OBAMA'S LEGACY

OK, this is pretty long. The first part isn't, but the part about Detroit drags on.

Sorry. In my experience, those who disagree with my positions described herein will not often respond with factual positions of their own that are contrary. Instead, they attack by name calling. Maybe they just don't have any valid arguments?

OBAMA'S LEGACY

From the Wall Street Journal (delivered to me by Larry):

Something very positive about Obama, who has been obsessed with his legacy.

The real Obama legacy he leaves behind are:

A Republican President

Republican Vice President
Republican control of the Senate
Republican control of the House
Republican control of 31 state houses
A majority of Republican governors - 36 of 50
Republican control of a majority of county governments
Republican control of a majority of city governments

Not to mention his "Affordable Care Act" that is anything but affordable, was never destined to be so due to the rules allowing patients with pre-existing conditions to obtain insurance.

I know of no news media or Democrat who acknowledges the irony of that name, however.

Let's take a look at the last of Obama's dubious accomplishments, the city governments. The ones that are not Republican run are the basket cases, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, etc. that are run, and have been for decades, by corrupt predominantly black politicians. In the mold of Detroit Mayor Coleman Young who drove that city down further than any could have seen using "tin cup urbanism" (you budget a deficit and run to the feds for funds) and racist techniques (one of his first moves as mayor back in the 1970's was to reduce the police force…by firing the white police officers). Attached below is something I wrote in 2013 about Mayor Young and Detroit.

OK, let's take a look at the ACA. I was recently in Denver, got sick and went to an Urgent Care doctor. "Doc in a Box." The physician was skilled, Jewish, about 50 years old and I asked how long he had done this. "Family practice until 4 years ago. Obamacare ruined medicine, I had to do something else." Nobody seems to acknowledge the flaws of the ACA that have led to this catastrophic impact on medicine.

The handling of pre-existing conditions is tragic. Most of us who claim to be fiscally conservative yet socially liberal support a system that allows people who are sick to get and retain insurance and, thereby, treatment. The old system threw up all kinds of conditions and rules to block such transfer, shifting blame (and dollars) elsewhere. Shifting money is not saving money.

For some reason, I am too busy to extensively research the health care topic, mainly because I have a total lack of fundamental knowledge and that is always a recipe for arriving at the wrong conclusion, much like we see in the media all the time. Hopefully, Trump will select people who have a bit more knowledge than Nancy Pelosi.

Here is the essay from 2013:

COLEMAN YOUNG AND THE DEFEAT OF DETROIT

We are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. I tried to focus on the facts.

George Will:

In response to a comment by MSNBC economic analyst Steve Rattner that the federal government (taxpayers) and the state of Michigan (more taxpayers) should bail out Detroit, Will said:

“Can’t solve the problems, because their problems are cultural. You have a city, 139 square miles; you can graze cattle in vast portions of it, dangerous herds of feral dogs roam in there. 3% of fourth graders reading at the national math standards, 47% of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate, 79% of Detroit children are born to unmarried mothers. They don’t have a fiscal problem, Steve, they have a cultural collapse.”

Of course, ABC This Week resident liberal panelist Kristina Vanden Heuvel was (pretend) outraged over Will’s honest – and correct – assessment:

“I find that really insulting to the people of Detroit. I think there is a serious discussion about the future of cities in a time of deindustrialization. But in many ways, Detroit has been a victim of market forces, and I think that what Steve said is so critical; that retirees and workers should not bear this. And this story should not be hijacked as one of about greedy, fiscal, public unions.”

REGRESS TO A THIRD-WORLD LEVEL, OR WORSE

I recently saw a picture of current-day Hiroshima alongside a picture taken of modern-day Detroit. Shameful, but shows what the human spirit can do if given the right set of tools and the right mind set and culture.

In 1960, Detroit had the highest per capita income in the nation. In 1962, Democrats took over. Facts about current Detroit in addition to those noted by George Will:

·         Less than half the residents over 16 are employed.

·         About one third of the ambulances are functional and the average 911 call response time is 48 minutes

·         Sixty percent of Detroit children live in poverty

·         Forty percent of the streetlights do not work

·         Two thirds of the parks have been closed since 2008

·         Fewer than 10% of Detroit crimes are solved

Coleman Young presided over the crushing defeat of a once-great city, Detroit.

Young was elected on a platform of "A People's Police Department' in 1972. For an unprecedented five terms, 20 years, his aimless, racist platform guided the city to the payday, bankruptcy. But his political course, seemingly without much more sense than an abiding confidence that racism was the cause of all the ills, not only set the stage for the 2013 collapse, but insured that there would be no way to avoid catastrophe.

In his autobiography, Mayor Young (whose last days in office were consumed with defending himself and his administration from charges of corruption, fraud and embezzlement) places the blame on:

·         Federal policy

·         Superhighway construction

·         Blockbusting

·         White racism.

WHITE FLIGHT AND VIOLENCE

Detroit's population fell from 1.84 million in 1950 to less than 700,000, currently. Moves such as the use of eminent domain to eliminate a predominantly white, middle class neighborhood, Poletown, lack of and inconsistent law enforcement plus the desegregation of the schools created "white flight" to the suburbs along with middle-class blacks.

It is and has been one of America's most dangerous cities, joining its neighbor, Flint, Michigan to take the top two spots.

"TIN CUP URBANISM"

Mayor Young, a radical trade unionist with an anti-establishment policy, reached out to black voters with no plan except a demand that the Federal Government save it with subsidies, an entitlement attitude that came to be known as "tin-cup urbanism." By the late 1970's, federal subsidies and grants paid the salaries of 1/3 of Detroit's workforce. Not just city employees, THE WORKFORCE!

He maintained a divisive attitude, starting with the layoffs of 1,000 police soon after election. The layoffs were drawn from separate lists, black and white. When gangs attacked theater goers in 1972, it took twenty minutes to respond due to the lack of manpower.

WIPE OUT WHITES

General Motors was enlisted to build a new plant in Detroit, and the area chosen was not one of the severely depressed areas with high vacancy but a predominantly white, Polish community known as Poletown. Destruction of Poletown by Young and GM has been cited as one of the flagrant abuses of eminent domain powers and ended up at the Supreme Court.

At the same time, the Coleman Young Foundation claims that he "increased the awarding of minority contracts an astounding seven thousand fold, spurring an African-American entrepreneurship that continues to transform the city."

Don't know what kind of transformation they are referring to, but it isn't very good. Sounds more like the governments of Robert Mugabe, or more likely, the thieving government of Equatorial Guinea.

POLICE

He and his ally, Police Chief William Hart made it clear that "...too many arrests or citations in the black community would not be tolerated." His goal was to have a "black-run city," and he achieved it as white and middle-class black residents left the city rapidly. When residents complained about the lack of enforcement, Young and Hart blamed the complaints on "racism and sour grapes."

The LA Times reported that Hart's daughter received a house in Beverly Hills paid for by funds from Young's secret gold-trading company.

SUCCESSORS

Young opposed his successor, Supreme Court Justice Dennis Archer, and his allies blocked Archer's agenda including efforts to reduce patronage in the city government. (I am reminded of President Garfield's elimination of patronage in the Federal government...in 1880, one hundred years before!) Then came Kwame Kilpatrick. Convicted of 24 Federal counts, including mail fraud and racketeering and currently serving prison time.

When Dave Bing, a professional basketball star with the Detroit Pistons took over, he could see that Detroit was bankrupt on several levels, socially and fiscally. No hope.

BLACK-GOVERNED DETROIT

Young claimed that "...black-governed Detroit reached a level of autonomy...no other city can match." He was obviously delusional, but then he had made people believe false claims for more than twenty years.

He was not totally responsible for the union pension fiasco. Detroit apparently now has obligations exceeding $5 billion. The pensions are in jeopardy, and with Young's militant trade unionism, those pensions got out of control in his twenty years.

THE PRISM OF RACISM

Young stated that, "The victim of racism is in a much better position to tell you whether or not you're a racist than you are." No doubt black people have been the victims of racism in the United States, but I wonder if anyone listened to the white victims of racism in Detroit.

I used the phrase "looking at the world through a prism of racism" the other day. Whether Young actually believed his hype or just used racism as a vehicle to attain political power, persistent racism on his part, viewing the world through a prism that perceived white racism against blacks at every turn, was a fact in "black-governed Detroit."

Despite racism, in one aspect, numbers, the black population has fared better than the rest. The black population has grown faster than the total population of the nation. In 1930, blacks accounted for 9.7% of the total US population and today the 45 million African Americans are 14.1% of the total US population. Big enough to control the vote in many cities, maybe the nation.

Detroit is a failure. Is that what we have to look forward to in the rest of the country?