Re: McCain's Proposes gasoline tax holiday

On Apr 17, 10:05 pm, "Schrödinger's Cat Surprise! Jazz Band"
<raashan...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Y'know there was a time in this country, when faced with adversity, we'd
roll up our sleeves and beat the unholy *** out of it. On 7th Dec 1941,
our military was pretty much a joke, and we had no real armaments
industry to speak of. by August 1945, the situation was a *wee* bit
different.

Yes and no. Our defense industry actually had been growing since 1939
due to foreign purchases, lend lease, as well as US build up.

The U.S. had tremendous latent capacity in factories that were dormant
due to the Depression. It was relatively easy to bring idle factories
and labor back to work.

Today those factories have been turned into water slides. A symbolic
change is that U.S. Steel Co was removed from the Dow Index and
replaced by Disney. The steel industry is but a shadow of what it
once was; how could it support us today?



In 1960 John Kennedy predicted a man would be on the moon in 10 years.
We made it with 5 months to spare.

We citizens paid dearly in taxes and inflation for that to happen.
Today taxes are worse than ever and there is no space program.



Now there were lots of people who pulled together to make these things
happen. And you can bet yr arse they didn't agree on every little thing
all the time, but we had a sense of common destiny and purpose that
superseded our differences. We're coming to a time or rather *in* a time
of great challenge, and we'd sure better pull our heads out and realise
that if we don't remember our common destiny, we're going to be
seriously hurting.

It was only the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that unified the
country; before that the country was very divided. Even during the
war the country was more divided than we remember it. It may have
been "common destiny" to win the war, but the South was not about to
give an inch on any civil rights issue. Also, selfish business and
labor interests saw to it their pockets were well lined first, even at
the expense of wartime efficiency and production.


The oil crisis we face has been long in the making and everybody has
their heads buried in the sand. Perhaps only a real shortage, like
'74 and '79, will wake people up.


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