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J.H. Crawford | 1 Dec 2002 09:15
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Semantics


Hi All,

We should also spend some time addressing the issue of
semantics because:

Control the language and you control the debate.

An example:

If we can make it politically incorrect to refer to a 
"car accident" instead of a "car collision," we start
to change the debate immediately--an accident is something
that just happens, a collision can be avoided.

"Highway investment" vs "public transport subsidy".
The irony, of course, is that there is far more subsidy
of highways than public transport.

There are probably hundreds of cases in our debate where
the industry has established the semantics, to their
great advantage. We need to undermine this. How do we
begin?

Regards,

Joel

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Xavier "Treviño" | 2 Dec 2002 04:21
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Re: [carfree_conf3] Semantics

or "roads" vs. "streets"

--- "J.H. Crawford" <mailbox@...> wrote:
> If we can make it politically incorrect to refer to
> a 
> "car accident" instead of a "car collision," we
> start
> to change the debate immediately--an accident is
> something
> that just happens, a collision can be avoided.

Xavier.

PD. Let me introduce me. I live in Mexico City, and I
am part of Bicitekas (bicitekas.org) a grassroots
organization that fight for more human cities on our bikes.

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Alice Mosley | 2 Dec 2002 04:54
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Re: [carfree_conf3] Semantics

Hello to J.H. Crawford and others:

I agree on the importance of addressing the issue of
semantics, too. A couple of other examples:

At a public inquiry into a motorway project in
Scotland, at first, the road promoters denied it was a
motorway, but years later used the term freely when
the construction had been approved and construction
had begun. In other words, they sought to give the
impression it was merely a friendly local road, rather
than a whacking great scar across the landscape.
In the roads department jargon in their submisions,
they cited their forecasts of traffic levels as
'optimistic' and 'pessimistic'. The 'optimistic'
levels were those of maximum traffic growth - and
'pessimistic' levels were corresponding for low
traffic growth, but of course equally denied that the
road would generate extra traffic.
Many of the people we need to persuade, still look
upon expenditure on the construction of new highways
as government delivering the goods for taxpayers. Yet
how seldom investment in new railways, or even
upgrading of existing services takes place, and when
it does, how long does it take? I wasn't in the
country at the time, but after the earthquake in L.A.,
compare the speed with which a collapsed freeway was
rebuilt, I believe, offering $1m per day, for every
day before the deadline stipulated in the contract it
was completed.
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J.H. Crawford | 6 Dec 2002 19:22
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Re: CAR BUSTERS MONTHLY E-BULLETIN #41


Hi All,

This posting:

>ITALY COMMEMORATES THE ROAD DEAD
>[submitted by Nicholas Bawtree]
>
>On Wednesday, November 13, the Italian Association for the Families 
>of Road Victims organised a dramatic silent protest in piazza San 
>Lorenzo in Lucina di Roma against the slaughter that happens every 
>day on the roads (9,000 deaths, 24,000 disabled and 300,000 injured 
>every year: official figures). Two hundred red-stained crosses with 
>photos of victims simulated a cemetary. They asked citizens to sign a 
>petition entitled "a bet on life" ("una scommessa per la vita"), and 
>demanded more action from the government to reduce road deaths.
> More info in Italian on 

http://www.vittimestrada.org/rassegna_croci.html

prompted me to say to Randy Ghent:

You know, this ought to become a world-wide action, with a bit of
a twist. We simply ask everyone who has lost someone in a road
collision to wear an armband (by preference red, but maybe black,
and in some cultures white) on the day. What will happen, of course,
is that if everybody participates, almost everybody will be wearing
an armband. This is a very powerful statement. Maybe couple it with
a minute of silence at noon.
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Car Busters - Conference | 13 Dec 2002 00:00

Update from Prague

Dear listserve-ees,

On Wednesday, three of us had a meeting with the people from the 
conference venue and kitchen. The details of what we found out are below, 
minus the financials.
VIDEO TRAINING: Aside from that, we've been communicating with 
Helen Iles from Undercurrents about doing one or more video camera 
trainings during the conference. Joel brought up the idea originally that we 
should make full use of the video medium to promote the car-free cities 
concept. There's also the idea that we could make a video during/about our 
conference, as we did in Lyon in '97. If you go to undercurrents.org and 
click on Training, you will see what Helen offers. We'd like to know as soon 
as possible who's interested in the video training, as numbers will be very 
limited and there will be extra costs involved.
OUTREACH: We could use help with outreach. It would be great if you 
could please translate some basic info from carbusters.org/conference and 
distribute it to appropriate publications, lists and individuals in your 
respective countries.
REGISTER NOW!: The sooner you register, the better. It helps us in 
planning, and in involving you in the programme.
DISCUSSION?: We've got 21 people on this list, from quite a range of 
different countries, but not so much discussion. What do people want to 
accomplish at this conference? What activities do you want to see happen 
there? Do you prefer cauliflower or peas?... If we want the event to be as 
productive as possible, we have to lay the groundwork NOW.

So here are the meeting notes...
- Randy

--------------------------------------
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J.H. Crawford | 15 Dec 2002 12:34
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Re: [carfree_conf3] Update from Prague


Hi All,

>Equipment
>
>They have three slide projectors (two old ones, one good new one), a screen, 
>an overhead projector, flip charts (two or three) and a photocopier. We can 
>have a few hundred photocopies for free; above that we should pay at some 
>reasonable unknown rate. Other equipment we’ll have to rent, find or 
>borrow.

By "overhead projector," I assume is meant one of the transparency projectors.
I think we will be hard-pressed to do without an LCD projector that can
show PowerPoint and HTML presentations. Also, what about equipment and
location for the public day?

>Kitchen

>If we want tea and hot drinks between meals, it will cost 20 CZK/person/day 
>if TD prepares it; that’s 9,000 CZK total. Therefore we may want to 
>organise this ourselves for much cheaper; we’d need to borrow the electric 
>urns and mugs, ideally from TD.

That's about Euro 300, which is fairly steep at Euro 4 per attendee, but
it's a huge convenience and frees us up to concentrate on our business
at hand. I'd suggest paying them to do it if the money can be found.

Regards,

Joel
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Car Busters - Conference | 16 Dec 2002 16:55

Re: [carfree_conf3] Update from Prague

Hi Joel and others,

> By "overhead projector," I assume is meant one of the transparency projectors.
> I think we will be hard-pressed to do without an LCD projector that can
> show PowerPoint and HTML presentations. Also, what about equipment and
> location for the public day?

Yes, "overhead projector" means for transparencies. We will have to 
rent or borrow an LCD projector from somewhere. I believe it can be 
connected to a laptop or other computer, which we have.
As for the public day location, we have quotes from a few places and 
we'll choose one before the holidays. I'm negotiating with the Kino 
Aero, where we'd like to have it. Equipment available depends on the 
place. But we have a budget for renting equipment.

Re: hot drinks...
> That's about Euro 300, which is fairly steep at Euro 4 per attendee, but
> it's a huge convenience and frees us up to concentrate on our business
> at hand. I'd suggest paying them to do it if the money can be found.

I think it can be organised by a Car Busters staffer who's not 
otherwise working on the conference. It can be arranged to be 
somewhat self-service, as in everyone has a mug with their name on 
it that they wash themselves, and if the hot water runs out, then 
anyone can refill the urn. We could ask a conference participant to 
volunteer to keep it full during key hours. This could be delegated to a 
different person each day, at the morning meeting. In general I think 
participants will feel more involved in the conference if they are put in 
charge of things like this, however small -- it makes the organisation 
less top-down. Is that alright?
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Jason Kirkpatrick | 16 Dec 2002 17:09

Re: [carfree_conf3] Update from Prague

rb, fyi
my 2 pence on this subject is that as a conf participant going all the way
to Prague, I'd rather listen and learn than staff the hot water and coffee
table.
jk

> Re: hot drinks...
> > That's about Euro 300, which is fairly steep at Euro 4 per attendee, but
> > it's a huge convenience and frees us up to concentrate on our business
> > at hand. I'd suggest paying them to do it if the money can be found.
>
> I think it can be organised by a Car Busters staffer who's not
> otherwise working on the conference. It can be arranged to be
> somewhat self-service, as in everyone has a mug with their name on
> it that they wash themselves, and if the hot water runs out, then
> anyone can refill the urn. We could ask a conference participant to
> volunteer to keep it full during key hours. This could be delegated to a
> different person each day, at the morning meeting. In general I think
> participants will feel more involved in the conference if they are put in
> charge of things like this, however small -- it makes the organisation
> less top-down. Is that alright?
>
> - Randy
>
> ____________________________________________
>
> CAR BUSTERS
> Kratka 26, 100 00 Praha 10, Czech Republic
> tel: +(420) 2-7481-0849 - fax: +(420) 2-7481-6727
> <carbusters@...> - <http://www.carbusters.org>
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jelena | 19 Dec 2002 10:48
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new member

jelena, novi sad, yugoslavia
hello everyone

--

-- 
jelena <jelc@...>
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lidlgreenridinkhood | 19 Dec 2002 11:57
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intro

Hi,

I'm based in Dublin, Rep. of Éire, at the minute. I've just joined 
the list and haven't managed to get through all the old postings so 
far, so forgive me if I ask questions that have already been answered 
or echo suggestions etc. 
I'm relatively new to all this resistance carry-on, in fact things 
are only just starting to really get going here in the Republic. I 
do believe in civil disobedience as a means to effect change, but, 
equally, I believe there are more than two ways to feed a cat. There 
is not a great tradition of non-violent direct action in Ireland, 
from what I can see, insurgence here tended historically to be 
dominated with politics of a Unionist/Nationalist nature, with less 
emphasis on NON - violence, as I am sure you are aware. 

The situation in Dublin is dire, traffic is nightmarish, travel time 
has doubled in some commuter areas in just a couple of years. A few 
weeks ago the nation had its first weekend in four years during which 
there were no road deaths.  
Four years! 

I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to most of you, but I remain 
in a permanent state of shock at the consistent indifference of the 
powers that be. Money is being pumped into building new roads, while 
our public transport "system" is among the poorest in Europe, despite 
our recent economic "boom". Again, hardly surprising.

I was involved in the last two Reclaim The Streets street parties, 
but other than that my focus has been on other campaigns. I don't 
know too much about the issues involved, facts, figures etc. In the
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Gmane