While we were distracted with Richards…
The Democrats in Illinois and Jesse Jackson pulled a fast one. Starting in January, IL Senate approved a rate hike that could increase our electric bill by as much as 50%.
According to Carl Nyberg, who spoke to Senator Don Harmon about a rate hike that Commonwealth Edison was proposing wouldn’t pass in the IL Senate. With that said, there was a dispute over the timing the rate hike would be voted down. The President, Senate Emil Jones wanted to postpone the vote after the election because he didn’t want the measure to help vulnerable Senate Republicans while the House Speaker, Michael Madigan wanted the hike to be voted down before the November general election since he thought this would help vulnerable House Democrats.
Adding insults to injury, this measure was also spearheaded with the assistance of our illustrious Jesse Jackson and I’m told other Black ministers in Illinois. WVON aired a misleading commercial featuring Jesse Jackson. He said the rate hike was a good thing otherwise what happened in California with the rolling blackouts that we all know were caused by Enron manipulation of the power market to increase their profits were in fact caused by politicians interfering with the power market’s ability to set a rate that is conducive for them to operate the facility at its full capacity. Therefore, he warned - if a rate hike didn’t occur, Illinoisans would experience those same blackouts.
I wonder how much Jesse Jackson received in corporate kickbacks to perpetuate a commercial that was an outright lie. Surely, a man of his standing is fully knowledgeable of the events surrounding Enron and how they arranged to take plants offline.
This proves a couple of things about the self-imposed Black leaders, including many ministers, they are either 1) extremely naive (I’m being nice) or 2) extremely corrupt – they can easily be bought. Either way, these people went against the interests of the very people they have pledged to serve. What of morality? What of common sense?
I have no doubt that it’s a little of both. Most are probably bought and paid for while perhaps a good fraction are just naive about the process and the solutions to the problem. The only question is what can be done about it.
Comment by Levois — December 6, 2006 @ 9:04 pm
Ouch. I missed that one. I won’t when the bills come. Good catch.
Cy
Comment by Cyrus — December 11, 2006 @ 9:54 am