The prolonged death-struggle of the U.S. textile industry

Now that the U.S. Textile industry is getting renewed protection ("safeguards", in Orwellian newspeak) from the Bush administration it’s time to take an historical view. Indeed, it seems that the destruction of the American textile industry by foreign trade is going on for decades, or so they say:

- 1948: "Six more months...would bring an almost complete collapse of the textile industry (in the U.S.)."
- 1955: "The textile industry...faces losing odds in its struggle to keep mills running."
- 1961: "The collapse which the industry had been predicting to our Government for several years arrived with a bang."
- 1961: "Unless immediate relief is provided, the domestic textile industry will be destroyed by foreign textile imports."
- 1970: "We are going out of business, and fast. The Mills bill (a textile quota bill) is the only thing that is going to save us..."
- 1985: "If we do not act now to curb imports, in five years our entire industry...will simply cease to exist."
- 1985: "Well, this is the last gasp of the industry."
- 1990: "If the current trend continues...at the turn of the century the U.S. Textile industry will go the way of the dinosaurs-and extinct species."

The morons and cowards that said all this, are politicians of both parties and captains of industry. As captains of industry they are supposed to take risks and relish some foreign competition. Instead they are cry-babies turning to the government to safeguard them from imports.
The genius of American capitalism is not found in the textile industry!