I've never been for the Auto Industry Bailout's for many reasons, but the future of the environment was one of them. Continuing in the old tradition of gas guzzling cars is not going to help us in the long run, and an eventual end to our oil resources will ensure that the Auto Industry will need a bailout again, if not die completely.
I found this great article by someone I don't usually agree with, Micheal Moore. For personal reasons, he's a douche. Never paid a few editor friends of mine who worked with him on the Columbine movie. But aside from that, I just never like his glorification of tragedies.
Anyways, here's the article:
Goodbye GM.
In it he tackles some very good points about what the bailout should be used for. What I would like to discuss is the probability and logistics of the type of transition that Moore feels can be done. In other words, is it as easy as he says?
I don't know much about converting auto factories into other types of manufacturers. Nor do I know what the cost would be to us, the tax payers, if the change involves more than what the bailout can help with.
I'll quote his (9) "points of direction" for the Auto Makers and for the government bailout. I would like to know how easy would it be to make the transition that Moore speaks of.
quote:
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.
Also, given that these changes can take place with as little effort as he suggests, what are the odds that this is the direction that our government will go?
Furthermore, will we see a block of such a change by the Auto Industry lobbist and the Oil Industry lobbist?
Or will a conscience effort be made to change the way Americans travel?
- Oni
Petition to Bailout Comedy The Laugh Factory is imploring Congress to immediately fund what owner Jamie Masada calls an "Economic Cheer-Up." If Congress fails to act quickly, the Laugh Factory comedians are planning to march to Washington and plea to President Obama.
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