Chuck Harder has been a long time advocate of fair trade and human dignity in the workday.
He is an intellectual with a down home delivery. We suggest that all radio stations consider carrying his program. He
has a proven himself for over ten years and has many top experts with excellent credentials as guests. Dr Pat Choate
has been on this programs frequently. All who are ready to help restore the American Dream , should support Chuck Harder
and his For the People endeavors.
..... from America in Terror essay by Chuck Harder....
Now in my late 50s, I grew up in a much different America. Bulldozer operators used
to live next to doctors and dentists in my neighborhood A long haul-truck-driver, boat repairman and school teacher lived
down the street. My Dad was President and part owner of a properous factory- yet we lived in the same subdivision as our neighbor
who was a plumber. Our country was different then. Greed was under control and everyone had hope for
the future. Good jobs were plentiful and people didn't have to move awy from home and thus extended families cared for
each other.
Factories were located in about all USA home-twons and "Now
Hiring" signs were everywhere. Life was slower and good. Most Families had savings accounts and were paying for their homes.
You could get a good job that would allow you to support your family
- no matter what your level of education. Those days are over due to "free-trade" and "globalism."
Factories producing merchandise thats used to pay a living
wage in the USA have been moved offshore where local people in third world nations are mistreated by global corporations who
only pay the "slave wages."
About 10,000 factories and untold million of jobs have been
moved offshore in the name of "free trade." Those left behind in the USA find that service jobs won't replace the income
lost when factories close. We are turning into a "caste society" almost like India. Unless you are born to be a family
of resources, you may be trapped forever into a poverty cycle and unable sto form a normal family. The "welfare industry"
has prospered while rank-and-file Americans have lost the dream of a better life.
Many of us remember the "Flash Gordon" movie serials. In one
episode (Circa 1935), The evil Emperor "Ming the Merciless" had Flash and Docto Zarkov bound in chains and sent as slaves
to work until death in the prison city of the Hawkmen. Naturally we all cheered when Ming was killed.
Go fast-forward from 1935 science-fiction to today's actual
facts. Millions of local people in third-world countries ae only making pennies-per-hour in overseas sweatshops. Working for
merciless bosses and under great fear, they manufacture merchandise and electronics items that they could never afford to
buy. And after a 12 hour day of working in terrible conditions they return home to just a shack occupied by many others and
probably can only afford a bowl of soup and rice. Are they not wage-slaves? Emperor Ming would be smiling- but hated by all.
Perhaps you can now understand why our USA policy of "predatory capitalism" and "free trade" is hated around the world. Thus,
it si us who are viewed as Ming or "The Great Satan".
The Volkswagen car used to be made in Westmoreland County,
Pennsylvania, USA. VW located there due to a special package of deals from the state government. Before the deals ran out,
VW moved to Mexico for cheaper labor, The September 6, 2001, BBC reported of VW announcing that after the settlement of a
19 day strike at their Mexican plant- and due to the resulting rise in wages from the settlement - they would now move thier capital
from Mexico to Asia. Emperor Ming would be pleased by all this.
..............Family and personal savings in the USA are almost
nonexistent today. The average family owes a mortgage and about an additional $8,000 or more on credit cards- often they had
to use them to supplement an income that does not make ends meet. ( It was reported recently that 48% of all small businessmen
have maxed out their personal credit cards trying to keep their businesses afloat.) With no good entry level jobs available,
jail is actually a "step-up" for many that have no hope of a good life ahead. ( The USA prison population keeps breaking records
and the USA now has the largest prison population in the world based on the general population. The total is now over
2 million in jail.)
........Rodger Doyle wrote in the 02/01 edition of THE SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN that, "In 1929 the top 1 percent held a 44 percent share of all personal assets, but by 1976 their share had sunk
to 20 percent.......
Today the numbers are almost back to about the 1929 level....
but those numbers are only part of the troubled current equation- the dispartiy of wages and wealth has runaway in the USA.
In 1980, the corporate CEOs made 42 times more that the average factory-workers. Today that CEO makes 475 times the pay of
those toiling in the "back room."
......and then there is bankruptcy: in 1980, 287,570 individuals filed- which is paled
compared to the 1,217,972 cases last year.
...... Although the alarm bells are sounding, Washington refuses to hear them. Just
like the deaf ear that was turned to the recent warnings overseas before the Spetember 11, 2001 terrorist attack. And yes,
Washington knew back in 1941 that the Japanese were about to attack Pearl Harbor. Instead of radioing the warning, the message
was sent by Western Union ans arrived there minutes before the bombs dropped.
REBUILDING OUR NATION
Some economists calculate that the "trade deficit losses" over the last 30 years
approaches 3 trillion dollars. (If a billion is a thousand million, then how much is a trillion? Figure a modest home
at $
80,000 and do the math here and you will be astounded.) Those who embrace "free
trade" all forget to explain how you pay an ongoing trade-deficits. Answer: You print more money. Thus a 15 cent loaf of bread
around the year 1964 now costs well over a dollar - or even more...Those who saved money for their retirement years now find
that those dollars buy much less today. Unlike the Federal Reserve - they can't print more dollars - they re stuck with what
they have.
( Both President Clinton and President Bush tell us that one billion dollars
in exports creates 250,000 jobs. If this is true, in reverse, how many jobs are lost with the 3 Trillion dollars trade
deficits based on imports instead of exports.)
Returning manufacturing will internalize the economy to about the 1964 level, and real
personal wealth will rise, inflation contained and the multiplier of money recirculating will rekindle the "miracle
of Main Street." To do this we must stop financial bleeding from purchasing oil from the Middle East or elswhere.
Various studies have found that there is enough solar energy fallinf on the Badlands
of the West to more than power the entire USA if properly converted. One way to do that is to pump sea water inland and crack
it into hydrogen and oxgen via solar panels that perfectly provide teh direct-current needed. Until hydrogen is online, we
have plenty of gas products such as; liquefied natural gas (LNG), compressed natural gas (CNG, and propane.
This national emergency gives us the opportunity to restore America. Argonne National
Labs finds that it takes 328 Btu s to move a ton one mile by rail. Moving the same tone a mile by jet air takes 21,760 Btu
s. Go back to rail, give hydrogen franchise to the existing oil companies (who know how to safely market and distribute energy),
and end dependence on foreign oil. (The Middle East does things very differently than we do and it will take centuries
for both sides to be compatible.)
Cope with the new paradigm by rebuilding our rail systems, we can then travel across
our nation via new trains in comfortable compartments with TV, voice and data hookups - at a safe and energy-efficient
80 MPH right now and faster as we rebuild. Convert gasoline vehicles now to abundant CNG, LNG or propane; diesels can run
on a mixture of soy oil, ethanol and diesel fuel. Curtail the need for foreign oile; restore our Merchant Marine and trans-Atlantic
ships; employ all those on welfare - at least get something for the trillions we now spend on direct paymetns to people.
( I personally never met a person who did not really want to work.)
So, we are at a turning point. We are now bombing targets overseas while recent USDA
statistics document that 12 million US children are going to bed hungry each night here at home. Worse, the phrase "nation
building" is creeping into the rhetoric from Washington. Now we are told that we will have to rescue Afghanistan and rebuild
the country to save the innocent people. Excuse me, but we have taxpayers in teh USA who are displaced and ignored by their
own government. Nation building? Start at the Mississippi Delta and the go North, East and West. Our people deserve no less.
( Many sections of our cities including Washington DC and many if our small towns look like third world
countries while we go out to rebuild other lands.)
While you re connecting the dots, realize that many of the giant cranes no used
to remove rubble at "ground zero" in New York bear the names: Komatsu, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi. Like electronic, computers
adn ot her general merchandise, we have also lost much of our manfucaturing capacity fo critical equipment to offshore corporations,
We are now at war and need to maintain our national security.
What if the various overseas suppliers that we depend on today- all said, "No." Or,
what if the lines of supply are cut? And why did we let our steel industry go bankrupt? Answer: Our government sets up speed
limits on our highways , puts white lines in the center of roads and makes other regulations to protect us... except for jobs.
Thus my final thought: We better bring the factories back in the name of national security
and fix America while we can. The time is now, the need has never been greater.
