Detroit is suffering so much, and why? Because we are dismantling our country, and the experimental phases of it are being carried out here – have been for decades.  This is the proving ground for the coming America.

Keep an eye on this whole bankruptcy thing.   One of the central questions is what will happen to the pensions of all those public workers.  You know, welfare cheats like teachers and firefighters.

A considerable chunk of Detroit’s debt is pension funds for public workers. It is not even a secret, and has not been for ages, that one big goal of a Detroit bankruptcy would be to shed the pensions of all those public workers.  Just not pay any of it.

I read an editorial about all of this in a prominent newspaper, and the most amazing thing about it was the comments.  Most of the many commenters said, in essence: set ‘em adrift.

No. These are middle-class workers who stayed in Detroit during its long, terrible decline, in the face of the collapse, accepting lower pay than they would have received elsewhere with the understanding – enshrined in Michigan’s Constitution – that they would retire with modest pensions.   I bailed on my home town but they did not.  They played by the rules, worked hard, tried to hold the line.  (For one moment, imagine the life of a firefighter in Detroit, city of Devil’s Night.) But in Bizarro America, this work ethic is trash.  The workers of Detroit are now seen as lazy bastards who deserve to be stripped of their assets.  They deserve to be destitute.

Betraying and ruining thousands of trusting working folk: if it can be made to happen here then it can happen anywhere, to all y’all.

As Detroit goes, so will go the nation.