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Shopping
for peace: Julie Belles.
Photo by John Whipple
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Deportation
Station
Eric
Daille, of the Rensselaer County Greens, spoke to the media
at a Jan. 10 demonstration to oppose the Immigration and Naturalization
Service’s special registration program that many say unfairly
targets immigrants and citizens from the Middle East. Civil
libertarians claim the registration process will demonize
immigrants of Middle Eastern descent and will have little
effect on preventing terrorism. Jan. 10 represented the second
of three dates for Middle Eastern immigrants and nationals
to report to the INS. Individuals in the United States from
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia must report for registration by
Feb. 21.
The protest was held in front of the Lee O’Brien federal office
building in Albany
What
Drives Censorship?
“Oil
money supports some terrible things. What kind of gas mileage
does your SUV get? What is your SUV doing to national security?”
Television commercials posing those very questions aired the
weekend of Jan. 18-19 on a public-access television station
in Detroit and two stations in Washington, D.C., after being
censored for a week. Modeled after the U.S. Office of National
Drug Control Policy’s drug-money-supports- terrorism ads,
a media consortium called the Detroit Project designed an
ad campaign exploring the notion that driving gas-guzzling
sport utility vehicles supports terrorism.
“We’re
just using the [Bush administration’s] logic,” said Laurie
David, cofounder of The Detroit Project. “If you smoke pot,
the money you spend supports terrorism? We think that is a
little bit absurd. It seems a much more direct connection
to substitute oil for drugs.”
Stations in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco refused
to air the 30-second spots, pointing to policies against running
controversial ads. But David said the stations made their
decision so as not to anger one of their largest advertisers—according
to The Detroit Project, the auto industry as a whole spends
$1.5 billion dollars on advertising annually.
In one of the ads, which can be viewed at www.detroitproject.com,
straight-faced SUV owners explain how their inefficient vehicles
support terrorist activities: “I helped blow up a nightclub.
I helped fund a terrorist training camp.”
“Follow
the money,” David said. “We are sending trillions to the economies
of these unstable nations in the Middle East. Why are we supporting
the nations that hate us?”
According to Autodata Corp., an automobile industry research
firm, one in four vehicles sold in 2002 was a sport utility
vehicle. In light of the Bush administration’s current plan
to increase SUV and light-truck fuel-economy standards by
1.5 miles per gallon over the next several years, the Detroit
Project thinks more should be done to curb the U.S. oil consumption.
The group is calling on automakers to increase fuel efficiency
standards and invest more in the development of gas-electric
hybrid automobiles.
“The
point of the ads was to quick-start a national discussion
on our insane dependence on oil,” Davis said. “And I think
we’ve done that. We want to keep the discussion going and
start to put some pressure on Detroit.”
—T.D.
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Columns
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