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I was watching a PBS documentary the other night about the building of the New York subway system back at the end of the 1800's. It was a massive project, designed to greatly improve life in that city, and it worked. Still today, despite the fact that nowadays the subways there can be dirty, depressing, and dangerous, a person can get around with remarkable ease. Across the country, railroads and super highways in the last century provided the same thing, jobs and utility, and both still function with a high degree of efficiency. Despite traffic jams in and around major cities, once you hit the open road our highway system is amazing. The building of subways, railroads, and highways all accomplished the same things, they put thousands and thousands of people to work, and they improved life. They made America strong. Of course, they also made it possible for corporations to increase profits. Today, crazed with greed, corporations are outsourcing jobs, shipping as many as they can elsewhere while the quality of life here in America is spiralling downward. If corporate honchos and their politician lapdogs would wake up, they might look around and come up with projects here at home that would provide jobs and make life more liveable. As our leaders whip Americans up into a frenzy in the name of patriotism, they're constantly finding ways to suck the lifeblood out of America.
posted by John M Crowther @ 7:14 AM
4 Comments:
Your cartoon and commentary bring up many things for discussion.
Travel in Europe it so wonderful and easy with their subways, excellent trains and busses. New York is lucky to have that subway and DC had a difficult time getting their little transit system built...but many use it. Oh, how I wish for a transportation system like that in the Orlando FL area, but we can't get the voters to OK it.
I remember it was Pres. "Ike" that got the present great cross country highways systems funded and started. Super Highways to connect major cities, and that type of building is still happening.
Corporate honchos are looking out for their own hide to keep their job. Back in the 70's, a young man we knew worked for IBM and was in a department that ordered parts for computers. He got a huge bonus because he found some part that could be bought at a cheaper price in India. IBM at that time was encouraging their employees with a bonus for many ways to cut prices. I suspect that this happens in all corporations now.
Face it John, there are also many here in our country that don't want to work, try to and get disability. They get their rent and utilities paid, plus SS.
I have a son in construction that often sends someone to go to "day labor" for a crew to unload semi's with shipments of lab equipment that his company is to install in University, schools and labs. He told me that they have gone to selecting Mexicans, even though they do not speak English, because they are hard workers and do 3 times as much work as the Americans.
What are we going to do about the "goof offs" that are not truly sick and suck the lifeblood?
Katherine
John, this one had me falling off chair laughing. Great fun, as usual, the composition is wonderful.
Thanks, Lee, your support here is invaluable to me.
Katherine, you make some really good points. I appreciate your participation enormously. And yes, the Mexicans are terrific workers. I'm coaching lacrosse this year at an inner city public school that is 100% latino, and these boys are the best I've ever coached, hard working, disciplined, determined, wonderfully well-mannered, and serious.
But I suspect that the slackers everywhere are a small minority. They grab all our attention, while the hard workers labor on unnoticed and unsung. It's like the perennial complaints about "welfare cheats." The reality is that welfare cheating accounts for a tiny fraction of the money that corporate tax fiddling costs the country.
John... this cartoon is soooo funny... ain't it the truth? LOL
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