Mark Steyn on Detroit
By the time Detroit declared bankruptcy, Americans were so inured to the throbbing dirge of Motown’s Greatest Hits — 40 percent of its streetlamps don’t work; 210 of its 317 public parks have been permanently closed; it takes an hour for police to respond to a 9-1-1 call; only a third of its ambulances are driveable; one-third of the city has been abandoned; the local realtor offers houses on sale for a buck and still finds no takers; etc., etc. — Americans were so inured that the formal confirmation of a great city’s downfall was greeted with little more than a fatalistic shrug. […]
To any American time-transported from the mid 20th century, the city’s implosion would be literally incredible: Were he to compare photographs of today’s Hiroshima with today’s Detroit, he would assume Japan won the Second World War after nuking Michigan. Detroit was the industrial powerhouse of America, the “arsenal of democracy,” and in 1960 the city with the highest per capita income in the land. Half a century on, Detroit’s population has fallen by two-thirds, and in terms of “per capita income,” many of the shrunken pool of capita have no income at all beyond EBT cards. The recent HBO series Hung recorded the adventures of a financially struggling Detroit school basketball coach forced to moonlight as a gigolo. It would be heartening to think the rest of the bloated public-sector work force, whose unsustainable pensions and benefits have brought Detroit to its present sorry state (and account for $9 billion of its $11 billion in unsecured loans), could be persuaded to follow its protagonist and branch out into the private sector, but this would probably be more gigolos than the market could bear, even allowing for an uptick in tourism from Windsor.
So, late on Friday, some genius jurist struck down the bankruptcy filing. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina declared Detroit’s bankruptcy “unconstitutional” because, according to the Detroit Free Press, “the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees.” Which means that, in Michigan, reality is unconstitutional.
Also included in Judge Rosemarie’s paean to the New Reality, is that the bankruptcy is disrespectful to Obama.
Prior to her ruling on Friday, the judge criticized the Snyder administration and Schuette’s office over their hasty move.
“It’s cheating, sir, and it’s cheating good people who work,” the judge told assistant state Attorney General Brian Devlin. “It’s also not honoring the (United States) president, who took (Detroit’s auto companies) out of bankruptcy.”
Meanwhile, the new “Who destroyed Detroit” narrative is Republicans are to blame!.
Michigan used to be a symbol of industrial strength in manufacturing in this country. But thanks to a lot of Republican policies, the city is now filing for bankruptcy. […]
Make no mistake, Detroit is exactly what the Republicans want. They outsourced manufacturing jobs, attack unions, cut public services, and this is the result.
I mean, whodda thunk it?
This is what it looks like when government is small enough to drown in your bathtub, and it is not a pretty picture.
This isn’t delusion, this is malice.
It is who they are, it is what they do.
Ugggh. You linked to Ed Schultz. Boooo!
And he passes the republicans off as bourgeoisie wreckers because they because they elected not to continue holding up Yertle and his court.They have no right to leave when things get shitty and expert central planning fails. They owed it to the unions and crony system to stay and get busted out like loyal suckers.
Schultz actually believes this horse shit! Oy!
47% of the population of Detroit is functionally illiterate. I did a little checking. In 2011, US avg. per student expenditure was $10,500. Detroit was spending $15,570. Steyn really got it right when he stated that this is little more than government sanctioned child abuse. And you don’t get to a 53% literacy rate in just one generation. This has been going on for a while.
They used to call it motown,
now it’s just a po town,
It was a big progressive show town,
Now the wind makes it blow down.
Detroit is the city that rots
It used to be the city that burned
can’t afford to build the cars no more
The people just leave as the unions learned
and the people that stay
watch the pavement brake away
watch the grass creep in
as the homes cave in
as the judge bangs her gavel
her robe will unravel
and the depts pile up
like a mountain of sin
They used to call it motown,
now it’s just a po town,
It was a big progressive show town,
Now the wind makes it blow down.
Bail outs didn’t go round
To the folks in the po-town
Now Ed Schultz has got the lowdown
Says GOP caused the slow down
50 years of democrat mayors
laughing at the warnings
of the crazy doom sayers
Unions stripped all
the cash off in layers
Now the game stopped
‘Cause it ain’t got enough players
Can’t tax the roaches
So the 8 Mile bleeds
All the little people
Got to scatter like seeds
They think they can
hook the state up to the feeds
But half of the people
who are staying can’t read.
They used to call it motown,
now it’s just a po town,
It was a big progressive show town,
Now the wind makes it blow down. – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=50163#comments
Tch! Everyone gets that “Who destroyed Detroit” thing all wrong. What they’re saying is The Who destroyed Detroit. DAMN that Limey cracker, Townsend!
hey have no right to leave when things get shitty
Yep. You want lower taxes, bigger yards and -much-lower crime rate? Too fucking bad. You’ll live in your high cost shithole and if someone blows your head off, we’ll just raise the cost of living on your spawn.
It is who they are, it is what they do.
It is also very depressing.
Apologies – Monday Morning Blues caused by the realization that another week of battling the Forces Of Evil has dawned.
I feel like Chuck Heston waking-up to another day in Omega Man.
Well done, Palaeo!
May I quote that in a post over at my joint?
Tea-Party Businessman to Challenge McConnell
Sure. Heck add to it or fix it if you want to.
Heck, what malice?
The Democrats — having made arsenic laced lemons — merely turn to making arsenic laced lemonade.
[…] at Protein Wisdom, Palaeomerus has composed a fitting set of lyrics commemorating the Downfall Of […]
Michigan is not the only place where reality in unconstitutional.
A lot of people seem to avoid noticing that Detroit was the butt of jokes about a city in decline 30 years ago. Anyone remember Kentucky Fried Movie and, “Take him to Detroit”?
What is happening now is the result of not dealing with mild to serious infections but letting them go untreated until they kill the body politic. The ruling class acts like an addict, and clearly they are not going to get better because they are still in denial about what the problem is. Instead of admitting they have a problem with an unsustainable social model (see Walter Russell Mead) they would rather blame Republicans, capitalism, racism, or double down on spending to the unions that help keep them in office. In the meantime they keep hitting up their codependents for more money, lying, stealing, and just generally acting like a strung out junkie.
This will not end well.
FYI from Salon in 2008. If the Blue model fails, we’ll just have to force on those states which behave prudently.
This whole bankruptcy makes me think of Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book:
Shel Silverstein was making fun of Detroit in 1961!
“It is what they do”…..
– Well yes and no. Not ever if it doesn’t fit the narrative.
– The next time an asshat Progressive gets in your grill over Treyvon, ask him or her where their “Jonylah hoodie peace and justice day” is going to be held.
Pretty close to 500 dead black yoots in Chicago alone since Trayvon went home to Jesus.
Obama hates black people.
MSNBC idiots Ed Schultz and Melissa Harris-Perry are not delusional, they’re lying. Lying their fucking asses off. It’s so blatant, it’s stunning.
Ed Schultz is a fucking idiot amongst fucking idiots.
That’s because, 30 years, ago, the consequences of the ’67 riots were unavoidably, inescapably manifest.
Racism, is there nothing it can’t accomplish?
I’m starting to suspect Dyson is a bit of a racist himself.
What tipped you off first?
Those who cry “racism” at all times never understood the story of the boy who cried “wolf,” did they?
He got a cushy university job heading the Dept. of Wolf Studies, right?
I’m using those invisible sarcasm tags, Charles. ; )
If you put Dyson and Marc Lamont Hill on the same set, you’d need ear protectors.
link
ot @john bradley today hb 76 school prop taxes has 85 sponsors out of 212 in pa house
I have to agree that in the short run, that’s exactly what he got. I took longer in real life for the people who responded to his cry of wolf to figure out what was going on.
Heh. Not to mention the opening scenes of “Beverly Hills Cop.”
Yeah, but don’t worry…it’s an American car; it’ll fall apart or break down before it reaches the cliff.