Who’s driving the ‘Drive It Home’ GM campaign?

Who’s driving the ‘Drive It Home’ GM campaign?

A friend from New York visited last week and on his drive in witnessed a lone person on an I-80 overpass holding a sign, which said “Save Lordstown.” The friend, a former union organizer asked me, “Where’s everybody else?”

I explained that the recent closing of the Lordstown plant and the “Drive It Home” campaign response is yet another example of the Mahoning Valley’s loss of the will to fight.

For years, the UAW local has been used as the public relations pimp and spokesperson by GM for the Lordstown plant. It was, as if “we will do your bidding but please don’t hurt us.”

Still, GM lowers the boom to raise the bottom line. And the bonding of the union with the (usually union-busting) inept chamber of commerce is even more depressing. The response to this arrogant move by GM is a softball game of yard signs and a lame media campaign. And then we have stooped to sending politicians, hat-in-hand, to beg GM to reconsider.

Where do we draw the line in the sand and stand up to a company that has abandoned the Valley and America? There are thousands of jobs affected by this decision – thus thousands of workers who could be mobilized. We need to use our industrial power now or lose it – finally and forever.

What happened to the Lordstown UAW union of the 1970s? That being the union which really knew how to fight and put up picket lines with vans and shotguns blocking the roads to Lordstown? Now the shotguns are pointed at us – each other, by GM and the current government. Let’s train our guns and power in the right direction.

Maybe it’s time for a couple thousand workers to Cruze on up to Detroit.

Rob Schuler, Youngstown

‘Stand Your Ground’ is the law in state of Ohio

I was overwhelmed to see the Ohio Legislature overrode former Gov. John Kasich’s veto of the “Stand Your Ground” bill.

We here in Ohio can now move forward on better protection for gun owners. The right to own a firearm is a right that we should hold in highest regard. It is a right that some people out there would like to take away from us.

Our support of our Second Amendment rights is critical to keep this right from being lost. We as a nation need to support sensible gun legislation, but this must hold the safety of our citizens first and foremost.

“Stand Your Ground” is a step in the right direction.

Jim Eidel, Beaver Twp.

Debt will catch up with US and will hurt SS, Medicare

I feel for the recent letter writer with ALS. I lost my older middle sister to kidney disease at age 48.

And I can assure the writer that Republicans will not take her Medicare away. The problem is two-thirds of the federal budget is money like that, and we do not have it. We’re like $20 trillion in debt.

What happens when it collapses when the world is broke? Chaos, anarchy similar to the Middle East. We will then have no Social Security, no Medicare and no country.

Ken Seeds, Boardman