Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [55]
See, I come from Flint, Michigan—the Vehicle City, not to be confused with the Motor City. We’re an hour north of Detroit, and at one time my hometown built every Buick in the world. They don’t build Buicks there any more.
Growing up immersed in a car culture, you come to see your car as an extension of yourself. Your car is your stereo room, your dining room, your bedroom, your home theatre, your office, your reading room, and the first place you do just about anything in your life that means anything.
When I became an adult I decided I didn’t want a General Motors car—mainly because they broke down more often than I did. So I bought Volkswagens and Hondas and drove them around town with pride. If anyone asked me why I didn’t “buy American,” I’d make them open their hood and show them the MADE IN BRAZIL plate on their engine, the MADE IN
MEXICO lettering on their fan belt, and the MADE IN SINGAPORE label on their radio. Other than the tag on the dashboard implying the entire car was made in America, what exactly could they point to in their car that actually gave a job to anyone in Flint?
My Honda Civic never broke down. For eight years and 115,000 miles, I never had it in the shop for any reason other than regularly scheduled maintenance. The day it died I was broke and on unemployment and stuck in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue about four blocks from the White House. I just got out, pushed it over to the curb, removed the plates, and bid it farewell.
I didn’t buy another car for nine years. Working most of the time in New York City I didn’t need one, thanks to the city’s fine mass transportation system and reliable taxi drivers. But because I spend a lot of time back home in Michigan, I got tired of renting from Avis and broke down and bought a Chrysler minivan. This much I’ll say—you’ll never see me stuff myself like a sausage by driving around one of those little tin cans again!
The internal combustion engine has done more to create global warming than anything else on the planet. Almost half the pollutants in our air come from the stuff that spews out of your car—and that air pollution is the cause of some 200,000 deaths per year. Global warming is jacking up the world’s temperature, year after year, which can cause increased risk of drought in some countries and have dangerous effects on agriculture and health. We’re perilously close to creating a horrible calamity if we don’t figure out how to turn down the heat.
But you should see how this minivan handles! And it’s so quiet inside—that is, until I crank up my Korn on the combination CD/tape surround-sound deck, complete with eight bitchin’ speakers. I can drive 400 miles straight with the music cranked, the air conditioning cranked, the hands-free satellite phone ready to take that all-important call from Rupert Murdoch thanking me for the fine work on this book and letting me know that my execution has been moved up to Thursday so as not to conflict with America’s Wackiest School Shooting Videos.
Detroit has proved it has the technology to mass-produce cars that get 45 miles per gallon and trucks and vans that get 3 5 miles per gallon. The year the auto companies reported their best gas mileage—1987, during the reign of Ronald Reagan—the average car got 26 miles per gallon. Yet after the eight years of eco friendly Bill Clinton—who promised that cars would be getting 40 miles per gallon by the end of his presidency—the average miles per gallon for vehicles went down to 24.7. General Motors threw a lavish party in Washington for Clinton’s 1993 inauguration. I guess it’s just impolite to upset the host of a party given in your honor.
Clinton’s greatest gift to the Big Three automakers was exempting SUVs from the mileage requirements of regular passenger cars. Because of this exemption, these gas gluttons use up an extra 280,000 barrels of fuel each