Even as oil gushes into the Gulf of Mexico from a deep water drilling accident, new drilling is being planned off Alaska's arctic coast this July. But neither ecological disasters, oil wars, nor tens of thousands of annual auto fatalities have so far dampened our enthusiasm for the car. According to sociologist and author Michael Dawson this enthusiasm is a result of a car-based economy in which the production of cars, roads, tires, oil, etc., and even the military hardware that is used to procure oil, makes some people very, very rich. These people are "intractably addicted to selling us cars in crazy-huge numbers, forever, no matter the ecological and social consequences," thus "the homicidal perpetuation of cars-first transportation." Speaking with host Stephanie Potter, Dawson will discuss the role that ordinary Americans need to play in reclaiming our transportation system. Michael Dawson is author of The Consumer Trap, Big Business Marketing in American Life (2004) and publishes the blog: The Consumer Trap , which aims to expose capitalism, marketing and market totalitarianism. His forthcoming book is called Courting Carmageddon: Capitalism, Transportation, and the Approaching Collapse of the United States, and his blog on this topic is Death by Car.