It's been 13 years since I owned a car. While I sometimes miss the convenience of a car, overall I like contributing less to the emissions of greenhouse gas; I enjoy being able to read or knit during my commute; I feel enriched by that slice of life you get when you ride the bus. The other day one of the 204 people running for Detroit City Council was on the bus trying to talk to voters. Not something you get to experience driving to work alone.
It's been 13 years since I owned a car, so owning a car company comes as a shock. I admit to not being excited about this at first. I wasn't angry like I was when the bailout package passed Congress. Being from Detroit gives me a certain weak spot for the auto industry. Still I didn't see the point of owning an entity and then "streamlining" it to make it "competitive," i.e. cut yet more jobs. Aside from nostalgia, I also don't see the point of having jobs with the automakers when those jobs are no longer secure, high paying, coupled to excellent benefits, nor leading to a guaranteed retirement package. So I was not happy to learn that we now own 60% of General Motors.
That, of course, was because I am not quite visionary. When President Obama stated that we would be just another investor, I grumbled and got stuck right there. Michael Moore did not get stuck, in his post Goodbye, GM, he laid out a beautiful vision for what ownership of GM can mean. And it has absolutely nothing to do with being a silent investor with deep pockets, but no input. He suggested we retool those closed auto plants and use all those laid off skilled workers to build bullet trains to connect our nations cities. I so love this idea. There's symmetry here: fast, efficient, convenient public transportation being built on the ashes of the automative giant's discarded resources.
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