I think this important piece by Sam Gindin deserves its own thread:
[url=http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet200.html][color=red]The Auto Crisis: Placing Our Own Alternative on the Table[/color][/url]
In the now 100 years since Henry Ford first introduced the assembly line (1908), only the Great Depression matches the present crisis in terms of its impact on the U.S.-based auto companies, their suppliers, and the workers and communities involved. At that time, workers responded with the breakthrough of industrial unionism. Can auto workers respond as creatively today? [...]The alternative raised here will, as any significant change must, throw up new problems around democracy, accountability and balancing difficult choices. And it needs to be emphasized that this alternative is less a ‘technical’ solution than a political one in the sense that it challenges the status quo of property rights in the name of democratic and social rights, and demands a cultural change in how we think of the economy and possibilities. It can't succeed, or even really begin, if it isn't part of the widest degree of discussion and debate from below, mobilization within and across unions, a clear identification of allies, and strategies for building new worker, union and community capacities.
Make sure to click on the link and read the stuff in between!