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The automobile has transformed Western society-
made
the a ir unfit to breathe,
caused
family money problems,
con–
tributed to illegitimacy and crime
-
yet we continue to
Ambassaclor
Co//ogo
Photo
T
HE AUTOllfOJlU.F. MYSTIQUE
has
gripped the Western World. Of
all the materialistic gods which
our Technologic,ll Age has produced,
the automobilc.: is chic.:f.
Millions serve, revcre and "worship"
the automobile in a sense approaching
a rc::ligious ritual. What was once
a mechanical sc.:rvant has lx:come a
Frankenstein monster, kdling off its
creators.
"My Master, the Car"
John A. Volpe, Secretary of Trans–
portation, askcd: "Should we permit
[thc automobile] to chnnge from a
servant to our master, to bccome nn end
in itself rathcr than a mcans to a better
life ?"
sacrifice to the
god on
wheels!
by
Garner Ted Armstrong and Paul Kroll
Yet, only feeble nttempts havc been
made to pry loose the death-like grip
of this mechanical monster.
The big-city commuter, for exnmple,
often spends 13% of his week-day
waking hours in traffic. Onc certainly
could not call
that
the good life. Free–
ways become ever more clogged. Sub–
urbs even more congestcd.
And the ubiquitous automobile con–
tinues to thrust its tentacles into every
aspect of society. Take the business
world as a case in point. In the United
States,
011e 0111 of every six b!ISinesses
and one out of evcry five jobs is
involved in maintaining our motorized–
transportation system. The steel industry
depends on automobile production. So
do oil companies. Construction Ji rms are
involvcd. Witness the building of roads,
frceways, parking lots and structures,
service stations, repair shops, and homes
for peoplc in these occupations.
In Canalla, one out of every four of
that nation's 8,677,000 work force is
directly, largely or at least partially
Jependent on the auto industry.
The auto industry
is
a steel-using
bottomless pit. It devours about one
fifth of the U. S. output, voraciously
consumes 60 percent of the country's
rubber, cats up one third of it glass
and chews into large guantities of other
raw materials.
Fifteen percent of Canada's steel
industry production will be shipped to