I found the first post very offensive, and ignorant. A former co-worker told about how when she worked for a plumbers/pipe-fitters union, anyone that belonged to the union didn't dare drive an import (or at least park it there,) or risk their car being vandalized. How do you differentiate between a foreign car built in a foreign country, and one that is built in the US like my Toyota 4Runner? This also completely ignores all the American cars that are rebadged imports like the old ford trucks (I think,) that were rebadged Mazda trucks, Dodge Omnis, and the Chevrolet Aveo made by Daewoo in Korea.
I really have to agree with this post, and I registered today to reply to it. We as American consumers can make a far greater impact by going out of our way to not buy goods that are produced in low wage companies, especially by American companies that export American jobs overseas. A good example is how Walmart started out pushing that it sold only "Made in America" but then as they got much bigger reversed this policy and imports almost exclusively products that are made in low wage countries, though they were pretty slow to stop advertising the opposite.
I have a friend in Wisconsin that is proud to work for Kohler, a company that has refused to export any of it's assembly work overseas. I doubt there are very many such major manufacturers in the US that can say that. I believe all American cars made today use some parts that are made or assembled overseas. Though I think in some cases it's because certain things are just made better in Japan, like electronics, because they invented some of the technology and perfected it.
A little off topic, but I am appalled at how many great vehicles are made by companies like Ford, like the Ford Transit, but till scares about the rising cost of fuel forced them to start marketing the smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles here, we were stuck with vehicles like the Ford E-Series vans and even bigger cargo vans/trucks that get rediculous gas mileage. I guess because it was always the American/cowboy way to drive big oversized trucks with no consideration for fuel efficiency or the environment. I've talked to some delivery drivers that work for companies like Cardinal Distribution, who can't make a living doing it any more, because they have to pay for fuel out of their own pockets. And then small contractors can barely afford to stay in business because the standard contractor van, a big Ford E-series is just too expensive on gas. Sometimes you have to wonder if it's that there wasn't a market for the more fuel efficient vehicles, or if the oil companies and the car companies are in bed together watching eachother's interests. Whenever bills were introduced to force the automakers to start raising gas efficiency, the companies complained that the laws would do too much to limit consumers choices. I don't know how they can justify that attitude today because I know it's not the American consumers they and the politicians are protecting.
I have never thought about it till now, but I wonder how much has the rest of the world changed because of every other nation passing laws creating tighter restrictions on fuel mileage and pollution, and even on noise pollution. Truth be told, gas prices have been artificially kept low in the US, and it hasn't kept kept up with inflation till just recently. I wonder how much of this has been because of tax breaks/incentives given to all the large American corporations, not just the oil companies.
I don't like getting political but I knew exactly what was going to happen in the last elections and what the results were going to be. That the American population let the tea party crazies convince them that the current administration has done nothing (and how much could they do in 2 years,) and create such a huge backlash that they would give the republicans a clear majority, and in turn, the republicans would and are pushing the corporate american agendas, taking away funding from social programs, pushing new laws to reverse clean air measures including allowing coal plants to have less stringent pollution controls, and allowing more coal plants to come online. Actually the republicans are going much further that I ever thought they would. The whole crazy mess in Wisconsin with the public unions is a great example. The other thing the governor did that really shocked me was when he rejected $1.2 billion in federal funding for high speed trains, which would have created a lot of jobs, calling it a waste of taxpayer money. Heaven forbid we have a useable public train system that will also help the environment, and reduce highway congestion rather than what we have now. A tax sinkhole of a train system that no one uses.
I need to add that I don't believe republicans are evil. They are just set in their way, and the damage they are now causing is because they have too much of a majority and are taking full advantage of it. Democracy does not work when there's no balance of power because time and time again whenever a politician from one party comes up with a bill like health reform or restrictions/bans on assault rifles, too many members of the government votes the party line.
