Here’s the video from my appearance on Fox News Detroit’s “Let it Rip” show last night. I shared the riser with Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero who ran against Rick Snyder in the gubernatorial race last year and Nolan Finley, the very conservative Editorial Page Editor from the Detroit News. The topic was the announcement that Governor Rick Snyder will be starting the process that could result in an Emergency Manager for Detroit.
With five of us on the show and only 15 minutes to work with, there wasn’t a lot of time for anyone to say much of anything but I felt like I was able to make a couple of decent points in the few minutes I got.
I’m the bald dude in the middle.
Let It Rip: Detroit’s Draws a ‘Line in the Sand’: MyFoxDETROIT.com
I had a chance to talk to Mayor Bernero for about a half hour in the Green Room (actually was green) before the show started. He spent most of the time making a quite compelling case for regional metropolitan governments.
Nolan Finley is solidly in the camp that everything has been tried, enough time has been given, now it’s time to take control over failing cities. He has no faith that other paradigms are available besides the Emergency Manager model.
Before (and again during) the show, when I spoke about how undemocratic the Emergency Manager Law is, the host Murray Feldman told me, “Well, it’s an undemocratic law. That’s how it’s supposed to work.” It’s my contention that this is decidedly not the baseline from which we should work. We need to back up and start from a more fundamental position that holds democracy to be sacrosanct. If we start there, it may limit what can be done, but it preserves a bedrock foundation upon which our country is built. I’m actually rather appalled to hear people toss democracy aside as if it’s optional if we don’t like the way things are going; something to be abandoned when it’s no longer convenient. But that is, indeed, how many feel and it should shock and worry us all.
Cross-posted from Eclectablog.
It’s interesting that Repubicans / “Libertarians” / Teabaggers / etc. can say it’s ok to take over a city because of “xyz” but they scream about liberty and freedom when it comes to organized labor, taxes, no smoking laws, etc. The hypocrisy is stunning. BUT GREAT JOB Chris, you did very well! Way to represent brother!!!!
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Thank you, Christine. It was a whirlwind segment and, with five of us on the riser, there wasn’t much time for any one of us to say too much. Plus, Virg Bernero can speak for at least five minutes without taking a breath and Nolan Finley isn’t much different. It was a challenge for me, someone not used to doing these types of things, to interject my viewpoint.
I completely agree about the hypocrisy coming from the right on this. There is only one example of a member of the tea party being consistent on this. It’s here: An eloquent takedown of the Emergency Manager Law from a TEA PARTY candidate.
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Chris, you have a look on your face that actually scared Virg.
Well done, sir!
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Personally, I think you did a very good job. Solid on topic, didn’t get pulled into the budget/numbers distracter Finley (the other ‘bold dude’, the idiot with the glasses) as attempting to slosh the topic with, or the nailing down of Virg.
Finley, with all the heinous commentary he continually spews about the City of Detroit, is… well have to say it… LYING when he pretends to a supporter of regional development. Not buying that one for a second.
And I’m not the only one. From a Detriot Blogger:
Amen.
Finley in a piece supporting a Snyder speech at Mackinac Island, that things might be a little better (June 2011):
And Finley on the “Emergency Manager” at Detroit Public Schools, he says:
BEST for last – Finley in his own weirdo words, but essentially agreeing with your comments about not curing the REAL problems of challenged Michigan urban areas (September 2011):
Also in this September 19, 2011 piece he mentioned the need for a ‘regional’ approach. HA, for regional lawyers and accounting firms that will make the BIG RATES supporting the EM takeover, or the profiteering on the privatization of assets… oh how they want that water plant.
Finley doesn’t know the real problems, he a BIG part of the problem. Shame anybody listens to his nay-saying anymore, it’s way old.
The fight over the occupation of Detroit is a long way from over with the threatened appointment of an EM by a Republican Governor. In fact it’s just beginning.
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It is remarkable the way contradiction is well spoken of in the GOP. How contradictory it is when we go to other countries and talk about democracy, go to war for democracy, preach it in corporations were we vote freely and go by the rules, and yet the whole Democratic process, is laughed at and undermined in our own country. Well, done Chris. How, can the law that makes the appointment of emergency managers be repealed or scrap altogether? How, can we as citizen bring that about? Is there a constitutional lawyer who would take this case all the way to the Supreme Court?
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[...] Eclectablog on Fox News with Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and … [...]
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