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Comments
Hide the following 15 comments
Good ridance
16.04.2005 19:21
Good Ridance. As for those who worked for Rover, well they were just part of the problem and deserved what they got.
Planet
Planet you are a complete tosser!
16.04.2005 22:14
their lively hoods scumbag because you deserve to die!
RIP MG Rover!
Death Knell!
cars for the affluent
16.04.2005 23:37
As for the workers ... more unemployment more resentment ... Wake the fuck up!!!
Does capitalism really work in your favour??
Sod 'em all
.....
17.04.2005 10:52
Guido
agree with planet
17.04.2005 13:34
1 solution...
shutting the car plant
17.04.2005 14:06
it's right that to combat free market globalisation localities (countries or regions) should try very hard to create local economies with far less imports and far more homemade stuff. this might mean uk car production for uk car buyers or uk vegetables for uk tables. but on it's own flag waving nationalism aimed at getting support for uk industry is not enough. this is exactly the kind of shopfloor nationalism which allowed a labour government to bomb iraq. we need a global movement not hampered by nationalisms but with strong local economies. shipping apples from new zealand to the uk while there are no uk apples to be found has to be a thing of the past.
- -
I'm afraid this is what happens if your cars arent reliable enough to compete
17.04.2005 16:44
If you assert these workers right to go on making cars, you have to explain how you will handle other peoples right not to buy cars they don't want..
If the government somehow forced people to buy these cars against their will, where would it end? Firstly, the workers would feel so safe, they would stop caring about quality at all, and Rover's reliability would get even worse.
Secondly, every other inadequate manufacturer and supplier would demand the same. Thirdly we would live in a total police state.
When I bought a car last year, I did think about buying Rover out of pity and sympathy, but when I looked at the figures (cost and reliability) the potential sacrifice of my own money and time was just to huge. I bought a Toyota, and it has been perfect.
It's sad, but without all the rest of us losing our freedoms, bad manufacturers just have to die.
What sort of cars did communist Soviet Union come up with? Ask yourself !
sad but wise
Occupy or die
18.04.2005 11:09
It is however crucial that you seize back the initiative right now, or it will be gone forever. Working people can only achieve self respect by taking control of their own destiny. Go to the Indymedia Argentina website, and see what workers are doing there in a very similar situation to your own. Be inspired. Link up to swap ideas. Find out how to occupy and run your own business. Take your own company decisions, collectively. Listen to capitalism's excluded voices, and people will come to you to help out with specialist skills. Change the company name to something you decide between yourselves. Push for more environmentally friendly designs, and build up a new customer base through solidarity. Find out how to run things yourselves, without bosses or government's big brother. If it can be done in Argentina, it can be done anywhere.
First things first... occupy, and the rest will follow as a natural course!
Durutti
Occupy what ?
18.04.2005 14:08
Face it - Rover is dead.
Car Buyer
disappointed with comments, lack of interest
18.04.2005 14:34
People, we're talking about thousands of badly-paid workers and their families and communities here. If we show them no sympathy or solidarity because we're too pure in our anti-car ideology or whatever, then why on earth should they listen to us about anything ever?
Rover could be renationalised and refitted to make more useful products. Livelihoods and communities could be saved. The alternative is ripping the heart out of the West Midlands just like closing the mines did to Yorkshire and Wales. We should demand the government put people before profit.
At least Socialist Worker seem to be on the case.
type
Where's the £400 million gone
18.04.2005 14:39
sid
The Better Option
18.04.2005 16:25
Resist, Occupy, Live!
Rebel W
Rebel W
What do you expect?
18.04.2005 16:33
trade unionist
let me try to get this clear
18.04.2005 21:27
If workers demand the right to keep making inferior products people don't want, we'll have to stop people buying better stuff from elsewhere, and force them.
Presumably by becoming "little-englanders" and closing the border to stuff made by non-british workers.
Sort of - "if british people can only make crap cars, then british people only deserve to buy crap cars"
So now we do this for everything. Close the borders, turn our face away from workers everywhere else. Buy british by law and by force, and set up a huge heavy handed police state to stamp out smuggling of non-british goods.
Of course, all the other countries retaliate. So we are isolated. We only buy what we can make. We only make what we ourselves can buy. And even if we make it through, all our brothers in Africa are left to rot.
What problem have we solved? The layoffs and loss of jobs would be gigantic - half the damn workforce at least.
Everybody making exports. And we'd have to redirect and retrain and re-equipp millions to make the stuff we used to import.
I really do wish people would think things through.
Or maybe their politics are such that their target could only be reached by passing through 20 years of starvation and death, with the collapse of all our institutions like hospitals and old peoples homes. With no certainty of arriving safely anywhere else but in war-lord territory.
If that is what they want then why not say so clearly, so we all understand what the sacrifice, what the goal, and what the danger.
You know, when my Dad was a committed left-winger years ago, the whole damn movement took pride in reading, learning, and rational debate and self improvement. Lots of whats on indymedia is babyish, uninformed emotion. He would be appalled.
sad but wise
they need jobs and our solidarity
19.04.2005 15:39
But just to re-iterate: Rover could be re-nationalised and re-fitted to make useful products - jobs, livelihoods and communities could be saved at the same time as addressing environmental and social concerns. And yes, not just Rover, this could and should happen across the board, an economy that puts people before profit.
And the road from here to there has to start with showing solidarity for people in desparate situations like this.
type