By Chris Hedges, Truthdig | News Analysis
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Tuesday, July 17, 2012
From Truthout
We Live in the Biggest Company Town on Earth
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig | News Analysis
It is an old and cruel tactic in any company town. Reduce wages and benefits to subsistence level. Break unions. Gut social assistance programs. Buy and sell elected officials and judges. Fill the airwaves with mindless diversion and corporate propaganda. Pay off the press. Poison the soil, the air and the water to extract natural resources and leave behind a devastated wasteland. Plunge workers into debt. Leave them owing more on their houses than the structures are worth. Make sure the children will be burdened by tens of thousands of dollars lent to them for an education and will be unable to find decent jobs. Make sure that everything from hospital bills to car payments to credit card fees exact increasing pounds of flesh. And when workers stumble, when they cannot pay soaring interest rates, jack up rates further and deploy predators from debt collection agencies to harass the debtors and seize their assets. Then toss them away. Company towns all look the same. And we live in the biggest one on earth.
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig | News Analysis
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2 comments:
Good article and especially hits home since grandaddy was a W.Va coal miner paid in scrip which was practically worthless unless you spent it at the company store....
I think "The jungle" by Upton Sinclair should be required reading for all. At least to balance out Ayn Rand. I often fear we are going backwards. I dearly hope this coming election doesn't accelerate that trend.
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