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With the Truckers in DC
Truckers live in an alternative dimension, at least so I conclude when trying to figure out how to meet up with the convoy of trucks coming into to DC to protest high diesel fuel prices on Monday. JB, aka Mike Schaffner, one of the organizers of the action, calls early in the morning to suggest various highway intersections, and I have to explain there's no way a pedestrian can be just standing on one the super-highways around DC. We eventually settle on a spot in a desolate area of southeastern DC, but even so, I probably couldn't have made the connection without the genes of a grandfather who rode the rails. When I hear the honking, low and steady, and see the first trucks rising out from an underpass, I scramble up to a narrow walkway along their route and start waving frantically. Everyone waves back nicely, and about the fifth truck actually stops. It's JB and I leap aboard.
JB and I have become friends-by-phone in the weeks since I blogged about the first truckers' protests in the beginning of April, but all I knew about him as a physical presence is that he always wears a black cowboy hat. Its brim is turned down, locating him in Larry McMurtry's rather than John Wayne's West, and his eyes twinkle deeply when he smiles, which is pretty much all the time. Everything seems to delight him: Being in DC for the first time, having 250 trucks behind him, the friendliness of the tourists on the street as we inch our way toward the Mall.
Since he hasn't been home in Texas since January 1, this -- the "bobtail" of a truck based in New Jersey -- is JB's world. There's a neatly made bed behind our seats and a laptop that can swivel into view while he's driving, as well, of course, as a GPS, a cell phone and CB radio. From this little control room, which is also a workplace and a living space, JB has helped assemble the hundreds of truckers and their families who are with us now. It's a life stripped bare: He ordinarily eats only one meal a day (nothing fried or from a buffet), sleeps rarely (just an hour and half last night), and drinks no coffee ("it leads to stops") but admits to an occasional Red Bull.
We circle the Mall, slowly, triumphantly, twice. It's hard to talk over the honking and the excited CB chatter, but JB wants to know if I've ever been at a demonstration in DC before. Ah, I explain, I go back to the 60s, but the most recent one was an anti-war demonstration organized by the women's group Code Pink. He laughs, making me think he finds the name amusing. But no, he shows me he has Code Pink in his cell phone. They had contacted him and will be joining us at the rally at the Capitol.
We are to park the trucks at the RFK Stadium and walk from there to the Capitol, giving us about a half an hour to mill around on foot in the parking lot first. There's a bobtail with "Truckin for Jesus" painted on it and, under that, "Truckers and Citizens United." There are Operation Desert Freedom caps and a POW/MIA flag, as well signs indicting oil companies and "Wall Street speculators." I chat with members of the mostly African-American contingent of DC dump truck drivers and with Belinda Raymond, a trucker's wife from Maine, who tells me that people in her area raised $9000 to send a convoy of trucks down here, with the Knights of Columbus accounting for $2500 of that. Whole families have come, and I see a boy carrying a sign saying "What about My Future?" A smartly dressed woman from New Jersey carries a sign asking, "Got Milk? Not Without a Truck."
If there's an ideology at work here I'd call it small-d democratic fundamentalism: We own the government, we pay for it, and now it better do something for us. In fact, JB is carrying hundreds of copies of the Code of Ethics for Civil Servants he's downloaded from the internet to hand out at the Capitol and remind Congress of their duties. The only time I see his smile fade is when the protest's media coordinator -- contributed pro bono by the liberal think tank The Institute for Policy Studies -- lays down the ground rules for a meeting with Senator Jeff Sessions (R, AL) scheduled for the afternoon. "But he works for us!" JB protests.
On the 45 minute long march from the stadium to the Capitol, things degenerate toward the level of farce. No one had counted on the rain, which is back in force, or on the fact that, as one guy puts it to me, they're "truckers, not walkers." JB, I and a few others fall behind because JB insists on running back to his truck and changing into a shirt printed with the American flag and Constitution. Our little band includes Mike Groff, a heavily pierced 20-something from Pennsylvania who is one of the original organizers of the protests and his pregnant wife Melissa. JB and Mike take turns pulling a wagon carrying batteries for the sound system that will be used at the rally. The rain turns into a torrent. We trudge through the ghetto, then on into a middle class neighborhood sporting azaleas and Obama lawn signs, not entirely sure of our direction and soaked to the skin. Melissa reassures me that, if we pee our pants, which seems increasingly likely, no one will notice.
But things look up when we get the Capitol, thanks largely to Senator Susan Collins (R, ME), who arranges for the truckers to stage a press conference inside the Russell Building lobby and out of the rain. Three truckers -- two white and one black -- speak about their dwindling livelihoods and the need for immediate government action to push down fuel prices. I can't fight my way through the media to hear much of what they're saying, but one speaker mentions foreclosures. This is a wide-ranging cry from the strangled middle class -- or working class or whatever you want to call it -- and all I can think is: Where are the Democrats? Why aren't they are pouring out of their offices to show support for the truckers? And wouldn't have been wonderful if Obama had shown up? Because he's not going to make it unless he learns to channel the frustration of people like JB, Melissa and Mike.
That's just my concern though. The whole event has been strictly nonpartisan. The truckers are already focused on the May 1 Truckers and Citizens United protest in New York City (see www.theamericandriver.com). That one, JB tells me, will be in solidarity with the San Francisco longshoremen's May Day actions against the war.
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Nothing in the US is going to get resolved until the war ends.
I predict that a tent city will be erected in DC over the summer.
I hope people will save their pennies and go there when that is announced.
No one in CONgress - and particularly NANCY PELOSI - is going to lift one finger to help the American public. They should ALL be tried for WAR CRIMES, eveyr last one. (and yes, that goes for Ron Paul, too.)
You want to see better ACTION; send money to Shirley Golub's primary campaign and support Ralph Nadar. Force the media off the sidelines.
The key issue is that crude oil allocations of diesel are being diverted to domestic gasoline uses. Maybe because the average "car" driving public has a bigger voice... but this strategy is starting to backfire as we are starting to see higher prices for everything else that we buy. The "crude" truth is that diesel is far cheaper to produce and yields more gallons of useable fuel out of a barrel of oil.
Its time to step up and mandate a 55 mph speed limit for all light/ heavy truck and SUV traffic and 65mph for regular cars. This went along way to solving the gas crunch in the seventies. Many of our Interstates are regulated at 70 mph.... which, in reality, means 75 to 85. A common pick-up truck that gets 16 mpg at 70 will get 12 mpg at 80. The same truck though will get 18 mpg at 55 to 60.
Today’s cars run more efficiently at higher speeds and this is why they would fall into the 65 mph bracket.
Thoughts??
T.
These morons all voted for Bush....TWICE. They deserve to go broke and find new jobs at Walmart. Gee, I never thought electing a complete whore for the oil companies might lead to higher prices, I just thought he'd be fun to have a beer with. Holy $hit Americans are stupid!!!!!
Am I the only person who senses 1. That we aren't giving up our appetite for oil and 2) That it is very foolish to continue to pump trillions of dollars into the pockets of people who are very vocal about wanting to blow us to smithereens? Have we entirely abandoned the idea of drilling anywhere in the United States? Did anyone but me follow the Anwar situation? Not the hype, the facts. Let's drill already. And let's allow our scientists to work on new forms of energy. Historically, we have solved many problems in this country by allowing people the freedom to find solutions instead of crippling them with so many restrictions that they cannot move forward. I read that the Dem Congress has rejected the Repub President's ideas to help with gas prices. We need to move forward on this issue together and it can't just be about politics or borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Let's solve our energy problems ourselves.
I have one question about ANWR. Just how much that comes out of the Alaska pipeline actually goes to the US rather than East Asia? And if we up production from that region, how will it help the US supply if it's cheaper for Big Oil to ship it to the East?
It doesn't matter. The amount of oil in ANWR is too small to make any difference and we wont see a drop for ten year if we started now. This is just a right wing fetish about attacking the hated leftie ecologist not useful energy policy.
I know this is a very serious issue, and I sympathize with the truckers wholeheartedly, but I just can't keep myself from having the 'JB' in the article read as 'Rubber Duck' followed by the Convoy theme in my head
I'm a bad person
LOL! No, you're not a bad person - just a good person with a sense of humour.
So there.
Not to mention a good person who just happens to be reeeeeally dating themselves...
As with most of the problems, indeed caused by collusion between the government and the corporations.
The drivers are the victims, like most of us, while somebody else sits back and collects the profits.
This is another example of why we need an *enforced* redistribution of wealth - yes, take back all the ill-gotten gains of the oil companies, the defense contractors, the overpaid CEO's and politicians, health insurance companies, mortgage companies, etc. etc. and give it back to the public from whom it has been stolen.
Actually, this problem is caused by an inability of most people to understand that using oil follows the same laws of nature as sucking on a glass of lemonade with a straw. There is only so much lemonade going through that straw, no matter how hard one sucks, and there is a point in time when the glass is half empty. In case of oil for various technical reasons the peak of the flow of lemonade roughly coincides with the time when the glass is half empty. That is what we are witnessing, it has been predicted with rather simple mathematical models based on very general assumptions half a century ago. These models have been validated over and over again, in case of the US in 1970 and since then dozens of producing nations have followed the same trends. Today the world as a whole has reached the peak of oil production. Producer nations and markets know this and the price of oil is going up. And it will continue to go up as long as we don't replace it with something else. None of this is magic and all of it can be mitigated. For most truckers that mitigation will come too late, however.
When I was a kid, I was taught about truck farms - farmers grow stuff and bring it to market by truck. Nobody ever mentioned that trucks need fuel, and even locally-grown foods don't get to market by magic. Nobody ever mentioned that growing food requires fuel - fields don't plant, till, or harvest themselves. Priuses are nice, but I'd bet they couldn't haul a few tons of produce from the farm to the market, and how many hybrid semis are out there?
Sometimes, when I read an article like this, I feel despair. The protests are wonderful and certainly do attract attention - then everybody goes home and nothing changes. The truckers I've known are barely making ends meet. And as noted, too many of the folks driving the trucks are blithely voting for the Repubs who have caused this current crisis. We just plain don't seem to understand the connections between who we vote for and what we get as a result.
Everything I have/use comes by truck. Even the Internet arrives by semi - how did my Net-connected computer get to me? By truck. The electricity I use for that computer? By truck (coal trucks, oil tanker trucks). The content on the Net? Written by people who wear clothes, eat food, and write on a computer - all things that arrive by truck. Sooner or later, everything we do is affected by fuel. Take away the fuel, and eventually everything breaks down.
Nice post Sciguy. There's a poster further down who asserts they don't get the internet by truck. A post that was typed on a keyboard hauled by . . . a truck. Whatever truckers' political motivations, whatever our nation's failures regarding rail transportation, etc, etc, we are way past the point of worrying about finger pointing. The only thing that matters now is the price of a barrel of oil. Without drastic changes to how our global civilization operates and, frankly, why we even bother organizing ourselves into a civilization, eventually that number will reach a point where everything simply unravels. Is such change even possible at this point? Somedays stories like this give me hope, but other days they only make me feel even more hopeless.
What is wrong with this picture is that much of truck traffic can be eliminated by rails, trucks can be made twice as fuel efficient, we can cut out enormous amounts of junk from our consumption habits that we don't need etc.. When I was a kid, the western world used only half the amount of oil we are using now. We did not starve. We did not suffer. I wouldn't mind going back to that world again. I am too old to enjoy junk. And I don't mind buying my veggies from the local market rather than have them trucked in from 2000 miles away. They taste just as good. Better, actually.
Isn't the big problem that truckers are being squeezed from both sides? Gas prices going up, but the people they're shipping for aren't paying for it. Seems that truckers need to demand higher pay (not subsidies). Higher pay should lead to more accurate pricing for us consumers. Subsequently, we might gain an incentive to vote for greater efficiencies. If shipping prices don't accurately reflect shipping costs, nothing will change.
Now I'm not exactly sure how to get to accurate pricing.... seems like the "solidarity" approach these guys are invoking is a pretty good step in the right direction. Getting organized is clearly in their interest.
As for shorter term changes, perhaps you could institute some sort of interstate shipment tax (which would basically fall on us consumers), that in turn gets rebated to these guys (ie: sort of de facto accurate pricing). Common targets like reducing the gas tax (something like $.24 for diesel) tend to not have much effect. If you cut it $.10/gallon, and you get maybe a $.05 reduction in the price of diesel... which won't mean ANYTHING to these guys, who have been dealing with diesel prices over $4 a gallon.
Anyway, Americans aren't going to change their behavior unless we're feel the real costs. Thus accurate pricing isn't only in the truckers interests, but ours too. Getting there, is another story, unfortunately... any experts out there to fill us in on the other policy ideas being tossed around?
THEY DON'T PAY DON'T HAUL!!!!
Price shipping of everything indivudually if they choose to play games with paying for shipping.
They want to ship 10,000 units charge for each and everyone seperately. Stop hauilng trailors company's have leased and fill with whatever they want. JUST SAY "NO".
While I feel for their livelihoods going up in exhaust, I tend to agree with libghost. Its not like we didn't see these circumstances coming for a long time. These guys are all Bush lovers, brag about "kickin' hippies' asses", etc. Let'em see the product of their team's policies.........yep, we'll all be paying more for everything, thanks to perpetuating a transport system based on a non-renewable resource, provided by a corporation with government protection. Lots of people are going to be out of work because the foxes have been watching over the henhouse, not just truckers. Amazing how fast the conservative free marketers go running to the government when things get bad. Anyone STILL want to privatize Social Security or your local water supply?
"These guys are all Bush lovers, brag about "kickin' hippies' asses", etc."
I really doubt that they're all Bush lovers.
Wake up, everyone of these ignorant f#cks voted for Bush TWICE. Screw them, they deserve to go belly up or worse.
You want change? Every trucker in America park their rigs for one week then you might see people get off their ass and do what needs to be done.
Which is what exactly?
Truckers have fought efficiency standards and haven't stood with democrats for decades. Let them continue to be the repubilcan-libertarian self-righteous boobs they've been since at least Nixon.
Now that it's *THEIR* wallet being hurt, I hear them: "Hhhhhhhhelp meeeee! Hhhhhhelp meeeeee!"
Let's use what remains of our national intellect and realize railroads are more efficient transcontinental freight haulers than any truck.
Hey, there, when the trucker's wallet drys up, yours will too shortly after. How dumb not to see the connection. Truckers go out, and you go up in smoke, since you can't eat or drink your money. What can you name that a truck doesn't bring you?
You must have missed the part about using railroads instead of trans-continental trucking.
And you missed the part about truckers fighting fuel efficiency standards. Did they or didn't they?
Oh, and that thing that a truck doesn't bring me? The Internet.
You see the connection, but not the problem. Our entire distribution system rests on planes and trucks. No wonder there's no motivation to get off of oil. We'd have to rethink huge portions of our economy which relies on shipping stuff from anywhere to anyplace, and there's little local supply of anything. It would take years to change that, so let's not even talk about it. Bush has THE solution: start drilling in Alaska's National Wildlife Reserve, so we'll have a bit more gas to burn ten years from now. The man is as far-sighted as a bat.
DUDE YOU MEAN THE TRUCKING COMPANY OWNERS !!!!!!
TRUCKER UNIONS HAVE BEEN THE TARGET OF THE REPUBLICANS FOR YEARS.
Destroying the unions to lower shipping prices by eliminating health care and retirement benifits!
That RR freight still ends up on a truck, dummy, unless you want to go to the freight yards to shop.
Yeah but the freight yard isn't 2500 miles away. This isn't about shipping within a town or a county. This is about transcontinental shipping which is going to have to move to rail anyway. The independent long haul trucker is a anomaly of one thing ,cheap petroleum, and the days of cheap petroleum are over
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