Glen Ford, the executive editor of the Black Agenda Report, just added an exclamation point to our own agenda. He began his February 25th article with the question, “How Can U.S. Recover Without Manufacturing Capacity?”… and he followed up with the simple fact that, “You can’t put people to work in American factories that don’t exist.”

Mr. Ford writes. “The strength of the federal economic stimulus package is seriously diluted by the fact that many of the manufactured goods that will be purchased for the attempted recovery must be imported from outside the United States. America simply does not make lots of things, anymore. That means many billions of dollars that folks assumed would go towards fueling an American economic comeback, will instead provide work and paychecks to employees in other countries, that still have manufacturing bases …

“The United States’ lack of manufacturing capacity makes it even less likely that anything resembling a lasting recovery can emerge from President Obama’s approach to the economic crisis. The infrastructure projects that are supposed to be central to the recovery scheme are only valued at $ 150 billion – which is not much of a jolt, especially when much of what will have to be bought is only available in other countries, made by foreign workers.

“Barack Obama has put a huge emphasis on building a green economy. However, according to the New York Times, most of the sources of solar panels and wind machines are located in Europe and Asia. There can be no green economy without a mass transit makeover of the United States, but the U.S. hasn’t made subway and light rail cars in many years. They’d have to be imported. Every product that must be imported for the infrastructure project means a watering down of the stimulus impact of the dollars spent. You can’t put people to work in American factories that don’t exist.

“A true national recovery effort would mean re-industrialization, on a grand scale and a green model, through massive direct federal creation of state-owned industries independent of the finance capitalists who murdered American manufacturing and then blew up their own businesses on Wall Street. But this is already nearly impossible, since President Obama is committed to saving the banking class through unlimited infusions of public money, and then allowing these reborn zombies to resume their roles as lords of development.

“The bankster parasites have neither the capacity nor the intention to build anything other than mountains of debt for the rest of us. Therefore, Obama’s partnership with them spells doom for national recovery.

“Like Billy Preston said, ‘Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’. The U.S. cannot create the conditions for economic health without rebuilding a manufacturing capacity. And the remnants of Wall Street have nothing to contribute to an economic recovery but an infinite capacity to steal.”

[Mr. Ford appears to be one of the very few who acknowledge the severity of this depression.]