The next stage has now arrived.  Chrysler telling Canadian governments that unless they receive more public money and workers accept concessions they will close plants in Canada is a repeat of the old threat of the 1930s, ‘If you don’t like your job and what we give you, there are a hundred people waiting outside to take it.’  That’s right blame the worker because Toyota and Honda have seized the auto market.  Toyota and Honda must be genetically modifying the workers at their facilities.  Maybe they inject each new employee with some Japanese DNA.  Is that it?  Even with the concessions made by American unions, labour costs are still cheaper in Canada,  So the jobs will go to the developing world, likely Mexico where human rights and a living wage are the stuff of dreams.  So who is going to buy your cars Chrysler?  The underpaid Mexicans?  Not likely.  They have more pressing needs to spend their money on than a Neon.  You might not know this in your gated world but most people I know put food, clothing and lodging above purchasing a car.  Do you believe that unemployed Canadians and Americans will buy cars with the paltry sum allotted them by unemployment insurance schemes?  (I know in Canada Paul Martin changed it to Employment Insurance but lets not be slaves to losers and their ideas)  Henry Ford years ago realized that in order to sell his cars he needed workers who were paid enough to buy them.  Interestingly Ford has proposed that governments give consumers significant incentives to purchase rather than just pour money on the funeral pyre of the big three. 

There is another issue at play here.  We are, laughingly anyway, in a War on Terror.  Both the United States and Canada have passed draconian statutes to increase police power and undermine the basic rights and liberties that we have come to take for granted.  I abhor these laws with every fibre of my being, however, in the case of these arrogant corporate terrorists, I am prepared to make an exception.  Just as the murder of a loved one makes our opposition to the death penalty waiver if only temporarily, the spectacle of being threatened by a parasite who has gorged himself on the wealth created by my family and friends, who today face economic ruin because of the incompetence of said parasite, makes my commitment to human rights for everyone waiver.  After all, I am also a staunch defender of animal rights but I sanction the killing of rabid dogs.  At this moment I see no difference between a rabid animal and those that hold our society for ransom to protect their own affluence.  So perhaps there is a time, not against innocent individuals but against those who openly flaunt their acts of terror,  committing them before cameras with no attempt to conceal their guilt, that the new anti-terrorism laws could be justifiably applied. 

Make no mistake about it, what Chrysler did is an act of terror.  Terrorism is not about killing people.  It is about threatening people to cause them to act in a certain way desired by the terrorist.  In 2001 the attacks were not terror because they killed people but because they could be carried out.  The terror was the fear of vulnerability.  The act itself was important only to give credence to the threat.  Workers and governments have no doubt that Chrysler has the capacity to carry out their threat, at least to a significant extent.  Therefore the threat has credence.  Chrysler could reinforce the fear by cutting back or closing one or two plants but in this economic climate that would be unnecessary.  So Chrysler has carried out an act of terror.  They have threatened the well-being of Canadian society as a whole.  Hundreds of thousands of families now wait with bated breath to see the outcome.  Families that may lose their home because of it may be inclined to give in out of fear.  Far from helping, acquiescence to Chrysler’s demands would further deteriorate our economy as those who today can still maintain their home may not on lower salaries and those who might have purchased a home will not.  All the jobs that spin off from the economic behaviour of Chrysler workers and their families will be negatively affected whether Chrysler carries out the threat or not and whether the workers accept concessions or not.  The act of terror is a fait accompli.

This is exactly what Osama bin Laden attempted to do, disrupt Western economies thereby weakening our societies.  If bin Laden sat down at a parliamentary committee he would be hauled off in chains in a blink of the eye.  So why not that Chrysler executive whose actions will be infinitely more successful at achieving the goal of Al Qaeda?  As I watched the fat little slug smugly make his threats, I wanted nothing more than for the RCMP to storm into the room, shackle him and drag him off to the darkest dankest dungeon in Canada.  There to have electrodes attached to his testicles.  Then let the interrogation show begin.  I would even pull the switches myself to watch him dance and sing like Liza Minnelli. 

Perhaps in prison he would learn a useful skill.  Given that he doesn’t look much like a fighter I suspect his training will involve a shower and a bar of soap.