LRO: Don't read this if all you are interested in is Land Rovers.

From: Faure, Marin (Marin.Faure@PSS.Boeing.com)
Date: Thu Apr 05 2001 - 22:30:09 EDT


Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 16:42:26 -0400
From: "Paul Gussack" <Paul@AVscope.com>
Subject: LRO: RE: Wasted Yutes attn: Marin

>You lambaste
the "eco-freaks" as misinformed youths who protest and get results through
their actions. This is something we, as any citizen, have the right in the
U. S. to do.

Yes, it is, but that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that
there is an increasing lack of understanding of the relationships between
issues. I agree it sometimes takes extreme measures to bring a problem
to the attention of the people who can do something about it. But what I'm
seeing is an increasing tendency to "knee-jerk" a solution, instead of applying
logic and reason to finding a long-term solution that will have the best results
across the board.

>In most cases the protests are not blow up the plants and go back to sticks
and stones but to reevaluate how these operations are run.

I think that's the intention of SOME of the protesters. But as we've seen
right here in Seattle, for example, what starts out as a legitimate and
well-reasoned demonstration to make a point turns into an excuse for
violence, irrational actions, and uncompromising positions.

>The bottom line is don't complain to the list about what you don't like,
write your government. They will listen. I honestly believe that.

One of the DISadvantages of getting older is that you realize how
ineffectual government really is. After all, government isn't an entity
of itself, its just a collection of people doing different jobs. As such, all the
problems you find in any company or industry are present in government,
only there isn't the pressure to make a profit. So government tends to
become a catch-all for folks who would not be very successful in private
industry or business. The thing that gets results in government is greed.
Same as outside the government. Greed is a short-term catalyst. "I want
it now." Which brings me back to my original point, which is that more and
more decisions are being made with less and less thought to the long-term
consequences. Age has nothing to do with this, by the way.

Sure, it'd be great to have a pollution-free world. Maybe people will get
there someday if they don't kill each other off first. But arbitrarily throwing
people out of work in the name of "progress" isn't necessarily the best way
to do it. It's easy for us to discuss the situation at the mill in Bellingham on
this list. None of us work there, so far as I know. It's a news item, a statistic,
an example that you and I are using to make our points. But try to put yourself
in the position of one of those mill workers for a moment. You're 50 years old,
have eight years with the company, a family, aren't qualified for retirement benefits
yet, and you have a job that provides sufficient income to support your family
and allows you to enjoy some perks, like ordering a Turner unleaded head for your
Land Rover rebuild project.

Then you're told that in 90 days, no more job. At 50, you're not going to become a
dot.com whiz. That may be the future for your kids, but you're not thinking
about that, you're wondering what are YOU going to do next. You're not going
to go out to dinner anymore, which means your favorite restaurant loses some
business. Multiply this by the number of people out of work, and maybe the
restaurant has to close or lay off staff. You're going to cancel the Turner
unleaded head order. Maybe that's the straw that breaks the parts supplier's
back, and they decide to bail on the Land Rover business. That potentially
affects all of us on this list.

Everything's connected, but fewer and fewer people seem to see that.
Hoof and mouth disease, or the threat of it, is devastating farmers
throughout the UK. We all know that, we hear about it on the news.
But my friend who owns a canalboat hire company in Middlewich is
on the verge of going out of business, too. Why?
Because the government is restricting all forms of travel, and canals pass
through a lot of dairy and sheep country. His bookings were up for this year,
but now his boats can't move. I'm not making a statement about the
policies in the UK about hoof and mouth, simply trying to illustrate that you
can't do one thing and expect nothing else to be affected.

The one thing you can count on these days is that nobody, regardless
of age, is invulnerable to being thrown out of work. Put yourself in
the position of a millworker in Bellingham, and
then think about the uncompromising attitude of the
environmental groups, the power companies, and the local,
state, and federal governments that caused this to happen.

I'm sorry this doesn't contain information on how to bleed a
clutch or what adapter to use to put a Pratt & Whitney
R-985 Wasp Jr. into a Series IIa. But I think it's an important
thing to be thinking about.
___________________________
C. Marin Faure
  (original owner)
  1973 Land Rover Series III-88
  1991 Range Rover Vogue SE
  Seattle



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