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The ' usual suspects ' issue: Lessons from World War II Morocco about downsizing in the new millennium
Posted by: William Amlong
June 02, 2008

"Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects."

- Capt. Renault in Casablanca (Warner Bros. Pictures 1942)

"There are no Jews, only Moroccans."

- King Mohammed V to the Vichy French governor

There were two views of how to run Morocco during World War II. There are two views about how to approach necessary downsizing in the current economic climate.

Now, as then, one is right, one is not.

Times were tough for the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy French in Casablanca, the Moroccan capital, when someone from the Resistance shot the oppressive German officer. So, what to do?  Easy. Mistreat "the usual suspects," i.e., those whom the Vichy French/Nazis did not like to begin with.

Times are tough now for American businesses. And those workers who may have generally walked around the office or the factory with a vague sense that there historically had been bulls eyes on their backs may be experiencing heightened anxiety. As people from the 1960s anti-war movement used to say...

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