Strategic value, national will

This morning on NPR, a financial expert was interviewed about the auto industry bailout and stated that making cars "may just not be our thing." The idea is that others are better at it than we are, so why bother? I contrasted that with Michael Phelps' new book No Limits: the will to succeed and realized how out of touch our financial experts are. The problems with the auto industry are not whether or not we can make good cars, but whether or not we have the will to do so. Leave it to an athlete or craftsman to understand what our limits and capacities truly are and that they are set by what we care about. As a craftsman, I have learned that when someone tells me that they can't do something, I know that they could if they really wanted to and were willing to invest the effort required to do so... Most matters are more directly related to attitude than aptitude.

We currently have a failing auto industry and a failing economy, because we misunderstand the matter of will. We have thought that manufacturing is a second class endeavor, and we have made it mind-numbingly so.

But just imagine the strategic implications. We have shipped nearly all our common productive capacity to China. If we nationalize the auto industry, it won't be the first time. In World War II, direction of the auto industry was taken over by national defense and provided the armaments for all the allied nations in the war against fascism. World War II was won as much in the factories of Detroit as on the beaches of Normandy.

I am so surprised that the experts aren't talking about that! They have become brokers of information and have forgotten that real things and the capacity to produce real things are essential to human culture and economic success. We have gone way too far at the present time, dulling the national will to produce real products.

We may not care about making cars and particularly not the kind that Detroit makers have been making of late. There are way to many fuel guzzling behemoths on the highway and on dealer lots as it is. But the capacity to make cars can be redirected into other things. Imagine windmills and solar panels enough to end our economic dependence on coal and imported oil. Oh, I forgot. We are going to buy those in China. But this is a very windy day in Arkansas and it sets my vanes whirling.

Are we not a nation of idiots? Yes, but we ARE coming to our senses.