[E-rundbrief] Info 835 - Michael Moore: Goodbye, GM

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 835 - Michael Moore (USA): Goodbye, GM. (Ein zorniger 
Ausblick aus der "GM-Stadt" Flint, Michigan).

Bad Ischl, 1.6.2009

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

================================================

Goodbye, GM

by Michael Moore

June 1, 2009

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General 
Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made 
it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by 
friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to 
them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the 
city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in 
a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state 
of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned 
obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after 
a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has 
now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the 
public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they 
could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that 
wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought 
environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored 
the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the 
gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing 
its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good 
reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the 
corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, 
it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the 
lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring 
stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so 
many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to 
afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same 
way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the 
Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in 
its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not 
yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is 
not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and 
brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental 
debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, 
obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be 
told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I 
know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 
billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to 
save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill 
GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another 
matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and 
tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them 
when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative 
energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the 
best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and 
cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial 
capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the 
bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to 
implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the 
nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to 
warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power 
structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have 
been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere 
consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the 
President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must 
immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass 
transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint 
in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly 
lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no 
time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted 
against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate 
leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in 
Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler 
are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for 
global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call 
"cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers 
into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only 
lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against 
you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and 
they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is 
located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it 
bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who 
didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every 
forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling 
the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more 
decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil 
approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill 
and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert 
the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. 
Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of 
those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new 
modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work 
now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country 
in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its 
first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average 
speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They 
have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't 
even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go 
from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, 
is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines 
all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami 
to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be 
done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our 
large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. 
And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM 
plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric 
cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to 
the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have 
automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these 
next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to 
retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build 
windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We 
need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager 
and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or 
train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of 
gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or 
to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have 
built for them.

Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a 
smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or 
Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into 
a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to 
fill the car.

100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the 
world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new 
form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the 
internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We 
enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the 
back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the 
races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for 
the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a 
new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize 
this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and 
sad lemon.

Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed 
away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 
97 years.

So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this 
country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint at aol.com
MichaelMoore.com


-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
Spenden-Konto Nr. 0600-970305 (Blz. 20314) Sparkasse Bad Ischl,
Geschäftsstelle Pfandl
IBAN: AT922031400600970305 BIC: SKBIAT21XXX