"Our entire community is tied to this industry," Kokomo, IN minister Edward Vasicek said about the auto business in yesterday's USA Today. "If those plants close, you might as well plow everything over and return to farmland. What if even one of them fails? Could we survive?"
The case of Newton, Iowa offers hope. People there watched the washing machine manufacturing business dry up only to welcome wind turbine production.
“Life’s not over,” Arie Versendaal told the NY Times in November 2008. “For 35 years, I pounded my body to the ground. Now, I feel like I’m doing something beneficial for mankind and the United States. We’ve got to get used to depending on ourselves instead of something else, and wind is free. The wind is blowing out there for anybody to use.”
