Passengers to be charged with impaired driving!

Autoworkers may relate to this.

You are involved in a horrific crash, one that has destroyed the lives of many and seriously impaired the lives of others.
You are in the vehicle driven by someone you know, someone who you also knew was under the influence.
You are dazed and battered, not just from the effects of the crash but also from being along for this bumpy ride for quite a while.
You had no choice about getting in the car, because this was the one who brung you and you were along for the ride whether you liked it or not.

YOU the passenger are charged with drinking and driving, with being in a car with a drunken driver and treated to all the offenses that go with these charges.

You are involved in more that just an accident, because this one happened during a time of widespread fear and uncertainty.


How does that sound?

We could have Parliamentarians arguing in favour of charging passengers, while unconditionally pardoning the drunken drivers of any culpability.
The media would be let loose and would conduct a campaign that would deliberately distort reality by printing and publishing confusing information.
The now familiar tactic of doublespeak technically correct, while factually wrong. would serve in whipping up public fervour.
Independent experts would be called upon to argue in favour of this new reality, even though their track records showed that they had also participated in this wreck,
by enabling the drivers over all these years with the kind of advice that led to the crash while paradoxically offering up the very same advice as a cure.
You the passenger would be expected to suffer serious economic penalties, for all the devastation caused by the crash.
Drivers would suffer absolutely no penalty of any sort and would be patted on the heads and given State funds to fix up their vehicles.
Drivers would have lifetime amnesty from any sort of accountability or responsibility.
The media, having double speak down to a fine art, honed after many decades of practicing this form of disinformation, would make even the mention of a financial penalty for drivers a remote possibility, something not to be talked about in decent company.
There would not even be a whisper of financial penalty for them.

Sound ludicrous?

It shouldn't really!

If you apply the analogy to the current economic crisis, you will find that this is exactly what is being done to Autoworkers!
They are the passengers and the Executive ranks are the drivers.
Autoworkers as passengers, are being taken on a ride, over which they have absolutely no control, with the widespread support of public opinion.
Current events show how well has the medias doublespeak worked.
Most letters/comments from readers of various media are solidly in favour of charging and penalizing the Autoworker...(or the passenger as it were).
Financial penalties actually seem sensible.
Our rightwingers, traditional voices of the rich and powerful, the current Industry Minister and Prime Minister have both indicated their unqualified support for the reccomendations of the executive ranks.
How much sense does it make to demand concessions from the passengers (Autoworkers) and expect that to fix the problem?
Especially with the drivers, (the executives) still in charge, devoid of any accountability or responsibility?
In spite of the furor with the recent AIG Executive bonuses, there has not been any mention of of executive accountability and responsibility from any government Ministers, the much abused Accountability Act of the Conservatives nowithstanding!

AUTO. An Important Industry, vital to the national interests. New Auto Pact needed.

The Auto industry is so important to the North American economy that governments in Canada and the US are willing to invest billions of tax-payers dollars to save the struggling auto companies.
Each auto job has seven and a half related jobs tied to it in the economy. Each auto job distributes wealth into the communities that auto-workers live in. Every auto job greatly adds to the tax base of each country and is essential to the financial well being of the communities that auto-workers live and work in.
Matter of fact it is the belief of experts and economists that if the auto companies fail, with their attendant job loss, it would deepen an already dangerous recession.
This is the sole reason why a right-wing government like the Conservatives in Canada is even willing to consider a loan or a bailout. In the US the newly elected Democratic President Barack Obama has come out in support of saving auto jobs.

Conversely it is the two political parties who are the mouthpieces of the moneyed class in both countries, the defeated Republicans(rightwing) and Canadas ruling Conservatives(rightwing) who advocate that in order to recieve financial assistance from government, autoworkers ought to take concessions.
Republicans have gone one step further in advocating the autoworkers make the same amount of money as workers in Japanese auto companies located in the deep south of the US.
This is such a ludicrous argument that it deserves an article all its own, but its effect is to place both the CAW and the UAW in the unenviable position of being forced to negotiate concessions. The Unions have no choice. Either bargain concessions or the corporate media will blame the demise of the companies on the Unions.
Obviously these two rightwing parties have it wrong. What they are advocating and have always advocated is that profits be the sole domain of the private sector
(privatized).
Why this is so ludicrous is because ordinary autoworkers themselves did not cause the loss of market share in the domestic market. Through the years autoworkers have been downsized, rightsized,leaned and meaned and even kaizened and still the industry lost market share. Autoworkers have made concessions over the years, in ways the general auto-buying public is not even aware of, yet more is being demanded. With so many jobs lost through the use of technology, autoworkers have seen their jobs get busier, production lines speeded up, such demands placed on them that there is an attrition rate that is not generally talked about. Not everyone can be an autoworker. The injury rate probably deserves attention. It takes a lot to be tied to the line and the only reward is a somewhat more generous compensation package than the average.
It is solely the decisions of AutoExecutives and major shareholders who caused this turn of events.
Robbing autoworkers of their hard earned wages and benefits will not solve any problems, because it leaves in place the very same bad management who contributed to the loss of markets share...Yes, yes...the same ones who arrived in Washington in private jets to lobby Congress for bailouts!!
Nor will autoworker concessions help with the banking sector, which is the culprit for the financial meltdown globally.
No-one can argue that these are unprecedented times, which calls for unprecedented solutions.
The old rightwing mantra of "Let the markets decide" needs to be discarded, because when the markets decided to get greedy and melted down, corporations and banks turned to governments for help.
Heres what both the Canadian and US governments need to do. Use the billions of taxpayer dollars to take control of the auto corporations, run them the way profitable Crown Corporations such as the LCBO are run and nationalize the profits.
This gives bang for the bailout/bridge loans/loan guarantee bucks.
The new Crown Corporations can produce models the citizens want, that meet national environmental standards. It would be a source of national pride to buy and drive domestic products, because consumers would see the benefits of having profits stay in each country. It could become a newer, updated model of an Auto-Pact!!
We can bring Brother Buzz Hargrove out of retirement to negotiate for Canada.

Modify the Republicans' advice and get rid of the top Executives of all three auto companies, with their billions in bonuses for running those companies into the ground and replace them with Japanese and other successful auto companys management. The North American Execs should be made to return all bonuses, because who in their right minds gives bonuses for failure?
Executive compensation would be the same as the Japanese and other auto companies give their executives.
Injecting diversity into the corporate class will make Canada and the US major global players, because the auto companies have holdings and partnerships globally.
As for the major shareholders, well they took a chance on the stock market and if their handpicked executives made those shares worthless thats not and should not become the taxpayers' problem. The only people who should be the taxpayers problems are those whose pension funds were invested in the stock market, but this can be easily resolved with both countries providing a national pension plan for all citizens with some of the newly nationalized profits of the vitally important auto industry.
Remember, the moneyed class wanted profits to remain privatized. Why then should their losses become nationalized?
What can we do?
We can activate our UPC committees and activists, lobby Parliamentarians here and Congress people in the US to privatize losses and nationalize profits, through the new Auto-Pact.
With retirees re-entering the workforce in the US, because their 401K, stock market driven, retirement savings plans having lost value, to work in McJobs for minimum wage, the idea of a national pension plan will have traction.
Everybody wins in this scenario.
Citizens from both countries (Retirees included) will enjoy the social benefits of having their tax dollars making profits for them.
Newly unemployed auto-execs win because now they'll have time to enjoy the massive compensation they awarded to themselves in the days of yore.
Even auto critics win, because now people like Dennis Desrosiers will have an existing and vibrant, profitable auto industry to continue whining about.

The Financial meltdown

The current financial meltdown is the clear result of everything people on the Left have been warning about for decades.
Of course they were pooh-poohed, laughed at and derisively written off as being fear mongers. Their ideas were discredited by the corporate media and people generally accepted that folks on the left side of the political spectrum, while well meaning were completely out of touch with reality.
Of course with some people, (some-not the majority, in fact a distinct minority) making ooodles of profits the idea took root that this was indeed the way to go.
In his inauguration speech Ronald Reagan famously noted that government itself was the problem. Regulations were anathema and got in the way of profit, so deregulation became the mantra.
Margaret Thatcher also famously proclaimed that there were no societies, that there was only the market and governments role was to facilitate the market.
LET THE MARKETS DECIDE became the rallying cry of the traders and their ilk.
Well the markets have decided and melted down in an orgy of greed.
Guess who Big business and the banks turned to when this happened?
You've got it. They turned to government in order to get bailed out.
Suddenly Government became all importantm the facilitator of credit, the giver of bail-outs.
At it turns out.....The Left is right after all.

Turns out the Left has been right after all....

The effort that has been expended to prove that the people who are said to represent "left" values were wrong, have been enormous. Vast amounts of treasure and effort have been put into the endeavour of demonizing those who were denounced as leftists. All manner of indignity and atrocity have been employed to mute "left" values. Murder, torture, kidnappings, disappearances and yes even mass killings have occurred through time to preserve the "Rights" values.
The Lefts shrill fearmongering of yesteryear, today manifests itself in terms such as Wall Street financial failures, billion dollar Bailouts, Golden Parachutes, Executive bonuses, greed on a scale that has impovershed millions of citizens.
The Left being right is manifested in the fear and insecurity of the vast majority of earths citizens, TODAY!!