Reply #56: Remember Detroit? [View All]

[DulceDecorum]

Hardly anyone does these days.

Detroit was the center of the car-making universe.
If memory serves, I recall hearing about some newly-independent nation that sent a representative over to arrange the purchase of government vehicles. These included police cars and vehicles to transport government workers and also government property.
The boys in Detroit had no time for a dark-skinned foreigner
and especially one who insisted
that the vehicles all have the steering wheels placed on the other side.
So they sneered at him and showed him out.
He sat in his hotel, trying to figure out HOW he was going to return to his nation and tell them that he had failed in his mission.
And then a Japanese man knocked on his door.
The Japanese man was most courteous and politely asked if his country could have the honor of supplying the vehicles. He admitted that Japan had just started making cars and that they were not as good as those made in Detroit but he also promised that if and when a vehicle broke down, Japanese technicians would be there, (if granted visas) to fix the problem and also to figure out how to improve the vehicle design so that the problem did not occur again. He offered a reduced price in view of anticipated problems and asked for the host nation to be patient while the initial kinks were being worked out.

Who do you suppose got THAT particular contract
and maintains it to this very day?

Look around the next time you find yourself in a parking lot.
Pick out the vehicles made in Detroit.
And remember,
parking lots OUTSIDE the US will ALWAYS have far fewer US-made cars than the parking lots in Michigan.

GM really won out, huh?
That's why Michael Moore wanted to go see Roger, hmm?

As for the leadership,
A) there is none,
B) getting one is not going to change anything.
The US, like Europe,
has never really had anything to trade
but has always had the desire to live beyond its means.
And now, the Repo Man cometh
and he taketh back
that which was never paid for.

You are still harping on fuel.
The reason why the US is so adamant about cars guzzling as much fuel as possible is because the US pretty much controls the shipping on the high seas.
The US was founded on piracy.
Yeah, George Washington was a pirate,
or at least, the Mac-Daddy
Capo Di Capi Tutti
behind the British and American pirates hanging around the US coastline.

I do not expect many US citizens to know or accept that.
Not after watching Leno Jaywalking
and hearing the answers he receives
from highly intelligent people
who have done considerable amounts of time
in US institutions of higher learning.
This is NOT taught in school.
Hardly anyone within the US understands that at the time of the Revolution, the US did not have a viable navy and that Britain practically ruled the seas
UNTIL
the US enlisted the assistance of er, um ....
people who have been kept out of the history books,
-- yes, that's the ticket.

The US forces Saudi Arabia to "sell" their fuel at a reduced rate to the US in exchange for "protection" for the tankers leaving the Persian Gulf.
Look at every single choke point of international shipping and observe the US warships patrolling those waters.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/choke.html
http://www.converger.com/eiacab/choke.htm

Why do you suppose Afghanistan was attacked?
Osama?
Puleeze.
Osama and his dialysis machine are still at large.
Bush has even admitted that he neither knows nor cares about Osama's whereabouts.
The pipeline.
Pipelines are replacing tankers as a method of oil transportation.
This means that the pirates are being forced to become landlubbers.
Now, if the demand for oil were to plummet,
the pirates would be plumb out of business.
Just like that.
SNAP.
Which is why alternate technologies are ROUTINELY suppressed,
(Rockefeller v Tesla)
Kyoto is bashed,
and is also one of the major reasons why
the US has placed nuclear bombs in at least 27 nations without their knowledge or consent.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19991020/
The only card,
other than oil
that the US has to play,
is that of fear.
Double plus good.

Iraq is an example
of what will happen to those nations that step out of line
and switch from using the dollar
and subsidizing the US economy.
Iraq has kicked the snot out of the drunken junky nose of **.
And so the US now has a full-fledged mutiny of global proportions on its hands.
They are hoping that Bolton will intimidate the UN into blind obedience
while Wolfowitz loots the till of the World Bank.

NOTES FOR CONSPIRACY THEORISTS

"Whosoever commands the sea commands trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself".
-- Sir Walter Raleigh
http://www.history.navy.mil/nan/designat/carrierbased/fighter/fightermain.htm

William M. Arkin, a co-author of the article, points out that while historians knew that nuclear weapons were stored in some countries, they were unaware about others and knew nothing of the details. The Pentagon document, he says, fundamentally revises post-war nuclear history.
"There isn’t a nuclear analyst alive who didn’t believe that the first U.S. nuclear weapons deployed overseas were sent to Britain," he says. "Now we know they actually went to Morocco first." Arkin also is the co-author of "Nuclear Battlefields" (1985), the first book to document the worldwide nuclear infrastructure.
"Where they Were" is based upon the formerly top secret study, "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 through September 1977," which was prepared by the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 1978. The Pentagon declassified and released only portions of the document, however. The authors had to apply much detective work to piece together the picture they provide in their article. For instance, the Pentagon blacked out the names of many of the countries, but given that an appendix listed them in alphabetical order, it was not difficult for the authors to figure them out. Only one nation, blacked out between Canada and Cuba on the list, remains a mystery.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19991020/
Friday, March 18, 2005; Page C01
Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to produce a document accusing journalist and activist William Arkin of serving as a spy for Saddam Hussein.
The Pentagon says the supposed Defense Intelligence Agency cable is a forgery. Arkin says it's "chilling" and is demanding an investigation. The NBC News military analyst says he became aware of the bogus document when a Washington Times reporter called about the spying allegation and sent him a copy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45614-2005Mar17.html

The Strait of Malacca ends up in the South China Sea, another extremely important shipping lane and a region subject to contention since oil and natural gas resources are present. The Spartly and Paracel groups of islands are claimed in whole or in part by China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines. The region has proven oil reserves estimated at about 7.0 Bb with oil production accounting for 2.5 Mb/d. With the substantial economic growth taking place in the region large flows of oil, liquefied natural gas and other raw materials (iron ore, coal) are transiting towards East Asia. About 25% of the global shipping fleet transits through the region each year, underlining the importance of the South China Sea as an extension of the Malacca chokepoint.
http://www.people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch5en/conc5en/ch5c1en.html
From an economic and strategic perspective the Straits of Malacca is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world, an equivalent of the Suez Canal, or the Panama Canal. The Straits form the main ship passageway between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, linking three of the world's most populous nations: India, Indonesia and China. The Straits carry 50,000 vessels per year, carrying between one-fifth and one quarter of the world's sea trade. Half of all oil shipments carried by sea come through the Straits, in 2003, an estimated 11 million barrels a day, a trade that is expected to expand as oil consumption rises in China.
http://www.answers.com/topic/straits-of-malacca
Wednesday, February 23, 2005 Posted: 8:16 AM EST (1316 GMT)
The presence of foreign military in Indonesian waters has traditionally been a touchy issue. The waters around the epicenter of the tsunami and earthquake, which fall within the Malacca Strait, are also sensitive areas.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/02/23/tsunami.seabed.reut/
Article III
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/enmod/text/environ2.htm
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Treaties/Treaty12.shtml