Looping the Obama Mobius Loop
It occurred to me recently that for a guy who evidently really, really seems to dislike the British quite a bit, the America that President Obama wants to build looks a lot like pre-Thatcher England, circa 1977 or so: shoddily built cars from a quasi-government manufacturer (British Leyland then, GM today), an endless welfare state, mammoth unemployment, a neutered military, an exhausted and culturally bifurcated society, etc.
Or as the Blog Professor writes today, “On this 4th of July, I am asking myself why liberals celebrate independence from the British at all since they now want to be just like them.”
Which is an odd paradox for the president to be in: he certainly seems to loathe America, loathes England, and yet is forced to govern the former country as he attempts to mold it into the second.
George Orwell would love sorting this one out — as “progressivism” enters into dotage and becomes more and more reactionary, it’s his world now, we just live in it.
Related: At Power Line, “Ideas have consequences and so do attitudes.”
Hmmm. The Filth and The Fury. Yeah, I can see it.
“No future, no future
No future, no future
No future, no future
No future, no future
No future, no future
No future, no future
No future for you”
Please do not equate GM and British Leyland, at least not from a vehicle quality standpoint.
Thanks to to efforts of Bob Lutz, today General Motors is building the best cars it has ever constructed.
British Leyland was completely taken over by the government, and I am afraid that the bureaucrats had a hand in design after the fact. It showed. The link to the ultimate primer on the failings of British Leyland from BBC’s “Top Gear” is below. Be sure to see Part 2 as well…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLW4tVGgz9o&feature=related
In GM’s case, the union pensions got bailed-out, the bondholders got royally screwed(illegally too), but the funtions of building and selling cars were (thankfully) of no interest to the little socialist engineers in DC.
GM is killing it from a product and reliability perspective, what they need is some halfway competent PR that tells that part of the story to the people who have footed the bills.
Mr W,
If indeed “today General Motors is building the best cars it has ever constructed,” I’m very glad to hear it. My father co-owned a Chevrolet dealership for decades, and after he got out of the business in the early 1970s, it was pitiful watching the build quality of GM cars go increasingly downhill. If that’s turned around significantly, I’m glad to hear it. But in addition to GM’s myriad structural woes (as Jonah quipped in Liberal Fascism, GM is now essentially a healthcare and retirement plan that happens to build cars as an industrial byproduct), if it’s long period of decline hasn’t permanently harmed its reputation, the fact that it’s currently a corporatist entity of the Federal Government isn’t helping matters.