Meanwhile, toward my neck of the woods, quite a few miles from the city, the state highway is being widened between the city and a certain retirement community full of old yankees. Why is the road being widened at taxpayer expence? In order to serve the vanity of the residents and rulers of that retirement community, nothing more.

The loop and widening will facilitate travel between the city and my neck of the woods, which means that all the outsiders, scum, slime, and worthless trash will pour out of that city and head into my neck of the woods, perhaps obliterating it in the long run. Wonderful!!!!!!!

When I was growing up out West, I remember walking and biking around the valley where I was born. Every half mile was a long, straight concrete road. Every few yards was a stamp: “Bickenbaugh Construction Co. 1928.” I knew from photographs that until after WWII, the area was dry farming, meaning unirrigated wheat. There were no home anywhere around until long after the war. I used to wonder why all the roads to nowhere.

A few years ago, I lived in a cabin in the mountains and a retired LAPD captain took a liking to me. He it thought funny the way I spoke frankly with a cherubic face. One day he lent me a book a friend of his had self-published. It was the history of Southern California that no one knows. Since his friend was also a former officer, he had access to records that no other historian has had.

The book named the Chandlers, the Otises and other old families from Massachussetts who sent their second sons out West in the years following the Civil War. With their money and connections, they soon took over the dusty little town of Los Angeles. These people are still in power (look at the masthead of the LA Times), so it is no wonder the book was not published.

Anyways, the book was well cited and of a scholarly quality. It detailed just how LA was built after the War. To summarize, the West was taken over and run by organized crime and one of the principle means was to build roads that no one needed at exorbitant prices to tax-payers. The contracts were awarded to close friends of officials and by a system of bribing more sophisticated than that associated with the Third World. Business licenses were awarded to car dealers on the same principles. The same pattern applied to the oil companies, particularly notable since up to around WWII, Southern California dominated oil production like Kuwait does today. So the whole economy was tied together and run by one small gang.

I want to repeat “organized crime;” the system of bribes, beatings, hits, thefts, slander, and censorship documented in the book can be described as nothing else.

I am sure Southern California is one example of a pattern that happened everywhere in the US after the Civil War and is being repeated the world over today. Even the physical appearance of every city is the same.

As Clyde Wilson says above: “Most roadbuilding in the U.S. results from the fact that it provides tremedous profits for companies favoured by politicians and lucrative kickbacks to the politicians.”

Now I know why there were all these old concrete roads everywhere where I grew up.

I wonder how many comparable neighborhoods like mine are found up north?

Not too many up here in the Detroit area, but then again that isn’t entirely “whiteys” fault. After the ‘67 riots up here, and the increase in crime, it was “Whitey get out!” Coleman Young( Mugabe lite) ran on that theme and kept a rather antagonistic relationship with the majority white suburbs throughout his tenure as Mayor of Detroit. Now they have this idiot in charge who has stayed in office and has kept his popularity intact as he blames all his legal problems on whitey trying to bring him down. Now, almost 40 years without the white middle class, the money has long dried up, along with the jobs, and you have god awful neighborhoods that look like an Iraqi or Afghan warzone with hookers and crack houses galore. Thing is this has happened to some degree in every major rust belt metropolis and beyond. Blacks got pissed after MLK got capped, whitey got scared, pulled up and left for the suburbs and took their money with him and the inner cities started to die. Even some medium sized cities up here are mini Detroits like Flint. Cleveland is pretty much shot to hell also.

There are several good cases in point here in Louisiana. Interstate 49, was built, taking most of the traffic off U.S. 71 and U.S. 171. Yet, with still little traffic, these two highways are being four-laned, not only consuming thousands of acres of land but putting money into the pockets of hundreds of contractors and politicians.

In my early years, we lived about one-half mile down a sand-dirt lane just off an old gravel road, a road which had only two houses on it – ours and that of a neighbor about one-quarter of a mile away. One summer’s day, they came and paved the gravel road with asphalt. My father, who was a cement mason, told me to come with him. His intention was to teach me something about politics. We walked out into the middle of the newly paved road. As we walked, he told me that the road, at its center, was to have eight inches of asphalt. With a small pick, he cut some small holes in the middle of the road along some 100 yards and measured the asphalt. It measured a little over four inches in every case. My father then explained to me that the missing four inches of pavement was in the pockets of contractors and politicians. Our internal improvements at work, transferring the wealth of those who actually make it into the hands of the politicians and the oligarchy which they serve. But the theft is always for a noble cause: the goddess of progress.

You’re missing the point. At it stands now, roads etc are not a market good. They do good for a privileged few. (corporatism)

My point was, simply because the roads were for the most part built by the state doesnt mean that they would all have to be destroyed if the state were to get out of the road socialism business.

Do roads make money for themselves, or for a privileged few? Sidewalks? They are hardly market good, either. They benefit us all, so we all pay for them via taxes. The state contracts out their construction. Though corruption may infiltrate the process,

This was addressed in 1930 in I’ll Take My Stand, a classic and essential reading for Americans.

Roads make money for the privileged few. Roads completely redesigned the American commercial landscape and were pivotal in destroying the American farm. By redesigning the landscape, it became no longer possible to get to work or shop by other means, such as walking. Strip development and the obliteration of the inner city are two results of roads that have ended American independence and allowed all commerce to be centralized into the hands of a few headquartered in the Northeast.

Roads were built without the consent of the owners whose land was confiscated and who were taxed to pay for them. For the now extinct American farmer, this forced him to send his family out to work for someone else in order to have the capital whereby to pay the taxes for the roads he didn’t want.

Roads also mean that it is no longer possible to leave the capitalist system, buy a farm and live independently. Taxes still must be paid, and that means cash on hand and dependence on the economics dictated by others.

Because of roads and the redesign of the landscape, all persons in the US are forced to buy cars whether they want to or not. They are a necessity to get to work to collect a paycheck assigned to him by someone else, or to buy food at prices set by someone else. Of course we know what roads mean as far as buying gas:  you must buy gas whether you want to or not and you must accept the prices set by someone else.

Modern roads were not built as a public service. Not only were roads built to force everyone to get a job working for someone else to have the cash to pay the taxes for the roads, but they were a way to bring tax dollars to politicians and his bosses straightaway.

Road contracts are awarded to those with the necessary connections, to the privileged few – such as Google and Wal-Mart. Campaign funds are filled and other kickbacks paid, all “legal”, to enforce those necessary connections between big money and the politicians who seize the taxes on their behalf.

Your tax dollars go straight into another person’s pocket.

Our government = organized crime.

These criminals cannot stand on their own two feet. If they were able to make money on their own, they would not need to seize yours at gunpoint. Yes, the police will come if you fail to pay taxes or fees or interest or fines or any other form of your money they want. Even your food, clothing, and shelter are controlled by the privileged few.

Dr. Wilson said:

““Huge corporations” as we know them today are products of state capitalism (soft fascism) and are not natural outgrows of free enterprise”

You disagreed and said:

“but most (corporations) became big via only their own success.”

My response was to this statement. You are confusing apples and oranges.

“So are roads, sidewalks, nuclear power plants, etc, etc etc. Does that mean one should have to destroy them, lest they be ‘tainted’? No. All of those are market goods, and well…I wont go into road privatization on this forum.

In the end, Wal-Mart, if it was a flop would have been in the dustbin with other failed companies that dont make it in the (relatively) free market – regardless of corporate law.”

Do roads make money for themselves, or for a privileged few? Sidewalks? They are hardly market good, either. They benefit us all, so we all pay for them via taxes. The state contracts out their construction. Though corruption may infiltrate the process, the roads and sidewalks are built, and we use them. Is Google making money for you and me? Wal-Mart? The www is benefiting all of us. Like roads and sidewalks it is a product of government and our taxes. Might it have been created privately? I have no idea. Google may be growing solely for the service it provides us, but its growth is now privileged by its corporate status. Does that guarantee its survival or success? No. It does make it different than true “free enterprise,” entrepreneurship without government benefit or restriction. Corporations have special accounting practices just for them. They can use these in ways to increase wealth at other’s expense (or perhaps you have already forgotten Kenneth Lay and Enron Corp.) Do you really think you and I, or the bike shop down the street can do that?? What about influencing government policy? Do you and I and that bike shop stand on equal footing with Google and Wal-Mart there??