Monday, November 28, 2005
Republican Policies and Evangelical Right Wing Extremists Are Closing 9 GM Plants
Rob Kall - editor of OpEdNews.com - mailto:Rob@OpEd.com
It's well known that GM has had to add over $1500 to the sticker price of every car in order to deal with the high cost of employee health insurance.
We know that the Bush administration has been offering tax incentives to encourage production and sales of gas guzzling SUVs. Unfortunately, the Bush administration’s failure to institute long term plans to free the US from dependence upon oil have made SUVs less and less attractive. So, GM has built itself into a pickle-- with too many factories designed for making unwanted SUVs, manned by workers receiving prohibitively costly health insurance.
If the right wing Republican leadership in Congress and the White House had seen the writing on the wall, which was very visible, they might have bit the bullet and taken the approach every other major industrialized nation has already taken, and moved the U.S. to nationalize health care. That would have eased the burden on our country's strongest industries. Currently, they are at a huge competitive pricing disadvantage, since all those other nations subsidize the cost of health coverage for workers. Furthermore, this is one form of subsidy that the World Trade Organization does allow. One reason the right wing Republicans failed to take this absolutely necessary and inevitable step because they owe too much to the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries for major political payola. Just look at dirty corrupt investment dealings and conflicts of interest of GOP Senate leader, Bill Frist.
If the right wing Republicans had taken a different approach to SUV’s, encouraging the discontinuation of their use, such as giving tax breaks for energy efficient cars and hybrids, gas prices might not have hit GM so hard. Also, if they had taken steps starting in 2000 to free the US from dependence upon oil, particularly foreign oil, the Bush administration’s bungling in the gulf in response to Katrina, might not have further impacted gas prices so severely.
As a result, GM will cut its US manufacturing ability by one million vehicles as part of their seven billion dollar budget cut. Furthermore, 30,000 American workers will lose their jobs, and those jobs will go to workers in other countries. GM is doing this "to deal with global competitors."
Not surprisingly, GM stock hit a fourteen-year low. However, one segment of the Republican Party is rejoicing at this news. The wealthy can buy GM stock at basement level prices now and later make big profits selling it after a rise in value over time. But, it’s the displaced thirty thousand working people and their families that will pay the price for these profits. They will have to go out and find lower paying jobs, probably without health insurance. And the U.S. moves a little closer to third world status.
Let's face it. Bush's poll numbers are down to 28% approval now. For over ten years, I've observed that that number-- 26-28% is generally the statistic that represents the evangelical fundamentalist base of the Republican Party. Therefore, the right wing fundamentalist Christians are now only what is left of the GOP political base, and are responsible for enabling the Republican extremists running Congress and the White House to impose their hurtful agenda upon the country. With fundamentalist Christian support, the Republican extremists are gutting the USA of its most valued industries. They are hobbling our energy policy and continue working an archaic model that is now punishing all of us, with higher gasoline and home heating costs. They are taking away money from the poor. And, the Christian fundamentalist supported Republican extremists, led by the Vice President for Torture, Cheney, are making the use of torture an official policy of the USA.
Along with homophobia and the "rapture", abortion is the chief issue that galvanizes the extremist evangelicals. But, be assured, these people are selling out America. With total hypocrisy, they allow the poor to go hungry and to die from lack of medical care. They allow the extremists controlling congress to pass laws that allow increasing pollution of the environment, which is causing increased deaths among children (already born) and adults. And, of course, they allow the continuation of a war that was started based on distortions and lies of omission-- a war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians, a war in which the US has used chemical weapons of mass destruction.
This is not about religion. There are still millions of Christians of all faiths who have not drunk the Kool-Aid and who see that the right wing has rejected the principles and teachings of Christianity.
It is time to stop treating these evangelical extremist groups as just another normal religious persuasion. Their leaders aren’t interested in advancing the well being of Americans. Instead, they and their misled congregations are perusing more power and wealth for themselves, with the ultimate goal of turning America into a theocracy. They shouldn’t be tolerated anymore because they are endangering the stability and economic future of the United States.
It is time to end the tax exemption for these big right wing religious organizations. They have been built with taxpayer funds even though their ministers illegally invoke their flocks to support right wing politicians. Furthermore, they have little in common with the churches most Americans are familiar with. They do not add strength and integrity to a community. They are insular institutions which sow division and separation from the community. They are a threat to the American way.
As we watch GM begin to dissolve as a major US company due to right wing Republican policies supported by their evangelical extremist base, we should keep in mind that it will not disappear. We can expect to see GM be acquired by some international conglomerate, just as Chrysler was, and shift its manufacturing to outsourcing nations where cheap labor is readily available. In conclusion, the GM plant closings are frightening harbingers of what the right wing will do to us in the years to come, with Bush in the white house for three more years.
*************************************************************************
Rob Kall - editor of OpEdNews.com - mailto:Rob@OpEd.com
It's well known that GM has had to add over $1500 to the sticker price of every car in order to deal with the high cost of employee health insurance.
We know that the Bush administration has been offering tax incentives to encourage production and sales of gas guzzling SUVs. Unfortunately, the Bush administration’s failure to institute long term plans to free the US from dependence upon oil have made SUVs less and less attractive. So, GM has built itself into a pickle-- with too many factories designed for making unwanted SUVs, manned by workers receiving prohibitively costly health insurance.
If the right wing Republican leadership in Congress and the White House had seen the writing on the wall, which was very visible, they might have bit the bullet and taken the approach every other major industrialized nation has already taken, and moved the U.S. to nationalize health care. That would have eased the burden on our country's strongest industries. Currently, they are at a huge competitive pricing disadvantage, since all those other nations subsidize the cost of health coverage for workers. Furthermore, this is one form of subsidy that the World Trade Organization does allow. One reason the right wing Republicans failed to take this absolutely necessary and inevitable step because they owe too much to the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries for major political payola. Just look at dirty corrupt investment dealings and conflicts of interest of GOP Senate leader, Bill Frist.
If the right wing Republicans had taken a different approach to SUV’s, encouraging the discontinuation of their use, such as giving tax breaks for energy efficient cars and hybrids, gas prices might not have hit GM so hard. Also, if they had taken steps starting in 2000 to free the US from dependence upon oil, particularly foreign oil, the Bush administration’s bungling in the gulf in response to Katrina, might not have further impacted gas prices so severely.
As a result, GM will cut its US manufacturing ability by one million vehicles as part of their seven billion dollar budget cut. Furthermore, 30,000 American workers will lose their jobs, and those jobs will go to workers in other countries. GM is doing this "to deal with global competitors."
Not surprisingly, GM stock hit a fourteen-year low. However, one segment of the Republican Party is rejoicing at this news. The wealthy can buy GM stock at basement level prices now and later make big profits selling it after a rise in value over time. But, it’s the displaced thirty thousand working people and their families that will pay the price for these profits. They will have to go out and find lower paying jobs, probably without health insurance. And the U.S. moves a little closer to third world status.
Let's face it. Bush's poll numbers are down to 28% approval now. For over ten years, I've observed that that number-- 26-28% is generally the statistic that represents the evangelical fundamentalist base of the Republican Party. Therefore, the right wing fundamentalist Christians are now only what is left of the GOP political base, and are responsible for enabling the Republican extremists running Congress and the White House to impose their hurtful agenda upon the country. With fundamentalist Christian support, the Republican extremists are gutting the USA of its most valued industries. They are hobbling our energy policy and continue working an archaic model that is now punishing all of us, with higher gasoline and home heating costs. They are taking away money from the poor. And, the Christian fundamentalist supported Republican extremists, led by the Vice President for Torture, Cheney, are making the use of torture an official policy of the USA.
Along with homophobia and the "rapture", abortion is the chief issue that galvanizes the extremist evangelicals. But, be assured, these people are selling out America. With total hypocrisy, they allow the poor to go hungry and to die from lack of medical care. They allow the extremists controlling congress to pass laws that allow increasing pollution of the environment, which is causing increased deaths among children (already born) and adults. And, of course, they allow the continuation of a war that was started based on distortions and lies of omission-- a war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians, a war in which the US has used chemical weapons of mass destruction.
This is not about religion. There are still millions of Christians of all faiths who have not drunk the Kool-Aid and who see that the right wing has rejected the principles and teachings of Christianity.
It is time to stop treating these evangelical extremist groups as just another normal religious persuasion. Their leaders aren’t interested in advancing the well being of Americans. Instead, they and their misled congregations are perusing more power and wealth for themselves, with the ultimate goal of turning America into a theocracy. They shouldn’t be tolerated anymore because they are endangering the stability and economic future of the United States.
It is time to end the tax exemption for these big right wing religious organizations. They have been built with taxpayer funds even though their ministers illegally invoke their flocks to support right wing politicians. Furthermore, they have little in common with the churches most Americans are familiar with. They do not add strength and integrity to a community. They are insular institutions which sow division and separation from the community. They are a threat to the American way.
As we watch GM begin to dissolve as a major US company due to right wing Republican policies supported by their evangelical extremist base, we should keep in mind that it will not disappear. We can expect to see GM be acquired by some international conglomerate, just as Chrysler was, and shift its manufacturing to outsourcing nations where cheap labor is readily available. In conclusion, the GM plant closings are frightening harbingers of what the right wing will do to us in the years to come, with Bush in the white house for three more years.
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