Michael Moore, Soothsayer or out and out clueless?

Posted on June 1st, 2009 by Mark.
Categories: Editorials, News.

You could be moved to tears reading Michael Moore’s account of GM’s demise and the ruination of his home town of Flynt.  Woe are the autoworkers and the families of Michigan.  Who could have seen this coming?  Nevermind that twenty years ago Michael Moore created “Roger and Me” a “documentary” about the demise of none other than Flynt Michigan.  Did Mike think that there was going to be some kind of a robust BOOM in Flynt?  Did he not garner from his own film that Flynt was a town in ruins?  Apparently not.

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?

I don’t know Mike.  Maybe after 20 years of watching my town be flat busted, I’d have moved myself and my family out of there and followed the 40% of the people that were REALISTS.  Oh but hey, what am I saying?  The people themselves have nothing to do with their lives, the blame rests solely with the heartless corporations… namely, GM.

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.

Yes, kill GM.  Make it something tangible.  Drive that stake into the heart of the beast!  Make it into a scapegoat for all of the “misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction” that has befallen people that worked for the auto giant.  Nevermind that GM has sustained generations.  Nothing good ever came out of GM.  It just used people up, right Mike?  Nevermind that GM buried itself in legacy costs that rendered it uncompetetive.  I know, with proper management things would have been different.  Of course that’s easy to say, seeing as we never got to witness the alternative… that is until now.  Now we’ll see what liberal politicians know about running a couple of auto companies.  I’m sure Ford, Toyota, Honda and Nissan are quaking in their boots.  Since Obama hasn’t yet levitated, perhaps he can make a car that does?

In the end, Moore ends up stating that he saw this all coming 20 years ago… I wish he’d make up his mind.  First it’s all GM’s fault that the people of Flynt are a tattered remnants of drug addled, booze addicted, wife beaters… and now he says in essence, I told you so?!  So people that have been living in Flynt for the last 20 years are still VICTIMS?  When do people have to take responsibility for themselves in Mr. Moore’s world?  Is ten years enough?  No.  Fifteen?  Nah.  Twenty?  Doesn’t seem so.  In Moore’s world, there are only hapless dupes, evil corporations and juggernaut bureacracies. 

Unfortunately, it’s more government that Mr. Moore seems to want.  Nevermind that they’ve proved to be as inept as any corporation.  He runs through a littany of “suggestions” that he feels should be considered given that he foresaw all of this… uh huh.  Most of Mr. Moore’s suggestions seem to revolve around mass transit.  Gee, just what free wheeling Americans want… to be bogged down on buses and trains.  Yes, I’m sure that the people will be flocking to these transit options.  Nevermind that in South Florida, Tri-Rail is nearly bankrupt.  Ah, but Mike has this covered.  See you get people out of their cars by TAXING THE HECK OUT OF GAS!  Gee, there’s another novel idea… eh?  Who else has spewed the old “tax it” line when it comes to gas?  Gore, Kerry, the list of liberals intent on making the freedom of personal transport extinct in this country goes on, and on, and on.  We should all be living in cities.  We should all be crowded together like cattle.  Leave the suburbs and the countryside to the animals, or the wealthy… like Mr. Moore.  That’s what so irksome about what he suggests.  This is the kind of socialistic rambling that you expect from garden variety liberals these days.  We’re too dumb or too reckless to be FREE.

You can read Mr. Moore’s “letter” on his website.  While he makes good points about outsourcing and the inferior products that GM has been manufacturing it all gets buried beneath his folksy blame game.  It’s a shame that he can’t see that the relationship between GM and its workforce was unhealthy from both sides.  Maybe his “documentaries” would be more readily accepted as factual if he took into consideration both sides of the topics he explores.  Just a suggestion.

0 comments.