Hey, you senators: Thanks for nothing

[DainBramaged]

Do you want to watch us drown? Is that it? Do want to see the last gurgle of economic air spit from our lips? If so, senators, know this: We’re taking a piece of you with us. America isn’t America without an auto industry. You can argue whether $14 billion would have saved it, but your actions surely could have killed it.

We have grease on our hands.


You have blood.


Kill the car, kill the country. History will show that when America was on its knees, you lawmakers wanted to cut off its feet. How does this happen in America?

Suddenly, the worker is the problem? Suddenly, unless union members, overnight, drastically slash their wages with a hard deadline, you pull the plug on an industry?


Suddenly, Detroit is the symbol of economic dysfunction? Are you kidding? Have you looked in the mirror lately, Washington?


In a world where banks hemorrhaged trillions in a high-priced gamble called credit derivative swaps that you failed to regulate, how on earth do we need to be punished? In a bailout era where you shoveled billions, with no demands, to banks and financial firms — who created the problem in the first place — why do need to be schooled on how to run a business?


Who is more dysfunctional in business than you? Who blows more money? Who fashions and molds its work based on favors and pork and traded compromises?


At least in the auto industry, if folks don’t like what you make, they don’t have to buy it. In government, even your worst mistakes, we have to live with.


And now Detroit should die with this?

http://www.freep.com/article/20081213/COL01/81213055


<snip>
No matter what the president does, history will not forget this: At our nation’s most uncertain hour, you stood ready to plunge tens of thousands of families into oblivion. Push them onto public payrolls, unemployment, no health insurance. And you were willing to put our nation’s security at risk — by squashing the American manufacturing we most rely on in times of war.<snip>

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. Very nice.

[kentuck]

2. Those sons-of-bitches have got to go...!

It is they that are tearing this country down. They have betrayed the people and the entire rationale for public service.

[susanna]

3. Wow, DB - this really got me. Thanks for sharing it.

I especially like this gem: "At least in the auto industry, if folks don't like what you make, they don't have to buy it. In government, even your worst mistakes, we have to live with."

That is one of the most incisive comments I have seen during this entire debacle.

:hug: :applause:

[TripleKatPad]

4. Mitch Albom rocks

He's a powerful, gifted writer, never afraid to tell it like it is.
That he's speaking out for Michigan? Priceless.

[BlooInBloo]

5. And all who vote for them.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. If they do nothing about this, our option must be to vote them out!!!

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Wow! That's smokin' And I repeat my comment that...

it is insane to see a bunch of lawyers few who have even worked in a real job, much less managed as much as a lemonade stand, tell the auto industry how it should be run.

[DainBramaged]

8. I will bet Shelby can't even find the dipstick on his car

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. Shelby IS the dipstick on his car.

[Joe Fields]

9. it's almost like watching a movie, in that you have to have a willing

suspension of disbelief to follow everything that's going on now with the bailouts. The shit spewing from their mouths is literally jaw dropping.

[DainBramaged]

10. What's sad are three recs, that's sad. Economic tsunami coming, three recs.

We'll talk about Rush Limpballs new beard for weeks though.

[earth mom]

11. Just gave it the 5th rec to get it on the greatest page.

We can't let those bastards get away with this! :grr:

[globalvillage]

12. My only beef with this piece

is that nowhere in the article is the word 'Republican' used.

[Skidmore]

13. You are talking about people who

gave away war powers to * and a blank check to wage war. You are talking about people who sat by and watched an American city drowned. You are talking about people who handed our civil liberties to * and let him run amuk in the Justice Department. You are talking about people who made excuses for him when Iowa and Illinois were drowning last year. You are talking about people who get on soapboxes to harangue about "family values," "faith," and the "American way of life," all of which come with dollar signs attached to them.

R or D, it doesn't matter the letter behind the name, the corrupt panderers people send time and time again to those seats need to be brought down.

[KharmaTrain]

14. A New Civil War...

I had a history professor whose thesis was that the Civil War wasn't about slavery but class warefare. Slavery made it possible for an oligarchy to develop and how that slave labor was, in turn, used to keep all wages low and "workers in their place"...and that by beating the South and eliminating slavery, the North destroyed not just the cultural fabric of ths south but its economic power as well...and it was this lack of money and a cheap work force that would be the ultimate fate of the south...one they still haven't recovered from.

Today, we see this labor situation on a global level. Instead of the threat of having slaves do jobs people are paid for, it's outsourced. Then, when the jobs vanish, it's "labor's fault" cause the workers here don't want to work for the low wages as those in China or India or Mexico.

To the very rich, "security" is their ability to make and keep money, period. Many feel its their right or due and that organized labor is the real threat to their "security"...moreso than a real terrorist attack.

They also know that if left to rebuild, the labor movement won't just stop at the UAW but will spread...not just across the US but around the world...the greatest fear of the rich. If the unions aren't busted now, while they're down, they may once again get too powerful for the GOOP to put under their thumb. A cold brazen power-play not decided on the best interests of their own residents but to serve their rich masters...and widen the divide between those who have and those who don't and never will.

[MsLeopard]

17. Well said

It's so distressing to realize there is so little support from even Democrats in Congress for the working class, the majority of Americans. A new Civil War, indeed. K&R

[DainBramaged]

20. So true, but the minions never learned the mistakes of the masters

[electricD]

15. !!!!

I couldn't have put it any better myself. It's time to stand up and be counted people. Let's get it on!!!

fraternally
electricD
IBEW L.U. 474

[madokie]

18. Its going to take us a couple three election cycles to weed these bastids out

But weed 'em out we must. I have faith in our new President putting everything back in perspective. You know he is not liking whats going on but he knows that for alls sake it be better to take the low road now for 37 more days. Jan 21 will find a whole new ball game and we've, you, I and all the rest of us here have all been invited. Yes DB better days are coming, I believe that.

[DainBramaged]

19. Shelby's term is up in 2010, his current term becomes marginalized on Jan 20

And I believe that a lot of people will make sure Shelby's past is drug out if he tries to run again. But I figure this coward will retire.