Has There Been a Great Progressive Reversal? How the Left Abandoned Cheap Electricity

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/how-progressives-abandoned-cheap-electricity



Eighty years ago, the Tennessee Valley region was like many poor rural communities in tropical regions today. The best forests had been cut down to use as fuel for wood stoves. Soils were being rapidly depleted of nutrients, resulting in falling yields and a desperate search for new croplands. Poor farmers were plagued by malaria and had inadequate medical care. Few had indoor plumbing and even fewer had electricity.

Hope came in the form of World War I. Congress authorized the construction of the Wilson dam on the Tennessee River to power an ammunition factory. But the war ended shortly after the project was completed.

Henry Ford declared he would invest millions of dollars, employ one million men, and build a city 75 miles long in the region if the government would only give him the whole complex for $5 million. Though taxpayers had already sunk more than $40 million into the project, President Harding and Congress, believing the government should not be in the business of economic development, were inclined to accept.

George Norris, a progressive senator, attacked the deal and proposed instead that it become a public power utility. Though he was from Nebraska, he was on the agriculture committee and regularly visited the Tennessee Valley. Staying in the unlit shacks of its poor residents, he became sympathetic to their situation. Knowing that Ford was looking to produce electricity and fertilizer that were profitable, not cheap, Norris believed Ford would behave as a monopolist. If approved, Norris warned, the project would be the worst real estate deal “since Adam and Eve lost title to the Garden of Eden.” Three years later Norris had defeated Ford in the realms of public opinion and in Congress.

[Kolesar]

1. Does the article discuss the bond structures?

I am curious about that. I don't have the patience to endure five pages of ramblings about Rachel Carson or "Marx and Marxists".
I rather doubt that the article has a thesis. There are a few leftist sites that really suffer for having a competent editor.

[Buzz Clik]

2. ..

http://www.alternet.org/environment/how-progressives-abandoned-cheap-electricity

[Kolesar]

3. Did you read it?

..

[Buzz Clik]

4. Yes. Did you?

[Kolesar]

5. Does the article discuss the bond structures?

I got halfway through the second page and could not stand the rambling filler material that they padded it with. I doubt that the authors understand the civics behind the establishment of the TVA.