We are the soldiers of industry,
hunkered in forgotten backyard bunkers
and grease-pit foxholes.

we bleed oil; bitter bitumen
flowing through veins blackened
like a blacktop pusher, too fixated
to know we're marked. Bonded by a
a thousand personal cuts, honour
bound to armoured steel and roaring
chambered hearts, pumping their poisoned breath
unashamedly into the air we breathe --like perfume.

With wrench and ratchet we wield
profane battle cries beneath halogen moons,
chromium joints snickering Murphic calamity,
even whilst we worship the chaos...
Frankenstein's monster comes alive around us
in belching brimstone bluster, defying Gaea
and her green thumbed insects to face our toothy grins,
catching foolish fairies and daring-do dragon flies
in glistening grills. We're giants now; symbiot
steel and bloodless marrow sending even those
lost gods of the underworld scurrying to safety.

It's anarchy paving the future now.

Bruce Herbert Fader 11-25-2008 00:03
-Pocahontas-

(Yup, been working on my car again. There has been a lot of talk lately about
whether or not the Big Three automakers should be bailed out for the sake of the workers. My thought on the matter is this; when you over-engineer a product for decades on the basis that you wish to make the backyard mechanic obsolete, you shot your own foot. By making it that you literally have to dismantle half of your
engine compartment simply to change a starter motor, etc... Well, you get what's coming to you. I have worked on many cars over the years and have to say that although I do think domestic vehicles have many benefits over imports, being able to repair minor issues yourself isn't one of them. In trying to make me, and others like me, obsolete, they have driven away their key market; the car enthusiast, to the import. I have much more I could say on this subject, but I'll leave it to the poem to speak for me for now. Good day all.)

Good one Bruce, I enjoyed the poem.

I think the carmakers here in the states are more likely the victims of their own corporate decisions through the years to try to please everyone by providing too many types of different vehicles.

The Japanese model of commerce seems to make much more business sense: Make a few models and make them well.


Les

Bruce:

Some of the most enjoyable days I had has a teenager were spent tuning up my car and the cars of my friends. My favorite Christmas present during those years was a timing light given to me by my Uncle Ray (talk about a relic - the timing light that is, not my Uncle Ray...although he did just turn 90 now that I think about it).

Thanks for bringing back those memories in your poem.

Joe

Well, I'm glad you're back in either case, even if only for awhile. Congratulations on the house, and maybe you should use this opportunity to refine cosmic a little =] For the life of me I've never seen a more convoluted site! Hmmm would you like to have a rambling discussion? I pass the time with such these days, and I'm sure everyone here is weary of my opinionated stances.

Em! But tell me of this over-engineering. Do they indeed intentionally complicate the workings to shaft the repair/layman, presumably to force repairs to be sought from their companies directly? Greed is a study of mine, you see, especially in the market, and I would enjoy learning the finer points of this situation. Though I should warn you, I have no appreciation at all for cars in themselves.

Bruce:

I didn't exactly get the car repair theme, until you explained, but I like the poem a lot. Great strength and intensity.

It took me back to my days in the auto plant (assembly line dark foundry and all that). I pushed iron for a while and the memory is still in me. It was big loud and heavy just like your poem. This felt to me like a battle cry of the lost auto workers. Ghosts coming back to haunt the robber barons of industry who have feasted on our labors and now must pay the price.

Thanks

I hear you, Steevo, but I can't help thinking that this country was a lot better off when those "robber barons" had factories cranking out goods from three shifts a day, with two shifts on Saturdays. Jersey City and Hoboken, where I grew up, used to be home to some pretty sizeable plants: American Can Company, Westinghouse Elevator, Mueller Spaghetti, Maxwell House Coffee, Hostess Baking, Lipton Tea, Tootsie Rolls, to name only a few. A person could get a job just about any time they wanted one. If you were dissatisfied at American Can, you could take the bus to Hoboken and get a job at Lipton, etc.

That's not to say the factory owners were magnanimous and generous people - far from it. But, thanks to unions and determined American workers with an ethic that is sorely lacking these days, workplaces grew safer and more equitable. I know I don't have to tell someone who lives in Michigan, the heart of the rust belt, that we just don't have that kind of economy any more.

We've allowed things to get horribly out of balance now in almost every aspect of life. We prefer to deal in absolutes - in politics, education, sports, the economy, and nearly every aspect of life. Our mentality is binary: black or white, right or wrong, odd or even, with me or against me - leaving little room for negotiation. We've lost our sense of direction and, sadly, I'm not sure we'll ever get it back.

Bruce brings that home very well in his poem, whether he intended to do that or not.

Joe

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2008 07:17AM by hpesoj.

Joe:

This poem hit me on two levels. First was just remembering the feeling of working at the plant. I was young and it is old hero stuff that has nothing to do with unions or other mundane things. It's the smell and sound of oil and hot metal and the clanging sounds of the place. Anyone whose never done it wouldn't relate easily to that feeling.

The robber barron part was just an afterthought. It's a feeling of loss I got from reading Bruce's piece. None of that other stuff (union greed, corporate greed, and the demise of the old industrial construct) has much to do with the poem. Nobody is innocent in that story. Union greed grew as fast as corporate greed and the system drowned itself. I took my cut while I could. We are greedy animals we humans.

Steve


Steve

Hey guys,

Thank you for the interesting thread. Sorry I am late to the party per usual. Like Terry I am a Randist, therefore I believe that companies should succeed or fail by their own merits and not be propped up by other people's tax dollars. I do realise that this will cause a lot of people to lose their jobs, but that is always the case when big companies fail. You certainly didn't see a .com bailout when that crash occurred, despite the huge losses incurred on the stockholders, so why the big three? What makes them different? My perspective is even more black being Canadian. After all our government is proposing a $70 Billion bail out package for companies that aren't even Canadian owned; it is ludicrous. Besides which I have seen it first hand what happens when a giant falls. When I was born, my town had a population of 2,000. A big mine opened nearby (Gibralter Mines) and the population jumped to almost 20,000 overnight. Then a couple of years later they folded; handed out one last paycheque and vamoosed. 10,000 workers and their families were stranded without work. Some up and left, but most couldn't, so they did the only thing they could; the created new businesses. Today Williams Lake is one of the most stable towns in the cariboo because of that diversification. I see the same thing happening if GM goes belly up. Some workers will go to their competitors, while others will start their own, new, successful companies bringing innovation to what is currently a stale market. After all, 2005 sucked for me and I almost went bankrupt and was stuck in Vancouver for 7 months and I certainly saw no return on all my tax dollars, nor did I expect, or feel I deserved one.

Percival,

I can give you some short examples about over-engineering. On the Chrysler LeBaron J coup, circa 1989, there were 18 bolts and screws necessary to remove its alternator. Conversely a Mazda had 3 and a Honda Civic a mere 2. On my Pontiac Grand Am (of which this poem is about) I had to remove the Oil Filter, the Air Filter, the hoses from the Oil/Air separator, the Battery, the Cooling Fan, the Air hoses and some other sundry stuff to get to the bolt for the Starter Motor. With a slightly different design both bolts to the starter would have been accessible from beneath the car and it would have taken me 1 hour to pull and replace. Instead it took 3 days. Likewise, to replace her exhaust pipe you have two bolts it seats onto with springs to absorb engine vibration with two nuts to hold it in place; only GM made the bolts the same length as the springs so that you had to have a special tool to make room for the nuts to be threaded. Without the tool it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes in freezing snow to do it, because it is awfully difficult with just two hands to lift and hold the exhaust pipe in place, compress the spring and thread the nut on. Newer Fords require a tool exclusive to them in order to remove the fuel lines and replace them. There is no reason for this, because the new tools are in no way superior to the old ones, which themselves were introduced to replace flared pipe pressure fits which are still commonly used on anything hydraulic, including brakes that anyone with a wrench can do. Brake callipers used to be bolted, then they used special allen keys, but when too many backyard mechanics had those too they switched them again and now you need a torx wrench. And the list goes on and on and on. For the most part the designs of the parts are no different, just what it takes to get to them, or the tools needed to remove and replace them. In the case of the alternators and starter motors... well they are some of the most common items to fail on your car so if they (GM, Ford what have you), complicate the replacement then their labour cost goes up. On a factory level this means you have to employ more people to get the same component installed. This in turn inflates the price of the vehicle. Last year I looked at replacing mine. The G6 (my car's modern equivalent) would have cost me $400 a month, whereas an import with the same features and mileage rating was $179 and that Percival is why the big three are in a nose dive and no bailout on the planet is going to fix it.

Steevo,

I know of what you speak. I got my welding ticket in 1993 and worked for a time building boats and super trawlers. Interesting work and loved the creative process but mostly it was just the hot dry smell of molten metal and the ability to make it do what you wanted to that was so appealing. What I didn't like was the fumes so now I only weld to repair things or for artistic purposes.

Joe,

I still love working on cars despite the obstacles thrown in my path and despite her over-engineering, my Pocahontas is an excellent machine who has saved my life on several occasions. I will keep her for as long as I can afford to repair her, or until someone writes her off, but then I am buying an older import I can fix more easily.

les,

As alwasy, thank you for your kind words.

Brucefur

How incredibly sickening. Now, let me ask you a question that, to me, is so absurdly obvious that I'm sure your answer will only sicken me further. Why hasn't anyone, aware of their greed, raised a boycott?

this is fantastic.

One of GM's problems is an unorganized boycott. Ford and Chrysler are not far behind.

I have infinite patience when working on a airplane. Other than flying the things I favorite thing to do is resotre an antique flying machine. I finished a Waco UPF7 a few year ago, flew it a few hours and sold it to someone who would take care of it. I'm currently working on 1941 and 1946 Taylorcrafts. They are easy to reach, fix, unbolt, bolt up, covered with cloth, and painted.
When I open the hood of a car, I'm already mad. I changed the tranny in my Dodge 1 T 4WD last winter, this year, I'm converting it to a flatbed. I don't mind this job beccause it's mostly welding.

Cuss robber barons all you wish. (not did too much here, but it is oft done) We would not have the railroads, nor the automakers, nor the steelmills, nor much else were not for them. I've never worked for a poor man. I've never worked for a comman man. It takes a rich guy to run a factory, and it takes a factory to make things, and provide jobs.
However, crime wouldn't pay if the government ran it. To take the tax money from a guy working at Toyota in Kentucky and give it to the CEO of GM is robbery.

Mr. Bush and his successor are hell bent to do so however. I know it's wrong, but I don't have the answer.

Augustus had the Pax because he never ate alone

"The prince gives away what is his own or his subjects', or else what belongs to others. In the first case he should be frugal; in the second, he should indulge his generosity to the full. The prince who campaigns with his armies, who lives by pillaging, sacking, and extortion, disposes of what belongs to aliens; and he must be open-handed, otherwise the soldiers would refuse to follow him. And you can be more liberal with what does not belong to you or your subjects, as Caesar, Cyrus, and Alexander were. Giving away what belongs to strangers in no way affects your standing at home; rather it increases it."

Nick Machiavelli

Of course the truth is that the congresspersons are too busy raising campaign money to read the laws they pass. The laws are written by staff tax nerds who can put pretty much any wording they want in there. I bet that if you actually read the entire vastness of the U.S. Tax Code, you'd find at least one sex scene ("'Yes, yes, YES!' moaned Vanessa as Lance, his taut body moist with moisture, again and again depreciated her adjusted gross rate of annualized fiscal debenture"). ~Dave Barry

Hi Terry,

VERY, very good to see you. I miss the intelligence and humour inherent in Emule and sorely wish I had more time to spend here than I do currently. As stated, (being an Ayn Rand(est)), I too believe that the Robber Barons served us well. After all it was the fruits of their intellect, money and labour that built our countries as you yourself have said, so why shouldn't they have benefited from doing so? "Think and Grow Rich," is one of my favourite books (Napolean Hill), but the sad truth is that even thinking takes money now. I am part way through a patent process. It will cost me close to a $1,000 just to wave my hand and say, "Hey, I have a great idea!" That doesn't include the agency fees, that is just to start the application process. Makes me wonder how our economy would be doing if patents were free to file and also wonder how many great ideas die stillborn just because the brain that conceived it was attached to a poor man or woman who, daunted just give up. Considering my financial bleed out right now, that may just be me too!

Percival,

As implied by others on this thread, there is a boycott; it is called buying an import instead, or getting on the bus and it has been happening for years without the big three adapting to stop the hemorrhage, which is why they are all in trouble now.

Frost,

Thank you very much! (Um... are you Frosty in another incarnation, or someone else?).

Johnny,

I heard that Augustus had the Pax because was Roman in the wrong places. lol.

Love you folks!
Brucefur