Re: Word

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 farna@xxxxxxx wrote:

> I agree. US automakers all basically stated that they would not
> build the "stop gap" hybrids, but "wait for hydrogen technology to
> mature" 3-5 years ago.

I think they were knowingly lying, and their actions in all arenas
don't bear out any of their (few) far-looking claims.

First, Bush II made vague promises of heavy subsidy in that
direction as part of image spin. Nothing has happened there.

Plus, it's measurable that they have not innovated in hardly any
area.  More or less, the american auto industry has sat on it's
ass and made short-term money to please investors, burning the
furniture and spending next month's rent money to do so.

They played games with legal structure (eg. SUVs as trucks) and
basically fought positive change at every step. The boards and
top-level management and partner/investors are sucking the money
out, like they are in other areas of the US economy.

I'd like to see them succeed, but I have no sympathy for their
problems. They handed the domestic auto industry to the japanese
and others, willingly and knowingly since the '74 gas crisis, and
when they whine, I do not cry.

Let 'em all die off, sold for their components (eg. GMAC).
Nationalism is stupid and harmful; either the free-enterprise
system works or it doesn't. Bailouts would be cynically
unAmerican. They don't bail out my stupid mistakes and should
theirs either.

The U.S. once led in technological innovation. The reason we're
doing so less now isn't because kids are stupid -- they're
smarter.  Profit as ideology has taken over and it rarely takes
chances. The one place we're still best, software, is being ruined
by copyright holders and the law'n'order freaks (DMCA et al).

The U.S. flew to the goddamn moon, for !@#$ sakes, with nearly no
computers, no xerox machines, no hand-held calculators, using
smarts, wise-ass weirdo engineers and designers, clever
technicians, actual teamwork (not the current corporate kind) and
because Americans saw themselves in the future. That future was
often silly, wasteful, and sometimes inadvertantly mean, but:
gyrocopters!  colonies on mars!  food pills! too cheap to meter!
20-hour work weeks! eliminate world hunger! -- a lot of that makes
you laugh and groan now, but it once at least meant public
imagination, outward-looking optimism.

The public spehere seems obsessed with surveillance, 'illegal
immigrant' fear, paranoia, making sure no one gets something they
themselves are not, and blue vs. red distractions, greed is now
OK!, mean-spirited right-wingers and cowardly, snobby,
out-of-touch lefties.  There's no talk of the future except 
for the fear it brings.

All that silliy optimism of the past was under the (foolish) fear
of creeping communism, and the threat of atomic war, so the
current 'terrrrrrr-ist' fear crap is no excuse.

Screw Detroit, they dug their own grave.

And I still want to go to goddamn Mars!