CH — LARRY ROMANOFF — 美国人与汽车：资本主义与宣传 — 2022年5月28日

Luisa Vasconcellos

June 10, 2022

258

Americans and Automobiles: Capitalism and Propaganda

美国人与汽车：资本主义与宣传

By Larry Romanoff, May 28, 2022

拉里·罗曼诺夫，2022年5月28日

译者：珍珠

CHINESE ENGLISH

One of the grand parts of American mythology revolves around what is called “America’s Love Affair With the Automobile”, presented as an exciting if a bit quirky personal expression of independent and freedom-loving America, where inexpensive mass transportation failed to evolve due to Americans’ individuality and desire for freedom. But this historical narrative is wrong. Today’s US ‘car culture’ was the result of a massive conspiracy contrived by the auto and oil oligarchs and, like the consumer society, imposed on an unsuspecting nation through deceit and propaganda. Most of the truth has been deleted from the historical record and replaced with a ‘feel-good’ fairytale. After trashing the mass transit systems, the automakers led by GM produced a wide array of mythical narratives to justify and praise the transportation system they had created.

美国神话的一个重要部分围绕着所谓的“美国对汽车的热爱”展开，这是一种令人兴奋但有点古怪的个人表达，表达了美国的独立和热爱自由。由于美国人的个性和对自由的渴望，廉价的大众运输未能发展。但这种历史叙事是错误的。今天的美国“汽车文化”是汽车和石油寡头策划的大规模阴谋的结果，就像消费社会一样，通过欺骗和宣传强加给一个毫无戒心的国家。大部分真相已从历史记录中删除，取而代之的是一个“感觉良好”的童话故事。在摧毁了公共交通系统之后，以通用为首的汽车制造商们制作了一系列虚构的故事来证明和赞扬他们所创造的交通系统。

Some Background

一些背景知识

This story begins, as do many others similar, in the early 1900s, when the US was busy industrialising, when mass public transportation consisting of trains and trams was filling much of the nation’s needs. Autos were of course rapidly evolving at the same time, but gasoline-powered transportation, whether by private auto or mass transit, was on its way out. Almost all of the nation’s local and inter-city train transport was electric, and electric automobiles were rapidly gaining ground over their gas-powered rivals. By 1900, nearly 40% of all US cars were electric, and were so popular that New York City had a fleet of electric taxis.

这个故事开始于20世纪初，当时美国正忙于工业化，由火车和有轨电车组成的大众公共交通满足了美国的大部分需求，与其他许多类似的故事一样。与此同时，汽车当然也在迅速发展，但汽油驱动的交通工具，无论是私人汽车还是公共交通工具，正在逐渐退出市场。几乎全国所有的地方和城市间火车运输都是电动的，电动汽车正迅速超越其燃气驱动的竞争对手。到1900年，美国将近40%的汽车都是电动的，而且非常受欢迎，以至于纽约市有了一支电动出租车车队。

Early electric cars outperformed their gas competitors and people liked them because they didn’t have the smell, noise, or vibration of gasoline cars, were easier to operate, and didn’t require cranking or gear changing. The NYT noted that women especially preferred them for the absence of smoke and smelly fumes, especially when refueling.[1][2] It appeared a certainty that electric vehicles were the wave of the future, but then within only about three years the transportation landscape irreversibly changed and electric vehicles, like the dinosaurs, suffered a fatal climate change and died.

早期电动汽车的表现优于汽油车的竞争对手，人们喜欢电动汽车，因为电动汽车没有汽油车的气味、噪音或振动，更容易操作，不需要转动曲柄或换档。《纽约时报》指出，女性尤其喜欢无烟无味的车辆，尤其是在加油时。[1][2] 电动汽车似乎是未来的潮流，但仅仅三年左右，交通格局就发生了不可逆转的变化，电动汽车就像恐龙一样，遭遇了致命的气候变化并死亡。

General Motors is a Serial Killer:

通用汽车是一个连环杀手：

Felony Murder Number One

重罪谋杀犯一号

At that time, General Motors and the major oil companies were facing a multiple crisis. The auto market had already been saturated and sales growth so anemic that in 1921 alone GM lost more than $65 million and was well on its way to the cemetery, oil company revenues and profits sharing this dismal future. GM and its friends realised their only hope for salvation was to eliminate their one rival – mass public transit, and hatched a plan that would forever change the course of the US economy, its transportation, culture, and society itself. One hundred years ago General Motors, John Rockefeller, and a few close friends, using very large sums of money and every form of deception, coercion and intimidation short of murder, singlehandedly killed the US electric auto and train industry, buying up and destroying the rolling stock of almost 1,000 US railroads and tramways so it could sell them gasoline-engined vehicles instead, and virtually killing off mass public transit at the same time.[3]

当时，通用汽车和各大石油公司都面临着多重危机。汽车市场已经饱和，销售增长乏力，仅在1921年，通用汽车就损失了6500多万美元，正朝着破产的方向发展，石油公司的收入和利润分享着这一黯淡的未来。通用汽车及其朋友们意识到，他们拯救的唯一希望是消灭他们的唯一对手——公共交通，并制定了一项计划，将永远改变美国经济、交通、文化和社会本身的进程。100年前，通用汽车公司、约翰·洛克菲勒和几个亲密的朋友，利用巨额资金和各种形式的欺骗、胁迫和恐吓（除了谋杀），一手扼杀了美国的电动汽车和火车行业，收购并摧毁近1000条美国铁路和电车的机车车辆，以便将汽油发动机车辆出售给他们，同时几乎扼杀了公共交通。[3]

According to the company’s own files, GM created a special secret division charged with the task of exterminating mass transit and replacing it with gasoline-powered propulsion, eliminating all traces of electric vehicles. At the time, GM was an enormously powerful firm, possessing great financial leverage with the banking systems and therefore over the railways which required bank financing and support. They threatened each railroad with a complete withdrawal of all lucrative freight business unless the rail company replaced its electric locomotives with GM’s gasoline-powered units. By every manner of extortion, they attempted to force local transit systems to abandon electric trams and purchase GM’s gasoline-powered buses. According to US Justice Department records, GM executives visited the banks used by the various railways, offering them millions in additional deposits and other rewards in exchange for delivering financial threats to their rail clients to persuade them to abandon their electric systems and convert to gas-powered GM vehicles. GM’s threat to these banks was to withdraw all deposits if they refused to cooperate.[4]

根据通用汽车公司自己的档案，通用汽车公司成立了一个特殊的秘密部门，负责消灭公共交通，代之以汽油动力推进，消除所有电动汽车的痕迹。当时，通用汽车是一家非常强大的公司，在银行系统中拥有巨大的财务杠杆，因此在需要银行融资和支持的铁路上拥有巨大的财务杠杆。他们威胁各铁路公司，除非铁路公司用通用汽车的汽油动力装置取代其电力机车，否则将完全撤出所有利润丰厚的货运业务。通过各种形式的勒索，他们试图迫使当地交通系统放弃电动有轨电车，购买通用的汽油动力公交车。根据美国司法部的记录，通用汽车高管访问了各铁路公司使用的银行，向他们提供数百万美元的额外存款和其他奖励，以换取向铁路客户提供财务威胁，说服他们放弃电力系统，改用通用汽车的燃气动力汽车。通用汽车对这些银行的威胁是，如果它们拒绝合作，就要提取所有存款。[4]

In each case where this conspiracy was successful and local tramways converted to gasoline buses, GM not only bought and crushed the electric vehicles, but tore out all the tracks and redistributed the rights of way so that it would have been virtually impossible to ever rebuild these systems. In cases where their efforts failed, GM formed numerous holding companies with its invisible friends and attempted to purchase and convert the railways themselves. According to FBI files, in cases where rail systems could not be bought, GM bought the rail officials instead, bribing them with large sums of cash, gifts of new cars, and the use of threats and extortion in a surprisingly uninhibited manner. GM also sponsored and financed corrupt officials in countless municipal elections, who would then vote for the sale of their local electric rail system to GM. Most of this was done in the name of a holding company named National City Lines, which was jointly owned by GM, Standard Oil and Firestone Tire. In each case where these rail systems converted from electric to gas, they experienced a rapid and large decline in revenue, since passengers abandoned the slow and foul-smelling gasoline buses and purchased autos instead – which was part of the plan.

在这一阴谋成功，当地电车改用汽油公交车的每一个案例中，通用汽车不仅购买并捣毁了电动汽车，还拆除了所有轨道并重新分配了路权，因此几乎不可能重建这些系统。在努力失败的情况下，通用汽车与其隐形朋友成立了许多控股公司，并试图自己购买和改造铁路。根据美国联邦调查局（FBI）的档案，在无法购买铁路系统的情况下，通用汽车反而收买了铁路官员，用大量现金、赠送新车以及以出人意料的不羁方式进行威胁和勒索来贿赂他们。通用汽车还赞助和资助了无数市政选举中的腐败官员，这些官员随后将投票支持向通用汽车出售其当地的电气铁路系统。其中大部分是以一家名为国家城市线（National City Lines）的控股公司的名义进行的，该公司由通用汽车、标准石油和凡士通轮胎共同拥有。在这些铁路系统从电力转换为天然气的每一个案例中，它们的收入都经历了快速而巨大的下降，因为乘客放弃了缓慢而难闻的汽油公交车，转而购买汽车——这是计划的一部分。

One stumbling block remained in that many local electric tramway systems were owned by the regional electric utility company, using their own surplus electricity for public transport systems, and here GM had no leverage. To eliminate this blockage, GM and its invisible people lobbied, bribed and extorted the nation’s elected politicians to pass new legislation that prohibited ‘regulated’ electrical utility companies from operating ‘unregulated’ businesses like the electric tramway and train systems. This cute legislative trick forced the utility companies to put all their electric train systems up for sale, all of which were immediately purchased by GM and its holding companies, and trashed. With these efforts and more, within three years, GM dismantled almost all of the 1,000 electric railroads and tramways in the US, having purchased and crushed for scrap metal their entire rolling stock, and replaced it with GM-made gasoline-powered units.[5] And so, for the first time, General Motors killed the electric car.

一个绊脚石仍然存在，许多当地的电车系统由地区电力公用事业公司所有，将其自己的剩余电力用于公共交通系统，而通用汽车在这方面没有杠杆作用。为了消除这种阻碍，通用汽车及其隐形人游说、贿赂和勒索全国民选政治家，以通过新的立法，禁止“受监管”的电力公用事业公司经营“不受监管”的业务，如电车和火车系统。这一可爱的立法伎俩迫使公用事业公司将其所有的电动火车系统出售，所有这些系统都立即被通用汽车及其控股公司收购，并被丢弃。通过这些努力和更多努力，在三年内，通用汽车几乎拆除了美国1000条电动铁路和电车，购买并压碎了他们的全部机车车辆，并用通用汽车制造的汽油动力装置代替。[5] 因此，通用汽车第一次扼杀了电动汽车。

Wikipedia covers these facts in some detail, the only qualification being the claim that this is yet another irresponsible “conspiracy theory”. But, as usual, if we assume that everything Wikipedia claims as false is really true, we have quite an accurate picture. Worthy of note is that Wiki also floods the landscape with tons of irrelevant detail so as to smoke up the room so badly that we lose sight of the core issue – a standard Hasbara tactic.

维基百科对这些事实进行了详细的描述，唯一的限定是声称这是另一种不负责任的“阴谋论”。但是，像往常一样，如果我们假设维基百科声称的一切都是真的，那么我们就有了一个相当准确的图片。值得注意的是，Wiki还充斥着大量不相关的细节，从而将整个房间烟消云散，以至于我们忽视了核心问题——一种标准的哈斯巴拉策略。

The Real Beneficiaries of Democracy

民主的真正受益者

Of course, there were court cases that attempted to deal with the multitude of illegalities, federal prosecutors charging that GM engaged in “a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle the American public out of its most important and valuable public utilities”. But American judges proved to be as easily bought as the politicians and the matter eventually died in the courtrooms, with General Motors being fined $5,000 and GM’s Treasurer H. C. Grossman and a few others fined $1.00 each. Over the years, GM has defended its actions by blaming suburban sprawl and the resultant rise in sales of private automobiles, as well declining passenger loads in electric public transit, ignoring the fact that GM itself was responsible for those results.

当然，也有一些试图处理大量违法行为的法庭案件，联邦检察官指控通用汽车公司“精心策划的活动，旨在骗取美国公众对其最重要和最有价值的公用事业的支持”。但事实证明，美国法官和政客一样容易被收买，这件事最终在法庭上了结，通用汽车公司被罚款5000美元，通用汽车公司财务长H.C.格罗斯曼和其他一些人每人被罚款1美元。多年来，通用汽车一直在为自己的行为辩护，指责郊区的扩张和由此导致的私人汽车销量的上升，以及电动公共交通乘客量的下降，而忽视了通用汽车本身对这些结果负有责任的事实。

This unconscionable sabotage of America’s transportation infrastructure by the auto and oil companies evidences the almost criminal ability of private corporations in a fascist (democratic) regime to effect sweeping changes in public life and culture, without public accountability or debate, or even awareness.

汽车和石油公司对美国交通基础设施的这种无理破坏证明，在法西斯（民主）政权中，私人公司几乎有犯罪能力，在没有公众问责、辩论甚至意识的情况下，对公共生活和文化进行彻底改变。

In Requiem

安魂弥撒

It is tragic that electric automobiles were killed off so early in their life. Had that transition been permitted to occur at its inception, we would have now had more than 100 years of intense battery research and development and incalculable benefits to the world’s environment. We can only guess at the possible results for land, sea and air transport. This is a critical historical narrative. One observer wrote that “A theme likely to be emphasised in history will be the enormous strategic error made by both the US and Canada in enslaving themselves to individual motorized transportation.”

电动汽车这么早就被淘汰了，真是悲剧。如果这种转变在一开始就被允许，我们现在将拥有100多年的密集电池研发和对世界环境的不可估量的好处。我们只能猜测陆、海、空运输的可能结果。这是一个批判性的历史叙事。一位观察家写道，“历史上可能会强调的一个主题是，美国和加拿大在个人机动交通方面犯下的巨大战略错误。”

The following quote is so compellingly true it should be engraved on the mind of every citizen:

下面这句话是如此令人信服地真实，应该铭刻在每个公民的心中：

“The long-term negative effects of this conspiracy of some of America’s most ruthless corporations are literally beyond calculation. The forced switch from environmentally-friendly public transit to the private car and diesel buses results in squandering irreplaceable petroleum resources and all the murder and mayhem which has gone to secure or steal oil around the world. The conspiracy to destroy electric autos and electric mass transport has resulted in vastly increased pollution and, ultimately, in climatic change. The engineered obsession with the private car has led to millions of excess deaths and injuries in automobile accidents, hundreds of billions of dollars in debt for Americans and a catastrophic change in the way American cities have developed, with the devastation of urban neighborhoods, the destruction of urban small business and countless other economic and sociological effects.” (Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy)

“美国一些最无情的公司的这一阴谋的长期负面影响简直无法计算。强制从环保型公共交通转向私家车和柴油公交车导致了不可替代的石油资源的浪费，以及所有为确保r在世界各地偷油。破坏电动汽车和电动大众运输的阴谋导致污染大幅增加，最终导致气候变化。对私家车的痴迷导致了数百万人在汽车事故中的死亡和受伤，美国人背负了数千亿美元的债务，美国城市发展方式发生了灾难性变化，城市社区遭到破坏，城市小企业的破坏以及无数其他经济和社会影响。”（让世界对虚伪保持安全）

The American people were for generations complimented on their individualism, adventuresome spirit and their love of freedom and independence – and for the choices they believed they made but that had been made for them by others. Here as in no other market is it so true that the capitalists were selling “not so much products as emotion itself, psychologically linking the act of purchasing an automobile to falsely-manufactured feelings of confidence, freedom, happiness, empowerment and independence, tying the very self-identity of Americans to the purchase of an automobile.”

几代人以来，美国人民因其个人主义、冒险精神以及对自由和独立的热爱而备受称赞，也因他们认为自己做出了选择，但这是别人为他们做出的选择。与其他任何市场一样，资本家在这里出售“与其说是产品，不如说是情感本身，从心理上将购买汽车的行为与虚假制造的自信、自由、幸福、赋权和独立的感觉联系在一起，将美国人的自我认同与购买汽车联系在一起。”

Digging a Deeper Grave: Highways and Suburbs

挖掘更深的坟墓：高速公路和郊区

But GM wasn’t finished yet. At the time, most people who wanted a car and could afford it, had already bought one, but an even greater problem was that even if you had a car there was no place to go. Roads were not plentiful and good roads almost non-existent; the most common motoring experience was being stuck in 60 cms. of mud with no help in sight. To deal with this lack of infrastructure, GM and its friends heavily lobbied, bullied and bribed Federal and State governments for the construction of roads and highways, and with great success. The US government embarked on a massive interstate road-building program that would cover the entire country. One of the greatest lies in American history books is that this vast road-building program was initiated “for the war effort, to protect the country” in ways unspecified. At the same time, each State was individually “persuaded” to abandon all investment and maintenance in railways and other public transport, thereby sacrificing the good of the nation by instead making huge public expenditures on highways that were useful only to those who owned private automobiles, effectively stranding all other citizens at home with no way to go anywhere.

但通用汽车尚未完工。当时，大多数想要买车而且买得起的人都已经买了一辆，但更大的问题是，即使你有车，也没有地方可去。道路不多，几乎没有好的道路；最常见的驾驶体验是卡在60厘米内。看不到任何帮助的泥巴。为了解决这一基础设施不足的问题，通用汽车及其朋友大力游说、恐吓和贿赂联邦和州政府修建道路和高速公路，并取得了巨大成功。美国政府开始了一项覆盖全国的大规模州际公路建设计划。美国历史书中最大的谎言之一是，这一庞大的道路建设项目是以“为了战争，为了保护国家”的方式启动的，具体方式不详。与此同时，每个州都被单独“说服”放弃对铁路和其他公共交通的所有投资和维护，从而牺牲了国家的利益，转而在公路上进行巨额公共支出，这些支出只对拥有私人汽车的人有用，有效地将所有其他公民困在家中，无路可走。

GM didn’t stop with undermining the nation’s public transport and replacing it with a highway system for its private automobiles. There still remained the problem of encouraging, or forcing, people to buy cars. In any large European or Asian metropolis, a private auto is unnecessary, since these cities exhibit exemplary city planning, designed for people rather than cars, with high residential density, excellent public transport, and no artificial segregation of basic functions like living, working and shopping. The design of cities and city centers we see in North America is a crime against humanity, but few are aware of this. North Americans who don’t travel, cannot imagine the ease and comfort of life in well-planned cities.

通用汽车并没有停止破坏国家的公共交通，而是用私人汽车的公路系统来取代公共交通。仍然存在鼓励或强迫人们购买汽车的问题。在任何一个欧洲或亚洲大城市，私人汽车都是不必要的，因为这些城市展示了为人而非汽车设计的模范城市规划，具有高居住密度、出色的公共交通，并且没有人为地将生活、工作和购物等基本功能分离。我们在北美看到的城市和城市中心的设计是一种反人类罪，但很少有人意识到这一点。不旅行的北美人无法想象在精心规划的城市里生活的轻松和舒适。

Ample evidence exists that the US took a very different route because the civic planning faculties of major US universities were infiltrated by auto makers and oil companies, then funded and instructed on the city planning philosophies that would make autos necessary. The result was that American and Canadian cities were planned, designed and constructed primarily, if not exclusively, to make private transportation mandatory. To its credit, the rest of the world was not seduced. European and Asian cities remain far more livable and enjoyable than any in the US

有充分的证据表明，美国走了一条非常不同的道路，因为美国主要大学的城市规划学院受到汽车制造商和石油公司的渗透，然后获得资金，并指导城市规划理念，这将使汽车成为必要。其结果是，美国和加拿大城市的规划、设计和建设，如果不是专门的话，主要是为了使私人交通成为强制性的。值得称道的是，世界其他地区没有受到诱惑。欧洲和亚洲的城市仍然比美国的任何城市都更宜居、更令人愉快

Suburbs are an invention created and existing only in the US and Canada, designed entirely to keep workplaces, shopping and residences not only physically segregated but sufficiently scattered that even good public transport becomes ineffective or useless, thereby forcing hundreds of millions of people to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on private transportation solely for the benefit of the car makers and oil companies. This American-style city planning, the creation of suburbs, was one of the meanest anti-social schemes ever devised by American capitalism.

郊区是一项仅在美国和加拿大创造和存在的发明，其设计完全是为了使工作场所、购物场所和住宅不仅在物理上隔离，而且足够分散，即使是良好的公共交通也变得无效或无用，从而迫使数亿人仅为了汽车制造商和石油公司的利益而在私人交通上花费数千亿美元。这种美国式的城市规划，即创建郊区，是美国资本主义有史以来最卑鄙的反社会计划之一。

In so many North American cities life is impossible without a car. Economists at Harvard and Berkeley did a study named the Equality of Opportunity Project, which found a significant negative correlation between residential segregation and the ability of the poor to rise. Partly, this was separating rich and poor neighborhoods, but partly because in US-designed cities basically everything is very far apart from everything else, making an efficient public transport system almost impossible. The most notable result is that lower-income workers are stranded; there may be jobs available, but with no public transport and no car, they literally cannot get there.[6]

在许多北美城市，没有汽车生活是不可能的。哈佛大学和伯克利分校的经济学家进行了一项名为机会平等项目的研究，发现居住隔离与穷人的崛起能力之间存在显著的负相关。部分原因是贫富社区之间的分隔，但部分原因是在美国设计的城市中，基本上所有东西都与其他东西相去甚远，使得高效的公共交通系统几乎不可能实现。最显著的结果是低收入工人陷入困境；可能有工作，但没有公共交通和汽车，他们根本无法到达那里。[6]

In well-planned cities like Rome and Shanghai and so many others in Europe and Asia, an automobile is completely unnecessary because the cities were designed for people rather than cars. As mentioned, there is no artificial separation of living, working and shopping spaces, with so many other functions and necessities deeply integrated into the community. In Rome, it isn’t unusual to find an elementary school occupying one or two floors of a large apartment or office building, extremely convenient to all families living in the area. This sounds strange to an American, but it works beautifully. In all of the world’s most livable cities, this kind of close integration is the same, with one never needing to walk more than perhaps 300 meters to satisfy almost any need, and with excellent public transport taking care of the rest.

在罗马、上海等规划周密的城市以及欧洲和亚洲的许多其他城市，汽车是完全没有必要的，因为这些城市是为人而不是汽车设计的。如前所述，生活、工作和购物空间之间没有人为的分离，许多其他功能和必需品深入融入社区。在罗马，一所小学占据了一栋大公寓或办公楼的一到两层，对居住在该地区的所有家庭都非常方便，这并不罕见。对于美国人来说，这听起来很奇怪，但它工作得很好。在世界上所有最宜居的城市中，这种紧密的融合是一样的，一个人永远不需要步行超过300米就可以满足几乎所有的需求，而其他的都需要优秀的公共交通。

Felony Murder Number Two

二号重罪谋杀

In 1990, the State of California passed new anti-pollution legislation mandating the production and use of zero-emission autos in the state, stipulating that if auto manufacturers planned to sell their products in California, 10% of those sales would have to consist of emission-free vehicles, which means electric automobiles. The state did not attempt to provide solutions to every driving problem nor to satisfy all possible needs of all motorists. The legislation was meant as a beginning of the process to eliminate the pollution from gasoline-powered automobiles, and so addressed attention to the large and easy sector of motoring society, the 70% of urban dwellers who face a two-way commute of less than 50 Kms per day. Recognising that electricity for recharging was available in virtually every imaginable place, California envisaged short-distance autos that could be recharged both at work and at home.

1990年，加利福尼亚州通过了新的反污染立法，要求在该州生产和使用零排放汽车，规定如果汽车制造商计划在加利福尼亚州销售其产品，那么这些销售的10%必须是无排放汽车，即电动汽车。该州并没有试图为每一个驾驶问题提供解决方案，也没有试图满足所有驾驶人的所有可能需求。这项立法的目的是作为消除汽油动力汽车污染进程的开端，因此引起了人们对汽车社会庞大而便捷的部门的关注，70%的城市居民每天的双向通勤距离不到50公里。加利福尼亚州认识到几乎所有可以想象的地方都有充电用电，因此设想了一种可以在工作和家中充电的短途汽车。

Based on this approach, the state rebuffed demands from the auto industry to first construct a vast network of charging stations, refusing to permit the automakers to shift their industry’s development costs onto the public sector. They simply said, “If you want to sell cars in our state, ten percent of your sales must be zero-emission vehicles. How you accomplish that is your problem”. There is no question California did it right, their approach both commendable and successful – for a while. All firms produced versions of electric or hybrid autos that met the requirements, with some like the Prius becoming permanent successes. GM’s contribution, the EV-1, was a simple auto powered by basic lead-acid batteries and with a range of only 100 Kms, but that was sufficient for the daily commute of most of the state’s urban motorists.

基于这一做法，国家拒绝了汽车行业的要求，即首先建设一个庞大的充电站网络，拒绝允许汽车制造商将其行业的发展成本转移到公共部门。他们只是简单地说：“如果你想在我们州销售汽车，你销售的10%必须是零排放汽车。你如何做到这一点是你的问题。”。毫无疑问，加州的做法是正确的，他们的做法值得称赞，并且在一段时间内取得了成功。所有公司都生产出符合要求的电动或混合动力汽车，其中一些像普锐斯这样的汽车获得了永久性的成功。通用汽车的贡献是EV-1，它是一款简单的汽车，由基本的铅酸电池供电，行驶里程只有100公里，但这足以满足该州大多数城市机动车的日常通勤。

But GM and its oil-company friends violently objected to this compulsion for electric autos and, in surreptitious preparation to force a legislative repeal, GM refused to sell the EV-1 to customers, but offered it only on a lease basis so as to maintain ownership. GM, the oil companies and other auto-related firms then lobbied, pressured, bullied, bribed, and eventually sued the California government for repeal of the legislation, the US government led by President Bush eventually joining the legal action. Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card had been the head of the American Automobile Manufacturers Alliance, and White House staff like Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and other federal officials were former executives or directors of oil and auto companies. The US government had once again served the short-term interests of the corporate elite at the expense of long-term best interests of the nation.

但通用汽车及其石油公司的朋友们强烈反对电动汽车的这一强制措施，并且，在秘密准备强制立法废除的过程中，通用汽车拒绝向客户出售EV-1，但仅在租赁的基础上提供，以保持所有权。通用汽车、石油公司和其他汽车相关公司随后游说、施压、欺凌、行贿，并最终起诉加州政府废除该法案，布什总统领导的美国政府最终加入了这一法律行动。布什的幕僚长安德鲁·卡德（AndrewCard）曾是美国汽车制造商联盟（American Automobile Manufacturers Alliance）的负责人，迪克·切尼（DickCheney）、康多莉扎·赖斯（CondoleezzaRice）和其他联邦官员等白宫工作人员都曾是石油和汽车公司的高管或董事。美国政府再次为企业精英的短期利益服务，而牺牲了国家的长期最佳利益。

GM and others created pressure groups to lobby against electric cars, pretending to be citizen action committees but who were financed by the auto industry. Intense and unremitting pressure was put on California to rescind its zero-emission laws until the state finally capitulated. The instant that happened, GM repossessed all its electric cars and crushed them for scrap. And so, for the second time, General Motors killed the electric car. GM later blamed this on insufficient demand but the electric cars were so loved that drivers handcuffed themselves to the cars to prevent GM from seizing them.

通用汽车和其他公司成立了压力团体，以游说反对电动汽车，他们假装是公民行动委员会，但资金来自汽车行业。加利福尼亚州面临着巨大而持续的压力，要求其废除零排放法，直到该州最终投降。就在那一刻，通用汽车收回了所有的电动汽车，并将其粉碎成废品。因此，通用汽车第二次淘汰了电动汽车。通用汽车后来将此归咎于需求不足，但电动汽车非常受欢迎，以至于司机们将自己铐在汽车上，以防通用汽车将其扣押。

Felony Murder Number Three

三号重罪谋杀案

There was another matter, relating to battery capacity and range. GM’s initial EV-1 used simple lead-acid batteries without problem, but foreign auto manufacturers (Toyota’s RAV-4) were already using nickel-metal-hydride batteries which delivered greater travel distances. At precisely that time, a firm named Ovonics had developed new NiMH technology that would have increased the range of electric vehicles to at least 400-500 Kms between charges, thereby making private electric transportation possible on a mass scale. GM immediately bought – at a very high price – the exclusive worldwide patent rights to this NiMH technology and locked it in a closet, refusing to license any firms to produce these batteries for auto use. GM later sold these patent rights to US-based Texaco-Chevron oil, who even today refuses access to this technology. NiMH has proven to be the best battery for plug-in electric cars, but manufacturers have been forced into lithium technology (which is about 6 times as expensive and with no recycle value) because of GM’s determination to prevent electric autos from ever becoming a reality. And so, for the third time, General Motors successfully killed the electric car.[7] As late as 2018, GM was at it again, killing the Volt, Cruze, and Impala, claiming public preference for SUVs.[8]

还有一件事，与电池容量和范围有关。通用汽车最初的EV-1使用的是简单的铅酸电池，没有问题，但外国汽车制造商（丰田的RAV-4）已经在使用镍金属氢化物电池，可以提供更长的旅行距离。正是在那时，一家名为Ovonics的公司开发了新的NiMH技术，该技术将电动汽车的续航里程增加到充电间隔至少400-500公里，从而使大规模的私人电力运输成为可能。通用汽车立即以很高的价格购买了这项镍氢技术的全球独家专利权，并将其锁在了一个柜子里，拒绝授权任何公司生产这些汽车用电池。后来，通用汽车将这些专利权出售给了总部位于美国的德士古雪佛龙石油公司（Texaco Chevron oil），后者甚至在今天仍然拒绝使用这项技术。镍氢电池已被证明是插电式电动汽车的最佳电池，但由于通用汽车决心阻止电动汽车成为现实，制造商被迫采用锂技术（价格约为6倍，且没有回收价值）。因此，通用汽车第三次成功地淘汰了电动汽车。[7] 直到2018年，通用汽车再次出手，杀掉了Volt、Cruze和Impala，声称公众更喜欢SUV。[8]

A House Built on Sand . . .

一座建在沙滩上的房子。

One of the main challenges is that auto makers derive far more profit from financing vehicle purchases and the sale of auto parts than from the sale of new vehicles. Prior to its bankruptcy, GM was making three times as much profit from both its finance arm and auto parts divisions, than from making and selling cars. Auto dealerships share this model where service and parts sales constitute less than 10% of revenue but 50% of profit. Since electric vehicles have perhaps only half the number of parts as their gasoline-powered relatives, and very few moving parts – almost none of which break or need regular replacement – they are more reliable and require much less maintenance or service than do gasoline-powered vehicles. These factors would eliminate a major portion of the revenue and the bulk of the profits of both manufacturers and their dealerships, forcing a massive reorganisation of the entire auto/transportation industry, to say nothing of exterminating most of the major oil companies.

主要挑战之一是，汽车制造商从融资购买汽车和销售汽车零部件中获得的利润远远高于新车销售。在破产之前，通用汽车从其金融部门和汽车零部件部门获得的利润是制造和销售汽车利润的三倍。汽车经销商分享这种模式，其中服务和零部件销售占收入的比例不到10%，但占利润的50%。由于电动汽车的零部件数量可能只有汽油动力汽车的一半，而且很少有运动部件，几乎没有一个部件会损坏或需要定期更换，因此与汽油动力汽车相比，电动汽车更可靠，所需的维护或保养要少得多。这些因素将消除制造商及其经销商的大部分收入和大部分利润，迫使整个汽车/运输行业进行大规模重组，更不用说消灭大多数大型石油公司了。

The Power of The City of London

伦敦金融城的力量

Electric cars are an existential threat to the Zionist international bankers who are the final beneficial owners of most of the major oil companies and who control in one way or another much of the world’s petroleum extraction and distribution, as well as heavy stakes in the auto manufacturers. Witnessing the trend to electric cars is like watching in slow motion the approach of one’s own funeral procession, one which appears unstoppable. The production and distribution of electricity cannot be controlled by these bankers because there are too many producers of electricity, mostly local or provincial governments who will not sell their infrastructure, and electricity is already widely distributed in almost every conceivable place. If these few extractive vampires cannot control the world’s fuel sources, if nations turn to electric autos with the NiMH battery or a new equivalent, and generate centrally their own electricity, our international bankers will suffer total losses in the trillions of dollars.

电动汽车是对犹太复国主义国际银行家的生存威胁，他们是大多数主要石油公司的最终受益所有人，以某种方式控制着世界上大部分石油开采和分销，并在汽车制造商中拥有大量股份。目睹电动汽车的发展趋势就像在慢镜头中观看自己的葬礼队伍，一个似乎势不可挡的队伍。这些银行家无法控制电力的生产和分配，因为电力生产商太多，大多是地方或省级政府，他们不会出售其基础设施，而且电力已经广泛分布在几乎所有可以想象的地方。如果这些少数采掘吸血鬼无法控制世界的燃料来源，如果各国转向使用镍氢电池或新的同等电池的电动汽车，并集中生产自己的电力，我们的国际银行家将遭受数万亿美元的总损失。

Following the third felony murder, the US auto industry, led by GM, initiated a noisy propaganda campaign to eliminate electric vehicles as much as possible from the public mind and government attention, using the promotion of hydrogen fuel cell development as a fraudulent distraction. Hydrogen is today far from a viable alternative for widespread public use, with many serious safety and distribution issues. Some manufacturers have produced concept cars they hope to put into production, but we are still decades from useful implementation.

在第三起重罪谋杀案发生后，以通用汽车为首的美国汽车业发起了一场喧闹的宣传运动，以尽可能消除公众和政府对电动汽车的关注，将促进氢燃料电池发展作为一种欺诈性的分心手段。如今，氢远不是一种可广泛用于公共用途的可行替代品，存在许多严重的安全和分配问题。一些制造商已经生产了他们希望投入生产的概念车，但我们离实用化还有几十年的时间。

But the real issue is this:. Driving the frantic push to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is the fact that the only useful source of hydrogen in the quantities necessary for auto fuel is petroleum or, more precisely, natural gas – methane. If these few people can force the conversion from gasoline to hydrogen, they will not only avoid the massive and costly restructuring looming for the auto industry with the change to electric cars, but will continue forever to control the entire production and distribution system for vehicle fuels.

但真正的问题是：。推动氢燃料电池汽车疯狂发展的是，汽车燃料所需数量的唯一有用氢源是石油，更准确地说，是天然气——甲烷。如果这些少数人能够迫使汽油转化为氢气，他们不仅可以避免电动汽车带来的汽车行业大规模且成本高昂的重组，而且将永远控制汽车燃料的整个生产和分销系统。

They are so desperate that Toyota was bludgeoned into offering unlimited use of its thousands of fuel-cell patents without license fees for years, in the hope of kick-starting the process, in their words hoping to “spur development and introduction of innovative fuel cell technologies”. This small group of wealthy bankers was forcing and funding an enormous push for cooperation between all possible parties, in what they called “unconventional collaboration”, in an attempt to instill so much speed into the process as to overwhelm and kill other forms of electric automobiles.

他们如此绝望，以至于丰田多年来一直在不收取许可费的情况下提供其数千项燃料电池专利的无限使用权，以期启动这一过程，用他们的话说，希望“刺激创新燃料电池技术的开发和引进”。这一小撮富有的银行家正在迫使并资助各方大力推动合作，他们称之为“非常规合作”，试图在这一过程中注入如此多的速度，以压倒和扼杀其他形式的电动汽车。

In terms of environmental effect, the production of hydrogen from methane is more damaging than is driving gasoline-powered cars, since the hydrogen extraction process actually releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than does the burning of gasoline, on a per-liter basis. In addition, hydrogen is much less efficient than direct battery power and fuel cell autos will be almost twice as expensive as pure electric cars. The only advantages of a fuel cell are the prospect of longer range and shorter refueling times, but battery development will no doubt remove these differences in time.

就环境影响而言，从甲烷中产生的氢气比驾驶汽油驱动的汽车更具破坏性，因为从每升的基础上来看，抽氢过程实际上释放到大气中的二氧化碳比燃烧汽油释放的二氧化碳更多。此外，氢的效率远低于直接电池，燃料电池汽车的价格几乎是纯电动汽车的两倍。燃料电池的唯一优点是射程更长、换料时间更短，但电池的发展无疑会在时间上消除这些差异。

There is also the aspect of economic and political control, which is not a small thing. The small cabal of European bankers and industrialists who beneficially control most of the world’s international oil companies are on public record as stating that “If you control the oil, you control the world’s economies, and if you control the food, you control the world’s populations”. This is what is at stake; it is not merely their petroleum profits but their political and economic control of nations, that are severely threatened by the move away from petroleum fuels. Consider the fierce economic attack on Russia and Venezuela in late 2014 and 2015 by the dramatic depression in the price of oil, meant almost exclusively to collapse Russia’s petroleum-based economy. Such ‘sanctions’ would be equally successful if the world moves to methane-based hydrogen auto fuel, but would be futile with electric cars.

还有经济和政治控制方面，这不是一件小事。欧洲银行家和实业家组成的小阴谋集团受益地控制了世界上大多数国际石油公司，他们公开表示“如果你控制了石油，你就控制了世界经济，如果你控制了粮食，你就控制了世界人口”。这才是关键所在；远离石油燃料的举动严重威胁到的不仅仅是他们的石油利润，还有他们对国家的政治和经济控制。想想2014年末和2015年，石油价格大幅下跌对俄罗斯和委内瑞拉的猛烈经济打击，这几乎完全意味着俄罗斯以石油为基础的经济崩溃。如果世界转向以甲烷为基础的氢汽车燃料，这样的“制裁”将同样成功，但对于电动汽车来说将是徒劳的。

The matter is even more serious than mere control of the economies of other nations. Recall again that the US military is on record as determined to obtain “full-spectrum domination”, one reason the Americans have been making such a fuss about China’s island installations in the South China Sea. The US military has been counting on the power of its naval fleet to cut off China’s petroleum supply routes in the event of a war, and a Chinese military presence in that area might inhibit US domination of the sea lanes. A military without fuel is no military; all those ships and planes become immobile useless hardware, as Japan discovered in 1940 when the US engineered a total embargo on oil to Japan, setting in motion the strike on Pearl Harbor. But more than that, if China moves to fully electric autos, its domestic petroleum supplies might be sufficient for the military, thereby denying the US a major advantage. Thus, the push to hydrogen fuels is as much about political and military domination as about bankers’ profits.

这一问题甚至比仅仅控制其他国家的经济更为严重。再次回顾，美国军方决心获得“全方位统治”，这是美国对中国在南中国海的岛屿设施大惊小怪的原因之一。美国军方一直指望其海军舰队在发生战争时切断中国的石油供应路线，而中国在该地区的军事存在可能会抑制美国对海上航线的控制。没有燃料的军队就不是军队；所有这些船只和飞机都变成了无法移动的无用硬件，正如日本在1940年发现的那样，当时美国对日本实施了全面的石油禁运，启动了对珍珠港的打击。但除此之外，如果中国转向全电动汽车，其国内石油供应可能足以满足军方的需求，从而否定了美国的一个主要优势。因此，推动氢燃料不仅关系到银行家的利润，也关系到政治和军事统治。

There is a further problem in that for at least the past 40 years the main scaffold propping up the US dollar is that of pricing the world’s petroleum exclusively in US dollars. If the world moves fully and quickly to electric cars, the price of oil will collapse with the US dollar right behind it, settling somewhere around $0.30, making the US the world’s richest banana republic. This is such a sensitive issue that when the US agreed to pay Saudi Arabia the much higher oil prices in the early 1970s, a condition was that all petroleum would be priced and sold exclusively in US dollars and that to do otherwise “would be considered an act of war.”

还有一个问题是，至少在过去40年里，支撑美元的主要脚手架是全世界石油完全以美元计价。如果世界迅速全面转向电动汽车，油价将暴跌，美元紧随其后，稳定在0.30美元左右，使美国成为世界上最富有的香蕉共和国。这是一个非常敏感的问题，当美国在20世纪70年代初同意向沙特阿拉伯支付高得多的油价时，一个条件是所有石油都将以美元计价和销售，否则“将被视为战争行为”

Epilogue

后记

This essay could be considered part of a series detailing how the forces controlling the American government and social landscape have betrayed both the general public and the long-term good of the nation itself, in favor of the private ambitions of a small number of the criminal elite. Americans have recently lost any possibility of excellent mobile phone systems,[9] have been denied the enormous benefits of high-speed train transportation, [10] and have been saddled with almost inhuman urban design, while being denied the incalculable benefits of good public transport while subjected to the tragedy of mass auto transit and everything that entails.

这篇文章可以被视为一系列文章的一部分，详细描述了控制美国政府和社会格局的力量如何背叛了公众和国家自身的长期利益，支持了少数犯罪精英的个人野心。美国人最近失去了使用优秀移动电话系统的任何可能性，[9]被剥夺了高速火车运输的巨大好处，[10]并且背负着几乎不人道的城市设计，虽然被剥夺了良好公共交通带来的不可估量的好处，却遭受了大规模汽车运输的悲剧以及由此带来的一切。

There are many other such crimes against the American people, inflicted upon them by the same group, our by-now famous International Cabal of Gangsters (ICG) operating ultimately out of the City of London. One of the most insidious is the US FED [11], a blood-sucking vampire that badly needs a stake driven through its heart. The American health care system is another of the most obvious, [12] as is education, [13] [14] but there are more. If Americans understood their true predicament, and the fundamental causes, there would be a revolution before morning.

还有许多其他针对美国人民的此类罪行，都是由同一个组织实施的，我们现在著名的国际黑帮集团（ICG）最终在伦敦城外运作。其中最阴险的就是美联储[11]，这是一个吸血鬼，非常需要一根刺穿心脏的木桩。美国的医疗体系是另一个最明显的体系，[12] 教育也是如此，[13] [14]但还有更多。如果美国人理解他们真正的困境和根本原因，那么在早晨之前就会有一场革命。

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

罗曼诺夫的作品已被翻译成32种语言，他的文章发布在30多个国家的150多个外语新闻和政治网站上，以及100多个英语平台上。拉里·罗曼诺夫是一位退休的管理顾问和商人。他曾在国际咨询公司担任高级管理职位，并拥有国际进出口业务。他曾任上海复旦大学客座教授，向高级EMBA课程介绍国际事务案例研究。罗曼诺夫先生住在上海，目前正在撰写一系列十本书，这些书通常与中国和西方有关。他是辛西娅·麦金尼（CynthiaMcKinney）的新集《当中国打喷嚏时》的撰稿人之一。（第2章-对付恶魔）。

他的全部文章可以在以下找到

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ and https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

他的联系方式：

2186604556@qq.com

Notes

注释

[1] https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/25/38-percent-american-cars-electric-1900/

38% Of American Cars Were Electric In 1900

1900年，38%的美国汽车是电动的

[2] http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9406E4DA1331E233A25753C2A9679C946096D6CF

[3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/

[4] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/06/30/GM-Deserves-to-Go-Bankrupt-for-Destroying-Public-Transportation.aspx