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TechnoratiGM Must Re-Make the Mass Transit System it Murdered
Bail out General Motors? The people who murdered our mass transit system?
First let them remake what they destroyed.
GM responded to the 1970s gas crisis by handing over the American market to energy-efficient Toyota and Honda.
GM met the rise of the hybrids with "light trucks."
GM built a small electric car, leased a pilot fleet to consumers who loved it, and then forcibly confiscated and trashed them all.
GM now wants to market a $40,000 electric Volt that looks like a cross between a Hummer and a Cadillac and will do nothing to meet the Solartopian needs of a green-powered Earth.
For this alone, GM's managers should never be allowed to make another car, let alone take our tax money to stay in business.
But there is also a trillion-dollar skeleton in GM's closet.
This is the company that murdered our mass transit system.
The assertion comes from Bradford Snell, a government researcher whose definitive report damning GM has been a vehicular lightening rod since its 1974 debut. Its attackers and defenders are legion. But some facts are irrefutable:
In a 1922 memo that will live in infamy, GM President Alfred P. Sloan established a unit aimed at dumping electrified mass transit in favor of gas-burning cars, trucks and buses.
Just one American family in 10 then owned an automobile. Instead, we loved our 44,000 miles of passenger rail routes managed by 1,200 companies employing 300,000 Americans who ran 15 billion annual trips generating an income of $1 billion. According to Snell, "virtually every city and town in America of more than 2,500 people had its own electric rail system."
But GM lost $65 million in 1921. So Sloan enlisted Standard Oil (now Exxon), Philips Petroleum, glass and rubber companies and an army of financiers and politicians to kill mass transit.
The campaigns varied, as did the economic and technical health of many of the systems themselves. Some now argue that buses would have transcended many of the rail lines anyway. More likely, they would have hybridized and complemented each other.
But with a varied arsenal of political and financial subterfuges, GM helped gut the core of America's train and trolley systems. It was the murder of our rail systems that made our "love affair" with the car a tragedy of necessity.
In 1949 a complex federal prosecution for related crimes resulted in an anti-trust fine against GM of a whopping $5000. For years thereafter GM continued to bury electric rail systems by "bustituting" gas-fired vehicles.
Then came the interstates. After driving his Allied forces into Berlin on Hitler's Autobahn, Dwight Eisenhower brought home a passion for America's biggest public works project. Some 40,000 miles of vital eco-systems were eventually paved under.
In habitat destruction, oil addiction, global warming, outright traffic deaths (some 40,000/year and more), ancillary ailments and wars for oil, the automobile embodies the worst ecological catastrophe in human history.
Should current General Motors management be made to pay for the ancient sins of Alfred Sloan?
Since the 1880s, American corporations have claimed human rights under the law. Tasking one now with human responsibilities could set a great precedent.
GM has certainly proved itself unable to make cars that can compete while healing a global-warmed planet.
So let's convert the company's infrastructure to churn out trolley cars, monorails, passenger trains, truly green buses.
FDR forced Detroit to manufacture the tanks, planes and guns that won World War 2 (try buying a 1944 Chevrolet!). Now let a reinvented GM make the "weapons" to win the climate war and energy independence.
It demands re-tooling and re-training. But GM's special role in history must now evolve into using its infrastructure to restore the mass transit system---and ecological balance---it has helped destroy.
71 Comments so far
Show AllHarvey,
Wonderful article.
Your solarotopian program requires us to rename GM to GM meaning Gaia Messiah!
Lovolution Village
http://www.lovolution.net
http://www.youtube.com/user/doctressNeu#
Very well-put!
We shouldn't allow companies to define what goods we need. GM needs to adapt in a way that responds to the needs of its consumers, in a responsible way that allows it to make good on promises to its employees. There's opportunity here for GM to do great things for the future of a greener America.
I posted a quote from this essay on Ameritocracy.com and welcome one and all to rate it.
LuhksAgain supports www.ameritocracy.com.
That's a nice sounding idea although I have to wonder if it wouldn't, in the execution phase, degenerate into a Halliburton style debauch of squandered public trust. Who would manage such a project?
Re-tooling the automakers to rebuild our rapid-transit and green infrastructure. What a great idea! This is the time to rein in the corporate beasts and their CEO greedheads, when they're on their knees begging the American public to save them. I also like the idea of the government gaining part ownership in the event of a bailout. Public participation in the decision making of such an important industry has got to be better for the common good. No more meetings in the middle of the night behind closed doors. This wouldn't be the dreaded socialism that the Republicans keep taking about, is it?
Stop the production of planned obsolecent junk. We have plenty of parts suppliers to keep the cars we now drive going for at least 30 or 40 years. Look at those old GM cars driving around the streets of Havana, Cuba. If anyone should bailout the auto industry it should be the oil companies, who've walked hand in hand while screwing this country face down in the dirt.
I divorced my car a year ago.
http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/search?q=%22amicable+divorce%22
I used to love driving, and as a child some of my happiest times were spent in automobiles. The freedom they brought has become conditional; the collateral damage they do makes them unsustainable in their present form. The changes involved are tremendous. To compete with the popularly perceived benefits of the car a rapid transit system must have stops that are no more than eight minutes walk from anyone's place of work or home; run 24/7; provide generous to free concessionary fares; be able to get a passenger from one part of a city to another in a maximum time of 30 minutes. Such a system is impossible without a major shift in settlement patterns. Cars and their creators caused - intentionally in the case of the destruction of rapid transit in the 1920s, and unintentionally in collaboration with millions like myself - the land use and settlement patterns that brought about the autodependency that now strangles us. If Obama can do a deal with GM that will release the creativity within GM stifled by their current leadership, elements within this giant corporation could be part of the solution; if not they will - until they go down - continue to bring down the rest of us.
DemocracyStreet
Glad to see some attention being paid to the notorious, decades-long antitrust conspiracy headed up by General Motors, automobile parts suppliers, and big oil which resulted in the systematic destruction of America's mass transit rail infrastructure, and its replacement with a petroleum burning, internal combustion engine based grid for moving people and products on a vast, interlocking concrete highway system paid for at public expense. This is an old crime being revisited.
I live in Saginaw, Michigan which is a GM town. Saginaw/Bay City/Midland once upon a time were linked to Flint, Pontiac, and the inner city of Detroit by a highly efficient, consumer friendly, very inexpensive rail network called the Inter-Urban. Working class folks used to be able to day trip from Saginaw south to downtown Detroit for a ball game, shopping at Hudson's or Eastern Market, or other big city amenities and be home in time for work or church the next day. By the same token, city dwellers took the same rail system to day trip up north to the beaches, lakes, and parks in near northern Michigan, and still be back in Motown a reasonable time after nightfall.
Legend has it that a key element of the antitrust conspiracy was use of their collective financial leverage to buy up the replacement parts manufacturers (and patents) of the existing inter urban train and trolley companies. When necessary parts wore out and broke down, repair and replacement essentials were unavailable at any price. Attrition did its thing. Over time, the rail lines were paved over inside various municipal boundaries, severing the interconnected railroad/trolley network into segments, disrupting service, and insuring it could never be resurrected except at enormous capital expense.
The actual antitrust criminal prosecution trial apparently was an above-the-fold news story in the late 1940's. True, the federal government won a conviction, but the fines imposed as ostensible punishment were miniscule compared to the staggering profits that were reaped.
This is a tale of high level criminal corporate greed that merits retelling. Let us not focus however only upon General Motors' culpability.
I propose that as a part of a necessary federal bailout of the Big Three auto manufacturers, one of the strings that should be attached (seriously!) is that the Ford family be compelled to divest themselves of continued ownership of the Detroit Lions NFL franchise. Much of what is wrong with the management ethos of the US automobile industry in general can be seen replicated in mirror image form in the splashily marketed, disorganized, old fashioned, and internally fractious display of football that the Lions have almost invariably put on every Sunday for the last fifty years.
Time to take the toys away from the boys.
What better way to send a message about corporate citizenship that if you're whining to Washington about being too big to fail, then you better concentrate on product basics rather than side interests in your diversified portfolio?
Bill from Saginaw
Nice sentiments, but not one word that Obama is pushing another corporate giveaway. This despite the fact that he promised to punish corporations taking jobs overseas. Ford, GM, and Chrysler are the most egregious is this regard. Obama current 50 billion giveaway is his idea of punishment. Man, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Use the bailout money to make public transit free. Demand for more and better service with grow and gain political power. The growth of transit will reduce congestion and stimulate the economy.
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http://freepublictransit.org
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http://frepubtra.blogspot.com
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There is an article by Feagin (of U.F) and Parker that was written some time ago that speaks to this situation exactly. It is called "The Rise and Fall of Mass Rail Transit."
The electric-car rail systems of 17 major US Cities were gutted, and replaced with diesel-burning buses by GM. They were found guilty of conspiracy to destroy mass rail transit with Goodyear and Stadard, and in addition to the fines to the corporations, the CEO's were fined 4! a piece to teach them a lesson.(One can assume the gas was supplied by Standard, and they ran on Goodyear tires.)
It does not come up in google, but if one has academic article search abilities, it is a good read.
Liberal Professor,
There is a film you have no doubt heard of called 'Taken for a Ride'. It's a documentary that explored the destruction of electrically driven mass transit in the US. It relied heavily on Bradford Snell's research. It focused on the holding company in the '30s and 40's called National City Lines, who's 6 partners, GM, Firestone, Phillips Petroleum, Standard Oil of California, Mack Truck and Greyhound, destroyed the trolleys. First they bought up the trolley systems, reduced service, removed the cars and burned them, tore up the tracks and replaced them with GM diesel buses. It's a great documentary if you can get your hands on it. So I'm asking you do you know where to get it?
there are great comments. thank you all.
i don't know where to get TAKEN FOR A RIDE but i'll check my local libraries, which are probably as good a bet as any.
here in central ohio, as we recover from an election that WASN'T stolen, we are trying to revive passenger rail service and vastly expand our bike path system. i think we'll succeed at both.
but it sure would be helpful if GM does NOT get bailed out to build more worthless cars. put the money where it belongs!!! on the green stuff.
for those of you who are interested, i now have a radio show at wvko-am 1580, the local air america station in columbus, ohio. tune in on the web sometime. or call us 11am-noon EST of a Saturday at 614-821-1580.
no nukes! no more cars...hw
FORCED AUTO BAILOUTS
The potential devestation to our economy and our stature, from the demise of our auto industry would probably be worse than the morgage crisis. Hence, government rescue now appears to be the only option, even though auto makers had created their own problems by opposing innovation and fuel efficiency--and deserve no help.
Experiences show that such a rescue program can succeed only if automakers are coerced into efficiency and innovation through meaningful regulation and stern oversight. This will probably require complete reorientation and restructuring of the industry. Electric power technology and fuel efficiency improvements are vital--and can best be achieved by substantially increasing the gasoline tax (as Lee Iacoca stated 25 years ago). The resulting tax burden would be more than offset by the environmental improvements, reductions in our dangerous trade deficits, curbing of overseas job losses, and the list goes on.
This is a special case, and must not be used as an precedent for bailouts of other institutions.
when it comes to electric or even air I look at it this way that is all I need 90% of the time. That is where I spend 90% of the money I spend on gas.
China maybe bringing a full electric car to Canada. Now with that liar Harper in power who knows. it sounded good at 190 KM ( 120 miles) per charge
live next to a railroad track
lone box car sitting on a siding
this afternoon
spent a couple of hours studying
the car
and
how it got there..
as a designer i used to think the shuttle was mans premo achievement followed by the disk drive..
i was blown away by this very old and rusty box car
and how it works..
thinking i might like to live in one
not that i drove much
less than 100 bucks a year
but
have recently given up the auto
for good???
i have heard stories of the red line from the 20's..the aunts are still alive!!!!!
i have also seen the remnants of the line in LA bubbling up thru the pavement..
as a kid growing up in the 50's--i love cars--
is it maybe time
to change?
ken
No one is going to buy a electric car unless it is as cheap as a gas car or cheaper. Unless a electric truck can haul 40,000lbs, no one is going to buy it. People buy what is the cheapest because they have more pressing exspences.
It will be interesting to see what stays "cheap" once those oil prices go right back up now that election season's over. Don't be surprised when oil goes back up to $150/barrel in the middle of next year. As for hauling 40,000 pounds, get real. Most trucks currently driving don't carry that much weight. Come right over to Northern VA and see for yourself who all drive those gas guzzling SUVs and you'd realize that for most of these fools, a small car's all they need. Oh I forgot to mention that your Uncle Sam is subsidizing gas guzzlers which is the only reason they're "cheap" to begin with.
Is Harvey Wasserman kidding? You don't assign a blood drinking soul eating monster to serve the public interest. You put the damned thing out of its misery and put the people to serving themselves. Born with two arms, two legs and a brain, can the people not serve THEMSELVES??? Railways are maintained by the locals. Crank up the small time workshops. We're past debating now. It's time to bury the capitalist beast. Get to work, people!
EXACTLY ! The reason why Washington DC gets corrupt pols on the local level is people don't pay attention to local elections and yet hope that Obama and Congress will swoop in and save the system. Sure, they had better fund but we the people need to get our act together on the local level. I can't tell you just how screwed up our metro system here in Washington is. Half the time, there's breakdown and induced delays. Of course I no longer live near the metro and even if I drove 9 miles to it, withstanding a 1 hour traffic jam just to get there, parking is difficult and expensive and then on top of it the trip itself which takes 1 hour from the station to the one near my work place. At this point, I figured I might as well sit through the hell-raiser traffic for 2 hours for the 22 miles it is.
In addition to local workshops, we need local jobs. The dirty secret about Northern Virginia and Maryland is most people work closer to DC because their companies shove them there and as a result very heavy traffic coupled with a out-dated metro transit system continues. The mayor and the local pols in DC are very corrupt and nothing ever changes for the better as far as transportation is concerned.
Hear hear. The Dems have the power. They have no excuses. If they cave, we should petition the government, demonstrate and vote the graft recipients out of office.
I am hopeful that Obama will listen to everyone like he promised and come to the inescapable conclusion that this is the only way to escape the grip of the oil and internal combustion corporations that gave us the global warming Rockefeller and Sloan condemned the earth to.
Read "Internal Combustion".
ezeflyer,
"Internal Combustion" is a great read simply from the historical perspective it brings to electric cars and electric mass transit in general. I loved his coverage of the the horse pollution problem that plagued US cities and why there was a need for the 'horseless carriage'. His critique of the lead trust and the quest for a better battery for the electric car kept me rivited to the book. Edwin Black writes a great narrative. He's a bit cantankerous and he's bitten from the hydrogen fuel cell apple but I loved the book nonetheless.
After you read his book I'd recommend Joseph Romm's book, "The Hype About Hydrogen" where he explains that we won't be driving hydrogen powered cars anytime soon if ever.
If you're going to have GM remake the transit system, please do the job right.
The transit system hasn't been re-invented in a very long time, except perhaps for the bullet train. The railroads had monopolies on their tracks. This locked out the lone inventors. One reason that we have so many private cars is that we had a large number of private car companies from 1900 to 1950. This created a market for lone inventors to sell their wares. This accelerated the re-invention of the private automobile in a thousand ways. As a result, cars are vastly more intelligently built than trains in ways that consumers want (although not so intelligently designed for crashes until lately, a factor which consumers often ignored up to the 1960s).
Take GM's "not invented here" philosophy and punt it over the goalpost. No more Ford Motor Company shafting the hero in "Flash of Genius". This time the hero-inventor is always a key part of the company. Make terms like "open source" part of the GM vocabulary.
GM's boss is out here now. The boss wants to make a few changes.
I love the ironic humor here. GM killed the street cars and dwindling petroleum, shoddily manufactured vehickles, and stinko overpriced service is going to kill GM. It's only potential salvation might be to learn to make electric street cars to subvert the auto industry that is rapidly leaving it behind. It's almost enough to make one believe in the actual personhood of this corporation and its vulnerability to Karma just like human beings.
Poet
Any bail out of GM (or Ford, or Chrysler) should come with strings (or rope) attached. There should be no $ for executive compensation, no $ to continue to build the dinosaur internal combustion engine cars/trucks/SUVs that no one wants to buy, no $ to advertise to sell that junk either. Any $ should be earmarked (now there is a good application of that term) to develop alternative energy vehicles. Alternatively, Neil Young (of CSNY fame) has a brilliant plan to keep the auto industry running by building the bodies without the engine and drive trains, which will allow the automobiles to have electric or hybrid engines, batteries, etc installed later. No re-tooling needed. I think it's genius.
Seattle had electric streetcars in the 1960s - they were the only thing that could move whenever we had snow. Times gone by - a gallon of gas or a pack of cigarettes cost 25 cents. That was before Johnson debased our coinage and Nixon cut the dollar off from gold to pay for Vietnam. How we could use a 'time machine' to take us back to saner times.
"FDR forced Detroit to manufacture the tanks, planes, and guns that won WW2". That is why there will be a bailout. The major auto manufacturers will not be allowed to fail because the government needs them around for rapid conversion to war toys in the event of an emergency.
Don't blame just GM. Yes, they're at fault but so are the people in this country that are ready to power up their gas guzzlers. I live in the Washington D.C. area and I used to live right near a metro station. The trains do get crowded at times but for the most part, the metro buses are almost empty and yet there's always high volume traffic on the road. When I had to move because the apartment fees had gone up big time, I was nowhere near a metro station and I had to drive and it was 20 miles from my home to work and still is. When the price of gas was around 4/gal and rising, traffic became reasonable. Interestingly, at the same time, the metro rail wasn't as crowded although the ignorant fools at my work place would try to argue with me that they were. Come July and after when all of a sudden the gas prices decreased and guess what? Traffic went right back up and it's gotten so much more fucking worse that it takes 2 fucking hours to drive 20 miles to work unless I go at 5 AM ! And the evening commute is even worse. Plus there are more major accidents and explosions everyday. And if that's not enough, check out most of the employees at work. Most of them drive all the way to their shitty restaurants just for lunch. Another "nice" way to take oil for granted, isn't it? If you want to blame GM, no problem. But until society becomes less crowded with frivolous drivers who drive not because they're going to work thereby making travelling a living hell for those who have no other choice and as long as people want to show off in their big butt SUVs, pickup trucks, vans, etc ..., it's not GM who will repair the mass transit system. It's the people. And if apartments closer to the metro weren't so god damn obscenely high to the point where only the very well to do can afford them, public transportation wouldn't be languishing already. GM didn't kill public transportation. People killed public transportation !
It was primarily GM that destroyed mass transit after ww2 in at least 2 locales - Southern CA and SF Bay Area( the latter with collusion of Bechtel.
But I could be wrong !
In that case, why aren't people standing up to this mess? And why not the poor black and hispanics? Are they too focused on outlawing same sex marriages because of their cultural intolerance?
And why aren't people standing up to very heavy traffic in CA and fighting for public transportation and even improving it? GM may be a devil but as long as people carry on the wasteful frivolous life style and take oil for granted, don't expect any revival of mass transit.
"The MIT (Alfred P.) Sloan School of Management is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It is one of the world's leading business schools, conducting research and teaching in finance, entrepreneurship, marketing, strategic management, economics, organizational behavior, industrial relations, operations management, supply chain management, information technology, and many other fields." - Wiki
Intersting article on Alfred P. Sloan who was also criticized for a complicated accounting sytem he created in addition to violating anti-trust laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_p_sloan
Today, "51 percent" of GMAC is owned by a private equity firm.
"In a 1922 memo that will live in infamy, GM President Alfred P. Sloan established a unit aimed at dumping electrified mass transit in favor of gas-burning cars, trucks and buses."
I'd like to see more about this, anyone? Nothing in the wikipedia article on Sloan.
ORBizen
"Internal Combustion" by Edwin Black is one of many to recount all the disgusting and despicable details of this saga.
Thanks, not much on line, I may have to check the public library.
Oh Man...
why didn't I think of that....but of course I am inspector Clousseau! Give me back my trains.
Right on, as usual Harve!
The one thing that's missing from even the most thoughtful mainstream punditry on the energy question is the railroads, both light and intercity...for trips of up to 500 miles modern rail is faster and more energy efficient than airplanes...and rail is the key to reindustrialization of America...especially for where I live, the rustbelt that was, in WWII, the workshop of democracy...
Sam Abrams
Rochester NY
mas.smarba@gmail.com
Though the U.S. could use a little 'socialism', manufacturing cars is not one of the areas the government should be involved with. Rather the government can steer the industry towards electric cars, hybrids, etc., by slightly taxing the dinosaurs (SUV's, 8 cylinder engines, F150's etc.) while using that tax money to subsidize the vehicles we want. Also the government should avoid at all costs purchasing government vehicles that don't fit the criteria of a 'green car'.
If GM goes bankrupt, then so be it. The majority of the people indirectly associated with GM are parts suppliers. They can still manufacture parts for other companies that will fill the place of GM.
Meanwhile it is important to scale back on our military industrial complex in a big way. Its time to convert that terrible waste of money into beneficial industries such as rapid transit, the development of hydrogen aircraft, energy independence and other related fields that will remove our dependency on imported oil in a hurry.
Having said all that, I'm afraid there are too many people in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans, that will side with narrow corporate interests over the public interest. Obama's apparent acquiescence to the corrupt banks and inferior car industry to date is a sign that in all likelihood it will be business as usual on the Beltway.
As a child in 1949, I could ride the Red Cars from San Bernardino all the way to Wilshire Blvd.in Los Angeles to visit my grandmother. When my older sister came to visit from Minnesota, we took the Red Car to Long Beach and the fabulous pier and beach for the day. It was not expensive. I know it did not cost much because my parents never let any of us 8 children do anything that was costly.
GM killed that for the freeways that are so polluting and congested today.
Is GM one of the companies that got sued and fined ($1)for destroying the trolley car systems in the late 1950s, specifically in CA? But NYC had trolley cars,too.
Yes, GM is one of those. $1 fine. It was a joke upon the people.
Sioux Rose
MR. WASSERMAN: Thank you for your research, work & dedication to raise consciousness about issues that concern us all. I think, with all due respect, that the airplane holds a competitive position with the car, for the technology that has led to much damage. Were it not for planes, as TOMDISPATCH so well reports, we'd not see such efficient use of them to deploy the wares of war from enough of a distance to give the pilots a sense of immunity for the enormous pain and destruction their little trigger devices let loose.
What am I hearing!!! Common good, sharing, together we stand divided we fall
too much Selfishness and greed, the collective will of the people
I thought that was the lines of the Pinko Canadians up north
By the way the Canadian Peoples Own their own National bank and their private banks are regulated by it hence they banks were shielded from the USA's problems.
Learn this 80% of Canadians national Bank's debt is to their own citizens so their National Bank pays the citizens interest on their own debt.
They have National health care and all that cool stuff
However it was all under attack for the last 10 years by the conservative religious right, who want to privatise and deregulate it all.
They are called Bush Light
In the Great US of A it is:
Rugged individualism
Self made man ,
Take no Prisoners,
Every man for himself,
Full speed ahead and dam the Torpedoes
I would like to see self-laid egg in () anytime the term self-made man is used; self-made man (self-laid egg).
It's the great American myth: "self-made man" (usually has some gov't support in some way, or family money, or as Tim Wise says in his antiracism writing, some form of white privilege) or "pulled himself up by his bootstraps", the other myth. "rugged individualism" is another way to say, "tough luck" to people who need health care, housing, etc if not rich enough to provide their own.
Both my Grandfathers came to Canada in the early 1900's.
They took advantage of a tremendous social program. No matter how hard they worked in the "Old Country" with limited education , the opportunity to own land there was minimal.
Canada offered "Free land" . Millions of acres to immigrants who would labor to clear it and plant crops.
Canada helped build the Railroad across the country to bring the goods produced to market.
Very much the same happened in the United States.
Self made is a myth.
I hear that the "conservatives" are still trying in Canada.
RawFoodDude and OregonCharles,
You guys crack me up with your naive view of politics. I was that way as a child about cigarettes health problems in 1964. I thought that if the political leadership knew that cigarettes were unhealthy, they would be banned.
I grew up in the Vietnam war.
Mr. Obama is part of the political elite. He has no intension of changing the way business is done in this nation.
Only a true, revolution by an informed public will bring policies which benefit the worker, the environment, and our economy.
Have a nice day, fools.
I thought FDR brought in policies which benefitted the worker, and the economy (though not the environment, since both the public and government hardly knew such a thing existed) - and without revolution.
An important point: big change is possible without (violent, or non-violent) revolution. It can sometimes come about due to official government policy.
“Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his policies have been tried.”
---John Kenneth Galbraith
The .3% of the population who followed Nader's campaign may remember the idea he brought up about selling our prime time TV and radio airwaves to finance real public programming on serious issues (that aren't influenced by Chevron, Merck, etc.). If we had some money to pay the Hollywood unionized crews to produce entertaining and informative shows that the general public would actually watch, we could inform each other about vital topics such as this.
I know there are very intelligent folks reading CD that might know of some real steps to take toward this goal, as well as constructive critique of the idea. I think it will take people getting organized, which means cooperation and consensus on specific actions...
Why not rent out the airwaves and so set up an income stream?
Amen from a retired autoworker. And I agree, nationalization and integration into a comprehensive mass transit/energy angency is the way to go. It's is an outrageous absurdity of capitalism that all that machinery, that productive capacity, that human genius should be surplussed and trashed when the country is in dire need of resources to convert to green. All this mangement malfeasance comes along with the new two-tier contracts forced on autoworkers and the sloughing-off of pension obligations into underfunded VEBAs, in which the UAW takes over a therefore moribund pension program. The workers who have devoted their very souls to the auto industry must not be sacrificed. For a poetic account of life on the assembly line see www.autoplant.info.
In 1984, Harper's Magazine published an article on how a conspiracy of automakers, oil companies and tire manufacturers destroyed the mass transit system in Los Angeles which was, at the time, probably the best in the United States. You could ride the great distances between Southern California cities on street cars. It was an amazing system and if it had been left alone and improved upon over the subsequent decades, would have been one of the greatest in the world. It was deliberately destroyed so freeways could be built, cars, buses and tires sold by the hundreds of thousands. L.A.'s horrendous smog and nightmare traffic also resulted. Many, many years later the perpetrators wound up in court and were given a slap on the wrist. They should all have gone to prison with extended sentences.
I hope to see a more detailed proposal for converting GM.
A preliminary sketch:
They're bankrupt, aren't they?
How about outright nationalization? The Dept. of Transportation buys the assets, goes through their patents and research projects, and starts them building the stuff we NEED.
They could also, a la FDR, be ordered to convert to building mass-transit systems.
But first, remove the entire top echelon of management: their corruption and incompetence are plain for all to see.
Parenthetically: the problem with letting them go bankrupt is that it cancels their union contracts. We need to strengthen unions, not close them down. Of course, a nationalized GM could form a partnership with the union for a new line of production - but that would probably require a genuinely progressive administration.
Oregoncharles
I hope Obama will read your comments and be genuinely progressive.
Send them to him.
"They're bankrupt, aren't they?"
"They could also, a la FDR, be ordered to convert to building mass-transit systems."
You can't "order" a business to be in a business they don't wish to be in. The stockholders can just vote to disolve the company out of existance.
"They're bankrupt, aren't they?"
That was a "no" on that issue.
"The stockholders can just vote to disolve the company out of existance."
Imagine what that would do for the stockholders' equity...
"Imagine what that would do for the stockholders' equity..."
What would they get if the government thugs decided to nationalize the company? This isn't a very smart route to take the discussion, the mainstrean electorate would never stand for such a thing, end of story.
I think the mainstrean electorate would stand for such a thing.
I doubt if 5% of the electorate would support nationalizing GM.
"I doubt if 5% of the electorate would support nationalizing GM."
You betcha! There's no way the people who support Wall Street bailouts, Social Security, Medicare, free education, farm subsidies, free roads, subsidized airlines, a war for oil, government interference in drug/pharmaceutical markets, the FDA, the DEA, the ATF, the ICE and the Coast Guard will stand for interference in this important industry.
Just as soon as the good republicans of Alaska start refusing their socialist, Alaska Permanent Fund checks, I'll believe that people will object. Then you and me we can go snow skiing in Death Valley.
Get real. The car companies will get bailed out if they have to give the cars away.
Fighting the forces of rather dim lighting wherever they may be found!!
"The car companies will get bailed out if they have to give the cars away. "
Yes, the new congress may very well support the current proposal for low cost *loans*. I was talking about nationalization, the mainstream electorate will not support that.
jakenewton November 16th, 2008 5:24 pm
I doubt if 5% of the electorate would support nationalizing GM.
It depends upon how its framed. The banks are already being nationalized.
Essentailly, the whole economy was nationalized during WWs 1 and 2, but much moreso during the latter. It would be far more efficient to converrt all existing cars and trucks to electric drive rather than retooling and manufacturing a whole new electric fleet. But this will only help preserve the dysfunctional Car Culture and the rampant individualism it supports.
May this article by some miracle make it to Obama's desk!!!
Send it to him - his campaign set up a site for the purpose.
Oregoncharles
www.change.gov
The Office of the President-elect soliciting our visions and ideas ... Go for it!
Thanks, Cee,
Oregoncharles
Good article!! We need to jump start mass transit, extend rail lines, build better cars and give some of those new jobs to auto workers.
Evidently there are hundreds of billions of $$$ lying around that could be used for that.
Joe
Yes yes yes. The automakers must retool to build high efficiency vehicles or they shouldn't get a dime. It might be good in the long run for these behemoths to fail. There is ample creativity and motivation in the population to create the alternatives we need in order to survive. The short-sighted greedy corporate mind has demonstrated it's willingness to sacrifice the common good in order to make money. A person doing this could easily be diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder.
Just like we need to stop electing psychopaths to the halls of power (Bush, Cheney et al) we need those corporate holders of great wealth to behave like contributing members of the community or they should be allowed to fall down at their altar of greed.
It seems to me that we are seeing very real demonstrable proof that greed and individualism not only do not serve the common good but work against the common good. If we are to survive we must learn to focus on the big picture.