Friday, November 2, 2012

ANCHORS AWEIGH

ANCHORS AWEIGH With the names Linda Lingle and Mitt Romney on the ballot next week if you missed this recent "Wired" article about John Lehman- the former Secretary of the Navy, current adviser to Mitt Romney and the brains behind the Superferry- this would be a good time to peruse it. As the article says:

"Lehman invested in a government-backed “Superferry” in Hawaii — a business that ultimately failed, but not before boosting the standing of Austal USA, an Alabama shipbuilder that constructed the ferry service’s ships. Austal USA’s rising fortunes in turn benefited international defense giant BAE Systems, which then bought up shipyards owned by Lehman in order to work more closely with Austal USA. "

It's especially ingratiating to see that, historically, this is the final narrative on the Superferry- that it was never intended as a transportation system but was always a demonstration project for new a line of Navy vessels designed simply to line Lehman's pockets and, tangentially, allow Linda Lingle to suck up to the ultra-conservatives in the Republican Party.

Many chided us at the time for being critical of some some Superferry opponents, among them Kahoon Paik and Jerry Mander whose so-called "definitive" book, the Superferry Chronicles, failed to expose this connection (which we detailed at the time along with Joan Conrow in her USS Superferry series) and rather used corporate media article to paint a picture without the military connection.

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