What’s good for General Motors is good for America

“What’s good for General Motors is good for America,” is a mis-quote from 1953 testimony given by Charles E. Wilson at his Congressional confirmation hearings to become Secretary of Defense in the Eisenhower administration. Wilson was defending his reluctance to sell millions of dollars of General Motors stock. When asked if he as Secretary of Defense could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered that he could not conceive of such a situation, “because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.”

The American economy in the Eisenhower 1950s was the envy of the world. Without significant global competition American corporations and workers prospered. America was the workshop of the world, and American exports were king.

No modern American corporate executive could make a statement like Wilson’s without irony. Between 2004 and 2009 American based multi-national corporations have cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States, while outsourcing 2.4 million jobs to their overseas operations.

General Electric’s chief executive Jeff Immelt (the head of the Obama administration’s, “jobs council”) acknowledges that the health and well being of a company such as GE is now less connected to the well being of the American economy. Immelt says, “I’m a GE leader first and foremost. At the same time…I work for an American company.”

In 2000 some 54 percent of GE employees worked in the United States. In 2010 about 46 percent of General Electric’s 287,000 employees worked in the United States. GE laid off 21,000 American workers and closed 20 factories between 2007 and 2009.

The company, led by Immelt, earned $14.2 billion in profits in 2010, but paid no Federal taxes because the bulk of those profits, some $9 billion, were offshore. The year 2010 was the second year in a row that GE paid no taxes. General Electric states that it “pays what it owes under the law.”


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Jumonville Glen: George Washington Starts a War

In 1754 the age old contest between Great Britain and France once again erupted into war. The so called Seven Years War was fought across several continents and the world’s oceans between the British and French, together with their European allies. In North America, the English colonies were locked in mortal combat with their age old enemy the French and their Indian allies. Some say that George Washington started the war at a place called Jumonville Glen in western Pennsylvania. The clip below explains.





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War and Taxes (1861-2011)

With the birth of the 21st century America entered the era of the “free war”. Despite urgent calls for a world wide War on Terror in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the American homeland, Americans continued to enjoy low tax rates. More than $1 trillion has been added to the national deficit by expenditures generated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first wars since the War of 1812 that have not been financed in part by new taxes.

There were three taxes instituted to pay for the Civil War. In the Spanish American War Congress levied a tax on certain luxury items. World War I was a “pay as you go” war. In World War II top income rates reached 94 % to pay for War. Congress passed new taxes in 1950 and 1951 to pay for the Korean War. During the Vietnam War Congress passed a ten percent surcharge, which meant 10 percent of owed income tax was added to the bill to pay for the war.


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Civilians and the First Battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861

On July 16, the great Union army, marched out of Washington City to meet the Confederates at Manassas Junction. On July 21, 1861, the two great armies grappled. By evening the lives of the people of Manassas had changed forever.

JUDITH CARTER HENRY OF “SPRING HILL”

Judith Carter was born at Pittsylvania in 1777 in the midst of the Revolutionary War. She was the daughter of Landon Carter, who inherited the plantation in direct descent from Robert “King” Carter, who from 1702-1732 managed to patent some 300,000 acres in Northern Virginia for himself and his children.

In 1801 Judith Carter married Dr. Isaac Henry, one of the first surgeons in the United States Navy. Dr. Henry established himself and his family on 333 acres purchased from the Pittsylvania estate. He called this estate “Spring Hill.” The doctor died in 1829 but the family continued living at Spring Hill.

On July 21, 1861 the eighty four year old, invalid Judith Henry lay in her bed, as the battle began around Pittsylvania, her childhood home. Shells from Union artillery began to fall around the widow’s house. Mrs. Henry’s two sons, shocked to find Union troops on their doorstep, decided something must be done to move their mother to safety. Mrs. Henry was unwilling to leave, but after several shells struck the house, the terrified woman gave in.

The two sons placed the old woman on a mattress and carried her out of the house, intending to carry her to the Reverend Compton’s house, which was about a mile away. The small party was quickly caught in the open, between two opposing armies engaged in a furious battle. Terrified and hysterical, the old woman begged piteously to be taken back to her own home. The three Henrys returned to the house, and Mrs. Henry was returned to her bed. She was only there a short time before a shell burst in the room where she lay. She was struck by five shell fragments and lived for several agonizing hours, dying about nightfall. Rosa Stokes, a young slave who had been caring for the old lady was wounded by the same shell that killed Mrs. Henry.

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The Massacre of General Edward Braddock

In 1755 war raged across the American frontier. The English colonies were locked in a death grip with the French and their Indian allies. In February, 1755, the English General Edward Braddock landed at the port of Alexandria, Virginia, with 1,000 British regulars. An additional seven hundred Virginia militia, in which George Washington served, joined the regulars. Braddock’s mission was to march on the French Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) and destroy the main French army. Braddock, trained in the parade ground tactics of Europe, anticipated a quick and glorious little campaign. He regarded the militia’s fear of the Indians as highly exaggerated.

General Braddock in Alexandria, Virginia

The Massacre of Genral Braddock

The Death of General Edward Braddock

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William Hull: History's Worst General?

At 10:00 A.M. on August 16, 1812, a white flag appeared over Fort Detroit. Despite the vehement protests of his officers and men, Brigadier General William Hull surrendered his command without a fight. The British captured an American army of 2,500, some thirty-three cannon, four hundred rounds of 24-pound shot, one hundred thousand cartridges, 2,500 rifles and bayonets, and a newly built 16-gun brig Adams.

Hull was subsequently exchanged for a high ranking British prisoner of war, only to face court-martial charges of treason, cowardice, neglect of duty and un-officer like conduct. During his court martial, Hull tried to shift blame for the debacle at Detroit to his officers and men, accusing the officers of conspiring against him and the men of cowardice. Hull argued that he could not engage in battle with such men who were obviously not up to the contest. Hull continued to assert, “I have done what my conscience directed. I have saved Detroit and the Territory from the horrors of an Indian massacre."

Ultimately, William Hull was found innocent of treason but guilty of the other charges and sentenced to be shot. The court recommended that the sentence be commuted because of his previous honorable service. President Madison commuted the death sentence. William Hull is the only American general to have ever been sentenced to death by a court-martial.

Hull was drummed out of the Army, the court-martial concluding, “The rolls of the army are to be no longer disgraced by having upon them the name of Brigadier General William Hull.” Hull spent the rest of his life blaming others for his own mistakes.



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George Armstrong Custer: Media Darling

George Armstrong Custer was no military novice in 1876 when he rode out to subdue the Sioux. Custer graduated from West Point in 1861, and distinguished himself in the American Civil War as a brave cavalry officer, being promoted to the rank of brevet brigadier general in 1863 and brevet major general in 1865. Custer’s adherents made much of the fact that he was a “boy general”, but such honors were fairly common during the Civil War. In fact two of Custer’s subordinate officers in the 1876 campaign, Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen had been given similar honors during the Civil War. Reno was made a brevet brigadier general in 1865 and, by the end of the war, Benteen had been recommended to receive the rank of brevet brigadier general.

Unlike many other brave soldiers, however, Custer had a knack for publicity. He frequently invited correspondents from leading newspapers to accompany his campaigns, and their reporting significantly enhanced his visibility and reputation. Custer put on quite a show for the press, sporting a flamboyant uniform and long hair worn in ringlets sprinkled with cinnamon-scented hair oil. In his manner of dress and command he was not unlike J.E.B. Stuart, the flamboyant commander of General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate cavalry. The North needed its’ own Stuart and Custer cast himself in the role of the North’s dashing cavalier.

While no one could question Custer’s personal bravery or flamboyance, his tactics were weak. His one basic tactic was to charge the enemy, wherever he might be, no matter how strong his position or how large his numbers. On the second day of the battle of Gettysburg, for example, Custer, without reconnaissance, attacked a force four times his size. Custer was personally cited for gallantry although his brigade suffered the highest loss of any Union cavalry brigade engaged at Gettysburg. Custer’s reputation was bought with the dead bodies of his men.

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