Fritz
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California Hi-Speed Rail and War Crimes
« on: 2010-07-13 23:38:54 » |
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This is such a blatant twisting of ideas and the law and facts I have a new level of disgust for American protectionism methods. Like the US has never done anything questionable in its history; then they didn't use trains, they just made the North American Indians hike to their concentration camps.
Besides we can't build trains; we make gas guzzling cars and highways so this will not end well.
Hmmmm so who is behind this bizarreness; maybe Big Oil, Car and Truck Manufacturers. Just like in the 1950s when the same group killed commuter trains in North America though blackmail and back stabbing politics.
Sigh ... but I'm not bitter
Fritz
Rail firms' wartime records
What did you do in the war? Bidders for Californian high-speed rail may have their past raked over
Source: The Economist
Author: Print Edition
Date: Jul 8th 2010 | PARIS
Not all passengers travelled willingly
LAWMAKERS in California voted unanimously on June 29th to approve a proposed law which would force any company bidding for contracts to build the state’s new $43 billion high-speed rail system to disclose whether they transported Jews, American soldiers or others to concentration camps during the Holocaust. Its author, Bob Blumenfield, a Democrat, specifically highlighted the wartime record of SNCF, which nowadays operates France’s TGV high-speed trains. The French firm expects that the bill will clear all further legislative hurdles, including the sign-off by the normally veto-prone governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Providing the details required by the law will be fairly easy for SNCF. Facing questions about its record, it commissioned a study in 1992 on how it deported Jews en route to Nazi death camps. The report described how it carried out the Vichy government’s orders with no protest or resistance except for isolated acts by individual railwaymen, and took payment for the shipments. The firm will also have to state that despite a series of lawsuits it avoided paying compensation for its acts: it successfully argued that it was under the orders of the French government and German occupiers.
“SNCF fully supports the disclosure of the details of its wartime operations,” says Peter Kelly, the company’s lawyer in Los Angeles. Its competitors for a share of California’s high-speed billions are likely to include rail firms from Germany and its wartime friends, Spain, Italy and Japan, which will also have to disclose their past conduct. According to people close to the state’s rail project, Japanese railway executives are especially worried that the law will damage their prospects. Although firms’ records cannot be used to bar them from bidding for contracts or winning them, they fear that the disclosures could create a stigma and prompt public lobbying against them.
High-speed rail advocates suspect that support for the law may be driven by a protectionist desire to keep foreign firms out of one of America’s most important infrastructure projects. US Railcar, a start-up passenger-railcar manufacturer, has warned Congress that America’s security could be compromised if foreign companies win a big share of the high-speed rail contracts.
But if America wants true high-speed rail, says Andy Kunz, president of the US High Speed Rail Association, it has no choice but to bring in foreign firms. Whereas European and Asian firms have long experience of building dedicated high-speed systems with trains hurtling along at 200mph (320kph) or more, what most American firms plan to offer is medium-speed trains running on existing freight tracks.
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