[Mb-civic] Detroit: Super Bowl City on the Brink

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Detroit: Super Bowl City on the Brink

By Dave Zirin

http://www.alternet.org/story/31635/

"A celebration of concentrated wealth." That's what
Washington Post sportswriter Tony Kornheiser called
the National Football League's two-week long pre-Super
Bowl party binge. Every Super Bowl Sunday, corporate
executives and politicians exchange besotted, sodden
backslaps, amidst an atmosphere that would shame Jack
Abramoff. Only this year the bacchanalia -- complete
with ice sculptures peeing Grey Goose vodka and two
tons of frozen lobster flown directly to the stadium
-- is happening in the United States' most
impoverished, ravaged city: Detroit.
Detroit's power elites in government and the auto
industry are rolling out the red carpet while many of
its people shiver in fraying rags. This contrast
between the party atmosphere and abject urban
suffering has been so stark, so shocking and so
utterly revealing that news coverage on the city's
plight has appeared in the sports pages of the New
York Times and Detroit Free Press, among others.

Only a Bush speechwriter couldn't notice the gritty
backdrop while limos clog the streets and escort
services are flying in female reinforcements like so
much shellfish. Detroit -- and there is no soft way to
put this -- is a city on the edge of the abyss. Its
2005 unemployment rate was 14.1 percent, more than two
and a half times the national level. Its population
has plummeted since the 1950s from over two million to
fewer than 900,000, and more than one-third of its
residents live under the poverty line, the highest
rate in the nation. In addition, the city has in the
past year axed hundreds of municipal employees, cut
bus and garbage services, and boarded up nine
recreation centers. As the Associated Press wrote,
"Much of the rest of Detroit is a landscape dotted
with burned-out buildings, where liquor stores abound
but supermarkets are hard to come by, and where drugs,
violence and unemployment are everyday realities."

Ryan Anderson of Detroit, wrote me a chilling email
saying, "The mood is one of Orwellian-flavored siege:
dire warnings of a 30-day police speeding ticket
bonanza, designed to raise $1 million for the
construction of a damn bridge welcoming out-of-towners
to the Motor City; the mayor, the governor, and every
other notable on the radio urging us all to 'show 'em
what we got' [read: Don't further sully our already
bad reputation]; and the homeless being taken to a
three-day 'Superbowl Party,' where they'll get the
actual food and shelter they need until the big game's
over, after which they'll be kicked back out on the
streets. Welcome to the Poorest City in America,
sponsored and enabled by lily-white Oakland County."

Anita Cerf, a teacher in Detroit also wrote to me, "I
am appalled by the living conditions of its residents
as contrasted with the hype for the Super Bowl and the
fancying up of downtown for all the rich out-of-town
guests. I live on the East Side, which probably has
one of the highest poverty rates in the country, and I
teach high school dropouts on the Southwest Side. My
students have horrific problems, many of which stem
from these economic and social conditions. It's
disgusting."

Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press described the
shelter, called the Detroit Rescue Mission, throwing
the "three day party" to cleanse homeless people from
the city's landscape. As Albom wrote, "Lines formed
before sunset, dozens of men in dirty sweatshirts, old
coats, worn-out shoes. They had to line up in an
alley, because, [the shelter's director says], the
city doesn't want lines of homeless folks visible from
the street. Even at a shelter, they have to go in the
back door."

But these days Detroit is dealing with more than
normal tough times. While the Super Bowl is played at
Ford Field, the Ford family announced last week that
it would eliminate up to 30,000 jobs and close 14
plants in the next six years. The cuts mean it's the
unemployment line, and maybe Albom's shelter, for
about a third of the 87,000 Ford workers who are
members of the United Auto Workers (UAW).

For a city that built a stable "middle class" out of
union struggle and the auto plants, this is injury
added to insult. But have no fear. NORAD, the North
American Aerospace Defense Command, will be flying
sorties over Ford Field to protect everyone from
terrorist missile attacks. There is no NORAD however
on the streets of Detroit to protect people from
Operation Enduring Class War otherwise known as the
Super Bowl.
(If instead of betting on the big game, you want to
give to the Detroit Rescue Mission, call 313-993-4700
or send a check to Detroit Rescue Mission, 150
Stimson, Detroit, MI 48201.)

[Dave Zirin is the author of "What's My Name Fool?
Sports and Resistance in the United States." Read more
of his work at Edgeofsports.com.]

-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean at sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060204/f397b965/attachment-0001.htm