I always enjoy GK's musings. He writes about place as not only geographical, but as a moment in time and a mood shared by people. Shared experience is what makes life worthwhile.

He easily transitions to the dark clouds we all sense at the borders of our happier moments, which occurs when a criminal is also the President of the United States. The difference between the United States and countries like the former Soviet Union and Communist China are not our constitution or bill of rights; for they have very similar documents, rather it is that we enforce our laws. Hitler had the burning Reichstag and George Bush had Florida in 2000. The President is in charge of enforcing the law, but he is a criminal so how can he put himself in jail?

GK is writing about the hope that a ray of light will break through these clouds. He isn't dreaming of a new French Revolution that would be bad manners, but he is dreaming of when Bush and the Republicans are gone and the U.S. stops flirting with fascism.

Since we are no longer talking about GK's piece I thought I would chime in. Yes I did actually read it Terkoy and Alc.

Conservative economic thought basically says liberals want to set up the government as a parent. Conservatives say corparation left alone and unregulated will create vast wealth for the country and raise everyone's standard of living. Reaganomics. We just tried Reagonomics on or lending instituitions and financial sectors under Republican de-regulation.

In Mexico they have full bore Reaganomics. Banned unions, lax environmental laws, very few worker protections. The result of paying people a penny more then it takes to survive is a near narco state. Anyone that spouts that conservative economic ideas are better should be forced to move to Mexico. Yes there are rich people in Mexico too, they live in walled compounds and send their children to school with bodyguards.

(remember our right to work conservative south)

Damn I never thought we would become the new Mexico where foreign car companies want our non unionized workers.

The Republican Senators are all being dishonest. Compare the costs to the same costs in the countries where the foreign car companies come from and you get a more realistic picture.

The big three pay health care and benefits to retirees. The foreign companies come in and don't have to worry about sharing profits with workers because of no union and they have a younger work force with cheaper health care costs and no retirees to speak of.

And these Republican assholes say Detroit needs to get lean and mean? We need to do what the Japanese and Koreans did which is throw all foreign car manufacturers out of our country. The U.S. auto market should only have U.S. cars and we only let countries import cars that have a trade balance with us.

I could take any business that is over 40 years old and if I were allowed to stop paying pensions and all benefits to retirees then I could make it "leaner and meaner." WTF do they think chapter 11 is going to mean? The Republican senators have no souls and no morals. They would eat their own children if it kept them alive one more day. God help us.

Yes I did see Elephantman trying to lump the Dems in as enemies of Detroit for supporting CAFE standards. Those oppossed to CAFE standards were Oil Companies, CEO's of the big 3 and Republicans. So the Dems were hurting Detroit by pushing for higher gas mileage standards? Do you really think this Elephantman?

If the big 3 had been forced to make cars that got over 40 mpg where would they be today?

The Republicans and Oil companies gave us a bankrupt economy and $4.00 a gallon gas. Remember Detroit CEO's, that Oil Companies and Republicanss were on your side when it came to stopping any CAFE standards. Now that Detroit is about to go belly up because of the double whammy of people being broke and not wanting cars that get less the 20 mpg they want some help to climb out of a hole.

Well guess who is standing at the top of the hole kicking you in the face to ensure you don't get out of it?

Oh and on a side note a lot of economic probles our businesses face are because of a lack of nationalized health care. For our businesses to be competitive in any way we need to cut out the HMO's and Health Services companies that leech about 30% from every health care dollar while providing nothing and go to single payer healthcare.