Lansing mayor Virg Bernero, Reverend Jesse Jackson and Senator Debbie Stabenow at the Reinvest in America rally at the Michigan State Capitol, 1 June 2009.
On the first day of June 2009, General Motors became Government Motors. Compelled to declare bankruptcy the company turned over 60% of its control to the Obama administration and the taxpayers of our nation. On this same day a rally was held at the Michigan Capitol building.
It was predicted that thousands would attend Reinvest in America: Keep the Dream Alive but the threat of rain lessened the numbers. Nonetheless the crowd that massed was sizable.
Supporters of the event included: the Michigan Education Association, the Rainbow Push Coalition, the United Steelworkers, the Michigan Building and Trades Council, and the Lansing NAACP. In attendance were such luminaries as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Congressman Mike Rogers, Congressman John Conyers, Lansing’s Mayor Virg Bernero, Detroit mayor Dave Bing, and TV’s Judge Greg Mathis.
For those like myself, who were born and raised in Michigan, GM’s failure had been unthinkable. Other companies, even other car companies, could fail but not GM. Yet it happened. The suffering it will cause thousands people and the damage it will inflict upon the economy is immeasurable. The enormity of it all rivals the events of 911, both in scope and meaning.
I went to the Reinvest in America because I believed it was important to observe this historic day. It would be a day to remember—one of those “Where were you when you heard the news about Martin Luther King, JFK, Bobby, John Lennon and the World Trade Towers?” kind of days. I wanted to make photographs of this day.
I expected throngs of impassioned people, but instead the atmosphere was subdued. It seemed as if many in the crowd were numb from the loss of jobs, pensions, health care, and futures. Or perhaps they were overwhelmed and confused by the ambiguity and complexity of the many issues.
Many of them seemed unsure just what to demand—to protest. Should they shout for single payer healthcare or the return of American manufacturing to American soil? Was the real issue cheap foreign labor? Or was it the North American Free Trade Agreement or the malfeasance of government? What was happening to them and their country? Who and what was to blame? Whom and what should they believe? What should they do?
As I listened to Jesse, Debbie, Mike and John spout their political rhetoric with practiced fire I wondered if I should cry, boo or cheer. Likewise, I wondered about those who by their signs and words expressed a longing for the halcyon days of the fifties and sixties, when jobs were plentiful (if you were young, white and male), gas was cheap and our rivers served as sewers for our most respected corporations—those days when smog was seen as evidence of progress and power rather than a known carcinogen.
I wondered how many of the Chrysler workers calling for “made in America by Americans” will now work for Fiat? I wondered how many of those who decry the import of goods from China, Mexico, and India still do their shopping at WalMart—the world’s largest retailer of Chinese made products and one of the most anti-union corporations in the world? I wondered how many in the crowd perceived the link between the mobility provided by the automobile, the resultant rise of the suburbs and today’s foreclosure debacle?
I wondered about a lot of things on the first of June 2009 and I’m still wondering.
© Michael Maurer Smith 2009
I’m wondering, too. One thing I’ve been wondering about for several years is what would happen to our economy when more and more people move away from the world of production into the world of “information”.
Making a product is quite different from shuffling bits and bytes around in cyberspace.
If you’re making a car, you know in the end whether it’s attractive, whether it runs, and whether it lives up to its advertised hype. You also find out pretty quickly if anyone is buying what you have to sell.
If you’re speculating in the markets, moving commodities, stashing millions around the world or managing funds, there’s just something “unreal” about it – with a consequent loss of accountability, responsibility and guilt when actions lead to very real loss for very real, if somewhat less sophisticated, people.
I’m terribly bothered by the number of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings who are in charge of things like the GM bankruptcy – and oh, by the way, our government. It has nothing to do with age, per se. It has to do with the fact that most of these “kids” never have produced some “thing” in their life, or been responsible for selling, servicing or maintaining that thing.
When the computing clouds lift, some of them may be surprised by what they see.
Interesting. I know what you mean about wondering if you should cheer or boo. It’s all so topsy turvy. I feel simply numb about all of this — but I have to believe it will get better. At least, better than this. I have to — I’d be too distressed, otherwise.
Jeanie: I think we are in the midst of a paradigm shift–a long overdue correction. Things are going to be painful for lots of us. If the best case scenario plays out we will emerge a wiser, more compassionate and community minded people. I don’t want to think of the worst case.