How do you spell GMs demise? “EV1” (green and bling pt II)

Hello hello, as usual it’s been a long time since I’ve posted; I’ve been touring and teaching and traveling and trying to find balance in my priorities. Thank you all who have taken the time to read my blog, especially those who have posted (my question is why do ppl who voice support of my views tell me outside of my blog post? [in other words WTF]). Despite all the happenings in my personal life, when it came to GM’s bankruptcy, I just couldn’t resist the need to write… I drove an American car for 10 years of my life… you may now shower me with your sympathy.

Now, I drove a Ford, so for any of you who drove a Beretta or a Prizm, I know I shouldn’t complain; I suppose my Ford is a shining, radiator fluid-bleeding beacon of American auto-engineering compared to GMs Clunkers. But, I have smacked my forehead the second time my Detroit transmission stopped shifting out of second; I have rolled up the windows on a Pontiac with my bare hands (I mean, using my hands to physically lift up the window); I have laboured hands-on-the-hood of a Saturn that gave up on going in reverse… I know the pain GM owners must feel. I’ll admit it: I’m a bitter, Prius driving, recovering American car driver.

Biases aside, I feel that the American People felt a vague sense of vindication when we all heard about GM’s mammoth financial problems and when Obama forced them into a structured bankruptcy. Diseased by debt and crippled by its dependence on increasingly larger and more powerful vehicles… how do you spell GM’s demise? EV1, or Electric Vehicle One.

Over a decade ago in 1996, GM released the vehicle, a battery powered pure electric vehicle: no exhaust, no hybrid system, it had a range of approx 160 miles, with sporty power to boot. I had the pleasure of riding one with my friend Adam who worked for a California efficiency agency in Sacramento shortly after we graduated from Davis. The car was quiet, impressive, environmental, and sexy… less than a year later GM scrapped the program: that car, every other EV1 in creation, all of GM’s R&D and advertising cash, and GM’s hopes for staying solvent in 2009 laid crunched up in a junkyard. Over a decade later GM files for bankruptcy.

(This is the fruit of capitalism)

Rather than doing the RIGHT thing: going after a vehicle that would be right for our society, for our environment, for our foreign policy, for those who fell in an unnecessary war, and mainly just asking the simple question “aren’t Hummers stupid?” GM did precisely what capitalism rewards the most, the most PROFITABLE thing: they built larger and stronger cars to get bigger profit margins and scrapped a program that could be giving GM Toyota Prius levels of profitability/notoriety today.

Toyota on the other hand took a loss on the Prius. The first generation looked like it was off an episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9, like they were trying their hardest to appeal to dweebs and engineers who bring up vectors as conversation topics with girls. It barely got better mileage than efficient combustion engine cars, and it had as much power as my cell phone on vibrate. Toyota lost money on every Prius sold, and how many of those 1st gens do you see on the road now? But, our chain smoking Japanese friends stuck with the car and now the Prius is one of the main reasons Toyota is the largest car manufacturer in the world. General Motors was too busy snorting up W’s SUV tax breaks and getting high off the lie that soccer moms needed to drive over granite boulders and flooded riverbeds to pick up cookie dough at the store.

In my opinion, the most alarming observation I’ve made is how GM’s behavior as a corporation is mirrored by our behavior as individuals. Just like debt and useless/harmful cars disabled GM, Americans are crippled by the complications of obesity and diabetes. GM needed the government to perform bankruptcy, Americans are committing themselves to gastric bypass or lipo suction surgery everyday. The rise of GM’s dis-ease over the last 50 years ascended in tandem with the disease of Americans. We are incapable of exercising and eating right on our own just like GM was incapable of managing debt and investing in healthy cars. GM’s failure is not just a symbol of capitalism’s great failure; it is a warning sign to our participation in it as individuals.

And that’s the issue. Honestly, I don’t think God really cares whether GM fails or not, He’s interested in the hearts of us as individuals and communities. My criticism of pure free-market capitalism because of its failure financially is only tertiary. My greater concern is that our system rewards consumption and the accumulation of wealth in us as Christians, as churches, and it has defiled us. I leave you with this simple question: If GM was an individual, and you met this person, would GM be a spiritually healthy child of God? Or would he be a decrepit, gangrene-infested, bed-riddened-by-obesity, Godless man on life-support? It would be hard to argue that he is not the latter, and that he is not the very first candidate to need the loving redemption of Christ... but GM has no soul to save. As a corporation he exists for one purpose: profit.