just happen to represent a huge number of your fellow citizens Tom, people that could easily be out destitute on the streets if there was no consideration given to a gradual transition into bankruptcy with all players at the table.

I'm not going to argue about union excess. You know my views on that but I'm so tired of your smug view that just because people are members of a union that they're somehow lazy and walking around with their hands out. Without them, your world would be a whole lot different today and you would never have had many of the opportunities in life you've had.

GM, apart from building shitty vehicles, took care of its workforce and it's that long history that helped to do them in. It's easy to look at a company like Toyota and ask why they can make it while the others can't but they enjoy one huge advantage. Since they're relatively new to huge success, they don't have the legacy costs of paying out benefits to decades of retirees. Right or wrong, those agreements brought stability and prosperity to many areas of the country. You pay less taxes and gain from increased infrastructure because many of those ex-employees retired in your state and became contributors to your local economy.

What would you have had GM do Tom, simply throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble, void all those agreements, cancel all their debts, and flip the bird to all those people who had designed their lives around a good faith plan? Would you have put up with not only the downfall of GM but also all their dealerships, the parts suppliers, the military parts they supply? Do you have any fucking idea how the ripples would have spread if the whole thing died overnight?

GM's failing didn't begin the day Obama took office. Where was your outcry during the past decade to fix this before it became an intractable nightmare? All the signs were there long ago. Oh, that's right. Your solution would have been to just dissolve all the unions. They were the true evil. Nevermind that the writing was on the wall that Chevy Suburbans and Hummers were not where the world was heading but because they brought more instant riches to the top tier at the expense of the future, you were OK with that. Also, just imagine had there been nationalized health care during GM's long history and those legacy costs were greatly reduced.

You need a big dose of humble pie there, a little time down in the trenches where the majority of the nation truly lives. There's this tiny little part of me, the part I believe is more prevalent within you, that pushes me to wish that economic calamity would befall you and your family and enlighten you to true hopelessness much of the country feels but that would violate my overall ethics and need to feel compassion. We all have that trait within us to think that somehow our lives would be better if we just circled the wagons, took care of our own, and watched as the downtrodden around us just withered and died. Most of us have no trouble suppressing that urge because our species also has developed a strong sense of community and empathy that generally overwhelms the dark side.

Reading your posts lately shows me that within people like you the former urge is somehow winning, maybe fueled by fear or propaganda. Of course there's a danger to too much emphasis on community and empathy towards the underprivileged but, of the two, it's pretty much a no-brainer where the true hazard lies. History has been brutal to purveyors of your philosophy because it doesn't mesh at all with human behavior. Although on paper it can appear to be compelling, (what could possibly be wrong with absolute freedom to prosper and a demand for personal responsibility) the situation always becomes a society with enormous divisions between the haves and have-nots. With that comes chaos, crime, and disease because of the sense of hopelessness in the lower class. Your family disappears into the rubble by the way. Unless you're lying to us, you're not part of the elite but embedded in the middle class which cannot exist under those conditions.

Like it or not Tom, for America to survive, we'll end up much like the European model, some mixture of capitalism and socialism. It has to happen and, short of armed conflict, you won't be able to stop it. Quality of life will change and that's a bitter pill for conservatives. Oh, you'll be right about a lot of stuff. Government will do some very goofy things. There'll be corruption and greed and it will be tougher for you to buy your incandescent light bulb but in the end we'll be a stronger country ready to face the real challenges the world must tackle such as overpopulation, energy, and environmental woes.

Art