US calm before storm...thank your deity of choice...

From Jerry in Colorado via email:

I find my self interested in how our world was at first crumbling, then progressed to collapsing and now [Dec 12] we're in that state of mild disbelief that occurs in the calm before total devestation.

The car industry going bankrupt!?!? And we are still talking to their CEOs as if they knew something??? Or could do something?? Did we ever believe the GOP would do anything??? My god, they're the ones who want to see big government fail, not succeed, and ironically they're willing to sacrifice some of the big businesses they usually worship, to show the government as a failure. But, down deep, the right wing GOP loves the idea of hundreds of thousands of workers connected to the auto industry, out of work. The GOP will show those prole bastards who runs the country. That senator from Tennessee summed the GOP position up quite well: If we have a government big enough to give us what we want, it's also big enough to take away everything too. Do you think he rushed out to buy an automatic weapon when Obama got elected??? Probably.

I would like to know how these car executives could come up with a viable, detailed plan for recovery in less that a week?? They didn't have one when they first arrived in Washington, so they were sent home to create one, and they did. In less than a week. Second question: if they could see this economic disaster coming, why didn't they come up with that plan months, if not years ago? And if they didn't know it was coming, what in hell are they doing as top executives?? How did this massive mess come about so quickly and unexpectedly? A kind of stealth downturn??? They can't blame the general economy for the mess they've created in Detroit.

Let me give you a personal example of why the 'Big Three' are failing. Two years ago we needed a new vehicle to survive up here at 7400 feet, in the middle of the San Juan Mountains, living on a dirt road. We needed one with four wheel drive or all wheel drive, one that could get at least 23 miles per gallon [then gas was upwards of $4.00 per gal] and a vehicle that could take the rough driving we have up here. We explained all this in great detail to the Ford agency in Albuquerque. We were shown an all wheel drive Ford something or other and we drove it in Albuquerque, with a noticiable lack of snow in the summer, on paved roads, and the car seemed to be what we wanted. This test drive I blame on myself, i.e., I should have taken the damned thing out into the back country, but you can't do that. Anyway, we bought it and took it home.

It snowed like you wouldn't believe that year. We couldn't see out our front windows because the snow was piled up to the roof line. The Ford couldn't handle the snow. Later it couldn't handle the mud. I got stuck in my driveway once. I was highly pissed and cursed the idea of all wheel drive as being a viable alternative to 4wd. We decided to buy a Toyota, which we had years ago, in the 60s and 70s, and drove our 4wd Land Cruiser literally all over the Southwest on nothing but dirt roads and trails, and never, ever had a problem. In the process of buyinig a 2008 FJ Cruiser, we were trading in the wimpy Ford, and the guy who was doing the deal called us over and said, "This isn't an all wheel drive. It's a standard two wheel drive." We were stunned. We had been sold and paid for an all wheel drive, and they gave us this piece of shit. Naturally we contacted the Ford agency and got nothing but a runaround for about a month. Unfortunately for them, we had the paper work showing where 2wd had been crossed out and all wheel substituted. Then they tried to tell us, the 4wd meant four wheels and 4 doors. We were entring the twilight zone of logic when we both exploded. Eventually we got $3000 dollars from them, but that wasn't enough as far as we're concerned. That agency should be put out of business for fraud.

In anycase, that's why when the Ford executives plead for help, I say fuckem. They've been greedy from the beginning and they're greedy now, and greed defines their entire organization. To give them anything would be an exercise in stupidity. I would let them fail simply because they're incompetent and listen only to themselves.

The politicians feel bad about the number of workers put out of jobs but when your culture is going through a massive change, people are going to get hurt. The GOP would cite that ancient cliche, "You have to break some eggs if you're going to have an omelet." Why is it they are never the eggs getting broken?

And I can't even think about Wall Street and the Bankers. Giving them billions with no strings attatched??? Of course Bush knew they would use it wisely to help the people out of this economic slump. So did Congresss. Anyone hear the GOP screaming about big business then? Not a peep. The money simply disappeared. What can we learn here? Let's see. American Big Business cannot be trusted? Ummmm. That sounds right.

So, here we are at the beginning of the 21st century, the world is basically in flames or dying of disease and starvation, which has yet to come to America, but is in South America, Central America and Mexico, and our insightful GOP leaders, who loved deregulation, want smaller government to handle the bigger problems. That's similar to using a volkswagen bug to pull a semi trailer full of truck axles. We're going to have unemployment on a legendary scale, health care problems that go beyound the 30% bankruptcy rate due to health costs we now have, and the GOP wants smaller government. The Republicans have this wonderful little political belief that big government is dangerous, but what they don't add, is only when you put Republicans in charge of a big government is it dangerous. Look at that last eight years. Look at Bush 1.

And what, we have to ask, has the GOP accomplished? Well, they've destroyed the CIA and the FBI, they've compromised the military to the point that if anything serious happened anywhere, that required an American military presence, we couldn't do it, and they're made the USA an international pariah. The American infrastructure, from bridges and highways to local roads, is rapidly crumbling. The national parks are being opened up to oil interests and the capper of it all...in some parks you can now carried a concealed weapon. For protection from what??? From whom are you concealing the weapon? Let's see...bears don't care, neither to mountain lions, chipmunks, skunks, wildlife in general. So, it must be that criminal element that loves to go to parks for camping and fishing and hiking. Yeah, they're dangerous. Pack that 357 baby, and let them know, " Who da man?"

Thank [your diety of choice here] for existentialism.

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