Photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have published a photo exposé of the ruins of a once great city. Is it Baghdad? Is it Kabul? Find out here. What do you think caused this destruction?
Photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have published a photo exposé of the ruins of a once great city. Is it Baghdad? Is it Kabul? Find out here. What do you think caused this destruction?
Sorry, Kathy, but “unions” are NOT “socialism”, they are the gang you pay protection money to so that they’ll keep the other gang off your back.
rick, I honestly don’t know, reading this thread now, whether I’m the “commenter above” Kathy was scolding (in which case she needed more coffee, as she likes to put it, or I did), or if she was referring to beagle, who I was scolding, but in any event unions are the purest form of socialism you get in a non-communist country.
The Union = the Workers = the Proletariat. Union power = the Proletariat closer to controlling the Means of Production.
In practice it’s an ugly destructive oppresive mess run by greedy thugs, which is exactly what full blown communism is. What about that don’t you get?
Here’s the Crowder video on this very subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw
How very sad. Say, anyone else notice Kwame Kilpatrick’s mugshot on the floor of that Highland Park police department photograph?
Yeah…good times.
Black Mamba is correct, unions are socialism.
Not only is “collective” bargaining socialism, but collective protection of sub-par workers is socialism.
Unions directly pit the collective labour against the capitol investment/property of the business/industry/city state.
Not only that but they insist that none can work in their “shop” unless they join the collective ranks.
That’s socialist orthodoxy.
Phantom, you can add the old Massey Ferguson plants and other areas in Brantford. There are monuments to unionism and socialism all over the former industrial cities of Ontario.
Some of the pictures were from Highland Park- Chrysler had a plant there. The sound of the starter motor of Chrysler product in the 1960’s and 70’s was known as a Highland Park Hummingbird.
No more humming in that neighborhood, just whistling past the grave.
Ahh yes, more ruin porn. We don’t need your pity here in Detroit and we don’t want you appropriating our problems for your shallow analysis bent on pinning them to “liberalism”.
Then what caused it? And why aren’t you ashamed that your city looks like something from Germany circa 1945 rather than a major city in 21st Century America?
Or are you simply making the Muslims who will soon be owning Detroit feel more at home?
Violent right-wing rhetoric destroyed it.
The Michigan Militia was in the same state as Detroit.
Somewhere there must be a map with crosshairs on Detroit.
We don’t need your pity here in Detroit and we don’t want you appropriating our problems for your shallow analysis bent on pinning them to “liberalism – Nick Adams
socialism at fault? uh, no, it’s the rapacious greed of the wealthy class… – Beagle
Not surprisingly, two members of the tin foil hat brigade report for duty on this topic.
Is this all you radicals have to say about this? Detroit is ruined – and your first thoughts are to defend your cause? Sorry, but radical leftism is not the primary victim here; the poor people who can not leave Detroit are, and they deserve better than to have their deplorable condition used by people like you as a convenient club to attack those you consider your sworn enemies.
Mayor Bing has implemented an action plan for the city of Detroit, and that plan sure looks like a reversal of a large part of the far -left agenda. Of course, unlike you, Mayor Bing is not blind and deaf to the plight of his citizens.
Ken, Massey Ferguson is a monument to Conrad Black. But there’s no end of gigantic empty mills, factories, warehouses and whatnot all over Ontario. Hell, there’s a whole shipyard sitting empty in Collingwood.
Those industries are -gone- baby, they are not coming back short of an overseas apocalypse. Or as a slightly less likely possibility, the overturn of our tax-and-spend nanny state here at home.
Sorry, Phantom, but I’ve got to dispute you on the Kodak plant, which I’ve photographed, and grew up next to, and where three generations of my family worked. It was a surge in technological innovation and an inability to predict and adapt that did Kodak in. Do you own a digital camera? Well, that’s what killed Kodak – they underestimated how rapidly that technology would mature, and had to shrink their manufacturing facilities to survive.
You’d be better off asking what killed of Mt. Dennis and nearby Weston Road. Nothing fancy – just shrinking the lunch hour from an hour to 1/2 hour in the ’70s, when employment at the plant was at its highest. Fewer people left the plant to spend their money, and the merchants were starved off. Now it’s a sad ghost town. Basically the neighbourhood died before Kodak did.
As for Kodak, there’s only one building left on the site now – they bulldozed the rest. It’s Bldg 9, which was the employees’ building – a sad, scavenged wreck, which the new owners have left unsecured for kids and metal thieves to plunder and destroy.
Look, I agree with the consensus about what killed Detroit, but you’ve got to know your facts before you make sweeping predictions based on one facility that fell victim to technological change and poor planning. There’s plenty of blame to go around, just not in the neat packets you were suggesting.
Grew up in Detroit and was there during the riots. The funny thing is, it was still a viable city for several years after the riots.
Not to dismiss the role of unions or liberals in general, but this was done by one particular liberal union thug—Coleman Young. Unions were just a way to legalize his thievery and he hit the big time when his race-baiting gave him a free hand to run the city into the ground.
Went back a few years back and drove by the old train station where my old man used to take me to feed pigeons. It looked worse than the pictures show. Drove by Tiger Stadium while they were demolishing the right field grandstands. It looked just like the surrounding neighborhood.
So sad.
John M. — You’re right – it was a viable city for years and C. Young was responsible for quite a bit of the downfall: he used the unions like a tool.
– perhaps you picked me up hitch hiking down Woodward in the winter of 70, perhaps on 8 mile — who knows…
Here, have yourselves a good read, especially all of you PC pussies who just can’t seem to cope with reality. So…Socialism destroyed the city, eh?
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2011/01/letter_from_a_f.php
Gord Tulk –
I regularly visit both Columbus, Oh and Pittsburg, Pa-you must be refering to some cities with the same name but in other states.