The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Missing Points In The Spin Tornado

It's interesting to note something that is a nearly completely un-mentioned aspect of corporate class warfare on the U.S. middle class.By moving our manufacturing base overseas the corporate powers are slowly doing two things. First, they are moving a huge portion of their wealth to countries where they believe it will be easier to control the populace. Assets in foreign nations are very difficult for a U.S. government driven by angry citizens to clamp down on. This would require the support and cooperation of often totalitarian regimes that have little interest in supporting Washington. Somehow they think they will be able to retain this wealth in these countries. It will be an interesting statement on their international political connections if they prove to be right.

Far more important however, is the grave national security issue they are creating here in the United States.  If we lose our manufacturing base to offshore companies, and we are attacked by the very countries they have moved to, we have only our existing military ammunition stockpiles to rely on. Once existing munitions are exhausted, and the manufacturing base in this country is greatly weakened or no longer exists, we no longer have the capacity to manufacture war materiel EVEN IN OUR OWN DEFENSE.

We had better never tick off the countries that now make our bullets, or anything else for that matter. We will not be able to turn our vast manufacturing capacity to our defense as was done in world war two, and Rosie the Burger Flipper will not be able to supply "our boys (and our girls now)" with the means to defend themselves as Rosie the Riveter could in WWII.

If one adds up the current belligerence of U.S. foreign policy with current trade and economic policy, our leaders are woefully undermining our national security. Even the greatest fleets on Earth are useless if they cannot re-supply in an extended conflict. Dennis Kucinich was the only candidate that even briefly touched on this subject that I am aware of.

Perhaps we need a bill of Workers' Rights in addition to the current Bill of Rights. Number one is that every company that sells goods of any kind within the borders of the United States must be able to produce a minimum of 30% of their total global product sales volume here in the United States. In the case of war, (not this so-called "war" on terrorism) all companies should be able to continue to manufacture at least this much product even if isolated from foreign suppliers. This would also require the retention of copies of intellectual properties and thirty percent of the core skilled personnel within U.S. borders at all times.

In the U.S. Civil War, and both World Wars, the victors were those whose industrial capacity was best able to sustain their war efforts. This is a basic fact of all conventional non nuclear conflicts. We can NOT afford to lose our manufacturing base or the critical skills of our personnel unless we wish to bare our backsides to the swords of enemies created by those "leaders" chosen by the same corporations that  weakened our defenses.

Allowing this to continue will leave the middle class exposed to hostile takeover by foreign nations, and the removal of the U.S. representative government and installment of any form of government a conquering nation might wish to impose. Those who have moved their wealth to just such nations might well move where their wealth is - leaving the rest of us sitting ducks for an extended siege and take over.

For those who think the U.S. military is invincible, hear the words of all those voices stating that the U.S. military is already stretched thin imposing U.S. "protection" on nations all over the globe, all the while struggling with supply shortages even as I write this logical deduction at this minute. 

This country can not defend itself over the long term with it's factories shuttered and decaying away unused and the workers who ran them aging away without passing on and building upon the skills needed to produce everything we need to survive.

This is an insidious and highly dangerous long term trend that MUST be reversed. Almost no one speaks of this - and I wonder if anyone will have the freedom to do so if the trend continues. We can not afford the luxury of extended empire by whatever name it is called and we can not afford the slow bleeding to death fallacy of completely un-regulated trade. There must be a minimum standard set. There must be a work force ready and willing to man the defenses should the need arise. If there is not, we risk the fate of all global powers before us - decline and fall and relegation to a footnote in histories written by others.  This is the true reason global empires are not sustainable.

If we made life good enough that all people upon this planet have the basic things they needed to maintain food, health, and shelter, global cooperation just might become sustainable. So might life on Earth, and so might a more reasonable level of corporate wealth, even.

Dan Stafford

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=2020