Phil Rockstroh: 'Running on fumes: A journey to the end of empire'
 Posted on Wednesday, August 17 @ 10:02:32 EDT
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By Phil Rockstroh

The rising price of gasoline troubles Americans, because it threatens our sustaining, cultural illusion of our freedom of mobility -- a commercial con job that, over time, has served to transform us from the citizens of a sprawling republic into de facto slaves of the corporate classes. Our masters have the mobility -- we have a long commute.

How, in any way, shape, or form, are American freeways free?

A commuter has as much liberty languishing in a traffic jam, as does a cow in a cattle drive. Incongruously, large numbers of Americans continue to see themselves as cowboys -- as, all the while, they allow themselves to be prodded along like cattle. Though they may see themselves as rugged individualists, riding over the expanse of the open prairie, their corporate cattle masters see them as mere commodities on the hoof whose hides and hinds only exist for their value on the so-called open market.

Interstate travel is emblematic of the manner by which an oil dependent existence has dehumanized us all. For example, any situation, as is the case with interstate highway travel, in which, to momentarily stop, or even to slow down is to risk death, should be regarded as an affront (if not absolute anathema) to the mind, heart and soul. When the landscape, through which we pass, is reduced to a meaningless blur, our lives grow indistinct as well. We are incessantly told, and, sadly, far too many of us have been convinced, that the same disastrous fate will overtake us if the engines of global capitalism were to slow down even a bit.



When stopped at an anonymous interstate service island or some off-the-exit-ramp retail strip -- those inhospitable, soulless nether regions that evince a paradoxical mix of sterility and toxicity -- the permeating odor of exhaust fumes and indigestible processed food makes us woozy. These places, only distinct for their ugliness, reek of how soul-numbing and joyless travel has become ... a task now nearly devoid of any of sense of the mystery, the option of exploration, nor the possibility of serendipity that travel once offered. Travel has been reduced to a tedious ordeal, whereby our inchoate longings to escape the quotidian prison of our economically circumscribed existence are mangled and suppressed -- only to rise as the hollow appetitive of reflexive consumerism and the ineffable sense of psychic unease, so evident in the troubled American psyche.

When visiting a service island, we remain as isolated from human warmth and contact as we are within our enclosed motor vehicles. Mindlessly, we hurdle from one sterile, impersonal location to the next sterile, impersonal location, and then on to the next. As massive, forbidding trucks, loaded with the cargo of extinction, bear down on us, we grip the steering wheel ... we know to stop is to risk death -- so we continue onward, believing we must drive and consume in order to live. Yet the knowledge nettles us, just below the surface of our harried minds, that to continue down this road of ceaseless consumption will, in turn, cause the world to die.

Riding American interstate highways one feels the confluence of so much contemporary madness and tragedy ... so much barely-submerged fear and aggression ... yet, through it all, the yearning to see what lies over to next horizon remains in our hearts. Even though, sadly, what lies over the next horizon has become as sterile, inhospitable, ugly, and inhuman as what was experienced at the last. Here: The realities of global capitalism are displayed, in stark relief: it's all based on oil -- sustained by brutal imperialism and the wholesale destruction of the natural world -- and, for all our self-impressed proclamations that these things are the progenitors of freedom and human advancement -- we Americans, the supposed beneficiaries of it all, have been left spoiled, stupefied, and alienated -- both from the banality and garishness of our nation's commercially tortured, community-devoid landscape as well as from our own inner-most longings.

We Americans should feel a sense of jubilation regarding the coming end of an era where oil and its attendant imperialist politics have come to define the lives of multiple generations. Maybe as our dependence on oil recedes, our human thirst for the water of life will return.

The negations of the human heart, begot by interstate travel, are manifold: Traveling upon interstate highways delivers emptiness and desperation, because the act conjures the seductive illusion of unfettered mobility, novelty, and freedom, rousing within us a yearning to throw off the soul-defying yoke of our mundane, commodified existence -- but, instead, it, only serves to hurdle us from one meaningless, mundane, time-sucking, commodified sensation to next.

Ergo, what is more mundane than a commodified human being ... one whose spirit has been broken, heart caged, and instincts harnessed almost exclusively to labor and reward ... labor and reward? Thus, we corporatized animals are conditioned to fear life outside of our economic cages -- and, as is the case with many unfortunate animals, confined for many long, dismal years within a cage, we come to believe the confines of our cage comprise the whole of existence. And, in those rare moments when the caged animal's heart begins to awaken and its fighting instincts begin to arise -- its keepers, as is the case with our economic overlords, have a dire need to convince us pitiful, corporatist-whipped creatures -- generally by means of coercion and bribes -- that our release will come -- not from emancipation from our confinement -- but instead, in some inexplicable way, our freedom will arrive by way of our continued mindless surrendering to the dictates of our proto-fascistic, corporate keepers -- the very bastards who put us hapless beasts in the cage to begin with.

We commodified beasts should ask ourselves this question: How is it possible that our emancipation from our cages could arrive by ever more labor and consumption? Taking such a route to freedom is about as feasible as a masochist believing he can be tied to a bedpost and then whipped into a sense of self-worth.

Questioning such absurdities might free our minds from the counterfeit mystique of freeways ... an even closer look would reveal that our motor vehicles are not only a cage that moves at 70 miles an hour plus -- but it is a cage that connects a series of larger cages holding the whole menagerie of economic animals held captive in this joyless zoo known as global capitalism ... apropos, and the same applies to those faster moving cages that jet thousands of feet overhead. Never before have a people been more in a hurry to arrive at the same old shit.

The ethos, accoutrements, and detritus of the interstate has come to define American life: hideous off-the-exit-ramp types of food are now the stable foods of the empire; the smell of exhaust fumes are our pheromonal musks; and reptilian brain reactions such as road rage and our deference to over-sized pickup truck/SUV/Humvee bigness are the lingua franca of our political discourse and foreign policy. Moreover, the single, isolated passenger-per-vehicle idiocy of the American commuter is mirrored in the everyday American cretin-on-the-street iPod-insulated obliviousness of the larger world ... the prevalent "personal style" of so many of the empire's children of empty entitlement.

Worse yet: The damage interstates have inflicted, both upon the landscape of our nation and upon the dreamscapes of our inner realities, we are now inflicting on a global scale ... creating dead zone after dead zone ... as, day by day, beneath it all, the strain, borne of suppressing the knowledge (and the concomitant sorrow, guilt, and shame) of how our careless, empty, self-absorbed deathsyles are engendering the rapidly accelerating rates of plant and animal extinction on our planet, grows within us.

Our lies (personal and collective) have grown so enormous in order to shield the increasingly obvious from our anxious minds. This self-deception is embodied by the afore mentioned oversized pickup truck/SUV/Humvee mindset of American consumers ... those grotesquely ugly machines are looming emblems of our massive denial of the reality of the world's finite and rapidly dwindling oil resources. To admit the truth would not only be an admission of our powerlessness before larger orders of reality -- but would, as well, call into question the entire premise of our delusional sense of infinite entitlement. Because the fact is: The empire cannot sustain itself: it's running low not only on oil and loot -- but also on raison d'être. As George W. Bush has said, "It's hard work": He's right on this account: brute force and bribery are enervating tasks; such activities leave the practitioner empty, stupefied and vulnerable, because, after a time, the predatory proxies created by an empire to do its brutal biding abroad will turn on it -- and, at home, the parasitic people to whom the system gave birth will devour it from within.

On our car radios, in the few seconds that our commercial overlords allow for even corporately sanctioned news, we might hear of the declining profits of GM, or rising oil prices, or the latest pronouncements from Alan Greenspan (all of which are about as of much consequence to the long-term order of the universe as a gnat fart in a windstorm) -- and we feel a sense of rising unease ... Perhaps, we should pull over at a Rest Area, as the storm gathers on the horizon before us, and we should contemplate the things that are of consequence to us -- here and now. And, if we are honest, our sorrow would swell, as the awareness arises within us of how the mindless demands of the corporate state suck the life and soul out those we love.

The hour is late; therefore, we can no longer afford the luxury of remaining in denial of the prevailing degradation of our lives and the approaching danger that our oil-sustained culture of obliviousness and entitlement has wrought -- and of our choosing to call our willful ignorance -- our freedom of choice ... Accordingly, It's time we lost our enchantment for being a society of preening phonies, who are oblivious to history and impervious to reason, but, who are as preternaturally aware of trend and fashion as Herman Melville was to the minutiae of whaling ship rigging and gear ... Personally, I cringe when I recall the hopelessness and dread I feel when entering a home that is devoid of books ... a house constructed in the popular, contemporary suburban/exurban style in which a massive garage has been constructed, in the spot of foremost prominence, at the front of the home. In such actions, we can see where our cultural priorities lie -- and to where those priorities have led us: to the creation of an ugly, vicious empire where our essential human aspirations have been usurped by the dreams of machines, and, as a consequence, our nation is dying from its unquenchable thirst for oil.

This brings to mind that militarily (and morally) indefensible six-mile stretch of roadway that runs between the fortified and bunkered Green Zone in the occupied city of Baghdad connecting it to the Baghdad Airport ... a stretch of highway that has been dubbed the Road of Death. This road is the defining emblem of our empire: for the Road of Death begins at our individual driveways and connects every American commuter on every road, street, and freeway spanning the length of the land, linking every American driver to the killing zones of Iraq.

All and all, our American "way of life" is a terrorist's suicide, car bomber attack, assembled, carried, and detonated by our greedy and arrogant sense of entitlement to the world's dwindling oil supply that reaps death and carnage, every moment of everyday, not only in Iraq -- but across the globe.

Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist, and philosopher bard, exiled to the island of Manhattan. He maybe contacted at: philangie2000@yahoo.com.
 


Total Comments: 15

# 1


by VoiceFromTheOuterWorld
The rising price of gasoline troubles Americans, because it threatens our sustaining, cultural illusion of our freedom of mobility

I wonder if all those Cadillac Cowboys will start migrating to Venezuela where Hugo sells gas at cost - about 12 cents a gallon?

home that is devoid of books ... a house constructed in the popular, contemporary suburban/exurban style in which a massive garage has been constructed, in the spot of foremost prominence, at the front of the home

That about sums it up :(

# 2


by jeffbiss
Americans still do not get it. All they do is whine about how expensive oil is and that the government should do something about it. In fact, my Dem governor, Blagojevich is going to request that Bush release 30 million barrels from the national reserve.

30 million barrels? We use 20 million a day now. Come on, let's get real. The problem is that Americans feel cheap oil and food is a birthright.

They claim that the government has no authority to dictate what car they drive yet demand that the government provide cheap fuel. Americans are just too stupid. Well, send in the troops!

# 3


by Marie
Blago is my governor too, alas. As on so many issues, he's wrong on releasing oil reserve oil -- that should be reserved for a real emergency, not for $3/gallon oil.

I'll feel sorry for commuting Americans when they're driving hybrids (or even nonhybrids that get 30+ mpg), but not while they're driving urban assault vehicles that get 12 to 15 mpg.

It's a pity that we have no political leadership from either party leading the way to conservation as the first big step toward using less oil.

That the recent federal energy bill did NOTHING to encourage production of efficient vehicles pretty much says it all about the state of leadership in the US.



# 4


by ArtFart
http://www.axenhammer.com This is of course assuming that there's any oil actually left in the strategic reserves.

# 5


by MizzGrizz
The dependence on the internal combustion engine that has been at the core of oursociety for so long has now crippled and shackled our society.It will be the destruction of this world.

We are deplorably indifferent to the animal habitat which will have to be destroyed to get that oil.We see civilians wounded and killed in other countries as collateral damage in our haste to guzzle more oil,and we are aided and abetted by the oil and gas junta whose profits will skyrocket from such things.It's all connected,and it's ruinous.

# 6


by oyvey


-- and, at home, the parasitic people to whom the system gave birth will devour it from within.

Such a good analogy;


# 7


by Davesdad
WHEN WILL WE GET THE POINT?
We sit here hoping that the Iraqis constitution will solve their civil war problem like throwing water on a fire. The fact of the matter is that these people have been fighting long before many of us were born and the only time they were not at war with each other is when Sadam ruled with an iron fist.
Is the Bush administration ever going to realize that “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”? They will get the constitution drafted in Iraq but there will still be factions that do not agree with it and will refuse to adopt it.
The billions of American dollars that are continuing to be spent for this war would go a long way to help this country. Just think, if we invested a half of a trillion dollars into alternative energy research, we may not need to depend on Middle East oil. Maybe if we invested a half of a trillion dollars in medical research, we may have a cure for cancer, or AIDS, or some of the other diseases that are killing off the world population. Let’s hope and pray we have not squandered our money in vain!!


# 8


by TOOO
Just think, if we invested a half of a trillion dollars into alternative energy research, we may not need to depend on Middle East oil. Maybe if we invested a half of a trillion dollars in medical research, we may have a cure for cancer, or AIDS, or some of the other diseases that are killing off the world population.

We can't do that! It would hurt Bush's "base" in the oil and pharmaceutical megacorps!

# 9


by oldphilosopher
Personally, I cringe when I recall the hopelessness and dread I feel when entering a home that is devoid of books...


There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry --
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll --
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.

Emily Dickinson

# 10 of 15


by timbermonkey
I do what I can to conserve energy, and I feel contempt for people who buy gas guzzlers just as status symbols--as opposed to people who arguably "need" one to tow a trailer--but I feel freedom on the open road. I feel trapped in the city, and watching sports on TV isn't an "escape" for me. I drive a Toyota Tacoma that gets nearly 30 mpg on the highway; not as good as it could be, but better than the 16 mpg I'd get in a bigger truck.

People who suggest that hydrogen, ethanol, et. al. will become viable once gasoline hits $8 or 10 a gallon completely discount the value of travel and exploration as expressions of human curiosity and adventure. They also seem to imply that it's OK if only the wealthy will be able to afford to travel, while the rest of us languish in what are little more than worker residence complexes with just enough canned entertainment to keep people distracted. I wonder how many hours of ESPN the author watches in a weekend.

I personally think the evidence supports the idea that we are near or at the peak of fossil fuel production. Even so, there are many ways that we could ensure that resources are available to all sectors of American society without resorting to invasions of other nations, but the fake liberals in the Democratic party have to be willing to give the finger to big business and their wealthy donors in order to carry them out. In other words, war is the answer because only war and the destruction of democracies in oil-rich areas will allow us to ride around in Land Rovers with "Life is Good" stickers on them.


# 11


by junkyardbob
Don't give yourself too much credit. He gets 15mpg; you get 30mpg? you are only 50% the pig as him! But a pig none the less.

# 12


by OregonRowdie
People who suggest that hydrogen, ethanol, et. al. will become viable once gasoline hits $8 or 10 a gallon completely discount the value of travel and exploration as expressions of human curiosity and adventure.


At age 42, I have never had a driver's license or owned a car. And I love to remind people that the Roman Empire conquered the whole of the known world without one single solitary motor vehicle.


People walk or ride bicycles across the country and around the world all the time--and not just hyper-athletic Lance Armstrong types, but kids, little old ladies, fat couch potatoes, the works. Those who are so attached to their cars that they can't conceive of 'travel' without one are, to my mind, truly sad.



I wonder how many hours of ESPN the author watches in a weekend.


My guess would be "none"; there are plenty of people who actually live their ethics. I own a TV and am quite the media junkie--I actually enjoy WWE wresting and dumb sitcoms--but just because an author takes a stance that may seem outrageous to you doesn't mean he's hiding a terrible middle-class hypocrisy. And if he were, does that make his opinions any less valid?.


Personally, I thought this article was beautiful; both poetically written and sharp as a knife.


jaydog



# 13


by rhetoric
Beautifully written piece even as it chilled me to the bone. Grim truth in glorious language.
Thanks.

# 14


by ArtFart
http://www.axenhammer.com Tow observations from the last couple weeks:

As in the last couple of times that there was a sudden increase in the price of gasoline, people are paradoxically reacting by driving even faster. No, correct that: people are driving like even bigger idiots than most of them usually do.

I do most of the grocery shopping in our family, and I've noticed that prices of almost everything in several supermarket chains (and no doubt, all the others) is rapidly increasing, no doubt in lock step with the cost of the diesel oil it takes to get them to the shelves. Of course, the farther the stuff comes from, the faster the increase. I expect we will very soon come to sorely regret the fact that many of our agricultural products come from South America so our local farms could be turned into subdivisions.

# 15


by TOOO
People have been predicting "The End" for centuries. There have been a lot of stories about the so-called Rapture going around recently. I think it's because we no longer have anything to look forward to.

Think about it. First, everybody was looking forward to 1984, trying to see if we could avoid Orwell's nightmare. (As I understand it, the original title was The Last Man in Europe. Would the book have sold as well under that title?) Then, there was 1999, and "by the year 2000" or even Kubrick/Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Would that movie have gone over as well if it was just titled A Space Odyssey?)

Well, we've passed all those landmarks. Nobody is talking about "by the year XXXX" anymore. No more deadlines to clean up our act. Nothing. We're hopelessly stuck in the present, thinking this is IT.

History has shown us that change is inevitable. But Change tends to be very sneaky. Can any of us remember a time without the Internet, cell phones, CDs, DVDs, etc.?

We need a new future. A new deadline. Let's pick a year arbitrarily: say, 2050. 2100. How about 2101? What will life (or Life) be like then? What should we hope for or dread by that time?

The future is the only thing that's definitely coming.