Who Needs Apocalypse When You've Got Detroit?

Why use explosives when you can achieve similar results through political means?

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Failure like this is not built overnight. Decades of corruption, sloth, bad hiring decisions, political cronyism and depraved indifference to the needs of the poor were required to bring things to such a pass. No doubt Detroit has a generous pension program for all the wastrels and incompetents whose combined efforts created this train wreck. These people somehow manage to protect themselves even as they blight the lives and hopes of the inner city kids they were hired to serve. _WalterRussellMead

Leftist crony policies of the US Democratic Party are on display in Detroit, Michigan. If this level of devastation were to occur almost anywhere else in the US, the place would be declared a state of emergency, placed under marshal law, and razed to the ground for reconstruction. But it is only business as usual in the poster child city of the true-blue Obamaesque world of the new US political triad: The Democratic Party, organised labour, and the mob.

It is hard to see how a city recovers when things have fallen this far. Detroit’s voters do not seem interested in good governance, either unwilling or unable to penalize incompetence at the polls; the political class spouts blue liberal slogans but appears to have the compassion and generosity of a pack of velociraptors; the city’s core institutions have been so corroded and degraded after decades of decline that there is little hope for improvement anytime soon. _WalterRussellMead

How do US Democratic Party-dominated governments respond when the going gets tough? They cut vital services.

Located [next to Detroit] in an area already plagued by high crime and widespread urban decay, Highland Park has essentially signed a proverbial death warrant by cutting public power. The city has already lost nearly half of its residents over the past two decades and is reportedly $58 million in debt -- but the elimination of its street lights basically ensures its continued downward spiral.

"How can you darken any city?" asked Victoria Dowdell, a resident of Highland Park who, along with her neighbors, must now deal with pitch-black public streets after dark. "I think that was a disgrace."

Detroit has also cut various city services over the years as it edges towards bankruptcy. Mike Shedlock from Business Insider wrote last December that "Motor City" has been headed towards financial insolvency for many years. An attempt to stave off collapse, city officials there have also cut major services like street repair, garbage collection, and police forces in some areas. _Michigan Third World America

As Michelle Obama so often tells her husband, referring to the ingrates who fail to worship the first couple of the US with sufficient adoration: let them eat cake -- if they can find it!

Okay, perhaps she only behaves as if she says such things, without actually saying them. At least in public.

Who needs apocalypse when you have Doombama?

More on turning out the lights in crime-ridden cities

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Adapted from an article published previously on abu al-fin