Author Topic: America Discovers Zev Chafets' Book on the Role of Race in Detroit's Demise  (Read 1460 times)

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Offline Rapunzel

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http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/07/24/america_discovers_zev_chafets_book_on_the_role_of_race_in_detroit_s_demise


America Discovers Zev Chafets' Book on the Role of Race in Detroit's Demise
July 24, 2013
 

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: When you build from the middle-out, you get Detroit.  That is exactly what the unions did to Detroit. They took a city that was built by manufacturing giants, they took control for the past 50 years, they had a better way, unions and the Democrats would begin to grow Detroit from the middle out, and look what happened.  By the way, I've gotta tell you something.  I talked about Zev Chafets' book about Detroit yesterday, what really explains Detroit's bankruptcy.  Zev Chafets published a book in 1990 called "Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit"   And I reviewed some of the book. "

I skimmed it, a little book report for you yesterday, and the book focuses on the Mayor Coleman Young as the real culprit in what happened to Detroit, and the fact that, yeah, you can't deny that liberalism played a large role in Detroit's failure, unchecked Democrat power, unions as well, the decline of the auto industry, all those are factors, but Zev Chafets' point in his book is that it was Coleman Young, the mayoralty of Coleman Young single-handedly is responsible -- well, nothing is single-handedly, but largely responsible for what happened to Detroit.

Now, the title of Zev's book, "Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit" -- when I mentioned this, Zev's book was at about one million, ranked one million at Amazon. I mean, it's 1990, 23 years old.  Today Zev's book is at number 300, after just talking about it yesterday.  And they're thinking they might want to reissue it.  Let me just review, for those of you who missed it, because it's a fascinating take, especially we have just learned that the Detroit city council has demanded, they have passed a proclamation or an ordinance, they've unanimously agreed that George Zimmerman must be investigated by the federal government.

The city council of a bankrupt city took the time to debate whether or not the city ought to demand a federal investigation of George Zimmerman.

Oh, and speaking of Zimmerman, the UK Daily Mail has an interesting story.  "The family rescued by George Zimmerman after a rollover crash in Florida are terrified they will become targets for hate mobs." They are not afraid of the Tea Party.  They are afraid of Democrat Party and Twitter hate mobs.  This has not been reported in the US media that I have seen.

The family name is Gerstel.  "Mark and Oceander Michelle Gerstle said they do not want to talk publicly about Zimmerman for fear they will be accused of portraying him as a hero Zimmerman pulled the couple and their two children from their car after a terrifying crash on July 17.  It was the first time Zimmerman was seen since being acquitted," in the trial Trayvon Martin's murder, or death.  "Went into hiding after he, his family and attorneys received death threats and thousands protested the verdict. Gerstle family are frightened Zimmerman haters will target them too.  'They are very grateful to Zimmerman for what he did, but they do not want to get involved.'"

The only reason that they came forward to the extent that they have is because, as predicted, it was all over the Twitterverse and everywhere that this was a staged event. It didn't really happen. It wasn't a genuine event, that it was staged to make Zimmerman look good, and it wasn't.  The family has surfaced, but they don't want to talk publicly about it because they're afraid they're gonna be targeted.  Amazing.  Literally amazing.  It's in the UK Daily Mail.

Now, there's Obama.  Is he being heckled -- no, he's not being heckled.  He's pointing to somebody in the audience.  He's in Galesburg, Illinois.  This is the Limbaugh Theorem.  What Obama is now doing is he's going outside Washington. He's on the campaign trail. He's talking about the economy as though he's got nothing to do with it.  He's talking about what we've gotta do to get this economy going.  We're into year five of his presidency.  His policies have had a horrible impact on the US economy.  And he's out trying to make sure that his base and the low-information voters do not figure that out.  He's now campaigning against what he did and he's trying to make look like other people are responsible.

He's now aligned with everybody who's hurting, and he's just like they are. He's trying to fix it. He's working hard. He's got these uncooperative Republicans in Washington who don't care about you, and they're content to let this economy squander because they think that's how they can have political victory over Obama.  So he's out on the campaign trail for the next two months.  And the purpose of these optics is to make it appear like he has no attachment whatsoever.  It's the Limbaugh Theorem live and in person.  And as I say, the media is not falling for it.

Anyway, let me finish this business about Zev's book, the Devil's Night and Other True Tales, 'cause I read this -- somebody had told me, "Rush, you need to look at this because it's not just liberalism that did Detroit in; race did Detroit in."  It was race.  And you need to understand what really happened.  So they directed me or steered me to Zev's book.  And according to the book "Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit," Detroit was the most racist city in the north for decades, and it wasn't accidental.  The police department in Detroit, by virtue of policy, hired lawmen, police officers and so forth from the south, southern accents and all that, and they gave these guys orders to kick ass.  And they did.

The city was completely segregated, and urban renewal, which was a feature of many big cities in the country at the time, urban renewal had the effect of crowding the black population into very small neighborhoods in the city, and the racial tension mounted.  In 1967, it boiled over and the black population of Detroit rioted.  They burned down and looted entire neighborhoods.  This caused the white population of Detroit to flee the city.  They got out of there so fast, according to this book, Devil's Night, they moved into unfinished houses in the suburbs.  Some of the houses didn't even have electricity run to 'em yet. Some didn't have water lines and so forth, much less furniture and this kind of thing.  But it didn't matter.  The riots and the chaos were such that the white population just skedaddled.

This resulted in a depopulation of the city, which actually had started with the building of freeways in the fifties, making it easier to get out of the city.  These riots accelerated the exodus and it became a full-fledged exodus from the city.  So in 1973 the majority black population of Detroit elected Coleman Young.  He was the first black mayor.  And Coleman Young -- this was something I didn't know, I mean, I hadn't even thought about it, but Coleman Young did not come from the civil rights movement.  He was not like an Andrew Young in Atlanta or any of the other newly elected black mayors in the seventies.

He didn't come out of the Martin Luther King movement. He didn't come out of Selma or any of that.  He was a radical of a very, very leftist organization.  He's a tough guy.  He was charismatic.  He was funny, but he did not turn the other cheek.  I mean, he was loaded for bear every day.  Every day was a battle.  He was not happy unless he was battling somebody.  He invented battles.  He invented reasons to be at war.  That was his mentality.  And he was at war with the white population, who he accused of abandoning the city.  But he accused them not only of abandoning the city, but then he accused them of trying to run the city from outside the city.

They had fled to the burbs.

So he declared war on what he called the hostile suburbs of Detroit.  There were calls after the riots for gun control.  He said no way, we're not having any. I want my people fully armed in this city.  So he nixed any gun control on the grounds that it would be dangerous to disarm his people in the face of this white KKK lurking beyond Eight Mile Road.  So this ended up discouraging any type of investment in the city, and that investment which did happen had to go through his office.  Any investment, growth, whatever, in the city did not happen unless it first went through his office.  He turned the police force into his militia.  And what he did was set out to create a black city state south of Eight Mile Road.  And he called what he was doing the rebellion.

He called the former white administrations occupying powers.  The black population of Detroit's eating this up, folks.  Gotta understand, they loved it.  They absolutely loved Coleman Young.  This was a guy who was at war with the former white leadership of Detroit that had fled the city after the riots and went to the suburbs and he is calling them the KKK lurking beyond Eight Mile occupying powers.  He even erected a statue in honor of Joe Louis, which a giant black fist right at the freeway entrance to downtown Detroit.

Anyway, this went on for 20 years.  There were 20 years of municipal black nationalism and ideological separatism.  And by the time he left, the city was in a shambles.  And the book, I mean, this is just a surface report.  I didn't have a chance to read the entire thing.  I skimmed it, checked things that looked interesting to me and came up for you with this little book report here, but Detroit's just the first of many cities that are on this path.  They do have things in common:  liberalism, control of the city by unions, but the point that this book makes in analyzing what's wrong with Detroit is that you cannot leave race out of the equation, and in fact it may be the number one reason that Detroit is in the mess that it is in.

So, you know, Detroit, the legacy of Coleman Young, I mean, he got rich, and he was happy. As far as he was concerned, this was the pinnacle of his career, but he left a city with no tax base, no budget, no funds, no services, no schools, hardly any employment, a fleeing middle class where people were just running as fast as they could to get out of town.  And a city, now bankrupt, is being run by Republican governor by virtue of all this, which is a great irony.  Anyway, "Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit," by Zev Chafets.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  By the way, don't misunderstand, folks.  I'm not trying to deemphasize liberalism as a cause for what happened in Detroit, because racial tension is liberalism.  Race wars are liberalism.  Race wars happen because of liberalism, and if they're not caused by, they certainly are encouraged. The flames of race wars are fanned by liberals.  The two are inseparable.  But the point of Zev's book is it would be to miss the point just to chalk it all up to liberalism.  You have a card-carrying communist as a mayor who wanted a black nationalist, separatist city that was really done in by his leadership, and that was all brought about by the riots in 1967.

END TRANSCRIPT
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline Cincinnatus

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He even erected a statue in honor of Joe Louis, which a giant black fist right at the freeway entrance to downtown Detroit.

That statement provoked my interest so I went and found an image of the thing.



"Joe Lewis", huh? More like "In Your Face, Whitey"
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He even erected a statue in honor of Joe Louis, which a giant black fist right at the freeway entrance to downtown Detroit.

That statement provoked my interest so I went and found an image of the thing.



"Joe Lewis", huh? More like "In Your Face, Whitey"

Tilt that up by 90 degrees and you get the standard socialist/fascist salute:




Offline Rapunzel

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Did anyone watch Hannity tonight.  For some reason he loves having Austin Goolesby on his program and tonight was no exception.  One heretofore unknown jewel emerged from their back and forth, however...... did ya'll know Detroit failed because it was a one trick pony (auto industry) which employed uneducated and otherwise unemployable men and women ....... and it has failed because the weather is cold. 

Kid you not.  Cold weather caused Detroit to fail.  Proof of the pudding was all the jobs moved to the southern or western states. 

Either Professor Goolesby is a total idiot or disingenuous.. and leave it to Hannity to once again fail to mention the obvious....... they moved down there from MI because they were RIGHT TO WORK states.
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline truth_seeker

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Did anyone watch Hannity tonight.  For some reason he loves having Austin Goolesby on his program and tonight was no exception.  One heretofore unknown jewel emerged from their back and forth, however...... did ya'll know Detroit failed because it was a one trick pony (auto industry) which employed uneducated and otherwise unemployable men and women ....... and it has failed because the weather is cold. 

Kid you not.  Cold weather caused Detroit to fail.  Proof of the pudding was all the jobs moved to the southern or western states. 

Either Professor Goolesby is a total idiot or disingenuous.. and leave it to Hannity to once again fail to mention the obvious....... they moved down there from MI because they were RIGHT TO WORK states.
I remember the early-mid 70s when American cars started their downward quality and engineering spiral.

The engine power fell dramatically as they couldn't keep pace, technology wise. And assembly quality became an embarrassment, leading to entire generations turning to imports for economy and quality.

By the time they sort of caught up, they had lost massive market share. All along they were shifting production out of high cost, low quality Detroit.

There is NO WAY the remaining "labor force" residing in Detroit can repay the debts, or attract businesses.
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline Scottftlc

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"I remember the early-mid 70s when American cars started their downward quality and engineering spiral."

Ah, yes, the Pinto (my wife had one) and the Vega (my death trap).  And then there was the Gremlin.
Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
You can't open your mind, boys, to every conceivable point of view

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Offline Rapunzel

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"I remember the early-mid 70s when American cars started their downward quality and engineering spiral."

Ah, yes, the Pinto (my wife had one) and the Vega (my death trap).  And then there was the Gremlin.

~lol~ The Vega. I hate to admit I had one - for a short period of time ..
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline Scottftlc

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American cars became so bad in the late 70s that by the 80s (when I started making enough to buy a new car) you wouldn't consider anything but a Japanese make, with Toyota being the make of choice.  American cars were by then [bad] jokes.
Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
You can't open your mind, boys, to every conceivable point of view

...Bob Dylan

Offline Rapunzel

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http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/07/25/by_popular_demand_zev_s_book_on_detroit_will_be_re_released


By Popular Demand, Zev's Book on Detroit Will be Re-Released

July 25, 2013
 
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Rich in Clarkston, Michigan. I'm glad you called, sir. Nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. You are my political pastor and a gift from God.

RUSH: (laughing) Thank you, sir, very much, I appreciate that. I really do.

Quote
CALLER: It's true, and you're on my prayer list. Detroit's decline actually started with capital flight and not white flight. It began with Detroit Democratic Mayor Drone Cavanaugh who was elected around 1961 or '62, and with Lansing's approval, they imposed a Detroit city additional income tax of about one and a half percent, a property tax of one and a half percent, and a utility tax. And so on top of all the regular taxes everyone pays, now Detroit had these additional taxes. So Cavanaugh saw himself like a young JFK and wanted to turn Detroit into an Oz, actually became an ooze, and the capital began with the wealthiest, who, if they moved out of Detroit, could save that three or four percent in taxes, and so then their property values dropped --

RUSH: Wait, hang on just a second. The wealthy were always in Grosse Pointe. What percentage of the Detroit population, the wealthy, actually lived in the city limits?

Quote
CALLER: Well, there is right downtown just outside the City Center are districts called Boston Street, and there's huge mansions, and there was a lot of mansions like where the mayor lives in Manoogian Mansion, there's a lot of wealthy areas, very wealthy areas still in the city. They're declining, but they're still there. So back in the day, there was Indian Village, and I can't think of all the names of them right off the top of my head, but there was a lot of wealth in the city in homes. And plus their businesses. So their businesses got hit. Their personal property taxes got hit, real estate taxes. And so it was capital flight. I read this in an article at a local college I went to back in the nineties.

So then those property values dropped, and nobody with that kind of money was gonna move into the city and lose that kind of money due to the tax, and so all the property values began to decline, and so people just kept fleeing. And then of course the '67 riots didn't help and Coleman Young didn't help and everything else you've been talking about, but that's the real genesis of it is the capital flight due to the income tax. And the city of Pontiac and Flint also have these same taxes, and they're both the same.

RUSH: But wait. You're saying it in a different way, but I think that I covered this because the city, during the time you're talking about, was completely segregated, right?

CALLER: I can't answer that. I mean, I was a child at that time, and my dad worked at the Wurlitzer Building right downtown. It's still there. It's ready to come down.

Quote
RUSH: Well, but there was a lot of urban renewal that was taking place. This was prior to Coleman Young. There was a lot of urban renewal taking place, and all of the blacks ended up being crowded into very small neighborhoods. And there was racial tension in Detroit, I mean, look, I'm not disagreeing with you that money fled the city. Everything fled the city. Everybody that could get out, did, is the bottom line, for whatever reason. But after that happened, what is key about Detroit after the flight happened, nothing took place to reverse it.

It remained segregated, white versus black, poor versus wealthy. Wealthy was in suburbia and outside of town north of Eight Mile, and Coleman Young had his little fiefdom in town that was just going downhill rapidly, and he kept exacerbating racial tensions. I mean, I'm not trying to stoke any fire here, but I'm trying to honestly reflect what I've read about this period and what happened. 'Cause I think it all combines to lead to this mess. And there's no way to sugarcoat what happened or what is happening. None.

CALLER: Well, Rush, to this day, in 2010, the Michigan legislature, which was taken over by Republicans and Governor Snyder, had to approve the extension of that law, especially with Detroit's declining population. So here, they're still taxing the poorest of the poor. You're driving through Detroit, and you've seen the pictures on television, but you've got these little old ladies living in these little rundown homes, and they have to pay this additional property tax if they're working, and income tax and utility tax, and they need that money to fix up their own houses.

RUSH: Well, hey. Welcome to America.

CALLER: Yeah, but Detroit will never recover until they get rid of that tax.

RUSH: That's not exclusive to Detroit. That's happening everywhere. Governments are out of control, irresponsible, never have enough money, never tighten their own belts, and when they are forced to, they always threaten to shut down police departments and teachers and all these things. "No, no, don't close my fire station, what if my house catches fire?"

"Okay, all right, we won't, but we can't cut the budget."

"Okay, well, don't cut the budget then."

One of the outcomes, folks, of Detroit jacking up taxes so high, less than half of the Detroit property taxes are even being paid. The collection rate is abysmal. People just don't have the money. There's nothing they can do. You can send people a bill for their property tax, if they don't have the money, that's it. And the collection rate on property taxes in Detroit proper, 50%. Sorry, that isn't workable.

I need to say something. By the way, thanks, Rich, for the call. I appreciate it. Detroit News, it's a story: "Half of Detroit Property Owners Don't Pay Taxes." From February 21st of this year. Half of Detroit property owners just don't pay their property taxes. If I didn't pay mine I'd get kicked out. If I didn't pay my property tax, my house would be auctioned on the courthouse steps. (interruption) What do you mean, they wouldn't? It almost did. Let me tell you a little story so people understand that this happens everywhere. Not long after I moved here and purchased the estate -- ahem -- for a bunch of reasons, the property tax bill was sent to a financial firm in New York City, and the financial firm in New York City, some secretary, didn't know what to do with it, so it just sat there. I never got the bill.

You get the bill in November here, and you can pay it all then or you can wait a month and it goes up by 2%, another month, and you have until May, I think, to pay it all off. It was early in my residency here, and I was not familiar with how the whole system worked, so I was not aware that the bill arrived in November so I wasn't even looking for it. It wasn't even on my mind. It's ultimately my fault, but I want to tell you what happened. Three days before the due date, the final due date, I get a phone call from somebody who will not tell me who they are, saying, "If you don't pay your property tax, your house is going up for auction on the courthouse steps, essentially, next week."

And I had no idea what he was talking about. "Well, who are you?"

"I don't want to say."

It turned out to be a friend of somebody who worked in the assessor's office. There were people in there hoping I wouldn't pay it so that they could take the house away. It would have been auctioned. That's what happens here when you don't pay your property tax. They take your house away from you. So fortunately because this guy called, I was able to. I had to run down and get a cashier's check for the amount. I had to hustle and get it done. And ever since that bill comes in November, I pay it. But I almost lost the property here simply because I didn't know the system and nobody in New York knew what to do with the bill, didn't know what it was.

I'm only tell you the story 'cause, Snerdley, said, "Nah, that would never happen. You're too big to fail." Wrong. There were people hoping -- you know, little liberals that work there -- they were hoping, that's what this guy told me on the phone. I still don't know who it was. I thought he was calling from the assessor's office, I said, "Can I send you a check?" "No. I don't have anything to do with it." It took me about a half hour to figure out who he was. I thought he was coming from the assessor's office. He was just a good Samaritan who had heard what was going on.

I wanted to tell you about Zev Chafets' book. This is really an amazing story. I grabbed a copy of it. It's called "Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit," and my scan of this book has been my source material this week for explaining what happened to Detroit. The book is not in print. People have been trying to buy it, and, of course, it's 23 years old. It's out of print. Guess what? There has been so much interest expressed in the book that the publisher is going to reissue it.

Now, I'm told that's gonna be two to three weeks. And I can't keep talking about this for two to three weeks, so you people are gonna have to remember this if you want to get a copy of this book. It is written by Zev Chafets, who did the biography of me and Roger Ailes, biography of me is titled "An Army of One." And it's his contention that Detroit's core problem isn't liberalism or unions or the decline of the auto industry. Those are factors, but he said it's race that led to Detroit's current problems, including bankruptcy. And his book makes the case for it, and it's quite an in-depth review of the mayoralty of Coleman Young.


So inadvertently I have been touting the book and people have been trying to buy it, and you can't. But because so many of you have expressed a desire, they're gonna reissue it, but it's gonna take 'em two to three weeks. Now, I don't know if you can preorder it, I haven't looked. I don't know that much, if it's an e-book as well as paperback. I don't know how they're gonna reissue it, but they are. But it's gonna take three weeks, so just be patient. It's worth waiting for. Even if you have no relationship to Detroit, the fact that many people say that Detroit is a forerunner of what could happen in additional American cities, it's informative in that context alone. Again, the title "Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Man, this is incredible. Used copies of Devil's Night are going for $2,000 and up on Amazon. Ha-ha-ha. Can you believe that? Used versions of Devil's Night are going for up to $2,000 on Amazon. Now, what you can do, I'm told, is add the book to your wish list on Amazon at their website. So if you have an account there. Well, if you don't, start one. But you get an account, add it to your wish list, and when it comes in, then Amazon will inform you.

But used versions of Devil's Night going for $2,000.

I wonder how that happened. Used copies of a book are up to two grand.

By the way, I got a note. "Rush, auctioning off your house on the courthouse steps doesn't apply in Detroit. The median home in Detroit is worth $13,000. Your house is worth more than the courthouse steps or even the courthouse." Now, what does it mean? It means I could buy Detroit with my house? You know, I offered to move to Rio Linda if they'd rename it "Limbaugh, California," and they said no. Maybe if I offered to buy Detroit if they name it Limbaugh... (interruption) Well, no, they're not all $2,000. There are other copies for $325, but there's one listed up there for $2,000.

END TRANSCRIPT
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Oceander

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"I remember the early-mid 70s when American cars started their downward quality and engineering spiral."

Ah, yes, the Pinto (my wife had one) and the Vega (my death trap).  And then there was the Gremlin.

The Gremlin was cool!  At least the one my neighbor had when I was in high school was cool, perhaps because he and a buddy managed to shoehorn a Chevy 350 into it - they used a sledge hammer to reshape the firewall.