The Next Battle In The Civil War.....

This was the headline of the New York City Daily News on October 29, 1975. New york was teetering on the edge of the abyss of bankruptcy under Mayor Abe Beame.  It's become a distracting "talking point" used by conservatives to defend Ford, because he actually didn't tell New York to drop dead in his statement denying federal assistance, but hey, in the spirit of New York Journalism, that's what we do, sum up and reduce the gist of a message to a great headline!
New York didn't have to declare bankruptcy,  the last minute saving act was the cities teachers union lending the city 150 million dollars from it's pension fund to buy Municipal Assistance Corporation Bonds. The Teachers Union had resisted doing this up until the very last minute because they thought that this would be the beginning of the erosion of the hard fought gains that they had so recently won.
But it wasn't just the Teachers Union, it was all of the Municipal Union and Employees of New York City working together to save the city. The Governor, Hugh Carey fought for and supported the city as well. New York not only solved it's financial problems, it rebounded exuberantly. Ford lived to eat his words and the classic Drop Dead headline until his demise.
America couldn't afford financially or image wise the specter of a bankrupt New York, but there were those who were all too willing to let it happen, just as today, The City of Detroit is the focus of a concerted sort of collective Death Wish being prayed for by many of the same forces that wanted to let New York die.

I've heard many people voice the meme that  for much of the conservative small minded southern white population of the south, the civil war never ended. The Confederacy tried to destroy New York by burning it down during the Civil War. The participants who called themselves, The Confederate Army of Manhattan are still considered local heroes in much of the South. The most deadly race riots that ever took place in America were the racially inspired anti draft riots in New York City of July, 1863 during the Civil War. Lincoln had to divert Federal Troops from the war to quell the hysterical destruction and mass murders.
The State of Michigan is trying to force The City of Detroit into bankruptcy. There are legal battles being fought now deciding the legality of such a move. Where in 1975, the Governor of NY State, Hugh Carey actively fought for the city. The Republican ALEC operative Governor Rick Snyder, is actively trying to create a situation where this is the only option. Snyder has been the most active player in the concept of using emergency corporate managers to run cities and disenfranchise local municipal governments and voters. The emergency manager concept is being sold to Americans as the only option by think tanks run by ALEC and The Koch Brothers. In reality, it is disenfranchising millions of Americans and a prime strategy in their long term plan to seize ultimate power and deny us our political rights and voices. They in effect are trying to ram the destructive and disproven policies of Austerity Economics as the only solution down the throats of the poor. It gives them the power to negate environmental laws, loot pensions of municipal employees and in the case of Detroit, loot and destroy it's rich cultural heritage. There are obviously many who wish that Detroit will be the next Greece. Again, this is a false comparison. Detroit is one city in a big country. If it is allowed to fail, it will have a profound ripple effect on the rest of America,  just as Greece's failure was seen as a harbinger of doom by the economic pessimists who predicted the demise of the European Economic Union. This is wishful thinking, in reality, the entire economy of Greece is only 1 and 1/2 times as big as the present economy of Metropolitan Detroit!
But what happened in Greece? The IMF made some tragic mistakes, as they now admit and allowed the banks and the pension funds to eat the incomes of the Greek population. They never addressed the systemic corruption of the tax system which allowed the richest to pay no taxes what so ever. One of the biggest culprits in the Greek financial crisis is the Greek Orthodox Church which has substantial agricultural, real estate and industrial holdings which are totally tax exempt!
The brunt of the burden of Austerity is on the poor and the middle class who are seeing an oppressive tax burden and wages being reduced and frozen as the price of consumer goods are being vastly inflated.
You have to really ask yourself, what is the real basis of the destruction of Detroit? Detroit is perhaps the biggest cultural center of African American Culture in America. Black Music is one of the touchstones and icons of the city. Sure there was Motown, but the churches of Detroit were the proving ground for artists like Aretha Franklin. The fertile counter culture was the perfect medium for the development of George Clinton's visionary Funkadelic! Funkadelic was one part James Brown, one part Iggy Pop and the rest was pure original sci fi fantasy land funk! Because of the once powerful industrial base, it became the magnet that drew millions of black Americans with the dream of a better life. It was the cradle of American Black Muslim Movement. But even more powerfully evil to the minds of the new corporate robber barons of America is that Detroit was the birthplace of the American Labor Movement. I grew up in Detroit in the 50's and 60's. It was the most powerful centers for Labor, the dream of Democratic Socialism and political action in America. It became in the late 1960's the crucible of political thought and really powerful independent rock music Detroit Rock as the most radically powerful razor sharp edge which everything else had to stand up to or wither and die on the vine!   It was everything the Robber Baron Wannabee shark pack knows they have to destroy. One of the most powerful visual manifestations of this energy is in the now threatened Detroit Institute of Arts. At one time, the rich felt it was their duty to share and impart culture with those not as blessed as they were. The Detroit Institute of Arts is still one of the greatest diverse art museums in the world. One of the first things I heard when the imminent bankruptcy was being reported, was the fate of this collection. The sharks started to circle to take their prey. They smelled the blood in the water. They refused to make deals and they are demanding that the municipal employees of Detroit forfeit their pensions. The fantastic collections of the Detroit Historical Museum are already being looted. You can only imagine the lust these sharks are experiencing over the historical automotive collections, but now they want Detroits cultural heritage as well. The real threat an power of Detroit is graphically represented here in this, one of the worlds greatest classically executed fresco murals by Diego Rivera.
He painted this in the sculpture court of the Detroit Art Institute in 1933. In 1931, Rivera was commissioned to do murals in the brand new Rockefeller Center in New York City. Rivera created fresco technique murals that were the most powerful political art ever exhibited in America...it was too much for the Rockefellers...the murals were destroyed and painted over. Lost forever. Like destroying Picasso's Guernica because it was potentially disturbing to German investors. Here is a sample, the piece, Man At The Crossroads:

 One of Rivera's censored and lost murals from his Rockefeller Center frescos

Now, let's take a tour of the modern Sculpture atrium in the Detroit Institute of Arts, while we can. These images are if anything more powerful than the Rockefeller Center works and the video really doesn't do them justice as far as composition and scale. For those who want to turn back the clock, destroy the middle class, get rid of minimum wage, re institute racial segregation, keep America divided and stifle the political voice of Americans to consolidate their strangle hold on power and the wealth of America, this is deadly subversive art that has to be suppressed! 

I believe in Detroit. It is the place that shaped me and I know the spirit, and the inherent resilient strength of it. I know it's history all too well. It is my history!