Michael Moore Urges President Obama to Declare War Part Three

In the first article of this series portions of Michael Moore's article "Goodbye, GM" as published at truthout.org was seen as a combination of misinformation and a soap box from which to preach that familiar Republican sermon, "Tax the poor to help the rich". His rose colored glasses discolored the facts of US industrial might before and after US entry into World War II. It also revealed his strategy of taxing "gas guzzlers" to support overpriced hybrids.

The second article in this series continued to peel away more layers of exaggeration and fantasy in "Goodbye, GM". His wish list, stated as facts, fool only those who want to be fooled. The additional oversimplified claims for green energy hid the real dollar costs which only the rich can afford.

Michael Moore's goals should be commended

Although Mr. Moore never really made it clear which cause he was championing in "Goodbye, GM", he did present an impressive list of concerns that we should note. Unlike Michael Moore, however, we should look at them critically as serious problems in need of real solutions.

Jobs creation is directly linked to manufacturing capacity, not to a wish for some ephemeral overnight miracle factory. Yes, many the technologies to which Mr. Moore referred in "Goodbye, GM" really do exist, but without an affordable product there are no customers, and with no customers there is no need for manufacturing capacity; a bitter truth, but truth nonetheless.

To quote Robert Heinlein, a preeminent American author of the 20^th century, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". Regretfully, the hope of obtaining "free" electricity through the use of solar cells (photovoltaic panels) ignores the cost to manufacture the panels (high), the additional equipment and technology necessary to support them (higher), and the long term maintenance of such systems (even higher). But Mr. Moore deserves a C for repeating the basic idea again.

Green is good! Many pundits and other experts (Sorry, Michael, you don't fit either category) believe the end really is in sight if we don't drastically reduce the CO2 and other unfriendly footprints we leave as a society and as individuals. We can no longer hide our heads in the ground when the "green price" to manufacture the green technologies is presented. Another hard fact is that the manufacturing processes for some of these wonderful inventions create a larger footprint than the old technology it might replace.

Michael Moore, 21st century Paul Harvey or just another agitator

Michael Moore's use of popular myths, misinformation, and wishful thinking to support his claims of instant jobs to fill instant factories to create prohibitively expensive products damages any real credibility he may have had before publishing "Goodbye, GM". Yes, there will be pie in the sky in the sweet by-and-by, but he fails to mention the fact that we are standing on solid Earth in the here and now. By damaging his own credibility by not reporting the true facts and by making unrealistic demands, Mr. Moore is hurting those causes he claims to support.

After the dust settles it will be seen that Michael Moore is a good story teller. To be part of the solution instead of part of the problem he needs to stop repeating tired fairy tales then start being a conduit for realistic solutions to these real problems.
Sources:

http://www.truthout.org/060109A
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch": Time Enough for Love (G.P. Putnam's Sons) and other works by Robert Heinlein.