Posted by
The INFORMER (Cokie907@yahoo.com) on Sunday, June 20, 2010 3:00:28 PM
Years ago, when we used the expression "Rust Belt", people understood we were talking about cities like Allentown, Pittsburgh, Youngstown and Sandusky. Today, the term can apply to any city in America where manufacturing has sadly departed. Over time, we've allowed politicians to make our country as inhospitable to free market capitalism as a "roach motel" is towards insects.
So what happened? The manufacturing headed out for an environment with less litigation, less onerous regulation, lower taxes and yes the liberal democRAT favorite, lower labor costs. Can you blame them? Of course not, unless you're a misinformed democRAT voter or a disingenuous charlatan like Julian Epstein. Businesses will relocate to wherever they enjoy the lowest costs and realize the highest profits. And guess what? You want it that way. Profitable, successful businesses develop better products and services which provide benefits to the entire world. Look at what the Japanese did to the auto industry in the 1980's and you'll see a benefit that Americans enjoyed mightily. Not only did we gravitate toward those nifty, efficient, well-built "riceburners", we witnessed 1,000's of our fellow Americans building them in factories across the country.
The entertaining and informative story of the Japanese-American auto relationship is told in one of my favorite 80's movies, "Gung Ho". The movie is filled with many educational metaphors and is quite prophetic in a sense of how it showed America its coming demise. When you look at the massive increase in our deficits, ballooning trade deficits, loss of our dollar's value and worst of all, a GDP which is made up of not production but personal consumption, "Gung Ho" was a movie far ahead of its time!
I urge you (as an informed patriotic Grassroots Trooper) to get ahold of this movie and watch it. First of all, you will laugh your butt off at some of the dialogue, for example: Oishi Kazihiro screaming at his family: "No more Jimmie Dean! No more Hawaiian Punch! No more Green Giant frozen niblets!" Secondly, you will enjoy the traditional, wholesome nature which is characteristic of most 80's movies. By far though, your biggest benefit will come from lessons about honesty, the work ethic and America's once great do-or-die spirit. The last 20 minutes of the film are extremely inspiring and could be motivational to even the biggest FREE handout-luvin' democRAT voter!
If this country is going to survive as a republic for any significant length of time, we better get "Gung Ho" about entrepenurship and making things for the rest of the world to consume. Otherwise, we will continue our slow and painful fall from grace, eventually coming to rest in the ash heap of history. The main character in "Gung Ho", played by Michael Keaton said it best:
"Sure, the great old American do-or-die spirit. Yeah, it's alive... But they've got it! Well I'll tell you something....We better get it back. WE BETTER GET IT BACK DAMN FAST!"
As a bonus for my beloved "Meat and Potatoes Loyalists", I've included links to a couple of the inspiring songs from the movie soundtrack. The first is "Breakin' the Ice" by Martha Wash and the second is "Workin' Class Man" by Jimmie Barnes.