So why are you bringing those companies up? I never mentioned them......only the ones GM bought and dismembered.
Because they show how the industry wasn't working out well in many places and that it was going away with or without GM. It wasn't like the industry was thriving without GM's action and then died because of GM.
Tim, you may well be right; then again, this could have been another example of an industry going through a bad time that could have turned around had they had the chance.......but we will never know. It certainly looks to me like the bad times for light rail were somewhat manufactured by an indifferent municipality.
However, it was GM's actions that insured there would be no chance of a revival and consequently, for years, we went down the path of building more and more highways only to find ourselves 40 years hence going back to light rail as one of several transit solutions.
I said they were treated like slave labor; "like" being the operative word. Are you really this dense or are you playing mind games?
If they where volentary laborers they chose their jobs.
They were not voluntary workers in many cases and even if they were, voluntary then is not what we consider voluntary now. Back the, there were not as many choices for work and you took what you were given.
The reason why is that the jobs where often better then what they would have had otherwise. In a few rare cases the workers really may have been like slaves but in those cases the company really was operating illegally.
I think we are hung up on semantics. It may have been better had I said "like indentured servants". While working conditions and working hours were similar to those of slaves, they weren't literally bought and sold...usually. However, it was not unusual for them to be indentured to their employer through written contracts. They worked 12-15 hour days; frequently, in smoke filled rooms that got little to no light or air. Pluerisy and pneumonia were rampant, particularly among the child laborers.
Immigration was encouraged by companies to insure an ongoing supply of labor and to hold as a threat over the existing labor pool. It was not an easy life and many people died prematurely.
"2 - The government has used actual slaves in the past, and also maintained slavery as an institution."
Really? When was that?
Before the civil war.
I am not saying its not true but I have never heard of that. Slaves were owned by individuals typically and not gov'ts.
The draft involves involnetary servitude.
Until your post, I have never heard of the draft referred to as slavery. While you have the right to make that claim, frankly, I think you would be thrown out of court.
And forced prison labor is basically indistiquishable from slavery.
Prison work is to keep the men busy and most penal institutions pay them for that work.
The government is and has been the biggest polluter in the country. In many cases it tried to excepmt itself from regulations that it imposed on private industry to prevent or clean up environmental damage.
Really? Again show me.
If you are really so concerned about the environment the record is there. Since you insist on examples I'll show you a couple but think about the government has millions of employees and control over a signifigant fraction of the nations land it makes sense that it would be a big polluter as it is bigger and does more then any other organization. It also has had many nuclear facilities (weather for weapons or power or research), chemical weapons stockpiles, and just large amounts of explosives, petroleum and other chemicals used particuarly by the military but also by other branches of government. Also the government has been involved in huge construction progects and in subsidizng many poluting activities by the private sector. Ironically the EPA's headquarters was determined to be an unhealthy environment to work in a few years back.
chem.unep.ch.
boondocksnet.com
dnr.state.mo.us.
newsreview.com
These are somewhat legitimate claims although in most cases, the gov't didn't intentionally pollute. They simply weren't able to satisfy the environmental standards they were trying to maintain.
Where gov'ts can be guilty of pollution is when they dumped raw sewage into lakes, rivers and the oceans. However, that was more out of ignorance and low standards than out of willful neglect.
However, corporations, in the name of profits, perpetrated all kinds of malicious actions against an unsuspecting public. They would dump chemicals into drinking water knowing full well that the chemicals were hazardous to all life including humans. As an extreme example, there is a lake in Syracuse,NY that never freezes over because its more chemical than water.
Chemicals were allowed to seep into the soil, contaminating the ground water and no one was ever told. Chemicals were spewed into the air, killing almost all vegetation around a plant, and causing the surrounding residents to suffer from serious lung diseases. And when confronted, the companies would deny they were at fault. And if the municipality pushed, the company would threaten to pull out, taking its jobs with it.
Cigarettes manufacturers knew that cigarettes were unhealthy but not only sold them readily but claimed they were good for your well being.
Any bad behavior by the gov't pales in comparison to the atrocities perpetrated by corporations. How you can say the gov't has been worse is beyond me.
ted |
