American Factory
First they came for the unions. Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and ever since, “union” has been a dirty word, “Norma Rae” was released in 1979, during the Carter administration.
Then they lowered the taxes, telling us the wealth of those at the top would trickle down to the rest of us.
Then they told us since we had flat screens we didn’t need welfare.
Now it’s the politics of fear, all the time. And it’s not only coming from the right, but the left.
You should watch this documentary. It won the Oscar, it’s now on Netflix. If you think America can bring back manufacturing, you’re delusional. The Chinese are willing to work twelve hours a day, six days a week, with few safety precautions, while seeing their families once or twice a year. The unions established a shorter work week, the government instituted safety regulations, but now all we hear is regulations are hobbling business, and if we just relaxed them the jobs would come back and the economy would roar, even though robots do the work in the new plants, not people.
As for wages…
When GM was in Dayton, a worker made $29 an hour. The same work at Fuyao, its Chinese replacement, pays $12 and cents. Talk about changing your standard of living.
The Chinese billionaire tells Ohio he is helping the state’s economy, as he plots to replace the slow Americans with robotic arms. And, in a language almost all Americans can’t speak, the Chinese laugh that the Americans are inferior.
But it gets worse. The Chinese are trim and fit. The Americans are lumpy and out of shape. We can argue the causes all day long, but one that’s been established is the substitution of fructose for sugar. That’s right, corn syrup is cheap, sugar is not. And you’ve got to keep those farmers happy, even though despite all the hoopla about family farms, most of the growing is done by multinational conglomerates.
So, the workers at Fuyao want a union. Those who agitate for it get fired. Fuyao brings in a team that specializes in scaring employees not to organize. It’s all about fear. If you get a union, we’ll close the plant. That’s what the Chinese billionaire says. And people were out of work for years, they want to keep their jobs, even though they’re declining in number and turnover is humongous, because the work is so repetitive and back-breaking.
The politics of fear. It certainly has killed the union, but so much more.
It killed the raising of the minimum wage.
It killed Medicaid in states where the nation would pay for it. You see you cannot enable the takers, everybody must pull themselves up by the bootstraps, even though the elite in Varsity Blues are scamming their kids into college and Trump pardons his cronies. If you don’t think the system is stacked against you, you must be one of the winners.
And now it comes down to Bernie Sanders. Now it’s not only the right that is employing the politics of fear, but the left. Disgraced banker Steven Rattner is apoplectic, even though he already got his. All the opinion columnists in the “Times” are talking about how Bernie will lose and the country will continue to go in the wrong direction and if he wins, the Democrats will lose the Senate. And you wonder why Trump got elected.
The Democratic elite have seceded from the party. They stole the name, ran flawed candidate Hillary Clinton and changed the rules so Michael Bloomberg could debate. But they didn’t foresee what a bomb he would turn out to be.
Today Bernie Sanders wins handily in Nevada and the lead story in the “Times” is how his road forward is fraught with difficulties. That’s like focusing on LeBron’s theoretical injuries in the future as opposed to how well he is playing for the Lakers today. You see the “Times” is trying to mold your opinion, but the “Times” has lost touch with the public.
I hear from the public every day, all day long. That I’m a sh__head, that I’m on the right path. The idea of reporting for the “Times” and the rest of the print media is to go out and ask people on the street, they don’t live the life 24/7. As for TV…its focus groups are bogus.
So Bernie wins amongst people of color when they said he could not.
The great centrist hope Klobuchar barely registered, Buttigieg was an also-ran too. And Nevada is important, because it’s the first state that looks like the nation at large.
Either the above resonates or it does not. Either you want change or you do not.
The right doesn’t want change, it just wants a world where it’s every person for themselves and you cannot get an abortion.
But we thought the left was on the side of the people, lifting up those from the bottom, democratizing society. But no one can lose in the process of lifting others up. And the truth is the elites have contempt for the rank and file, don’t care for them, and this is one of the reasons Trump got elected.
But it is not 2016 anymore. We’ve seen the Trump movie. And most people don’t like it.
But the elites tell us unless we nominate an anointed centrist who will try and make America great like it was in 2016, the Democrats will lose the election. That’s right, these same outlets and pundits who called 2016 for Hillary.
I’m not trying to convince you if you don’t agree. Hell, there’s thirty-odd percent of the electorate that will vote for Trump even if he shoots someone in the street, as he said and certainly believes.
But there’s this idea on the left that we must look at traditional metrics to figure out the election. When the truth is they failed in 2016 and don’t apply today. It’d be like focusing on the manufacturing of cassettes in an era of streaming.
There’s something happening here. And it’s becoming ever more clear. Most Americans don’t like where the country is going, and are fearful of their future not only economically, but environmentally. Gradual change is history.
I’m enlightening you. The same people who said that MP3s would never replace CDs. The same people who decry screen time. The same people enamored of physical books. While you were doing your best to protect the past, which you decided was better, most people adopted new technologies and employed them to spread the word how things weren’t working out for them. Isn’t it funny that it’s the youth that are in the bag for Bernie.
So, don’t be afraid. The people are on your side. They’re gonna make change. And it might be wrenching, but it’s been a long time coming.
