<div> <div> </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Probably a bunch of that Ford was made in Mexico and/or Canada.</blockquote> <div> </div> <div>No kiddin.  But assembly is the bulk of the paying work, and that's why I buy american--- because the cities of michigan and ohio need every penny they can get.</div> <div> </div> <div>I recognize only driving american made cars will probably be regarded as a hopeless acquiessence to nationalism on my part.  It stems from the year I worked for the union in Ohio.  There was a rule on staff that you could only drive american-made, union-made cars (so, if it was a toyota made in a unionized american plant you could drive it as long as it had a bumper sticker explaining union-made american-made).  Largely because its a credibility issue- if you show up at a toledo nurses' house to talk about unionizing, and her husband is a uaw guy or whatever, your volvo or honda would pretty much kill the drive right there.  Imagine that Ohio water-cooler conversation?  "This organizer came to my house to talk about gettin the union in here--- and he was driving a VW!  Haw haw!" </div> <div> </div> <div>However, a lot of the staff organizers were also militant and ideological about driving american-made.  These were mostly guys and girls from blue-collar rust belt origins, who had each developed some version of quasi-communist or socialist ideology from years working in the labor movement.  I used to debate the issue with them, advancing my opinion that driving a union-made south korean daewoo was just like driving a chevvy, because of itnernational proletarianism yada yada yada.  </div> <div> </div> <div>One guy, great organizer named Mark, who grew up in Flint (where his youth pasttime was setting fire with friends to the odd foreign-made car that would get parked in his neighborhood), originally came out of the millwrights union, and had been developed as an organizer and a marxist by the famed John August--- Mark would always argue with me about it, and he had these intricate byzantine marxist arguments for why you should drive american-made cars.  But at the end of one argument, he dropped the ideological pretences, and just leaned in really close and poked me -hard- in the chest and got in my face and said, "Look.  You just drive american made cars, because you're fuckin here in Ohio, and this is what we fuckin DO here in Ohio.  GOT IT?".  The ideology had just been window dressing to a more traditional blue collar attitude of his.  I felt like a foolish intellectual, and ever since, have accepted his reasoning.  Also, we get a lot of flats driving around housecalling 14 hours a day, and Mark was a great quick tire-changer, but as he would say, "I ain't changing a tire on foreign steel, bub." <br> </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">And I can't think of anything that would "save" manufacturing. I<br>think it's better to focus on raising service sector wages </blockquote> <div> </div> <div>Ah hah!  Finally I have trapped you into expressing support for our union's strategic project!  Oh, I'll be quoting you on this in the future... ;)</div> <div> </div> <div>In the last print LBO however didn't you advance a different proposition, with respect to the auto industry?  Change your mind?  Or just easier to say such things here than in a speech to labor notes people?</div> <div> </div></div>