Posted by Iraqi Panch from ? (63.164.145.161) on Friday, April 25, 2003 at 7:23PM :
War of the Worlds
Good story by H.G. Wells. Right smack in the middle of one of Europe's unending wars, powerful mechanical looking monsters from Mars land on earth and proceed to wipe everybody out. There isn't anything earthlings can do about it either...no weapon is equal to the task and as the end draws near some cross-eyed English people gather in a church to give it one last shot...prayer, you know...when all of a sudden the creatures start dying all on their own. Turns out they had no immunity to the microbes on earth..yessir folks, BUGS killed them!
In the midst of all this celebration that the mightiest nation on earth, after being sorely tried in Grenada, could whip a starved and beaten country...killing one third as many chldren as were killed in the Holocaust...but who cares....comes news of little bugs...SARS to be exact.
Whether this thing developes into the plague this poor planet needs to rid itself of that great abortion, Humans, has yet to be seen. But what is interesting is that bugs drove American Airlines into chapter 11 bankruptcy. In the 70's the oil embargo spelled the end of Pan Am and many other companies...that's how powerful a two cent rise in oil prices can be...or bugs. Canada is pissed as hell because its tourist industry can't take another hit...that's how fragile all this "Greatness" is. A Mexican vilage is built on a more solid foundation than New York is.
It's funny...no matter how much money corporations make...the workers lose ground. But the CEO's get richer and richer. If you were to triple the wealth of these companies...you really think employee benefits and salaries would triple? Of course not. So, why is everyone working? What's it for if you're never, EVER, going to gain any windfall...let alone some just reward and compensation yourselves? All the wealth is being siphoned off...and not only that, there aren't that many legitimate big, "next things" coming along down the road. Instead they're going to make a business out of drinking water and air to breathe and they'll privatise public companies, not because it's more efficient...all the costs to us will rise immedately...but because there ain't that may ways to make a buck...a lot of bucks...legitimately.
But you can't blame them either. The money has to go somewhere and Adam Smith warned them not to give it to the workers, the common working families.
When companies were owned by individuals who formed them...or held in trust by families...there was some interest in them as businesses. But CEO's are hired guns...they go where they can and if they have to gut their own companies to benefit the shareholders and themselves...they'll do it. They'll do the same to Iraq and any other country their greed will win them. These people are about making lots of money...they could give a shit about the product, its sfaety, your need for it etc. They know how to talk the talk so you'll buy into it...but they aren't put there for your benefit, or to make America "shtrong". They'd sell this country and its ideals and principles in a minute...what's that you say...the sale has begun?
Hurry and get yours...before it's too late.
-- Iraqi Panch
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