Temper tantrums, small towns, and making sense of voting results

[Mari333]

Sometimes I view my small town in Michigan as a microcosm of what is going on all over the nation. It helps me to somehow wrap my mind around the bigger picture. The teabaggers, the screaming Glenn Beckers, the adolescent behaviour I see erupting.

For 8 years I watched Wall Street get away with murder. I watched all the govt agencies get away with murder, no regulations, making money hand over fist like drunken pirates, as Bush made sure all of his friends were well compensated.

Than, it stopped. The Madoff greed that led all of these assholes on their inebriated spree ended, and most especially, it happened in my small town.

I live in just one of the many many small towns that, over the years, has lost its manufacturing base, its factories closed, and we began to rely more and more on tourism (we are by the big lake Michigan), and as the slow decline of good jobs left for other countries, so did the local people..leave. They could stay and work for minimum wage waiting on wealthy tourists, or they could leave.

Many of them left. Right now, the town is only 48 percent local people. They sold their homes at very cheap prices to city people, who came in via the Real Estate developers, who fixed up the poor people's houses and sold them at a profit.

Over half the town is dark in the winter months. Second homes.

Until the recession hit, the real estate developers here were madmen. They emptied out forests and built sites for McMansions. They bought out cheap homes and flipped them over and over. They started renting their remodelled homes to tourists at 1000 a week.

The mayor, a woman here, who had served 2 terms, kept trying to reign them in. She and the city council made rules. Ordinances to protect the middle class, the few locals still left, the infrastructure of the community. She demanded that , when homes were rented, that the landlords keep records of the rentals. She asked for environmentally delicate areas to be protected.

She was honest and forthright about how much money the city didnt have for real estate pet projects to go forward.

And this yr, she lost her seat to a man who is a real estate developer..


I went to the debates. I watched him speak. He promised to fix the roads (our roads are terrible.)

She, on the other hand, said "we have allocated funds to fix one stretch of road per yr. The state is cutting funds to us by 2/3. The state is broke. we have to accept the truth. We cannot fix all the roads all at once. The sad truth is, we are bound by lack of monies. Its just the way it is and we have to be patient."

You see, she was honest. And after 2 terms and a recession, especially here in Michigan, she knows whats going on.

The new mayor, the real estate developer, has promised everyone he will have the roads fixed , all of them. He says he will get grants!!! ask for stimulus money!!! make sure a waterpark is built in town!!! fix all the parks!!!! etc etc etc


This guy will go down in flames.

All I see is a lot of temper tantrums. When the recession hit, EVERY DEVELOPER HERE LOST MONEY.

There are acres of UNTOUCHED sites where McMansions are NOT being built.

Many of them are facing bankruptcy.

Condos are sitting empty, no one wants them.

and what I am seeing is a HUGE temper tantrum, and our current lady mayor is being scapegoated.

She ran this town well, she kept it a small town and kept the gentrification under control.

These morons, these drunken looting carpetbagging pirates are angry. They arent making money. They want to turn this town into a fudge shoppe and T shirt town with NO rules , no regulations, and they blame the lady mayor, not wall street, for their downfall.

I will be amused as I watch them go down in flames, because their time is OVER. They cannot obtain funds that are not there. They will never be able to return to their glory days as sharks and greedy assholes. Its over, but they wont accept it.

as for our lady mayor? I was at her house the night she lost the election. She smiled and said "well, I feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. God has something else planned for me."

I think, all across this country, I am seeing a lot of temper tantrums by people who never had any boundaries put in place to keep them in check. Now, they are angry. They cannot get away with their previous looting. Not like they used to anyway.

[DBoon]

1. the lords of capitalism

are the 2-year-olds whose parents never said "no"

[atreides1]

2. This is what Virginia can expect!

McDonnell made all the promises, jobs, transportation, better schools, and lower taxes.

McDonnell already has a scapegoat in place though, the Democratic controlled state Senate.

The next 6 years in Virginia is going to be just great!!!

[Tesha]

3. Potterville is a vary popular destination these days.

And "pretty lies" almost always sell better than "ugly truths".

People are so short-sighted.

I think I'll go over to the "Dime-a-Dance" hall now...

Tesha