A Call To Arms!
I saw this over at Pat Dollard’s site.
I received this in an email and verified it’s authenticity at Snopes. It is definitely a must read and is one of the greatest responses to the requests for bailout money I have seen so far.
Gregory Knox, a supplier for the “Big Three” auto makers, received a letter from Troy Clarke President of General Motors requesting support for the auto bailout. His response is classic, and has to make you proud that there are still right thinking Americans who are not afraid to tell it like it is.
Abridged letter from Troy Clarke, President of General Motors–followed by a response from Gregory Knox, President of Knox Machinery, a manufacturer of precision machine tools which, supplies the auto industry.
Dear Employee,
Next week, Congress and the current Administration will determine whether to provide immediate support to the domestic auto industry to help it through one of the most difficult economic times in our nation’s history.
Your elected officials must hear from all of us now on why this support is critical to our continuing the progress we began prior to the global financial crisis… As an employee, you have a lot at stake and continue to be one of our most effective and passionate voices.
I know GM can count on you to have your voice heard. Thank you for your urgent action and ongoing support.
Troy Clarke President General Motors North America
RESPONSE: From Gregory Knox:
In response to your request to call legislators and ask for a bailout for the United States automakers please consider the following, and please also pass this onto Troy Clark, the president of General Motors North America for me.
You are both infected with the same entitlement mentality that has bred like cancerous germs in UAW halls for the last countless decades, and whose plague is now sweeping the nation, awaiting our new “messiah” to wave his magical wand and make all our problems go away, while at the same time allowing our once great nation to keep “living the dream”?
The dream is over!
The dream that we can ignore the consumer for years while management myopically focuses on its personal rewards packages at the same time that our factories have been filled with the worlds most overpaid, arrogant, ignorant and laziest entitlement minded “laborers” without paying the price for these atrocities and that still the masses will line up to buy our products
Don’t tell me I’m wrong. Don’t accuse me of not knowing of what I speak. I have called on Ford, GM ,Chrysler, TRW, Delphi ,Kelsey Hayes, American Axle and countless other automotive OEM’s and Tier ones for 3 decades now throughout the Midwest and what I’ve seen over the years in these union shops can only be described as disgusting.
Mr Clark, the president of General Motors, states:
There is widespread sentiment in this country, our government and especially in the media that the current crisis is completely the result of bad management. It is not.
You’re right. It’s not JUST management. How about the electricians who walk around the plants like lords in feudal times, making people wait on them for countless hours while they drag ass, so they can come in on the weekend and make double and triple time for a job they easily could have done within their normal 40 hour week ?
How about the line workers who threaten newbies with all kinds of scare tactics for putting out too many parts on a shift, and for being too productive (mustn’t expose the lazy bums who have been getting overpaid for decades for their horrific underproduction, must we?!?!? Do you really not know about this stuff?!?
How about this great sentiment abridged from Mr. Clarke’s sad plea:
Over the last few years, we have closed the quality and efficiency gaps with our competitors.
What the hell has Detroit been doing for the last 40 years?!?
Did we really JUST wake up to the gaps in quality and efficiency between us and them?
The K car vs. the Accord?
The Pinto vs. the Civic?!?
Do I need to go on?
We are living through the inevitable outcome of the actions of the United States auto industry for decades.
Time to pay for your sins, Detroit .
I attended an economic summit last week where a brilliant economist, Alan Beaulieu surprised the crowd when he said he would not have given the banks a penny of “bailout money”. Yes, he said, this would cause short term problems, but despite what people like George Bush and Troy Clark would have us believe, the sun would, in fact, rise the next day And something else would happen where there had been greedy and sloppy banks new efficient ones would pop up. That is how a free market system works- it does work if we would let it work.
But for some reason we are now deciding that the rest of the world is right and that capitalism doesn’t work – that we need the government to step in and “save us”. Save us, hell ! We’re nationalizing; and unfortunately *too many of this once fine nations citizens don’t even have a clue that this is what’s really happening. But they sure can tell you the stats on their favorite sports teams – yeah ? THAT’S important? * Does it occur to ANYONE that the “competition” has been producing vehicles, EXTREMELY PROFITABLY, for decades now in this country?…
How can that be???
Let’s see?
Fuel efficient ?
Listening to customers?
Investing in the proper tooling and automation for the long haul?
Not being too complacent or arrogant to listen to Dr W Edwards Deming 4 decades ago
Ever increased productivity through quality, lean and six sigma plans?
Treating vendors like strategic partners, rather than like “the enemy”?
Efficient front and back offices?
Non union ‘DejaVu Sans Mono'”?
Again, I could go on and on, but I really wouldn’t be telling anyone anything they really don’t already know in their hearts.
I have six children, so I am not unfamiliar with the concept of wanting someone to bail you out of a mess that you have gotten yourself into. My children do this on a weekly, if not daily basis, as I did at their age. I do for them what my parents did for me (one of their greatest gifts, by the way). I make them stand on their own two feet and accept the consequences of their actions and work them through.
Radical concept, huh?
Am I there for them in the wings? Of course. But only until such time as they need to be fully on their own as adults.
I don’t want to oversimplify a complex situation, but there certainly are unmistakable parallels here between the proper role of parenting and
government.Detroit and the United States need to pay for their sins.
Bad news people. !!! It’s coming whether we like it or not.
The newly elected Messiah really doesn’t have a magic wand big enough to “make it all go away”. I laughed as I heard Obama “reeling it back in” almost immediately after the vote count was tallied. “We might not do it in a year.” Where was that kind of talk when he was RUNNING for office?
Stop trying to put off the inevitable.
That house in Florida really isn’t worth $750,000.
People who jump across a border really don’t deserve free health care benefits.
That job driving that forklift for the big 3 really isn’t worth $85,000 a year.
That couple whose combined income is less than $50,000 really shouldn’t be living in that $485,000 home.
Let the market correct itself people. it will. Yes it will be painful, but it’s gonna be painful either way, and the bright side of my proposal is that on the other side of it is a nation that appreciates what is has, and doesn’t live beyond its means and gets back to basics and redevelops the work ethic that made it the greatest nation in the history of the world – and probably turns back to God.
Sorry – don’t cut my head off, I’m just the messenger sharing with you the “bad news”.
Gregory J Knox
President
Knox Machinery, Inc.
Franklin , Ohio 45005
This should be required reading for every American. Army Specialist Stephen Fortunato was a true American hero and represented everything that is great in our country. Unfortunately, most of America, these days, is not worthy of having a real Patriot like Specialist Fortunato fight for the freedoms that they are abusing.
May this brave young soldier rest in peace.
Send this to everyone you know!
Slain Beverly soldier explained why he served
The following is a blog entry written on Aug. 30, 2008, by Army Specialist Stephen Fortunato, who was killed Tuesday in Afghanistan when the vehicle he was riding in was blown up by an improvised explosive device. This entry was forwarded to the Globe by his mother, Elizabeth “Betty” Crawford.
If I may …
I’d like to say something….Just to get it out there so it is clear.
To all the pampered and protected Americans who feel it is their duty to inform me that I am not fighting for their freedom, and that i am a pawn in Bush’s agenda of greed and oil acquisition: Noted, and [expletive deleted] You.I am not a robot. i am not blind or ignorant to the state of the world or the implications of the “war on terrorism.” i know that our leaders have made mistakes in the handling of a very sensitive situation, but do not for one second think that you can make me lose faith in what we, meaning America’s sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers in uniform are doing.
I am doing my part in fighting a very real enemy of the United States, i.e. Taliban, Al Qaida, and various other radical sects of Islam that have declared war on our way of life. Unless you believe the events of 9/11 were the result of a government conspiracy, which by the way would make you a MORON, there is no reasonable argument you can make against there being a true and dangerous threat that needs to be dealt with. i don’t care if there are corporations leaching off the war effort to make money, and i don’t care if you don’t think our freedom within America’s borders is actually at stake. i just want to kill those who would harm my family and friends. it is that simple. Even if this is just a war for profit or to assert America’s power, so what? Someone has to be on top and I want it to be us. There’s nothing wrong with wishing prosperity for your side.
I am a proud American. i believe that my country allows me to live my life more or less however i want to, and believe me, i have seen what the alternative of that looks like. i also believe that our big scary government does way more than it has to to help complete [expletive deleted]-ups get back on their feet, a stark comparison to places where leaders just line their own pockets with gold while allowing the people who gave them their power and privilage to starve. I have chosen my corner. I back my country, and am proud to defend it against aggressors. Also, if you dare accuse us of being inhumane, or overly aggressive because we have rolled into someone else’s country and blown some [expletive deleted] up and shot some people, let me remind you of just how inhumane we COULD be in defending ourselves. Let me remind you that we have a warhead that drops multiple bomblets from the stratosphere which upon impact, would turn all the sand in Iraq to glass, and reduce every living thing there to dust. Do we use it? No. Instead we use the most humane weapon ever devised: the American soldier. We send our bravest (and perhaps admitably craziest) men and women into enemy territory, into harms way, to root out those whom we are after and do our best to leave innocent lives unscathed.
…One last thing…a proposal. i know it has been stated time and time again but i just think it is worthy of reiteration. If you find yourself completely disgusted with the way America is being ran, and how we handle things on the global stage, you can leave. Isn’t that amazing? No one will stop you! If you are an anarchist, there are places you can go where there is no government to tell you anything. That’s right…you are left solely to your own devices and you can handle the men who show up at your door with AKs in any way that you see fit. Just don’t try good old American debate tactics on them because you will most likely end up bound and blind-folded, to have your head chopped off on the internet so your parents can see it. However if you insist on staying here and taking advantage of privilages such as free speach and WIC, keep the counter-productive [expletive deleted] to a minimum while the grown ups figure out how to handle this god-awful mess in the middle east.
You can check this out on with Snopes; is all true.
I’m sure you already know about this. It was shown over and over on TV, right?
OK, so maybe it wasn’t shown over and over, but surely it was shown on TV at least one time, wasn’t it?
This was the largest re-enlistment ceremony ever held in military history. The ceremony was held on the 4th of July, 2008 at Al Faw Palace, Baghdad, Iraq . General David Petraeus officiated. This amazing story was ignored by the ‘mainstream’ media.
For those who have been in the Al Faw Palace, you’ll have a better appreciation of the number of people crammed around the rotunda supporting the re-enlisting soldiers.
American men and women volunteering to stay longer in Iraq, so that when we leave, the new democracy will have a chance of surviving, is the exact opposite of what the media wants you to think about Iraq. If only a bomb had killed 5 civilians in a marketplace – now that’s the kind of news the media is eager to tell you about.
A pizzeria in Chicago donated 2000 pizzas that were made and shipped to Baghdad, and were delivered on the 4th.
The media did report that 2000 pizzas were sent to Iraq on July 4th… The only part they left out of the report was the event for which the pizzas were sent.
I can’t help but wonder…What would the opinion of Americans be if they weren’t getting such obviously biased ‘news?’
Please pass this link on and we will do some positive work for the Main Stream Media as well as honoring these brave citizen soldiers.
God Bless America!