I guess in every person’s life they have special events that are embedded in their memory. Events that had such impact on them they could tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time of the event. For my Dad it was the day President Kennedy was assassinated. He told me that he was getting a haircut when he heard the news. It was on the TV that was playing in the barber shop. Everyone just “froze”, and listened to the reporter tell the sad story. He told me that every man in the barber shop had a tear in their eye, and all were mad because someone one had shot their president. It was the south and everyone voted Democrat. But that didn’t really matter. Because back then, the president was the leader of your country, America, and even if you didn’t vote for him, you respected him.

I guess the first real event that was seared in my memory was the day Elvis Presley died at Graceland. I remember it well. My family was in Daytona Beach Florida for a vacation, and my Dad and I were in a hotel inquiring about a room. My Dad didn’t like the price so we decided to leave and continue to look for a place to stay. We walked back to the car and found my mother crying profusely. My Dad asked her what was wrong, and for a while she was so upset she could not say. Finally she told us that the radio had reported Elvis had died. My Mom was a big fan. I still remember when Elvis came to town down in Georgia for a concert, and how my Mom, her best friend, and her best friend’s Mom stood for hours in a line to get a ticket. There was no Ticketmaster back then. If you wanted a ticket you stood in a line. They were like three teen age girls when it came to Elvis. He was the King.

I never was as big of an Elvis fan as my mother by any stretch of the imagination. I really did not understand the significance of him back then. He was just a singer to that 16 year old boy on vacation with his family in Daytona Beach. But as the years have come and gone I realize that he was much more. He was a person that became part of American history. A character that was larger than life. He was an American icon whose life will be remembered forever. He was an American legend. I guess you can say the same about General Motors. It is an American legend. But just as Elvis passed from us, so it seems this American business icon may also pass.

GM is a 101 year old company and was the world’s largest car manufacturer until Toyota eclipsed it in 2008. GM produces more than 9 million vehicles per year in 34 countries. It employs 234,500 people worldwide with 91,000 of those people employed here in the United States. It provides benefits to approximately 493,000 people on an annual basis. GM solicits business from 11,500 vendors and pays those vendors $50 billion per year for various parts and services. Yep, GM is a giant. It’s sad that this giant is slated to close 14 factories, shed 29,000 of its work force, and cut 2,400 dealerships. It has also been taken off the DOW index. We could debate the causes of GM’s current state of affairs and argue if the federal bailout should be given, and argue still if the bailout will save GM. But the sad truth is, a company as American as John Wayne is in jeopardy of becoming extinct. Will it make it? I hope so.

GM filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy this past week in an effort to save itself. It will re-appear as a more scaled down, profitable company on paper. It is projected to have approximately $7 billion less in structural cost in 2010 than it had in 2008. But the new GM will still need to sell about 2 million vehicles per year in America alone to be profitable. It has an uphill climb ahead to maintain its customer base, attract new buyers and fight off the other car manufacturers who will also be aggressive in the global vehicle market. As bankruptcy will help GM in many ways, it could also tarnish a buyer’s perception of GM and cast doubt on future stability. It is the classic case of “we will just have to wait and see what the future holds.”

GM’s problems are much more than a study of how a gargantuan business can fail. It communicates that the world as we know it is changing, and some of the things that were foundational pillars 50 years ago in America are now crumbling. Fixtures of Main Street America such as K-Mart, Sears, and now GM have become endangered species, along with some of our values and freedoms. The world is changing around us very quickly in so many ways. I can remember when a GM vehicle was the only car my Dad would buy or drive. But then again, I can remember when I said the Pledge of Allegiance and prayed every day before school began. Yep, the world is changing.

Elvis was reported to have bought over a hundred Cadillac’s in his lifetime with the first being a 1954 Series 60. I guess it’s a good thing that “The King” is not around to see this mess involving GM. He would probably get ulcers worrying about the future of his beloved Cadillac. I can see him wearing his white sequined jumpsuit sitting on the front porch of Graceland deep in thought. Wondering where in the world is he going to be able to buy a Cadillac if GM goes under. Right or wrong, that’s the way A.P. American sees it. Yeah baby!!!!!!!!!!

The Last Crusade By Paul Williams Friday, June 5, 2009 - Canada Free Press

Speaking at the University of Cairo, President Barack Hussein Obama said that Americans are indebted to Islam for the great contributions Muslims have made to the history and development of the United States. “I know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story,” Mr. Obama told the throng of unenlightened Muslims. “The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. . . And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States.” Mr. Obama went on to say: “They [Muslims] have fought in our wars. They have served in our government. They have stood for civil rights. They have started businesses. They have taught at our universities. They’ve excelled in our sports arenas. They’ve won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building and lit the Olympic torch. And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same holy Koran that one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, kept in his personal library.” No one at the Egyptian University or the international media took issue with the President’s bizarre interpretation of American history, Let’s set the record straight once and for all. Sorry, Barack Hussein, but there were no Muslims among the passengers on the Mayflower or the settlers at Jamestown. Muslims were conspicuously absent from the ranks of George Washington’s Army of the Revolution and played no role in the creation of the American republic - - save for the fact that the new country’s first declaration of war was against the forces of Islam in the form of the Barbary pirates.1 Despite popular folklore, few Muslims numbered among the 12 million black Africans who were shipped to the New World from the 17th to 19th centuries. The Muslims, in fact, were not the slaves but the slave traders. In a Herculean effort to materialize at least one Muslim living in America before the Civil War, Muslims in America, an Islamic website, point to the name of Mahomet, the great grandson of the founder of the Mohegan tribe, on a gravestone in Norwich, Connecticut. The name of this Native American, they argue, resembles that of the prophet, and, therefore, he must have been a convert to Islam. Surprisingly, there is no record of any Islamic American among the enlisted and conscripted forces of World War I, let alone among the blue and grey armies of the Civil War. Oh, yes, Jefferson did possess a copy of the Koran which Keith Allison, our first Muslim Congressman, used to make his oath of office. But what was Jefferson opinion of Islam? Did he believe the Muslim religion represented a salubrious influence in world affairs? Far from it. In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, then US ambassador to France, and John Adams, then US Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty with the Barbary Pirates based on Congress’ vote of funding. To the US Congress these two future Presidents later reported the reasons for the Muslims’ hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts. “...that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.” Thomas Jefferson had it right. Barak Hussein Obama the 44th President of this Christian based nation has it wrong.

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