The Big Three and the good fight

November 27, 2008 / An alternative point of view on the auto bailout.

Jim at Sweet Juniper! last week:

One thing I do like about GM, Ford, and Chrysler is that they are companies that still make something. What do the vast majority of the Fortune 500 companies even do? What does Goldman Sachs do? What do all those companies in Silicon Valley make? They shuffle paper, sure, transmit blips of binary code, attend important meetings, and make “deals.” Maybe brown people somewhere across an ocean will make whatever it is they’re selling or shuffling on paper or e-mailing each other about. But in Detroit, and in plenty of other industrial cities across this country there are still people making things without exploited labor, and believe it or not that still means something.

and this week:

It’s no secret that Americans don’t like to confront real issues of class. But I’m going to do it anyway. I think this ugly response to a mythology perpetuated about blue-collar workers is particularly shameful because so many American white-collar workers in both the public and private sectors are incredibly lazy themselves. God forbid a factory worker should step away from her job twisting the tops on the toothpaste tubes for a minute, but just because someone has a Bachelor’s degree that apparently entitles them to dick around on the internet all day with impunity.

I really like this blog. (Via Kris.)

2 responses

  1. kris

    …she reads, on the work computer, not on her lunch hour …

    How many working hours were lost to sending electronic Xmas cards, in the days before Xmas?

    January 4th, 2009 at 9:05 pm #

  2. Adrian Cooke

    I’m going to go with “a lot.”

    January 6th, 2009 at 11:27 am #


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