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The Robber Barons and the Texas Oilmen are winning.
Gasoline prices are shooting up again, and Congress caved in to GM and others about not requiring US made autos to have better fuel economy. The "Boss Hog Lobbyists" with their "Good Old Buddies" in Washington are having a Ball. Enron and The Shredded Documents Association is all part of the "Big Old Barbecue of Human Rights" in order to sate the gluttonous appetite for " more profits and controls for them that has, and a hearty screw them that ain't."
The Best Automobiles sold in this country are either Japanese or Korean, insofar as comfort, dependability, fuel economy and even "usable power." The big muscle cars cannot perform well in parking lots or traffic jams. Big SUVs are Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!
But Detroit feels that American jobs will be lost if the Big Three "Recallable Lemon Manufacturers" have to try harder. What Jobs?
Most of the Red White and Blue Banners that went up on Cars and Houses on September 11th are torn and soiled from the exhaust fumes and yawns of indifference.
Most news that most people watch or read is a short annoying commercial that plays in between mindless soap operas or gruesome murder mysteries.
Nobody is paying any attention to what is really going on.
Smiling George waves his flag and everybody is supposed to feel better.
Me? I am just a clown and a punster. I try to read the news and listen to my "elected?" Government, but I start gagging and have to switch to Mad Magazine.
"Hello?" "Anybody paying attention?"
Below are excerpts from actual news items. Mind boggling and disgusting and depressing. The Ice Caps are melting, Breathable Air is getting worse, and Rats Steal Pension Funds. Liars deny Crimes and Treachery and Smoke is Blown to replace what was our Real National Product.
It would take me years to list my complaints
Instead of just Nero, Scores of Corporate Quasi-Emperors are Fiddling while Our Constitution Burns.
bud1956@yahoo.com
Democratic lawmakers allege Enron Corp. and other energy companies exerted undue influence in the task force's deliberations, while environmentalists were largely shut out.
The Energy Department released 11,000 pages of documents on Monday related to the administration's energy task force and disclosed that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met with dozens of industry officials while helping to shape the president's energy plan.
The administration's energy task force, headed by Vice President Dick Cheney produced a policy favoring more oil and gas drilling as well as greater emphasis on coal-fired power generation.
Cheney's office has acknowledged that representatives of Enron, Bush's biggest financial backer in the 2000 campaign, were among industry experts the task force consulted.
GM Rallies Against Higher Fuel Economy Standards
General Motors Corp. and union workers held rallies on Monday at plants in three Midwestern states, warning that the U.S. automotive industry would lose more than 100,000 American jobs if the Senate passed a proposal to raise fuel economy standards.
The rallies are the latest effort by the world's largest automaker to counter a proposal by Democratic Senators Ernest Hollings and John Kerry to raise the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2013.
"The increase would cut more than 100,000 jobs in the U.S. automotive sector," Guy Briggs, GM's general manager told one of the rallies at GM's truck assembly plant here.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona has offered his own plan which would give automakers three more years to reach a slightly higher U.S. fleet average of 36 mpg.
The current Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, first enacted by Congress in the mid-1970s when gas prices soared during the oil embargo, require passenger cars to average 27.5 mpg. Sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickup trucks and other vehicles in the "light truck" category, need only get 20.7 mpg.
When the CAFE regulations were adopted, trucks were used primarily for commercial purposes. But sales of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles for passenger use have soared over the past 30 years, causing environmentalists to demand that the CAFE standards be raised.
"Robber Baron" Era Is Back
"Laws are like spider webs. If some poor, weak creature comes up against them, it is caught. But the bigger ones can break through and get away." (Solon, c. 530-c. 555 BC)
The "Robber Baron" era in the American history reached its apex some one hundred years ago. "The public be damned," railed the railroad tycoon, Cornelius Vanderbilt. But an alarmed Congress mounted concerted efforts to reign in the unchecked power of large industrial corporations that were haking the United Stated of America right down to its constitutional roots.
So as we enter the Third Millennium, the world is now facing the same nemesis America did a century ago. Only on a global, rather than a national scale. The brute ("might is right" and "money is might") philosophy is once again threatening Homo Sapiens' finer endeavors. "The public be damned
What makes all this possible, of course, is technology. Transnational corporations are now able to disperse physical production around the globe in search of the.......................... (lowest labor rates.)
It's an ideal world from The Robber Baron perspective.
It's a potential nightmare from a Homo Sapiens' vantage point. It shall lead to a (new form of slavery.)
Man's enslavement by the Almighty Dollar.
ˇ Did you know that 61% of the American and 67% of the foreign-based Trans National Companies PAID NO U.S. INCOME TAXES in 1995?
Which means that Vanderbilt's infamous ( "the public be damned" )comment from a century ago is slowly becoming a reality today.
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