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Letters to the Editor

So Cheney is joining Bush in writing his memoirs. These two former draft-dodgers, who lied to start a war for personal reasons and material gain, have never been asked one single question by our so-called representatives pertaining to their crime, shamefully leaving that particular task to Cindy Sheehan. Absent any kind of trial or even inquiry into the decisions that they made, they can now re-write history to suit themselves, without fear of rebuttal by witnesses who are ready and available to testify against them. Meanwhile, our current president, who has never once made reference to the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians killed in Bush’s war (and has in fact effectively absolved him of them), says that he is "appalled and outraged" by the handful of deaths of demonstrators in Iran. Regretful though those words are, his outrage is misdirected. He should leave Iran to the Iranians and seek justice right here, beginning with Bush and Cheney. After all, we are still ahead of Iran in stolen elections, by a score of 2-1.

As a citizen of and believer in democracy, I applaud the efforts of Mir Hossein Mousavi. His efforts are similar to what former vice-president Al Gore should have done during the controversy surrounding the United States presidential election of 2000. Gore should have continued to protest regardless of the political risks until all the votes were counted in Florida. Instead, former president George W. Bush was appointed by the United States Supreme Court to effectively overturn the will of the people, and look at what has happened to the United States in the last eight years.

Believe it or not, one thing that trumps capitalism and political correctness in the United States is the right to have one's vote counted. This is the foundation on which our democracy is built. Mousavi should continue to defy Iran's powerful security forces so that Iranian democracy can be preserved. It is not the reformist movement that is attempting to seize power, but rather it is those currently in power who have engaged in fraud to prevent the will of the people from being heard. Why else would they stoop to such underhanded tactics to block various means of communication among the citizens of Iran? Why is the government in power utilizing such political strong-arm tactics as the use of violence and false arrest? Why are international journalists being told they should prepare to leave the country? Why would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad leave the country en route to Russia a day earlier than expected? The world knows he can run but he can't hide from the truth.

The United Nations must be allowed into Iran to monitor this situation up to and including a new election. During the new election, let the call must go forth among all citizens of Iran that your brothers and sisters of democracy from all over the world are with you during every trial and tribulation you may encounter during this crisis. To the people of Iran, the trumpet of freedom beckons you to rise in protest and ensure your vote to preserve your sacred heritage, promote your children's future and obtain the blessings of liberty we all cherish.

The U.S. Senate did the right thing by passing a resolution apologizing for slavery and ''Jim Crow'' laws. The House of Representatives passed a similar resolution last year. I think the Supreme Court should also issue an apology. Slavery should never have been constitutional in the first place.

Well, so much for transparency and change. In the last couple of weeks, President Barack Obama has decided to keep military tribunals, to oppose prosecution for government employees who committed torture, and to fight the release of photos that obviously show the abuse of detainees by American soldiers. And maybe the prison at Guantanamo Bay won't be closed after all. I want transparency and change, not hypocrisy and the status quo. Human rights and civil liberties shouldn't be put on "the back burner."

One letter writer to the St. Petersburg Times on May 19 ends his rant by stating that the office of the president of the United States "deserves respect."

Even when it was held by an ineligible—and therefore illegitimate—thrice-convicted drunk driver who had the office stolen for him twice? Who was the only president in history to be a self-confessed drunk at the age of forty? Who never did a day’s work in his life and owed every position he ever held to his father and his father’s influential friends? Who ignored every congressional edict that he didn’t like, by means of a ‘signing statement’? Who tried to destroy what he and his kind look upon as chump change and greens fees, but what millions of retired American workers are totally dependent upon, Social Security? Who was the only sitting president in history to be persona non grata at his own party’s convention, the party of which he was leader? Who told his staff to ignore subpoenas from congressional committees investigating criminal activity at the White House? Who stands alone in history as the source of a 365-day tear-off calendar with a verbal gaffe on every page? Who actually said “The trouble with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur” and “The majority of our imports come from overseas?” Who played a major part in the collapse of the entire world financial system, with his de-regulatory, banker-friendly, rich-rewarding fiscal policies? Who shares with Hitler the distinction of being the only heads of state in history whose departures led to people dancing in the streets in countries all around the world? And last but definitely not least, who lied to start a war for personal reasons leading to massive loss of human lives?

Anybody calling for "respect" for a record like that is living in a right-wing dream world. Maureen Dowd has more integrity and intelligence in her little finger than Bush has in his whole sorry, draft-dodging body, and if being referred to as ‘W’ is the only indignity he suffers, he can consider himself lucky.

Thank you for re-affirming your intention to close Guantanamo and your statements that torture is fundamentally wrong.

But....You can see by Cheney's antics on the tube after your speech, that they won't go away untill you PROSECUTE them!

Have you noticed, Dick Cheney is still everywhere?

Most recently, this nauseating spectacle of Oily Dick coming on the tube right after your excellent speech to tell everyone once again how "unsafe" you have made us by your intentions to close Guantanamo, and once again recited the same litany of dirty lies we've been told for the last 8 years, with the brazen nerve of a man totally devoid of conscience, and utterly arrogant in his presumptions of impunity. This is especially nauseating because he himself seems to have orchestrated the massive Non-Response from his bunker on 9/11, and it was his administration that repeatedly ignored the warnings throughout that previous summer, busy looking for that "Pearl Harbor-like Event."

Cheney was in the bunker, ordering the fighters to STAND DOWN as they came in to hit their targets on 9/11 (go ask Norman Minetta...he was there, and his testimony is a matter of record) ....

And now Cheney's on the Media telling us YOU are making us less safe!?

How outrageous IS this!?

What we need from you is for you NOT to "Stand down" on US again!

Re-investigate 9/11....Open it up like a can of worms...THEN Cheney will go away!

It is well known that bullies are afraid of being beaten up. That's why they beat up on younger, smaller kids. Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh exhibit the same kind of braggadocio, as they advocate torturing people under U.S. custody who are bound, gagged and hooded.

We've heard from experienced CIA agents that torture doesn't provide actionable intelligence; it only elicits what the torturer wants to hear. We've heard from political scientists that torture helps terrorists recruit new terrorists. We've heard from clergy (and from listening to our own hearts) that torture blemishes our country's moral character, rendering us undistinguishable from the bad guys.

Yet Cheney, Limbaugh, and their followers continue to advocate torture, claiming the security of the county depends on it. If torture worked, the terrorist Zarkawi wouldn't have been water-boarded 185 times. In fact, he gave information during normal interrogations before water-boarding, and then clammed up when the torture began.

Why do Cheney and Limbaugh continue calling for torture? Is it because they themselves are cowards, so afraid of torture they would start blabbing immediately, who figure that terrorists are equally afraid? Yet, we know that many of our sons and daughters under arms, and frankly, some terrorists as well, have the courage and conviction to resist the torturer's coercion. They'd rather die than betray their country to bullying sadists who reveal themselves as moral degenerates.

There's a reason Cheney and Limbaugh are called "Chicken Hawks."

It's a simple question, but....?

There are millions of unemployed Americans.

There are millions of Americans on unemployment insurance benefits.

There are millions of Americans on extended unemployment insurance benefits.

There are millions of Americans who no longer can receive unemployment insurance benefits.

So, where are the jobs or additional extended unemployment insurance benefits for these and the millions more who soon will run out of extended benefits?

What do we do with the Unemployed?

Pope Benedict XVI has called for greater respect for women. If he really wanted women to be treated better, then he would allow women to become priests, cardinals, and popes. He should support the '' Golden Rule'' and publically state that women should have the same legal, political, and religious rights as men.

But the Pope doesn't believe in equal rights. He doesn't believe in the equality of Christians and non-Christians,women and men, gay and straight people, or Protestants and Catholics. The Pope should practice what Jesus preached. According to the Bible Jesus said, ''Whatever you do to the least among men, you also do to me."

Religions, governments, and individuals should support equal rights for all adults.

The Labor Department's U-6 measure of unemployment is about 16%. With a workforce of 155 million, this leaves 24 million Americans wanting work. President Obama's approach, so far, is to subsidize education for the unemployed to prepare them for "jobs of the future." But, Americans need 24 million jobs right now. In the future, Americans may need even more jobs, as new births and immigration expand the population. How do we know that more future jobs created will even exceed jobs that will be lost as corporations out-source, cut-back, and re-engineer? We need creative thinking and debate about this underlying problem of unneeded or surplus people. We need a jobs program at least as audacious as FDR's in the 1930s. Our economic leadership has told us for decades that education is the key to more and better jobs—maybe for some, but not for most.

There is a case currently before the Supreme Court that involves a young woman who was strip-searched by her school. A classmate falsely accused Savana Redding of giving her some drugs. So, vice principal Kerry Wilson [a man] searched her backpack and found nothing. For some reason her desk and locker weren't searched.Then she was taken to the nurse's office and ordered to take off her clothes. No drugs were found.

The school didn't call her parents, or call the police to bring in a drug-sniffing dog, or even consider getting a search warrant. It turns out that the student who ''informed'' on Miss Redding made the whole story up. And the terrible drug that they were looking for was ibuprofen, which is basically the same as aspirin.

Children shouldn't lose their rights when they are on school property. Young people should have the same constitutional rights inside school that they have outside of school. Schools shouldn't have the power to strip-search children.

There has always been doubt as to whether anyone or any institution has control of the CIA. It operated as a private army for G.W. Bush. It operates way outside the U.S. Constitution and international law and on the "dark side," as Cheney so aptly put it. But, does the CIA serve to further U.S. interests? Does the American electorate determine its missions in any way? It's hard to evaluate its efficacy because it is a black box.

One of the theories being advanced for Obama's pre-emptive grant of amnesty for CIA torturers is that the CIA is too vital to our national security to risk harming their morale. Yet, CIA activities during the Cold War produced mixed results at best. Obama resists looking back at the Bush years either for retribution or to examine where we went off track. Another reason might be that it might expose Democratic complicity.

March was a good month for people, like myself, who oppose the death penalty. The government of New Mexico did the right thing and repealed the death penalty in their state. The New Hampshire state House did the right thing and voted to abolish executions in their state. Hopefully the state Senate will follow their lead. And Governor Timothy Kaine vetoed a bill that would have expanded the death penalty in Virginia.

The death penalty hasn't deterred crime, war, spying, or murder. Innocent people have been put on death row, and I believe that innocent people have been executed over the years. Plus the death penalty appeals process costs more money than sentencing defendants to life in prison.

No government should have the legal right to strap people down and take their lives.

Republican propagandists, following Senator Judd Gregg, have been criticizing non-stop Obama's tax reform plan to make the very rich pay a more fair share of the cost of running this nation. They wail about how taxing people who make more than $250,000 profit will "hurt small business." Hmmm....where were their voices last year when Bush's administration allocated 700 thousand million dollars to big business, with virtually no strings attached? Did small business get any of those bail-outs? Did Senator Gregg argue against that huge theft, er, transfer of our national treasure?

Now, Republicans are squealing like stuck pigs at the prospect of paying more taxes on their unearned incomes. All those golden parachutes, bonuses, and bail-outs have been class warfare against working folks. It is due time for war reparations.

When a legislator gets a bill that is hundreds, or even thousands, of pages long, he doesn't read it. When an executive gets a contract that is thousands of pages long, he doesn't read the whole thing before he signs it. Those are facts.

I think that, for the U.S. government, all bills should be read aloud before a Congressman votes on it, and before a President signs it. It should be illegal for a legislator to vote on a bill that he hasn't read, or for an executive to sign a bill that he hasn't read.

There should be a better way for the government to create taxes and laws.

President Obama's administration hoped to find a more collaborative way to negotiate governance of our great country. After the Republicans' "winner take all" steamroller politics, power has now swung to the Democrats. Obama's leadership tried something different: listening respectfully, including Republicans in policy development, and compromising to accommodate Republican concerns.

The final version of the Economic Recovery act has cut proposed spending by over $100 billion over the previous version, just to accommodate Republicans and gain their votes. The act also increased tax cuts for the wealthy in spite of ample experience that this doesn't do much to help the economy. These compromises were made to include Republicans in solving our common problems, yet, only three voted with Democrats to pass the act. Republicans remain obstructionist.

Democrats would be well-advised to use the political power they currently have to fix the massive problems caused by years of Republican hegemony, and not to dilute their cure with Republican snake oil. Collaboration is a two-way street, and Republicans have shown deceit in working toward effective solutions.

In California's legislature, six Republicans are paralyzing the state budget with their stubborn ideology instead of pragmatic governance.

Exxon/Mobil, the world’s largest oil company, just posted record profits of $8.3 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008 and $45 billion for all of 2008, and it has not participated in distributing discounted oil to Citizens Energy Corporarion.

Isn’t it amazing that Joe Kennedy II, CEO of Citizens Energy Corporation, has to rely on Hugo Chavez of Venezuela through Citgo Petroleum, a Venezuelean company, to provide discounted heating oil to Citizens Energy? This oil is then distributed in a number of states to needy homeowners to heat their homes in the wintertime. States that participate include all the New England states, NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE, VA, IN, MI, WI, and AK.

Exxon/Mobil should stop being a scrooge and give back some of its massive wealth through the distribution of discounted oil to homeowners who cannot afford to purchase heating oil at the regular price.

I have watched C-SPAN's coverage of congressional testimony by Harry Markopolus. Harry is the fellow who, for many years, was blowing the whistle on the $50 billion Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. Regrettably, the responsible(?) regulatory agency to whom he was appealing, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ignored his thoroughly documented submissions and pleadings. The red flags that he was flying were many, and would be easily recognized by even a casual observer—that is, a casual observer who was interested and awake.

During the questioning, Harry was asked his opinion of another regulatory entity that is supposed to be overseeing and policing the activities of a segment of the financial services industry—broker/dealers. This one is called the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). It is a non-governmental organization run by the broker/dealers (think: fox watching the hen house), empowered by the U.S. Congress to do so. Its powers include arbitrating disputes between customers and their broker-dealer members, since aggrieved customers are not usually permitted access to the courts. Supposedly, the U.S. Congress oversees FINRA activities.

Now, Harry was asked to compare the SEC and FINRA. His answer was short and pithy: the SEC is incompetent; FINRA is corrupt. This was particularly interesting to me since I have been the victim of FINRA misbehavior. I was aware that President Obama had appointed one Mary Shaprio to be the new head of the SEC, replacing the clueless Christopher Cox. I also knew that Mary Shapiro's previous job was head of FINRA, where she was paid approximately $3 million per year, plus another $5-$25 million reward for her FINRA exit. So, we have here the chief of a corrupt regulatory body, being appointed to clean house at an incompetent regulatory body. She was UNANIMOUSLY confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

It seems that sleeping is a popular activity in Washington D.C.—both at the SEC and the U.S. Congress.

I too fear the military-industrial complex ("Generals' Revolt Threatens Obama Presidency"), but President Eisenhower may have been the last and only President to call it for what it is.

Mr. Lindorff’s analysis rests on two assumptions. The first is that we have a Constitution that is actually followed. Unless there are serious Constitutional amendments, rather than just new executive orders, the dictator/decider paradigm for the Presidency will still exist even if only in potential.

Can Congress “sub-contract” out its responsibility under the Constitution to declare war? So far, they have. We can parse words and say that Korea and Vietnam and Iraq were not "wars," but this is playing with words.

But, the Constitution has been shown to be merely a political statement, subject to change with the politics of the season. The Supreme Court has radically re-interpreted the Constitution over the years to go with the flow.

The other assumption is that Obama and the Generals are not simply playing “good cop, bad cop.” My observation over the course of many Presidential campaigns and elections is that the people are rarely, if ever, told the whole truth by their leaders. Obama may have as much of a tendency to empire as the generals have. He is simply much better than Bush in selling policy. He will give reasons that appeal to the general public, but the real policy objectives will live in the dark.

In fact, much of the American citizenry probably suspects that they are not getting the real reasons behind policies, but they choose not to object. They hide behind the cloak in order to be able to protest their innocence when things go very wrong. It’s like going to church every Sunday while breaking the Ten Commandments the rest of the week. We get the government we deserve because we have the means to reject bad governance, but we don’t use it. The people are now focused on elites who do not pay taxes (astonishingly enough) and a lady who gives birth to octuplets, while the generals and Congress critters ignore the people and continue to spend billions on wars for oil and countenance amnesty for Wall Street criminals.

I pretty much agree with the author’s conclusion ("Will There be a Recovery?") and the evidence of our weakness is compelling. Of course, we still have the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and that makes us strong in sort of a negative sense. The problem is that we have created a global meltdown due to our focus on opening trade around the world. Everyone is now dependent on everyone else. When the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world gets pneumonia.

The “free” movement of capital around the world is a very mixed blessing. For years, Nader has been calling for a tax on all international financial and currency transactions. As it is, when every country is tied together, even reserving the same currency, it is impossible to isolate problems. Unless and until the world of countries can come to better agreements, I think we should retreat from our current global GATT form of agreements, make free trade fair trade, re-institute tariffs on almost all products, and re-build our manufacturing base. We then should have severe disincentives for large corporations to flee to off-shore havens for taxes, lower wages, and environmental degradation.

If we give corporations protection from foreign competition, then they need to be better citizens and should be required to favor labor and customers and community over capital.

This may sound utopian, but there has never been a better time to drastically reform financial and trade systems.

Republicans in the House teamed up to totally boycott the Democratic sponsored Stimulus Bill. Their logic seems to be that if economic conditions get worse after passage, they will not be blamed. In order for this to make sense one has to believe that Republican ideology, from Reagan to Bush II, was not, in fact, the prime cause of the breakdown of capitalism. Deregulation, privatization, globalization, trickle-down supply side theories, eliminating social programs,under-funding regulatory agencies, ignoring science and the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act (sponsored by three Republican ideologues), have defined the free market theories of this party. They decry spending for anything other than war, and theorize that the lower the tax rates, the more income generated, ergo more taxes paid. They ignore tax inequity. The blatant fact that all these theories have been thrown into disrepute (especially at the Davos conference) seems to make no diffference. They will hold to the fantasies of their own creation.

Why is President-Elect Obama silent on the genocide taking place in Gaza?

I didn't vote for him to turn his back on the Palestinians, while silently condoning the atrocities of the Israel state.

Please put pressure on Obama to speak up against the genocide being committed by Israel on the Palestinian people.

This is not the way to begin his "Change You Can Believe In" Administration.

I think that Congress should pass, and the President should sign,a law that states that there will be no increases in government spending, borrowing, salaries, pensions, entitlements, and foreign aid until the national [government] debt is completely paid off. We need to replace ''our'' deficit economy with a surplus economy. If we don't our grandchildren will be really upset with us for leaving them with trillions and trillions of dollars of debt.

How many more civilian men, women, and children will be killed by Israel before the U.S. government tells them to stop. I believe in self-defense, and it is stupid for Hamas (or any other group) to attack Israel with ''homemade'' weapons, but this collective punishment is wrong.

Even before 9/11, Israel considered assassinations, renditions, torture, and collective punishment to be acceptable government actions. They also have chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. If any other country did the things that Israel has done in the past, ''our'' federal government would condemn their actions, and possibly cut off their foreign aid ($3-5 billion a year for decades).

The federal government needs to institute a standardized foreign policy. They should treat all foreign countries (Israel/Palestine, China/Taiwan, England/Russia, etc.) by the same standards. We must not forget that 9/11 happened because of our government's multi-standard foreign policy. Our country should respect and encourage the human rights and civil liberties of our enemies as well as our friends.

Is the recent a sudden snowy weather a sign for the better?

Some cultures believe that snow is sign of coming prosperity and a fresh start. When it snowed early this year in Baghdad, some speculated that the snow was a sign of peace. After years of the climate growing warmer, record natural disasters, wars, terrorism, and bad economic times, we are all ready for a change for the better.

Well, it seems like since Obama's elections good things are already beginning to happen. The oceans are getting cooler, scientists say; the record snowy weather across America, especially in New Orleans, and other things, could be a signal that prosperity is in air. All this may just be a coincidence, but it is worth giving a thought or two. When Bill Clinton was Elected in ’92 and began his Presidency in ’93, we had the "Winter Storm of 93" that paralyzed the South and other regions with record snow fall. The Bill Clinton Presidency was a time of peace and prosperity for America. Regardless of what you think about President Bill Clinton, many of us remember that 1993-2000 were great years for America. Could history repeat it self with the election of Obama? Only time will tell for sure!

To the far left-leaning Democrats that are upset with Obama for inviting Rick Warren to say a Prayer at his inauguration: learn to forgive, guys. Obama has given people who said bad things about him, didn't endorse him, didn't vote for him, and even said he was not ready to be President a place beside him in his cabinet. If Obama is willing to appoint people to his administration that he has not always agreed with, why can't you all just let Pastor Warren say a prayer, even though you don't agree with him on some issues? That is why Obama won red states that no Democrat has won in 40 or 50 years—because he reached out to those who don't always agree with him. That is something that the far left and the far right need to adopt as one of their ways of handling the business of government. Lincoln came under fire for trying to unite the North and the South. Obama is coming under fire for trying to unite Democrats and Republicans. Yet a strong America must be a united America. A house divided cannot stand!

One change we all need is to not let things we disagree on cause us to overlook the fact that we are all Americans, we are all God's creations, and we all must learn to work together.

Let it snow, let it snow!

I have some advice for the President. If the shoe fits, wear it.

On January 20, President-elect Obama will finally have the opportunity to bring the change he has promised by signing an Executive Order that bans torture and cruelty.

In doing so, he would end the ambiguity clouding U.S. interrogation policy and send a clear message to all Americans that torture and ill-treatment of detainees will not be tolerated. Immediate presidential action would also signal to the rest of the world that the U.S. is making a clear break with the mistakes of the recent past.

The National Religious Campaign against Torture, Evangelicals for Human Rights and the Center for Victims of Torture have crafted a Declaration of Principles that calls for a Presidential Executive Order ending the use of torture and cruelty. This Executive Order would provide the basis for a new standard for U.S. interrogation policy that is both effective and lawful—a standard that will allow us to defend our country from terrorists while preserving our shared American values. The Declaration has the support of a broad bipartisan coalition of over two-hundred American leaders—including three former Secretaries of Defense, three former Secretaries of State, four former National Security Advisors, and numerous religious leaders.

You can help ensure that President-elect Obama knows that the American people will support him if he strengthens our security and restores our adherence to our values by instituting an interrogation policy based on a commitment to the rule of law. Please visit www.campaigntobantorture.org and join your voice to the call to end to torture.

Quite a few years ago, I was urged to take an early retirement. I was a skilled trades worker at Chrysler, a die model builder. Since that time I witnessed most of my coworkers being shuffled out by retirement programs or attrition. The apprentice program came to a halt.

I’ve been haunted over the years by the question, where will the skills go? With all the American skilled tradesmen retired out, getting too old to return to work and dying, who will be there in emergency situations? I was assured that the tradesmen were relocating into the job shops, but they are becoming fewer in number.

The answer is obvious: The trades are thriving in Europe and Asia. Our skills have been taught to the rest of the world while we busy ourselves with more important things like counting what’s left of our retirement funds and stock investments. Manufacturing machinery, as well as our talent, has been sold, at discount prices, all around the world, while we deprive ourselves. We buy imports from every market (not only automobiles) because they are cheaper. We give tax breaks to all in the free marketplace....

Soon, if we get into a confrontation with some other world power, they will have the capacity to manufacture ships and planes and tanks and bombs at an alarming rate, while we are scrambling to figure out how we can re-arm ourselves. Historically, the auto industry would change over in an instant to become the greatest arms producer on earth. But we are selling that industry out. If we allow the American auto industry to die, we become vulnerable to attacks from any scatterbrained dictator in the world.

The first step to remedy the problem is to help American auto manufacturing as much as possible with government aid. The next step is just as important; that is, to begin putting taxes on imports which will be, at minimum, at the same rate that other countries tax our exports. Then restore the apprenticeship programs so we can remuscle our manufacturing capacity.

Pulling together now means putting the United States of American, as a country, ahead of everybody else. We must put ourselves before Europe, or Asia, or any import business, or any individual, whether they be foreign or American. This country must come first if we are to survive.

For two decades, the "big three" American auto makers have been making a fortune building and selling gas-guzzling SUVs while Toyota and Honda were developing energy-efficient, well-designed, long-lasting cars. The U.S. automakers were able to profit so mightily because their SUVs were exempted from the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards, due to their lobbying of Congress. Now the cry-babies want a bailout? I say, "Heck NO." Let these companies wither or get bought up by companies who know how to make good and useful cars for the 21st century.