Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and Toyota Have announced they will oppose a fuel economy stardard of 35 mpg this year. Honda and Nissan support it. Why are the four largest auto makers in the world opposed to this fuel-saving standard?Why?
Oil tankers are required to be double-hulled so as to help prevent spillage of their cargos. Freighters are single-hulled, so when the Cosco Busan scraped into a bridge in the San Francisco bay, 58,000 gallons of "bunker" oil (whatever that is) spilled into the bay. The fuel tanks could be double-hulled like tankers,but they are not. Why?
Any person with any heart for animals must find deeply felt emotion at looking at what this oil spill has done to this poor creature. And it will happen again
President Bush vetoed a plan to provide insurance to the poorest children in our nation. He said it would be too costly primarily because congress intended to fund the cost by taxing cigarettes (impacting the tobacco corporations). This cost assessment from the man who will spend a trillion dollars [$1,000,000,000,000) on the war in Iraq. The man who spends millions of dollars trying to support a dictatorship in Pakistan. The man who cherishes the tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet, health care for the children is too costly? Why?
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One word tells us why: Greed.
A few years ago, there was a movie, Wall Street which starred Michael Douglas. At one point he is giving a speech to the tycoons of finance and he says, "Greed is good." The only greater example of this self-justification, this ethical distortion is exhibited by many of the "wealthy elite" in our culture today.
The dictionary definition of greed is "wanting excessively to have or acquire; desiring more than one needs or deserves; avarice, cupidity (strong desire).I would contend that greed is not good, rather it is evil. To want to possess more than we need is to "build up treasure here on earth". And one no less than Jesus condemned such behavior. And yet, greed is a prime mover in the motivations of this "richest nation on earth".
Another word has been tarnished and cracked because it hides behind greed: politics. Our political system is broken. Yet the front-runners in both parties have political machines that are masters at manipulating the people. Through the use of false patriotism and fear, the Bush administration herded us into their corral, until, in the last year the American people began to wake up and think for themselves. And we are begining to see that corporations with their super-millonaire CEOs and their armies of lobbyists, control the politicians.
The propoganda mills of the political system are beginning to crank up again. Watch out for the fear words, beware of the "socialized medicine" scare (when you hear that phrase, think "insurance profits" and "pre-existing conditions"), beware of the great danger of the military-industrial complex. Hang on for "swift-boat" type campaigning which no party will claim responsibility for. All this "Limbaugh" type skewed truth is already beginning to surface. It's all coming around again.
To break the power of greed and to turn the page on political dynasties, to support real change . . .
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Support Barack Obama!
www.barackobama.com
this Saturday: Countdown to Change: Barack at the Backyard,
Austin, Texas (see website above)
