From: jesus475073@webtv.net   
      
   Goodbye, GM   
   By Michael Moore   
   June 1, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- 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.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)