I know this is a little late, but was anyone moved by the Chrysler 'Imported from Detroit' ad?

[Taverner]

My mom's side is made of Flint Ex-Autoworkers, many who saw Flint and Detroit collapse in the 80s. Unfortunately, for many of them the take away was "Unions Bad." Remember, during the 80s GM and Ford were shipping jobs to Mexico faster than they could close up shop in the US. My relatives, all Union people, watched all of their hopes and dreams wash away, and not wanting to appear as 'victims' they voted more and more Republican. They blamed unions for all of the problems.

If you want to see this path of thinking play out from start to finish, watch "American Dream," a documentary that actually makes "Roger and Me" look like a walk in the park. The subject is a meat packing strike:

The film is centered on unionized meatpacking workers at Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota between 1985 and 1986. Hormel had cut the hourly wage from $10.69 to $8.25 and cut benefits by 30 percent despite posting a net profit of $30 million. The local union (P-9) opposed the cut, but the national union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, did not support them. --from Wikipedia

The movie in short? The meat packers lose, have to reapply for their own jobs back, get paid less, and the Hormel 'gold standard' for workers dies with the union.

Great movie to watch if you want to kill yourself.

Anyway, even though the Corporate heads of Chrysler do not give a rats ass about anything but their own short term profits, the idea of Detroit and Flint, my ancestral homelands, rising up and producing something, something made with union hands and when sells, in turn feeds, shelters and takes care of families - gave me a moment of pause.

I have some friends who work for Paws Inc, which is the firm behind Garfield the Cat. It's a great place to work, and Jim Davis himself is a nice guy. Up on the wall is their motto: If we take care of the cat, the cat takes care of us.

Anyway, here's that commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc

[Iggo]

1. Yeah, but not in the direction they wanted me to move.

I hate hate hate Eminem.

[PuffedMica]

2. Once upon a time Detroit sold cars based on cars, not on politics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3GLNYzoZEM

[rug]

3. How on earth did you find that commercial?

"A new and short-lived option for 1970 was the Vacuum Operated Exhaust (VOE), which was vacuum actuated via an underdash lever marked "EXHAUST." The VOE was designed to reduce exhaust backpressure to increase power and performance, but it also substantially increased exhaust noise. The VOE option was offered from November 1969 to January 1970. Pontiac management was ordered to cancel the VOE option by GM's upper management following a TV commercial for the GTO that aired during Super Bowl IV on CBS January 11, 1970. In that commercial, entitled "The Humbler," which was broadcast only that one time, a young man pulled up in a new GTO to a drive-in restaurant with dramatic music and exhaust noise in the background, pulling the "EXHAUST" knob to activate the VOE and then left the drive-in to do some street racing. That particular commercial was also cancelled by order of GM management."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_GTO

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. As one who lived 27 years in the suburbs of Detroit...I saw it firsthand.

I saw the foreclosure of dreams. I posted about it here, several times (in GD). No one gave a rat's ass then. Threads dropped like a stone, while false "housing bubble" posts got much attention. I don't need to watch a movie to know how craptastic, sad and forgotten Detroit is. The commercial is very nice, but I got my chills by appraising what everyone was losing. Sorry to come across as harsh, but I watched my dad (not an autoworker, but a white collar at Stroh's) lose his job, his home and his self worth in the 80's. No one really gave a shit then either.

[xmas74]

5. My family wasn't from Detroit

but some uncles were UAW at the AMC plant. We know how that went over.