Save the Hummer campaign « Recurring Decimals…..

July 17, 2008...1:05 pm

Save the Hummer campaign

In this day and age of high oil prices, and environmental concerns, one person is not afraid to speak the truth. Matthew DeBord argues that the GM behemoth Hummer - often mistaken as a male attempt to cover other…um….shortcomings - needs to be saved; as a symbol of American male virility, or something:

GM desperately needs an obnoxious, attention-grabbing brand to keep from turning into a dreary shadow of its former self. And America needs the Hummer to remind us of what has always made our automobiles stand out, from the tailfin 1950s to the muscle car 1960s and ’70s: swagger. Americans don’t just drive their cars — they proclaim something about themselves by driving them.

It takes a certain kind of man — it’s almost always the owner of a Y chromosome — to take a gander at the Hummer, in all its broad, burly, paramilitary gas-guzzling glory, and see himself behind the wheel, striking fear and loathing in the hearts of ecologically sensitive motorists. Oprah does not drive a Hummer. But Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a proud owner. As has Sylvester Stallone. The Hummer appeals to large men of even larger ego, men who aren’t worried about their carbon footprint and believe that obstacles in life are meant not just to be surmounted but squashed flat. They like owning the beast because, when it bears down on lesser rides on the freeway, those lesser rides — even the Teutonic triple threat of Porsche/BMW/Mercedes — get out of the way. Every once in while, you see a little guy clambering out of a Hummer, painfully in need of a ladder, and you realize that it can also be viewed as a $57,000 ticket to enlarged self-esteem.(link)

One assumes, or hopes - for the sake of sanity - that this Washington Post op-ed was written tongue firmly in cheek.

Anyway, provides an opportunity to post this photo, taken early on during a memorable trip to the Smokies, on a North Carolina freeway (note the personalized license plate).