chance of winning and it was used with great effectiveness against him. Part of the problem is that in the US, we have a two-party system that excludes a grass-roots Greens Party movement, and the politicos in power want to keep it that way. So no one who wants to push an environment-first agenda even has a chance to make a play for power.
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Mr Flibble
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Not everyone believes greenhouse gases is a problem for the environment, I know at least one member of this board who does not believe this.Originally posted by Mr Sleep
I think everyone is fairly aware of Green House gases etc, they are hardly a revelation, but will you give up plastics and other such luxuries to save our planet?
"There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance." - Hippocrates
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fable
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I think it goes deeper than that. Ever since Nixon and Watergate, there has been a distrust of federal government in this country (the US) that has been deliberately fanned by one party who only want to switch governmental priorities once in power, rather than increasing accountability. Both political parties, noting the effectiveness of anti-government and anti-tax campaigns, have simply fallen over each other in pandering to this view rather than explaining the issues and the need for expenditures. It's so bad that it takes an unusual degree of courage for a campaigning politician to state that he or she might raise taxes, if elected.Originally posted by HighLordDave
Al Gore was the most environment-friendly candidate that has ever taken the field and had a legitimate chance of winning and it was used with great effectiveness against him. Part of the problem is that in the US, we have a two-party system that excludes a grass-roots Greens Party movement, and the politicos in power want to keep it that way. So no one who wants to push an environment-first agenda even has a chance to make a play for power.
Clean environments are definitely cheaper than dirty ones in the very long run, as history shows, but most people either don't read history, or take a very cynical shortterm view that leaves increasing problems to future generations. Cutting back on traditional forms of energy means increased expenditures for research into alternative energy sources, and less energy available to a nation that has a higher energy consumption than anywhere else. It would also be fought tooth and nail by the various energy lobby groups who have considerable money at their disposal to launch powerful advertising campaigns.
In short, it won't be advocated by any American politician on the national scene who truly wishes to get elected. At least, for now.
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VoodooDali
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I think that most Americans are concerned about the environment, esp. in their own backyards... I remember when Carter was running for president that the Army Corps of Engineers (May they rot in hell) wanted to dam the Meramec River in Missouri, which would have destroyed Meramec Caverns, Onondaga Cave, and Injun Joe's Cave--all three of which are amazing caverns filled with stalagmites and stalactites that took millions of years to form. Carter visited the state and said that he would block the damming of that river. The state is usually conservative, but they went for Carter that year.
The problem when it comes to greenhouse gases and everything is that most of the corporations in the USA block efforts to change anything. For example, the government has put no money whatsoever in developing alternative energy sources, because the oil industry controls energy here. So to have solar or wind power or whatever, you have to take on Exxon, Mobil, George W., etc. I fear that this will not change until the oil becomes too expensive for Americans to tolerate.
The car industry is equally guilty. Instead of developing and marketing extremely low mileage or hybrid cars, they just keep pushing SUV's. Every other commercial I see on TV is for an SUV. Also, since they are not technically passenger cars (they are classified as trucks), they are not subject to the stricter safety laws, so are cheaper to produce.
Here's an excerpt from an article about them in Harper's:
Such ecstasy (in the car industry) is hardly surprising, given the massive profit margins SUVs generate. Most vehicles are built on the unibody model; the SUV is simply a body bolted onto the frame of a pickup truck. That means SUVs are not only faster and cheaper to design and build than cars but cheaper to modify, since each "new" model is simply a restyled body bolted onto the existing chassis and engine. And because SUVs and pickups share engines, frames, and about 70 percent of other major parts, SUVs can be built in existing truck factories, on the same assembly lines, keeping costs down. As a bonus, because regulators still regard SUVs as "light trucks"--that is, low-production vehicles intended mainly for working stiffs--they remain exempt from many costly emission controls and fuel-economy requirements,(2) and were given more time to phase in some safety requirements, such as those mandating structural protection from side-impact collisions, all of which has lowered manufacturers' costs even further.
And if that weren't sweet enough, because demand was so high, Detroit didn't have to pass along these savings to consumers. By the mid-1990s, the SUV had become among the most lucrative automotive categories in history. The profit margin on each vehicle ranged from $ 6,500 for a compact model like Toyota's RAV4 to $ 17,000 for a luxury model like the Lincoln Navigator. On average, automakers made $ 10,000 for each SUV sold, ten times the margin on a sedan or minivan, which, last year, generated a stunning $ 18 billion in profits for the industry. For the first time in decades, the auto industry had a genuine cash cow, and they used it to fund a huge expansion campaign. In 1999, for example, with the profits from a single year's production of Expeditions and Navigators, Ford was able to buy the Swedish company Volvo outright. (Perhaps the threat to this great river of cash can account for Ford's molasseslike response to Explorer tire defects.)
Americans have always confused form and function, and one could argue that if consumers want to drive around in rolling Swiss Army knives it's really their business. The problem is, because Detroit has so brilliantly sold the SUV as a tool for performing useful tasks in extenuating circumstances, consumers willingly overlook a host of problems that would be intolerable in a mere car. For example, SUVs are famously hard to handle and park. And yet, because they are subtly perceived as "working" vehicles--like, say, delivery vans or ride-on lawn mowers--such discomfort has been written off as necessary, like the momentary displeasure of mowing the lawn. SUVs get lousy gas mileage-an average of 17 mpg--and are now so prevalent that they've actually dragged the average fuel efficiency for new cars to its lowest point since 1980, boosting American oil consumption and spurring oil lobbyists to dust off the absurd Reagan-era argument that we must immediately open places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling crews. But concerns over fuel consumption are somehow suspended, in the same way that someone who rents a U-Haul doesn't panic over its low gas mileage.
Despite significant improvements in pollution control, a full-size SUV like the Excursion will produce during a 124,000-mile average lifetime 134 tons of carbon dioxide--nearly double the output of a midsize sedan and nearly triple that of a Honda Civic.(3) Ten years ago, such numbers would have provoked a backlash among newly environmentally guilty consumers. Yet because Detroit has so successfully exaggerated the SUV's outdoor heritage--filling ads with lush wilderness settings, using natural, crunchy-sounding names like Yukon, Forester, Sequoia, and Tundra--the SUV has been recast as environmentally benign. This brazen strategy is so effective that automakers routinely make the most absurd environmental claims with near-impunity. Ford, for example, labeled the Excursion "environmentally responsible" because most of its building materials can be recycled.
Also troublesome is the way the SUV's phony utility promotes an illusion of safety. SUVs are assiduously marketed as safer than ordinary cars, protecting occupants from the full range of threats: bad weather, rough roads, auto collisions, even the criminal element.(4) Their great bulk, for example, is said to make them more impervious to collisions, while the "command position" seating provides better visibility in traffic.
But, in fact, SUVs have among the worst safety records of any vehicle. Whereas sedan front ends crumple during a head-on, absorbing the force of impact and sparing passengers, the SUV's rugged I-beam truck frame actually transmits more of the force back to the passengers. The larger models are notorious for their boatlike handling and slow braking--Excursions need forty more feet than most vehicles to decelerate from 60 mph to zero, and their extra height makes them more likely to tip over when turning sharp corners. (In part because many SUV drivers believe four-wheel drive means never having to slow down on snowy or slick roads, an SUV in a ditch now symbolizes the start of the ski season.) Worse, because car dealers know that hardly any SUV drivers actually go off road--intentionally, at least--they routinely underinflate the tires--a step that provides for a smoother ride but may make the vehicles even less stable turning corners. (In this, Firestone has a point.) In any case, SUV rollover accidents are up to five times as likely to be fatal than are accidents in other vehicles, but manufacturers have so far refused to publicize the flip-potential ratings provided by the government.
Actually, if thinking had anything to do with it, Americans would have stopped buying SUVs a long time ago--or at least last year, when the news was filled with excruciating gas prices, the Ford/Firestone fiasco, and horrific tales of SUV rollovers; when even the chairman of Ford, William Clay Ford Jr., admitted the need to address the SUV's serious pollution and safety problems. Last fall would have been the perfect moment for American drivers and politicians and even automakers to come to their collective senses, to be embarrassed by their obsession with bogus ruggedness, to recognize the real costs of firing up an oversize station wagon every time they need to run down to Blockbuster.
But that moment, if it ever existed, has clearly passed. Although the Clinton Administration only weakly pressed Detroit to make smarter cars, President Bush is more likely to ensconce the SUV as our new National Rig. We're talking, after all, about a former Texas oil man whose energy secretary fought on behalf of oil and auto interests while in Congress, whose chief of staff was a lobbyist for the auto industry, and whose pick to run the Department of the Interior is already talking up the "need" to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Never mind that simply by forcing a mere 15 percent improvement in the fuel economy of SUVs and light trucks--that is, less than 3 mpg--Bush could save more oil each year than the projected annual production from the refuge. That kind of thinking is for liberals and other losers. It's time for Texas-size lifestyles.
The problem when it comes to greenhouse gases and everything is that most of the corporations in the USA block efforts to change anything. For example, the government has put no money whatsoever in developing alternative energy sources, because the oil industry controls energy here. So to have solar or wind power or whatever, you have to take on Exxon, Mobil, George W., etc. I fear that this will not change until the oil becomes too expensive for Americans to tolerate.
The car industry is equally guilty. Instead of developing and marketing extremely low mileage or hybrid cars, they just keep pushing SUV's. Every other commercial I see on TV is for an SUV. Also, since they are not technically passenger cars (they are classified as trucks), they are not subject to the stricter safety laws, so are cheaper to produce.
Here's an excerpt from an article about them in Harper's:
Such ecstasy (in the car industry) is hardly surprising, given the massive profit margins SUVs generate. Most vehicles are built on the unibody model; the SUV is simply a body bolted onto the frame of a pickup truck. That means SUVs are not only faster and cheaper to design and build than cars but cheaper to modify, since each "new" model is simply a restyled body bolted onto the existing chassis and engine. And because SUVs and pickups share engines, frames, and about 70 percent of other major parts, SUVs can be built in existing truck factories, on the same assembly lines, keeping costs down. As a bonus, because regulators still regard SUVs as "light trucks"--that is, low-production vehicles intended mainly for working stiffs--they remain exempt from many costly emission controls and fuel-economy requirements,(2) and were given more time to phase in some safety requirements, such as those mandating structural protection from side-impact collisions, all of which has lowered manufacturers' costs even further.
And if that weren't sweet enough, because demand was so high, Detroit didn't have to pass along these savings to consumers. By the mid-1990s, the SUV had become among the most lucrative automotive categories in history. The profit margin on each vehicle ranged from $ 6,500 for a compact model like Toyota's RAV4 to $ 17,000 for a luxury model like the Lincoln Navigator. On average, automakers made $ 10,000 for each SUV sold, ten times the margin on a sedan or minivan, which, last year, generated a stunning $ 18 billion in profits for the industry. For the first time in decades, the auto industry had a genuine cash cow, and they used it to fund a huge expansion campaign. In 1999, for example, with the profits from a single year's production of Expeditions and Navigators, Ford was able to buy the Swedish company Volvo outright. (Perhaps the threat to this great river of cash can account for Ford's molasseslike response to Explorer tire defects.)
Americans have always confused form and function, and one could argue that if consumers want to drive around in rolling Swiss Army knives it's really their business. The problem is, because Detroit has so brilliantly sold the SUV as a tool for performing useful tasks in extenuating circumstances, consumers willingly overlook a host of problems that would be intolerable in a mere car. For example, SUVs are famously hard to handle and park. And yet, because they are subtly perceived as "working" vehicles--like, say, delivery vans or ride-on lawn mowers--such discomfort has been written off as necessary, like the momentary displeasure of mowing the lawn. SUVs get lousy gas mileage-an average of 17 mpg--and are now so prevalent that they've actually dragged the average fuel efficiency for new cars to its lowest point since 1980, boosting American oil consumption and spurring oil lobbyists to dust off the absurd Reagan-era argument that we must immediately open places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling crews. But concerns over fuel consumption are somehow suspended, in the same way that someone who rents a U-Haul doesn't panic over its low gas mileage.
Despite significant improvements in pollution control, a full-size SUV like the Excursion will produce during a 124,000-mile average lifetime 134 tons of carbon dioxide--nearly double the output of a midsize sedan and nearly triple that of a Honda Civic.(3) Ten years ago, such numbers would have provoked a backlash among newly environmentally guilty consumers. Yet because Detroit has so successfully exaggerated the SUV's outdoor heritage--filling ads with lush wilderness settings, using natural, crunchy-sounding names like Yukon, Forester, Sequoia, and Tundra--the SUV has been recast as environmentally benign. This brazen strategy is so effective that automakers routinely make the most absurd environmental claims with near-impunity. Ford, for example, labeled the Excursion "environmentally responsible" because most of its building materials can be recycled.
Also troublesome is the way the SUV's phony utility promotes an illusion of safety. SUVs are assiduously marketed as safer than ordinary cars, protecting occupants from the full range of threats: bad weather, rough roads, auto collisions, even the criminal element.(4) Their great bulk, for example, is said to make them more impervious to collisions, while the "command position" seating provides better visibility in traffic.
But, in fact, SUVs have among the worst safety records of any vehicle. Whereas sedan front ends crumple during a head-on, absorbing the force of impact and sparing passengers, the SUV's rugged I-beam truck frame actually transmits more of the force back to the passengers. The larger models are notorious for their boatlike handling and slow braking--Excursions need forty more feet than most vehicles to decelerate from 60 mph to zero, and their extra height makes them more likely to tip over when turning sharp corners. (In part because many SUV drivers believe four-wheel drive means never having to slow down on snowy or slick roads, an SUV in a ditch now symbolizes the start of the ski season.) Worse, because car dealers know that hardly any SUV drivers actually go off road--intentionally, at least--they routinely underinflate the tires--a step that provides for a smoother ride but may make the vehicles even less stable turning corners. (In this, Firestone has a point.) In any case, SUV rollover accidents are up to five times as likely to be fatal than are accidents in other vehicles, but manufacturers have so far refused to publicize the flip-potential ratings provided by the government.
Actually, if thinking had anything to do with it, Americans would have stopped buying SUVs a long time ago--or at least last year, when the news was filled with excruciating gas prices, the Ford/Firestone fiasco, and horrific tales of SUV rollovers; when even the chairman of Ford, William Clay Ford Jr., admitted the need to address the SUV's serious pollution and safety problems. Last fall would have been the perfect moment for American drivers and politicians and even automakers to come to their collective senses, to be embarrassed by their obsession with bogus ruggedness, to recognize the real costs of firing up an oversize station wagon every time they need to run down to Blockbuster.
But that moment, if it ever existed, has clearly passed. Although the Clinton Administration only weakly pressed Detroit to make smarter cars, President Bush is more likely to ensconce the SUV as our new National Rig. We're talking, after all, about a former Texas oil man whose energy secretary fought on behalf of oil and auto interests while in Congress, whose chief of staff was a lobbyist for the auto industry, and whose pick to run the Department of the Interior is already talking up the "need" to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Never mind that simply by forcing a mere 15 percent improvement in the fuel economy of SUVs and light trucks--that is, less than 3 mpg--Bush could save more oil each year than the projected annual production from the refuge. That kind of thinking is for liberals and other losers. It's time for Texas-size lifestyles.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” - Edgar Allen Poe
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Aragorn Returns
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fable
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Do you mean that the US government is in the hands of business, or just big business? And do you think its partial to any business in particular?Originally posted by Aragorn Returns
the reason the car company's and the government do nothing about it is simply this: they are in the business of making money, not of saving the environment.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
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Aragorn Returns
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fable
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And how do you think all the multimillionaires who run the government make money from it?Originally posted by Aragorn Returns
i'm saying that the U.S. government is in the hands of whoever will give them money. it seems to me that politicians view their jobs just like any other businessman, they want money.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
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Aragorn Returns
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fable
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And we're not talking about school.Originally posted by Aragorn Returns
i dunno, doing tricky schemy politiciony stuff, stop asking me questions! i hate school!
We're just trying to figure out how and why people who lead the US government do anything for money, when in fact most of them are already multi-millionaires long before they're elected. To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
Isn't this all getting a bit off-topic (Aragorn, fable, Quark)?
Getting back to what Voodoo said: assuming SUVs are killing us all with their emissions, what is your point? That is to say: what do you wish done about it? Because SUVs are purchased by individuals by free choice. They know what gas-guzzlers they are, and yet they choose to buy them. So do you propose to outlaw SUVs?
This gets to the pollution discussion in general: individuals are the root cause of pollution. People like you and me tapping away on a computer that takes some 1000 watts to operate, which requires a big ol' power plant. I understand everyone's desire to see an improvement in pollution emissions, but I question HOW they wish to acheive it, and whether they themselves are fully embracing the philosophical basis of environmentalism, when they continue to use cars (ANY cars), electricity, wooden tables, etc.
Getting back to what Voodoo said: assuming SUVs are killing us all with their emissions, what is your point? That is to say: what do you wish done about it? Because SUVs are purchased by individuals by free choice. They know what gas-guzzlers they are, and yet they choose to buy them. So do you propose to outlaw SUVs?
This gets to the pollution discussion in general: individuals are the root cause of pollution. People like you and me tapping away on a computer that takes some 1000 watts to operate, which requires a big ol' power plant. I understand everyone's desire to see an improvement in pollution emissions, but I question HOW they wish to acheive it, and whether they themselves are fully embracing the philosophical basis of environmentalism, when they continue to use cars (ANY cars), electricity, wooden tables, etc.
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VoodooDali
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How to stop it?
Well, there's always good ole agit-prop. Visit this website: http://changingtheclimate.com/. They have a bumper sticker you can print out to put on SUV's: I'm changing the climate! Ask me how. They have some caveats too--don't put it on the painted part of the car, don't tag smaller more fuel efficient SUV's like the Toyota 4runner, etc.
I dunno, maybe if everyone in the US who drove fuel-economy cars keyed those jerk's SUV's everytime they saw one, they'd get the message. Sort of like those animal rights people who throw blood on people wearing fur coats. However, I could never really bring myself to do something that extreme. I may do the bumper sticker thing, tho.
What I find most infuriating is that when I talk to an SUV owner--they are well aware that it is bad for the environment--they just don't care. They used to call the '80's the "Me" generation, but I think this decade could really rival that.
Well, there's always good ole agit-prop. Visit this website: http://changingtheclimate.com/. They have a bumper sticker you can print out to put on SUV's: I'm changing the climate! Ask me how. They have some caveats too--don't put it on the painted part of the car, don't tag smaller more fuel efficient SUV's like the Toyota 4runner, etc.
I dunno, maybe if everyone in the US who drove fuel-economy cars keyed those jerk's SUV's everytime they saw one, they'd get the message. Sort of like those animal rights people who throw blood on people wearing fur coats. However, I could never really bring myself to do something that extreme. I may do the bumper sticker thing, tho.
What I find most infuriating is that when I talk to an SUV owner--they are well aware that it is bad for the environment--they just don't care. They used to call the '80's the "Me" generation, but I think this decade could really rival that.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” - Edgar Allen Poe
There are numerous ways to change such things. You could for example provide tax paid public transports, raise fuel taxes, make laws regulating veichels mileage etc. there is means for everything, but the political will is often lacking.Originally posted by Lazarus
Getting back to what Voodoo said: assuming SUVs are killing us all with their emissions, what is your point? That is to say: what do you wish done about it? Because SUVs are purchased by individuals by free choice. They know what gas-guzzlers they are, and yet they choose to buy them. So do you propose to outlaw SUVs?
While others climb the mountains High, beneath the tree I love to lie
And watch the snails go whizzing by, It's foolish but it's fun
And watch the snails go whizzing by, It's foolish but it's fun
@Voodoo: Whoah! Throwing blood and keying cars!? Remind me never to get on your bad side! I guess I understand your frustration, but I can't really go along with those solutions. (I know, you said you couldn't do such things either.)
Whoah! Throwing blood and keying cars!? Remind me never to get on your bad side! I guess I understand your frustration, but I can't really go along with those solutions. (I know, you said you couldn't do such things either.)@Dottie: So you wish to force people to change their attitudes through economic means? Hmmm. Some would say that that is all that George Bush and his oil-rich friends are doing - so why is it more moral for you to do so? You say that the political will is lacking, but I say that it is much more basic than political will: it is simply that the average joe WANTS to drive an SUV. I don't mind you attempting to change their attitude through discourse and education, but when you start talking about forcing everyone except the wealthy into public transport ... well, I think you have crossed the line towards a more dictatorial form of government than I am comfortable with.Originally posted by Dottie
There are numerous ways to change such things. You could for example provide tax paid public transports, raise fuel taxes, make laws regulating veichels mileage etc. there is means for everything, but the political will is often lacking.
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fable
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Not if Aragorn seriously meant it when he suggested that the US government is a plutocracy. In that case, all attempts to promote longterm conservation strategies are doomed.Originally posted by Lazarus
Isn't this all getting a bit off-topic (Aragorn, fable, Quark)?
This gets to the pollution discussion in general: individuals are the root cause of pollution. People like you and me tapping away on a computer that takes some 1000 watts to operate, which requires a big ol' power plant. I understand everyone's desire to see an improvement in pollution emissions, but I question HOW they wish to acheive it, and whether they themselves are fully embracing the philosophical basis of environmentalism, when they continue to use cars (ANY cars), electricity, wooden tables, etc.
I agree with Voodoo Dali, that we aren't dealing here with an informed citizenry. The two-party system, winner-take-all, is by nature very anti-informative. It works on short soundbites and broad platforms that require no explanation. The best chance for the environment, IMO, would be the replacement of such a system by a parliament structured along Dutch lines, where many parties argued a variety of policies of great importance.
Barring this, we need a large, well-respected, popular, public and private figures to stand up and state together that the environment is a mess and that the government-of-the-day has its head up its rectal port about it. This would probably gain media attention, and could be used to launch a national discussion through (hopefully) sustained interest. Of course, it wouldn't be easy: when you're fed cotton candy for so long, it's hard to give up expecting sweets all the time. But I think it would at least gain a moment with some time with the media.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
There is a large difference between using a democratic political system to change economical rules and using economical power to change or affect a democratic political system.Originally posted by Lazarus
@Dottie: So you wish to force people to change their attitudes through economic means? Hmmm. Some would say that that is all that George Bush and his oil-rich friends are doing - so why is it more moral for you to do so? You say that the political will is lacking, but I say that it is much more basic than political will: it is simply that the average joe WANTS to drive an SUV. I don't mind you attempting to change their attitude through discourse and education, but when you start talking about forcing everyone except the wealthy into public transport ... well, I think you have crossed the line towards a more dictatorial form of government than I am comfortable with.
It is quite often so that people willingly put up with restrictions of their "freedom" if that restriction aplies to everyone, but wont restrict themselfs in the same way if everyone else continue with their irresponsible behaviour. You might consider this hypocracy but then you are imo very unrealistic in your view about human behaviour.
There is many things that are forced upon us in every "civilized" society, and imo that is a fundamental thing for any real freedom, as oposed to more "darwinistic" freedom. Personally I can se no dictatorial in using a democratical system to probit ourselfes from destroying the fundaments of our existance.
While others climb the mountains High, beneath the tree I love to lie
And watch the snails go whizzing by, It's foolish but it's fun
And watch the snails go whizzing by, It's foolish but it's fun
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VoodooDali
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That's why I want Jim Hightower for President! Check him out at: http://www.jimhightower.com/jim/Originally posted by fable
Barring this, we need a large, well-respected, popular, public and private figures to stand up and state together that the environment is a mess and that the government-of-the-day has its head up its rectal port about it. This would probably gain media attention, and could be used to launch a national discussion through (hopefully) sustained interest. Of course, it wouldn't be easy: when you're fed cotton candy for so long, it's hard to give up expecting sweets all the time. But I think it would at least gain a moment with some time with the media.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” - Edgar Allen Poe