Shuttin Detroit Down - John Rich

I'm going to reply to this one. I watched the video and that's a powerful video and song. I like the fact that Kris Kristofferson and Mickey Rourke are in it. I wonder what happened to the Big in Big and Rich? If you were to drive through Atlanta, you'd see two massive auto plants sitting empty, the Ford plant in Hapeville down by the airport and the GM plant out on I-285. Both have been empty for five years or more. Detroit will become the next American ghost town in a way. And it's not just the automakers, think of all the businesses that support the automakers with machinary, electronics and parts. Those businesses take a hit too.
On one hand you can say the Unions have done this to themselves... the Port Authority Union here in Charleston put such high-dollar and unrealistic demands on the shipping companies that the overseas companies up and pulled out of Charleston altogether, and you should see the trickle down affect of that. A rubber plant here in Moncks Corner shut down as a result - 211 jobs lost.
Hell, my job isn't all that secure. Newspapers around the country are dropping almost as fast as the automakers are.
We're in a mess here and it's not something bail out money is going to fix either. The bail out money is a band-aid postponing the inevitable. If we don't change how we do things, it's not going to get any better.
It's not Bush's fault either. We've been heading down this path since the 1980s. Writing checks our economy couldn't cash.
On a side note, I got a call from my ex-wife this morning. She is one of 150 teachers let go in her school district. She was inconsolable, terrified she's going to lose everything she has again. It already happened to her once, and that one she says was my fault. Now it's about to happen again. There are no jobs and she can't get her 15-year mortgage refinanced and she'll lose it all.
Sometimes real life has a way of really socking you in the gut.
Didn't mean to lay all this onto your discussion, but this seemed like an appropriate place to vent a little.
Thanks for the discussion.
It was a nice song.
By the way, I got an interview with the Carolina Liar guy Mark Wolfe set up for next week. He's from Moncks Corner. His parents (and he grew up) just up the street from me about a mile.
I hope your Mother's Day goes well.

There is going to be a lot more of this under 0bozo.

GM is taking the bailout money and talking about/planning to ship jobs oversees where the unions have no say over wages.

Things are about to get a lot worse... not better.

Excuse me if I cried my eyes out over this one. That was Kris Kristofferson who played the role of the man who ended up getting fired. One of my favorites - I learned his songs from an early age. John Rich seems like an exciting and talented new artist, and I applaud him for making this video. We've watched as our house is burning down, and did nothing. Good people with good jobs... I want to beat my pillow! I want to run out and start screaming! How could we do this to our own kind?

I don't mean our race. I mean our own fellow workers? Those that were trying to make a living by showing up every day. I'm deeply affected by this video. How could we do such a thing to honest men and women? And yet we did. We most certainly did. We allowed it to happen. I am by no means a pessimist, and I believe we will eventually turn things around, but this is almost too much. As one who works everyday, in some way or another, I deeply feel for the automotive workers, and it just gets to be too much sometimes. If I were a genius, maybe I could come up with a solution, but I fall short by a few points. I'm a musician and a painter, and a writer of short stories at times. I cannot take this. It's just worse than hell itself to know that good people are being layed off after so many years of being on the job, and doing the job. I've got a friend of mine at a steel plant in Springfield, and if possible, I'll call and see if he still has his job. This is just not right!

Dan