Michigan's woes.

A few years before America's entry into WWII, and in the midst of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt started ramping up war materials production in order to supply Britain, Australia, and others as outlined by the Lend-Lease Act. To do this, he essentially told the big automakers that they were going to make some damn planes, tanks, and bombs, and he didn't want to hear any of their guff. FDR was big on using both his literal and metaphorical backside of his hand on corporations.

Fast forward a few decades, and America sees themselves in the midst of what I'm going to term for now a Great Recession. And wouldn't you know it, our President is using his backhand on GM and Chrysler like they were a bunch of coke whores failing to give us a cut of their BJ money. Except Obama's being way more of a pansy, and simply firing a CEO here, and forcing dumbass deals with Italian automakers. (Seriously...the Italians are saving us? Fuck me...).

Then we have this whole Boil Our Oceans problem going on. (Don't you think that would get more attention than 'Global Warming' and 'Climate Change?') The biggest contributor to this problem is the production of energy through fossil fuels. Sure we have the Saudi Arabia of wind in the US. And sure, with offshore windfarms most coastal (including Great Lake) states could produce 100% - 200% of their energy by wind. But we have this problem. No one really has the ability to mass produce windmills on such a scale to really make this viable yet. Also no one has the money to create the production foundation necessary to make these windmills.

I mean, where are you going to find a huge pool of labor highly trained in steelworking, machine tooling, and advanced manufacturing technology needed to make windmills on a huge scale? Why, one would need a whole city trained to do that. And a city that doesn't have such competing interests that the labor pool would be bled towards other pursuits. And you would really hundreds of factories with assembly lines designed to be flexible enough to produce new designs on an almost constant basis. Where could someone possibly find that?
...

So instead of firing CEO's, forcing poorly formed mergers, and handing out millions and millions in funds to keep the auto industry alive, even when its clear right now that no one is really interested in purchasing cars, why don't we do this:

Make the cash to GM and Chrysler available not as a bailout but as an infrastructure loan. Tell them to get this loan they are going to have to be prepared to, at least temporarily, change their product. Then with allll that money we've set aside for green training, and towards creating wind markets, start change Detroit from the Gotham its become?

Yes, there is a somewhat limited market for windmills (although not THAT limited. These things have a finite life, and markets like China, Russia, Greenland, Canada, Brazil, etc, are RIPE for wind production.), but the change doesn't have to be permanent, and can be phased back towards car production as the market dictates. Plane, tank, and bomb production wasn't a permanent features after WWII (depending on your outlook of the Military-Industrial complex), and the transition for the car manufactures back to car production was a relatively painless one.

I know this isn't a novel idea, and Michigan's Governon Granholm (or whatever her name is. I'm too lazy for wikipedia), has supported it in numerous speeches. But I really only see words right now ('We should do this!') and no federal official--Michigan can't do this on their own--stepping up to the plate.

Or maybe I'm just ignorant on plans in place to do this. If not, how do we pressure the government to move towards this? Or is this just a shitty idea?