Vigilink

The A-B-C's of a Much Cooler Detroit

by Tommy George
2019-01-01

See the grinning wraith below. He is L. Brooks Pattersen, a former Michigan bureaucrat who declared in a national magazine that he believes fencing off Detroit, throwing in some corn and blankets, and giving the city back to the Native Americans from whom the land was first stolen is the answer to Detroit's problems. While he probably thought he was making a cutting remark, American history may bear out that his impudent prattle is the only intelligent idea the man ever expressed.
L. Brooks Pattersen


Inspired by Pattersen's racist wisecrack, Tommy George assembled an alphabetical lexicon of stellar innovations that Detroit could enact and pursue should Detroit City actually be returned to the fold of native American governance. All the proposed measures have proven efficacious economically and socially elsewhere in place and time, but most are current policy somewhere in the world. He avers that these A, B, C's are the socioeconomic tonic sine qua non for Tommy George's hometown of Detroit. First, let's recap L. Brooks' remark from "The New Yorker":


When I [author Paige Williams] asked him how Detroit might fix its financial problems, he said, “I made a prediction a long time ago, and it’s come to pass. I said, ‘What we’re gonna do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and corn'." -- L. Brooks Pattersen, as quoted by writer Paige Williams in the article "Drop Dead, Detroit!" published in "The New Yorker" of 27 January 2014. 
Native America might be persuaded to accept Detroit City proper back as part of its lands, and induct all current Detroiters as tribal members. Then instead of National Media's view of Detroit as doomed, dangerous, and dumb, we can see it through the unjaded eyes of its original inhabitants--people well-versed in centuries of pain dealt them by financial hegemony (rule by the unseen rich). The Tribal Wisdom of disinterested elders will probably leave the land and its peoples disencumbered of strangling federal, state, and municipal codes that jawboned Detroiters into the mud in the first place, and leave the riverside land (of many rich remnants and inventive people) free to support growth of the socioeconomic experiment that such a reoccupation of repatriated land must be. 

Why?
The ABC's of a New Detroit

by Tommy George

Once the land of Detroit has been repatriated to its natural Native Americanism, you may find yourself living free of undue violence, taxes, and scalping--a new North American cultural center--a superclean city, and the adult playground of the world sine qua non--destined to become the new, hip destination for domestic and international tourists alike. Aside from Pattersen's corn and infested blankets, what will the new Detroit have to offer? 


Something oddly familiar about the layout of Amsterdam? 
  • Amsterdam of North America--gambling, drug use, altered states, prostitution, all legal and taxable. Present criminalization of ancient practices makes most, is not all of us, well . . . criminals. Those Highland Park manses would make swell, plush brothels. As improbable as it may presently seem, the New Detroit could make Amsterdam look like Salt Lake City.
  • Bullfighting, just like Pamplona, complete with a grande Corrida de los toros every summer. The corrida is an event in which brave macho souls run through the streets with the bulls to the Coleman Young Arena. Detroit's visionary Mayor Coleman Young had this one right--but that's always been the problem with Detroit politics: too much bullsh-t, and too little bullfighting.
The corrida stops here at the bullfighting facility named after Detroit's
Mayor Coleman Young, America's first mayor of color to govern a large municipality.

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  • Compulsory Firearm Ownership, Training and Practice by every household. This is by no means unprecedented; it remains the Swiss model (Switzerland maintained neutrality through two gruesome wars, largely because of it). 

You will never speak
ill of our city again, Sir!
  • Decriminalize Dueling! It's a far more honorable practice than trying to pop a cap in your rival's butt--but as often as not, hitting the derriere of the wrong person. Let the strength and wildness of youth defend its honor the old-fashioned, self-controlled way: You have been served notice, sir. A duel at forty paces. Everybody would be a lot more relaxed, secure, and respectful. An atmosphere free of stray bullets will give families back the neighborhood streets, the city's awesome parks, and all of the other attractions that once constituted a great city.
     
    Signed agreements would indemnify the winner and provide proper handling of the loser's remains. More significantly, the deep implications of honor as something more than a mere word would be restored. Social order and better manners would snap back into the civilized mode  automatically. Plus, Detroit could grab international leadership in the televised blood-sport genre. (You know it's coming as surely as Nero fiddled with fire.) Imagine network-televised duels--celebrity duels, occasionally--staged for an increasingly death-happy world. Big money for the winners, and a glamorous afterlife for the losers. It won't be long until the New World Order embraces blood sports on TV. Let's beat those smug programming plutocrats to the punch just once in this town's freakin' history.

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      • Education in the New Detroit. Many parents may not be fully aware of the fact that students get up to 80% of their education in the home anyway. The percentage may be even higher for attitude on learning. Yet the Detroit Public Schools have lost a lot of academic ground, and practically all self-respect. My opinion is that having a teacher repeat the same classes over and over for an entire career is a waste of teacher's time and the system's money. Let's put cash into producing basic curricula on a world-class level--programming with entertainment value, verve--shareable and enjoyable by the whole family, via television, internet, and social media in the home context. And let's make the schoolhouses more like the rest of the world by including on-premises businesses, retail shops, private educators, and entertainment venues. Private sector rents and facility improvements will make school seem less like prison and more like a shopping mall.

      This is what most people think of the Detroit Public Schools.
       And often, they're right!



      Empty schools? Empty lessons? Gee, I wonder why Detroiters get apathetic about academic competition. They're starting to believe the BS put out by National Media, to which I say: Never believe the unspoken national opinion that Detroit kids aren't among the smartest in the world. We've let our schools be overrun by grown-ups who can't earn their living in the field of their choice--so they teach it instead. Too many mediocre teachers rattling off the same old crap year after year. Too many school administrators killing time until retirement.  Let's subject Detroit schools to the same pressures as any other public corporation. 


      It's time to profit from the schoolhouses--rent space for businesses, bring manufacturing into schools, and more internship programs into those businesses; more housing, fewer wrecked schoolhouses, and computers in every learning household (each DPS student currently is funded at over $7K per year). Cut the teaching force by 80% through attrition. It won't be hard to recruit an army of active parent-mentors from neighborhoods, men and women who want to be there, giving their all--once schools are remade into desirable places to be, and world-class educational programming for home-learning is produced that can be enjoyed by an entire household just as it played and discussed in classrooms.

      • Financial Incentives for Corporate Investment on a per-job basis. No more gratis deals, no more giveaways that don't profit the City of Detroit. In the Native American Detroit settlement, cooperative international interests will reap some big benefits too--if of course, the People of Detroit decide to let them in. 


      • Get Off of Gangs' Backs and Give Them the Respect They Deserve. Why do we make the strongest and bravest of our sons and daughters into criminals just because they need the recognition of belonging and being respected? Call them criminals just because they understand the power of organization, and band together? Let's give our young people a chance to show us not only who they are, but surprise them by showing how traditional the things they value actually are. 

      Sure we be superbad, but what do you call supergood?

      Give their organizations--yes, the gangs that everybody so fears--an official city charter with the powers and support they need. Improvement of neighborhoods will follow when the people own them.



      Detroit wouldn't need these robocops.
      • Honor-based Ideals.  Let's bring back the Code of Chivalry to Detroit. The rest of the world seems to have forgotten it. As global insensitivity continues down its dishonest, brutal path, Detroiters must stand apart--since we've been excluded anyway. Bring back a code of honor that values and protects innocence, defends the weak, and respects the fairer sex--if that's what the lady wants. On the other hand, she may just want to duel you, and that's alright too.

        We have been brainwashed into thinking that money and material goods are the only things of value. My opinion is that people--family, friends, and especially kids--are by far the most important treasure of being human, and offer the greatest satisfaction in life.  Let's shun the culture of legalized lies, and Robin Hoods in reverse, stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.

        One Marxist critic makes a strong case that young people who wanna be gangstas have been duped by national politics into emulating politicos like the Bushes and Cheneys of the world (the worst sorts of gangsters). The more I think about it, the righter that social critic seems. Let's not slide into the culture of murderous selfishness.  For God's sake, let's be human again. Let's go back to the culture of honor, true justice, and romance.
      • Innovation in the End-Life Industry.  Death with Dignity--which emphasizes personal control of the timing, means, and locale for making one's personal finale--is so long overdue that innovative end-life practices will attract the dying in droves. Changes are inevitable because the growing numbers of baby boomers' passage to the next world will eventually preclude drawn-out, expensive death. New Detroit might be the first port to offer assisted suicide packages like cruise-ship deals, complete with deluxe family accommodations for those memorable final days, memory-sharing events, cocktail parties, testimonial events, all with fine cuisine, media tie-ins, etc.  Sound crazy? To die before spending weeks or months as a terminal vegetable, stripped of every dignity, is crazy? Well, here's really crazy for you: currently, 2 out of every 5 dollars spent on senior health-care is collected by profit-crazy hospitals for "end-life services." These revenues collected on so-called "gomers" is easy money. Just ask the health-care pro in your own family.

      "How long does he have, Doctor?"
      "That all depends. How much does he have left in the bank?"
      Have you ever had to watch one of those awful, drawn-out hospital deaths--when all that loved one ever wanted was to give everybody a good-bye kiss, make a toast to life, and then die peacefully, happily?  I don't want to end my life as a gomer, lying around until the insurance coverage runs out--at which point the AMA will permit me to die on the ambulance ride to the nursing home. Departure from life should be more like leaving on a vacation. To Disneyland, a ski resort, or a luxury cruise, right? Just think along similar lines--Cinderella's End-Life Center.  Goofy's Getaway. The SS Port of Heaven. Who wants to go out with a whimper when it can be done with a sweet song, surrounded by family, and still conscious enough to enjoy their presence?


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      Could This Thing Possibly Be a Criminal?

      Just because a top-down model for legislating morality is some folks' way doesn't mean Detroiters have to follow it. The federal dictatorship has gotten way out of hand; let's try something realistic for a change--like doing what must be done to increase the value of our town, our homes, and our lives by refuting the common wisdom. Let's blaze a new independent course that doesn't make everybody a criminal. As part of Native America, we would have the right to conduct our affairs as we choose.

      The world will come flocking in for joints and java at Detroit-licensed coffee houses; brothels, casinos, end-life centers, churches, and more.  Once we stop the low-down business of thinking about ourselves as criminals--because some crazed legislative body has so labeled us--the sun will shine again on our city. 95% of folks labeled criminal are not criminals.
      • Kids’ rights to real Education: Hey! When was the last time you went to a Detroit Public School to enjoy the show or get a coffee? Or maybe to see what's new with your friends on staff. Just one generation of Detroit youth raised in an educational environment that nurtured instead of bullying and boring them would catapult Detroit from the global bad joke it has become into a position of global leadership.  Let's respect our kids' right to world-class education, first by giving each infant and toddler our undivided attention, and then by reforming the ways we go about training them.  Q: What do you remember from your DPS education? Property owners shell out a lot of money to fund schoolhouses loaded with mediocre, antiquated methodologies that aren't doing jack-sh-t for the students. And some of the teachers! Sit in on a class--if you can stand 50 minutes of nauseating boredom.

        As a former teacher myself (educated at WSU and trained in the Detroit Public Schools), I confess that most Detroit Schools don't know how to compete with global counterparts in education.  No we tend to limit our battles to local parents and students, who learn to disdain the very idea of school--the only lesson we retain after the years they made us spend there.
      • Legal, taxable (presently illegal and controlled) drugs, including all varieties of opiates, cocaine, etc. Portugal and other nations have legalized everything for everyone, and they're doing much better than Detroit. So let Mr. Softy get his Viagra here, let the addicts have their opiates, whatever--nobody's perfect, but making him or her a criminal doesn't help at all. It's a case of different hats for different cats, and as long as they have the meow--sell them what they crave. What happened to the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness?
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      • Multiple-spouse marriages, same-sex marriages, any combination that people choose to play the mating game. Regardless of what civil authority says, the fate of the human race is not jeopardized by letting people marry whomever, whatever, and however they desire. Maybe five or six is the right number of spouses for you. If you can afford them, enjoy them in Detroit.
      • Non-enforcement policy on bad laws is one alternative way around the current county, state, and federal codes that keep Detroit moribund. It's a proper start until we can complete the exhaustive process of formalizing our new status as Native American Land. Which Indian tribe was originally settled along the banks of the mighty Detroit River?  I feel confident a deal could be reached with them by transferring nominal and spiritual title to the land back to native managers, and escaping the restrictions of the encroaching New World Order.
      • Opium Dens.  Who doesn't long to stop off for a pipe of opium every now and then? Well, I want to do it in Detroit. After a long day over the blast furnace, I need something to soothe my nerves. I need pleasant conversation and a cold drink. In short, I need my opium den. Many exist in the world; of course, presently, none exist in Detroit. But when we convert to the New Detroit, you can bet the time-honored tradition will crop up anew.
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      • Prostitution as a Viable Profession.  Decriminalization, regulation, and protection for sex-industry workers will bring Detroit up to global par as regards the world's oldest profession.  Further, it will localize the industry, monitor sex workers' health, and provide tax revenues for the city.  Finally, it will eliminate the unconscionable use of the word "ho" as a pejorative term for one's girlfriend or wife.
      • Questions? Ask TG! Right sidebar. 
      They don't build many like this anymore. Why waste it?
      • Rehabilitation of Salvageable Housing. Let's spend some of the revenues bound to come pouring in the Detroit coffers by providing assistance to individuals and businesses willing to undertake repair and renovation of some prime properties allowed to deteriorate under the present regime.
      Okay guys, we're scheduled for over 30 tour buses today.
      • Sensational Public Works Projects for those in need of detox, a renewed sense of purpose, and physical conditioning. Much more humane than DeHoCo or prison. Project #1: a stone pyramid to rival those of Egypt, assembled in the authentic tradition. Dragging the stones, hiring thousands on for a historical recreation of the construction of the Pyramid at Cheops. Valuable historical simulacrum. Incredible tourist attraction. Thousands of paid jobs.
        |
      • Tariff Waivers and Sales-tax Exemptions for Merchandise Sold in Native American Venues. New Detroit shopping super-centers will kick Walmart's butt for any number of reasons, including those mentioned and a greater variety of merchandise.
      Well, that exhausts the first two-thirds of the alphabet. The author urges readers to share their ideas; in particular, ideas phrased to begin with U, V, W, X, Y, Z.  Feel free to email them to Tommy George. Credit will be given.

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