Holy Tomatoes! Detroit News' Nolan Finley Plays Catchup

In response to Nolan Finley and those on the right attempting to spin the story that it's supposedly President Obama and Dems not the GOP that has been using 'social issues' to gin up votes.

Sez Brother Finley in "Obama milks social issues" (Obama gave Romney an implied snuggy) on May 11, 2012:

"Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney again took the bait, allowing himself to be drawn into this discussion. So again the campaigns are debating divisive social issues instead of fiscal policy. That plays to Obama's strategy of painting Romney as an extremist and avoiding having to answer for the economy."

Catch up to reality, Nolan. This is exactly what Republican Svengalis have been so artfully doing for decades; beginning under the nefarious tutelage of Newt "the genius" Gingrich or so he was labeled by friendlies until Newt crossed that thin red line and was tossed.

Rich Men Ride while the Rest of Us Run: Corporatocracy
and Income Inequality is THE current 'social issue'.

No one, no party, no group, no clique, no organized political faction does a better job milking the essence of divisive issue politics than the Republican Party; so weakened that the GOP can be taken over by the wealthy elites like the the Koch Brothers, the Club for Growth, various Christian Dominionists, religious and racial bigots, and radical militia elements (gun nuts) until the once sensible and civic-minded Grand Old Party is no more. Poof! Think Ike.

Let Ted Nugent go on wallowing in hate and incitement to mayhem; as evil as he is, he 's only a "scare'jim'crow" archetype of a certain redneck gnarl of lawless tyranny that smirks across the nation. Nugent's part of a cohort of wild and reckless men, dark alley troublemakers, civic hoodlums. And don't they love the trouble they incite... the attention they get!

For decades Newt Gingrich's distraction & negativatization of language made useful for undermining civil discourse has prevailed in the dark hearts of the "Hard Right," as former President Gerald R. Ford labeled them during the Pat & Bay Buchanan dominated 1992 GOP National Convention. It was at Houston where Pat Buchanan declared religious and cultural war on the nation. As a direct result George H. W. Bush, the standing president, high right off the First Gulf War 100 hour victory, when down to stunning defeat to William Jefferson Clinton.

From "Ford tells Gingrich He'd Better Tone It Down" by AP reporter Lawrence L. Knutson:

Ford believed Gingrich should leave "partisan attacks" to others. "One thing that speakers have to understand is that the speaker is speaker for the House. You have to keep that high-level attitude and let the partisan attacks come from your majority leader.... The Speaker (Gingrich) is better advised to stand back." Ford went on to say that looking at the wider future, he believes that if the "extreme-right" partisans within the GOP control the party's policies and dictate who is the candidate... "the party will lose at the polls."

Note: This account also appeared in the Grand Rapids Press, June 2, 1998 and is still spot-on for the 2012 election cycle.

Social Issues Aside: Our National Troubles & the Great Bush Recession Have Created Vast New Opportunities for Unscrupulous Business Opportunists & Scammers

The aggressive CORPORATOCRACY (see the expanded definition from Wiki below) had better get out their act together and begin to restore the rule of law in financial and banking affairs. So far they haven't. The plague created by Citizens United will make this a very reprehensible election season; bar none.

Corporatists were quick to sense an opening, an "opportunity" and they seized it. They have profited immensely from the great disturbance in the economy brought on by the buffoonery of George W. Bush, the Lesser. (The man no Republican can bring themselves to mention in favorable light.) The Bush TARP and the bailouts have put stunning amounts of cash in the coffers of bankseters and Wall Street schemers and shysters'; amounts so large and so excessive as to be incomprehensible in light of in historic perspective. Are we angry? You bet we are!

War profiteering has egregiously enlarged the holdings/coffers of Dick Cheney and Neo-Con Cronies.

Things are still in need of repair and restitution.

Corporatocracy for Idiots

"A corporatocracy is a situation in which corporate bodies interact with sovereign power in an unhealthy alignment between business and political power. In a corporatocracy an elite upper-class, maintains ties between business and government, sometimes by lobbying efforts or funding political advertising campaigns, or providing bailouts when corporations are seen as too big to fail, for the purpose of controlling government and dictating policy to serve its financial interests.

"A corporatocracy is viewed as anti-democratic or opposed to democracy or used to describe situations in which democracy has been manipulated negatively, sometimes resulting in a passive citizenry and subservient media.

"A corporatocracy represents what some see as economic exploitation, and the concept has been used to explain bank bailouts, excessive pay for CEOs, as well as generalized complaints such as the plundering of national treasuries, people, and natural resources. The concept has also been used by critics of globalization, sometimes in conjunction with criticism of the World Bank or unfair lending practices, as well as criticism of free trade agreements which, according to these claims, move high-paying jobs overseas.

"The term corporatocracy is a negative term, likened pejoratively to cancer, fascism, and Orwellianism, perhaps because, according to this view, business-government ties are seen as secretive, lacking transparency and accountability. The elite engaging in corporatocracy is sometimes termed the 1 percent."

Source: Corporatocracy on Wiki (Be sure to click on all the footnotes to this piece. Go from ignorant to informed.)

So Nolan, fearless thought leader, it's time you play catch-up. Pocket your rotten tomatoes, stop our carping, and do something substantive, pro-active about saving Michigan and America. You can begin by restraining yourself from "milking social issues" and move toward a sound economy and a restructuring of taxes so as to save Michissippi's middle class. Put aside your poison pen, and take up your Habitat for Humanity hammer, rise early, move out to save the day for a family in need. It would be a start.

Dump the tomatoes. Catch-up Finley, catch-up!

On the Reader:
List of Responses to Nolan Finley on the Gazette (Topic DATE):

• High up in Jim Crow’s Nest: Constant Cawing Incites Civic Upheaval by the Detroit News - Michigan View (General Idiocy and use of Racial Undertones February 2012)
• Nolan Finley: Maniacal Warmonger? (General Idiocy and Violence September 2011)
• Dead End/Bad Trade Off: Profitazation or Abandonment of Detroit’s Public School Children (Education June 2011)
• No National Honor Given Finley: Taking Down Detroit’s Public Schools is a Civic Crime (Education May 2011)
• Snyder, the Socialist, Takes on Local Democracy Calling it a "Status Quo" That Needs to Be Radically Re-invented.(Ideology April 2004)
• Honest Abel “AWOL” in Michigan just as in Wisconsin (Ideology March 2011)
• A one nostril false grunt from Nolan: It’s not my pigs that stink (Ideology June 2011)
• The Detroit News is "Tapped Out" (Taxes and Ideology February 2011)
• Nolan Finley Rocks Local Detroit High School With His Decision to Teach English to Sophomores (Education December 2009)
• Raw Revenge Raises Its Ugly Head (Education December 2009)
• An Additional Dollar a Day... (State Budget and Ideology November 2009)
• The only place a teacher gets a fair shake in the Detroit News is on its obituary page (Education June 2009) 
• Finley's Right Wing anti-teacher Crusade: A man with a forked tongue and a flaying pen (Education October 2009)

Related Slates:
More on Corporatocracy and the Republican Party on the Gazette.


Original.

Hillsdale's Gary Wolfram Elevates Andrew Breitbart - Dean of Defamation - to "Sainthood"

Response to Prof Gary Wolfram on the Detroit / Mackinac News Michigan View in "Ludwig von Breitbart" on March 13, 2012.

Hillsdale’s Dr. Gary must be high on chalk dust. Wolfram's eulogy for Andrew Breitbart was a cold rehash of his idol Ludwig pulled-reflexively from the prof's dusty achieves and yellowing scrapbooks. What exactly connected political hit-man and truth twister Andy Breitbart in Wolfram’s thinking with Dr. Gary's hero Ludwig von Mises?

It must have been a severe allergic reaction to accumulated chalk dust in Wolfram's stuffy cubical at the Rad Right's faint mockup of  a “Harvard”, Hillsdale College, a member of the Poison Ivy League.

Hillsdale College: Leaning right since right-wing Free Marketeers forced
the exit of the founding Free Baptists (Hillsdale Historical Society Archive)

Locked away from everyday reality, Professor Wolfram dwells at this quaint institutional anachronism, hidden away in a small bucolic southeastern Michigan town.

Hillsdale College is more an archetype of civic collapse and failure, retro-progression in quest of a giant need to be noticed in its attempts to pander to the greed of national and international corporatocracy, rather than be a crystalline beacon of higher culture.

Hillsdale exists, in large part, to supply the Too Far Right with pliant foot soldiers such as the murderous mercenary, billionaire scion- Eric Prince of Blackwater infamy.

A liberal arts education seeks to instill a higher sense of history and philosophy into a continuum and expansion of understanding about eternal truth and to build upon the vast achievements and ideals of the progressive human race propelled by the Enlightenment and an ongoing rediscovery of the classic cultures of yore as woven into the march of religion, philosophy, science and human understanding.

Why perseverate? Why ramble on about "liberalism" defined in the enlightenment era as 'the importance of individual liberty and limited government' when what is being espoused at Hillsdale is regression and suppression of modernity and the 'maturing understanding' of the needs and abilities of science and human inventiveness via strangling government?

For chalk dusty Prof. Gary, Breitbart "was an inspiration to those who agree with Mises that 'the ultimate and most profound of the fundamental insights of liberal thought is that it is ideas that constitute the foundation on which the whole edifice of human social cooperation is constructed and sustained and that a lasting social structure cannot be built on the basis of false and mistaken ideas.' “ From this we may try to follow Dr. Gary into believing that Andrew Breitbart was the paragon of TRUTH and ACCURACY.

Here is where Breitbart's notoriety as a crusader in Wolfram’s mind and von Mises' liberalism is seen as versus or against "anti-liberalism," (by which Prof. Gary derides the 21st Century "Liberals"-meaning Democrats and Progressives) and thus becomes lost in that stale cloud of professorial chalk dust.

While Wolfram is perfectly at home seeing himself as a "Classic" Liberal, and not a 21st Century Democrat/Progressive [Boo Hiss] Liberal; the man-on-the-street cannot make the jump Prof. Gary demands. Liberal must always, only mean Democrats.

Prof. Gary Elevates Fellow Traveler, Andrew Breitbart - Dean of Defamation - to Wolfarm’s Constellation of All-Time Ideological ‘Saints’- How Quixotic!

Not to be defeated, Prof. Gary bravely soldiers on. Gary, obviously at grievous personal loss over the death of his grenade-throwing Too Far Right Radical brother, Breitbart) describes his ideological troublemaker and soul-mate as a man labeled by many as "an enemy of the people."  Breitbart earned that exact description by virtue of his relentless partisanship and determination to spin, distort, twist, and invent Breitbart "truth" to fit radical ideology-in the service of the moneyed masters of a growing fascist Corporatocracy.

Andy Breitbart: Lived Large in a Conservative Tub of Small Minds
(TIME posted Bryce Duffy Photo on Brietbart's 'BagNews' 2010)

Breitbart, A Hero to Classic Liberalism? Hardly.
"Governments must be forced into adopting liberalism by the power of the unanimous opinion of the people, claimed von Mises,” proclaims Prof. Gary, emitting a temporary democratic high tone. Then Wolfram goes on to list the areas where Breitbart bent the truth and altered facts to defend a true and genuine anti-classic liberalism-TeaPartisanship given to bottom feeding, dissimulation, and ideological subterfuge he leaves the path of credibility and public trust.

Perez Zagorin, a noted American historian in "The historical significance of lying and dissimilation - Truth-Telling, Lying and Self-Deception" (1996):

"...Since the appearance in 1978 of Sissela Bok's important and widely noticed book, Lying. Moral Choice in Private and Public Life, the concern with lying and deception has continually increased. Bok's work was actuated by worry over declining standards of truth-telling and for this reason apparently touched a nerve. It coincided with the growing skepticism and mistrust felt among Americans and in other western nations about the veracity of governments, officials, and politicians, as well as lawyers, the medical profession, and business corporations."

Just prior to Breitbart's demise, in Troy, Michigan  Michigan Tea Party Republicans (under the spell of and paid & played by the Koch Bros' Americans for Prosperity) hosted one of Breitbart's very last public appearances, shared by Wolfram. This event was at a Koch Brothers pay-to-play sponsored event for Goldman Sach's operative, Mitt Romney, who regaled the Troy/Koch-ish Tea Party elements with his pledges to be one of them.

On the dais was a co-conspirator with Brietbart, Michelle Malkin - a virtual vestal virgin of poisonous venom - in the pursuit of penultimate Rovian truth, skewed to serve FOX's Too Far Right Wingers and corporatist fat cats.

What did the late Breitbart and Malkin bring to the Troy Tea Party Gathering according to Detroit News' Hank Payne?  From his article "Payne in Troy: Tea Party Mitt" February 26, 2012:

"...perhaps most striking was Mitt Romney's extraordinarily detailed, right-wing message perhaps most striking was Romney's extraordinarily detailed, right-wing message specifically tailored for the grassroots conservatives assembled by Americans for Prosperity and warmed up by red meat pundits Michelle Malkin and Andrew Breitbart.”  

This lusty interpretation of the work of Breitbart is shared by non-other-than Sarah Palin:

"With the death of Breitbart, the conservative movement didn't just lose a General " we lost an entire Special Forces Division....But he didn't leave us without the tools and the knowledge we need to fight."

GOT THAT: Brietbart is lauded by Palin as a 'special forces' political/ideological, a high powered hit-man. A deceitful/unprincipled wonk-cum-celebrity in the hunt to bring down America's first Black president.

Is this the “classic liberalism” package that Dr.Gary presents to his nascent ideological apprentice warrior-types in laid back Hillsdale's Rad Right bootcamp?

Bottomline: The Wolfram veneration of Breitbart fails the high ethics and moral high ground test so vaunted by Hillsdale's über-moralizers. The following quote excerpted out of a synopsis in "Andrew Breitbart Dead: Conservative Blogger Dies Suddenly At 43", posted by Huffington Post:

1. "Republican gay rights group GOProud, of which Breitbart was a board member until recently, released a statement saying it was 'stunned and saddened,' and calling him an 'amazing friend and ally.'"
   
2. "Breitbart seldom showed restraint in his vitriol to his critics and seemed to relish in the negative attention his antics earned him. After Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts died in 2009, Breitbart tweeted, 'Rest in Chappaquiddick' and called him 'a special pile of human excrement.' When critics questioned (Breitbart's) tone, he tweeted they 'missed my best ones!'"
   
3. "Breitbart sponsored hidden camera, gottcha attacks on ACORN. Racial in nature, this tactic resulted in a firestorm of criticism. [The embarrassment it engendered stoked up such fierce partisan rants as were heard here in Michigan shrilly mouthed by former State Senator Michelle McManus while running for Michigan Secretary of State.] The edited Breitbart video featured 'some ACORN employees appearing willing to support illegal schemes involving tax advice, misuse of public funds and illegal trafficking in children.' Ultimately the Government Accountability Office cleared ACORN of criminal activities. None-the-less "public pressure led Congress to block previously approved funds from going to ACORN and to stop future payments. Roughly 10 percent of ACORN's funds came from federal grants and the group eventually disbanded."

Just another of Breitbart's tactical 'special forces' successes against Blacks and Obama? Of course.

Carry on Prof. Gary, elevate Brietbart and thereby lower the national bar for truth and civility. How "ill-liberal" in an anti-von Mises pro-Breitbart declination can Wolfram be?

On the Reader:
Read the Detroit / Mackinac News / Michigan View's "All Star" review of Brietbart's 'legacy' including the canonization by Rep. Thaddeus McCotter:

"There was no stopping Andrew Breitbart from fighting the good fight with every fiber of his soul. Good bye and God bless, Brother Andrew. You are loved and mourned and ever remembered."

Related Slates:
"Michigan View's Gary Wolfram Resurrects 18th Cent. Racial Bigotry in His Vision of Economic “Freedom” (ala Adam Smith)" - "Prof. Gary Wolfram of the Michigan View Let’s His Little Light Shine On Greed" - "Our Guides to the Bottomless Pit: Wolfram, Von Hayek, Lewis F. Powell, & A.L.E.C."

More responses to Gary Wolfram and other on the Michigan View on the Gazette.

Original.

A Fully Electrified Detroit News Jim Crow Campaign Lights the 'Dark Clouds of Fury' with Neon Intensity

The drumbeat of Jim Crowism published by Henry E. Payne IV and his cast of "All Stars" at the Detroit News is now the accompaniment to a massive neon display with serial blinding flashes. These folks want to take down Detroit, and they want it down now. Mayor David (Dave) Bing, having raised resistance, feels like a "token" caught in the machinery of the cog works prepared by planners at the Mackinac Center and by elites invited into the Business Leaders for Michigan corporate cabal, the new “Big Boss.”

Planner and elites alike are steamed and they want Bing out of the way! But how?

Do they really think Mayor Bing should simply take the humiliation of being handed a consent decree? Without adequate time to even read it? Much less to digest its extremely important content, and then frame his reactions and assessments concerning its ramifications?

Just sign the order, ‘Mister Mayor!’ caws Michigan View's Blog Prof Chris Kobus, who pounced on this new opportunity when he saw an opening: Detroit must be made to realize it is now totally under the jurisdiction of the government of the State of Michigan.

Says Kobus, the city government of Detroit, including Mayor Bing, must be put under the EM laws and the authority of Snyder/Dillon “when that body gets out of line." Why? Kobus says because "I point out that Detroit does not operate in a democracy but rather under hegemonic domination of a single party and has for over two generations now."

There it is. A vast exaggeration and accusation not met at all by facts. The rub for creators of the new Jim Crowism is that minorities, especially Blacks tend to support the Democratic Party in large percentages; therefore, their behaviors as elected officials of the City of Detroit and as Democrats do not "operate in a democracy”. They are “beguiled” and “incapable of self-rule” in Kobus's Jim Crow view.

Recycling the Racism Fight: Civil Rights Congress
anti-Jim Crow Button (Cira 1948) (Tamiment Library Collection NYC)

The new Jim Crow supposition: Blacks can't or don't act in a genuine democratic manner; therefore, the Emergency Manager (EM) takeover (forced bankruptcy) of the City of Detroit is perfectly proper, if not absolutely necessary, on the part of Snyder and the TeaPublicans--now so solidly in charge of Michissippian-style governance. Here again, the News's electrified Jim Crow editorial campaign in service of the EM flashes neon for the Planners: TeaPublicans, Mackinac Center, and the Business Leaders for Michigan.

Michigan View Editor Henry Payne, in his own Jim Crow-style added digs against Mayor Bing. In his tart tome, “A DETROIT LEADER” March 14, 2012 on the Michigan View, Hank toys with several racially charged Jim Crow putdowns and 'bat language.' Here’s the list: 

FIRST, Payne refers to Black ministers’ objections which express disapproval toward the Snyder/Dillon treatment of Mayor Bing and the underlying larger rights issues and calls the religious leaders' objections a "black cloud of fury that rained on Governor Snyder's proposal."

Rev. Charles Williams II, the Michigan chapter president of the National Action Network, a civil rights organization based in New York, said, “We are unequivocally calling Governor Snyder a liar…We are standing up (against) hypocrisy."

Protesting Ministers arose in support of Mayor Bing, seen in Jim Crowism terms as “insubordinate” & “uppity,” for defending the powers of his office. Is this a "dark cloud of fury" ? Just how threatening and dangerous are ministers of the gospel, even if they are African Americans?

SECOND, "’When somebody lies to you, you can't trust them,’ raged Bing,” the nettled Payne wrote. Here Hank raises the image of an "angry Black Man" with his accusation and condemnation.

THIRD, Payne claimed that Bing used "coded language that skates along the line of us vs.them racial demagoguery." Is it wrong in a democracy for a Black mayor (forced by specific revenue devices, a punishing TeaPartisan legislature, and long term anti-Black Detroit bigotry) to acknowledge that what is happening is an historical and unprecedented use by Snyder and his own of use of the Shock Doctrine to takeover and usurp the duly elected officials of a city. Thus Snyder is threatening and enabling the EM to liquidate and/or sell off to privatizers (Disaster Capitalism) whatever he wills or chooses? This is a clear case of racial demagoguery by white Republicans against Black Detroiters, Black Democrats, all of whom are perceived as impotent, hapless enemies, endangering the whole miserly anti-tax policies of the TeaPublican scheme for Michigan., Payne teammate Kobus in “Detroit activists protest activism” March 19, 2012, fuels the flames at the Michigan View belittling activist Black pastors:

“Detroit has problems, and as Jeremiah Wright famously said, the chickens have come home to roost. So the Snyder administration is giving Detroit a carrot in the form of $100 million in loans. But it comes with the caveat that the D will have to hand the steering wheel off to non-drunks (politically-speaking). Of course, some aren't taking the news sitting down: Detroit activists ratchet up opposition to state financial intervention.

‘...a group of pastors and other community activists is staging sneak protests to amplify their opposition to state intervention in what they are dubbing '12 Days of Action.' 'We vow to bring 12 days of action against the financial review team and Gov. Snyder so they understand they can't dismiss democracy,' the Rev. Charles Williams II said.

“So once again, there is this bogus assertion that Detroit's democracy overrides state democracy, even though state taxpayers are on the hook for Detroit's corruption and incompetence. Ten (sic) there's this “’Many Detroiters say any intervention is unconstitutional if it strips elected leaders of their authority and autonomy.’"

Bing defended his actions alluding to his sworn oath of office: "I'll work for the people of the city of Detroit because they voted me in to do this. I won't work for anybody else."

FOURTH, Payne continued his rant by asserting Mayor Bing must "not make veiled allusions to not working for The Man." In this context, “Working for "The Man" has derogatory connotations. Under Jim Crow, a Black, even a mayor of the state's largest city, has no right to resist the power of "The Man." In this case the power is welded by a more powerful man, the white Gov. Snyder, who is "The Man" with all good intentions.

The motive here is said to move toward “reinvention” as derived from TeaPublican ideology and directed toward Mayor Bing and his urban dwellers--the city's growing and desperate revenue shortfall not withstanding.

And so it is Hank Payne himself who in his own words "skates along the line" deeper into ugly, provocative Jim Crow dialogue.

Paul Robeson & Civil Rights Congress picketing the White House (August 1948)

Jim Crowism: Conscious or unconsciously is racism at issue.

An important publication reminds us:

"The problem of unconscious racism is not confined to one locality or one point in time. The problem is a national problem that may be responsible in large part for the continuing disparities in any number of categories including wealth and income, percentage of population with chronic diseases, and incarceration rates.”

"These disparities are not insignificant and impair the ability of the African descendant communities to thrive and flourish.”

"FAILURE TO EXPOSE AND DISCUSS ISSUES OF ONGOING, UNCONSCIOUS RACISM PREVENTS THE IMPOSITION OF A REMEDY to minimize if not eliminate these ongoing disparities and undermines the true equality of African descendants."
(emphasis added)

Source: This selection is from “CAN WE TALK: How Triggers For Unconscious Racism Strengthen the Importance of Dialogue”, Adjoa Artis Aiyetoro, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) William H. Bowen School of Law, published by Columbia University (2009).


There Is a Legitimate Objection/ Reason for Protest of the Snyder/Dillon Moves Against Detroit  

Andrew Paterson, an attorney defending the rights of Detroit citizens has stated unequivocally:

"The proposal (Snyder's drawn consent decree) reveals that they met and negotiated at least twice in secret, in violation of the judge's order... They met in violation not only of the Open Meetings Act, but of the judge's order and Public Act 4 (the emergency manager law).(break) "It's a lawless group that is running the state right now."

A spirit of lawlessness has always hovered over the tactics of Jim Crowism whenever and wherever it occurs. Should this usurpation of minority rights and voter's sovereign rights (now centered on Detroit) be taken lightly, strictly because it came rushing through a state legislature, giddy with its unlimited power of repression and aggression against its alleged political enemies?

The entire imbroglio, as it concerns Detroit's pending subservient economic freedom and status as an EM Apartheid Plantation, is near the tipping point. Twenty-three years ago, a ham-fisted curmudgeon hammered down a cut- off of General Assistance to nearly 90,000 welfare recipients who were declared able-bodied. A large number of these individuals were residents of urban Detroit. One quarter were mentally ill and another quarter were functionally unemployable. Yet despite a huge outcry from many quarters and many religious leaders, Engler soldiered on. The damage done to former Republican Governor John Engler was that he gained a reputation as a coldhearted radical, a tag he still wears.

Truth be told, Jim Crow was there, too, in Engler's decision and allowed him to float his political capital past the initial sting of public rejection and opened the way for Engler to mount further vicious attacks on the weak and defenseless, and on state government itself.

For those outcast by Engler's indifference, the Engleresque welfare program became: “Collect returnable containers" and "pick a deserted street corner or alley as your home.” What did Engler do with the money he saved by expelling the GA recipients? In part he subsequently raised the salaries of his top aides, to salaries totals greater than his own as governor.

Some of the GA savings were drilled in to a huge expansion of the state's prison system under Engler! Where are the 90,000 casts offs today?

John Mathias Engler froze government in the ice of cold, calculated indifference, thereby set up a harsh tone. That tone still rings in the ears of caregivers in Michigan. Once a threshold of heedless neglect of needs and human rights is breached by a governor, it is difficult to recover positive solutions from the reigning party leaders interested only in themselves and making money.

After the City of Detroit's resistance is taken down, EM becomes the rule of the day, what comes next?

Beyond that: What is the GOP/TeaPublican & Snyder/BLM Corporatocracy’s end game?

On the Reader:
Essay " CAN WE TALK: How Triggers For Unconscious Racism Strengthen the Importance of Dialogue" by Adjoa Artis Aiyetoro (Columbia 2009) (Read Abstract)

Related Slates:
More on Emergency Management issue in EM Plantation/Jim Crow Series in "Snyder’s Michissippi (Michigan) Revival of 21st Cent ‘Jim Crow’: Imposing ‘EM Plantations’ Across the State & Nation" - "A Shout Out to the Overlords of Michissippian EM Plantations (Michigan EM)" - "Jim Crow & Hank Payne Call for Detroit EM Martial Law: America’s First Urban Apartheid EM Plantation" - "High up in Jim Crow’s Nest: Constant Cawing Incites Civic Upheaval by the Detroit News - Michigan View" on the Gazette.

Original.

Jim Crow & Hank Payne Call for Detroit EM Martial Law: America’s First Urban Apartheid EM “Plantation”

Response to a series of Henry Payne and Detroit News op-eds supporting Emergency Manager (EM) in Detroit in the Detroit / Mackinac News and Michigan View.

Hank Payne is on one of his fringe stretches, trying hard to make a case for confiscatory EM takeover of one of the nation's past great super cities.

The impetus for this Draconian move has long lingered in the dark side of the Jim Crow mentality allowed to metastasize in the psyche of many confused and desperate Michissippians. As their fortunes continue to diminish and their income and security are sucked away by the Great Bush Recession new life is given to latent civic poisons of prejudice, racism and bigotry.

"Detroit is pathologically abnormal..." Payne opines pseudo-philosophically, recommending "Nix the Detroit bailout. Send in the emergency manager - just like other Detroit cities have done." In this harsh demand, Hank Payne perfectly mirrors the Mackinac Center's many calls for Detroit's bankruptcy among them is the Mackinac Center's Paul Kersey, Oct. 15, 2009.:

"As long as the unions refuse to make concessions, there appears to be no certain remedy for the city short of bankruptcy court."

"The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality
in Postwar Detroit" by Thomas Sugrue (Princeton, 2005)

From a review of the book "The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit" by Thomas Sugrue:

"The Detroit metropolitan area today is arguably the most racially segregated region in the United States, with a primarily African-American, largely abandoned and dilapidated urban center surrounded by layers of primarily white, affluent suburbs." 

"Thomas Sugrue (author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, Princeton Studies in American Politics) provides a thoughtful, well-researched, and fascinating analysis of systematic racial inequality in Detroit during the post World War II automotive industry boom of the 1940s through deindustrialization and "white flight", and ending with the catastrophic race riots of 1967."

"Sugrue avoids the current, common oversimplifications of blaming Detroit's urban crisis on the '67 riots or Mayor Colman Young by weaving together a complex story of human behaviors, fears, and incentive structures backed by data, references, and personal accounts: 'By the time Young was inaugurated, the forces of economic decay and racial animosity were far too powerful for a single elected official to stem.'"

A Look Back on the Rude History of Jim Crow Racism in Detroit.
As Michalek summarizes - "(Thomas) Sugrue's analysis provides insight to understand major groups of stakeholders and their interactions" with the following observations:

• "Workers flocked from the southern states to Detroit seeking relatively high-paying automotive jobs.
• In the free market, resulting housing shortages allowed landlords to divide properties into tiny apartments and charge premium prices, protecting their investments by being selective in their choice of "low risk" white tenants.
• Bankers also preferred "low risk" clients, resulting in unequal access to funds.
• White home owners, wanting to protect their families and financial investment, resisted neighborhood integration to avoid declining property values and perceived dangers.
• Real estate agents capitalized on fears of mixed neighborhoods by buying property from fleeing whites at junk prices and selling immediately to blacks at premium prices.
• Labor unions protected seniority, which unequally benefited whites, and tended to compromise on racial issues in order to gain bargaining ground.
• Store owners avoided hiring black workers, wishing to avoid offending or frightening mostly white, mostly female, customers.
• Suburban tax incentives and new technology made large, flat assembly plants more efficient than the old multi-story plants. This drove automakers away from Detroit, where the rail and riverside real estate was largely developed, and contributed to unemployment and race and class polarization.
• Racial inequality in Detroit stems from complex social systems of incentives and categorical isolation caused by systematic inequality in access to employment, housing, networking and other resources.
• Recognizing the complexity of this social system helps the reader understand how individuals who fail to actively oppose racism actually support it, and why official 'race-blind' policies fail to stop the polarization caused by chain-reactions of systematic, historic, self-reinforcing racial inequalities and the ruthless self-interest of capitalist culture."

 Source: Jeremy Michalek in a January 2, 2004 Amazon Book Review of "The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit" by Thomas Sugrue (Princeton, 2004)

-----

The race hatred and the animosity that resides just behind the editorial facade of Gannett's Detroit News daily rants continues to roil up potential social and civic disaster for Detroit and fuels the same kind of fear and hatred that Rush Limbaugh has engendered for far too long. Limbaugh, his fawning 'dittoheads' chime, is but an "entertainer." What kind of "entertainer" is it who panders and incites the lowest of the low emotions/prejudices and repressed hatreds residing regretfully in a political party? Republicans were once the great GOP of Jerry Ford and Ike, now relegated to a bifurcated party which is now brought down, ham-fistedly hectored by mealy mouth gutter snipe-style rants and corrupting greedy corporate (Koch Bros.) influences?

Hank, walk away from racial prejudice and your own lack of positive vision. Throw off your dark despair. Use the Gannett Mission Statement as your new beginning: To enrich lives by informing and inspiring consumers, by providing the ease and accessibility to connect them with their communities of interest, and by being a catalyst for the conversations that are making a difference every day. Also include the Gannett Vision Statement:

"OUR VISION: To be the trusted, leading media and marketing solutions company at the forefront of a new era in human engagement."

To achieve these goals Hank, you will need to discover what is "a new era in human engagement" not the kind of snarky disengagement you've displayed in calling for the literal liquidation of Detroit, as a government and a city via bankruptcy and imposition of a EM dictator.

Hank, you will need to be tutored in how to make your contributions via the News more in the service of the greater civic good. Gannett ownership calls for journalism that is "trusted" and "at the forefront of a new era of human engagement" yielding a dialogue that is pro-positive "enriching lives" by "informing and inspiring" readers to become "catalysts for conversations that make a (proactive, positive) difference every day.

Gannett employees should be ever mindful of their journalistic responsibilities as outlined (highly accurate news and responsible/fair-minded balanced opines) in Gannett's corporate Vision and Mission Statements.

Now more History than Real News, the official Michigan Historical Marker at the Detroit News reads:

"On August 23, 1873 James E. Scripps began publishing The Evening News, one of the first popular, low-priced evening newspapers in Michigan. The News specialized in short, local, human interest stories. Resolutely independent, it continuously championed political and business reform. In 1917 the enterprise moved to this building designed by Albert Kahn. By its centenary, The Detroit News had attained the largest evening circulation in America."

The Detroit News now, with it's current staff spewing all this 'stuff' into Detroit's toxic drainage ditch, the Michigan View, is just a shadow of its better self.

On the Reader:
"The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit" by Thomas Sugrue (Princeton, 2005)

Related Slates:
More on Jim Crow at the Detroit News in "High up in Jim Crow’s Nest: Constant Cawing Incites Civic Upheaval by the Detroit News - Michigan View" and on Emergency Manager policy in "A Shout Out to the Overlords of Michissippian EM Plantations (Michigan Emergency Managerment)".
 
More responses to Henry Payne and the Michigan View on the Gazette.

Original.

High up in Jim Crow’s Nest: Constant Cawing Incites Civic Upheaval by the Detroit News - Michigan View

What is the cure for the angst infusing The Detroit News' Jim Crowism? First let's look at their loud rancorous screeching spreading race related fear.

Detroit News' Jim Crower answer for Detroit's inner city, according to Gannett's select cynics, is to starve them out, cut them off from assistance, send more to prison, force them to become religious, make life/survival so miserable and oppressive they will either behave, or move away. Or it may be, take over the infrastructure and force social change by total economic dictatorship via Emergency Management , [a system akin to "embezzlement by fiat," (authoritative order)] by which TeaPartisans have legalized and enacted targeted legislation which effectively cheats the citizens of urban Detroit out of their city's assets and valuable infrastructure via legal and corporate cannibalization. (Think privatize for profit: Cobo Hall, corporatize and privately operate Metro Detroit's International Airport, push the Detroit Waterworks under suburban control/ownership, strip the Detroit Institute of Art of its treasures, etc.)

Iconic Civil Rights photo by native Detroiter the late Bill Hudson (AP/UPI)
of Firefighters turning their hoses full force on demonstrators July 15, 1963 in Birmingham, AL.

The use of the "police-power" of law and enactment of radical legislation to set back and derail voter rights and disfranchise citizens of color shanks citizens who once had the right to be equal partners in their own governmental affairs only since the late 1960's (and then only by Supreme Court Order and Congressional action).

This is wrong. Dangerously wrong.

Jim Crowers certifying a permanent underclass by default: We now have a tribe of individuals so much isolated, inbred, cut off from the culture and the wider thinking, the manners and morals of the greater society of the state of Michigan as to be crassly and effectively become classified (by the Jim Crowers) as "homo sapiens detroitsis urbanus." A de facto mythical, degrading classification for a morphological, politically differentiated population.

So out of those in the universe of the Jim Crow crowd (race fearful who create by editorial slams, thinly disguised diatribe, and prejudice) arises a strong case for creating a de facto new classification of Detroit's inner city human beings (using the power of their media). It makes perfectly svengali sense. Theirs isn't a collaborative, progressive or humane effort. Their goals are not charity and human understanding or compassion. They strive outrageously for only political and cultural advantage. They seek a "bar talk" milquetoast excuse for their racial indifference and separateness.

The Jim Crower's use of statistics, alarming anecdotal news stories, religious conclusions, or ideological prattle has made it easy to practice and separate out an entire population from, and aside from, the vastly superior "others" they believe themselves to be. The Jim Crow branding of urban Detroiters as the mythical, deridable "homo sapiens detroitsis urbanus" is not only wrong, it is ultimately evil.

Segregation's bitter taste in the Jim Crow South (National Archives)

Such de facto labeling becomes a means by which to justify the harsh and aggressive attitudes and laws now being created to control and subjugate their economic and social gulag. It becomes a means of avoiding contact, fostering further isolation, and inveighing against and diminishing the necessary and vital economic underpinning for any hope for a better tomorrow no matter how long it takes to arrive.

"Ita finitima sunt falsa veris, ut in præcipitem locum non debeat se sapiens committere"-
"Falsehood often borders so nearly on the truth that a wise man should not trust himself to the precipice."
-- Cicero

Detroit has effectively become a TeaPartisan "Plantation" and its inhabitants are being relegated to a sub-standard group of disinherited citizens (indentured servants, or worse) who are considered and characterized by Jim Crowers unable or unwilling to fend for themselves. As a lawless and amoral society( as often described by Jim Crowers) there is a need for dictatorial leadership and direct executive control of the kind that comes down from Gov. Snyder and Andy Dillion via the all encompassing powers delegated to the Emergency (Finance) Manager.

Do these savants understand what they have done to themselves by the way of taking on the ongoing ownership and sole responsibility for Detroit? What then?

-----

The Business Leaders for Michigan, Rick Snyder, and the TeaPublican faction of the Michigan GOP aren't capable of staying the course to any reasonable outcome. It's an unmitigated and endless democratic disaster if future efforts in terms of state funding and personal investment (in pro-active involvement don't far exceed past efforts by these elements) are not put in place. Snyder's Detroit re-invention may be the perfect academic "worse case" study for poly sci majors far into the future.

The Crow's Nesters need to heed sage advice- "ex vitio alterius sapiens emendat suum - from the mistake of the other man, the wise man corrects his own."

Parting Note: Gannett's published stance published via its editorial statement, printed 1958, presented The Detroit News as a publication that is "consistently conservative on economic issues and consistently liberal on civil liberties issues."

Where is The News today based on this stance? Anyone's guess. But it's crystal clear currently "civil liberties" have been "consistently" put aside.


Background Reading: 
Recent examples of these behaviors on the Detroit News/Michigan View by Nolan Finley - Michigan is breeding poverty (February 12, 2012) - If life's cheap, murder's not news (February 5, 2012) - Michigan to end welfare as a career choice (October 7, 2011) - The three I’s of Detroit's decline (September 19, 2010) and by Henry Payne - Send 'em to Cranbrook (January 17, 2012) - The real crime (January 17, 2012) - Peters’ failed compassion (October 4, 2011) - MackGOP: The Republican fence (September 25, 2011) - Welfare trap = wealth gap (August 25, 2011 ) and an old piece by Payne in the National Review "Eminem’s Real Detroit" (November 18, 2002).  Also last posting by "the Blog Prof", aka Chris Kobus, now a frequent contributor on the Michigan View (WARNING Disturbing Content).

On the Reader:
Responses to racism on the Gazette - "RACE as the GOP’s Dog Whistle Political “Tool”" - "Michissippi: A Rotten State of Affairs - A Brief Overview" and "Déjà Vu (Part 2): Buchanan's Pitch of Racial Undertones - "Suicide of a Superpower" a GOP Dog Whistle"

Original.

Michigan View's Gary Wolfram Resurrects 18th Cent. Racial Bigotry in His Vision of Economic “Freedom” (ala Adam Smith)

Response to Gary Wolfram in "The wealth of our nation" in the DetNews/Mackinac Center driven Michigan View on Feb 2, 2012.

"(I)t may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an (sic) European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king."

-- Adam Smith Quote from Chapter I from the "Of the Division of Labor", Vol I of "INQUIRY into the NATURAL CAUSES of the WEALTH OF NATIONS" (1776)

According to Gary Wolfram:

"Smith recognized that people coming together to trade among themselves would result in an increase in living standards for all..."

(break)

"Smith's other published book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is less well known - but it was well read in his time and went through six editions. A powerful work, it lays out his observations of human behavior and an understanding of how and why certain customs lead to greater social harmony. For example, a society in which we can interact with one another peaceably to our own benefit requires a sense of propriety. Smith teaches that traditions are important - and (form) a foundation of conservative thought from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk.

But 'Wealth of Nations' is his most famous work."

Wolfram:

"'Wealth of Nations' is one of those great books that everyone has heard of but few have read. It was a delight to spend time at Hillsdale with people who had not only read Smith - but had studied him. American(s) would benefit if every Legislator read Smith." (emphasis added)

Wolfram:

"The book was an analysis of why parts of the world were mired in abject poverty while Britain enjoyed 'opulence.' Yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king,' notes Smith."

Prof. Gary uses this quote to make his point and doing so telegraphs a backhanded racist statement: Wolfram projects Adam Smith's reference to British "opulence"(which we all are viewing as Downington Abby in the fading, last days of global British Empire) and the ordinary worker in British society in Adam Smith's times.

Make mention then, as Prof. Gary does, concerning the accumulation of many an "African king." So doing Wolfram sites Smith as he brags a "frugal peasant" in Imperial Britain-with its military homogeny over vast sections of the globe-at that time) has a sizable "accommodation." In Smith's estimation, that pot of material things owned by the 18th century working Brit exceeds the wealth of "many an African King", who using the current words of Prof. Gary, lived in parts of the world "mired in poverty."

Wolfram's assertion: That "African King" (who is in Smith's representation the "absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages") was not as well-off as a British common laborer in Smith's time. 

This sociologically unbalanced comparison was set in a past century when such racially slanted speech was commonly accepted. However braggadocio or prejudiced, the writers in contemporary times of Adam Smith thought nothing of using an "African King" as model-a bold comparison/contrast to the degree of accumulation held by a man of "labour" in Britain-compare and contrasted with an "African King" at the time of Smith's 18th century....
-----


In the PICTURE above, just behind Gary Wolfram (holding book) is Lawrence W. (Larry) Reed, President of the Foundation for Economic Freedom, former Pres (and still Pres. Emeritus) of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Harry C. Veryser, Jr. professor at Walsh College (past at Hillsdale & Northwood), former Judicial Commissioner (Engler), Board Member at the Acton Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.  From an event on October 13, 2009 at the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies in a a panel of economics to debate the issue of government intervention during economic recessions.

-----

The point Prof. Gary attempts to make in his blog, "The Wealth of Our Nation" is a grand argument for his quaint economic theories. The airy prof utilizes Smith's dated, bigoted example to prove his point- mindless of the racist implications implicit in this select quote. The lines he chose to use. This bigotry only aggravates the imbalance and ignorance of Prof. Gary's proofs offered the reader in his essay's conclusion below.

Wolfram's bromide based on bias and bigotry:

"(T)he gap between the richest and poorest in the United States and other market capitalist states is NOT AS LARGE CLASS WARRIORS WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE." (emphasis added)

Wolfram:

"I tell my students that the difference between their life style and that of Bill Gates is not that great. Like Gates, they live in a house with indoor plumbing and air conditioning (80 percent of all poor households in the US have air conditioning) though his may be bigger. Like Gates, they have a car (three-quarters of all Americas' poor have their own car) though his may be nicer. Like Gates, they can fly to California though he may have a private jet. Like Gates, they probably eat what he eats, and so on. Basically, they live a similar life.

"NOW COMPARE THEIR LIFE TO SOMEONE LIVING IN A REFUGEE CAMP IN SOMALIA."

"That is a stark contrast. In this time of Occupy Wall Street rage Smith's observation is worth repeating. Adam Smith told us that we need in order to achieve the wealth for all, including the "INDUSTRIOUS PEASANT."

"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: All the rest being brought about by THE NATURAL COURSE OF THINGS."

"Our federal government has grown far beyond this to the point where it regulates our daily life from how much water our toilet may flush to what kind of car we may drive. The massive health care and financial regulation bills of the Obama administration do not fit Adam Smith's prescription for an opulent society. Perhaps in 2012 we will return to the philosophy that brought us the wealth of our nation." (emphasis added)

Wolfram's Thrust: Why are American Blacks mired in poverty? Just read Wealth of Nations. In fact, he says "American(s) would benefit id every Legislator read Smith".


How instructive to compare Detroit's African-American community's economic status with the status of "Someone living in a refugee camp in Somalia." NO VALID COMPARISON!


Comparison relative to the ACTUAL IMPACT OF POVERTY and UNEMPLOYMENT in urban Detroit must be CONTRASTED with status of 1% LUXURIATING in the wealthy Oakland Co.suburbs; that's the REAL CONTRAST. 

Dissect that Prof Gary!


READER: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776)
More responses and posts on Gary Wolfram on the Gazette.

Original.

Michissippi’s TeaPuritan (Michigan's Republican) Legislative Purification Campaign Powering Up for 2012

Response to Dan Calabrese in "Will Michigan GOP blow it?" on the Michigan View January 03, 2012


The Salem Witch Trial Principals Were Not America's Founding Fathers. 2012's MI legislative year promises to reveal the full TeaPuritan agenda: They are rallying now to hold the modern equivalent of infamous witch trials and pass fanatical religiously tainted laws and acts designed to allow harsh church-think to dominate state affairs and citizens rights.

Dan Calabrese gets it. Our Calabrese Pray Group has given it up for Dan! Hallelujah...light has shone in.

Calabrese:

"If Michigan Republicans fumble away their leadership opportunity before it's even really begun, they won't be the first. Just the latest - and one of the stupidest.

"It's not often one political party is handed so much power and has free reign to do anything it thinks it should for the benefit of those it has been entrusted to govern. And on the rare occasions when it happens, the empowered party inevitably spends much of its political capital pandering to various constituencies by enacting nonsense that has long been demanded of them - thus ensuring a short reign with limited achievement."

We, here in the Calabrese Prayer Group aren't near as excited about what the "one political party handed so much power" and "free reign to anything it thinks it should" has done for the state, that's a tragic mistake and an enduring embarrassment. Beating down the poor, the elderly, and the school children is anti-caring. But Dan's warning is so apropos! So insightful!

Sez Dan:

"The empowered party inevitably spends much of it political capital pander to various constituencies by enacting nonsense that has long been demanded of them." 

Dan is spot on!

Calabrese's accurate assessment of the Michigan Mess:

"Michigan Republican can't seem to stop there (having achieved a number of their radical legislative goals), largely because they have a determined constituency of social conservatives and angry knee-jerkers who want what they want, regardless of whether it accomplishes anything. So along with the economic changes the state badly needs, we get proposals to mandating the Pledge of Allegiance, drug-testing welfare recipients, and banning domestic partner benefits for some public employees."

"They even passed a law "banning" partial-birth abortion, which is already illegal at the federal level, just to make anti-abortion activists happy."

"(W)hen it comes to manipulating the democratic process for their own self-serving purposes, Michigan Republicans have been second to no one. They drew congressional and legislative district maps so contorted and absurd, the only defense anyone can come up with is to suggest that Democrats would have done the same thing if given the chance. The GOP has been so blatant about grabbing power through redistricting, it even passed a law that allowed it to throw out Democratic-drawn Oakland County Commission districts - after the fact - because it didn't like the outcome. REPUBLICAN SECRETARY OF STATE RUTH JOHNSON IS MISUSING HER OFFICE TO PUT RIDICULOUS REQUIREMENTS ON VOTER REGISTRATION GROUPS, WHO TEND TO LEAN DEMOCRATIC."
(emphasis added)

Calabrese's balanced conclusion:

"This is all stupid. REPUBLICANS DON'T KNOW HOW TO TELL SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES THAT IT'S NOT GOVERNMENT'S JOB TO MAKE THEIR DREAMS COME TRUE. They don't know how to tell haters that welfare recipients are entitled to the same equal protection under the law as everyone else."
(emphasis added)

Original.

Prof. Gary Wolfram of the Michigan View Let’s His Little Light Shine On Greed

Response to Gary Wolfram in "The Gift of Liberty"  re-posted in the Michigan View on Christmas Day, first appeared on December 23, 2011.

Thank You, Thank You, Professor Gary - Just Don't tell Scrooge or Father Bob Sirico about the truism you just penned - this statement which you planted in your Greed-minded Christmas essay. And you think you have a right to expand insight on the Christian Christmas Message!

Wolfram writes:

"Christmas is a time to be grateful and to make every effort to help the family of mankind. This means private charity, giving of our own time, treasure, and talent to others. It does not mean asking our government to engage in what Frederic Bastiat called 'legalized plunder'...."

That is so revealing and true. "LEGALIZED PLUNDER" via bill writing and legislation in Lansing. Taking from some people to give to others - perfectly describes this TERRIBLE YEAR plundered by the Teapartisan "LEGISLATION OF THIEVES".

Whew, Prof. You surly hit the THE NAIL ON THE HEAD: 'LEGALIZED PLUNDER" that's a most accurate and also tradgic, so fitting, a descriptor; identifying the DESTRUCTIVE WORK of the  Class of 2011 Lansing Teapublicans - SO WILLFULLY BLIND, SO SELF-DELUDED, SO AGGRESSIVELY DESTRUCTIVE!

Prof. Gary must have hurriedly put on his hair shirt, inside out and backwards.

What a revelation: "LEGALIZED PLUNDER." What an apt term for the rapid disintegration of civic core values and precedents gutting established state laws and citizen privileges during this "blitz" of TeaPublican aggression. It is our common purpose and unity as citizens that has bound our great state into a unified society for all its history! It was that spirit, that willingness to be craftsmen and labors, working mothers, and sacrificial businesses that salvaged America from the Nazis.

Wofram:

"It's a time to recognize our good fortune in living in a system based on market capitalism and limited government. As Ludwig von Mises pointed out nine decades ago: this is the only system that can produce WEALTH FOR ALL."

How clever an academic device! Just put Ludwig in the manger at Bethlehem,encourage the idea that von Mises is to become the object of our Christmas adoration!

Freedom to Deny Freedom
When Rad Right advocates, Prof. Gary among them, cry for more "freedom." Think of what such "freedom" may actually involve: They want freedom to use government for their own ends unhindered and they want government out of their ideological projects.

Keep firmly in mind the fact that:

"[T]he individual freedoms destroyed by the increase in national authority have been in the main freedom to deny black Americans their elementary rights as citizens, the freedom to work little children in the mills...the starvation wages...the freedom to pollute the environment--all freedoms that, one supposes, a civilized society can really do without."
--Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., in "The Cycles of American History"

Wolfram's "The Gift of Liberty" is right up there with Marvin Olasky's tortuous babble:

"Olasky's most famous book is The Tragedy of American Compassion, which in 1992 Newt Gingrich distributed to incoming Republican representatives of the104th Congress. The book, an overview of poverty-fighting in America from colonial times to the 1990s, argues that private individuals and organizations, particularly Christian churches, have a responsibility to care for the poor, and contends that challenging personal and spiritual help, common until the 1930s, was more effective than the government welfare programs of recent decades. Olasky argues that GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS ARE INEFFECTIVE because they are disconnected from the poor, while private charity has the power to change lives because it allows for a personal connection between giver and recipient."

"The book eventually helped to define "compassionate conservatism" in relation to welfare and social policy. In 1995, Olasky became an occasional advisor toTexas gubernatorial candidate George W. Bush. Bush made faith-based programs a major component of his 2000 presidential campaign, and Olasky's academic work helped form the basis for Bush's "compassionate conservatism."

Source: Marvin Olasky entry in Wikipedia

Being so Greedy to the core - how long before Prof. Gary swears off the church; accosting it for coercing its members-with the threat of eternal punishment-should they fail-to contribute their tithes and personal assets so the Chruch can provide for all the immense needs roiling up in Michigan due to the evacuation of disposable income via billions in CORPORATE AND BUSINESS WELFARE, economic activity/turnaround money needed to operate thriving businesses and good government here in Michigan.

Wolfram Echoes Ayn Rand's rants: The Virtue of Selfishness. Altruism /Generosity is a Randian "sin." Only pure self-interest is redemptive/commercially worthy of the "marketplace." Or as Milton Friedman so often proclaimed: "GREED IS GOOD."

Prof. Gary's "Freedoms": Wolfram's Freedoms to pursue things that are not in the best interest of mankind, they fester toward the death of community. Prof. Gary's ruminations are loosely akin to the elements in King Herod's slaughter of the innocents, the darkside of the Christmas story.

Prof. Gary: Turning out collegiate minds in whom the milk of human kindness is "freeze dried" holds no benefit for those who are in need or out of work. Such graduates have been trained to be unfit for community service. Wolfram's army of Hayekian Stormtroopers hold no promise for a better tomorrow. Just follow the carnage inflicted on mankind by just one of his most infamous protege the Bloody-handed mercenary, Erik Prince.

Original Response to Original essay by Gary Wolfram.

Princetonian Henry Payne: The Paupers Hank Abjures & The Marauding Business Welfare TeaPublican Benefactors Hank Adores

Hank Takes His OnePercenter Cartoons & Cartoonish Opinions on Parade

Hank Payne made a pilgrimage from Detroit to Naples, Florida (12.9.11) the very day following the appearance of Doug DeVos' OnePercenter presentation to the Detroit Economic Club (12.8.11). Hank was apparently an invited guest/fill-in presenter to the One Percenters in South Florida.

Just think, our own Hank Payne is a featured speaker at the Forum Club of Southwest Florida Inc. thanks to a long-time buddy in charge. The Forum's mission: to be Florida's premier non-partisan political and public affairs organization.

What a heady thrill for Hank to be a last-minute speaker; sandwiched in between appearances of such notables as:

William M. Isaac, Chairman, Fifth Third Bancorp, Former Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, John H. Noseworthy, M.D., President & CEO, Mayo Clinic, and General Michael V. Hayden, Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency. Into the winter and spring the following notables will be on the dais: Steve Moore, Economist, Wall Street Journal, Lord Charles Powell, Diplomat, Politician & International Businessman, E. Gordon Gee, J.D., Ed.D., President, The Ohio State University, Tom DeFrank, Washington Bureau Chief, New York Daily News, Robert Gagosian, Ph.D., President & CEO, Consortium for Ocean Leadership, and Gregory R. Page, Chairman & CEO, Cargill.

The Forum's historic accolades and achievements include:

"Over the past twenty-one years, the Club has attracted many outstanding guests, including three Supreme Court Justices; Harry Blackmun, Byron White and Clarence Thomas. The Club also prides itself on identifying and presenting speakers before they become household names. A good example would be General Norman Schwarzkopf, who gave a program about the Middle East to the Club on February 2, 1990 - some six months before he took command of the Desert Storm operation in the Persian Gulf."

There's Hank, at the podium (actual AUDIO), the very same graced by U.S. Supreme Court Justices. Holy Smokes!

So it would appear that Hank was chosen prior to the time when he will "become (one of our national) household names." That leads one to wonder: Just what it is that Hank brings to such a wealthy, all-powerful fraternity, mavens of "household name" presenters and grand poopahs?

So what did Hank regale the grand poopahs with: According to the local newspaper, The Naples Daily News, 12/9/11, Hank trumpeted a twisted Paynesian view of the growing impoverishment in Snyder's "reinvented" New Michissippi:

"(Governor) Rick Snyder turned a $2 billion deficit into a balanced budget in less than half a year," said Henry Payne, cartoonist for the Detroit News. "So it can be done. All's you have to do is concentrate on the fundamentals." More honestly and completely accurate is this set of facts, Nerd Snyder stole from the poor, the disadvantaged, the retired, the cautious price-checking customers deprived of honest individual item pricing, the school children and their mentors to gift his business cronies with monies that belonged to honest, hard working, superannuated citizens. Cutting off the needy, defrauding the social contract with public employees rights and remuneration without their involvement, consent, or even open and above-board opportunity to collaborate: Is that what Payne lauds as "all's you have to do" --begin "concentrating on fundamentals?"

Source: Article by Pete Bishop "Cartoonist draws on experience, current events at Forum Club talk" December 9, 2011.

Are these kinds of "fundamentals", as per Snyder's Michigan Miracle, worth their beggarly bragging rights?

When Hank was being introduced, his lead-in/presenter said that Hank has the strange idea that Michigan can be "fixed" which brought on a hearty belly laugh from the Naples OnePercenters in the audience. Is that telling, or what?

Ebenezer Scourge be Praised !
One Michigander took a cue from Hank's roadshow; decided a trip to Naples/Ft. Meyers should go a long way to inform readers of The Michigan View as to what is the current wave of thought is at Naples; that bastion of gated communities and One Percenters, as presented by the local 99 Percenters.

Hank brought to Naples his conclusions: His hit-&-Run, on-site & personal observations of Detroit's Occupy movement are well known in Detroit. On the local streets, Hank took hurried snapshots/snippets of Occupy Detroit -- part of a national/international movement that scares the bee jeeus out of Rupert Murdock's spinmeister, Frank Luntz.

Perhaps Payne could bring the Naples One Percenters up to speed on the benefits for high-powered legal firms, "Too BIG to Fail" banks, and insurance/realty management & investment corporations, stemming from the establishment of Rick Snyder's greatly enhanced Emergency Managers (EM) and how there is great profit and opportunity in the deconstruction of public investment and the takedowns of unions and contracts under the new and much stronger dictatorial and anti-public powers of Michigan's Snyder boosted EM's. Inquiring minds need to know. Such EM powers are appealing to corporations and legal firms across the nation.

Payne thinks he's in the catbird's seat.
Perhaps Payne briefed the august Naples Forum members on the status of Occupy Detroit and the full impact of Michael Moore, whom he mocks in his presentation. Payne has formed a personal opinion and make his own unique estimate of the impact and danger he sees in Occupy. From what we are told, Hank's content included a bifurcated assessment of Detroit:

"Despite Payne's optimism concerning Michigan's future*, HE PAINTED A BLEAK PICTURE OF THE STATE'S RECENT PAST AND PRESENT. Detroit in particular has suffered from the disappearance of a middle class and the destruction of traditional family structure..."
--The Naples Daily News

* Note: Based hypothetically on his belief that Snyders' summary removal of well-over $2 billion in normal economic activity from 2012 and billions more in subsequent years, which will obviate consumer buying power and greatly lower commercial demand.

This is exactly why Payne announced he is giving up his cynical cartooning and bloviating about low-class living and the happy-hollow laziness of welfare recipients and is going to join the Salvation Army organization in search of the true Spirit of Jesus and economic & social recovery for his beloved Detroit. NOT!

In fact, Payne was skillfully devious in failing to report (as a highly paid Gannett Newspaperman) that subsequent to Gov. Snyders' sweeping grab of monies from vital Michigan civic functions; children, elderly, retirees, and welfare safety nets; American Axle completely ignored Snyder's "Michigan Miracle" with its new business goodies and announced it's closing down an important Michigan operation by which over 500 high-paying jobs will be lost-with a negative multiplier in the economy; That number may rise to 3,000 or 6,000 additional jobs lost across Michigan's depression economy! This negative footprint will increase Michigan unemployment rolls now at over 800,000. With his shabby approval record- dropping like a millstone (currently at 19%), the Nerd governor Snyder isn't any kind of big hero here in Michigan; only perhaps in Hank's ideological universe of "hard" conservative luminaries does the Nerd achieve "star" billing.

Travels to Naples to Follow-Up Payne's Visit to This OnePercenters' Enclave
One Michigander's report back to Detroit from Naples/Ft. Meyers -- via The Michigan View -- what Occupy Ft. Meyers/Naples has in its organization, activity roster, and on its agenda(s); giving feedback to News readers about current thinking around Naples/Ft.Myers-paradise of the One Percenters.

A Local Opinion:

"The public seems to understand very clearly what we are talking about," said Naples' Karanja Gacuca, former bank analyst who took up with Occupy Wall Street. "It's quite simply about economic injustice and control of corporations on government and all our systems." Gacuca worked until recently on Wall Street.

Hank could have told the Forum how corporate and Michigan Chamber of Commerce control of Michigan's 2011 Legislative session allowed a corporate-created and empowered TeaPartisan supermajority (with the backing of One Percenters like Amway and Walmart, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) promoted and funded by the Koch Brothers, et al) to have undue, direct influence on bill introduction and passage.

Occupy Southwest Florida's Bill Coughlan, adjunct professor of ethics and philosophy, Edison State College, explained:

"I think it's an issue of human rights. It's a catch all in the 99 percent: basic human rights, opportunity to earn a living, opportunity to share in the profits, opportunities for women and minorities. It's all the same issues we've been fighting for, like in the 60's."

One outstanding sign carried in rallies there stated:

"Show me what Democracy looks like!"
"This is what Democracy looks like!"

Individuals interviewed locally:

1. Dave Ebert was raised as a Quaker and is anti-war, but also sees himself as "staunchly middle class" His intent is to "stop corporation's undue influence on politicians. His sign read: "Revoke Corporate Personhood."

2. Alex Flynt is a retired teacher and fireman. He reports that he is financially well off, but laments: "I'm not sure what kind of future we'll have for our kids." He expanded: "The thing they can learn (from earlier protest movements), especially the young people, is they have to prepare themselves to take over some of the positions they've been criticizing...I don't know if the younger people in this movement have a vision," for themselves personally, as well as the movement in general. "Many are just trying to cope with life."

3. Ellen Hemrick, 42, is a Naples single mother. Her occupation is as a Speech Language Pathologist, but she is "stifled from running her own business, like she used to do, because (of high) health care costs for herself and her 2 year old son." Her statement; "I'm not against capitalism per se-I used to own a business-but there are certain thing capitalism isn't good at. It's not good at justice. It's not good at health and education. You really don't want the people in charge of your health care trying to figure out how much money they can make off your being sick-it just doesn't make sense. And with education, the same thing. We want to educate our children not run them through the mill and meet productivity standards. I think (Occupy) is going to be a long-term movement because it has to be. It's not going to any of its goals in a short period of time. Getting money out of politics and corruption out of government and returning the country is an extremely long and difficult process."

So there you have it Hank, a smattering of insight you missed on your brief sojourn to Naples -- One-Percenter-Land.

As one 99 Percenter's poster carrier down here in Naples poked back at Newt Gingrich:

"HEY NEWT, I SHOWER & HAVE A JOB. ANYTHING ELSE?"

Sources: The synopsis of the situation there in the Naples area (as drawn from real people) uses excerpted quotes from the local paper, Florida Weekly in "Occupy: The 99% Movement Will Not Remain Silent", and from person to person contacts.

Original.