We're such dupes, and we elect the biggest boobs to represent us that it's laughable. Who, in their right mind, would agree to give money to someone who could easily afford a 20k flight to come and ask you for it?
Us.
I know the auto industry is one of the pillars of our economy. I know it needs overhauling. I know we won't do any of the things it needs doing because we just bailed out the banks and the mortgage industry and now we're going to fix the auto industry.
They can't sell us cars, so they're going to extort the funds out of us.
I drive an American car. I have driven one for 15 years. It is not by considered choice that I do so. It is rather that I drive my cars until they cannot be driven anymore and then get them as quickly as possible to the nearest dealership that will give me affordable payments.
I would have bought that Toyota I looked at if that dealer had been closer than the Dodge dealer was.
Even though my education, my home, and yes even my clothing and food were paid for as a child with American carmaker dollars, I still have no loyalty to them. They've screwed the American public time and again with their substandard shabby goods and then refused to back up their crappy work. They've screwed the American worker time and again by insisting they can't afford to pay the wages and benefits they've already agreed to thereby gaining concession after concession and all the while subjecting their workers to the minimum of safety and health requirements on the job.
In fact, I remember distinctly, a conversation my father had with my mother about a suggestion he was thinking of submitting regarding the design of the 1964 Thunderbird. He thought that since they were going to have the rectangular tail lights that it would be cool if they blinked in sequence toward the direction the car was turning.
After submitting the suggestion he received a notice from the company that though it was a thoughtful suggestion he wasn't allowed to submit design suggestions since he didn't work in design.
Now, I am the first to admit that the man is a bastard and though I will likely be denied the opportunity to see him in a box I will take some solace in the knowledge that I won't have to suffer him again.
But I'll let the car speak for itself here:
I'm certain the foreign carmakers have learned their trade from the creators of the model, and that though they may have other methods, that they're not markedly different. But ours invented the system, that now does not work, and they refuse to learn to change, and furthermore they expect us to pay for it again.
Kinda nervy, don't you think?
We'll save them just like we saved the banks, and we'll pay for it, and we won't be able to fulfill a lot of the dreams some guy put in our heads because of it. And the Republicans will have won another one.
Oh! I meant to mention something my brother said last weekend.
But first, let me qualify this mean-spirited little missive by saying I love my brother. He stood up when it counted and taught me that not only are things that have been done to me wrong, but that I do have worth and value as a human being, and he gave me back my self-confidence when I had the slightest grasp on it.
However!
Saturday I was talking to him on the phone while browsing through the headlines on MSNBC.com, and while he was talking I blurted out 53,000 LAYOFFS AT CITIGROUP! HOLY SHIT!
And he said, "Yeah, can you believe it? And they're going to blame Bush for the whole thing!"
With wisdom I didn't even know I possessed, I changed the subject.
