Bye, American

Have you noticed that there hasn't been many "Buy American" campaigns lately? Wonder why?

Here in North Carolina I've watched most of the textile plants close, throwing thousands out of work. Hanes Brands, located here, has been closing factories. Just south of me is Thomasville, who has been synonymous with furniture for decades. Even that town is seeing corporations close.

Other than York Barbells, have you seen any sporting equipment made in the U.S. in the last 10 - 15 years? How about electronics? About the only cars still made in the U.S. are Toyota, Honda and BMW. The Big Three (soon to be the Anemic Two) have outsourced to Canada and Mexico years ago.

Even our energy. Hell - even China and Cuba are drilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico, where we're not allowed to go. Laws passed back when Carter was President have prevented us from being energy-independent by making it illegal to drill for oil off the coast of our country. Even if we are allowed to drill, it won't do much good, since we can't refine the crude - no new refineries have been built in the last 30 years. Come to think of it, no new nuclear plants have been built in that time either.

This leaves us the choices of importing almost 90% of our oil, burning coal, or hydro electric (but the dams kill fish). Solar and wind are nice, but years away from being of any use.

In Australia, the government pays to convert your car to run on natural gas, and it's readily available at every gas station. What's our problem? We put catalytic converters on our cars so they can spew carbon dioxide. Good move.

Until we get serious about our energy and labor costs, you can continue to watch our nation go to the dogs - if they'll have it.