Liberals and their “man-made global warming” religion’s ministers and know-it-alls constantly browbeat Canadians for driving trucks and SUVs and demand the government (of course!) do something about it—like making the level of pollution they emit illegal, raising gasoline taxes even further, taxing SUVs even more than other cars, ensuring that it’s totally “politically incorrect” to even be seen in one, and more.
Today General Motors—completely on their own, without any government regulation or law—announced the closure of an Ontario truck and SUV plant along with three others in the U.S., because by golly they’re not selling trucks as much anymore. And the left goes totally nuts with seething rage.
Well that’s odd.
Shouldn’t they be demanding that General Motors close all its SUV and big car and truck plants on Ontario? For a “green Canada”? And surely they’re absolutely thrilled with the high cost of gasoline these days—nearly matching what it would be if they’d been able to tax it to the extent they’d like (and dwarfing the price it will be if they get their way). So why bitch about this? They didn’t have to lift a finger—the market did it all for them!
And therein lies the problem.
… “This plant is General Motors’ best-quality, best-productivity, lowest-cost producer of half-ton trucks … and they’re closing it … This decision is unfair, it’s unjust, it’s unwarranted, it’s illegal, it violates our collective agreement, and we’re going to do everything in our power — and we have power … We are not going to allow this to happen.” …
—Buzz Hargrove, zany militant socialist Canadian Auto Workers union boss, former and possibly current NDP supporter, and a welcomed Liberal Party campaigner, circa 2006, whining in a state-owned CBC.ca article
Free market capitalism responds exactly as you’d expect to shifts in consumer demand, however those shifts were motivated (hi lefties!). And by the way, GM will open a new electric car manufacturing plant in Detroit —damn those capitalist Americans!
Seems to me the lefties are really concerned about power. Control over our lives.
One of the CBC.ca’s readers posted an interesting CBC-style comment to the above article (greatly abbreviated here):
“… This is capitalism folks, where the only people that matter are shareholders. Employees don’t matter. Customers don’t matter. Capitalism is self destructive. … We are too brainwashed by religion and drugs. … “
Sheesh they make it easy to refute their abject stupidity. Actually, capitalism worked beautifully here, and as I said, it should actually be to their liking; and shareholders include employees and enviro nutbars and even socialists; and it’s precisely as a result of the daily votes of “customers” that capitalism works; and so on. I made a point of adding his bit on “religion and drugs” (they’re exactly the same!) with the rest of his quote because it was such a thoroughly Karl Marx-like “opiate of the masses” thing for the comrade to write; and it was an exemplary display of that famous liberal-left tolerance and compassion and nuance and intellectual fortitude.
But in total, the comment doesn’t sound very capitalist to me. Or sane for that matter. In fact it sounds communist, and bigoted. But he’s just a proletariat still not yet weened from the state-owned, socialism-reliant, far-left CBC teat, where everything socialist is yummy.
So OK how about: “Capitalism is not an eternal or natural way to organize our economy and society.”
Ouch! That doesn’t sound very pro-capitalist! Who said that? Marx? Stalin?
No. That’s from the Canadian Autoworkers Union boss, Buzz Hargrove, and his union. He and his union wrote a document in 2006 called “In the Eye of the Storm: How the CAW is Re-Making Canadian Politics”. From it, we learn that they—supposedly a mere labor union rather than a political force with designs on “re-making Canadian politics” —seek to “remake” our free Canada into a place we wouldn’t recognize (unless we’ve traveled to Cuba or the old Soviet Union).
“In the Eye of the Storm” is a document about how to turn Canada into a socialist state. And they say so right in the document.
Here’s an excerpt under the heading “Working Class Politics”:
“We want a society in which working people can have true hope, security, and equality… to accomplish this, we need to be able to thoroughly regulate private business; manage employment, investment, and trade; expand public ownership and non-profit enterprise; and run the economy in the interests of working people. If we succeed, we will have fundamentally transformed our economy and society, replacing capitalism with socialism.”
So when Hargrove says, in the state-owned CBC web site, “We are not going to allow this to happen,” I imagine he means to disallow this plant closure by taking state control of private enterprise. And employment. And investment. And trade. And perhaps nationalize General Motors and all other plants in Canada… “to expand public ownership and non-profit enterprise; and run the economy in the interests of working people.”
Naturally because I’m sober, that sounds communist to me. At least it’s not a “hidden agenda”! Actually, it was and is still largely hidden from Canadians as the media totally ignores it and fails to warn Canadians about the intents—the agenda—of this man and his union, and many unions and other individuals like Hargrove. Canadians should be warned anytime Hargrove or members of his tribe say anything.
Under the heading “Fighting Back Makes a Difference”: “We live in daunting times for trade unionists, progressives, and socialists.” Well good. I pray for more daunt.
Today in the House of Commons, as his most important issue of the day, the you’ve got to be kidding party’s socialist leader Jack Layton stood up and sneeringly demanded that the government act to solve the whole American car manufacturing problem, and also demands that the government ensures that somehow, those green hybrid cars are built in Canada from now on.
(Translated from far-left socialist French)
“Mr Speaker, there have been massive layoffs today here in Canada amongst the auto workers. A thousand jobs lost. Something has to be done by this government to provide for a strategy to correct this situation! What type of transition procedures will be adopted to help these people?! What will be done to make Canada a leader in the manufacture of hybrid cars?! What is the Prime Minister waiting for?! A thousand more jobs lost? A thousand more after that, and a thousand after that?!!”
“… The fact is these workers are losing their job because this government has no vision, no plan, no strategy for green cars, no strategy for the jobs that are needed, when are they gunna get one?!!!!”
Layton appears to be after another Stalinesque five-year plan.
The strategy of allowing the free market to work these things out—producing things like hybrid and electric and other “green” cars that the socialist Layton demands be built in Canada (by government decree)—sounds just fine to me. And it’s working very well. Unemployment both here and in the U.S are at historic lows. Kyoto-style “plans” and “visions” are coming out our ying yang.
What worries me is that the socialists like Layton and Hargrove and many of Canada’s dinosaur labor unions want to change my Canada from the amply proven free-market capitalist success, into another failed socialist experiment, for their slimy, greedy self interests. And that the media doesn’t report THAT.
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