Rick Snyder's 'Reinvention": Not the Answer, but Now the Growing Problem

Rick Snyder has exercised disturbing authoritarian means to get to control and inflict re-invention on all things Michigan.

We are now living in Michissippi.

Our great state has been taken down one fragment at a time by the Business Leaders for Michigan, The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the Michigan Chapter of the Koch Bros.' Americans for Prosperity, and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

Rick Snyder in a caricature by Henry Payne Editor of
the MichiganView.com (Detroit News March 2012)

"Nerd" Snyder has been especially adept at extensive use of procedural sleight of hand to ram through his über-corporatist agenda. The amount of shift to business gains over citizen loss has been unprecedented.

Certainly, the hamfisted and conniving John Mathias Engler never reached this level of "revolution," though God knows he tried. Yet it is the format of Englerism that laid the groundwork for this coupe de tat that Snyder has pulled.

Snyder and companies have rammed though a long list of A.L.E.C  (Corporate designed and perfected 'model' legislation in many fragments-backed in large part by the Koch Bros.) directly and swiftly into legislative tax changes, tax increases, deregulation, and give-backs that are already undermining Michigan.

Did anyone notice that tax revenues were reportedly down by $75 million in the most recent cycle...? Just as predicted by this commentator; the removal of over $2 billion in new taxes pension and annuities, the removal of "individual item" pricing at retailers (resulting in loss of jobs and consumer protection), and other reductions in services, salaries, and safety net supplements to children, etc. has broken down the vital chain of customer demand in Michigan.


Snyer's reinvention is not the cure, the answer, formula for deliverance for an ailing Michigan economy in a "one state depression." No, Rick Snyder Reinvention is the PROBLEM!

Snyder's reinventive, revolutionary unconstitutional Enhanced Emergency Manager scheme set up and run by crafty legal corporations and bean counters will show itself to be rife with unbelievable chicanery and potential for white collar corruption.

The central control of Snyder's new "We know best" socialist regime is enough to make even the New York Times' Thomas Friedman jealous.

Friedman has looked at the Red Chinese in the People's Republic and pined aloud. Quoth Hank, Friedman " has been openly jealous of Chinese Communist rule as a way of quickly imposing societal makeovers that force green technologies," or so writes Payne in his personal blog.

Payne sees the sliver in the eye of Friedman, and denies the existence of a rail tie in his own optic.

Michissippi is on the super highway to nowhere and Snyder Inc. has paved the way.

Related Slates:
Rick Snyder’s Relentless Positive Action (RPA) Has Devolved Into Pitiless Regressive Aggression & Trespass (PRAT) - "Tricky Rick & His 'Nerd Herd' Play Dangerous Economic Game in Michigan" - "Nerd Snyder: Nada Jobs "- "Discover Michissippi’s (Michigan's) Corporate Bosses: The Elites Who Now Run Snyder & the GOP Super Majority Legislature" - "The Free Fire Kill Zone: Snyder’s War on Michigan’s Real People"

More on Rick Snyder and Rick Snyder Policy and the term "Michissipi" 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.

A Very Merry Christmas

The McGuffey Gazette's Christmas card has this essay reproduced, torn from Michigan View's Henry Payne's favorite magazine, Reason. It's penned by A. Barton Hinkle, a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, placed/nestled inside with a arty card featuring a luminous winter shot of the majestic Detroit skyline at Christmas-as seen from the peaceful Windsor shore-as a cover:

"These are the folks who write earnest monographs on how everybody has the wrong idea about Ebeneezer Scrooge, who was really a thrifty capitalist hero. Their idea of a neat Christmas present is something like a "Who Is John Galt?" doormat-except there isn't one, because John Galt was nobody's doormat...so instead you get a book on Basel bank-capital requirements and a bookmark in the shape of Ludwig von Mises."

"Which is not to say that either group is wrong, mind you-merely that, like the madman in Chesterton's "Orthodoxy," they are "trapped in the well-lit prison of one idea...sharpened to one painful point." You want to say to them, look: If British and German soldiers could sing carols together at Ypres in WWI, then the rest of us are entitled to give politics a break for one lousy day. Here, have some peppermint bark."

"After all, giving people a break is what the holiday is all about. The story of Christmas is the story of a wrathful, smiting God who had a change of heart. A God who said: "You know what? All those horrible, awful, things you've done? Forgiven. We're going to wipe the slate clean and start over. Yet get a second chance."

"That is, at bottom, what makes Christmas such a poignantly joyous holiday. There are not many of us who have not at some time felt lost, broken, inadequate, consumed with guilt. To be forgiven is a great relief. But it is also a great relief to forgive someone else: to let go of grudges and resentments, to give them a reprieve and accept them as they are. And this is something even those of us who cannot swallow the New Testament whole can take part in. You don't have to make peace with the story of Jesus to make peace with your neighbor."

Source: A. Barton Hinkle in Reason Magazine "On Christmas, Escaping the Well-Lit Prison: Give the gift of forgiveness this holiday season." December 23, 2011

And So, Merry Christmas & to all a good night...

Original.

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.

Hank Payne’s Utter Failure to Occupy the Moral High Ground vs. Michael Moore’s Progress Thereunto

Henry Payne's gnawing away on Michael Moore with shabby grievances is very small on his part.

Payne's real arguments made on the Detroit/Mackinac News and Michigan View, center against Moore and the Occupy Movement and with the power and the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and several vicars of Christ - its popes.

Hank is on thin ice and at risk as a credible moral voice and/or guide.

Early in the anti-poor legislative blitz mounted by the Michigan TeaPublican super majorities in Lansing the Detroit News, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Mackinac Center (aided and abetted by the cynical Detroit News pinchpennies Nolan, Frank, Dr. Gary, Hank, and the peanut gallery of hand-cranked memographers of corporate pap and propaganda at the mighty Mackinac Center mischief mill) simply ignored the sharp criticism directed by the Michigan Conference of Catholic Bishops against Rick Snyder and crew as they took down and compounded the absolute plight of the poor in Michigan.

SEE: Letter from the Michigan Catholic Conference Calling for Greater Attention to Poor and Unemployed in the Michigan State Budget to Governor Rick Snyder and Michigan Legislative Leaders on April 11, 2011 begins:

"We, the Roman Catholic Bishops of the seven Dioceses in Michigan, take this opportunity as proposals are being advanced by our legislators to craft the state budget, to call on you, our executive and legislative leaders, to carry out your responsibilities with greater attention to the needs of the poor, the unemployed and other vulnerable persons who make up a large part of the citizens of Michigan."

Michael Moores' Rich Catholic Heritage Stands Opposed to Hank Payne & Cadre's Thinly Varnished Parsimony & Bitter, Ascorbic Civic Cynicism
_________

The American Conference of Catholic Bishops has enunciated a Set of Principles partially annotated from Wikipedia as below:

1.) Sanctity of human life and dignity of the person -

2.) Call to family, community, and participation - According to the Book of Genesis, the Lord God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone". The Catholic Church teaches that man is now not only a sacred but also a social animal and that families are the first and most basic units of a society. It advocates a complementarian view of marriage, and family life, religious leadership. FULL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TAKES PLACE IN RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS. The family-based on marriage(between a man and a woman)-is the first and fundamental unit of society and is a sanctuary for the creation and nurturing of children. Together families form communities, communities a state and together all across the world each human is part of the human family. HOW THESE COMMUNITIES ORGANIZE THEMSELVES POLITICALLY, ECONOMICALLY AND SOCIALLY IS THUS OF THE HIGHEST IMPORTANCE. EACH INSTITUTION MUST BE JUDGED BY HOW MUCH IT ENHANCES, OR IS A DETRIMENT TO, THE LIFE AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN PERSONS.

CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING OPPOSES COLLECTIVIST APPROACHES SUCH AS COMMUNISM BUT AT THE SAME TIME IT ALSO REJECTS UNRESTRICTED LAISSEZ-FAIRE POLICIES AND THE NOTION THAT A FREE MARKET AUTOMATICALLY PRODUCES SOCIAL JUSTICE. THE STATE HAS A POSITIVE MORAL ROLE TO PLAY AS NO SOCIETY WILL ACHIEVE A JUST AND EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES WITH A TOTALLY FREE MARKET. ALL PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL LIFE OF SOCIETY and, under the principle of subsidiarity, state functions should be carried out at the lowest level that is practical.

3.) Rights and responsibilities -

4.) Preferential Option for the poor and vulnerable - Jesus taught that on the Day of Judgement God will ask what each of us did to help the poor and needy: "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." This is reflected in the Church's canon law, which states, "THE CHRISTIAN FAITHFUL ARE ALSO OBLIGED TO PROMOTE SOCIAL JUSTICE and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources."

Through our words, prayers and deeds we must show solidarity with, and compassion for, the poor. WHEN INSTITUTING PUBLIC POLICY WE MUST ALWAYS KEEP THE "PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR" AT THE FOREFRONT OF OUR MINDS.

The moral test of any society is "how it treats its most vulnerable members. THE POOR HAVE THE MOST URGENT MORAL CLAIM ON THE CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION. WE ARE CALLED TO LOOK AT PUBLIC POLICY DECISIONS IN TERMS OF HOW THEY AFFECT THE POOR."

Pope Benedict XVI has taught that "love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel". THIS PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR AND VULNERABLE INCLUDES ALL WHO ARE MARGINALIZED IN OUR NATION AND BEYOND-UNBORN CHILDREN, PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES, THE ELDERLY AND TERMINALLY ILL, AND VICTIMS OF INJUSTICE AND OPPRESSION.

5.) Dignity of work - Society must pursue economic justice and the economy must serve people, not the other way around. Employers must not "look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but ... respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character." Employers contribute to the common good through the services or products they provide and by creating jobs that uphold the dignity and rights of workers.

Workers have a right to work, to earn a living wage, and to form trade unions to protect their interests. All workers have a right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, and to safe working conditions. Workers also have responsibilities-to provide a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, to treat employers and co-workers with respect, and to carry out their work in ways that contribute to the common good. Workers must "fully and faithfully" perform the work they have agreed to do.

In 1933, the Catholic Worker Movement was founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. It was committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the marginalized and poorest in Society. Today over 185 Catholic Worker communities continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.

6.) Solidarity - "Solidarity is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. It seeks to go beyond itself to total gratuity, forgiveness, and reconciliation. It leads to a new vision of the unity of humankind, a reflection of God's triune intimate life...." It is a unity that binds members of a group together.

All the peoples of the world belong to one human family. We must be our brother's keeper, though we may be separated by distance, language or culture. Jesus teaches that we must each love our neighbors as ourselves and in the parable of the Good Samaritan we see that our compassion should extend to all people.[ SOLIDARITY INCLUDES THE SCRIPTURAL CALL TO WELCOME THE STRANGER AMONG US-INCLUDING IMMIGRANTS SEEKING WORK, A SAFE HOME, EDUCATION FOR THEIR CHILDREN, AND A DECENT LIFE FOR THEIR FAMILIES.

7.) Complementarianism - "God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity" but also that the harmony of society "depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out."

8.) Charity - "In a culture without truth, there is a fatal risk of losing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word "love" is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in God and the Bible.

9.) Subsidiarity -

10.) Distributism - DISTRIBUTISM HOLDS THAT SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STRUCTURES SHOULD PROMOTE WIDE OWNERSHIP OF CORPORATIONS AND IS THE BASIS FOR ANTI-TRUST LAWS AND ECONOMIC COOPERATIVES INCLUDING CREDIT UNIONS. Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno and Centesimus Annus are Catholic Social Teaching documents which advocate economic distributism.


_________

What progress for good and the public commons have you to offer, Hank?

Have you new material that can substitute or supersede those of Michael Moore's Catholic Church's goals and principles?  If you do have advanced revelation and superior moral proposals for the future, please share them with us all.

See Also: "Is Michael Moore God’s Man for This Hour of National Crisis? " , "Henry Payne IV v. Mike Moore: Contrasting 2 Lives" and "Occupy Payne: Bloomfield Hills"

Original.

Revisit Occupy Detroit: the Tea Party is Different – Hank Payne’s Myopic View

This is in Response to Michigan View's Henry Payne's piece "Occupy Detroit: The Tea Party Difference" in Michigan View / Detroit News on October 14, 2011, which was reposted in the National Review on October 16, 2011.

An analysis of Hank Payne's put down of Occupy Detroit comes up short and defective; Payne's bias rules fact.

Here is a breakdown of Henry Payne, Detroit News, Friday Oct 14, 2011, and his wobbly apology for Tea Partyism over and against Occupy Wall Street protests.

HANK: "Detroit, Grand Circus Park - Desperate to show the Left's grassroots, the MSM [Main Stream Media] has taken to comparing the Occupy movement with the tea party. THERE IS NO COMPARISON."
(Emphasis Added)

ANALYSIS: Everywhere comparisons are being made; and the central role of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) fronted by the notorious KOCH BROTHER'S stick puppet, DICK MORRIS, and other backers and paid provocateurs are being outted and discussed.

HANK: "The 99 Percenters are professional protesters. There is nothing new here. Survey the Occupy Detroit crowd and for the most part it is the usual suspects: anti-war protestors, racial grievance activists, left-wing students, unionists. Activism is their avocation - only the theme changes. In 2006 they protested the Iraq War. In 2007, global warming at Live Earth. In 2010, racist cartoons in the New York Post. This spring they protested public sector union reforms in state capitals. Now they protest corporations. They are supported by the usual names: Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, Bob King, UAW, SEIU. They know how to organize - and just as importantly - the MSM sympathizes with them and covers their every move."

ANALYSIS: The Occupy Protests are moving toward a lasting movement, and a movement that will have a significant impact on not only Wall Street, but alter the political universe centered on K Street and in the smoke-filled caucuses of hamstrung politicos.

Cartoonist Hank Payne Warps and Manipulates His Carefully Chosen Materials to Put Down Occupy's Impact

ANALYSIS: Video from the Detroit News on Occupy Detroit (chosen by Payne) is replete with a black woman with classic racial features, (purposefully-the first frame of the set " placed thus, done for maximum racial impact); especially when Hank uses this kind of slanted material as a compare-and-contrast impact piece with the commentary on the Tea Party-business strip protest-at Birmingham, MI.

HANK: "By contrast, what makes the tea party such a compelling story is that it is not your standard protest. It is a true grassroots movement."

ANALYSIS: Hank must CERTAINLY know better! Across the country the Occupy activity has taken hold in the conversations of the 99%ers. They know things are not as they ought to be-not right by any standard, and they want regress of their grievances with the System.

HANK: "Indeed, as it first took shape, the MSM barely gave it a look. Compare the extensive pre-Occupy Detroit coverage in Michigan's media this week to the nearly non-existent coverage of (the larger) tea party protests in Congressional districts in the summer of 2009."

Hank Payne tries to make a logical conclusion, and fails to grasp the factual details of TP vs. Occupy Wall Street dust-up.

BIRMINGHAM TEA PARTY PROTEST

HANK: "In part this was because the liberal MSM is out of touch with the middle class, conservative voter (as the videos above show, these are two very different protestor demographics). But also it was because the tea partiers were new to the protest game. They were soccer moms, they were doctors, and they were retirees who had never protested anything before. They weren't backed by special interest groups."

ANALYSIS: This Payne assertion is patently untrue and a proven misstatement:

1.) The Koch Brothers political machine Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a group fronting special interests started by oil billionaire David Koch and Richard Fink (a member of the board of directors of Koch Industries). AFP has been accused of funding astroturfoperations but also has been fueling the "Tea Party" efforts. AFP's messages are in sync with those of other groups funded by the Koch Family Foundations and the Koch's other special interest groups, included is A.L.E.C. The American Legislative Exchange Council with upwards of 200 past and former members in the Michigan Legislature.

2.) Karl Rove operations - "Rove is the embodiment of everything the tea party resents. He supported Bush's decision to bail out the banks in 2008, a major bone of contention with deficit hawks. And it was Rove, as White House political adviser, who pushed for some of the most expensive Bush programs, like the  Medicare-prescription-drug bill, the passage of which cornered the troublesome State of Florida for Bush in 2004 but has already cost more than $1 trillion. The national debt nearly doubled under Bush, from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion. Rove knew he had to inoculate himself against tea-party insurrectionists if he was to keep his footing in the party." Source: The New York Magazine, March 2011

3.) Dick Armey's group - Freedom Works - "(L)et us be clear about one thing: The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover of it." Source: the Wall Street Journal in 'The Tea Party Manifesto" on August 17, 2010.

4.) Central to the TP movement: endless promotion of and for the Tea Party - giving time and place and (adding promotional hype) by Rupert's FOX media empire, made/makes the Tea Party a national force.

HANK: "But suddenly faced with a power-hungry, Obamacare-forcing, Democratic Socialist Washington political class intent on poaching their liberties, they rose 'to take back America.'"

ANALYSIS: TPer's organized to defend the Corporate/Congressional/Wall Street status quo, THESE MEGA-MONIED/SPONSORED 'RABBEL' ARE DEFINITELY NOT TAKING AMERICAN FORWARD.

HANK: "They are well on their way to doing so with the tsunami election of 2010 - and now have their eyes on the ultimate prize: the presidency."

ANALYSIS: Take a sharp look at the Republican primary candidates as they go down one pin at a time " the public is not "buying" their extremism and lack of fundamental knowledge of the issues and foreign affairs, and especially their dance away from Wall Street and Financial reform and proscriptive regulations to prevent more fraud and in-your-face abuse.

HANK: "The tea party agenda, however, endangers the special interests of professional protestors. Not surprisingly, they are striking back."

ANALYSIS: Actually the strength and power of the Tea Party has dwindled and been diminished/fractured THE MORE THE 99%ERS SEE THE TEA PARTY IN CLOSE-UP THEY MORE THEY REJECT THEIR ATTITUDE, ANGER, STICK PUPPET LOGIC. The more the people at the real grassroots learn about these angry protesters; pumped by savage, cynical media, the more they distance themselves from those TP types; some of whom showed up at rallies with loaded weapons at-the-ready.

HANK: "That's the meaning of the 99 Percenters. They aren't a liberal grassroots answer to the tea party. They are the Big Government special interests that are threatened by it."

ANALYSIS: Would Hank know a "special interest" if he met one? Everyone, and imagine the size of the 99%ers numbers hundreds of millions of Americans - who are expressing: personal interest in jobs, freedom from oppressive student loans, foreclosures, anger at their inability to obtain small business loans, credit card interest at historic levels labeled "usury", and seeing the huge ($2 trillion corporate and 1%ers hold-out of capital from the marketplace) CAN BE LUMPED INTO A "SPECIAL INTEREST".

SEE ALSO: Hank Payne's Suggested Video posted on YouTube in August of 2009, with the title "Tea Party Protest Birmingham Michigan" - Introduced BTW by the former Head of the MacComb County Republican Party (circa 2004-2006) saying "... this is another legitimate 'grassroots' gathering...."


The OWS events are morphing into a significant social and political movement across America and into all parts of the world. Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" has come into its own, as a model for what must be dealt with:

"WE WANT OUR MONEY DOMINATED POLITICAL SYSTEM BACK, AND WE WANT IT NOW!"

"WE WANT SCORES OF SLEAZY FINANCIAL FRAUDS AND CRIMINALS TO GO TO JAIL!"

"WE WANT 'PLAIN ENGLISH' TO BE THE STANDARD FOR INVESTMENT INSTRUMENTS, BUSINESS PRACTICE, AND PROBITY IN FINANCE AND INVESTMENT INSTITUTIONS!"

These Occupy Wall Street (OWS) issues and many more have grabbed the attention of the general population, whom polling shows side, not with Hank Payne or the TP, but with the OWS protests. Even with the recent removal of Occupy from the Wall Street, NYC park, the polling shows that 58% of New York State supports their movement over and against the establishment. 

Occupy Wall Street proclaims today:

"We are here because we believe a better world is possible. We are willing to endure mistreatment, if by doing so WE CAN HELP RE-ENFRANCHISE THE 99% AND RECLAIM OUR DEMOCRACY FROM THE STRANGLEHOLD OF WALL STREET AND THE TOP ONE PERCENT." 
(emphasis added)

Original Part 1 and Part 2.

Occupy Payne: Bloomfield Hills

Response to Henry Payne in "Occupy Michael Moore: His opulent lake estate" in the Michigan View / Detroit News on November 11, 2011.

It might have been a cold choppy day when Hank Payne risked his handy Kodak and mounted the tremulous waves of deep and miles long Torch Lake to capture an image Michael Moore's house - far North in Michigan. Payne (or surrogate) slipped in and out of the water to get one of his gottcha shots; like the one he snapped at Occupy Detroit last Saturday where Hank slipped in and out of the protest crowd to snap a photo. Hank picked the just right- the most useful poster/sign for his purpose, which he could use as a "cartoonish" depiction that would put down the Occupy movement.

So in the spirit of Payne let's take a short look at Hank's neighborhood, he lives nestled amid the Michigan cluster of 99%ers. What are the stats on his local:

From Wiki:

"Bloomfield Hills is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan, 20.2 miles northwest of downtown Detroit. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,869. Bloomfield Hills consistently ranks as one of the top five wealthiest cities in the United States with population between 2,500 to 9,999 - it currently is listed at the number four position and in 1990 it was ranked number two, and has the highest income of any city outside of California or Florida. The median income for a family is over $200,000. In 2000, 49% of residential property in Bloomfield Hills had a value of over $1,000,000."

What say Payne? Does he actually achieve the Bloomfield Hills 49% level with a home over one million dollars?

Occupy Payne? Why not? This is in concept the heart of the issue. Do the Bloomfield Hills folk have compassion and fathom the concerns and passions displayed in the Occupy Movement? Not likely.

Occupy Payne? Those who live in the heart of the 99%ers ought not throw stones or mock those who achieved/have the means such as Michael Moore has.

 MICHAEL MOORE HAS GIVEN VOICE TO THOSE WHO WANT BALANCE AND PROBITY TO WALL STREET-A FINANCIAL OFFICER HIRED TO DEAL WITH PERSONAL INVESTMENTS HAS A LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY TO ACT AS A FIDUCIARY FOR THE CLIENT.

Wiki again:

"A fiduciary duty (from Latin fiduciarius, meaning "(holding) in trust"; from fides, meaning "faith", and fiducia, meaning "trust") is a legal or ethical relationship of confidence or trust between two or more parties. One party, for example a corporate trust company or the trust department of a bank, acts in a fiduciary capacity to one, who for example has funds entrusted to it for investment. IN A FIDUCIARY RELATIONSHIP, ONE PERSON, IN A POSITION OF VULNERABILITY, JUSTIFIABLY VESTS CONFIDENCE, GOOD FAITH, RELIANCE AND TRUST IN ANOTHER WHOSE AID, ADVICE OR PROTECTION IS SOUGHT IN SOME MATTER. IN SUCH A RELATION GOOD CONSCIENCE REQUIRES THE FIDUCIARY TO ACT AT ALL TIMES FOR THE SOLE BENEFIT AND INTEREST OF THE ONE WHO TRUSTS.

A fiduciary is someone who has undertaken to act for and on behalf of another in a particular matter in circumstances which give rise to a relationship of trust and confidence. -Bristol & West Building Society v Mothew [1998] Ch 1 at 18 per Lord Millett

"A fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care at either equity or law."
(Emphasis added)

Moore is and will be a target of savage blowback, it is expected.

Footnote: Payne's cartoonish punditry and simplistic cartoons do not reach the high threshold set by others. Compared to the vastly superior material produced in the recent past, Payne falls short, even with a Princeton education, when compared with those witty and punch-packed renderings of Gary Packingham-an accomplished artist/cartoonist with a sharp pen put to the right issues and done in high style. Packingham is best known for his years of political cartooning for most Michigan newspapers.

Original.

Find Hank Payne: Provocateur & Blames-layer

Forget Henry Payne's schismatic preoccupation with Occupy Detroit: Let's Find Hank in the Crowd

• Where was Hank Payne when Hudsons left Downtown Detroit?
• Where was Hank Payne when GM tore down Poletown?
  SEE:"Condemn nation", in The Colorado Springs Gazette August 4, 2004.
• Where was Hank Payne when Detroit tore down Tiger Stadium and built Comerica Park?
• Where was Hank Payne when thousands of middle class blacks exited urban Detroit?
• Where was Hank Payne when the Roman Catholic Church summarily abandoned26 parishes and shuttered their sanctuaries?
  SEE: "Occupy Detroit: Why?" by Henry Payne in the Michigan View October 15, 2011.

• Where is Hank Payne in the planning to privatize and profitize Cobo Hall?
• Where is Hank Payne in the on-going attempt of Brooks Patterson and others to "steal" Detroit's billion dollar waterworks?
• Where is Hank Payne in the push to use taxpayer moneys to replace the "Joe"?
• Where is Hank Payne on the vital commerce bridge to and from Canada? (Port Huron/Sarnia has 2)
• Where is Hank Payne on the issue of abandoned structures in urban Detroit?
• Where is Hank Payne thoroughly investigating the galloping simony and corruption via appointed "experts" such as EMFer Robert Bobb?
  SEE: The work of investigative author, Russ Bellant, has issued a special investigation concerning the misdeeds of Robert Bobb and the present office of "Emergency Finance Manager"; details that line out further miscues and irregularities under Bobb's dictatorial powers over DPS.
  
• Where is Hank Payne on critical need to have State Police patrol Detroit's freeways?
• Where is Hank Payne on the issue of Detroit infrastructure? (Municipal electric service's multiple brown-outs and power outages)
• Where is Hank Payne on the issue of the federal government's bailout salvaging the thousands of jobs potentially lost to the bankruptcy of GM & Chrysler ?
• Where does Hank Payne stand on the issue of voter rights and civil rights for minorities?
• Where does Hank Payne stand on homelessness, street-corner mental illness, and extreme jobless poverty?
  SEE the LETTER, in which Catholics Call on LEADERS to Remember the Needy in the Detroit Free Press April 11, 2011.
  
• Where does Hank Payne stand on landlords and slum rental practices?
• Where does Hank Payne land on 'social justice'?

Let's go find Hank Payne. What occupies his head these days? Does Hank plan to play 'superman' for Detroit? We're waiting.


Original.

Michissippi: A Rotten State of Affairs - A Brief Overview

Michissippi is currently in a rotten state of affairs:

- Over 500,000 unemployed in Michigan - No Snyder Jobs Plan in place. "Nerd"onomics freaks out.

- A "service economy" in a flat spin. Service? Do it yourself, or do without!

- A-blame-it-on-the-victims mentality (Read Henry Payne in "Peters' failed compassion" 10.4.11)

- Henry Payne quotes Rick Snyder for his assertion:

"In fact, as revealed by Governor Rick Snyder... MOST game the system: over 20 percent of welfare recipients are on welfare 11 years or more, 70 percent for 8 years or more. THIS ISN'T A LEG UP - IT'S A WAY OF LIFE." 

ASK: Just where is a "job" for a urban Detroit welfare recipient going to come from in this Michissippian economy?

When you hear the Tea Party rabble cheer and jeer at the mention of capital executions or the cut-off of medical benefits spiked by yells of "Let'm die;" where will the support for heating, food, and sheer survival come from, if we where to follow Payne's support for Snyder's intended (cut them off) course of action? The obvious answer; a reverse migration of the poor to another place. Payne's intended solution: Pick up and leave. Will Hank be throwing in for a "one way" ticket?

- Thinly disguised racial undertow: 80% single mother births in Urban Detroit-evokes the angst and anger that resides in a bigoted heart. "Compassion" applied is here a dirty word as we see in Henry Payne's attack on Congressman Peters for his "compassion."

Sez Payne:

"Living in posh Oakland County, Peters & Co. use welfare as a Cadillac bumper sticker to advertize their compassion. Divorced from the mean streets of Detroit, they never do an accounting of welfare's unintended consequences in destroying the family and creating a permanent underclass that is dooming generations of children to poverty."

Put them out and let them get jobs, this is the Payne mantra.

To which Mayor Bing replies," "'I wish we could have pushed off this decision (Snyder's cut-off of aid to the poor 2/3 of whom are children),' says Bing, fearing the effects of a tight jobs market."

Here is an historic clip about how cutting welfare goes in Michigan: "Who gets welfare? Despite prevailing stereotype, whites, not blacks, collect greatest share of public aid dollars":

"Michigan welfare officials, for example, dumped 90,000 people from its general assistance program last year (1991) to save the state $250 million. Unfortunately, a majority of those clients, as is the case nationwide, are poor Black men living in urban areas with staggeringly high unemployment rates. Many of these men suffer from physical or mental disabilities. Without welfare benefits, they face a grim future."

"The question of who gets welfare is one that society would do well to ponder. As it stands now, poor Black Families are up against the burdens of systematic racism, urban warfare and limited paths leading up and out of poverty. And many working class and middle class Black families are a paycheck away from joining their poorer brothers."

"The welfare question goes to the heart of individual attitudes about race, class, values and beliefs. Those judgments, often made by the power-brokers who shape public policy, rarely coincide with the sensibilities of the poor. HOW THEY DECIDE WHO GETS WELFARE CAN IRREVOCABLY ALTER THE DESTINIES OF GENERATIONS OF IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE."

- Michigan - a failed state - with over 35 radical groups operating in state; this coupled with the resurgence of the lone-wolf Michigan Militia. We are in trouble friends, REAL TROUBLE.

- The rise of the aristocrat John Birchers: Charles and David Koch ($25 billion each/sons of Fred Koch, founding supporter of The John Birch Society) funders and facilitators of Americans for Prosperity which is currently very active in Michigan with activists Dick Morris, Kyle Olsen, et al who roam the swamp looking for more muck. American for Prosperity (AFP) and the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are having a "pig at the trough" field day with Michigan lawmaking, providing corporatist "plug and play" legislation to be passed directly into state statues. Charles Koch ran for U.S. President on the platform of: "the abolition of Social Security, the FBI, the CIA, and public schools."

- Old "Dirksonesque" John Gizzi, the Detroit News' new "regular" columnist since his recent appearance at the GOP Mackinac Leadership Conference, pontificates on the far, far Right. John Birch is now mainstream at the Detroit News.

- Saul Anuzis, the Human Events' touting leader (former GOP state chair) of the rad-right in organized Republican Politics, continues to eviscerate what remains of the party with his multiple petty power plays.

- Richard Studley & gang at the Michigan Chamber are busy digging trenches and preparing phosphorous grenades in their Right-to-Work hand-to-hand warfare.

- Snyder's' poison pills: Removal of billions of dollars of disposable income from the retired, teachers, service personnel, firefighters and police; this means a huge loss in "demand" for commercial businesses: No customers.

THE SNYDER'S SOLUTION IS THE PROBLEM. NERDONOMICS WILL FURTHER DESTROY CUSTOMER'S PURCHASE POWER. As we go forward, this removal of income will be year after year. WHO CARES IF YOU PAY LESS TAX ON BUSINESS EARNINGS, IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE BUSINESS INCOME (BASED ON DEMAND) UPON WHICH TO PAY TAXES IN THE FIRST PLACE?

- TeaPublican Central Planning - Michigan now operates much as A TOP-DOWN SOCIALIST STATE: Those Teapartiasns, currently in office, know best what the rest of us may do, may earn, and may receive in the way of assistance or opportunity. They tell us how to work, what to earn, and what part of health care "burden" will be ours to shoulder.

- Michigan's local control, local option, and right-of-self determination is now surrendered to a new "friendly" fascist concept: The Emergency Finance Manager (EFM) regime.

- Snyder announces his desire to be a "lame duck" thus leaving the state essentially politically "leaderless" and adrift in the "perfect storm." If the Nerd is tired and despondent now, think about how long it will be before his one and only term is up? That is an economic and leaderless political eternity.


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RACE as the GOP’s Dog Whistle Political “Tool”

"Passion and prejudice properly aroused and directed...do about as well as principle and reason in a party contest."
-- Thomas Elder, prominent Whig politician, 1840

Origins of Race in GOP Politics: How the South Was, and Is, Won


From the masterpiece on American politics by Thomas Byrne Edsall (Washington Post) and wife Mary Edsall come these key insights:

"Within two weeks of the (1948) Democratic convention, the States' Rights Democratic Party (the "Dixiecrats) was formed at a gathering in Birmingham, Alabama. (Strom) Thurman and Fielding Wright, the governor of Mississippi, were chosen as the new party's presidential and vice-presidential nominees. Thurman, running on a segregationist platform, won only 1,169,021 votes, a twentieth if the 24 million votes received by Truman. But Thurman carried Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama-the heart of the deep South, established what sixteen years later would become the beachhead of the GOP."

"The 1948 Thurman campaign was of profound importance, won the issue of race to break (the hold of) the national Democratic Party on the South, a step of critical consequence in a thirty-two-year process that would produce a regional realignment in presidential elections by 1980."

--Thomas & Mary Edsall, in Chain Reaction.

How did the Republicans become the party of choice for the segregationists in the former Dixiecrat "solid" South?

How could there be such a complete and dramatic flip from a "solid Democratic" to "solid Republican" South in such a short period? What gave rise to Republicrats?

In 1964 Barry Goldwater ran for President as a rock-ribbed die-hard conservative. "In the liberal, pro-civil rights atmosphere of 1964, the right-wing strategy of the Goldwater campaign was a short-term disaster."

Involved in Goldwater's nomination success, "the Draft Goldwater Committee used 'concepts and language so harsh that they were unfit for the day-to-day operations or dialogue of American politics," wrote Robert Novak. However, within one presidential cycle these concepts and language had become "publically accepted GOP strategy."

The shift from the support given Democrats to the Republicans in the Deep South played into Nixon's "Southern Strategy." Continued by Ronald Reagan with his trip to the Mississippi county (directly from his nomination at Detroit's National G.O.P. Convention, 1980) where civil rights workers were previously murdered, was Reagan's pandering when he spoke of state's rights. Read the account: "The G.O.P.'s own leaders admit that the great Southern white shift was the result of a deliberate political strategy. 'Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.' So declared Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005.

"And Ronald Reagan was among the 'some' who tried to benefit from racial polarization."
-- Paul Krugman in "Republicans and Race" Nov 1, 2007.

Reagan repeated his reiteration of the term "welfare queens" with targeted intent. One of Reagan's wedge statements made had especial appeal to the Southern Base; Reagan in 1980 said the Voting Rights Act was "humiliating to the South."

George H. W. Bush used the "Willie Horton ad", a racial device, and George W. Bush went to Bob Jones University to stake his claim to this line of subliminal, underlying "coded" race strategy.

Robert Novak Weighs In on Goldwater's Impact
The type of plans devised by conservatives in the early stages of the campaign to win in 1964 were, according to Robert Novak (THE AGONY OF THE GOP, 1964) the following:

"Policy A: Soft-pedal civil rights. While stopping short of actually endorsing racial segregation, forget all the sentimental tradition of the party of Lincoln. Because the Negro and Jewish votes are irrevocably tied to the Democrats anyway, this agnostic racial party won't lose votes among the groups most sensitive to Negro rights. But it might work wonders in attracting white southerners into the Republican Party, joining white Protestants in other sections of the country as hard-core Republicans.

Policy B: Assume a vigorously strong anti-Communist line...This wouldn't lose many votes among white Protestants and might snatch enough Catholic votes away from the Democratic Party to cut down Democratic margins in the big cities.

Policy C: Except for the civil rights question, stick to orthodox Republicanism on domestic issues."

How clever and effective; In fact Goldwater did all the wrong things to win the set of Southern States he won in 1964:

"Goldwater ran in 1964 as an ideological doctrinaire conservative calling for the sale of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the evisceration of the Rural Electrification Administration, a voluntary system of Social Security, and t he elimination of farm subsidies. None of these principled stands on the ideological right won him any states. In fact the states he did carry, each one of the government programs Goldwater sought to overturn had substantial, if not overwhelming, majority support."

The Edsall's expand:

"There was, in reality, only one issue that permitted Goldwater to carry five states in addition to his home state of Arizona: civil rights. Goldwater declared himself personally opposed to segregation, but even more deeply opposed on principle to federal intervention to end segregation. '(I)t is wise and just for Negro children to attend the same schools as whites,' Goldwater wrote in 1960, but, he added, "the federal constitution does not require the States to maintain racially mixed schools. Despite the recent holding of the Supreme Court, I am firmly convinced-not only the integrated schools are not required-but that the Constitution does not permit any interference by the federal government in the field of education."

Foremost and most importantly; the obvious and most important component of Goldwater's position and stratagem, Goldwater had cast the sole U.S. Senate vote against the Civil Rights Act.

This was the clear and singular act that made Goldwater the Deep South's 1964 Presidential Choice. The stunning reversal of popular vote from "solid" Democrat in the South to a "solid" vote for Goldwater, a Republican, transfixed GOP strategy going forward from that point.

It was a clarion signal to the Republican strategists going forward. Operatives discovered and would use the power of race to dislodge and covert voters who where, heretofore, thought unable to politically crack the Solid South.

The University of Michigan's Survey Research Center produced evidence that changes in the role of race in voting patterns were "significant and of lasting importance" the U of M study suggested that the "ISSUE OF RACE ACTUALLY PRODUCED AN IDEOLOGICAL CONVERSION OF POOR SOUTHERN WHITES FROM A DEEPLY HELD ECONOMIC LIBERALISM TO ECONOMIC CONSERVATISM." (emphasis added)

The U of M researcher goes on,

"By the early 1970's, poor southern whites had moved decisively to the right on these economic issues, becoming more conservative than Catholics, border state whites, and the middle and lower-status white northern Protestants . On the basic issue of government intervention to protect the less well-off, poor southern whites by the 1979's had become as conservative as upscale northern Protestants, a key Republican constituency."

The Edsalls wrote:

"As the 1964 Civil Rights bill worked its way from proposal to passage, and as the presidential campaign took its course, the public perception not only of Johnson and Goldwater, but also of the racial stands of the Democratic and Republican parties, changed radically. The biennial polls conducted for the National Election Studies (NES) reveal that the public before 1964 saw virtually no difference between the parties on issues of race."

Momentous Change Was Coming

"As recently as 1962, when respondents were asked which party "is more likely to see to it that Negroes get fair treatment in jobs and housing?." 22.7 percent said Democrats, 21.3 percent said Republicans, and 55.9 percent said there was no difference between the two parties."

"By late 1964, however, the public saw clear differences between the two parties. When asked which party was more likely to support fair treatment in jobs for blacks, 6o percent of the respondents said the Democratic party, 33 percent said there was no difference between the parties, and only 7 percent said the Republican party. Similarly, when asked in 1964 which party was more likely to support blacks and whites going to the same school, 56 percent said the Democratic party, 37 percent said there was no difference, and 7 percent identified the Republican party.'

"The events of 1964 gave rise to a process in which, over time, the partisan differences on race seen by the public would extend beyond presidential candidates to members of Congress, to the stands taken by the two party platforms, and to the attitudes of presidential convention delegates, party activists, and the much larger universe of voters who identify with the Republican and Democratic parties. BY 1964, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WAS ON ITS WAY TO BECOMING THE HOME OF RACIAL LIBERALISM, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WAS ON ITS WAY TO BECOMING THE HOME OF RACIAL CONSERVATISM."

From the Edsalls, Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall, " A Pivotal Year", CHAIN REACTION: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics, SEE this LINK.

"For the architects of the conservative revolution within the GOP, the southern reaction to the civil rights movement was a fortuitous and unplanned development."

"It was the civil rights movement, however, that gave the conservative insurgency a wider focus, a broader target, and an enlarged constituency. On a number of complementary fronts, the civil rights revolution interacted with the conservative movement to strengthen the right-wing drive within the GOP."

"Evidence that the Goldwater drive was mobilizing a new breed of Republican began to surface at party gatherings. At the 1963 Republican National Committee meeting in Denver, northern Republican leaders, proud of their party's ties to Abraham Lincoln and the emancipation of the slaves midway through the Civil War, were stunned to hear southern chairman carrying on 'boisterous conversation about 'n----rs" and "n----er lovers," wrote columnist Robert Novak in his book, THE AGONY OF THE GOP 1964."

Novak as quoted by the Edsalls:

"At the decisively pro-Goldwater 1963 convention of Young Republicans in San Francisco, there was according to Novak 'no doubt [the] unabashed hostility toward the Negro rights movement was fully shared by the overwhelming majority of the convention delegates...delegates from North and South talk,' Robert Novak observed: ' with a single voice on the race question...For the Young Republicans at San Francisco, their party was now a White Man's Party.'"

--Various quotes excerpted from: CHAIN REACTION: THE IMPACT OF RACE, RIGHTS, AND TAXES ON AMERICAN POLITICS, Thomas Byrne and Mary D. Edsall


What Role Will RACE Play in the 2012 Elections?
This election cycle will be peppered with all the coding and "dog whistles" associated with the GOP's tried and true use of RACE and ethnicity as keystone factors in legislation, politics and campaigning.

Even Henry Payne, The Michigan View in Detroit News, catches on; at least in part; when he bluntly concludes:

"So why are the elephants dooming their long-term viability? Having already alienated black and Jewish voters, they seem to determined to alienate the fastest-growing minority in America: Hispanics." Payne concludes: "...the GOP base wants to build a fence. And as Perry understands - and Bush and Rove before him - that look(s) to Hispanic voters like a fence around A WHITE REPUBLICAN PARTY." 

Closer to Home: Gingrich's Remarks and Race in Detroit
The crafty, often careless, but cunning Gingrich uses hyperbole and exaggeration for maximum effect. Brendon Berry, Thomas M. Cooley Law School, wrote this piece: DOG WHISTLES AND CODES: Covert Republican Message Making, May 21, 2011:

"Recent Republican race-baiting, in the person of Newt Gingrich and his allegorical references to Detroit and food stamps, raises anew the issue of Republican 'dog-whistle politics.' That Republicans habitually trip over themselves in the proverbial 'race to the bottom' with their appeals to the fears and anxieties of small-mindedness is well understood by any close observer of American politics. But the well-read and keenly alert are not the electoral targets or concerns of Republican message-makers. The people Republican strategists seek to reach-or at least not to scare-are the vast numbers of Americans who are not paying attention closely, those whose ignorance renders them susceptible to the game of bait-and-switch that the right-wing has been playing with Americans for decades."

Footnote on "Dog Whistle Racism": 

"Dog-Whistle Racism is political campaigning or policy-making that uses coded words and themes to appeal to conscious or subconscious racist concepts and frames. For example, the concepts 'welfare queen,' 'states' rights,' 'Islamic terrorist,' 'uppity,' 'thug,' 'tough on crime,' and 'illegal alien' all ACTIVATE RACIST CONCEPTS THAT THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN PLANTED IN THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND NOW ARE BEING ACTIVATED BY PURPOSEFUL OR ACCIDENTAL CAMPAIGN ACTIVITIES, MEDIA COVERAGE, PUBLIC POLICY AND CULTURAL TRADITIONS. So, what's dog whistle racism? It's pure political theater to push buttons to win elections and policies."
(emphasis added) 

For further information go to Dog Whistle Racism.


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