It's definitely true that I should see the film, especially since I
like documentaries. My sister-in-law (Lyn Goldfarb) does
documentaries, too. ("With Babies And Banners: Story Of The Women's
Emergency Brigade.") Two points:1. I don't know the mass transit history of any city but Los Angeles and Chicago, so I cannot generalize from the LA case (even though it does get more attention than most). I was not doing so, but instead pointing to the limits of focusing on conspiracy theories instead of examining the big picture presented by history and political economy. BTW, the story of mass transit worked out pretty well in Chicago, despite any conspiracies. Part of the explanation of Chicago's case, I'd guess, is that (the first) Mayor Daley's political machine represented a mild (though of course corrupt and racist) version of social democracy, counteracting any conspiracy's baleful pull on the marionette strings of history. 2. A legal "conspiracy" (i.e., one that people are accused or convicted of, as with the Chicago 8) is not the same as an effective political conspiracy. People or corporations can get together to legally conspire without being the sole cause actual political-economic events or trends. For a "straw to break a camel's back" (where the "straw" is a legally-defined conspiracy), there has to be a truckload of straw on its back ahead of time. The time and place have to be ripe. On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote: > Jim, > You should see the film. Near the end the narrator says "National City > Lines, General Motors and the other defendants were found guilty of > conspiracy to monopolize the local transportation field." > That sounds like somebody believed it was a conspiracy. The film covered > other cities around the USA, byw, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc. > So it wasn't just the Red Car lines. > Gene > On Nov 23, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Jim Devine wrote: > > Eugene Coyle wrote: > > I'll tout once again the film "Taken for a Ride" about the GM and > > Firestone conspiracy to rid the world of public transit. > > I wouldn't call this a "conspiracy," since (at least in Los Angeles), > a lot of people consciously went along with it (especially those with > the most political power, i.e., the rich and middle classes, > businesspeople, the LA TIMES). It's more like GM and its allies were > the vanguard of a movement. > > Remember that there was little or no opposition, because for there to > be an opposition something like a labor movement or a > social-democratic movement was needed (and didn't exit). One reason > why there was no major opposition was partly because the Red Car > (Pacific Electric) trolley system had been allowed to decay and was > interfering with car traffic. (It went both ways: the cars slowed the > Red Car movement, too, making the Red Cars less attractive.) Note that > the Red Cars were never especially profitable, because there was so > much overhead. The effort by GM and its allies to get rid of the Red > Cars fell on a fertile political field. > > Note that the choice was not (1) keep the Red Cars or (2) get rid of > them. Instead, it was (1) invest a lot of money in upgrading the Red > Cars (perhaps putting them in the middle of the new freeways, which > were already being planned); or (2) replace them. In fact, given the > system's losses, the Pacific Electric would likely have to have been > taken over by the city and county of Los Angeles. > > Part of the problem, of course, was that when the system was abolished > in the 1940s and early 1950s, people didn't know the full implications > of the ending of the train system. It took a few years to sink in. > It's only in the 1960s that suddenly the problems became obvious. > > By the way, it's not that public transport was abolished in Los > Angeles. Rather, the Red Cars were replaced by municipal buses, which > were and are much less convenient (because of the dispersed nature of > LA) and more pollution-intensive. > > the article in the Wikipedia is informative. > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own > way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
