Experiencing
a San Francisco protest
“For many decades now, the United States
has been without an energy policy . . .
The world is currently precariously close
to utilizing all of its available global
oil production capacity, raising the chances
of an oil-supply crisis with more substantial
consequences than seen in three decades
. . . ” This quote is from the “Strategic
Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,”
a report sponsored by the James A. Baker
III Institute for Public Policy of Rice
University and the Council on Foreign Relations,
March 2001.
The day before the protest:
I’m carpooling with a friend to the anti-war
protest in San Francisco. We’re running
a little late. On the freeway, metal boxes
combust petrol and go nowhere fast. We creep
and edge and inch along the freeway. LA
won’t let us out of its grip. It knows where
we’re going. The gasoline burns, explodes,
dissipates and leaves nothing but hot frustration.
I imagine a rail line streaming down the
highway. LA had trains once, before it was
pimped out to General Motors and Standard
Oil.
The commuter rail that could have been.
A sleek bullet carrying us out of the city,
sharing the ride, sharing the cost, with
no loss of time, and no gridlock.
It’s an hour and a half before we escape
the spider’s web and are off to San Francisco.
The protest:
We’re on Market Street. People are arriving
in numbers, their signs speaking their minds,
telling their stories.
“No Blood for Oil,” ”No War on Iraq,“ “Bush
Lies,” “George Bush has the Brain of a Twinkie”.
There are hundreds of signs, and thousands
of people, tens of thousands. I can’t see
space on the street, just coats and hats
and faces.
Dr. Helen Caldicott is onstage. She’s talking
about the depleted uranium bombs that the
U.S. used in the Gulf War; slow-release
nuclear bombs that have killed a generation
of infants in Iraq. She’s talking about
a war that will breed an army of embittered,
crippled souls whose raison d’être
will be to revenge their suffering on the
Western World.
A war that will be the opening salvo of
a spiraling global conflict that leaves
no one standing.
Cars whirl by on the Embarcadero, drowning
her speech from my ears.
The SEP report states clearly, “ . . . There
is no place at home or abroad where enough
oil or gas can be developed fast enough
to moderate prices in the next six to twelve
months . . . U.S. energy independence is
not attainable . . . “
Passing cars overpower the amplifiers pointed
in my direction. The howls of spent petroleum.
Oil from Alaska, Saudi Arabia, South America
and Russia. And from our sworn enemy, through
middlemen, because we won’t buy it from
Iraq directly. But we’ll take it from them.
The report continues “ . . . Politicians
still speak of U.S. energy independence,
while the United States is importing more
than half of its oil supplies . . . Indeed,
the US imports almost a million barrels
of Iraqi oil a day . . . “ - S.E.P.
The march is on. The mass of protesters
head south towards the Civic Center.
Some of the city’s 12,000 homeless stare
in wonder. One man smiles so broadly at
the sight that I think he might cry.
We’re approaching the Civic Center. The
crowd masses on the lawn. Congresswoman
Barbara Lee is speaking. But I can’t quite
hear her.
The cars have once again taken over.
The automobile, the gas station, the plastics
and petrochemicals; it’s why we’re going
to war. We’re addicted. We’ll kill for more,
even though we know it won’t last.
Turn the ignition, and place your trust
in the oil and weapons investors who run
the government. Put your life in their hands.
Don’t be distracted by the facts. Don’t
be swayed by cries for peace or pity.
It’s a way of life we’re defending. Or so
we’re told.
The next day:
Cars spew exhaust. The homeless dig in the
garbage. 4,000 of them are war veterans.
They bought the lie once, and they have
this to show for it.
Leaving San Francisco, we notice the rail
lines bordering the highway for miles out
of Oakland. Public transportation.
“Wouldn’t that be great,” we ask aloud,
thinking of Los Angeles; of Europe’s rail
lines, Japan’s bullet trains. The way the
world travels, sharing the ride.
“So, we come to the report’s central dilemma:
the American people continue to demand plentiful
and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience.
But emerging technologies are not yet commercially
viable to fill shortages . . . nor is surplus
energy capacity available at this time to
meet such demands.”
Is America just too big for trains? Is Los
Angeles? It seems that as long as there’s
oil in the world that can be taken with
bullets or dollars, the answer is “yes.”
Liam Scheff is an education major at Cal
State Long Beach.
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