Right on, Donna!

 

I have to comment about monopolies, though. Correct, MidAmerican, being a utility, has a monopoly--granted by the state--on grid-supplied electric power within their service territory. But most of our economy consists of oligopolies, industries controlled by a small number of companies.

 

I'm a language purist, but I like to deliberately conflate the words oligopoly and oligarchy, because the oligopolists are also oligarchs, that is, by means of their economic power they rule our lives like an authoritarian government.

 

A good example, though it may seem trivial: try buying a TV or a computer monitor that is in the 4:3 format, as they all were up until about 15 years ago. Now all you will find are those in the 16:9, wide screen, format. Who decided this? The free market? NO WAY! A small group of executives at a small number of electronics companies decided that we would either buy 16:9 or nothing. That small group of executives consists of oligarchs.

 

The sad thing is, most Americans, and most Chinese people, and most Japanese people, seem to like it this way. They don't want to resist the oligarchs because they don't want to be accused of having "fear of change." Only in a few places in western Europe do we find large numbers of holdouts with common sense. Places like Germany, where people may have learned some lessons from their past about mindless conformity.

 

Most people here accept the propaganda phrase "change is good." Which amounts to the corporations telling us to shut up and do as you are told. (Actually, any given change is good only if it is an improvement. But not every change is an improvement.)

 

Nuclear power certainly was a change. But in no way was it an improvement.

 

Oh, but we should accept all corporate-driven change without question, right? Wrong!!

 

Signed,

Bitter, but, one hopes, having Common Sense,

Tom

(With apologies to the memory of Tom Paine)

 

In a message dated 3/19/2011 7:44:29 A.M. Central Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: