A Cruel Mockery

D’Artagnan Collier, the Socialist Equality Party’s candidate for mayor of Detroit, has deep roots in the city’s working class population and its struggles. Collier, 41, a city worker and lifelong resident of Detroit, joined the socialist movement in 1984.

Collier has such a nice face; likeable. But ... I do wonder if he believes his own rhetoric about the 1960s situation in Detroit. Collier, in describing events that took place a year before he was born, describes the 1967 riots as:

" ... the Detroit rebellion of 1967. During that six-day upsurge in Detroit, 43 were killed and 342 injured, officially. Friends and relatives recalled to me how the city was occupied by over 13,000 federal troops and the National Guard marched through the neighborhoods, carrying loaded weapons and unafraid to shoot.

... The riots in Detroit were part of a series of uprisings throughout the country—uprisings that grew out of conditions of poverty, social neglect, unemployment, and government-sanctioned racism. Even at the height of the post-war boom of American capitalism, the “American Dream” was a cruel mockery for millions of workers."

"Rebellion," is that putting lipstick on a pig or what?

I have an uncle who upon returning from WWII spent his life in Detroit and/or Flint working in the auto industry. My dad as a young man migrated back and forth from the south to work in car factories; as did other family members, during the '40s, '50s, and '60s.

Yes, Detroit was losing jobs during that era - not because of racial issues but taxation and space - decentralization; the state government kept raising income and business taxes - people leave when that happens. Yes, there was "white flight" to build suburbs, but Detroit in 1967 was not a squalid ghetto; it had the highest black home ownership rate in the country. Nothing and no one prevented Detroit's black middle class from doing the same as their white counterparts and moving outside city limits or preparing themselves for futures outside the car industry.

The Michigan era you speak of had two black congressmen, black judges, and blacks on the Board of Education, the Housing Commission was 40% black. In May 1967 the Federal Housing Authority listed Detroit's housing for blacks as superior to that of Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, and Cleveland. The DoJ listed 1967 Detroit as a model for "police-community relations." Twenty percent of the National Guard called out in July 1967 were black.

The 5 days of riot in July 1967 were not part of a "series of uprisings throughout the country." The riot did not grow out of poverty, social neglect, unemployment, or government-sanctioned racism. Poverty, neglect, unemployment better describe today's Detroit than the Detroit of 1967.

The riot of '67 started because of the confrontations between patrons and cops after a police raid on a blind pig. A blind pig is an illegal, unlicensed, after hours joint for drinking and gambling and other things. We have a blind pig here in the 'hood; at least twice a year someone gets shot, knifed, or beat to a pulp. Raids? "The man" doesn't even bother anymore - cops show up after the fact, with an ambulance for clean-up. Can't say I blame them for not wanting to face a drunken doped hostile mob who would scream racism regardless, and witnesses never see anything anyway.

In 1967 blacks were demanding an end to discrimination, equal judicial rights, education, housing, etc. Some felt such goals achievable through policy-making and integration - others thought separatist was the way to go.

Some factors behind black riots are crime, drug addiction, dependency on welfare, bitterness and resentment against society in general and white society in particular. But any way you look at it - black opportunity has come a long way baby since 1967 - yet, here we are - 42 years later and still demanding the government end our poverty, social neglect, and unemployment.

But who do we blame now?

Well, according to Mr. Collier it's the fault of "... the old organizations—such as the UAW, the other unions and the civil rights establishment—have abandoned the working class." And also because "... the corporate powers would cynically utilize race to control social struggle, by putting prominent blacks in charge of the same exploitation and profit-taking once overseen by whites."

Ah do believe Bubba those put-in-charge blacks would be known as "Uncle Tom." Can anyone in their right mind or with a straight face call Barack Obama an Uncle Tom? According to the "left" he would be a prominent black in charge of exploitation and abandonment of the working class.

Hmmm, ever wonder Bubba, why so many seem to abandon the "working class," when even the unions and the civil rights establishment forsake them - is it because so many folks have piddled away 40 years' worth of government and social opportunity only to end up worse off than when they started?

Opportunity I said - not gifting you a free ride to better bling.

Collier, like every good socialist, uses the term "working-class" 24 times in his self-promotional interview. Socialists always urge workers of the world to unite, belong to an "international" working class struggle - but fail to remind you the domestic unemployment they're bitching about is directly due to their jobs having been sent to their working class brothers and sisters overseas. I mean, come on, it doesn't take a billion folks to run a modern assembly line. On the plus side, being jobless, you can spend your free time petitioning for better working conditions for those who are employed in Taiwan, China, India, Mexico, Indonesia, etc.

Economists and social scientists and your own momma have been telling you for at least 30 years to prepare and not expect to find the American dream in a factory.

Collier ends with: "Young people today will find in the Socialist Equality Party the policies and program necessary for the working class to resolve this historical crisis, to end imperialist war and create a world based on the highest achievements of mankind and the principle of social equality."

Politicians of any kind love that word "crisis." They always have a solution, albeit vague and abstract, for those crisis.

Michigan is one of the most socialist states, has been for 100 years - yet even in local politics socialists lose. You can blame it on lack of media exposure, etc. - or maybe the socialist party isn't really saying what America's "working class" wants to hear.

Vague ideas I say Bubba, as: "The crisis confronting mankind cannot be resolved until the working class intervenes with its own solution." What does that mean? Sounds like rhetorical hope and change and every other politician out there - yes it does, yes we can. We are what we've been looking for ... (turn on applause/cheer).

Strategy? The official socialist ICFI (International Committee of the Fourth International) lists 6 member nations: Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, USA, and Sri Lanka. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those first 5 are white owned and operated countries and I don't think many Americans want to imitate the little tea and textile plantation known as Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

But tell me, how are the white folks in Canada and Germany and Britain who founded ICFI, going to create the objective preconditions for a "genuinely ... socialist society." By putting up minority candidates? Isn't that what the DNC did with Obama? Yes they did ... he is/was the change we've been hoping for?

Where the Socialists err is with the idea of "the principle of social equality." We can wrestle all day with the definition of that term; wiki defines it as "... a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the extent of property rights. However, it also includes access to education, health care and other social securities. It also includes equal opportunities and obligations, and so involves the whole society. Social equality refers to social, rather than economic, or income equality."

Okay, we know social groups have, more or less, equal rights under the law, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and property rights. We also have, to varying degrees, from the basic minimum to the best that money can buy - access to education, healthcare, social securities, usually dependent on our own drive or to that of our parents or grandparents. "Social equality" exists no where in the world today. And that Bubba is why the "left," the Socialists, have so few followers.

They promise a world of "social equality" and the public knows such a creature does not exist. We all know individuals of similar origins, background, and intelligence, even from the same family - who do not have equal success. Even if we were a country that gave identical education, healthcare, social securities, and opportunities - there would still be millions of losers among life's winners. Note too that social equality also includes "obligations." But you do not hear politicians demanding voters fulfill their obligations to themselves and society - the voting lower classes don't wanna hear about obligation. The "left" bashes Obama every time he mentions the taboo subject of parental responsibility (obligation).

Obligation is also a debt of gratitude - when was the last time the "left" expressed any gratitude for anything America has offered them? Even though the mythical leftiness of JFK said "... ask not what your country can do for you ..." the current progressive/left has flipped that one around and revised it to mean that the best thing you can do for your country is bring in world socialism. Quite a stretch but legends are always stretched to fit.

Socialists fail because most of the American working class, consciously or not, know that if they somehow manage to become total failures - it is not because they are victims of "corporate powers," or lack of government aid - but simply the poor choices and bad judgment they freely exercised. Most of us know exactly when and where we mucked up by our own devices - at least I hope we do.

Socialism is only another platform advertising the same political product under a different label. It's the 21st century Bub - but 98% of what we accomplish is still done by our own bootstraps. Government systems and society cannot issue personal success the way it does a free school lunch.

So Bub, I read again the official Socialist Equality website which states that when the working class intervenes: "It will create, thereby, the objective preconditions for the development of a genuinely democratic, egalitarian and socialist society. These objectives can be realized only within the framework of an international strategy, the goal of which is the global unification of the workers of all countries and the creation of a United Socialist States of the World."

USSW? Now that is odd, really odd - they didn't include "workers" in the title.

Hmmm... note the definition of social equality "refers to social, rather than economic, or income equality." A prophetic indication of the drones to come.