Rick Wagoner steps down from GM this week. What a long strange trip it has been from the post WWII heights, where the phrase "What's good for GM is good for America" defined the company, and the nation, to the depths of these past six months.
General Motors is the company that was behind the great American train robbery. I mean by that phrase that GM systematically removed from US cities our public transportation rail system line by line from the 1930s through the 1950s. This was uncovered in a 60 Minutes story that aired back in 1986, and spawned a seldom seen but important and riveting documentary, Taken For A Ride, written and directed by Jim Klein.
This is the company Michael Moore earned his documentary film chops covering in the still pertinent Roger & Me. Today all Americans can now share the pain and frustration exhibited by those seen in Flint, Michigan twenty years ago, which were captured by Moore's film crew.
How does a company create an electric vehicle and then have management decide to destroy the model in less than a decade, and expect any sympathy from the car buying public today? If you're interested you can check out Chris Paine's documentary, Who Killed The Electric Car? on Google video.
I, and I'm sure everybody else today, feels terrible about the many workers losing jobs, homes, health benefits and all traces of former dignity with each successive mismanaged turn this conglomerate has undertaken for the past forty years. John DeLorean left because the company was so unwieldy. The book, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, offers his recollections about the company. DeLorean was really GM design for the entire decade of the 1960s, the last decade the company had real relevance as an automaker. It became a bean counter's company from the 1970s until the last bean counter, Rick Wagoner, signed off.
Good night, and good luck, General Motors.
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