The Electric Black Widow

In 1901 Frank Norris published The Octopus: A Story of California, about the struggle between farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Pacific Railroad. The octopus with its tentacles symbolized the railroads holding the land and economy in its iron tentacles--its rail tracks. Through government subsidies, which gave the railroads every other section of land through which they laid track, these powerful entities eventually acquired approximately 200 million acres of land in the U.S. Together with the fact that the railroads held a monopoly on the overland transport of goods, these vast land holdings gave the railroads immense political power--so much power that they became the de facto government, placing representatives in local, state, and national government offices, including the House and Senate, and even the president. Yes, even Abraham Lincoln had been a railroad lawyer, and he of course promoted and signed the legislation for the transcontinental railroad which empowered the railroads to acquire so much land and power.

Today the Electric Black Widow is wrapping California and the West in the web of its powerful grid, destroying the environment, and sucking the blood of ratepayers. For many years this poisonous spider, with a metal web of high voltage transmission lines, substations, and distribution lines, holds all of us tightly in the shocking grip of its monopoly.

I will be adding to this post in days to come ...