Thread: what you can do personally

Here's one thing you can do PERSONALLY, to help America right now:

STOP DRIVING!!!

Seriously. STOP driving. Find "some other" way of doing what you need to do.

Let me tell you why I'm saying this:

I live in Los Angeles. We got LOTS of freeways here (highways, turnpikes, whatever else they call 'em in different parts of the country).

Now, I've been making the observation, that there's a whole LOT of people out here, who spend MORE THAN ONE HOUR EVERY DAY, EACH WAY, commuting to work.

And most of these people, are "skilled" workers - they're commuting to some kinda aerospace job down by the airport, or maybe some financial thing in Century City, whatever....

So now, here's the reality: ALL these people, they're PAYING Exxon for the privilege of going to work - and all that gas is doing NOTHING but keeping their engines idling while they're on that parking lot they call the freeway.

Imagine what would happen, if the USA, had TWO extra hours each day, from all of its skilled workers?

Pals o' mine, I've done the math on this. The debt, right now, is around 42,000 dollars per person. TWO extra hours of work per day, from all the skilled workers in America, means that ENTIRE debt is paid off in LESS than one president's term.

Four years from now, we can be debt-free, if we put our minds to it.

All we gotta do, is start working, and stop complaining, and maybe open our minds to ideas like: driving is a BAD thing. It wastes a precious natural resource. It creates pollution. It siphons money OUT of my bank account and INTO exxon's, and THEY DON'T NEED IT. My guvmint needs it a lot worse than Exxon does right now.

See, so, I've sold the SUV and gotten us a bunch of bicycles. And, we're gonna see how we do "that way", for a while. You know, it's really not that bad. You can use the bikes for "close", and public transpo for "far", and they got these little bike racks on the buses where you can just lift 'em up there, and they ride for free, they don't cost any extra.....

And the only disadvantage - the ONLY one - is that you gotta hang with people you don't know for a minute or two. Your fellow Americans, right?

Aww don't give me that liberal jewish media conspiracy about global warming. We ALL know its just a natural process of the end of days.

Sell my car and buy a bike? How about if I just shut my car off on down hills?

Sparta just got a new Hyunda Santana Fey, the cadillac of minivans, you can't ask him to give that up. If I quit driving my truck, what would my fast hound dog ride in the back of? Plus, gas just dropped below $2 in my kneck of the woods.

I'd love to quit driving. Unfortunately, my current job is too far away to ride a bike. And we have something called "winter" here in Ohio, so a bike isn't practical a lot of the time.

Originally Posted by Blueneck

I'd love to quit driving. Unfortunately, my current job is too far away to ride a bike. And we have something called "winter" here in Ohio, so a bike isn't practical a lot of the time.

I've got a 40 mile commute each way and there is no public transportation, I'd ride a bike but it's uphill the whole way, each way. Seriously, when I worked in DC I used the Metro to commute, I loved it.

M-hm. So, could any of these jobs be done, say, "over the internet"?

Maybe, two days a week instead of five, in the physical workplace?

Or are you guys like "floor supervisors" or some such thing?

Does your job actually require your physical presence?

My city has decent bus service, but that's about it. But I work everyday, then i have to be at school an hour later, so I wouldn't make it on time.

I did buy a Schwinn a couple months ago to get around my neck of the woods.

For some that would be an alternative but it also brings into mind that if the people were to act in a spirit of doing what is right for this country we could pay off this debt our nation holds and free up large amounts of capital in so doing.

Of course we would have to require the government to balance it's budget and find a mechanism to prevent borrowing.

I've already stopped driving down to the shore and only watch the ocean from somebody's web cam.

I don't go to parks anymore, I have a 3 X 3 lot of grass in my front yard already.

We've quit going to the mall or to the movies, because we fear terrorists out "there"

I quit my job in order to make time for my new non-carbon footprint career from home (Prostitute)

I hold my breathe as much as I can to reduce my carbon emmissions..

I've just purchased a buggy, the horse will be here on Monday..