4/7/13 12:04 PM

“Rise

Up

Motor

City”

by Jim

Baade

Flying back

into

Michigan on an airline I will not mention, the flight attendant announced:

“Welcome to beautiful Detroit.” Some passengers snickered at the obvious

sarcasm, as if the horrible demise of this once proud city is funny.

That’s not funny, that is offensive!

How did this happen?

Detroit is a reflection of the undermining of the middle class, because the

middle class built the Motor City. The symptoms of this all out assault on

organized labor, teachers, police and firefighters include: jobs lost, homes

lost, businesses lost and high crime, and Flint has not been faring any better.

Its no secret how this 30 year decline happened, take a look at Michael

Moore’s “Roger and Me” and you can witness this gutting of the middle class

in the making.

Is this really our fate?

I thought of the Eminem Eminem Super Bowl ad for Chrysler a few years

back, it’s just a commercial, but it does provoke an interesting idea. Detroit

is a gritty city that still matters because we still make things here.

I wonder if we really do still have that kind of moxie to lead the way again.

I’m a guy who has lived and worked here my whole life and I still remember

when these cities I love where alive and thriving, and I want my Detroit, the

one I know and remember to have a comeback! If we do have the right stuff

for a grand comeback, it’s going to have to be born from the same things

that made us great to begin with, our workers! Yep, I’m talking about a

strong; vibrate middleclass that made the Motor City run. What more prove

do we need to know this? We need to protect our workers and give

everybody a shot at the American dream.

Pollyanna talk alone won’t bring back our cities, but I do believe the kind of

attitude we need back here again is the one that made Detroit and Flint

great. The same kind of Detroit attitude to stand up and fight for our city and

not cave into ones who will take away our rights to collective bargaining and

to have the people we elect to run and govern our cites and not some

arbitrary “emergency manager”.

This is DETROIT we’re talking about here! We can look to the future with

the same attitude that made our city proud once before, and then make

proud once again. The days of the monolithic auto manufacturing giant are

gone forever, yet we can bring back the glory with job training and education

for future jobs in technology, green energy and transportation and fix our

crumbling infrastructure. Then watch our middle class come roaring back

and with it our city.

WHO IS READY FOR A

COMEBACK!!!

4/7/13 12:04 PM

4/7/13 12:04 PM