Saturday, May 30, 2009

Quote of the Moment

And when they can’t convince people to buy their products, they simply destroy the alternatives. Clive Ponting describes one example in his book A Green History of the World: “In 1936 three corporations connected with the car industry (General Motors, Standard Oil of California and the tyre company Firestone) formed a new company called National City Lines whose purpose was to buy up alternative transport systems and close them down. By 1956 over 100 electric surface rail systems in forty-five cities had been purchased and then closed. Their biggest operation was the acquisition, in 1940, of the Pacific Electric system, which carried 110 million passengers a year in fifty-six communities. Over 1100 miles of track were ripped up, and by 1961 the whole network was closed.” --- Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay, What We Leave Behind

posted by Drew @ 1:41 PM | link to this post