The “State” of Michigan

Back in June, I wrote a blurb about Benton Harbor Michigan, a very poor, mostly black town along the Eastern coast of Lake Michigan.  I lived in a nearby town for about 4 years and knew the place moderately well, although I didn’t have many reasons to go there.

Benton Harbor (and Whirpool) are starting to get some press mostly because of Rachel Maddow and various spokesmouths of the Democratic party trying to make an issue out of the new Golf Course being built on old industrial sites – it is being framed as “Evil Rich White Men steal city from poor blacks”.

So about a month ago, there was an extremely long and detailed (and well written) story by the NY Times about the golf course in Benton Harbor, Michigan.  The NY Times doesn’t spend that kind of money and use up that kind of space for some random story about a golf course 600 miles away that nobody from Manhattan is likely to ever visit.   It’s about the politics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/magazine/benton-harbor.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=benton%20harbor&st=cse

If you have an hour, I would enourage you to read the entire thing.   The editors who sent the reporter on his mission clearly intended it to support the narrative following the Rachel Maddow script, but the facts got in the way of the reporter.   If it were up to me, I would give Johanathon Mahler the Pulitzer prize.   He went where the facts pointed, not where the narrative was supposed to lead him.   He’s an author as well

http://thechallengethebook.com/author.html

Republican Rick Snyder was elected in November 2010 to be governor – he’s an accountant from West Michigan (the Republican part of Michigan around Grand Rapids) and hit the ground running to try to “fix” a seriously broken state.   In 2010, the Republicans took control of the Michigan House in a sweeping defeat of the Democrats [Results]

He and the Republican controlled legislature have been heavy handed in what they’ve done in Michigan – they’ve essentially “taken over” the city of Benton Harbor and pushed aside the elected government which matches the narrative the NY Times wanted to spin.

But when the reporter/author got there, he saw that the city was a mess, the “elected” government was clearly incapable of running the place and was not ever going to change – and the folks in Lansing went out of their way to not turn this into a racial issue, but rather to do what it was going to take to try to turn Benton Harbor back into a viable community.    Benton Harbor is in Fred Upton’s district – his grandfather founded Whirlpool and Whirlpool dominates the history of the town.

Just one of the problems with the Rachel Maddow / NY Times narrative is this golf course idea didn’t start in 2011.     Harbor shore opened in June 2010.  It was built while the Democrats had control of the Legislature and the Governor’s office.   It was the typical “Let’s fix up the sidewalks and put up benches for the homeless people to sleep on” notion of how one turns a city around.

The golf course is a PUBLIC golf course, not a country club.   Residents of Benton Harbor get to play at a reduced price (although I’ll stipulate few natives of Benton Harbor are likely to play golf any time soon).

If you’re still reading this, the reason for dredging this up now is this whole thing was practice for the Republicans getting ready to tackle the real problem in Michigan – Detroit.   Detroit has suffered at the hands of one party, one race rule for going on 40 years, and the result has been devestation.

“Whites” coming in to “fix” Detroit” is a really dangerous situation, but there is no way around saying that it has to be done.    The “Black Radio” folks are abuzz about the impending State takeover of the city and what it means.

http://www.theroot.com/buzz/detroit-lawmakers-could-opt-bankruptcy

http://wchbnewsdetroit.com/detroit/mildredgaddis/review-team-to-examine-detroit-finances-video/?omcamp=DNL-DNL

In a related story, Rick Santorum seems to be the poster child of who they want to paint as the White Racist of the Day.

http://wchbnewsdetroit.com/national/wchb/santorum-denies-black-welfare-comments-with-blah-defense/?omcamp=DNL-DNL