Well…tried to get out on the bike but the problem seems to be that the rear gears are just worn out and need to be replaced…but that is not why I’m here…with the imminent takeover of Detroit by the state of Michigan with the naming off an emergency manager, I felt it was time to throw a few more details in about how they have worked in the past. First, let me say that the real intent of these anti-democratic actions by the state and the repubs that are running it is to do one thing…to break the unions and move many thousands of people out of the middle class…it’s as simple as that. Sure, Detroit is in financial trouble but it is from population flight, a deteriorating tax base, and the cutting of state revenue sharing that has hit all of the towns and cities across the state…and the revenue sharing has gone down to give tax breaks to business, the repubs one size fits all of governance…it’s raining, cut taxes, revenue is down, cut taxes, if the sky is blue, cut taxes….all the while never even asking business to prove they are creating jobs for all of those tax cuts. The other bad part of this whole mess is that, when you look at the numbers, the cites taken over by them do not get better….but, you know the repubs think facts and numbers have a “liberal bias” and really don’t pay any attention to them…they just hate democracy so much they have to try to rig the system any way they can and this is just another tool like voter suppression to keep them in power…geez…
Tag Archives: emergency manager
Just another thought…
Well…I don’t know how I forgot this one from the papers today….and I think it’s a little reported consequence of the emergency manager law here in Michigan that lets officials appointed by the governor take over cities and towns that are in financial distress….and it gives the repubs here just another tool to jam their vision of the state as a corporate paradise down the electorates throat. In two school districts that have been taken over, the appointed repubs are proposing that all of the eduction of the children there be turned over to for profit corporations; firing all of the teachers and administrators (yep, they are union workers), something that they tried through legislation but were defeated. What else are they going to destroy before we tell them we’ve had enough of this crap? Corporations and privatization are not the solution to every problem that is facing us here in Michigan…if that were the case, why don’t we privatize the legislature and the governor’s office? What about the families that now don’t know where their kids are going to go to school in the fall? What about the teachers who have worked their whole lives and now are being told to “reapply” for their jobs at half the pay they were making before? And, what about the only two companies who have said they are interested in taking on this job and whose schools they currently run are substandard in performance to the public schools they compete with? This is just another attempt by the repubs to destroy the unions that they have an unreasonable hatred for…these guys have no shame and are the biggest threat to democracy that we have ever faced….geez…
More Republican shenanigans here in Michigan…
Well…I really shouldn’t be surprised at the behavior of the repubs here in Michigan but then they do something that just whacks me in the side of the head and makes me realize that the pit where they get their shenanigans has no bottom. Let’s back up a little for some context…as soon as the repubs gained control of Michigan, they passed one of the most undemocratic laws ever seen here…the so-called “emergency manager” law that would take the governing of some cities and townships that are in fiscal distress out of the hands of the elected officials and hand it to an appointed “czar” that could then fire anyone they want, abrogate union contracts, and run the city as they see fit, not as the people of that region want. Again, more of the hypocrisy that oozes from every pore of the repubs across the country, where they cry about the left trying to kill democracy and then try to nullify elections by the phony cry of voter fraud and this type of law. When the outraged citizens of Michigan decided that they didn’t vote for the type of nonsense included in this law, they did what they always do, getting a petition drive started to put the measure on the ballot in 2012. What was the repubs response to this perfectly proper use of citizens power? When it began to look like the signatures would be easily collected, the repubs again tried to game the system and silence the voice of the people by rescinding the law and replacing it with another so the petitions would be invalid. This is the type of nonsense you get from these folks…they don’t give a damn what the people of Michigan want, just what their ideology driven masters want…the total destruction of unions and the middle class….geez….