While Mitt Michael Moore's rant against helping out the Detroit big 3 auto firms (in the way that Wall Street big banks have been helped out for far larger amounts than $34 billion) is not without all value, it still comes across as overblown and silly.
Some points:
- Moore made his career by hating on (with reason, perhaps) General Motors in his film "Roger and Me", so he may not be without bias or rancor;
- He says it's wrong to bash the Big 3 heads for flying on separate private jets to the congressional hearing, when some of the bank executives flew in on such planes as well. Instead, Moore should have said that Congress should've bashed the New York people on the plane issue too, rather than Moore giving a pass to the Big 3 execs for using those planes, ...a pass which is inconsistent with his "Blow up the Big 3" tone of the rest of his essay;
(more on Moore)
- When Congress does something good like criticizing the companies harshly and pushing an executive to work for a dollar a year, Moore just tosses in irrelevant nonsense about Congress's other failures, re Bush, etc. (Yes, they are failures; but what do they have to do with Congress' current success on showcasing Big 3 executives' arrogance and bad record? ...And if Congress are such dopes, why does he trust them to buy GM and run it better than the current auto execs?) Moore is just ranting for the sake of ranting. Is he going to dig Charlton Heston from the grave and scream at him some more now, just so he can rant further?
and,
- Quoting from Moore's diary,
Of course, the auto magnates used be the Masters who ruled the world.
; if the man can't even put together a diary (where's the "to" before the "be" in that sentence?), I'm not sure we can trust him to understand how to put together the Humpty Detroit Dumpty of the auto industry again.
I am not happy that the plan submitted by auto magnates cuts 20,000 jobs, or that they need the money out of our wallets at all. However, Moore may be ranting more than reasoning here, and not proposing any moderate solutions. (Government commandeering the auto companies into building...subways, as Moore proposes, may be well meant, but I'm not sure the United Subway Workers union has weighed in much on that proposal yet...)
He is, after all, on the same side as Mitt Romney here, denying a bailout. Is this the right way?
Especially since Barack Obama has supported an auto bailout, as has UAW president Ron Gettelfinger--a man who may understand what autoworkers need even more than a celebrity filmmaker like Michael Moore does.
Extreme solutions like nationalization, e.g., buying all GM common stock for $3 billion as Moore suggests, are not inconceivable, but only after other solutions have been exhausted. If, say, further negotiations can get the Big 3 to propose a better plan (fewer or no layoffs, solid commitments to restructuring in a green direction, etc.), then Moore's premature revenge on his favorite whipping boys in Detroit need not be enacted--and it shouldn't be, one imagines, unless there's no other alternative.
Sometimes Moore is less; and this is one of those times. I know his strength is in histrionics, not in reasoning or moderation; but, even for him, maybe it's not too late to learn. He might be of more help to auto workers, the auto industry, and his struggling country, if he ever does learn.
"UPDATE": See jezreel's great analysis in the comment below at http://www.dailykos.com/... .
*
MOORE, UH, MORE UPDATE *: Looks like Mikey cross-posted to HuffPo, see
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... , and didn't mention it either here or at Huff. It would have been polite to mention...