The true story of what happened to Pennsylvania


We read the profiles of Pennsylvania and what they say do not adequately describe why Pennsylvania, today is hurting, why it is no longer the heartland with its plenteous furnaces belching fire and smoke and fueling the economic enterprise of this land.

Today, America has failed to remain competitive in many areas and the reasons trace back to what happened so recently in Pennsylvania when industry and government conspired to destroy our industrial base.

And when some talk about how special interests are really good for America, I think back to how special interests through greed and self interest are helping to put the last nail in America’s coffin with everybody looking on and neither smart enough to do anything about it or unawares of how corruption and greed have damaged this country..

This writer used to work with steel companies and traveled to Pennsylvania quite a lot. I think that the description of Pennsylvania as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between is not far off the money.

Outside of the two major cities, it is rural country with rural attitudes.

Don't tread on me kind of country.

I worked with steel companies.

And I recall that US Steel that controlled most of the business in Bethlehem and elsewhere in the gritty towns with their big furnaces, towns that are now mostly dead and struggling to survive..

The truth is that US Steel never did bothered to show concern for the little man the American worker.. It took the profits and ran even though it knew that the Japanese were coming on board and other countries were adding the kind of automation that allowed for the production of very competitively priced, good quality steel.

US Steel was above that. They didn't need to perform maintenance; put money back into the process to make it competition proof.

No, they knew that America would not jettison its biggest steel company.

And when the inevitable happened: US Steel could no longer compete because of its own greed and wantonness, it went hat in hand to Bush's chief architect of his election plants and asked for a hand-out, the man who was until recently the Chairman of the Republican Party..

The Bush people gave them a tariff and then a bail=out funded by the American taxpayer.

What did US Steel do? Did it do what it was supposed to do? Did it perform maintenance and introduce new competitive equipment?

Hell, no. It bought Marathon Oil.

And that's what the American people got for their investment.

So, when it comes to Pennsylvania, what we see is a complicity between government and business that never should have happened.

And it didn't for the old mills in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

And it didn't for the textile plants in South Carolina.

Yes, God Bless America but God damn those who steal our future.

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon.