After performing a victory dance through the streets of downtown Detroit, which onlookers tell us was quite the sight to see, Mikey sat down to write a list of suggestions he’s got for what to do with the place. Do we sense someone angling for a ride in Fritz Henderson’s sidecar?
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.
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.
Read all of Big M’s tips here.
Good-bye GM… [Michael Moore via Clusterstock]
When you’r right, you’r right.
Like he would fit in a sidecar. Good one.
“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.”
WHO THE FUCK DID THIS MAN MAKE-OUT WITH!?!?!?!?
Sentence needs fixed.
Detroit, which onlookers tell us what quite the sight to see, Mikey sat down to write a list of suggestions he’s got for what to do with the place
-busy DB volunteer editor
yikes. If they actually did this it would be a trane wreck…. yuk yuk yuk.
moore is a delusional douchebag — automobiles are “a million daggers pointed at mother nature’s heart” – what a purple-prose-writing-junk-science- spouting fat supercilious dicknozzle.
Mike should… what’s the preferred terminology around here? Oh, yeah – he should eat a dick.
Sure there’s more than a little polemic here, but also a good point. America is built on the premise of cheep gasoline. It would collapse if gas got really expensive or if supply was constricted. Isn’t that why we went to war in Iraq? Very different situation than the rest of the world, where people live more clustered, cars are small, gas is taxed and public transit works. Its unrealistic to assume that cheep gas will continue forever. Much better to consider and plan for alternatives.
Porker, does that statement stand in place of you actually being able to formulate a single counter argument of merit?
MAybe if GM wasnt held hostage by the UAW they would still be around
The underlying premise isn’t all that bad – convert some of GM’s capacity into alternative energy ventures. Possibly investing in high speed rail might be a good idea, although certain members of congress who appear on this site from time to time would probably attach a buy American provision somewhere along the way and botch the entire thing up. If a few of those ideas were taken from him, without actually getting him involved, it might not be that bad of a thing.
11 Management negotiated and signed those contracts. Your blame is misplaced. I guess it was the UAW as well that designed and marketed products no one wants.
Thats the problem 13, the UAW contracts are a joke but what are you going to do? Thats why I used the term “held hostage: you douche. They were hemorrhaging cash and everyone who worked there was allowed up to 6 days out without even calling in.
Actually a pretty reasonable proposal – except for the whole central planning aspect of mass rail transit. Certainly better than the default plan – which is to continue building Caddys and Chevys at lower cost…
12 Another problem with high speed rail is that Congress will insist on it being where it suits them, not where its most useful.
@10: Michael Moore could tell me that the sky was blue, and I’d still suggest he eat a dick.
He’s a reactionary idiot, a self promoter who fans the flames of issues more complex than he cares to understand, and then profits from it.
He’s unworthy of response.
Comment #9 above, perhaps from you?, represents an opinion presented in a manner that I take no issue with. The presentation, that is – I don’t wholly agree with the thought that I should be forced to live in an expensive sty like NYC, just to save on fuel expense. But I could have an intelligent conversation about that opinion.
It’s probably too late but just in case he needs a refresher:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes
The obvious solution is to invade an oil-rich country, increase gasoline supplies and make it cheaper to drive big American cars. Detroit could make a big comeback….
Hang on… we did that already? Iraq? Hmm…. well… never mind…
17 NY is not a sty, but it certainly is expensive. Some of that is because its an island, with supply of most things constrained while demand is unconstrained (that being the result of it being not a sty, but instead an interesting place to live and a great place to make a living). But also because its forced to export so many tax dollars to places you prefer (you’re not from Alaska are you – that’s the worst offender) and to a lesser extent because highways are subsidized significantly but public transit much less so.
The man already takes up enough space…why waste your space with this crap here?
17 To kick off that intelligent conversation, you should note that the WSJ reported that you could justify a $2 per gallon gas tax based on the military costs alone of defending our oil supplies. Put another way: fine, enjoy your cul de sac lifestyle, but you’re delusional if you feel you’re paying for it, rather than all of us.
@20 – no, I’m not from Alaska, and no, I don’t get any of your tax dollars.
“Sty” in this case isn’t meant to imply unclean or vile. I love to visit NY, and perhaps in my 20s, would have enjoyed living there. Now? Not so much.
Look at it this way – My house could hold 4 times the people who live in it, quite feasibly. Yet I can’t think of a reason on earth why I’d do that, just to save on fuel costs. Intelligent people can of course disagree with my preference for elbow room and choice about who my neighbors are, and how close they can crowd me.
Agree with 12 – the basic premise is most intelligent idea this guy has had in a while. But his polarizing approach is pretty tough to take.
The thing that I hope somebody considers is that in fact GM went under because they did exactly what he was prodding them to do in the first place – run an unpforitable organization and literally attempt to keep entire towns alive by way of union welfare. Further, he mocks Reagan in this movie but in fact Reagan was entirely right by suggesting auto workers get re trained into a new economic reality. Whoever called him delusional may be right but really what he does is take advantage of the fact that people don’t even remember what his movie was trying to say. The guy is an absolute menace, a narcissist with very limited intellect who just happens to have an amazing talent as a propagandist. That we pay any attention to him is our own fault.
Agree with #12 – the basic premise he spelled out has some merit. But fat, polarizing, annoying, and whiny is no way to go through life.
He is a despicable person.. sorry, I just spit on that word..
23 The issue is that the exurban lifestyle requires that gas be priced at artificially low levels. Without subsidies that lifestyle stops being practical. No one is arguing against free choice. But if you want that life, pay for it yourself.
The answer once again is war. Venezuela and Iran have sh*tloads of the black bubbly. Retool the GM facilities to build war machinery and put these UAW d*ckwads back to real work.
Do tell: How would I go about “pay(ing) for it myself”?
If it’s subsidies we’re talking about, we can’t just pick that one. I’d happily see whatever immeasurable (I don’t mean small, I just mean impossible to measure) subsidy I enjoy disappear if we were also to dispense with the absurd pretenses (and associated societal costs) that corn-based ethanol is as good as oil, that man controls the environment, or that finance is the most important industry in the US, worthy of the highest pay.
“The things we call “cars” may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature.”
Well, you could always ride a bike. Haha, Michael Moore trying to ride a bicycle, that would be a great movie. Comedy Gold.
That wasnt’ Michael Moore. It was a Michael Moore look-a-like.
@28
Surely there are plenty of “marginal” people living the “exuberant” suburban dream, but there are also plenty of people who are relatively unaffected by a $2/gal gas tax, for example.
He’s right.
You’re wrong.
Stopping being sooo bitter.
@MichaelMoore – if you think the UAW is going to allow its members to build anything other than the cars for which they were hired to build, you are sadly mistaken. Turbines? Solar panels? Never going to happen with the UAW. They’re going to build cars, dammit! Who gives a fuck what the country might want. What matters is building cars and protecting union jobs.
“Based on my track record” of one (potentially) good call that took 20 years? Up which sleeve do we laugh?
BTW @Porker, if you live in the USA outside NYC, you benefit from our tax $ + our industry, wake up.
“Based on my track record” of one call that took 20 years to come true?
Up which sleeve do we laugh?
BTW @Porker, if you live in the USA outside NYC, you benefit from our tax $ + our industry, wake up.
Anyone here ever cover the rails? No one goes from Denver to DC. Amtrak can’t even make the Boston-DC corridor profitable.
How many trillions in taxpayer bailout money did Michal Moore need again?
I’ll take the fat guy with a camera who probably smells like McD’s over any of you truly greedy, lazy fucks that drove the train over the cliff by failing to realize you were lending 6 houses worth of mortgage to a fucking mexican dishwasher.
I bet Michael Moore does more due diligence for a single scene than you lazy greedy bastards do in a whole yield-sniffing career.
I got a few trillion in useless level 3 assets still sitting on bank balance sheets (with the rest hidden under TARP) that proves me right.
But really, who, exactly, is the menace here? Oh yeah, the fat guy with the camera.
Do ANY OF YOU FUCKS HAVE A SINGLE MIRROR TO LOOK INTO? So many assholes, so few pitchforks.
@8 – I think the preferred terminology here would be “Moore should get a job as my secretary, so I can pound him in the ass”.
@13 – Do a little research. When GM signed the first of those horrendous contracts back in the 70′s (including the death-spiral “30 and out” clause), they were under threat from the DoJ for anti-trust, and there were those in Congress who were seriously contemplating a forced breakup. A prolonged strike would have been a PR disaster for GM (who had over 50% market share at the time), and may have triggered that breakup. So, not because of market forces, but because of government suasion, GM made the decisions that eventually destroyed them. If you think they entered into those contracts “freely and voluntarily”, I’ll bet you also think no one is ramping the Sp500.
The UAW is pretty much solely to blame for the fall of GM. Sorry, but it’s true.
KevinB – your first comment made me throw up in my mouth. Just a little.
@KevinB -
OK, I herey alter my comment, to read as as follows:
“Moore Should get a job as KevinB’s secretary, so he can pound him in the ass.”
Guest@37: I get it. NYC residents are special. Financial professionals in NYC doubly so.
Why? Because you say so. Thanks for clearing that up for me. We’re all in your debt.
38 You ever been to France? Paris and Paris airport to Aix, Lyon, Marseille, Grenoble in comfort and no time at all. Brussels in 1.5 hours. The German system just as good, as are certain city pairs in Spain. Even Italy – there its less clean and perfect, but nevertheless decent. Rail is a very smart way to travel when the distance is
@45/other rail nuts
politics? or the fact that the US is significantly larger than europe/japan and significantly less population dense. rail would not work here. its an idiotic, unprofitable idea. as has been pointed out, amtrak cannot make anything profitable; even with gov’t support.
last i checked a DC-NYC ticket on amtrak was more expensive than flying.
To those having had the unfortunate experience of actually sitting through a Michael Moore motion picture, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that he’s a d-bag of the utmost caliber with zero talent.
46 No one said that the US should be blanketed with rail – only certain city pairs. That said, I agree with you to some extent that it wont work here. The reason for that though is that govt policies beginning in the 1950s encouraged sprawl. Funding of interstate highway system, tax breaks for home ownership, development of suburbs, exurbs and above all cheep gas and lack of public transit subsidies. Europe is very different. Many centuries older than the US, yet urban policies result in a population that is clustered and a relatively pristine countryside. I hope, but am not so sure that the US way is sustainable. As mentioned above its totally dependent on cheep and plentiful energy, which is not a given.
37 here @Porker, guess I owe you an explanation.
Nobody’s special.
The flow of funds from NYC to the rest of the country doesn’t happen because I say so, it just happens. NYC buys stuff from all over the world, and we pay substantially more Federal taxes than we get back in Federal services, that’s all.
49 It seems like a good time to point out that the WSJ, when confronted with said fact and the unfavorable impact it has on the state tax situation in NY, which is something that it constantly rails about, chalks this up to income redistribution. And then goes onto blame liberals for same. Theres no winning with the WSJ. Realistically speaking, taxes wouldn’t be so high in the high tax states if they werent forced to bear so many of the burdens of the unwashed out in the provinces.
49 @50 I hear you.
We’re all in this together.