Politically Enabled Slums
by Malcolm T. Hedges (9/7/09)
Our major metropolitan areas are really various degrees of “slum-ism”. Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, LA, New York City and Phoenix are just a few examples.
The suburbs of those cities may be mostly reasonable places to live and work, but the much if not most of the core is plagued with crime, destitution and general economic and social blight.
The Welfare and other liberal “feel good redistribution of wealth” programs encourage illiteracy, laziness and refusal to adopt to even minimal social “norms”.
People see no need to learn or work if “Big Brother” will kinda cloth, feed and house them for just “hanging around”. They also refuse to move to where jobs are or take available locally because it “would be too demanding on their lifestyle”.
You may be surprised to see Phoenix on the above list. The fact is the Phoenix Metropolitan Area("Valley Of The Sun") is now #5 in the USA.
Several portions of the “Valley Of The Sun” are simply “slums and wastelands” to my surprise they are spread around, not centralized as typical to the “Classic Metropolitan Area” such as New York City or Baltimore.
One explanation of the “Valley Of The Sun Phenomenon” may be that it originally was a bunch of small cities and villages that grew to be closely integrated.
A spent a “tolerated” but not much appreciated ~2 year tour in Baltimore, parts of Baltimore resemble photos of East Berlin under the USSR.
As a practical observation neither area deserves to have such obvious blight and neglect openly thriving in its venue.
The primary causal explanation is that political hacks prefer to fund and support popular agendas and pap rather than practical governance.
The so called “minorities” and “politically oppressed” are actually encouraged to huddle and “thrive” in self-determined ghettos and slums. Blacks and Hispanics are the primary “targets” of these programs. Muslims are getting serious attention as time passes.
All three of these “minorities” and “politically oppressed” “groups” generally refuse to assimilate and often denigrate individuals that don’t want to buy into their pap.
Some of the pressures are “cultural” but indications are that much of it is political.
A little examination will reveal the blighted and “slum like” areas have been overrun by ethnic, religious or racial groups that don’t want to have anything to do with the “American Street”.
A strange thing is that “minority” folks from Asia(Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thais, Taiwanese, Vietnamese,etc) create thriving cultural community centers and pretty much assimilate into the “American Street"…
Pretty obviously people that refuse to speak our language called “English” have set themselves apart. Refusing to observe even the most basic standards of dress and physical appearance sets them even further apart.
For those screaming from the balcony about “racism”, there is a significant crowd of “white” Americans that refuse to speak our language called “English” and refuse to observe even the most basic standards of dress and physical appearance. They “survive” by sucking on Welfare as well, because they just don’t qualify as “employees” by choice.
Ok, there are obviously cultural and social conditions that enable and encourage “slum-ism”, lettuce drift off to examine the political reality.
Certain political factions thrive on the “Welfare State” mentality and perceived votes that can come from that sub-set of the population.
Additionally spending “tax dollars” to cleanup and revitalize slums and slum-like areas is deemed wasteful and counter productive. Using those dollars for Welfare and maintenance of the status quo is more politically advantageous.
Besides spending “tax dollars” to cleanup and revitalize slums and slum-like areas would be disruptive and insulting to the “perfectly happy” skaters and slugs that there reside living on the dole they provide.
Under duress, President Clinton signed significant legislation that essentially gutted the free wheeling “Welfare State”, recently that program was summarily reversed and the “Welfare State” is now going wild.
Every municipality will have areas of blight and “slum-ism”. Often it happens because general economic stress, if that economic stress goes away and the blight and “slum-ism” is not addressed most probably it is because of “political pandering”.
NOTE: The City Of Phoenix is “trying to revitalize the downtown” but remains in total denial of the underling issues. It’s because it would be “politically incorrect” to fix the real problems.
Malcolm T. Hedges
Addendum: I am a minority “sub-human farm boy hick” from Eastern Oregon that ventured into the “real” world and despite refusing to be programmed in the university system, blundered around and eventually found my natural niche as a hardware and software test engineer. Some 9 years in the Army was informational, instructive and mostly fun. I learned about adapting, adjusting and doing my job in pretty much perverted working environment - when I went out into the “real world” I found pretty much the same circumstances. No doubt much of my success was because of associates and bosses that supported me and recognized I had potential. When I pretty much accidentally became a “Test Engineer” instead of a Technician, I somehow knew that I had landed where I belonged. I was often despised and hated by skaters hoping for crappy testing, I consider that as a “badge of honor”, by no means was I perfect but I did my best.
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