Syndicated columnist David Sirota, a prominent author and broadcast commentator, accuses unnamed conservatives of using Detroit's situation to push "the political mythology that distorts America’s economic policymaking."
Journalist David Sirota doesn't say who's using "mythology" and "propaganda."
Writing in Salon under the headline "Don’t buy the right-wing myth about Detroit," he argues:
The specific story being crafted about Detroit’s bankruptcy is copied right from the chapter in the conservative movement’s bible about how to distort crises for maximum political effect.
In the conservative telling of this particular parable, Detroit faces a fiscal emergency because high taxes supposedly drove a mass exodus from the city, and the supposedly unbridled greed of unions forced city leaders to make fiscally irresponsible pension promises to municipal employees. Written out of the tale is any serious analysis of macroeconomic shifts, international economic policy failures, the geography of recent recessions and unsustainable corporate welfare spending.
This is classic right-wing dogma — the kind that employs selective storytelling to use a tragic event as a means to radical ends. In this case, the ends are . . . 1) preservation of job-killing trade policies; 2) immunity for corporations; and 3) justification for budget policies that continue to profligately subsidize the rich.
Yes, "profligately" is an actual word -- just not one heard in normal conversation.
Here's how Sirota frames what he claims is unfolding:
Detroit is a microcosmic cautionary tale about what happens when large corporations are allowed to write macro economic policy and dictate the economic future of an entire city. . . .
The less Detroit prompts serious questions about trade policies and the auto industry, the less Detroit can be used as a rationale for changing those conservative, corporate-enriching policies and that industry. Likewise, the more taxes and retirement benefits can be blamed for Detroit’s downfall, the more Detroit’s tragedy can be used as a clarion call by the right to slash both.
The ground under Sirota gets slippery when he claims that retired city workers "probably won’t be at the negotiating table."
Instead, they’ll almost certainly be where they usually are: on the menu, exactly where the conservative movement wants them.
Actually, a committee of pensioners' representatives will be at the negotiating table, exactly where Kevyn Orr says they deserve to be during discussions affecting them. Moreover, their attorneys have a voice in federal Bankruptcy Court, which they used Wednesday morning at Judge Steven Rhodes' first hearing.
Sirota ratchets up his rhetroic with "immoral decisions" and "the truly immoral reality" in successive paragraphs. He puts Orr's title in quotes as though to suggest it's also mythical, calling him "the unelected 'emergency manager' imposed on Detroit by Snyder."
And without evident irony, his steam-venting essay declares:
The mythology around Detroit, then, is just another version of this propaganda.
He's certainly correct about propaganda being flung. Pot, meet kettle.
