The decline and fall of the SUV empire

With the recent decision by GM to close several of its auto manufacturing plants, including the one in Janesville, there has been much talk about what brought this on and how it might have been avoided.

My thoughts on the matter are that GM should have begun switching over to a heavier focus on more fuel-efficient vehicles a long time ago, but I don't know enough about how the auto industry works to back that up with any solid numbers. However, I think it's fair to point out the success of companies like Toyota and Honda, who've been building hybrids and other efficient cars for awhile now, as evidence that it wasn't impossible to gaze into the future and see what was coming.

Record-high gas prices, increasing concern about climate change, instability in the oil markets, etc.

What's especially interesting about GM's recent announcement, then, is that they seem to finally be pondering the idea of cutting back on the production of SUVs and heavy trucks. They're even thinking that maybe they'll discontinue the Hummer line entirely. But just maybe. Can't quite kick the habit even when it's killing them, I guess.

Of course, some folks don't seem entirely convinced that this shift away from SUVs does or should have anything to do with skyrocketing fuel costs and changing consumer demands. Oh no, it's because we don't have as many children to pack into them. That's Dad29 for you, always good for a chuckle.

The facts speak of a slightly different reality, though:

According to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2004, Washington, DC, 2004, http://childstats.gov/ac2004/tables [accessed August 24, 2004]), in 2002 72.9 million children younger than the age of eighteen lived in the United States. This number is expected to increase to 80.3 million in 2020. However, because the country's entire population will increase, the percentage of children in the population will actually remain fairly steady, decreasing slightly from 25% in 2002 to 24% by 2020.

So that theory doesn't really pan out. I'll give credit where credit is due, however, and say that Dad29 is right when he notes that "there are many folks who purchased SUVs who simply did not need them, but liked the size, or weight, or the ability to see over the traffic which SUVs provided. But that need was a lot more fragile than the need to buy food rather than fuel."

It's possible, too, to drive a vehicle that fits several passengers and/or goods, that gets decent mileage, and isn't an absolute tank. The options may be slightly more limited, but you can blame manufacturers and regulators for failing to keep up with and enforce CAFE standards, as well as the relative lack of will to research and develop cleaner technologies like hybrid engines. Consumers aren't blame-free either. Our sense of entitlement to anything and everything we think we want or need has and will continue to bite us in the ass on a fairly regular basis.

In the end, it's always the workers paying the heaviest price for a corporation's failure to evolve and adapt. Now the community is left to find ways to employ those put out of work by plant closures, and to continue to push for technologies and policies that actually benefit them, instead of costing $4 a gallon. Relying solely on companies to change their ways of their own accord doesn't seem to do the trick.

Women in arms

It's interesting that this issue should crop up so soon after my post about Civil War reenacting and the women who actually dressed as men so they could fight that war. Over at dad29's blog, he's posted a piece that's raised a lot of hackles and interesting issues. Specifically, it would seem that the post appears to link the high rate of sexual assault of women serving in the military with the idea that they shouldn't be there in the first place.

Talk about a can of worms.

Reading the ensuing comments has been fascinating. There are many opinions on the matter, of course. It's a complicated issue, and one that we as a country have been dealing with for, well, since we first became a country.

First, here are some statistics:

• According to a report by the Department of Defense, there were 2,688 sexual assaults reported in (fiscal year) 2007 that involved Military Service Members. (links to previous years' reports)
  
• The Military Services completed a total of 1,955 criminal investigations on reports made during and prior to FY07. There were 759 (28%) pending investigations that will be reported on in FY08. The following is a breakdown of the total investigations that were referred to the commander for action in FY07 and the status:
  • 1,172 subjects were referred for commander action.
  • Commanders took action on 600 (51%) subjects, which included 181 (30%) courts-martial.
  • There were 572 (49%) subjects pending disposition as of September 30, 2007.
• According to the 2006 Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members, 6.8% of women and 1.8% of men report unwanted sexual contact.
• In the general population of the United States, 1 out of every 6 American women have been the victims of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime (14.8% completed rape; 2.8% attempted rape).

It's fair to say, too, that a great many cases of sexual assault/rape go unreported, especially so in the military where it may be more difficult to confront the command structure, and fears of repercussions may be greater. And from the looks of it, seeking punishment for the perpetrators can be difficult, at best.

According to a recent article in the Las Angeles Times:

At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment," which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated, the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was because of "insufficient evidence."

This is in stark contrast to the civilian trend of prosecuting sexual assault. In California, for example, 44% of reported rapes result in arrests, and 64% of those who are arrested are prosecuted, according to the California Department of Justice.

Sexual assault and rape, whoever it targets, should never be acceptable. Neither should the attitude of blaming the victim, as seems to be the insinuation when people start suggesting that a woman's mere presence in the military will lead to assault, and we shouldn't be surprised by that. It does a disservice to both women and men to assume that people, men especially, can't be expected to contain themselves.

The military holds its members to high standards of discipline and skill, and doles out fairly severe punishments in the case of various derelictions of duty. I see no reason why this shouldn't be the case for sexual assault.

No woman (or man) serving in the armed forces should have to fear their own comrades more than the enemy they may be sent to fight. But this doesn't seem to be the case: women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

That is, simply put, unacceptable. Period. Proper, thorough training should be required for all service members, both in preventing and punishing cases of sexual assault and rape.

The DoD has taken some laudable steps to fight this problem: "The Defense Department has made some efforts to manage this epidemic -- most notably in 2005, after the media received anonymous e-mail messages about sexual assaults at the Air Force Academy. The media scrutiny and congressional attention that followed led the DOD to create the Sexual Assault and Response Office. Since its inception, the office has initiated education and training programs, which have improved the reporting of cases of rapes and other sexual assaults."

But there remains a great deal more work to do.

Part of the problem may be the continued resistance by some members of the public and the military to women being allowed to serve outside of clerical and administrative duties (or at all). First of all, I don't believe the issue of sexual assault has much of anything to do with where and how women serve. It's wrong and should be treated as such wherever and for whatever reason it occurs. The debate about women's place in the military should be separate from this, even though some people insist on conflating them.

That said, I feel compelled (I know, you're shocked) to say that I believe women absolutely should be allowed to serve in all parts of the military, dependent on two factors: they want to, and they qualify, fair and square, to do so.

I understand that in certain branches/jobs of the military, there are physical requirements that are necessary for the safe and effective execution of said job. Women wishing to enter these positions should be made to pass the same tests as men, but they shouldn't be barred outright from even trying.

Women have proved themselves over and over again--in various times and places. Not all women are cut out to serve in the military, but neither are all men. It doesn't matter if the percentage of women to men serving is different. What matters is allowing qualified people to do the jobs they want to do.

If women can lead the life of a soldier and all the hardships that entails, all while either maintaining a convincing facade of being a man, fighting against rampant harassment and discrimination, and/or against any number of other harsh odds--and they can--I don't think a person arguing against women's military service has a leg to stand on.


(h/t folkbum)