 
Masterblaster
Member
Username: Masterblaster
Post Number: 44
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 10:54 am: |    |
PEOPLE PLEASE!!!
Instead of all of these hundreds of people just commenting on a internet forum ...
TAKE ACTION!!!!!
Why don't all of y'all get together, agree on an urban neighborhood (like Midtown, New Center, Downtown) that y'all would all move to....AND THEN MOVE TO THAT NEIGHBORHOOD.
YOU CAN HELP CREATE A VIBRANT COMMUNITY!!! INSTEAD OF JUST HOPPING ON TO SOMETHING THAT OTHERS MADE GREAT (like those flocking to Chicago, or NY or DC, or FERNDALE)
THEN, when all of y'all move to the community, then stage a sit-in at the local police precincts until they promise that they will do more to protect the neighborhoods' inhabitants.
THEN, keep applying pressure on the local police force to do their jobs!! THEN KEEP APPLYING MORE PRESSURE!!! AND MORE!!!! and more until things improve.
THEN, all of y'all can picket and raise hell at the DPS headquarters DAY AND NIGHT until they pledge to stop wasting money and improve the schools. THEN, KEEP RAISING HELL until things get better!!! AND KEEP RAISING HELL, and don't stop until things have progressed!!!
The "raising of hell/picketing of DPD AND DPS" could be done in shifts. The people that live in this Midtown street could do it one day, the people that live on that Midtown street could do it on another day.
Next, create a neighborhood citizen policing initiative, where citizens would drive around the streets in cars marked CITIZENS POLICE, sort of like what I have seen in Warrendale.
AND THEN, once you become city residents, then you can groom, attract, and elect officials that share your common goals. Campaign for those officials. Get the word out that these officials are going to deliver the desired results - safety, good services, good schools!!!
NOW ALL THIS TAKES a lot of effort and a lot of people. But if all of these MANY, MANY people on this forum who live in the 'burbs would do this...
If we get enough people together, WE CAN MAKE THE CHANGE. Instead waiting for these inept, greedy politicians and administrators to do the job, VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE AND ELECT THE RIGHT PEOPLE.
Then, IF YOU WOULD LIKE, volunteer your time to get involved in some kind of mentoring programs that target poor youth so that the YOUNG PEOPLE WILL BE INFLUENCED BY PROGRESSIVE, HARDWORKING, GOOD-WILLED people and maybe you might be able to prevent them from becoming STREET THUGS! (It's too bad their parents' ain't raisin' them right)
The point is to GET TOGETHER and TAKE ACTION, stop talking on this forum and waiting for somebody else to do it. There are enough people who want to live in a thriving urban Detroit, that WE can make it happen!!!! |
Eric_c
Member
Username: Eric_c
Post Number: 986
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 11:14 am: | |
Field Avenue welcomes forumers.
Come hither. ;) |
Susanarosa
Member
Username: Susanarosa
Post Number: 1537
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 11:42 am: | |
Um, no. |
Quozl
Member
Username: Quozl
Post Number: 737
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 11:48 am: | |
quote:Um, no.
No to Field Avenue or the call to GET TOGETHER and TAKE ACTION? |
Susanarosa
Member
Username: Susanarosa
Post Number: 1538
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 11:51 am: | |
Um, both.
But mostly to that creepy little winky face. |
Pam
Member
Username: Pam
Post Number: 1813
Registered: 11-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 11:52 am: | |
Can you tone down the all caps? It reads like shouting. Thanks. |
Quozl
Member
Username: Quozl
Post Number: 738
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 11:57 am: | |
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Jelk
Member
Username: Jelk
Post Number: 4435
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 11:57 am: | |
Wow that post really makes me feel less optimistic about things in Detroit. Michissippi here we come. |
Thatgirl
Member
Username: Thatgirl
Post Number: 10
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 12:03 pm: | |
weren't you already less optimistic, jelk? |
Dds
Member
Username: Dds
Post Number: 253
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 12:08 pm: | |
If everyone moves to Detroit, who will ride the commuter rail from Ann Arbor? |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 952
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 12:09 pm: | |
"Wow that post really makes me feel less optimistic about things in Detroit. Michissippi here we come."
Sometimes I swear Michigan just refuses to let go of the 1980s. Ronald Reagan isn't the president anymore, in fact, he's dead. The Taurus isn't the best selling car anymore, in fact, Ford's dead. LOL. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2922
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 12:10 pm: | |
Good post, Masterblaster. ACTION is the key. Too many people in Michigan and Detroit are too passive, and have been for too long.
Hey Pam, maybe he/she is SHOUTING.
"...NYC, DC, or Ferndale."
haha one of those doesn't belong.
(Message edited by mackinaw on June 12, 2007) |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 953
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 12:20 pm: | |
"'...NYC, DC, or Ferndale.'
haha one of those doesn't belong."
lol, Who would dare utter DC in the same sentence as posh NYC and hip Ferndale? |
Jelk
Member
Username: Jelk
Post Number: 4436
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 12:37 pm: | |
I'm actually quite optimistic about many things going on in Detroit. The forward progress in the last decade is outstanding. That optimism is tempered because I understand that profound, sustained change takes a tremendous amount of time, money, and effort. Moreover, I am acutely aware (and unafraid to acknowledge) that Detroit faces many challenges because of the region and state's recent poor economic performance, lack of economic diversity, and generally uneducated, ignorant, and uncosmopolitian population. Even by your average Joe Lunchbucket American standards Michigan has become a provincial and anti-intellectual place.
So while I can look at the improvements downtown and positive neighborhood initiatives with great pride and optimism, I can not join the Detroitists who believe things will turn around by 2008 or that everything will be jolly in Detroit by 2012.
Michigan, if it wishes to survive as an economic force, must be prepared to undergo a multi-generational shift in culture, attitudes, and priorities. The state is late to this game already and many times I fear there is no one with political will to take charge of that effort. I do not see an FDR figure in the Governor's mansion right now nor is there one on the horizon from either party. I will defer to Jack Lessenberry if you wish more in-depth arguments about the timidity of leadership in Michigan.
Detroit does perhaps have an educated population segment that could help the city lead this colossal shift but there is also a significantly larger population segment that is functionally illiterate or with little hope of improving their lot in life. You can picket the DPS if you want but I'm not sure that's going to help much. Lead a horse to water, etc.
Things are improving in Detroit. As someone who has spent his entire post-college career in the non-profit sector, I'm not indifferent to people wanting to improve the world around them. But when that desire is motivated by unrealistic ambitions of creating a shining world-class city on a hill in 36 months, well it's just misplaced energy.
If you really want to "help" make things better in Detroit be existential about it. Do things that improve your quality of life and don't worry about rest. Frankly for some people that might mean moving to Ferndale because they couldn't get their son or daughter into Bates or Burton. Why waste energy judging them? Ideas like CITIZEN POLICE FORCES and protesting to our hands bleed probably do more to scare people away from living in Detroit than anything else. |
Eric_c
Member
Username: Eric_c
Post Number: 987
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 1:22 pm: | |
Stay the hell off my block and get yer hot Latin ass back to the Kiddie Table, MISS ROSA! I'll wink if I want to, and more. :-P
Jelk, well said.
Identify your goal and go for it. We all do our part. |
Masterblaster
Member
Username: Masterblaster
Post Number: 45
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 2:08 pm: | |
Mr. Jelk, what do you mean "don't worry about the rest."???
Even if I do my part to improve my quality of life - take care of my house and yard, pay water bill/taxes, etc., there is still going to be:
1. too much crime
2. too much lawlessness
3. too much lack of respect for others and their property
4. poor services
5. high taxes & insurance
The problem that has been identified on this forum is that there are not enough people in the city who are fixing up their houses, and taking care of their families, and electing the right people into office.
Those type of people have been leaving for 50+ years, and are still leaving today.
So me "doing my part" (Eric_c) will probably prove fruitless, because there are not enough of good-willed, hardworking people still remaining - they keep leaving!
But if there was a critical mass of people who are interested in building a unique, urban community would "get together" and they all move to that community, then they would be surrounded by progressive folks who care about building up that community. And they might join civic organizations that will promote the betterment of their community and get rid of the riff raff.
This city's issues are so deep and so profound (terrible economy and the lack of respect for law & order, etc) that if it is to ever experience a renaissance, we are going to have to do something that nobody has ever done before. |
Thatgirl
Member
Username: Thatgirl
Post Number: 11
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 2:47 pm: | |
Wow, you almost completely changed my perception of you, Jelk. Honestly. I def agree with most of what you said. However, in some ways I DO think we have to worry about everyone else, but with your specific example, you are correct...why waste time judging them? |
Jelk
Member
Username: Jelk
Post Number: 4437
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 3:44 pm: | |
quote:Even if I do my part to improve my quality of life - take care of my house and yard, pay water bill/taxes, etc., there is still going to be:
1. too much crime
2. too much lawlessness
3. too much lack of respect for others and their property
4. poor services
5. high taxes & insurance
Yes that is probably so.
quote:His Solution, Doremus pointed out, was the only one that did not flee before the thought that a thousand years from now human beings would probably continue to die of cancer and earthquake and such clownish mishaps as slipping in bathtubs. It presumed that mankind would continue to be burdened with eyes that grow weak, feet that grow tired, noses that itch, intestines vulnerable to bacilli, and generative organs that are nervous until the age of virtue and senility. It seemed to him unidealistically probable, for all the “contemporary furniture” of the 1930’s, that most people would continue, at least for a few hundred years, to sit in chairs, eat from dishes upon tables, read books—no matter how many cunning phonographic substitutes might be invented, wear shoes or sandals, sleep in beds, write with some sort of pens, and in general spend twenty or twenty-two hours a day much as they had spent them in 1930, in 1630. He suspected that tornadoes, floods, droughts, lightning, and mosquitoes would remain, along with the homicidal tendency known in the best of citizens when their sweethearts go dancing off with other men. - Sinclair Lewis; It Can't Happen Here |
Kid_dynamite
Member
Username: Kid_dynamite
Post Number: 6
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 3:57 pm: | |
Do you have a response, Mr. Caveman?
"Yeah, I have a response. Uh....what??" |
Lukabottle
Member
Username: Lukabottle
Post Number: 73
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 5:14 pm: | |
So is everyone inspired by MB and plan on attending the Central District Meeting today at 6:30? We can hold a sit in and all sing koom baya as we refuse to let anyone leave the meeting until we see the end of Crack. |
Dialh4hipster
Member
Username: Dialh4hipster
Post Number: 2082
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 6:19 pm: | |
Well Jelk, if nothing else you're literate. |
Jelk
Member
Username: Jelk
Post Number: 4439
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 12:15 pm: | |
quote:Well Jelk, if nothing else you're literate.
Well I try. Sometimes it isn't easy in this town. Thank God for Mr. John King and the fine people at store #1 in Ann Arbor. |
Lukabottle
Member
Username: Lukabottle
Post Number: 74
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 1:04 pm: | |
OOPs, CD Meeting is next week. |
Kslice
Member
Username: Kslice
Post Number: 57
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:58 pm: | |
Master balster? Isn;t that the name of the guy in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome???
Anyway what he's saying is correct. Without good working class people the city will continue to die. I love this city and hate to see so many abandon it. STAY AND MAKE IT BETTER!
The fact is we need to get back to the 80's, not over them. Return to a time of responsability and action. how can you have a city where people all hate each other.
oh, and having the mafia helps... |
Newlaster
Member
Username: Newlaster
Post Number: 222
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 14, 2007 - 4:05 pm: | |
You want everyone to move to ONE neighborhood?
That would create artificially inflated prices in one area and a destitute wasteland in the rest of town.
Should we call it the Green Zone and build a wall around it? The White Zone, perhaps?
That's the most moronic idea I've heard in a long time. Nice try. |
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