Get a jump

on the competition

As a U.S. taxpayer, I now own GM. Being in charge carries an obligation to present a plan that assures that my company becomes profitable as soon as possible.

I hereby mandate that we introduce our 2012 models before the end of this year. Meanwhile, other manufacturers will be showing only their 2010 cars. Why would anyone buy from them when they can get a future model from us?

Les Waas

Huntingdon Valley

Weapons, but

no manufacturing

John Nichols dates the decline of the United States auto industry to the Bush and Clinton administrations, when the decline had led to a serious loss of market share ("Not a way to revitalize the U.S. auto industry," Wednesday).

In fact, the de-industrialization of the United States economy dates much earlier, to the Nixon administration, when the continuation of the Vietnam War redirected industrial policy away from consumer goods and into weapons technology.

Dwight Eisenhower warned us about the rise of the military-industrial complex - and the best and the brightest ignored him. Now we have great weapons systems, and a bankrupt manufacturing industry.

Ben Burrows

Elkins Park

How can there be

common ground?

Re: " 'Pro-life,' yet cheering death," Tuesday:

Your editorial ends with the statement that "common ground will never be their goal," they being the pro-life movement.

Compromise is part of the reason this country works. But where would the common ground be here? What specifically can be compromised?

A person is either alive, or he or she is dead.

Ken Kelly

West Chester

Don't call it


A headline with Sunday's editorial "Troubled unions" notes that Pennsylvania "soon may be another battleground over an issue that confounds much of the country: Same-sex marriages."

The editorial ends with this sentence: "Finding the best way to provide all the benefits of marriage to gay couples without allowing them to marry remains elusive."

No wonder, since gay marriage does indeed confound and confuse normal sensibilities. On its very face, gay marriage is different from traditional marriage and should, to avoid confusion, be given a different name.

Calling both marriage will not make them the same.

Frank Cristinzio


Improve elections

for union choice

Neither the present election system nor the proposed card-check arrangement provides a level playing field for determining if employees wish to be represented by a union. Card checks do not permit employers to tell their side of the story. Present election arrangements give the employer unfair access to a captive audience.

The simplest change that would help level the field is to improve the election procedure. Require early elections and give the unions reasonable access to employees on parking lots and in front of the plant.

Walter J. Gershenfeld


Penna. needs

more prisons

Re: "Police deaths prompt call for parole changes," Tuesday:

"It's not feel-good legislation," says State Police Commissioner Frank Pawlowski, referring to the bill introduced by state Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Phila.) that would end early parole for repeat offenders.

If it's not, then what else could you call it if our existing prisons are currently overcrowded and prisoners are let out early because we do not have the means to house them?

If Boyle were truly serious and not simply grandstanding for votes, he would be introducing bills to construct more and larger prisons to confine these repeat predators.

John Towarnicki