Who cares about Detroit?

I've been meaning to write this for some time now. Months ago I heard some TV personality say that the US Automakers should file for bankruptcy because after all they got themselves into this situation and why should we, the American People, have to bail them out. "Let Detroit go under" he said. The whole bailout thing I actually agree with. Why should my tax dollars be used to help a private industry or business? But I take serious issue with it being a "Detroit" problem. This problem is a national one and could be crippling for our economy for many years. To be so naive as to believe that Detroit is the only area affected by a possible bankruptcy of the "big 3" is well, naive.

I have customers in TN and KY who used to buy cutting tools on a weekly if not by-weekly basis. I can tell you that one of these two customers has not purchased anything in 8 months and the other has placed one order in the last 6 months. I know that each of those companies have also gone through some pretty massive layoffs. I hear it from customers all across the country that things are slow. Companies go out of business or are very slow paying their bills now.

I recently saw a show on CNN where a panel of 4 (2 men and 2 woman) were discussing this whole auto industry issue. They were interviewing the mayor of Lansing, Michigan (sorry I dont have his name right now). The Mayor of Lansing was insisting that we need to manufacture things in this country. One of the panelists argued with him saying that we as Americans cannot afford to buy things that were made in this country because they are just too darn expensive. After the Lansing Mayor hung up and the interview was over this same panalist stated that he personally wants to buy things made in China and that we have to keep making things in China because they are cheaper. I do not wish harm on anyone but I wonder how his opinion would be if he had a child that spent the afternoon chewing on the lead paint of its latest toy. I also wonder how he would feel if CNN became the "Chinese News Network" and he lost his job. Afterall couldn't we just pipe in via satellite the world news from Bejing? You could have an entire Chinese staff give us our American news. He would be the first one to cry when his overpaid job went away to foreign competition.

I have nothing against China or the Chinese. I do believe though that at one time the United States of America was the land of opportunity. We, as Americans, accept foreigners into this great country of ours so that we can share the American Dream. I have never heard of the Chinese Dream or the Asian Dream. When did it become our responsibility to worry about what lifestyle the people of communist China were living? Why is it presented to us that we cannot pull all of the work out of China and bring it back here to the US because it would devestate China? Where is the American Dream my Grandfather, Uncles and my Father fought for?! I don't get it.

So who cares about Detroit? Well, I as one do because I am not solely out for myself but I am out to save and restore what was once the American Dream - The Land of Opportunity - the greatest nation on Mother Earth. Oh sure, Ford GM and Chrysler could go the way of the Dinosaur and we would get by somehow. But if we do not continue to manufacture in this country where will we be? We must make things here to keep people working, to keep the economy flowing and to maintain our peace of mind. If we stop making things and we go to war how long will it take for China to make a tank for us and why once we get it do I see forward gear going reverse and left being right? It doesn't work people. A slow boat bringing us Chinese made armed tanks and aircraft doesn't make any more sense than us receiving lead paint toys for our children and tainted toothpaste for our twice a day routine.

What language would you be speaking now if it had not been for the manufacturing efforts of Detroit during the World Wars? The Declaration of Independence states that we as a people have an obligation to rise up and take back our country from our own government if that government fails to lead us in a prosperous direction. An OBLIGATION. I bet George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson are a little unsettled in their graves these days.

In Congress July 4, 1776. The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united States of America as penned by John Hancock states: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Hancock was speaking of the King of Great Britain but do not the same words apply to any government that governs and/or controls these great United States?