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United States News Title: OJ Rides Again? Ford is bringing back the Bronco an iconic name almost as synonymous with Ford as the Mustang. It almost brought back something else. Memories of O.J. The white 93 Bronco driven slowly along Californias highways, the ex-leaper of airport turnstyles and suspected double-murderer behind the wheel, with a fleet of California Highway Patrol cars behind him, is perhaps the most iconic slow-motion car chase in American history. As weird as that was, even weirder is that Ford almost launched the new Bronco on O.J.s birthday, July 9. News story here. I would love to! Apparently, someone checked. The reveal has been moved to July 13. We wanted to be respectful of this concern, said Ford Communications Chief Mark Truby. But one wonders whether Ford may have missed a marketing opportunity. Much has changed since the 1994 murders of O.J.s ex-wife Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman. Or maybe they just began. A new America was born on that day. One that lined the streets holding signs and cheering the juice, as O.J. was sometimes called. Whether O.J. actually did kill his ex-wife and her friend is almost beside the point. The publics verdict was that O.J. should go free as a proxy fuck you to the system, widely regarded even then as systemically corrupt and abusive. And here we are, almost 25 years later. Has anything changed for the better? Are the states mercs any less vicious? Or are they better armed and protected by the same system that was hated so much by so many all those years ago? The question hardly requires typing out an answer. So maybe Ford should have launched the new Bronco on O.J.s birthday and gone all-in with an O.J. Edition Bronco. All white exterior, with red trim embellishments. Perhaps even signed by the juice himself. A special duffle bag included, too. Who wants to bet against the idea that it would sell at full MSRP plus a huge markup? One can argue that such a thing is a metric of societal sickness, then as now. Two people were, after all, horribly murdered whether by O.J. or some other person (various theories, some not incredible, have been put forward, including that it was perhaps O.J.s son who did the deed). But those two people were stick figure casualties nothing personal of a much wider crime. Just as O.J. himself isnt the main character in this sorrowful play. This slow-motion train wreck, which has been happening for much longer than two hours or almost 25 years, even. One can trace it back all the way to 1861 the year of the second American secession movement, which failed. And perhaps even farther, all the way back to 1787, which was the year the first American secession movement successful on the battlefield, unlike the second one was O.J.d by a backroom shady deal that replaced the leave-you-alone Articles of Confederation with the we-own-you Constitution. The ownership being made abundantly clear shortly thereafter via the eras equivalent of the CHP chasing down rural Pennsylvania farmers who objected to being mulcted by the newly constituted federales. The Whiskey rebellion as it was and has been styled was put down with the usual violence, an 18th century Hut! Hut! Hutting! It got worse from there. Despite their being a First Amendment part of 10 Amendments (read, afterthoughts; sops, really, to the unhappy Jeffersonians who felt rightly that theyd been had by the Federalists) that plainly stated a right to speak freely, speech contrary to the likings of the Federalists and their new leader soon became seditious, under the act of that name. And then somehow via something called Marbury v. Madison we swapped out the tyranny of elected men for the tyranny of lifetime appointed ones. Who appointed themselves the arbiters of what the Constitutions powers are. Which is to say, their power over us. And so things proceeded. There was a belated awakening that finally came to blows in 1861. But things had been allowed to slide for much too long. The power aggregated by the system had already become insuperable. The South was made to howl by Sherman a writ-large version of the thug who recently stood on George Floyds neck, both actions performed for the same fundamental reason, which is to make us howl. Block by block and bit by bit, the edifice grew, the chains weighed heavier. And with it, the burning an excellent word, penned by a Soviet who understood what Americans felt and still feel, perhaps even more so toward the system and its minions. It all poured forth in 94. Deranged and cruel, certainly but also understandable. There is a quote attributed to British Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris, who when asked whether he felt bad about deliberately fire-bombing German cities, responded with: Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Indeed. O.J. is incidental. What ought to trouble us because of what it portends is that a 2021 O.J. Edition Bronco would probably sell better than a black-and-gold Trans-Am signed by Burt Reynolds. . . . Got a question about cars, Libertarian politics or anything else? Click on the ask Eric link and send em in! Subscribe to *Cars and Automotive* Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Deckard (#0)
It should have a big knife as a hood ornament .
Si vis pacem, para bellum Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. "If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." (Will Rogers) "No one ever rescues an old dog. They lay in a cage until they die. PLEASE save one. None of us wants to die cold and alone... --Dennis Olson " People that say money can't buy you happiness, have never paid an adoption fee
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