It’s very late (or early, depending on how you look at it) and I really should be getting to bed, but I just read another NY Times piece about how President Bush is considering an “orderly” bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler. I’m going to try to make this short, and if you read it I encourage you to get on the phone and call the White House and encourage them to just loan GM and Chrysler the money. I couldn’t believe it when Bush was quoted as saying “I don’t want to put good money after bad.” Well, in the first place do they even have any “good” money. Let’s face it, the $700 billion came freshly off the printing press. I don’t believe our government has any “good” money left. Bush has squandered it all – which is the first reason I find that statement incredulous. The second reason is they just completed giving over $300 billion to the financial “sector” on Wall Street, which is basically their “lunch buddies.” How can they not call that sending “good money after bad.” Well, I guess using my premise that none of the money is good would answer that question. But, isn’t that the height of hypocracy???

Of course, that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been following politics in the last 8 years. These guys are unbelievable. The republicans are drooling at the thought of destroying the United Auto Workers – they just can’t help themselves. I’m not sure if they don’t understand the consequences of doing this, or if they do and just don’t care. Their icon, Ronald Reagan, was all about destroying unions and I’m sure it’s been a point of frustration that they’ve been unable to get rid of the UAW for all these years. Keep in mind these republicans are the ones who have been trying to undo the “New Deal” for over 40 years, and they think the minimum wage should still be $1.25 and hour – in fact they probably think there shouldn’t be a minimum wage. I have listened to all the propaganda about how much the auto workers make that I can stand. The Limbaugh types keep harping that they make $70 per hour, which I actually wish they did, but of course they make something like $28 per hour. It’s the people who are ripping us off for these huge executive bonuses, who don’t want to pay any taxes, who think that $28 per hour is too much. And, of course, the fact the auto workers have health insurance is another bone to pick for the republicans. They call themselves the party of “family values” and I interpret that as their values are to destroy as many families as they can.

I teach in a low income area and see the results of families where the parents (who are working) have two jobs and rarely see their kids. It translates into students who have no suprevision at home, who by the sixth grade are giving up on school becuase they believe they are destined to follow in their parent’s footsteps, and who know more about things like drugs and R-rated movies than I do (and these kids are 11 years old – it’s startling). Republicans want their minimum wage jobs to be for less money than they are, and they don’t want even the kids to have decent health care. It’s very difficult to witness this stuff “right up front,” but as a teacher, it is inevitable. If the republicans succeed in destroying the UAW in Bush’s last month in office, I hope they cease to be a viable party in this nation. People need to speak out about this and demand the media get off their butts and start covering the news fairly. I say this because it’s so unbelievable to me that they can’t provide a bridge loan – without all these conditions that the republicans want to throw on – after just giving away over $300 billion to banks that are using the money for bonuses and dividends. GIVE ME A BREAK!!!

And make no mistake about this – if our auto industry goes into bankruptcy, “orderly” or not, the likely “rescuers” will be foreign entities. Whether it will be Toyota, Mercedes, Nissan, or another auto maker, or just Chinese entities with a wealth of dollars, I believe the mainstay of what’s left of our industrial base will be owned by “outsiders.” The thought of this is both frightening and disgusting to me. Talk about a blow to our national security. How can the people of this nation turn their backs on the history of GM and Ford. These companies are the backbone of the industrial revolution that turned this nation into the most powerful country on the planet. I heard on the radio today that if the actual wage of an average auto worker is $30 per hour, that would mean their annual pay would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000 – which I’m sure that most republicans would find that excessive (unless it was what they had to live off of). Well, one of the GM executives earned $28 million last year, which is the equivalent of about 4500 blue collar salaries. NOW YOU TELL ME WHERE THE PROBLEM IS.

Of course there’s a lot of fat to be trimmed from these companies, but the trimming needs to start at the top. And the companies need to be boosted along so that the trimming is possible. They need to get the same “guarantee” that Wall Street got – we’re going to keep them going. In my view, THEY ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT TO OUR NATIONAL ECONOMY THAN WALL STREET!!! The problem with letting Wall Street banks fail is that the “trimming” would come from Henry Paulson’s portfolio along with many other of the republicans who want to see the UAW dead. Make no mistake about this, seeing the United Auto Worker’s Union dead is their goal. When you buy an IBM Thinkpad, it is now called Lenovo and the company is Chinese – I never thought I would see the day that a Chinese company would be allowed to own a significant portion of IBM (I guess that was who was making the computers anyway) – but the thought of a Chinese company owning GM makes me shutter. I truly hope that these companies can figure out a way to make it until February and give Obama a chance to throw them a lifeline. Our President is determined to demonstrate his incompetence as a leader and his disdain for our government right up till his last day in office. Bush is like a possum in the headlights, just staring blindly as this huge disastor is about to roll over him.