Just For Fun: An Open Letter to Con Edison CEO Kevin Burke

It had been a minute since exercising my writing chops, so I thought I'd have a little fun with my exorbitant energy bill. Wanted to explore the topic of "electricity" a little bit, because for me it has been a really nice connecting link to a number of interesting topics which reveal pathological control of information. Had to link to SOTT, too, of course! Anyway, enjoy:

http://notbloodpaint.tumblr.com/post/9772578633/an-open-letter-to-con-edison-ceo-kevin-burke

*The following is just the text from the post. It doesn't include all the links (SOTT, McCanney, Gedgaudas, Donald E. Scott, etc) that I peppered throughout the words...*

An Open Letter to Con Edison CEO Kevin Burke

Hey Kevin!

Apologies if my tone seems too familiar right out the gate, it’s just that I feel like I know you. You know? I mean, we’ve been in a relationship for about 4 years now - you send me letters monthly, you light my life up, and you make things so much more easy and efficient for me and my friends. I know that taking care of your customer’s “energy needs” takes a lot of planning, a lot of dedication, and infrastructure - that means workers, and that is a good thing in my book. There is a “job problem” in this country right now, ya know, but lucky for you and me we’ve got jobs! And so do lots and lots and lots of people who work under you. So, what I’m trying to say is: I feel good about paying you for a service I am not currently able to obtain all by myself. Paying for things is about experience, in my opinion - you can’t skirt out on payment in a universe that is all about balance. Do you agree with that? I think that knowledge costs something and payment is always required if there is to be an actual exchange of information.

I think this has something to do with the rules of hospitality as practiced by the Greeks. You see, they had all these super jealous gods who could move through space and time, change form, manifest weather phenomenon - REALLY powerful dudes, some were nice but a lot of em could get nasty! One of the rules in this environment was that respect was to be payed to the Gods. That meant that the Greeks payed attention to subtle signs in their environment, and when a God came to the home of a mortal and asked to be invited in, it was the responsibility of the mortal to recognize the quality of the God through discernment, understand the situation as a test (all situations, for that matter), and offer impeccable hospitality. This is a positive theoxony. Cross reference The Odyssey with the Old Testament to find examples of what happens when the rules of hospitality aren’t respected, a negative theoxony. Hint: “destroy” is usually the operative word.

Was that a tangent? Where was I…

Oh!

To be honest, Kevin, I was a little surprised when I opened my letter from you this month. The numbers just keep going up, don’t they? I mean, I’m not good at math or stuff, but electricity seems expensive, man! I got to thinking (oh boy), and I couldn’t really think of a reason why a bill for a month’s worth of the rare fuel electricity costs me $472. I mean, I read your subway signs and I told my roommates that we need to do our part to conserve our energy to keep costs down. We took your quizzes and we don’t keep things running when we aren’t using them. But then, something else seems weird about this situation.

You know what I think it is? I think that the concept I am struggling over here is that of “conservation of electricity.” I was just surfin’ the WWW, reading some books and whatnot and what I think I understand is that electricity is an energy source which literally courses through our entire universe. Without electricity, we would have no magnetic fields. Without magnetic fields, we could retain no atmosphere and we would be bombarded with cosmic rays (which does happen from time to time), and cosmic rays are electrical in nature too and they are responsible for clouds, which are responsible for the climate here on earth. Oh, and the sun is a HUGE CAPACITOR and there are currents of electricity which course through our solar system when bodies like comets arrive and those bodies align with other planets and the sun, discharging the capacitor which increases solar activity. Even our bodies are electrical in nature, dude. I was like, whaa? But, really, Kevin - it’s true! In fact, learning about electricity turns out to put a lot of puzzle pieces together.

First I learned about Nikola Tesla. Did you know he figured out how to harness electricity coursing through our atmosphere from the ionosphere? And he had this crazy idea that electricity, like air or water, is fundamental to existence and should be free for all to use. Luckily, Thomas Edison (Hey! Your namesake!) was working with electricity, too. He had the right idea. He knew that it would be incredibly profitable to charge people for electricity. Tesla’s stupid models (free?!) are nowhere to be found these days. But you know that, with $14 billion in annual revenues and $34 billion in assets. But, as I said, math isn’t my thing so I might misunderstand what the numbers and words mean together.

I looked around to see if you had anything to say about any of this. What I found out was a relief: CON EDISON CEO KEVIN BURKE OPTIMISTIC DUE TO NEW YORK’S VITALITY. This is what I need, Kevin. Optimism! Actually, New York’s “vitality” is one of my favorite things about this place as well. Something tells me we might be defining that term differently, though. I thought it was interesting when you said this:

Con Edison’s CEO also addressed the difficulties the economy posed for everyday New Yorkers and the company’s response: “As you all know, the recession has created hardships for many families, as well as businesses large and small, here in New York and across the nation,” Burke said.

“To make things easier for our customers,” Burke added, “we are offering flexible payment plans, agreements and extensions. We are also helping those with special needs secure grants.”


You see, now that I got my impressionable head full of ideas about Tesla and free electricity it feels like offering me “flexible payment plans” is sort of side skirting the issue at hand. I guess that is my fault, partially, for doing all that lookin’ around and thinking and stuff. But, in this light, it is really sort of hard to see you as something other than a criminal. And I thought we were friends! To me, it seems criminal to charge people for water, for air, for electricity, and then employ guilt tactics and misdirection to keep those people in line. It seems logical to pay for the labor of humans who work to provide a service, but it is getting harder and harder for me to see what you do as a service. In fact, what it seems like you do is manipulate “consumers” into a situation in which they have a need for which only you (and a few other select “competitors” ) can provide. In that sort of a situation, you could make up any sort of fees you wanted and share the profits with your buddies in office. Like, say:

*Supply charge
*Merchant function charge
*GRT & other tax surcharges
*Basic service charge
*Delivery
*SBC/RPS charge
*Temporary NY state surcharge
*GRT & other tax surcharges
*Sales tax


And since we the consumers have been so conditioned by the pages and pages of economic jargon that we are too stupid to understand (jargon built deliberately in a way to support loopholes and contradictions, useful to pathological types who know how to take advantage of an opportunity, perhaps?), we roll over and take it.

There’s nothing I can really do, though, huh? Best to keep reading and learning and talking about stuff with others. One thing to keep in mind, though: information that is suppressed for the sake of control is merely that - suppressed. That information still exists and it cannot be destroyed. Funny thing I’ve been noticing about information, lately, too. It can be used in extraordinarily powerful ways toward the preservation of free will. The rules of hospitality don’t hurt, either.

Don’t think I’m getting all down on just you, Kevin. I can see that you’re just joking around. By the way, who came up with the name “Con Edison?” It is hilarious!

Keep smiling (and see you next month)!

Love,

Seth

p.s. Can I have an extension?
 
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