Michael Moore thinks he can run G.M.

Oh please, somebody stop him from making movies and also from writing. Please.

Moore, like many liberals, is worried about the precious environment and what cars are doing to the planet. He even calls it a "war":

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

Sure, blame the oil companies. How convenient. Moore reveals is true anti-capitalist self.

Wait a minute, did President Obama take control of G.M.? Just a few paragraphs earlier Moore writes his joy of "you and I and the rest of America now own a car company!" Ooops, looks like we don't really own it if it's the president who's taken control of the company? Silly.

And about that $30 billion poured into the bankrupt company?

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

I'm starting to think Moore is a fan of the vicious circle. How can more money to keep employees at this juncture save G.M. when keeping them on the payroll means higher expenses when nobody is buying their cars? Then he babbles about building out a mass transit system and having G.M. reconfigure its factories to build trains and hybrid cars instead.

That's simply flawed business thinking. Let's forgive him, he's a (struggling) filmmaker after all. If we are to follow his logic, then the fastest way for G.M. to bring in revenues is to outsource its facilities to build cars for other companies, like Ford and Toyota. It's not to build rail cars and trains! Heck, we don't have enough tracks for trains, but plenty of nicely paved roads...

Then he brings up...taxes!

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

What about those who walk? Don't walkers deserve tax credits too? Are Americans supposed to keep track of how many miles they walk each year in order to qualify for the tax credit?

And imposing higher taxes on gasoline? If he truly thinks the oil companies are evil, he ought to advocate banning gasoline altogether! In fact, let's ban gasoline and cars. But I guess even a liberal like Michael Moore understands how unrealistic his ideas are...