Suffer Detroit's Little Children to Become Victims of For-Profiteers

WE KNOW WHO MOST OF THE STUDENT UNDERACHIEVERS IN MICHIGAN SCHOOLS ARE:

*They are the poor.
*They live largely in urban ghettos.
*They live in high crime areas.
*They are exposed to constant gun violence.
*They are children in homes rife with abuse and neglect.
*They are hungry and go day-to-day without proper nourishment, staggering numbers qualify for free or reduced meals.
*They are the children of children, frequently the off spring of promiscuous mothers, often children themselves.
*They live in rundown, dangerous, or condemned housing. Many have lost their homes to foreclosure and eviction.
*They go cold in the winter without proper outerwear.
*They are exposed everyday to the drug culture.
*They are harassed, threatened, and controlled, herded about by gangs. They live in constant despair, terrorized by street crime and shots in the night.
*They are those who have been neglected or abandoned by the houses of worship.
*They grow up in a jobless environment and have no real hope for an adequately paying occupation.
*They are in large numbers teenage boys of color who drop out of school.
*They are unhealthy, too many die as infants, get few vaccinations, no pre-natal or little post-natal care.
*They are culturally deprived: living in areas with few good public libraries or free or affordable cultural activities.
*They have very limited access to banner stores such as abound in the suburbs.
*They are often in foster care, having been abused, neglected or abandoned by their parent(s).
*They have little opportunity to investigate the natural beauty or the beauty and wonders of the out state areas of Michigan, many have never left their neighborhoods, have never seen the open countryside, the dunes, or the Mackinaw Bridge.
*They have juvenile criminal records, often numerous misdemeanors.
*They are truant, or frequently fail to come to school.
*They have few books or educational stimuli in the home.
*Their caregivers are unemployed or on welfare.
*They often lack the basic social skills, at age five cannot perform such simple tasks as tying their own shoes, may eat out of bowls without utensils. .
*They are outside the profile sought by the "marketplace entrepreneurials," with the exception of drug pushers.
*They have not received the proper diets in the early critically formative years of mental development.
*They are victims of various kinds of political shams and disparaging debates, the flotsam and jetsom of Lansing debate and cynicism.
*They cannot move or play freely in their neighborhoods without fear and anxiety.
*They are the state's foster care kids (approx. 17,800 in 2010); the percentage of these kids committed to Michigan's foster care programs who do not graduate is very high, approaching 60% or more.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT?

Everything, if we comprehend the depth of the problem and nothing. If we shift blame and refuse to do what we can to correct this deplorable situation through a sustained, collaborate and costly effort, then, we ourselves, are at the heart of this egregious failure.

In a moment of pure honesty Grand Rapids former Public Schools Superintendent Jeff Grotsky said some of the best teaching takes place in our inner cities, predominately minority elementary classrooms, it doesn't show up in high test scores, but taken from where these students start out, how far behind educationally they come to us, the persistent progress that is being made reflects some of the finest teaching in the district. The love and dedication of these teachers is outstanding.

Our public schools rooms are "nurseries of our future and their wanton neglect entails a kind of social suicide."
Why are we squandering hope and help for a school generation moving through the inner city public schools while we repeatedly make public education the object of criticism and scorn, as the editorial board of the Detroit News is prone to do with its habitual harangues. When does the News become collaborative with teachers and go pro-active?

When are we going to hold the tax-hating Lansing pols responsible for their cynicism and neglect?
In spite of the many attempts to portray themselves as the promoters of "education reform" in Michigan, the Detroit News and the stonehearted TeaPublican Majority's civic and social blindness about life in the abandoned squalor of the state's dead and dying cities ignores the root causes of educational underachievement. In the their blame-laying fixations on test scores and measurements, that simply confirm the plight of our urban and poor rural area children, they have not become the answer, they have become enlargers of the problem.

Now, Nolan Finley, calls for the giant evil step: DEMO DETROIT'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS: "DPS can't be saved. It pushed beyond the tipping point years ago, and must be allowed to slide into oblivion."

"Whoever is a cause of trouble to one of these little ones who have faith in the goodness of life, it would be better for him to have a great stone fixed to his neck, and to come to his end in the deep sea." -- Paraphrase of St. Matthew 18:6

Original Post.

No National Honor Given Finley: Taking Down Detroit’s Public Schools is a Civic Crime

Response to Nolan Finley in "Roberts must be demo man for Detroit Public Schools" in the Detroit News on May 15, 2011.

Dead-end pundit, Nolan Finley, has grown giddy breathing in all that anti-public sector gaseous blather of a cadre of defeatists and self-aggrandizing right-wing ideologues who have for years lived in and around Detroit and have succumbed to (even aided in) Detroit's slow psychotic swirl of social, economic and civil death.

Nolan is part of a group of so-called Libertarians ("Just leave us alone" trolls), who have no positive pro-active program for Michigan's largest urban area. His years of willful intellectual neglect have made the death spiral of its infrastructure and purpose as a dwelling place, a dead end. Nolan's outlook and advice have made Detroit worse not better, read on with the News blog's comments who daily expand and laud Finley's brand of brazen indifference.

"Give Detroit to Canada" has been the wise-guy mantra. Working every day in a news building since his early days as a copy boy, Nolan's finally charred and burned out. Not that he isn't featured in the social news of Detroit in black tie and tails or featured amid the "beautiful people" or that he isn't an Adonis back in Cumberland County, Kentucky where he is greatly admired as a local boy having achieved success.

Nolan expresses his willingness, license, to bemoan the implosion of a great city, give up and dance on its grave; defending his sacred right to ignore the "willful" poor, with such bromides Finley uses as:

"Our poor in Detroit are rich by comparison to people in sub-Saharan Africa."

This kind of intentionally misleading assertion does not account for what it means to be poor and unemployed, or worse yet, a foster child, mentally ill and/or unemployable in present day Detroit.

Hectoring does not assuage the Detroit/Mackinac Center News from culpability and responsibly in Detroit's accelerated- terminal slide-into a failed city abyss. .

Food banks, homelessness, and re-sale shops. which now abound testify to real needs of our urban neighbors. The growing blight and seedy/greedy "licensed to steal" trade shops e.g. the Cash Advance and the Auto Title Loan Outlets are covering old main streets like a black-leafed kudzu.

Boldly the Great Seer Finley calls out the final challenge: It's "Demo" time! Take down all of Detroit's public schools and sell them off. Privatize and profitize the education of the remnants who dwell in a civic hell of municipal dysfunction and crime.

Sez Dead End Nolan:

"If Roy Roberts is to succeed as emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools, HE MUST SEE HIS MISSION NOT AS SAVING THE DISTRICT, BUT DISMANTLING IT. DPS can't be saved. It pushed beyond the tipping point years ago, and must be allowed to slide into oblivion."
(See: Finley, "Roberts must be demo man for Detroit Public Schools", 5.15.11, DetNews)

There is no National Civic Medal of Honor bestowed on such an advocate of corrupted capitulation to the darkside of rigid-conservativism and racially-tainted conclusions such as this one: "...ALLOWED TO SLIDE INTO OBLIVION." Read that and weep for the children.

Years ago, a word of caution was spoken by one of Michigan's Appellate Court judges: What is Wall Street's view of Michigan? It is a state with the city of Detroit, which historically has a low threshold for racial tension and violence.

The National Census has shown us that a sizable portion of the exodus of population from Detroit is made up of middle class people of color. Those left behind, in this troubled city, will not long suffer the humiliation and disrespect of those who would take the city further down; while skimming tax monies off to private school vendors and profiteers backed by a highly partisan TeaPublican majority and propaganda mills such as Koch Brothers' CATO/Americans for Prosperity or Engler's Mackinac Center-all currently on a rip, bolstered by the unchecked, powerful and shameful abuse of one-party majority rule.

Original Post.

Absolute Michissippi : All Business/Profit All The Time

Absolute, peat tinged 18 yr old Scotch Whiskey, and Cuban Cigars...

It's all Celebrations on elite, remote Mackinac Island this coming week for the "business bail out" victors. Gov. Snyder will arrive with the Brinks horse drawn lorries laden down with nearly $3 billion in booty, a neatly gift wrapped taxpayer bailout bundle, to be laid dutifully into the hands of his biggest backers and contributors.
Business trumps the little guy once again.

A huge new tax is forced on the seniors and elderly, cuts to the tune of hundred of millions to public schools serving our children, heartless cuts to the unemployed by removal of a quarter of their access to unemployment benefits, the imposition of new and more draconian powers to the Emergency Finance Managers, and many other detrimental steps in the Nerd Herd's downward spiral of quality of life now being inflicted on the ordinary family and the workers here in Rick's Michassippi.

Served by smartly dressed Jamaicans and sporting designer polo shirts, the kings and princes of Michissippian business elite will prowl the green, green grass of the manicured greens at the Grand Hotel, howling with glee and fattened with assurance of a nearly 3 billion bailout for their bottomlines in the Snyder Budget for the next 2 years.

It's the Michigan Chamber of Commerce on parade on the island. We won! We Won! At long last, we've reeked revenge on our perennial political opponents and have now we've spoils of this battle all to ourselves. Snyder and crew have just fattened the pot, swilled the trough, and stoked the pokey for business-at the huge expense of the common man and woman here in Snyder's re-invention, Michissippi.

But there is more to the story. This windfall, product of pure partisan blitz-legislation, has a viper's sting in its very soul. Huge new taxes were raised. Many, who had pledged to Grover Norquest et. al. never to raise "new taxes," are trying to hide behind their political-speak Speedos the fact that (what they would love to see stick in the minds of voters was a "tax shift" is), will always be, a humungous new "tax hike." Got that, A HUGE NEW TAX HIKE. Inevitably, the naked truth is out.

Across the state names are being outted: Republicans, both Senators and House members, are showing up on recall lists. Who's sponsoring these recalls? The True Believers. The rock-ribbed Tea Party advocates, who are purists and determined to see that these who betrayed the cause of lower taxes, smaller government, and more local control pay the ultimate political price-a ignominious defeat, recall from office!

Puff, Sip and Swill-on Chamberites. Your victory party is soon over. Look sharp for the proverbial handwriting on the wall. You've won, but at an incalculable, exacting cost.  

Original Post.

Make My School A Prison: An important letter from Snyder’s trash bin

"Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It's the least we can do to prepare our students for the future."

The following is the content of a letter sent to Gov. Rick Snyder concerning the negative impact of Michissippian TeaPubulican cuts in per student funding as per the Snyder Budget.

Dear Governor Snyder,

In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren't we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to "fix" what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.

One solution I believe we must do is take a look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don't believe Michigan wants to be on top of.

Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.

This is why I'm proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!

Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It's the least we can do to prepare our students for the future...by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.

Respectfully submitted,
Nathan Bootz
Superintendent
Ithaca Public Schools

Original Post.

KKK Era Ghosts Arise In Snyder’s Newly Re-Invention: Michassippi

Michassippi Miasma: "Muscular" Anti-Public Service TeaPublicans join forces with "Muscular Christianity" in a crusade akin to the KKK's zenith of power and influence in Michigan during the 1920's; A time when an estimated 17,000 Klansmen marched openly on Lansing in a bodacious show of social force and powerful influence.

A trove of names and paraphernalia were found, hidden a former Newaygo minister's attic. It was a revealing 1920's collection of who and how well-placed in the community local KKK's men were. This event is a clear and timely reminder of the cyclical outbreak of Michassippi religious and political fanaticism.

Diehard TeaPartisans in the state legislature are steely well-defended against all reason or compromise by very the rise and the backing of this current (but historically familiar) outbreak of another militant Know Nothing frenzy (TeaPartisanship) and it's accompanying Koch Bros.-backed CORPORATIST RUSH TO USE GOVERNMENT TO DESTROY GOVERNMENT. The "muscular" movement is well underway here in Snyder's re-invented state: Michassippi.

Trouble Is Emerging
Swept along and cleverly manipulated, the TeaPublican's militant, arrogant and ignorant, movement has become the "tool" of the State Chamber of Commerce and affiliates; men who would risk endemic damage to our new Michassippian infrastructure and gamble with the potential for serious social unrest in the centers where more and more of the underclass are ghettoized while using this their "opportunity" to make selfish gains. This risk is intensified by this greedy and parsimonious group of individuals willing to "risk it all" for-a few more dollars on their bottom lines.

TeaPublicans Are Takers, Not Givers
Key to this fanatical effort (co-opted by power driven business and corporate interests) are the deadly determined "muscular" Christian types. These are the hardhearted who have succeeded in seizing control of the state's traditional Republican Party for their sectarian and private causes and agendas.

Never far below the surface is the ugly reality of an intense Cultural War targeting enemies and politics outside the acceptance of these "muscular" theoloticians strict world of "liberty." These battles are feeding and augmenting their aggression toward targeted "others."

These Zealots' worldview is set against what they characterize and condemn as the present state of affairs, as they view it: "feminized" politics and religion. "Nanny State" is but one of their favorite and oft repeated terms of derision highlighting their angst.

Michassippi's TeaPartiasns are the "Strict Father" types, "muscular" men who must "put their foot down," take total control, and sternly discipline the "Nurturing Mother" elements in our state- those who would seek to care for and attend the needs of others-especially in this our hour of great need.

According to Dome Magazine's Eric Freedman, Michigan: Hate Magnet?: "the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit national civil rights organization, says 35 hate groups (are active in Michigan)- more than in any other Midwest state..."

A newly published account of this "forgotten" evil smudge on our state's radical past is found in the following according to Freedman:

"A new book by historian Craig Fox describes Michigan's KKK movement after World War I, focusing on rural Newaygo County and its strong anti-Catholicism. Given the clandestine nature of the organization, its diversified organizational structure and the destruction of most of its records, there's no precise figure on the number of "Invisible Empire" members across the state during that period. Estimates ranged from 80,000 to as high as 875,000."

"As it had done elsewhere, the Klan swept across Michigan like wildfire, an extended recruitment drive seeing the hooded order arrive in villages, towns and cities through the state during the summer months of 1923."

The influence of the KKK in Michigan was so strong that Frank Boles, at Central Michigan's Clarke Library, reported, "...that for a few short years in the 1920s, the Klan exerted a strong political influence on Michigan and was close to electing Klan members to the highest political offices. A referendum on banning private education was even proposed by the Klan. Boles writes:

" The ban on private education was directed primarily toward Roman Catholics, the KKK target of choice at that time."

"It (Michigan's 1920's KKK) was a broadly based organization which was mostly anti-immigrant and anti Catholic. A lot of people felt that way, and they were not perceived as fringe or kooks."

The Role of the "Muscular Christian" in Harsh Right Politics

Observer Austin Cline helps us see how this "muscular Christian" archetype works into our present states' politics and helps to explain the bitterness and the vengeance wreaked upon public servants and advocates for the Public Good-the high ground of a Commons "in the service of everyone."

Under Michassippi's "Muscular TeaPartisan" rampage and the hour of power facilitated by the "Leave us Alone" Libertarians-touting "liberty" to be and do as they please-all others outside their circle of concern, "be damned," has come to signal terrible the beginnings of the most radical and extreme regime ever seen in Lansing.

Outlawed are the very themes of social justice and democracy-in their most American form. Enter now the realm of "power and might," money and control espousing: business is basic. They are "lording it over" care and service "the nurturing element" which is essential to lives of working families and to the existence of those less fortunate in this troubled economy.

There is much to learn from Cline about this devolution into radical conflict:

"Because Muscular Christianity focuses on replacing feminine qualities with masculine virtues, it necessarily involves attacks on women in the church. The attacks may be subtle, but there is an inevitable denigration of everything associated with women. By insisting that Jesus, God, and the Christian church are masculine and specifically not feminine, the message is sent that feminine qualities are inferior to everything masculine. Women are also blamed for problems in the church."

It is logical and easy to see that "muscular Christian" far right christo-polticians and others - so deeply infiltrating Michassippi's theololitics; with the help of the "muscular" theoloticians - expands this rabble's condemnation of the "feminine." Their condemnation includes public school teachers. Mentors and education instructors are derided as "soft" and lack the stern discipline of a "muscular." All this harks back to authority such as is found in the 19th Century industrial model of leadership and rigid order: "I'm the boss, you are the peon." When educators and teacher complain of the lack of support and the "muscular radicals'" cuts in revenues and public support - such as they are currently facing; they are called "Wimps" and "Whiners"

So we turn again to Austin Cline for a summation to enlighten the place we find ourselves. We are midstream in our present and accelerating race to the bottom of the nation on the basis of Rick Snyder's re-invention of our former Arsenal of Democracy into a stripped down Snyder led Michassippi:

"Muscular Christianity was founded upon a radical, as well as theological, distinction between supposedly masculine and feminine values. Because of this, it was possible for fundamentalists opposed to modernity to transfer what they disliked about modernity to the "feminine" category. THUS WOMEN BECAME BEARERS OF ALL THAT WAS HATED ABOUT THE MODERN WORLD WHILE MEN WERE INVESTED WITH EVERYTHING GOOD AND POSITIVE.

"A significant impetus behind the assault on women and modernity was the feeling that women had encroached upon traditional male spheres like the workplace and colleges. Furthermore, women's leadership in the churches had harmed Christianity by creating an effeminate clergy and a weak sense of self. All of this was associated with liberalism, feminism, women, and modernity.

"Although examples of something like muscular Christianity can be found in ancient Christianity and in Europe, it is primarily an American phenomenon and an American fundamentalist reaction against the modern era of equality and liberty. Muscular Christianity pushes masculinity in part by pushing traditional hierarchies and traditional structures of authority - structures which, naturally, are run and controlled by men. FIGHTING AGAINST THE "FEMINIZATION" OF CHURCH OR SOCIETY IS, THUS, A FIGHT AGAINST THE LOSS OF TRADITIONAL PRIVILEGES AND POWER. (emphasis added)

"Indeed, the development of fundamentalism and later the Christian Right can be described, at least in part, as a reaction against equality and an attempt to defend or restore traditional privileges. Because so many privileges are bound up with traditions which themselves are tied closely with religion, it's natural that assaults on traditional privileges will be seen as assaults on religion.

"IN A WAY, THEY ARE AN ASSAULT ON RELIGION - RELIGION IS PARTIALLY TO BLAME FOR THE PERSISTENCE OF UNJUST PRIVILEGES IN SOCIETY. JUST BECAUSE INEQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE HAVE RELIGIOUS BACKING DOESN'T MAKE THEM EXEMPT FROM RATIONAL EVALUATION AND CRITICISM." (emphasis added)

The all out attacks on workers rights, public education, and public service now under "full steam ahead" in Michassippi are clear signals of a deeper flaw and a more fundamental evil. If we could recall DIETRICH BONHOFFER he would doubtless agree with Cline:

"Traditional masculine qualities played a very important role in Nazi rhetoric, so of course Nazi Christians preferred a masculine Christianity over a feminine one. True Christianity, they claimed, was manly and hard, not feminine and weak. Adolf Hitler described Jesus, "my Lord and Savior," as "a fighter." His Jesus, and the Jesus of German Christians generally, was a militant warrior fighting for God, not a suffering servant accepting punishment for the sins of the world."

Specifically, TeaPublican's specious attacks on public education target and punish women more than men. Over 65 % ,and higher percentages, of public school teachers are women and women have become the "easy/soft" targets of choice for the greedy and the evilly ideological anti-public sector business and religious types.

Teaching women are high value targets in the Michassippi take down of public education and teacher rights and privileges by the states elected TeaPublicans and fellow travelers.

Original Post.

In Michassippi; With or Without Unions, TeaPublicans Have Come to Hate Teachers

Response to Ingrid Jacques in "Teachers feel the heat" in the Michigan View, Detroit / Mackinac News on May 20, 2011.

Chirpy Jabberwocky Jacques writes about teaching-stand-alone-outside-a-union- as a right wing, beguiled "teacher" hoping to separate herself from all teachers' unions. Ingrid states that among suspect organizations "teachers unions" are "some of the worst offenders."

Mouthing the "bumper sticker" style slogans of Frank Luntz-speak, via Andrew Coulson, anti-teacher association operative for the infamous Koch Bros.' CATO Institute of hate and dissension, Ingrid makes her assumptions which are fallacious.

Teachers may only be dedicated and pure if they are "STAND ALONE" in relation to their employer, as we may be sure, Ingrid feels she is. ("Teachers feel the heat", Ingrid Jacques,DetNews, 5/20/11)

If teachers, however, choose to associate with other teachers in a "union"; then they summarily may be dismissed from status and vilified as corrupted; such as the Mackinac Center has been so well-known as propagandizing here in Michassippi - the new Snyderesque "state" where teachers are stripped of rights and status, radically reduced in salaries and collaboration; as proposed in pending Michigan Tea-partisan legislation; and as projected by the on-going TeaPublican proto-pogrom (yes, this is becoming the fitting term), a purposeful and vicious, on-going attack on instructors/mentors (as a specific category of persons and professionals) unworthy of public and political support or esteem, subject to being shunned and legislated against.

Teachers, who are targeted for reprisals and revenge for their association together for the betterment of public schools, neighborhood public school children, and for their standing in their professional chosen association, are much maligned and subject to nasty "trash talk." The blogs of the Detroit/Mackinac Center News are a continuous and egregious example.

If we read Jabberwocky Jacques correctly:

• A small business person is degraded and tainted by membership in the Chamber of Commerce-a powerful lobby with overweening influence in government.
• An attorney has less probity if she/he is a member of the State Bar which defends the rights and privileges of lawyers and takes political stances favoring the legal profession.
• A manufacturer is without credibility and stature if it belongs to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)-a group set up to collectively defend and promote their forward progress as industries.
• A doctor is discredited and undermined as a reliable professional if she/he belongs to the American Medical Association which lobbies for her/his concerns and the physician's livelihood, working environment, and professional advancement.
• A legislator is to be discounted as dishonest and forthright if they belong to the "union" known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.) which works diligently to convey into the law the wishes of its dominate corporate control structure.
• An Evangelical or Strict Catholic is less credible or endowed with a questionable moral standing by becoming a member and participant in the strict union with individuals and groups known as Right-to-Life - armed with a powerful agenda.
• A Christian Radio operator/owner looses respect and moral high ground simply when she/he joins in with the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in an association/union promoting the goals and objectives, the financial and regularity environment of religious broadcasting.

All this we "just love and admire teachers" comes with a caveat" Just don't let us catch teachers coming together in an association which effects change or promotes laws and legislation that enhances and protects public education, neighborhood schools, and pupils. Should you do that... we will turn on you with a righteous vengeance. Or as one marauding newbie TeaPublican has said, "I don't care if I get don't re-elected, I'm here to do God's work." And oh the strange "god" work he does!

TeaPublicans obviously find it easy to HATE TEACHERS for any variety of reasons-unions being only one of their chosen categories.

If you remember only one thing Ingrid, hating teachers will include you.

Original Post.

Teaparty leader: The More We Pay Attention - The More Hopeless it Can Seem, Political Parties Only Exsist to Get and Keep Power

Commentary on Wendy Day piece "The four phases of the Tea Party" on Detroit / Mackinac News web site Michigan View on May 18, 2011

Opines Wendy Day, Common Sense in Government, Day was instrumental in the first of Michigan's Tea Party organization:

"Politicians will lie and manipulate us. They will go to Lansing and Washington and make really stupid decisions....

"We marched into the streets in 2009 full of vigor and hope. We were angry and ready to do battle with someone. For a year we developed our groups and tryied [sic] to learn all we could about how to save our Republic - but then we realized things were not changing as quickly as we hoped."

Wendy summarizes her views:

"Our country wasn't going to be saved in one election cycle. The battle is almost too big to wrap our arms around and the more we pay attention, THE MORE HOPELESS IT CAN SEEM. Politicians will lie and manipulate us. They will go to Lansing and Washington and make really stupid decisions.

"Tea Party groups have worked to find a path that they think will lead to some success. Some groups are working to change the Republican Party from the inside. BUT THEY ARE FINDING THAT POLITICAL PARTIES ONLY EXIST TO GET AND KEEP POWER. The Republican Party is committed to electing people with "R" behind their name."

This being said: What does the Tea Party do about the new huge income tax levied on the citizens of Michigan? What does the Tea Party do to limit the current rapid expanse of State Control over local government? What is the Tea Party's official position on the radical expansion of state dictatorial powers as in the alarmingly expanded office of the Emergency Finance Manager?

Now that the Tea Party has been instrumental in the election of many Michigan Legislators: What power of influence does it have over the new legislature? We thought it was the purpose of the Tea Party to limit government and prevent new taxes.

Were we wrong?

Original Post.

My, My... How the TeaPublicans Revel Over Revenue Deficits

Response to a piece by Dr. Gary L. Wolfram (Hillsdale / Mackinac Center) in "Leadership is the difference" on the Michigan View on May 13, 2011.

The smacks of high 5's and the thumping of chest bumping echoed from the bowels of the People's House as diehard teapartians took to celebration over their take-downs accomplished in Nerd Snyder's budget proposal victory last Thursday. It all fits the "drown the baby in the bathtub" MO of these harsh anti-public service creatures.

Snide Gollum of all the trolls, at Mackinac Center, is Professor G. L. Wolfram. From his fertile Rolodex brain, trained and muddled deep in extremist ideology and "gottcha politics" comes this wonderful insight:

"As a certain Presidential chief of staff once said, YOU SHOULDN'T LET A CRISIS GO TO WASTE. We have a chance to introduce structural reforms on our educational system, our business tax, our corrections system, and our Medicaid system because THE BUDGET PROBLEMS HAVE FORCED AN EXAMINATION THAT WOULD NOT OTHERWISE HAVE TAKEN PLACE. THE BUDGET CUTS CAN BEST BE ACCOMPLISHED BY ADDRESSING HOW SERVICES ARE DELIVERED AND WHICH SERVICES ARE PROPERLY THE ROLE OF STATE GOVERNMENT. It will be interesting to see how this ends up."

Prof. Gary follows the path set by Milton Friedman and others. These cuts benefit corporatists the Koch Brothers et. al. and are designed to enhance the bottomlines of business at the hard hits expense of many others, including the middle class of Michigan.

Class warfare is on the rise in Michigan and its results are not yet fully known, but are predictable and tragic.


The "bums rush" to ramrod the Snyder Budget and agendas (assembled and implemented by the Mackinac Center, Koch Bros. Americans for Prosperity, special interests e.g. Michigan's Chambers of Commerce, The American Legislative Exchange Council "model" legislation with its "fill in the blanks and file" format, and the remnants of the crusty old Englerites (given cushy, high-salary positions in the Nerd's brain trust) had to be put in place quickly, before the people of Michigan come to fully understand its impact and implications on their economic and social well-being.

Even now newspapers across the state are fleshing out the harsh details how the new taxes and service cuts will impinge on the lives of the poor, the elderly, and school children. It's not a happy or pretty scenario.
The rush to pass Snyder's budget proposal legislation and unprecedented TAX HIKES had to fall in place before the public learns that the upward trends coming out of the work of the Granholm Era and the early signs of national economic recovery under President Obama are set to yield increased state revenues. Increased revenues are a problem for Snyder's team.

Now the Nerd's Nixon wants to play "piggy bank with the potential increases and keep them from plugging the humongous holes Nixon and the Nerd created in public education, public service everywhere, corrections, and the like across our state.

These are desperate times we were told over and over. Now, rather than act in targeted ways to sustain such programs as public education Snyder's team will demand a "rainy day" piggy bank. Rainy day, we have one now! But if the love is of deficits that produce crisis and allow for radical cuts and attacks on programs and groups viewed as arch-foes (in the manner of the Mackinac Center and such lower lights as Professor Gary), then let the deficits and the shortfalls pile up!

Don't the TeaPublicans just love the opportunities this crisis has developed. 

Out-state influences are also in the game. Never rule out the Heritage Foundation, Koch's CATO, and the word weasels at Heartland, whose spokesman made this searing cynical comment about our Nerd:

"No one could have anticipated such bold budget moves after hearing Snyder's embarrassingly awful state of the state speech, which sounded more like a middle school nerd asking out the best-looking girl in class than One Tough Nerd our state was promised. Sometime between then and now, THE GOVERNOR PULLED ON HIS BIG-BOY PANTS and offered real long-term solutions to Michigan's heretofore insurmountable problems."

Enter now further evidence of misguided "rush to pass" a huge tax-increasing budget, Snyderism on steroids: The Detroit News headline reads, "Business tax cut will wipe out rising Michigan revenue, House agency says." The story outlines the following: "An improving economy means the state could realize up to $700 million more in revenue this year, according to financial estimates by the House and Senate fiscal agencies.
"But the growth in this year's revenue won't make up for the loss of $1.8 billion in 2012 as the result of the elimination of the Michigan Business Tax."

One Michigan daily right up front with this analysis: "It's a big bet that tax cuts will promote job creation and economic growth in Michigan. Critics are right: There is no way to predict or quantify how many jobs the business tax cut will create, and Snyder hasn't attempted to do so."

Other Outcomes? Reports an expert business news: "You can bet, for instance, that if an improved Michigan economy results in a surplus of tax revenues, there will be intense pressure by Republicans to cut taxes again, rather than increase spending on higher education or cities."

Prof. Wolfram holds forth: "Governor Snyder, Speaker Bolger, and Majority Leader Richardville will face political pushback from plenty of special interests as they put state government back on a path to providing basic services and make Michigan a place where entrepreneurs are welcome. It's up to us to let them know that we believe in a government limited to the protection of life, liberty and property, individual responsibility.

"With determination, Michigan will lead the nation in liberty and prosperity."

This above is Wolfarm's professorial clap trap, pure ivy-choked arcane academic conjecture, Libertarian pipe-dreaming and back steps prattle. With this kind of hectoring, Wolfram encourages the TeaPublicans to remain harsh and uncaring, injurious to our state.

Michiganders have lives to lead and real work to do of the type Prof. Gary knows nothing of. Move aside and let us get on with our lives.
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Michigan’s TeaPublicans Have Just Raised Your Taxes by Nearly 2 Billion Dollars to Bailout Their Business Buddies Without Proving Why...

Michigan’s TeaPublicans Have Just Raised Your Taxes by Nearly 2 Billion Dollars to Bailout Their Business Buddies Without Proving Why Business Needs This Massive “Gift” of Cash

A malignant miasma has overtaken Michigan Legislative Republicans. This party, so opposed to "new taxes," has just A-bombed a sizable section of the state with a massive tax increase, a nearly 2 billion dollar "gift"/"bailout" to business interests-now firmly in total control of all four branches of Michigan governance:
1. The State House, 2. The State Senate, 3. The Executive Branch, and 4. The Michigan Supreme Court.

Stonecold Ugly is the rule of the day.

Radicalized Republicans, known as TeaPublicans, have become the owners of a massive tax increase on a defenseless section of the public: The old, the poor, the school children. Passage of Snyder's budget proposal yesterday literally stolen from them an unprecedented-targeted tax takings.

The "bum's rush" is on, with much more to follow.

Particularly, Snyder wanted his budget passed before next week's report that there is a sizable uptick in revenue from recent economic activity.

Two deceptive elements included in the Nerd's budget are: The clever K-16 treatment (lumping into the K-12 budget higher ed) of the $650 million school fund surplus, which coupled with the uptick in collectable revenues (about to be released) would offset, to a large degree, the harsh cuts to school funding imposed and inflicted by anti-public education GOP Teapartisans.

Specious is the Snyder Nerd-O-nomic claim that this massive taxation is "fair." It destroys the Nerd's claim that his budget-based on a huge tax increase for a targeted group-includes, somehow, a "shared sacrifice" on the part of business.

There's no sacrifice involved here for businesses, but there is a real possibility of dozens of "Kalkaskas" statewide.


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Snyder’s Depression Mode

Rick Snyder hasn't a on tax cuts = JOBS clue: If you don't want to be clued in, don't read this:

"Neither the State of Michigan nor the federal government is broke. The federal government has no problem borrowing money at very low interest rates, and state and municipal bonds have a default rate of 1 percent, in contrast to corporate bond default rates of 14 percent.

"In addition, the untapped potential for tax revenue for both federal and state governments is enormous. The marginal rate of income tax on the wealthiest Americans has dropped from 94 percent in 1945 to 50 percent in 1986 to 35 percent on incomes over $373,650. A modest surcharge of just over 5 percent on incomes over $1 million would raise $50 billion a year for the federal government without any perceptible drag on the national economy.

"A similar scenario is valid for Michigan's state government. State and local governments collectively throughout the United States have a total outstanding debt of less than $2.5 trillion, compared to the $14.2 trillion debt held by America's financial industry and the $11.1 trillion debt held by the nation's non-financial businesses (Floyd Norris, "A Shift in the Balance of Debt Obligations," The New York Times, March 19, 2011). So much for the argument that state governments should be run like a business."

This insight above is from a column by Keith McClellan in "Unintended Results of Governor's Budget."  His is an independent voice, one of the many not controlled and manhandled by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

So as Nerdly Snyder presses ahead with his plate of left-overs from his gaggle of Englerites and hangers-on, such as Flanagan and Dillon, the Michigan corporate press drones on about Michigan's budget problems with the same old same old from the Mackianc Center and Prof. Wolfram & Co. They act as though they've never seen a projected Michigan state deficit of just over one billion (that's a big number alright), but Engler faced a similar number at the start of his tenure, and Engler (all thought of it suppressed) left one equally as large for Jennifer Granholm.

Michigan is trouble, that is true However, Snyder's harsh reactions may make it exponentially worse.

Here are some of the reasons for Michigan's economic fall off, taken from McClellan's article:

1.) National economic recession

2.) The extended mismanagement and decline of the American automobile industry, which was centered in Michigan and for nearly a century was the economic engine for the state

3.) Michigan's reliance on a sales tax and a low, flat income tax rather than on a graduated income

4.) Tax shifting - with all of its loopholes, exemptions, and carve-outs - which has placed a disproportional tax burden on the individual income of middle-class taxpayers. These structural problems make tax collection vulnerable to economic fluctuations, while concurrently reducing taxes on those who can most afford to pay higher taxes - the very wealthy and the corporations that are shifting jobs and resources outside the country.

The first two items would garner near unanimous agreement, it's the next two that are solvable, but not by Snyder and Company who have set their partisan canines against new or different taxation. On that account, McClellan suggests Michigan's "structural problems cannot be solved by budget and tax cuts, and are likely to exacerbate economic inequality. The unhealthy financial inequalities that resulted from the tax cut policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations contributed to the economic meltdown of 2007-8 and significant additional unintended problems.... Ergo, some of Governor Snyder's tax changes, such as eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit, are likely to create notable and expensive adverse, unintended consequences."

McClellan torpedo's the Mackinac Center's most threadbare, oft repeated mantra:

"Claims that high business taxes impede job growth in Michigan are unfounded. In truth, Michigan has a below national average tax burden on businesses." 

Those who have researched this, know it. Corporate media has no interest it making such a fact known, out of economic self-interest.

The impact of Snyder's massive tax shift and "gift-outright" to his business supporters and cronies is without adequate assurances that the end result will be worth the potential harm, disruption, and human cost festering in the Nerd-O-Nomics that are to be forced on the elders, the poor, and the children of school age and college students.

McClellan sends up a sober and important warning. Things may go wrong, worse yet radically bad wrong. The result may be a serious deterioration of Michigan's economy and commerce. How so?

Keith McClellan explains:

"We have been assured that spending cuts in public sector budgets will result in greater business confidence that will produce more jobs. But this has never proven to be the outcome in any country that has pursued harsh austerity spending cuts. Instead, this (Snyder) policy prolongs underemployment and unemployment and their side effects.

"One of the primary symptoms of an economic recession is the lack of consumer demand that results from unemployment and underemployment, the reduced value of assets, and the fear that savings will run out. The unintended consequence of cuts in government spending is a further reduction in consumer demand, increased unemployment, and a decline in tax revenue.

"This is particularly true when government cutbacks and tax policies deprive lower middle class and working poor employees and retirees of income.

"Cuts in teaching and other government jobs also affect female employment more severely than male employment."

Caution, Rick Snyder may be marching Michigan into Depression Mode.


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Ante-Dictatorial EFM: Setting the Benton Harbor Record Straight

The Other Side of the Benton Harbor EFM Story, One You'll Not Find in Michigan's Corporate Media

Wilce Cooke grew up in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He was elected as the city's Mayor twice. Here's his account via "Mayor of Benton Harbor Sets The Record Straight About Takeover By Emergency Financial Manager", in the Rochester Citizen on April 28, 2011:

"The Mayor said that over the years the city of Benton Harbor has lost its tax base of retail and agricultural businesses. 'At one time we were called the Shenandoah of southwest Michigan. We had seven or eight different foundries. We had the largest outdoor fruit market in the world and we had all the retail stores downtown here in Benton Harbor. Urban renewal came in and displaced a lot of individuals and white flight, we lost our tax base. So with no tax base, you can't run a city on property taxes alone when your residents are unemployed.' Cooke said.

"During Cooke's first term as Mayor from 1982-1989, Cooke said the city was in a similar position financially, but he said there was one difference; he had control of city council. When Cooke left office, there was a million dollar surplus. The city had a very aggressive marketing program and brought in a new financial manager and the city was on the rebound.

"The city's government has been portrayed in the media as being incompetent. Cooke responded to that charge saying, 'It's stupid to even say that. You can't say that this council is incompetent. The theory that Benton Harbor's city council members have absconded with money is that. You have never read yet where they said that we have stolen anything. The council doesn't have any money. That's handled by the finance department, the finance people, not by the city council. We do approve bills, but we don't handle money.'

"'When I was Mayor in 1980, we did bring in a new finance director, a new city manager, an economic development person. We brought in all new people to handle what we had to do and we did a great job. In 50 years this city hasn't run so smooth. I was out of office for 17 or 18 years, the city got right back in the same position.'"

"Cooke was re-elected in 2004. When Cooke was re-elected, he says he set up a meeting with Governor Granholm showing her his plan to solve the problems in Benton Harbor, 'What did they give us, a faith-based director and a financial manager.'

"When asked what is the biggest misconception about what has happened in Benton Harbor, Cooke replied, 'The corporate media has gotten it all backwards. They don't want to tell the truth. THEY SAY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE COME TO THE CITY OF BENTON HARBOR. MILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN SENT, BUT IT DIDN'T COME TO THE CITY OF BENTON HARBOR. IT WENT TO NON-PROFITS WHO RECEIVED THE MONEY. KELLOGG'S SENT IN $25 MILLION. IT DIDN'T COME TO BENTON HARBOR. IT WENT TO AN AFFILIATE OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. (emphasis added)

They had the money. They received the money and they disbursed the money. Millions of dollars came through, but not through the city government itself, never seen any of it. And that's a matter of record and I dare them and challenge them to go and prove otherwise.'"

Read the Rochester Citizen article by Bruce Fealk.

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