/me rewatches Roger and Me -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Gustl Steiner-Zehender Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 12:23 AM To: Biofuel Subject: [Biofuel] General Motors Layoffs
Hallo Folks, I am an old Flint, Michigan boy. I know that Detroit gets all the press but Flint is the home of Buick and Chevrolet. My grandfather began working at the Buick factory in Flint in 1915. He was in the strikes back in '36 and told me that the union went bad, became the mirror image of management in '55. But that isn't what this is about. General Motors is laying off 25,000 employees in order to become more "competitive". It blames its employees for the economic problems citing wages, pension and health benefits. Oddly enough there is no mention of building and promoting the gas guzzling monsters it produces. There is no mention of the salaries and benefits of management either. Nothing about the bonuses and benefit packages upper management receive. Nothing but a lot of finger pointing. There does not appear to be an ounce of responsibility in the entire crew controlling things at GM, and for most other companies I think. They not only want to have their cake and eat it too they want to eat from everyone else's plate and force them to like it. This is systemic. The airlines are using bankruptcy to put the screws to their employees already. Worldcomm, Enron, the airlines, GM. We, those of us in at least Michigan and Ohio, are going to get 25,000 new McDonalds workers IF they can find the work. And this is the capitalist model we want to force on everyone else in the world? All take and no give? I am so tired of hearing things like, "These are the realities of the situation...", "Our profit margin is not big enough.", "The problem is due to the high cost of energy.", "We have to impose these wage and benefit cuts because...", and on and on and on. What confounds me is that their machinations are so obviously transparent and so many people just accept what they say and go along with it. Talk about cranial-rectal inversion. I really do not understand how we allow those with money and power to divert our attention by setting one class/religion/race/country/economic system or whatever against another and thereby control us. Are we that stupid? If we aren't then why, as we are being bent over and raped, do we turn our heads and say, "Please, use a coarser grade of sandpaper."? It is all too apparent that the political and economic powers that be of all countries are not truly interested in the welfare of the world in general. Neither the welfare of either the entire human race or the world of nature. The welfare they are most interested in is the immediate bottom line. How sad. There has been a lot of talk on this list and others and among the general public (in the US) about our flag, our military, honor, duty, etc., etc., etc. Well folks, flags, all flags, are only bits of rag which are worth nothing. None of them. One flag is not worth the life of one individual human being. Nor is the bottom line, or race, or nationality, or religion, or political persuasion, or economic system or any other extraneous condition. No one owns the truth. Not the Christians, or the Muslims, or the Jews, or the Hindus, or the Buddhists, or any religious group, or the philosophers, or the economists, or the politicians. No one. Each have bits and pieces and snatches of the truth and many claim to have and own the whole thing but that is an illusion or an outright lie. If we burnt ever single book in the world, bar none, every holy text and philosophical and ethical treatise, everything, we would be left with ourselves and what resides within. What are we going to point to then for justification of our excesses? Who are we going to blame? There are some things which appear to defy logic but they really don't. We just don't have all the information even though we may think we do or we don't understand what we are seeing or we aren't seeing it because we're looking in the wrong places or for the wrong thing. One has to see the dots before they can be connected. One has to get beyond name and form to recognize substance. It is a matter of perception and association. That which perceives can perceive everything it is supposed to except...itself. Simple, elemental and oh so difficult to understand let alone own. Friends, we are all one. One race one world. None more important than the other, none of more or less worth. If we can't treat each other and our world with respect then we are headed to hell in a handcart and getting what we deserve. The differences I have seen are artificial constructs and not worth spit. Do others find it odd that some of us claim that God or the gods created us, our world and everything and others of us claim that everything came into being naturally through evolution but what we find important is not the product of this creation or evolution but that our own particular understanding and beliefs are paramount? However everything came into being how is it that the product holds second place to the sales pitch? How is it that the welfare of the whole shebang comes in second place to hot air and speculation? What an appalling state of affairs. I am amazed that we have gotten this far but have hope that things will come out right in the end. Hope only, not certainty. We have demonstrated an amazing capability for screwing up a good thing. Again, as always, my apology for my long windedness. Happy Happy, Gustl -- Je mehr wir haben, desto mehr fordert Gott von uns. ******** We can't change the winds but we can adjust our sails. ******** The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C. S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters" ******** Es gibt Wahrheiten, die so sehr auf der Straße liegen, daß sie gerade deshalb von der gewöhnlichen Welt nicht gesehen oder wenigstens nicht erkannt werden. ******** Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music. George Carlin ******** The best portion of a good man's life - His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. William Wordsworth _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
