The Guilded Sweatshop (cont.)

"What is terrorism? There is no question that, when an individual rents a Ryder Truck, loads it with explosives, and blows up a building, it is an act of terrorism and should be severely punished.

"But what do you call it when a company destroys the lives of thousands of people? Is this terrorism? Economic terrorism? The company doesn't use a homemade bomb or a gun. They systematically move out all the people before they blow up th ebuilding. But as I pass the remnants of the factory there in Flint, Michigan, looking eerily like the remnants of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, I wonder: What will happen to those people? A few will kill themselves, despondent over the loss of their livelihood. Some will be killed by their spouse--an arguement over the lack of a new job or the loss of money at the racetrack suddenly turns violent (the woman is the one who usually winds up dead). Others will be killed more slowly through drugs and alcohol, the substance of choice when one needs to ease the pain of his or her life turned upside down and shoved into an empty, dark hole." 30

30-- "Downsize This!," Michael Moore, Crown Publishing, 1996.

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