re: #57 Wile E. Wonka

Come to think of it, I seem to recall that the nascent American socialist movement (I’m thinking of Upton Sinclair and his “ilk”) organized themselves around opposition to a few basic wrongs: corporate exploitation of the poor, corporate poisoning of the land/water/food/etc….

…and slumlords.

In fact, wasn’t ACORN founded by a group of “improvement squatters” who were fed up with slumlords buying up blighted property in working-class neighborhoods and leaving it to rot until they could flip it for a profit?

The more I think about it, the more I feel like Detroit is about as clear a case in need of a little socialism as there can be.

Huh wut? Pensions? My American Legion father-in-law, retired from thirty years with Ford, might have a thing or two to say about whether pensions are socialism… :)

Wingnuts are SO FOND of Tweeting “ruin porn” photos of abandoned buildings in Detroit and saying LIBRULZ & SOSHULISTS CREATED THIS!!11 when most of the abandoned properties they display ARE OWNED BY MATTY MOROUN & OTHERS LIKE HIM.

Yes Detroit is fucked, but it has nothing to do with 50 YEARS OF DEMOCRAT GOVERNMENT. There are few major American cities that DO NOT have a Democrat as mayor. Anyway the Office of Mayor of Detroit is non-partisan. However we have had 30 years of Republican governors.