Socialist Action /September 2001
Picket Line & Barricades
By BLACKIE D.
I heard somebody on TV say that the reason Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan feels free to keep dropping the discount
rate (seven times so far this year and more on the way) is because there
is virtually no inflation in the United States. Says who? The government?
Who believes them?
Are you paying less rent? Got a ticket and it cost
pennies? You had to buy medicine and they were almost giving it away? Electricity?
Cheap, cheap! Natural gas, didn't that go down in price? You bought a bar
of chocolate for 25 cents? You say it really is cheaper because you've had
to give up eating?
I have a car, an old clunker-used to fill her up
for 12 or 15 dollars. Then the price started creeping up. The last time
it was $35 and change.
How come? There's no shortage; the world is practically
floating in oil. It sure doesn't come from selling less, with all those
off-the-road true buckeroos in their new SUVs: "I get me seven miles
to the gallon!"
The oil companies are selling plenty, and they
have plenty, so where are the high prices coming from? Mark this down: they
are raising the price because they can! The oil companies are a cabal (good
word; it means a yacht full of gangsters).
A handful of good ol' boys own and control the
whole low, medium, and high octane. What one does, they all do, like the
Rockettes (or the Rockefellers).
The real lowdown is this: capitalism is theft!
And capitalists are pirates!
******
The front page of The Los Angeles Times is now
a fantastic litany of aggression, corruption, and the shortcomings of various
aspects of the (un-named) capitalist system.
For instance, the Aug. 18 issue has the following
instructive headline: "Foreign Pilots Hired to Boost U.S. Drug War."
This is the latest ploy to avoid body bags for U.S. soldiers. (Good luck.)
Here's another one from the front page: "Immigration
Emphasis on Guest Visas." Guests? Seems there is a shortage of workers
for the hardest jobs at the lowest wages-minimum wage or less-at which they
can't buy enough food to live or rent a room to sleep. Not to mention sending
money home to the family!
Inside, there is an article noting that the federal
General Accounting Office is threatening to sue the White House over Dick
Cheney's refusal to turn over energy information. This is only the sixth
time in 20 years that the GAO has so threatened-and never as high as the
presidency!
A two-star general is one of the officers accused
of falsifying reports about the Osprey aircraft. Follow the program, guys!
Yes, sir, general sir, at once, sir! And now they are lying and falsifying
reports about the new F-22. "The more things change, etc...."
Socialist Action /September 2001 |