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I (Maynard) feel compelled to say something, but I don’t know what. I have no reasoned arguments to lay out, no conclusions. I had a personal reaction to an event, that’s all. My reaction struck me as somehow important, but I don’t know what to make of it. So I’ll set down some words and see where we go.

If you saw that Detroit/Clint Eastwood commercial, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you didn’t, then never mind.

I’m not going to posture. There’s too much posturing in this world: Feigned indignation, feigned approval, whatever. For example, I don’t really much care how much golf Obama plays, and I think most people are with me on this. Every president stands accused of inappropriate recreation. The pundits gripe, and sometimes their gripes are reasonable and sometimes they’re nonsense. I’m not saying I have no opinion. I think golf is a stupid and rather vulgar game. I’ve never played golf and I never will. But Obama will not win or lose my vote based upon his golfing habits.

The golf thing is an example of the sort of argument that appeals to the gut rather than the head. And I listen to my gut, but I’m also skeptical. Feelings are not to be trusted. That, by the way, it what bugs me about Star Wars, the way those Jedi knights keep telling each other to trust their feelings. That’s bulsh*; dangerous bulsh*. You know who trusts his feelings? The guy with road rage that tries to push you into the ditch, that’s who! Don’t trust your feelings! Feelings are full of [deleted]!

But feelings should be contemplated. Why do I feel this way? What is driving me? Is there an internal need that I should indulge, or should I deny it? Feelings, like a prisoner in the dock, deserve a fair hearing.

So I saw that Detroit commercial. And I felt a shudder of spontaneous revulsion run through my body. There was something terribly unclean about what I saw, something that made me blanch at the thought of ever buying anything that came out of Detroit.

Why did I react that way? I’ll give the reasons that come to mind, but I’m not sure this covers it. Feelings, as I said, are unreasonable.

Detroit was a marvelous, industrial city. The wages were high, the productivity was great. And then it went to seed. It took its wealth for granted; it consumed more and more relative to its production.

Check it out. “The total of both cash compensation and benefits provided to GM hourly workers in 2006 amounted to approximately $73.26 per active hour worked.” I bet that’s more than most of you people made, probably a lot more. Heck, I’ve got a degree from Starfleet Academy and I do advanced technical design work, and you can hire me for a lot less than the goons on the UAW assembly lines.

So the parasites ate away at the hosts, and when the bankruptcy finally came, the reorganization should have tamed the runaway costs. And to some extent this happened. But the UAW’s bacon was fundamentally hauled out of the fire by Uncle Sam and his big pot of taxpayer dollars. You can blame this on both Bush and Obama. Defenders of the bailouts tell us that, if not for the people’s money, the auto industry would have vanished away, taking millions of jobs with it. Bunk! What would have happened is the auto manufacturers would have reorganized under Chapter 11, and been relieved of onerous burdens to the unions. So the politicians moved in to protect their cronies, at the expense of the bondholders and the stockholders. Obama said he was protecting “workers” by pushing the burden onto “speculators” and of course taxpayers.

I’m thinking of my own retirement. Social Security is broke, and all I’ve got are my own savings. I happened to have some AIG stock in my personal fund. I saw the value of that stock plunge to zero. The bailout didn’t do a thing for people in my position. Ordinary folk are left out to dry, while our tax dollars fund the cronies. They’re too big to fail; you’re not. And we’re told this is a good thing. Doesn’t matter that the assembly line thugs make more money than you; they’re workers and you’re a speculator.

So to listen to Clint Eastwood drone on about how Detroit is coming back, and this is portrayed as a glorious event, an American success story, a triumph of unity and craftsmanship and hard work….I just wanted to vomit. We know what happened; we know who took the people’s money; we see them squandering it on insane boondoggles like the Chevy Dolt. And we’re used to that sort of corruption, we expect nothing less from Washington. But to see this rape of American industry spun and paraded as wonderful thing…I don’t know, I just want to cry and to vomit.

So the next day (today), I wake up and survey the world and see a lot of people talking about that ad, and I realize that we all pretty much feel the same way. I mean, some people liked the ad, so I don’t mean we all reacted negatively. But we all understand that it was a lie, it was nonsense, it was a colossal redefinition of history. It’s just that some people approve of what was done, and want to see it remembered in favorable terms.

Okay, that’s what I saw, and I had to report this personal reaction, but that’s not really the point I want to make. Here‘s the point:

Why in hell did they run with an advertisement that so many people found so repulsive? I mean, the carmakers normally want to run ads that will be perceived with broad favor or perhaps ignored. They don’t want to pay big bucks to convince large numbers of people to stay away from their products.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen something like this. I’m recalling a Carl’s Junior advertising campaign from a few years back. The general theme was that people went to Carl’s Junior and ate like pigs. This was portrayed as a good thing. “Our food is so good you can’t help but get messy eating it.” I was repulsed. Without realizing it, I entirely eliminated Carl’s Junior from my orbit. Whenever Carl’s Junior came to mind, I felt a quick flash of “Yech!” and moved on to other things.

So now I’ve got “Detroit” and “Yech!” similarly linked. And it seems that Detroit has done this on purpose.

Yesterday I shrugged and figured I was having an aberrant reaction. But today I know it’s not just me.

More importantly, I think the people that are as repulsed as I am are the class of people that would have been the most likely customers for domestic cars. We’re the ones that want to buy American, the ones that go the extra mile to do the right thing.

On the flip side, the people that were favorably impressed by the commercial would be the ones that believe in government handouts rather than personal initiative. They’re the ones that will buy the import without a second thought.

Something’s going on, and I can’t make sense of it.

Either that or my imagination is acting up.

Clarity will come in time.

Of course, by the time that happens, it will likely be too late.

Okay, I’ve either said what I needed to say, or I’m incapable of saying it. Maybe you boys and girls can take it from here.