Freeze Frame

By mediagonebad [Occasionally I like to throw in an older piece just to get it into electronic format. These are from the pre-computer days when I used a Royal typewriter.] Thoreau once wrote: "We do not ride upon the railroad; it rides upon us." Thoreau's words took on special meaning for me in April 1981, when I was hired as a trackman on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. I was elated. I had a job with good pay and good benefits. After I had worked five years, however, my elation had turned to bitterness and anger. I no longer cared about the pay and benefits; I just wanted out. Of course, people said I was crazy for wanting to give up "such as good job," but I knew better. I had learned something about people and production and I felt that the C & O had ridden upon me. For the first couple of years, I worked on an undercutter on my home division between Columbus and Portsmouth, Ohio. An undercutter is basically a large plow. It has hydraulic arms that l...

By mediagonebad It is a matter of public record that in August 2001 George W. Bush received a Presidential Daily Briefing stating that Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization planned to use jet airplanes as weapons. Did Bush read the report? Did he read it and fail to act upon the information? Did he, by extension, allow 9/11 to happen by not acting upon the information in the PDB? What would Bush have stood to gain by not acting upon this information, by not beefing up airport security immediately? This would have been the responsible course of action would it not? Well, consider first that the Bush family business is oil and weapons. A president whose family stands to gain financially from war might be less inclined to prevent one. Second, the Bush family world view supports Hitler’s view of unrestricted corporatism. Under the 8-year Bush/Cheney regime, the United States of America was slowly and methodically overthrown by a small group of economic zealots who believed in the ...