Detroit rebuttal

Dear editor:

Rebuttal on Detroit to recent letter writer:

When Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan and his minions were callously giving children of Flint lead-tainted water, Republican propagandists had a problem. It became worse as some Republican minions were indicted for negligence and cover-up; also, bad because Michigan has only two chief centers of power: the DeVos family, and the Mackinac right-wing “think tank” that promoted union-busting “right-to-work.”

Solution: blame it all on the Democrats. In actuality, the facts say differently. Frequently, grassroots liberals and ex-Republicans like me have to become Davids and try to defeat Goliath — the right-wing propaganda machine — a tricky proposition. There’s no script; we have to wing it with no wings.

According to 1950s’ investigative reporting by The Chicago Tribune, sharecroppers made obsolete by the cotton-pickers and other machines were forced, bribed and motivated to flee to cities throughout America — cities including Atlanta, Richmond, Chicago, Detroit, etc. Many ex-sharecroppers came from a background of attending segregated schools only for a short time. I believe that malice on the part of rightwing politicians led them to give oneway tickets to their victims.

In the late 1940s and all of the 1950s, cars were selling like crazy and Motown records were hits. As far as I know, Detroit was Democratic during its success. But CEOs wanted to give hefty profits to themselves and top brass and weaken union members, who demanded a fair share of the money. Meanwhile, President Eisenhower’s excellent highway policy was having an unintended consequence: white flight. Also, our allies were demanding good paying American jobs (“Who Will Tell the People?” by William Greider). Car companies began pulling away from Detroit to the suburbs, “green fields,” Europe and Japan, leaving a burnt-out Detroit and eventually a burnt-out Flint (“Roger and Me” by Moore).

“Rising Sun” by Michael Crichton told why American products and workers were no longer competitive in globalization. But the tax rate for corporations played no part since the effective tax was very low. Japan used Deming methods to produce superior cars, had an aggressive export plan and used artificial barriers to prevent sales of our products to it.

During the Reagan years, thousands of jobs left America, unions were destroyed and wages became lower. With most of America’s money going to the top 1 percent, there was never any money for Democrats to repair Detroit, Flint, etc., so everyone cared less and less about Rust Belts and burnt-out cities. Turns out Detroit and Flint were only canaries in a mine shaft.

Now we have rural and suburban areas devastated by indifferent corporations that are getting richer through the new tax laws. Every penny of tax cuts should have gone to working-class Americans harmed by right-wing policies.

Tax cuts for the rich don’t pay for any remedies — education, retraining, new wave jobs, health care and infrastructure jobs, job-creation pilot projects, economic strategies, etc. The only planning being done is behind closed doors at the Koch and Mercer mansions: how to take more away from the middle class and poor. Linda Woodbury Hot Springs