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Virginia Doesn’t Want Detroit to Get Convention Dollars

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About 14 months ago, I was at Netroots Nation in Providence, RI. RI has, like MI, been really battered by the Great Recession. Nevertheless, we had just seen Providence’s glorious WaterFire installment. And I had spent lots of time talking to local politicos getting a boost from Netroots Nation’s presence.

At a party that night, I got into a conversation with a top Netroots Nation organizer, describing a protest of GE’s shareholder meeting at Detroit’s Renaissance Center earlier that year. I described the responses people who had flown in for the event — including people who’d grown up in MI and people who’d never been in the state — had to seeing Detroit. Partly it was trauma in response to devastation of the city, the empty spaces, the decay. Partly it was a recognition of the energy and beauty that remain in the city. For Americans to see both the devastation and the hope of the city was, I thought, an important experience before the rest of the country follows the disinvestment and decline of Detroit.

The Netroots Nation person said, “What do you think about holding Netroots Nation in Detroit, so everyone gets that experience?”

I’m sure the NN organizers were already considering the idea, but I like to think my enthusiasm, as well as that of Eclectablog, who shortly thereafter joined into the conversation and added how much he drives into Detroit to go out, had a role in NN picking Detroit as the location for next year’s convention.

Yesterday, the Detroit News published a crazy op-ed, from a right wing operative who doesn’t even live in MI, claiming that NN’s selection to come to Detroit was all about unions and their purported failures.

Detroit’s bankruptcy has shed light on the ugly face of progressive governance, and is a haunting indicator of what can happen when government lets public-sector unions bleed taxpayers dry.

As the city faces difficult decisions about its financial future, one would expect progressives and labor interests to divert attention from the fallout.

But instead, they’re bringing Netroots Nation, a conference of progressive activists, to Detroit next year to promote the same model of government at the national level.

Eclectablog skewers the revisionist history of Detroit’s decline and the corporatist backing of the op-ed here.

This is the standard, boilerplate misdirection we’ve come to expect from corporatist groups funded by SPN and AFP like the Michigan’s Mackinac Center: portray teachers, once considered pillars in our community, as greedy for daring to ask for a living wage, good healthcare benefits, and, God-forbid, a pension that allows them retire without living in poverty.

It’s the same approach used by corporate sponsored groups and wealthy individuals like Dick Devos across the country on an ever-increasing level.

Oddly, Telford’s op-ed is posted under the topic of “Detroit Bankruptcy”. The fact is, however, it has nothing to do with Detroit’s bankruptcy. It’s a propaganda piece written by a corporatist living in Virginia who is attempting to rewrite Michigan history to suit his group’s anti-union agenda.

In Michigan, we know better. We know that the labor movement, which was born in Michigan, created the middle class. We know that unions brought us the 40-hour work week and raised the standard of living of our citizens so that they, too, could enjoy the benefits of a successful industrial manufacturing economy. They protect workers from the greed and excess of profit-minded corporations ensuring a safe workplace and sensible environmental protections.

It’s funny. Here’s a guy who lives in VA, a place that has benefitted from 12 years of massive government stimulus, going out of his way to speak out against Detroit — a city that owes a small part of its woes to policies set in the DC Metro area — winning convention dollars from a progressive organization (backed, I’m proud to say, by enthusiastic residents of the state).

How insecure do you have to be to go that far out of your way to discredit the idea of people from all over the states coming to Detroit to network, spend money, and have fun?

Leaving Las Vegas

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I’m at the airport well in advance of my flight to leave Netroots Nation, and thought it overdue to check in, since I’ve been so quiet all week.

This year’s Netroots Nation–the fifth (I’ve attended all of them)–felt utterly familiar, like a family reunion only without any of the fights about politics. FDL had a good contingent (as has probably been obvious): given that we do so much work together remotely, it was great to spend time with Rayne, Gregg, Michael Whitney, David Dayen, Lisa Derrick, and Jon Walker. And I enjoyed spending good time with Rosalind, Bob Schacht, and Garrett.

Just as important seeing the increasingly few people trying to return our country to the rule of law. In addition to the great people on my panel: Jerry Nadler, Vince Warren, Matthew Alexander, and Adam Serwer, people like Daphne Eviatar and Jason Leopold were there (and I’ve not spent much time with either before), as well as more folks from ACLU and CCR. Jeremy Scahill would have been at my panel–except that his conflicted with mine (though we did get to spend some time together).

And then there were all the discussions about where we go from here. There was a bunch of discussion about several things: how we put the teacher funding back into the war supplemental–we have no business firing teachers to pay for war (yeah, then there’s the big question of whether we have any business at war in Afghanistan). There were lots of discussions about the economy generally. And there was near unanimity (well, maybe downright unanimity) that we need to make sure that Elizabeth Warren gets the Consumer Financial Protection Agency position.

In fact, one of the highlights of the trip this year was meeting some of the best women in politics. I got to meet Warren, who is every bit as much a rock star in person as she is on teevee. I spent some time with Linda Chavez-Thompson, talking about what she will do when she wins her election to be Lieutenant Governor of Texas. And, as you’ll see on Monday once I’ve transcribed everything and written it up, I had the opportunity to talk to Nancy Pelosi (and Jan Schakowsky) about intelligence reform. It’s pretty damned humbling–and inspiring–to get to spend time with such a collection of women heroes.

There’s a lot more I’ll hopefully write up over the next few days. But for the moment, I head back home once again remembering that this bloggy politics thing is all about community.