visons of a failed state in america?

[audrey_girl]

fascinating blog on detroit and nature's revenge:

excellent writing/striking images

wild kingdom:

http://www.detroitblog.org/?p=287

wrong side of the tracks:

http://www.detroitblog.org/?p=405

homesteading detroit:

http://www.nothirdsolution.com/

maybe this is what Obama means about a green future?
;)

[doom&gloom]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

this isn't a failure, theis is simply the first American City to go 'green'

[Starving Steve]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

The laughable and sad tragedy of Detroit is being played-out throughout North America. It shows the glaring failure of capitalism to really work for the benefit of everyone and everything.

Vancouver, BC used to be thought of as a civilized city and a place that would be wonderful to live and work in. But this past March, twenty-six people were shot in Vancouver thanks to the illegal or semi-illegal pot trade. Criminals and drug trafficers now do drive-by shootings day and night in Vancouver.

So Vancouver may be on the verge of becoming the next Detroit or the next version of Los Angeles or Cuidad Juarez. No-one has set Vancouver ablaze yet, but maybe that comes next in the transformation between a thriving city and Detroit-type wreckage.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

The laughable and sad tragedy of Detroit is being played-out throughout North America. It shows the glaring failure of capitalism to really work for the benefit of everyone and everything.

What happened in Detroit is not the result of capitalism. It is the result of decay and corruption, which is a fairly common consequence of success beyond the capability of the moral fibre of a community to manage. No system of economics or governance known to man can withstand the excesses that follow sufficiently unbridled success.

And the measure of Capitalism is not that everyone and everything benefit. That is the claimed benefit of socialism or communism.

[WildspitzE]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

What happened in Detroit is not the result of capitalism. It is the result of decay and corruption, which is a fairly common consequence of success beyond the capability of the moral fibre of a community to manage. No system of economics or governance known to man can withstand the excesses that follow sufficiently unbridled success.

And the measure of Capitalism is not that everyone and everything benefit. That is the claimed benefit of socialism or communism.

Absolutely, this whole "capitalism" is to blame is getting rather tiresome to listen to. To begin with, we haven't had laissez-faire capitalism since the teens of the last century. I also keep hearing more and more, how a benevolent dictator is the way to go... sigh.

The interesting paradigm about capitalism is that the "darwinism" that takes place (through the competition of business, increasing productivity and reducing prices, etc.) in a free market allows society to support those individuals that are weakest - not only support, but to have a better standard of living.

Interesting piece in case you haven't read it before:
The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Present Crisis
http://www.mises.org/story/3165

[Starving Steve]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

If capitalism were not to blame for the wreckage of American cities, then such wreckage--- with trees growing on top of buildings--- would be found in European cities such as Paris or Rome. But such slums, to this stage of degradation, happily are not found in Europe which has had a mixed economy and a balance between capitalism and socialism. The place where you find slums beyond description, the slums depicted in the futuristic movie Bladerunner, is the United States where capitalism has for the past three decades been all but unrestricted.

[GRG55]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

If capitalism were not to blame for the wreckage of American cities, then such wreckage--- with trees growing on top of buildings--- would be found in European cities such as Paris or Rome. But such slums, to this stage of degradation, happily are not found in Europe which has had a mixed economy and a balance between capitalism and socialism. The place where you find slums beyond description, the slums depicted in the futuristic movie Bladerunner, is the United States where capitalism has for the past three decades been all but unrestricted.

Europe's cities have their problems too Steve...similar, but different because of the different history not only compared to the USA, but also compared to each other. There used to be a remarkable similarity between some UK Council Housing and The Projects.


The banlieues and France's Ethnic Minorities

The rise in the immigrant population on the poorest estates - immigrant families were often allocated accomodation in the worst estates (Hargreaves: 1995 p.72) - led to the perception, prevalent amongst many residents and exploited by political parties like Le Front national, that the deteriorating living conditions of the estates were, in fact, directly attributable to their ethnic minority residents. The media coverage of the numerous riots that took place in les banlieues since the early 1980s, but most spectacularly in 1990 and 1991, and of the growing parallel economy (`l'économie parallèle' or `l'économie de la rue') of drug dealing and robbery intensified the public perception that the `problem' of les banlieues was also a problem that directly related to France's ethnic minorities and to the alledgedly unassimilable young men of North and sub-Saharan African origin.

Azouz Begag and Christian Delorme summarize well the transformation of les banlieues in their book Quartiers sensibles:

Dans les espaces où les aménageurs ont cherché la cohabitation harmonieuse des différences, avec pour objectif un enrichissement mutuel, se sont accumulés handicaps et vulnerabilité, pour finalement faire surgir le spectre du ghetto. (A. Begag & C. Delorme: 1994 pp.14-15)

It became common for journalists as well as certain politicians to claim that the disturbances in France's banlieues were akin to the racial violence of America's ghettos. There is, however, little evidence to support this claim. Despite their heavy concentration of residents from ethnic minorities, France's banlieues are more mixed than American inner-city ghetto like Harlem or the Bronx and white European residents remain in the majority on most estates. Moreover, whereas many black American ghettos are predominantly mono-ethnic, that is to say, dominated by one particular ethnic group, such a population composition is highly unusual for a French banlieue. Multi-ethnic banlieues are, with just a few exceptions, the norm in France. A study of Sarcelles in 1990, for example, showed a highly heterogeneous population mix of around 80 nationalities (Vieillard-Baron: 1996 p. 80). This broad mixing of ethnic groups didn't occur by accident as many housing departments actively discouraged the over- representation of any one ethnic group on a particular estate with the aim of ensuring la mixité sociale. It is, however, certainly the case that there are a few banlieues with a higher than average concentration of one ethnic group like the North African communities in Garges- lès-Gonesse, Saint-Denis, Mantes-la-Jolie, Vénissieux (Vieillard-Baron: 1996 pp. 881-2). One might also add here that living conditions are also better in France with lower levels of poverty (a better benefit system, healthcare etc.) and much lower levels of violent crime.

Mathieu Kassovitz's representation of three young men of different ethnic origin in La Haine might be said to be an accurate depiction of the multi-ethnic reality of les banlieues, a faithful portrayal of young men who have more in common - the same generation, the same socio-economic status (working-class and unemployed) broadly the same lack of opportunities open to them - than they have separating them. One might compare Kassovitz's representation of a Parisian banlieue in La Haine with Spike Lee's representation of a New York inner city district in Do the Right Thing. Whereas La Haine shows a solidarity created by socio-economic exclusion and expressed through a shared youth culture (Afro-American in inspiration) that cuts across ethnic divisions, Do the Right Thing reveals a predominantly mono-ethnic district (Afro-American) in which ethnicity is all and in which the Italian-Americans depicted are seen as not wholly part of the community.

[WildspitzE]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

If capitalism were not to blame for the wreckage of American cities, then such wreckage--- with trees growing on top of buildings--- would be found in European cities such as Paris or Rome. But such slums, to this stage of degradation, happily are not found in Europe which has had a mixed economy and a balance between capitalism and socialism. The place where you find slums beyond description, the slums depicted in the futuristic movie Bladerunner, is the United States where capitalism has for the past three decades been all but unrestricted.

This is your litmus test? Oh brother.

You're aiding and abetting those that caused this mess, you've fallen for their nonsense.

[TRake]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

Steve,

What does it mean to be an "Itulip Ambassador"? Did you give yourself that title, or was it somehow earned?

TRake

[flintlock]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

What happened in Detroit is not the result of capitalism. It is the result of decay and corruption, which is a fairly common consequence of success beyond the capability of the moral fibre of a community to manage. .

Exactly. Capitalism without strict moral grounding always ends this way eventually. Then people get upset, rebellions happen, people trash things, and everything resets. In a capitalist system, people have to either self-regulate(ethics) or you need a strong legal system to do it for them. We had neither . Sooner or later the capitalists usually get in bed with the politicians and you have your oligarchy. Unfortunately, history tells us that only violence can knock off an oligarchy, be it war, rebellion, whatever. The idea that "we'll vote these suckers out" of office and turn things around in a year or two is pretty naive but I still hear it a lot. I can't see how we end up without some major political upheaval in the next 10 years or so.

[Starving Steve]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

I don't know how I got that title. Good question.

[raja]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

I don't know how I got that title. Good question.

I, too, was transformed into an iTulip Ambassador for awhile, and likewise, I don't know how it came about or why it went away.

There's probably some grading system based on number of posts and thread-startings that determines the various titles we see.

I didn't like the iTulip Ambassador label . . . made it seem like I was some kind of representative of iTulip, which I'm not. Not a bad thing . . . it's just misleading.

[allenjs]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

Check out http://DetroitYes.com and click on 'The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit".

I worked right downtown in Detroit from 1994-1998. My office building was not far from the old Tiger Stadium, and about 80% of the area between Tiger Stadium and the building (at Cass Ave) had reverted back to nature with trees and wild animals. I passed a family of pheasants each morning on my trek from the parking lot to the entrance. There were packs of wild dogs roaming through the old train station. We used to throw parties in the abandoned packard plant.

This was before General Motors bought the "Renaissance Center", and before the casinos moved in. The city was like a nightmare version of bladerunner. I remember when the "Renaissance Center" was built; and the people mover as well. Both boondoggles bled money from the very start, while Coleman Young squirreled away krugerands (smart man) for his mistresses and bankrupted the city. By 1998, both projects were still operational, but essentially abandoned and bleeding more money than ever.

10 years later, to watch GM crumble after buying the RenCen, the irony is palpable. The decision to move downtown was inexplicable when they did it, and even moreso now.

The people who cited corruption are right-on. The most recent mayor went to prison. Check out this recent article, where one city politician explains why he told the FBI to "f*ck themselves":

http://detnews.com/article/20090321/...tch+in+the+FBI

"I told them to go (expletive) themselves," Riddle said of that meeting. "Enough of the whisper campaign, if they're going to indict my black a-- then do it. ... You wear a wire in this town, you're done."

[cjppjc]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

I don't know how I got that title. Good question.

500 hundred posts.


Btw: Here is a great quote.

-is unlikely to stand up to the stresses and emotional pressures of life, particulalry in a big city. Sooner or later the rule will break down. unless that life, with it's omnipresent money demands is being lived in the light of spiritual traditions. More and more, all over the world, responsible questions about money, such as how much does one need, how much is enough for a given purpose, are disappearing from view.


And this was said in the 70's

[Chomsky]

Re: visons of a failed state in america?

500 hundred posts.

cjppjc - you've been a member here for 2 months at most, and you have 600+ posts. Is there any thread you won't post to?