Try finding an American Flag that wasn’t made in China

I left that line on Buffalo Geek’s blog while reading comments.

I made a second comment:

To Jim, how is loss of America jobs to China & Mexico helping us here? Tell me how a middle age hard working man is supposed to support his family when one morning he wakes up, goes to work and finds his manufacturing job has been shut down over night and moved to Mexico?

In the mean time America children are playing with toys tainted with lead-based paint.

I went to the Town Hall meeting at “the Church” and I listened to what was being said. I looked back on living my entire life in Buffalo, NY and I remembered how much industry & manufacturing we have lost. I cheered when John Ratzenberger talked to the audience about questioning our politicians on such losses of American jobs.

In my comment, I asked of one man losing his American job but it probably covered over 1,000 men or women in Western New York in recent years. I asked on the principle of “the American Dream” and how one day it’s all cut short… forcing the-working-class-poor into the servicing and sales industries. The tech industries, the medical, the lawyers, the government vs. the factories & manufacturing of American made goods that Buffalo, Erie County, Western New York once had. In 6 year’s time, New York lost nearly 200,000 manufaturing jobs. I bet everyone is or knows someone of that statistic.

There is nothing wrong with working a service job though. I work in customer service/sales, part-time minimum wage and I’m doing all right in supporting my family, but for how long I wonder.

To the commenter on Geek’s blog who said: “I’m getting very frustrated with the whole “decline of America’s manufacturing base” idea.” Take a ride down in Riverside, Blackrock or the east side of Buffalo and look at the abandoned buildings that were once American manufacturing. That’s where the real frustrations are for Western New Yorkers.

This loss of manufacturing is an epidemic of which will only get worse for the next generation of Americans that our children are now growing up in. What’s their future going to be like for the next 50 years if we can’t (or won’t) show them the way?

For my readership, take a few minutes to browse these links

AmericanManufacturing.org

ManufactureThis.org

AmericansWorking.com

And together we can help “Keep it Made in America”