I am fed up with the hypocrisy of a select group of US Senators who formed a roadblock of ignorance regarding the essential "bailout" of the US Auto Industry. Of course I am beating my breast over these allegedly, "love America patriots" in the Senate who set up a stone wall of resistance to any compromise that would throw a financial lifeline to General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler.

And I regret to report that these self-serving Senators are a small but powerful caucus of Republicans from southern states. It is in their home states where "right to work" laws and millions of dollars in sate subsidies have seduced foreign auto manufacturers to set up a labyrinth of factories in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. So I am not surprised; these folks are just protecting their home turf despite ominous warning of what calamity might transpire should Detroit be forced into bankruptcy.

Yet it seems these Senators are basing this resistance on polling data, which has shown that over sixty per cent of Americans do not favor a "bailout."

As a childhood survivor of the Great Depression, I fear for our country over what I consider a short-sided myopic rejection.

When I look back at a century of leadership that has made our auto industry the jewel of U.S manufacturing, the envy of aspiring capitalists world wide, I weep over the short memory span of the American people. Sadly we have quickly forgotten that it was a pioneer like Henry Ford who set a manufacturing assembly line that become the standard, quickly emulated by GM, Chrysler, Studebaker et al.

Can it be that we need to be reminded that it was the auto industry was the engine that has led our country into unparalleled prosperity following World War Two? Have we forgotten that our vaunted middle class became a long sought reality in the last fifty years of the 20th Century, with unionized blue-collar workers of the auto industry leading the way?

And without the formidable manufacturing prowess of these car factories in Detroit, there is a serious doubt that our country and its allies would have been able to vanquish Adolph Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini.

Within months of our entry into WW2, this self same much maligned auto industry, put its shoulder to the wheel, and was cranking out tanks, airplanes, and boats. It was this output and a myriad of war equipment that proved to be the overwhelming catalyst that gave our troops and those of our allies, the war machine to turn impending defeat into victory.

Cannot we who love liberty, learn from history?

Are we willing to jeopardize American security just to punish those whose capitalist objectives followed customer demand for gluttonous SUV’s and gas guzzling luxury cars? Yes I know those power brokers in Detroit thumbed their noses at environmentalists and Congress’s continuing request for closer adherence to Café standards of more cars with a higher MPH.

There was so much opportunity for profit and the energy warning signs were ignored, but aren’t we all to blame blame for this travesty? Americans over the past ten years have purchased billions of dollars of gas-guzzlers yet we were angry and crying bitterly at the gas pump when we paid $4.50 for a gallon of regular.

And since we had to blame someone for this unforeseen crisis, why not make GM the culprit.

If those recalcitrant GOP Senators would take the time to visit Detroit, they would find out that the sinners in the industry have recanted and for the past few years have initiated intensive changes with their R&D departments whipping out energy saving prototypes that can once again be the envy of the world.

It is in Michigan where these Senators would find that the United Auto Workers Union is ready to major compromises in prevailing wage scale benefits, knowing sacrifices must be made at every level if their industry is to survive.

Now if Senators Shelby, Sessions, and Corker continued to ignore all these warning signals, then it becomes obvious that they have but one mission in mind: Bust the Union movement.

Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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