Americans must take a stand against the American auto industry

Even Bill Ford Jr. admits that car exhaust contributes to global warming, and that SUVs have had, at times, a dangerous past.

In just 50 years, Southern California has become a city highlighted by its notorious smog - something that kills people, and shortens the lifespan of millions of others.

This wasn't some natural phenomenon, this was man-made.

According to the Pentagon, global warming is one of the greatest threats to American security.

So what are American auto corporations doing about it? What are American corporations, who stand by "Buy American", really doing to help Americans?

Is building bigger SUVs what America stands for?

O.K., let's forget about the environment. Big gas-guzzlers can only make sense if gas is cheap.

Has enforcing cheap, foreign-derived oil cost America?

While, cheap gas has allowed Americans to drive huge, waste-of-everything vehicles, it has also required immense military action in the Middle East, seeded terrorism and anti-Americanism, led to two wars in Iraq, and helped bring about 911.

So now what is the auto industry, particularly, the American auto industry, doing about it?

Ford is releasing 20,000 Ford Escape hybrids. Sure, that isn't even a percent of their sales, but what a nice gesture.

Of course the Escape hybrid couldn't have been produced if Ford didn't lease its hybrid technology from Toyota. See, Toyota perfected the hybrid powertrain with the Toyota Prius.

If not for the Prius, America would be decades away from the Escape hybrid.

Now, Honda is releasing the Accord hybrid, it's third hyrbid model, and Toyota will be releasing several more models in 2005.

Ironically, only Japanese companies have addressed these issues, issues that should be a national priority to all Americans and American corporations.

They say, in many parts of America, cars are an extension of peoples' personalities. Imagine what that says about many Americans.

F_ _ _ the environment. F _ _ _ the Middle East and all Muslims, in fact, F _ _ _ everybody else in the world. I don't care about the future. It's not my responsibility. My kids can clean up my mess, and if you don't like it, I'll just run you over.

While SUVs are not evil, they are completely unneccessary in the driving conditions of most Americans, and they promote irresponsibility.

If something is unneccessary, and destructive, wouldn't the intelligent and the simple thing be to get rid of it?

Americans have been duped to believe that SUVs stand for American freedom of choice.

In reality; however, SUVs stand for anything but freedom.

American auto corporations have had plenty of time to clean up their dirty act.

Now it is up to the people to represent. Do we stand for arrogant irresponsibility, or do we stand for Freedom?. Hybrid cars and other fuel efficient vehicles and technologies represent not only freedom, but the future. Anything less is unacceptable.

Join the revolution.