Have Parts of America Become A Third World Country?

These two series of photographs of Detroit's abandoned schools and other buildings (here and here) are like a hard kick in the balls to me.  This is happening in America??  I knew things were bad in the rust belt, but how in Hell did we let this happen?  These photographs are pure third world country.

How bad is it out there, do we really know?  Are parts of our nation rotting away while the wealthy and powerful - and their MSM mouthpieces - spend all their time in still vibrant cities with healthy tax bases, chattering about Obama's huge budget and whether the bailout was too big or too small and whether Obama is a - gasp! - socialist?

Do those pictures shock you? If you didn't know where they were taken would you have guessed it was in an American city?  Is this acceptable to us?  It isn't acceptable to me. Born in 1945, the country I grew up in worked hard over the years to make America more inclusive and reduce poverty. It was hard work but back then Americans believed that poverty was unacceptable.

That quest for inclusion ended rather abruptly when Ronald Reagan became President.  The country changed and we became selfish and self-centered.  We were told poverty was the result of people not taking personal responsibility for their lives. We were told the government didn't have a right to take our money and give it to the "undeserving."  "Government is part of the problem, not a solution."

The Reagan philosophy worked wonders for the wealthy, but the rest of America struggled to get ahead.  Many of us strongly suspected the country had been sold a bill of goods by the right, but the right cleverly packaged this damaging economic philosophy with religion and family values to get the votes they needed.  The chickens have finally come to roost and we now know that we've been had.

In an economic climate where even the middle class is suffering, what will become of the jobless poor? As government money and private donations dries up how will they survive?  How many low wage families who have been tottering on the edge for years will join them?  Will violence erupt? Will it be directed at themselves or outward?  Will their violence be used as an excuse by the right to shoot back and/or use them as dangerous thugs to regain the votes they have been losing?  Even if the stimulus works and the economy sputters back to life, how will we pay off our staggering debt and have any money left over to rebuild cities like Detroit and find a place in our economy for the very poor?

Stay tuned...

[photograph by James Griffioen]

--Trakker

Comments

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On the links

A school computer lab with relatively modern hardware. Thieves have removed any precious metals from the CPUs and monitors, rendering them worthless.

Worthless even to thieves, this is 10-25 year old junk, not 'relatively modern hardware.' Curved screen monitors and, look closely, a 5-1/4" floppy drive? You couldn't give this stuff away.

As for 'Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline,' these building are obsolete piles that no one would build today because of their outrageous cost of maintenance, the reason for their current abandonment. Bulldoze them into piles like the mountains of rubble in post-WWII Berlin around the flak towers. [Google, 'berlin flak towers'.]

[Trakker]

"Worthless even to thieves"

I think the point is that thieves have stolen the metals, some precious, from the computers that the Detroit school system might have benefited from by recycling the hardware. Of course this way the thieves did all the work and hopefully used the money from the metals to support their families...

I think the photo essays are trying to convey how overwhelmed cities like Detroit become when their tax base flees leaving behind those who can't afford to leave (and can't afford to run the city). Detroit needed a bailout long before AIG, but the Bush administration and Republicans believe taxpayer dollars should only be used to bailout the wealthy when THEY screw up!

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thieves have stolen the metals, some precious, from the computers that the Detroit school system might have benefited from by recycling the hardware

How are thieves recovering the precious metal, evaporating a mercury amalgam over a charcoal fire? Where do they steal the mercury? Are they willing to court brain damage or are they recondensing the mercury vapor?

Less a money maker, the Detroit schools probably had to PAY to have their electronic junk taken away. Why else would they warehouse this junk? Having postponed paying, thieves made the recycling process more expensive.

[mt]

Detroit's problem is that it is 90% black. Look at the IQ data. Black people, on the average, aren't that bright. I'm sorry but it's true. Find me one city in America that is more than 50% black - hell, make it 30% - and that enjoys low crime, good schools, and low poverty. Caution: it'll take you awhile.

Is it racist to say this? Maybe. But it's a FACT that black people in EVERY developed country perform worse educationally than the average. It's true here, in Canada, in Britain, France and elsewhere. I wish it weren't true, but it is.

[Trakker]

Is it racist to say this? Maybe.

Not maybe, Yes, that is a racist statement and it is people like you, and your ignorance that make life hell for people of color.

Yes, you can find plenty of African Americas who are ignorant and drop out of school, and are on welfare, but I'll bet you never even notice the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of ignorant whites who are on welfare and live in squalor.

I was going to delete this but decided to keep it as an example for all those whites who insist Blacks don't face racism anymore so we don't need all those EEO and affirmative action laws anymore.