Proud Member of The Moms Clean Air Force
Print This Post
Nov
30
This coverage from NPR includes audio as well as an article on Roger Smith, the former Chairman and CEO of General Motors, who died today at age 82. And, although born in Columbus, he went to University of Michigan.
I loved the movie Roger & Me, even though I knew, as I watched it, that I had to accept that Michael Moore was showing one film and Roger Smith lived a life beyond that one view.
We all do – just like we blog but we live outside our blogs. We don’t know one another as well as we think, just from reading our blogs. As forthright as I may be here, it only scratches the surface of who I am. And I try to remember that when I read posts that bother me – what does the post really represent beyond the words typed? A lot, nothing, something in between?
That’s not to say that Roger Smith wasn’t an evil person, as many people who watched the movie may have concluded, not to mention all the folks in Flint, MI and beyond.
But, for example, when Capri Cafaro did Meet the Bloggers, I was determined to hear her talk about and describe what it was like to be a 20 year old whose father was on trial and then in jail, because of what she had to say, with immunity, about actions he’d taken. And for her to still have so many connections to him, and so publicly. Now that helps you go behind the music, or mayhem, or motors.
Anyway, RIP, Roger. I’m curious to read whatever, if anything, Michael Moore might have to say. Just because, and not because I expect anything in particular. What, really, could he say that he didn’t say in that movie?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:39 pm November 30th, 2007 in Business, Culture
Comments
6 Responses to “General Motors’ Roger Smith, of Roger & Me, RIP”
Voted into Top 25 Political Mom Blogs
Now on sale-WLST essay included!
Posts About Pepper Pike City Council2010 WE Magazine 101 Women Bloggers to Watch
Category Specific RSS
Pepper Pike Cleveland+ Politics Women Ohio Elections Law Jewish
Mr. Moore put up Roger’s obit on the home page of his website:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Can’t you just hear Moore saying that last line, Anon?
Oh well – it’s just a curiosity – like wondering how many more kids Angelina and Brad might have. I can die peacefully without knowing, but to kill time, might be worth a google – well, not really – but you know what I mean.
Thanks for that Craig! I did a quick search on “michael moore on roger smith” but didn’t see much – that was a couple of hours ago. I’ve been having very strange e-mail problems so I’ve been a bit distracted.
I’m curious to read whatever, if anything, Michael Moore might have to say.
I would be, too, particularly in light of the following:
“In Roger & Me, a film about the destruction of Moore’s hometown of Flint, Mich., in the wake of GM’s profits-first pullout, Moore’s quest for GM honcho Roger Smith is fruitless; the joke, and tragedy, is that Moore never meets his Godot. But in [the film] Manufacturing Dissent, a former friend and union activist named Jim Musselman confirms that Moore met with Smith twice, once landing a 20-minute interview. Moore essentially asked him to bury the footage.” (link)
I’ll note that the Manufacturing Dissent film makers are self-described “lefties” who wanted to do a film about Moore because he was “someone [they] liked.” (link)
Out of fairness, I’ll also include the following:
“Moore vehemently rejected allegations he successfully managed to interview Roger Smith and then left that footage on the cutting room floor, telling the Associated Press: ‘Anyone who says that is a f[...]ing liar.’” (link)
Hard for me to speak ill of the dead but Mr. Smith left much wreckage in his wake for the sake of a company that, while it took very good care of him and his family (I suppose his children’s children’s children won’t have to ever worry about their health insurance), seems to be heading for the dumper anyway. I wonder if in his final moments he could see the faces of all the hard working people at GM Flint and elsewhere whose lives were irrevocably shot not only when they were thrown out of work, many in their 40s and 50s but also the retirees who pay more and more for their health insurance. But of course, Roger Smith deserved every penny he got, of course.
If I seem a tad bitter, I had relatives whose lives were spent making cars and steel and ended up broken and poor for all their life’s efforts.
Bitter is fine – there’s no question that the guy’s decisions negatively impacted thousands of people and the state and the industry and so on. I think I was just feeling that since I only really knew of him through Moore’s movie, I hated thinking that that’s all there was to him, at his death – you know what I mean? That kind of thing doesn’t sit well with me – even if it’s entirely true – partially an ignorance is bliss thing I guess but it’s totally possible that there’s no reason for any kindness to be offered – I just like to imagine that there must be, in everyone.
Though yeah – I can think of a few exceptions.