Of Chevy's and Mercedes

I wrote last week on Bank of America's CEO Brian Moynihan and his statement lambasting whining investors who bought a Chevy Vega and then complained that it wasn't a Mercedes.

Having already discussed how that statement fit in to the MBO fiasco I wanted to use it to address a different but disturbing angle.

Chevrolet is a division of the General Motors Corporation, producing a range of vehicles from the mighty Corvette to the lowly Vega. Mercedes also produces a wide range of vehicles.

In comparing a Chevrolet Vega to a Mercedes Mr Moynihan was mixing apples and oranges, on many levels.

The low end of the Mercedes range is the A-Class. It is still a Mercedes, and commands the relevant pricing, to the extent that it would have been sufficient to compare a Vega with an A-Class. But no. Mr Moynihan, with one fell swoop, highlighted the demise of American manufacturing, the stature of German manufacturing, and perhaps the decline of America.

I recently watched "A Requiem for Detroit". It was incomprehensible to me that a city such as Detroit could have fallen into such ruin and despair.

This summer I traveled to the former East Germany and to that part of Poland which had been German before the War. This was a region which had been through the terrors of total war. Stettin, or Szezcin, Poland, as it is known now was a major rail and harbour city and was bombed accordingly. You can still see shrapnel scars on some buildings, but even there buildings have been rebuilt, or demolished.

In former East Germany the renovation and restoration since 1989 of cities which had been flattened during the war requires museums to illustrate the degree of the desolation wrought. This rebuilding was financed by what was West Germany and the "Solidarity Tax" which was a 1% surcharge on income tax initiated in 1989, and extended just recently.

We have not had a traditional war on American soil since the Civil War. But if you look at cities like Detroit,Michigan, or like Gary,Indiana, you would think we have. And you would be right. America has been wracked by the divisions of rich and poor. Our segregationist history has helped shape this as a Race War, but it is really a Poverty War.

There was the hope that perhaps the election of President Obama was the beginning of the end of this war. The Tea Party, misled by people like Sarah Palin are determined to ensure that this war intensifies.

It is an axiom of statesmanship, which the successful founders of tyranny have understood and acted upon, that great changes can best be brought about under old forms. The call for a return to an imaginary past by the Tea Party, predicated on the lies and distortions of organisations such as Fox News to push a scared public into the arms of America's fascists is the both sinister and dangerous as it follows on this adage-gaining power through the democratic process.

The only way to combat this is to get out and vote to defeat them!