-Caveat Lector- >From wsws.org WSWS : News & Analysis : North America Winter storm exposes social chasm in Detroit City services at standstill one week later By Walter Gilberti 12 January, 1999 The aftermath of the snowstorm that dropped more than a foot of snow in the Detroit area January 2-3 has revealed the social chasm separating the administration of Mayor Dennis Archer and the Detroit City Council from the majority of workers and poor in the city. After the passage of more than a week, basic services for most Detroit residents remain at a virtual standstill. The majority of the city's residential streets are still snow covered and impassable. With a population of nearly 1 million, Detroit only has 59 trucks to plow city streets. By contrast Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with two-thirds the population, operates 400 plows, clearing and salting every main and residential street. To add to the misery of residents, in the frigid cold weather that has followed the storm close to 100 water mains have burst, turning many city streets into icy waterways. Water department officials have blamed substandard pipes purchased from France--in the 1920s and 30s--for the problem. With more snow on the way, conditions for many elderly and poor have become desperate. The ability of firefighters and emergency medical technicians to respond to calls, with services already decimated by prior budget cuts, has been further hampered by the refusal of the city to remove snow from most residential streets. On many streets fire hydrants remain buried in snow. In a city where deadly house fires are an all too frequent occurrence, like the one that killed six children last December 27, many more families are now at risk. Detroit public schools, which had been closed since the storm hit, were finally allowed to open last Friday. However the vast majority of the city's 180,000 students still cannot get to school. Friday's attendance was barely measurable, revealing that the decision to open the schools was motivated by political considerations aimed at creating the illusion of a return to normal. For many students the attempt to attend school is still a dangerous undertaking. The snow-clogged streets have halted school bus transportation, leaving many children no alternative but to traverse slippery and unshoveled sidewalks, or risk life and limb by walking in the streets. Democratic Mayor Archer continues to defend the city's policy, begun 15 years ago under the Coleman Young administration, of not removing snow from the streets in residential neighborhoods. It was only last Wednesday, four days after the snowfall, that Mayor Archer even considered declaring a "snow emergency." Archer had initially refused, claiming that there was no problem with the major streets, declaring: "I do not accept responsibility for what the good Lord has put on us by way of snow." He called on neighborhood block clubs and volunteers to clear the streets. It should be noted that the streets were plowed and cleared of snow in the mayor's neighborhood, around the Manooghian Mansion. Last Thursday, however, clearly more concerned about the city's "image" than the plight of its residents, Archer was compelled to take some action. Confronted by increased media criticism, and with the opening of the International Auto Show and a visit by President Clinton imminent, Archer announced that the city would seek outside assistance in an attempt to clear the streets. The city is also considering the exploitation of convict labor. Misdemeanor offenders have already been used for snow removal in some neighboring municipalities. Meanwhile, local newspaper editorials moved to defend the mayor, shifting responsibility for the debacle onto city workers' unions, and claiming that the only solution is the privatization of services. Yet the fact remains that the Archer administration has long been oriented toward the construction of gambling casinos and a new baseball stadium, while turning its back on the urgent need to improve city services through the hiring of additional employees and the purchasing of badly needed equipment. Less than a month ago, Archer, echoing the sentiments of Michigan Governor John Engler, had launched into a tirade about Detroit's public schools. At the time, Archer threatened to support having parents or the state take over nonperforming schools. See Also: US blizzard, cold wave hit the poor [6 January 1999] Detroit fire death toll at 79 Blaze kills six children in Detroit working class neighborhood [31 December 1998] House fires during the holidays kill scores of people acrosss the US [31 December 1998] Fire related deaths in the Motor City approach 70 for 1998 Detroit firefighters lack equipment and manpower [24 December 1998] Top of page Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. Please send e-mail. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1998-99 World Socialist Web Site All rights reserved WSWS : News & Analysis : North America : Clinton Impeachment Clinton at the Detroit Economic Club The politics of self-delusion By Martin McLaughlin 12 January, 1999 President Bill Clinton's appearance in Detroit January 8 was an exercise in political self-delusion. Clinton gave a speech to the Economic Club of Detroit which painted an idyllic picture of life in today's America, ignoring both the raging political crisis in Washington and the deep-seated social tensions wracking Detroit and other major urban centers. Clinton's remarks were a paean to an "American economic renaissance." He congratulated American capitalism and his own administration for producing surpluses in the federal budget deficit, the lowest peacetime unemployment rate since 1957, record levels of home sales, and the lowest black and Hispanic unemployment levels since separate figures began to be recorded in 1972. "America is working again," he declared. "Our social problems are receding." He cautioned only that there were some concerns about the stability of the global financial institutions, and urged his audience, largely comprised of auto industry executives, not to embrace extreme protectionist measures which would exacerbate the international crisis. His other note of concern was to assert that, despite record federal budget surpluses, Social Security and Medicare were in long-term financial danger and that now was the time to take action to "save" them--i.e., carry out a combination of benefit cuts and privatization in the most important entitlement programs, on which more than 40 million elderly depend. The overall picture, however, was entirely positive, and his well-heeled audience, flush with the second highest auto industry profits in history, gave Clinton a series of warm ovations. The unspoken question which hung over the gathering, however, was this: how to account for the lynch mob atmosphere in Washington. If America is truly enjoying unprecedented prosperity, if social problems are diminishing, why is the political climate so noxious? Why is Clinton the target of a frenzied right-wing campaign to drive him out of office, a campaign which has culminated in the first impeachment and Senate trial of a sitting president in 130 years? Clinton made no mention of the impeachment drive in his speech, and the question period which followed was censored capably by the meeting's host, Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, who restricted the discussion to issues of world trade and the federal budget. The impeachment drive is not merely the product of the personal hatred of Clinton on the part of the Christian Coalition and other elements in the right wing of the Republican Party. Or, to put it more precisely, their hatred of Clinton, a powerful factor in the politics of impeachment, must be traced to its social source, in social contradictions within American society which have, despite the presidential rhetoric in Detroit, enormously intensified over the past two decades. At the root of the deepening political crisis is the development of social and economic inequality on a scale which dwarfs anything seen in America since the days of the robber barons a century ago. The top 1 percent of the population owns well over 40 percent of the nation's wealth. This ruling elite and a privileged upper-middle-class layer have monopolized the prosperity of which Clinton boasted--real incomes for the bottom 80 percent of the American people have declined or stagnated for a quarter-century. Clinton's attempt to pass off this bonanza for the wealthy as a "tide which lifts all boats" was particularly grotesque given the city in which he gave his address. Detroit has been a byword for poverty and urban distress for more than two decades. There are only two operating auto plants within the borders of the former "Motor City," down from two dozen in 1980, and the city's population has sunk below the 1 million mark. On the morning Clinton delivered his speech, Detroit school children had gone four days without attending classes because the city government is so starved for funds that it could not afford to plow the streets after a heavy snowstorm. Under a tide of public criticism, Mayor Archer announced on the eve of Clinton's visit that he would seek to mobilize trucks from the suburbs, together with volunteers and forced labor from jail inmates in a belated effort to begin digging out the residents of the city. See Also: Winter storm exposes social chasm in Detroit City services at standstill one week later [12 January 1999] Top of page Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. 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