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The Nation's Pulse
Cherokee Nation
How can a Jeep TV commercial make more sense than America’s economic policy?
(Page 2 of 2)
Take, for example, the spending priorities evident in the $787 billion economic stimulus bill that President Obama and the Democratic Congress passed in February 2009. It was very heavy on handouts, entitlements, jobless benefits and bailout money for state and local government, and very light on anything that would create jobs in manufacturing or construction.
The stimulus bill spent $288 billion on temporary tax breaks, including $500 rebate checks for nearly everyone (including those who do not pay any income taxes) — a one-time handout that had no visible effect in creating jobs. It earmarked another $224 billion for entitlements — Medicaid payments, unemployment compensation, aid to local schools, etc. That’s more checks in the mail to favored Democratic constituencies, but no job-creating punch.
Compared to those money spigots, the amount devoted in the stimulus package to actually building and making things was puny. Only about one-tenth of the money, $81 billion, was marked for infrastructure. Only $51 billion of that amount was for roads, bridges, railways, sewers, public transportation and the like. That kind of spending creates real jobs in construction and manufacturing — in the steel mills, equipment industries, machinery, and the like.
Why is it that Congress and the president don’t get the simple message of the Jeep ad: “As a people, we do well when we make good things, and not so well when we don’t”?
The stimulus program’s failure to create jobs and to keep the national unemployment rate from rising apparently has made no impression on Obama and the Democrats in Congress. Since then, they have rammed through policies that will only make it harder for American industries and small business owners to remain competitive.
By imposing new health-care costs, much more Federal regulation, and talking about plans to raise taxes in 2011, the Administration has created an anti-business climate that chills investment and job creation. The current stall in the fragile economic recovery is a product of that climate.
“It’s pretty hard to be pro-job and anti-business,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, one of the Republican presidential hopefuls for 2012, told an Iowa audience recently. “That’s like being pro-egg and anti-chicken. It doesn’t work out so well.”
In this political environment, what America has become good at producing are Federal debts, budget deficits, long-term joblessness, entitlements that the nation cannot pay for, more people dependent on the Federal dole, and frustration and anger among people who work hard, pay their taxes and their bills, pay off their mortgages, and don’t expect handouts. These are not the people high on the priority lists of the Obama administration or the Democratic majority in Congress.
I am not sure that the Republicans really get the message of the Jeep ad either, or can offer the policies to make America a nation of builders and makers again. I think if one of them could articulate the message as well as Jeep did in this commercial, voters would listen and cheer.
About the Author
James P. Gannon is a retired former Wall Street Journal reporter and newspaper editor. He lives in Virginia.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (59) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 8.6.10 @ 6:53AM
What destroyed the American desire to do good work in manufacturing was the unions. Grabbing the cash and looting the place to the ground overtook the pride of workmanship that used to drive the engines.
The other thing that wiped out pride of work was the generation of blue collars who wanted *something better* for their children and taught us that working with your hands was somehow inferior and this translated into the thoght that working at all is inferior. Hence the focus on Work Life Balance which translates into spending as little time working as possible and tweeting and facebooking and playing Farm Ville while you are there, if you can.
Our fathers and mothers who worked in factories did us a disservice when they devalued the work they did in an effort to assure us an easier life. They should have emphasized pride of workmanship in whatever job we do, be it President of IBM or janitor in the IBM building. When we get back to the idea that we individually should go home at night knowing we did the best job we knew how -- and not obsessed with which Bachelor will get the Rose tonight or what some tweethead might be telling us about his day -- we will recapture the America we remember.
Forever Marine| 8.6.10 @ 11:42AM
Also, unfortunately and understandably, the veterans of WWII came home from that horrific experience and clammed up not wanting to talk about it. That part of being an American was not passed on to the baby boomers. As always, there were those who did pick up weapons to fight for individual liberty and freedom. But, they were reviled and at the mercy of enemies both at the front and the socialists at home. Work and sacrifice are what Americans are about. They work for and protect America for the world. We are the last best hope for mankind and we have to return to that way of thinking.
JF78GXZ| 8.7.10 @ 9:11AM
Unfortunately, You totaly wrong. Just read Your fellow Major General Smedley Butler book War is a Racket. He explain You that your hope 4 mankind is hope negative .de los banditos. Yo can continue with Henry's book The blood bankers.
Whenever I hear someone brag that America is the greatest country on earth,I want to ask, Have you ever been to Switzerland?Well, I have.
The story of Switzerland is the greatest political success story of the modern world, yet we never hear about it.
Why not? Because it puts all other states to shame. Most rulers want to Americanize their countries; but if they really cared about their people, welfare ,lives, liberty, property, and all that they would try to Swissify.
http://www.sobran.com/columns/.....1213.shtml
Larry in Iowa| 8.7.10 @ 10:35AM
Really? The Swiss? Besides chocolate, the guards at the Vatican and a place to hide your money, what have the Swiss ever done for the world? End fascism? Face down communism? Great strides in medicine?, engineering?, anything?
They specialize in being a place tyrants and criminals can put their loot and avoid the laws of the rest of the world. A fly speck of a country that averts its eyes from all manner of horror to do business with the perpetrators. Yeah, that's what we want to be.
chuckd| 8.8.10 @ 10:45PM
I like their gun laws. It's against the law in Switzerland not to own a gun. It is also against the law for males over the age of 18 tp 50 not to be enlisted in the Swiss guard.
Laine| 8.9.10 @ 1:44AM
Switzerland! I'm still laughing. A country with a population less than 8 million that would fit into NYC. Take away their mountains and you have Belgium. Well, both make good chocolate and that's a real contribution to World Peace...
Jobe| 8.9.10 @ 4:12PM
`Hey! De que habla? Es usted loco? The Swiss, whose major industry is hiding ill-gotten money for the criminals of other nations, the greatest people in the world? Right. I'll stow this with those other precepts such as "The check is in the mail" etc. Wise up, jerkwad. Switzerland is the national equivalent of Disney World's Space Mountain Ride.
Lois| 8.7.10 @ 4:04PM
Well said Applebe!
Louis Jenkins| 8.6.10 @ 8:32AM
I too have stopped all activity to watch the commercial. Unfortuntely, I'm a bit jaded. After all, Jeep is part of Government Motors. Yes, the government could have done a better job funding real work-jobs, but that just ain't their style. Far better to fund the low lifes out there. It gets them more votes.
Gerald Stephens| 8.7.10 @ 3:17PM
FLASH…KAGAN CHALLENGED for PERJURY
Larry Klayman, constitutional scholar, attorney, and author of WHORES: Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment acted in the matter of Elena Kagan by filing a complaint before the U.S. Supreme Court.
July 28, 2010
Clerk of the Court
U.S. Supreme Court
1 First Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20543
R: COMPLAINT TO DISBAR ELENA KAGAN FROM PRACTICE BEFORE THE U.S. SUPREME COURT AND FOR REFERRAL TO THE U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION AND FOR OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.
The full complaint is found at www FreedomWatchUSA.org If ever there was an apple cart overturned, this is the BIG ONE!
Maddox| 8.6.10 @ 8:41AM
Nice thought, based on a lie. The Jeep is a government subsidized product now.
Government doesn't make America work.
Melvin| 8.6.10 @ 9:10AM
Bravo Appleby, "What destroyed the American desire to do good work in manufacturing was the unions. Grabbing the cash and looting the place to the ground overtook the pride of workmanship that used to drive the engines."
There is allot of truth in the above statement. This type of philosophy boils down to this. A number of years ago at some college, a cheating scandal was running it's course. A reporter for some news organization interviewed a student who was or wasn't involved. The reporter asked a simple straight forward question to the student, " "Are you not the least bit bothered about cheating on your tests?" The student no at all bothered by the question said, "No, because the pressure to succeed is so great that we are forced to cheat and do what ever it takes to succeed and get that, "A."
Pressure and forced to succeed by taking a shortcut by cheating on tests is somehow justified in this kid's and fellow students minds.
This kid and others like him are going to be eventually the titans of industry.
The scenario isn't pretty considering these kids mindset of, "I'm going to get mine no matter what it takes."
So running this Country into the ground is morally acceptable to these destructor's as long as they get theirs.
So it all becomes clear now.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 8.6.10 @ 9:14AM
Actually, I don't think most Americans believe our best days are behind us.
They aren't.
What we face is an army of ideologues who think that collectivism is the answer to every problem
Sprinkle that with the effervescence of pipe smoking environmentalism as evidenced by billions for inefficient wind turbines and over leveraged electric vehicles like the Volt.
Then add in the lies of government egg headed (literally) officials like Tim Geithner who claim that those make over $250,000 should be taxed higher while he keeps funneling billions to corporations who should be bankrupt.
Then pile on Obama's lies when he claims the bail outs are over while he continues to ask for more bailouts like the 26 billion dollar public workers bailout with more to come.
America may be depressed when faced with the falsehoods of our current elected officials, but I don't believe a majority believe our best days are over.
By the way, it may be a slick ad but the Cherokee is just another example of a government sponsored product.
A. C. Santore| 8.6.10 @ 9:38AM
Sorry, Mr. Gannon, but the so-called "stimulus" plan was never intended to stimulate the economy or provide jobs. It was, and remains, an effort to wreck the capitalist system, as are all of the Proto-dictator's schemes.
It was Leon Trotsky's idea - the government can wreck capitalism from the inside by borrowing and spending until the system breaks down.
Dixie Pixie| 8.6.10 @ 11:15AM
Greetings A.C.
There is one thing that always bothered me about that type of logic.
Once a person has climbed to the top of the political structure, what incentive is there to burn it down.
Consider when a person becomes the ruler of the most powerful nation on the Earth, why blow it apart.
So does it make any sense to ascribe a motivation that is contrary to Obama's self interest. For it is certainly true Obama has indulged his self interest at every opportunity.
One further point, It is far better when devising a counter-strategy to accurately judge the opponents motivation that to misjudge.
Ascribing Obama's motivation to be simply Evil does not help.
Appleby| 8.6.10 @ 11:27AM
Hubris, my friend. Hubris.
The same impulse that drove "Seven time world champion" Michael Schumacher to, in a quest for 10th place, come within millimeters of ruthlessly and deliberately killing his former teammate in Hungary last weekend: the belief that one is Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof.
Reinhard| 8.6.10 @ 12:21PM
"Deliberately killing" Barichello ???!!!
Beyond stupid comment. Was Schumacher wrong? Absolutely.
Racing is racing and sometimes it gets ugly...just watch every NUTCAR race where crashing into your competitor is an accepted racing tactic.
Appleby| 8.6.10 @ 4:26PM
95% of those polled in Britain (including Rubens) would disagree with you. Remember, Rubens was nearly killed in 1994; he knows what it looks like.
But the point stands: it's hubris that make people do self-destroying things in the firm belief that they cannot be destroyed.
Reinhard| 8.7.10 @ 4:34PM
First, let me state, I'm a big fan of Rubens. I got the chance to stand 6 ft. from him in the pits at Indy while he gave on interview. Absolute gentleman with no chip on his shoulder whatsoever.
So Appelby, you, and apprently 95% of Britain, believe that Schmacher decided to actually murder Rubens...to kill him. So basically every driver that "slams the door", justified or not, is guilty of attempted murder. I repeat...stupid comment.
BTW, I've viewed video of the incident many times and Rubens made a stupid move by jamming himself to the right of Schumi. If had had happened anywhere else on track, Rubens still would have left the track. Both were stupid, but murderous? Rediculous.
Reinhard| 8.7.10 @ 6:19PM
Wow...I really need to proofread before I post..excuse me all.
Dixie Pixie| 8.6.10 @ 4:48PM
Greetings Appleby
I don't think “Hubris” is the full answer even if it is a major component.
Consider the Academia Liberals were trained by the New Dealers who glorified the FDR policies.
Those students of the New Deal grew up frustrated by the 28 years {Reagan to Bush 43}* of Conservative dominance of the Federal Government. Finally they had the opportunity under Obama, to implement the long cherished academic leftist ideas. They did so. Those ideas are now blowing up in their faces and they don't know why.
I think Obama truly believes in the full body of Leftist gibberish. He is lived his entire life in the fantasy world of Liberalism untouched by reality. He has never considered his ideals are the purest moonshine and twice as intoxicating. .
And Reinhard, If you don't be bitten by a bear, don't try wrestling with one.
In short all drivers know the sport before they start their engines.
They have also agreed with the results to come.
* Clinton never claimed to be part of the loony left. After loosing Congress, he “Triangulated” away from the Democrat Party and complained bitterly about becoming a “Eisenhower Republicans”.
Reinhard| 8.7.10 @ 4:11PM
I have no idea what your point is regarding the bear, but I get the sense you agree with me...racing is tough and can be a compared to a blood sport.
Dixie Pixie| 8.7.10 @ 6:28PM
Greetings Reinhard
Why Yes I did agree with you that all racing is inherently dangerous.
I also messed up the bear analogy.
A much better analogy is:
If you don't want to get bit by the Bear.
Don't get in the Bear cage in the first place.
Bill Husein O'Stalin| 8.7.10 @ 7:04AM
Apparently you've never heard of the Cloward-Pivens strategy:
Focus on Democrats
The authors pinned their hopes on creating disruption within the Democratic Party. "Conservative Republicans are always ready to declaim the evils of public welfare, and they would probably be the first to raise a hue and cry. But deeper and politically more telling conflicts would take place within the Democratic coalition," they wrote. "Whites – both working class ethnic groups and many in the middle class – would be aroused against the ghetto poor, while liberal groups, which until recently have been comforted by the notion that the poor are few... would probably support the movement. Group conflict, spelling political crisis for the local party apparatus, would thus become acute as welfare rolls mounted and the strains on local budgets became more severe.”[4]
Michael Reisch and Janice Andrews wrote that Cloward and Piven "proposed to create a crisis in the current welfare system – by exploiting the gap between welfare law and practice – that would ultimately bring about its collapse and replace it with a system of guaranteed annual income. They hoped to accomplish this end by informing the poor of their rights to welfare assistance, encouraging them to apply for benefits and, in effect, overloading an already overburdened bureaucracy."[5]
Dixie Pixie| 8.7.10 @ 2:29PM
Greetings Bill
Yes I realize the “Cloward-Piven strategy” is a pet peeve among certain creeds of conservatism. However there is no indication Obama is pursuing such a strategy.
As I understand it the Cloward-Piven strategy is to cause chaos by overloading the bureaucracy. Obama strategy is the opposite. Obama is notorious for greatly increasing the funding of Federal and State bureaucracies while blowing off the demands of the populace thereby decreasing the load on the bureaucracies. Obama never increases the workload on the bureaucracies.
Consider the Arizona case, Obama sued Arizona to stop enforcement of Federal Law thereby legally blowing off the legitimate demands for the Federal Bureaucracies to do their jobs.
In the recent Gulf Oil Crisis. When faced with a massive, overwhelming crisis, Obama deflected any responsibility on to the private sector. Then Obama extorted the private sector for any available loot.
Then he declared the problem solved and blew off any further demands of the populace. All during this process the bureaucracies are held harmless despite totally dysfunctional performance.
Obama strategy looks to me like a classic socialist strategy of converting the private sector into the public sector thereby increasing Obama's base in the public sector. This is not the Cloward-Piven strategy but its opposite.
Quite frankly I think it is silly to insist Obama is pursuing a strategy when he is obviously implementing a far different strategy.
Laine| 8.9.10 @ 1:46AM
All that the stimulus stimulated was the pockets of Dem supporters mainly Big Union.
Clinton nee Publius | 8.6.10 @ 9:40AM
Would it not be better to have an economy, banking system and means of paying for governance that were all self-sustaining and self-regulating in design, structure and operations so that these future corruptions could not take place?
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.6.10 @ 9:54AM
Mr. Gannon,
Thank you. I put the add in my favorites! Somebody in advertising is going to get a butt whipping, and probBLY A PINK-SLIP for that add, but I love it.
That add is going to bite the communists, (pardon the shorthand), in the butt, every time it plays.
Evidently, as a country, the "boil" is going to have to come to a head, before we can lance it. God, that is going to be painful though!
Petronius| 8.6.10 @ 10:16AM
What is the one thing that is made the most in America today?
Trouble.
The producers are being bled white by the legions of supplicants and parasites who believe the world is a sandbox and government guarantees they will get their pails filled by their betters.
Nothing will improve until the Producers are allowed to make money in the market place and keep it to facilitate growth.
Worry about the next two years. When the tax cuts expire and GDP turns negative, look out below.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.6.10 @ 10:28AM
Petronius,
Well stated! I'm trying to finish another best-seller before the elections in November. If I can't get it out in book form (paper) I'm just going to publish it on-line at www.myteamusa.org
I'll keep you posted.
Stephanie| 8.6.10 @ 11:00AM
So, Old Texican, you're writing a book! I'm typing a manuscript for a friend who is old and from south Texas. Maybe you know him :-)
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.6.10 @ 11:54AM
Yeah Stephanie.
It is my own personal "October Surprise". Its slow going though. I keep having to wipe tears fom my eyes.
Richard| 8.6.10 @ 10:43AM
Western (Jewish and Christian) tradition values work both intrinsically and extrinsically. The Left beginning with Rosseau and Marx sees work as something to be avoided, indeed the goal of society is to achieve a state where nobody, i.e the Elite, works.
B| 8.6.10 @ 11:35AM
The Jeep message also has collectivist undertones. Jeep misses the point in that the strength of a nation rests in its morality, that things were made well when we had a more moral character.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.6.10 @ 12:05PM
Hey, B.
collectivist my arse! Jesus was a carpenter! He made stuff..or built stuff.
There ain't no such thing as a "collectivist barn raising" when everyone is building their very best.
MORAL CHARACTER: Do justly. Love Kindness. Walk humbly with your God.
"By their fruits you shall know them."
Hey, B! "fruits" can be grown...like in a field or orchard. They can also be "carpentered"... or welded with devotion.
Good "fruits" are indeed an offering to God.
Highest regards for provoking my thought.
B| 8.9.10 @ 10:51AM
So too was the Tower of Babel.
Vern Crisler| 8.6.10 @ 11:59AM
I liked the Dodge Challenger commercial where the British are waiting, then suddenly out of the woods comes a bunch of cars, with George Washington and his troops driving the cars. The British scatter. This was played during the World Cup.
Joe| 8.6.10 @ 12:02PM
unions, yuppies, welfare queens, government parasites an on it goes. Tons of people that will game any system in place.
The retailers had no trouble selling the chicom imports to Americans, the imported cars flew off the showroom floors, lets blame Bush LOL
Lavish labor contracts to government employee's at the state and local level where written by the unions and rubber stamped by our neighbors who said vote for them and they will work for the citizens at the town or state level and all they really wanted was to be somebody important around town and would rubber stamp anything throw in front of them. They sat on school boards & town councils and went to the state capitols and forked over the country to the government unions. They bought votes from the poor and collected campaign donations from the government employee's.
As long as the white collar upper middle class was winning the game of monopoly in the USA they didn't see anything wrong, just tuned it all out as blue collar America was sold out decade after decade.
Too bad the yuppies ran out of blue collar workers to sell out and to pay the taxes, now the yuppies will start feeding on each other.
Pat| 8.6.10 @ 12:41PM
The Grand Cherokee is named after a Native American people who were dispossessed of their land by white immigrants and forcibly marched 800 miles into what is now Oklahoma because the white folks desired their ancestral lands. Unlike today’s immigrant disputes, the Democrats led by Andrew Jackson coveted their lands, all the gold found on their lands and weren’t the least bit concerned with legal rights or compensation for what they took – well, on second thought, maybe the situation is similar to today. In fact, these early Democrats rationalized the Cherokee’s Diaspora under the concept it is better to be forcibly evicted than totally annihilated like other Native American peoples who had disappeared into history - sort of an early form of “compassionate liberalism”.
Anthropologists believe the Cherokees originally migrated south in ancient times from around what is now Detroit, so it may be appropriate the Grand Cherokee is produced in a Detroit factory off dilapidated Jefferson Ave. within one of the most impoverished and decaying cities within America. Formerly, one of the most prosperous American cities in the 1950’s, leading the nation in home ownership and blue collar wealth, today Detroit, after 40 years of Democratic rule, has an unemployment rate of 35%, the most incompetent education system in the nation and approximately 40% of Detroit’s geographical area consists of abandoned homes, gradually disintegrating infra-structure and weeds rapidly overwhelming what were once thriving neighborhoods.
Chrysler, the smallest of America’s home grown automakers, was recently owned by the Germans, sold at a loss to a Wall St. investment firm who, in turn, sold it at a loss to the Italians who now own it under our government’s close supervision and financial support. President Obama recently visited the Jefferson North Jeep Cherokee assembly plant for a rousing speech promising more “Hope” and “Change”. Perhaps this author should have zeroed in on a Honda commercial instead – an immigrant auto company who came to this country and did very well.
Ed| 8.6.10 @ 12:49PM
One reason for our decline is that we caught the "British Disease", where the country's best business talent is engaged with moving money around, and collecting "rent" on each transaction, rather than making things and providing services that people actually want to buy. The Wall Street Journal is a conservative paper, but they promote the British Disease big time.
The Jeep ad is a rebuttal of that mentality.
Joe D.| 8.6.10 @ 1:18PM
James, I get your point. And I agree to a point. However, being that the add comes from the GMC, the Government Motors Corp. it is hard to want by this American Car. By the way, Nissian, Honda and Toyota are made here in American by workers who are not "Over Paid for what they do".
Joe D.| 8.6.10 @ 1:21PM
Oops I may have been wrong about GMC vs Chrysler. However, most to the rest is true and the bailouts are just another reason to dislike who runs the company (The Feds) who over see the front owners.
Made in The USA| 8.6.10 @ 1:33PM
My computer was Made in the USA, I took it out of boxes and some assembly was required. Keep beliving your some assembly required imported cars are american made, it's funny. The importers are laughing all the way to the bank, their banks in Japan & Germany.
sestamibi| 8.6.10 @ 1:33PM
I am reminded of a line in the Raiders' 1971 song "Cherokee Nation":
"And all the beads we made by hand
Are nowadays made in Japan"
sestamibi| 8.6.10 @ 1:35PM
Oops. The song is actually called "Indian Reservation", but is about the Cherokees.
noneofyourbusiness| 8.6.10 @ 2:25PM
A number of thoughts here:
a) 80% of the economy is in the service sector. Manufacturing as the backbone of the economy is such a mid-20th century idea. Get used to the new reality. Given the globalization of trade, and the comparative disadvantage western economies now face with in (most) manufacturing vis-a-vis the developing economies, this is a trend not likely to be reversed. The exception is manufacturing related to innovation -- and 9/10ths of innovation is brain power. That needs to be turned to our comparative advantage.
b) It is rather ironic that in all the existential angst that is emoted above about the government taking over car companies, that the subject companies -- under government direction -- are now doing far better than they have in a very long time. I don't want to draw any possibly wrong conclusions from that, but it is a fact that needs to be borne in mind.
c) As was rightly pointed out above, much of the stimulus was wasted (the tax cuts were pointless), not enough went into infrastructure. But to say the aid given to the states was wasted is a bit too simple. While it did not "create" any "new" jobs, it did stop a lot of existing teachers, police and firefighters, etc...from getting pink slips, and in that sense did save jobs.
This matter is up again now for a vote on whether to provide some further $26 billion or so to continue such aid. This is a drop in the bucket, and I think in the next year or so all of you will be seeing some rather serious impacts on these services across almost all states.
It is folly, in a sense, for the Feds to keep pumping money in here. These are state responsibilities for the most part, and they should be left to determine the level of services they provide for themselves -- and also deciding how they are going to pay for them. If you want police, etc., you are going to have to come up for a way to pay for them. Putting the states on the federal dole just masks local fiscal irresponsibility. Leaving the states to make hard decisions will bring the decision making closer to home, and perhaps force local citizens to become more aware of, and responsible for, the real nature of the trade-offs involved.
Cheers!
kiltmaker| 8.6.10 @ 3:46PM
The Road to Recovery
The ad almost has it right. The American workforce can do this, if allowed.
The secret to all other recoveries is that for one reason or another, government got out of the way and let the American work ethic take hold. Work smarter, work longer, work faster. That will bring you out of fiscal problems every time. But a progressives (government or union) natural instinct to put his nose in everything, prevents that from happening. Let loose the Kraken, and watch what happens.
dnha14| 8.6.10 @ 4:36PM
Might be a nice message, but the company treats their customers like a pile of poo. And they were part of the shenanigans. If I buy American it will be Ford and Ford only.
GW| 8.6.10 @ 5:22PM
Although it is a marketing ploy (one designed to capture the Tea Party market), I can't help but feel a little pride when watching the new Chrysler commercials (both the Jeep Cherokee and Dodge Charger/George Washington commercials). Despite what many feel about the government and American auto industry, I feel Americans should buy American. It's part of our national heritage.
Citizen Jerry| 8.6.10 @ 7:28PM
For those with an interest, and with a bit of irony, the Jeep song that caught your ear was the opening of Johnny Cash's "God's Gonna Cut You Down."
Maddox| 8.7.10 @ 10:59AM
Is the add referring to all American workers?
It sounds good on the surface but if you know the facts you realize it is referring to unionized, government subsidized workers. Sad facts, but true and uninspiring.
Ken Roberts | 8.8.10 @ 8:19PM
What killed the American economy was NAFTA period to a tee . yes the unions had part in it but NAFTA enabled the companies to leave and take the jobs with them . Ross Perot was right about the swooshing sound that would be our jobs leaving on a fast train.
C.K. Amos| 8.8.10 @ 11:42PM
"The broader point is that America could become a nation of builders and makers again, if only our political leaders and policy makers cared more about making that happen."
First, we haven't become a nation that doesn't build and make. Perhaps contracted.
And it's not if the politicians and policy makers cared more. It's if the public cared more and was uninhibited about taking that message fully to the politicians. Perhaps, too, the pols and policy wonks have no connection to the America about which they chatter.
" What amazes me, though, is that they don't seem to care much about reviving America's manufacturing industries."
Given the politics of the Democrats, and their liberal/leftists allies, including the once-known-as mainstream news media, this isn't surprising.
But when we get through the Second American Revolution, a renewed sense of America will infuse those who care about her--and, one hopes, drive away that which loathes her.
Joanna | 6.6.11 @ 3:47AM
Too much reliance on foreign labour- we need to get back to our grass roots.UTI Treatment