Vultures Circle Detroit Art Museum

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1. Alan says:

   July 20, 2013 at 8:56 am

   So sad. When I was a poor student in Detroit in the mid-nineties, I would frequently visit the DIA and its beautiful collection. It was one of the few things I could do for free.

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2. rratto says:

   July 20, 2013 at 9:11 am

   The Barbarians are at the gates!

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   • Shirley Ende-Saxe says:

     July 20, 2013 at 4:17 pm

     And the barbarians are the billionaires. They will own everything because no one else as worthy as they. As a retired art teacher the whole mess in Detroit as brought to you by the elite of this country is despicable, this latest is an abomination.

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3. DJ says:

   July 20, 2013 at 9:29 am

   Am I correct that Detroit is $900 billion in debt? Isn’t that simply a few months in Afghanistan? Problem solved! 🙂

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   • Middle school teacher says:

     July 20, 2013 at 9:50 am

     DJ, you are right on the money. (I think that expression is apt in this situation.)

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   • teachingeconomist says:

     July 20, 2013 at 10:56 am

     The estimates I have seen are between 18 and 20 billion.

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     • Duane Swacker says:

       July 20, 2013 at 1:42 pm

       For the illegal wars of aggression per month or the debt of Detroit?

     • teachingeconomist says:

       July 20, 2013 at 2:00 pm

       Detroit.

4. Joe says:

   July 20, 2013 at 9:51 am

   Disaster capitalism and the shock doctrine in full display. Financial collapses are the excuse to kill off public sector pensions, unions and to fire even more teachers.

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   • ronee groff says:

     July 20, 2013 at 4:12 pm

     Joe, You are soooo right! They call this a correction.Really?!!!!

     The answer to Diane’s question about the kind of society we have become is YES this is a society of thieves. If they can attempt to steal our children’s minds then they are capable of anything. Looting the cities and taking back what they think they gave but never really gave up is all part of this nightmare. Very paternalistic as I believe they don’t believe the common folk deserve or are sophisticated for such spoils of their finance wars. Disaster capitalism is created and lowered onto the unsuspecting and the powerless by those with no conscious.

     All the while they believe themselves to be good people, or at least the ones in denial of their own hypocrisy in being party to the social engineers who are rending this nation and the world. A global retreat from humanity only allowing for their usefulness to the global elite power crowd.

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5. deb says:

   July 20, 2013 at 10:18 am

   This seems no different than the manner in which the wealthy are buying up foreclosed homes and profitting from other people’s losses without blinking an eye, and somehow patting themselves on the back for rescuing the distressed properties yet ignoring the damaged people. There seems to be no bounds to opportunism without heart.

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6. Michael Fiorillo says:

   July 20, 2013 at 10:29 am

   A society in which elites are permitted to further enrich themselves by looting, rather than producing, wealth, is doomed.

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7. Uncle Bruno says:

   July 20, 2013 at 10:33 am

   Is ours a society where the public sector can be ransacked for gain, where legislatures and governors walk away from any responsibility to protect the common wealth?

   Yes.

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8. Beth says:

   July 20, 2013 at 10:51 am

   Disaster Capitalism is right. Rick Snyder is following that play book to the letter. Instead of trying to revitalize areas of Michigan that are hurting due to good paying job losses over the last 25 years, politicians just want to sell everything off. Someone will make money as a result of all the emergency manager rules in Michigan as democracy is destroyed & cities are not saved.

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9. Madame DeFarge says:

   July 20, 2013 at 10:59 am

   Is the bankruptcy filing going forward? I am not clear on that, based on the following article that appeared yesterday on a Michigan blog:

   http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/07/detroit-bankruptcy-on-hold-snyder-admin-smacked-down-by-judge-for-cheating-good-people-who-work.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eclectablog%2FkInS+%28Eclectablog%29

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10. Jack says:

    July 20, 2013 at 11:14 am

    Can you blame those wealthy billionaires?

    They need art to fill up their mansions…
    so much empty wall space in need of paintings…
    so much floor space where statues can go…

    Middle- and lower-income people are just uncultured
    philistines who can’t appreciate good art, anyway,
    so why waste it on them?

    We’re heading back to France in 1789, folks.

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    • Duane Swacker says:

      July 20, 2013 at 1:45 pm

      Been in that state of france for the last 30 years.

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      • Madame DeFarge says:

        July 20, 2013 at 2:18 pm

        La Bastille fell in 1789. There was outrage, organizing, and action prior to the storming of the Bastille. Although there were only 7 prisoners in the Bastille at the time, it marks the moment that the king lost control over the country.

        Et alors……..

    • Communist Teacher says:

      July 23, 2013 at 5:31 pm

      There will be blood!

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11. KrazyTA says:

    July 20, 2013 at 11:27 am

    From a speech Bill Moyers gave in 2011, “How Wall Street Occupied America
    Why the rich keep getting richer and our democracy is getting poorer.”

    “In his Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Radicalism of the American Revolution, historian Gordon Wood says that our nation discovered its greatness “by creating a prosperous free society belonging to obscure people with their workaday concerns and pecuniary pursuits of happiness.” This democracy, he said, changed the lives of “hitherto neglected and despised masses of common laboring people.”

    Those words moved me when I read them. They moved me because Henry and Ruby Moyers were “common laboring people.” My father dropped out of the fourth grade and never returned to school because his family needed him to pick cotton to help make ends meet. Mother managed to finish the eighth grade before she followed him into the fields. They were tenant farmers when the Great Depression knocked them down and almost out. The year I was born my father was making $2 a day working on the highway to Oklahoma City. He never took home more than $100 a week in his working life, and he made that only when he joined the union in the last job he held. I was one of the poorest white kids in town, but in many respects I was the equal of my friend who was the daughter of the richest man in town. I went to good public schools, had the use of a good public library, played sandlot baseball in a good public park and traveled far on good public roads with good public facilities to a good public university. Because these public goods were there for us, I never thought of myself as poor. When I began to piece the story together years later, I came to realize that people like the Moyerses had been included in the American deal. “We, the People” included us.”

    I grew up in Detroit. Even though I was poor, unbeknownst to me I shared his sentiment that I felt rich in public goods.

    The Most Innovative Cagebusting Achievement-Gap Crushing Excellencies [educational and otherwise] of the Twenty First Century not only don’t match the achievements of the twentieth, they are very very old behaviors and practices. The first two verses of Billie Holiday’s GOD BLESS THE CHILD:

    “Them that’s got shall get
    Them that’s not shall lose.
    So the Bible said, and it still is news.
    Mama may have, Papa may have,
    But God bless the child that’s got his own,
    That’s got his own.

    Yes, the strong gets more
    While the weak ones fade
    Empty pockets don’t ever make the grade
    Mama may have, Papa may have,
    But God bless the child that’s got his own,
    That’s got his own.”

    The edufrauds either don’t care to understand this—or, in many cases, understand this very well and simply plow ahead with their plans for ‘creative destruction.’

    Perhaps they need some help. Groucho Marx had a good suggestion:

    “A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”

    🙂

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12. Robert D. Shepherd says:

    July 20, 2013 at 11:44 am

    Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
    Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
    Everybody knows that the war is over
    Everybody knows the good guys lost
    Everybody knows the fight was fixed
    The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
    That’s how it goes
    Everybody knows

    Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
    Everybody knows that the captain lied
    Everybody got this broken feeling
    Like their father or their dog just died

    Everybody talking to their pockets
    Everybody wants a box of chocolates
    And a long stem rose
    Everybody knows. . . .

    And everybody knows that it’s now or never
    Everybody knows that it’s me or you
    And everybody knows that you live forever
    Ah when you’ve done a line or two
    Everybody knows the deal is rotten
    Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton
    For your ribbons and bows
    And everybody knows

    –from “Everybody Knows,” by Leonard Cohen

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13. Kay says:

    July 20, 2013 at 11:54 am

    I happened to be listening to msnbc on XM yesterday when some press conference was given about the plan to declare bankruptcy. Some politician was touting some of the “good things” that are happening in Detroit despite their financial situation and I knew, before he said it, that he would tout the charter schools. Indeed he did, and he referred to them as achieving some successes akin to the recovery district in New Orleans. I am so sick of the lies upon lies. I am so grateful for Diane and a few others who help to connect the dots nationally so that I know they are lying. WHY ARE CHARTER SCHOOLS SPOKEN OF IN SUCH REVERENT TERMS??? There is nothing inherently good about a charter school or a plethora of charter schools, and the way they have been used to deprofessionalize teachers, break apart communities that deserve strong schools in their very own neighborhoods, and put profits in the pockets of jerks who never cared about kids or education in the first place is a travesty. But this politician speaks of them (and New Orleans Recovery District) in glowing terms with no regard for truth. And it goes unchallenged, while they attempt to rob hard working people of the pensions they are due.

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14. Madame DeFarge says:

    July 20, 2013 at 12:22 pm

    Maybe the bankruptcy filing will be thrown out!

    http://www.nationofchange.org/judge-rules-detroit-s-bankruptcy-illegal-leaving-process-limbo-1374325886

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15. Sara Attleson says:

    July 20, 2013 at 1:02 pm

    Not sure if I am connecting too many dots. Mr. Board is from Detroit and he has a pretty significant art collection that is housed in the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University.

    Those Billionaire Boys do stick together.

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16. Chi-Town Res says:

    July 20, 2013 at 2:04 pm

    Wow. How sick is this. It’s like that shocking scene in Zorba the Greek, when a horde of vigilant villagers were perched to pillage the possessions of a dying woman without heirs, invaded her room at the instant of her death and looted absolutely everything except the bed where the dead woman lay and her caged bird. The only difference is that those were poor commoners, not people who are already very wealthy, like American vultures today.

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17. Jim says:

    July 20, 2013 at 3:28 pm

    Detroit has been borrowing more than it has been earning for a very long time now. Detroit politicians made all kinds of pension promises over the years that they made no effort to ensure could be paid. The evil wealthy people you complain about had no power to compel Detroit to borrow excessively or make promises that they could not keep. The people of Detroit got exactly the political leaders they deserved – they got the leaders they voted into office. Now they want others to pay for their corruption and incompetence.

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    • retiredbutmissthekids says:

      July 20, 2013 at 4:33 pm

      You know, Jim, my ears always prick up when I hear the oft-used phrase “got exactly the..leaders they deserved…voted into office.”
      (And I’m glad you said it!)
      We all know that most of politics is performed on a stage, with politicians being in the guise of actors. Just as this ongoing dialogue about Obama in Diane’s recent posts (& the posts themselves)–the man who’d pledged to “put on his walking shoes” (and did not, but, instead, appointed unqualified basketball buddy Arne; appointed millionaire heiress Penny Pritzker)–has revealed him for who and what he really is (“Following the Money Trail in Chicago,” “President Obama and the New Elitism”). He was seen as the lesser of the two evils which, in almost every case in elections across the country, happens to be the reality.
      Therefore, we must be done with this system. It’s been heartening to read some of the most recent comments on Diane’s posts–the idea being that WE have to be the change we want and need. If you are qualified to run for office and can ante up some $$$ (please don’t pooh-pooh–again–think Monica Ratliff, Steve Zimmer, Glenda Ritz), then do so. For those of us who find true, blue candidates where we live, talk them up and get support online. Let’s springboard off of Diane’s blog and use our resources to ensure true, democratic change.
      Our children’s future depends on us. Yes, WE can!

      Reply
      • Madame DeFarge says:

        July 20, 2013 at 9:47 pm

        Retired

        thank you for expressing this so succintly.

        Diane has given us a forum. I’ve noticed since the Randi Weingarten my Friend posts, the conversation has taken a turn. I’m reading more willingness to connecting the dots to the bigger, overiding, and very frightening picture.

        Jim: Do you believe that we should just let fascism overtake our nation while we sit back and do the best we can?

18. Jim says:

    July 20, 2013 at 4:59 pm

    This country is far too gone for politics of any kind to save it. Individuals can only try to do the best they can to survive in an age of decay and decline.

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19. Sue says:

    July 20, 2013 at 5:02 pm

    Speaking of the Grey Lady, the above NY Times article about racial imbalance is the first mention of Connecticut education I’ve seen since just about never.

    It’s almost political, almost.

    Reply