Detroit’s Urban Gardens: The People Take Over

Urban Roots: Urban Gardens in Detroit

Directed by Leila Connors and Matthew Schmid (2011)

Film Review

This incredibly inspiring film is about the mainly African American Detroit residents who have converted abandoned properties into productive urban farms. As the filmmakers demonstrate at the end of the video, grassroots urban farming has become a common strategy for rehabilitating decaying urban areas. To me, what is happening in Detroit and other distressed cities indicates the revolution has already begun. The system is failing, and ordinary people are already taking over.

Owing to the steady decline in US car manufacturing, Detroit’s population has dropped from 2 million in 1950 to less than 900,000 in 2019. The city has 44 square miles of abandoned property and 40,000 vacant lots. This could potentially provide 10,000 acres of farmland.

The filmmakers visit several of Detroit’s urban farms, where they interview the groups running them, as well as the army of volunteers who staff them. Although many volunteers are unemployed or retired, many have paying jobs and garden in their spare time. Many of the older volunteers with Southern roots already have extensive agricultural experience. All participants speak of a a new sense of self-reliance and control over their existence, stemming from their involvement in meaningful, non-repetitive work.

Given that most of metropolitan Detroit is a food desert,* urban farms are the only access to fresh produce for many residents. Urban farmers also sell produce at farmers markets and to local restaurants. Meanwhile the restoration of community activity in abandoned neighborhoods discourages drug dealing and other criminal activity.

Although a few farms have permits from the city to cultivate the abandoned property, most of the gardens are technically illegal. City officials (quoted in the film) refuse to zone city land for agricultural purposes because they’re still holding out for a Walmart or a major supermarket or golf course to spawn commercial redevelopment.

The urban gardeners deride this sentiment, pointing to failed city projects to rebuild Detroit through massive investment in casinos and a sports stadium.

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*A food desert is defined as an area with limited (or no) access to affordable nutritious food.

Anyone with a public library card can view the full documentary free on Kanopy. Type “Kanopy” and the name of your library into your search engine to register.

 

 

 

Hidden History: The Great Depression, Henry Ford and Detroit’s Unemployed Workers Councils

1929 The Great Depression Part 1 – A Job At Ford’s

PBS (1993)

Film Review

This is Part 1 of a fascinating 7-part PBS series on the Great Depression, one of the many topics Americans never study in school. The series reveals much hidden history unfavorable to the ruling elite – I doubt that PBS would air documentaries this honest in the current political landscape.

This first episode examines the rapid US industrialization of the 1920s, exemplified by the stellar growth of Ford Motor Company.

Henry Ford’s goal in perfecting assembly line manufacturing was to produce Model T’s so cheaply they would cost less than a team of horses. Ford’s River Rouge complex in Detroit was the largest industrial plant in history, employing 50,000 workers and producing 6,000 cars per day. The availability of credit, another new phenomenon, to purchase cars and other durable goods also played a major role in post-World War I expansion.

Squeezing Workers to Cut Costs

By paying the unprecedented wage of $5/hour, Ford attracted workers from all over the US and Mexico. Over time, however, he cut the hourly wage and sped up the assembly line to further reduce costs. He also created an extremely repressive private security force that relied on 9,000 worker/informants to weed out employees who couldn’t keep up or expressed anger and/or frustration with the speed-ups.

Detroit’s Unemployed Workers Councils

Following the Wall Street crash in October, 1929, the US was the only industrialized country without a government safety net (eg unemployment insurances, old age pensions, welfare benefits, etc) for the millions of Americans who lost their jobs. President Hoover believed the solution to the Great Depression was to increase business investment (and production)* and called on charities and local government to provide relief for homeless and starving families.

The city of Detroit provided relief to destitute families for over a year but ran out of money as unemployment climbed from 20 to 50% in 1930. It climbed to 80% in August 1931, when Ford closed his factory and laid off 60,000 workers.

Assisted by Communist Party organizers, Detroit’s unemployed workers formed a dozen unemployed workers councils, which organized marches and rallies demanding jobs, unemployment compensation and protection against evictions.** The councils also organized direct actions to block sheriff’s officers from removing families’ furniture from their home.

In March 1932, 3,000 unemployed workers organized a hunger march on the Ford factory. In addition to using fire hoses to spray them with freezing water, local police and Ford’s private security force shot 25 of them (many in the back). Four, including a New York Times photographer died instantly.

Ford’s Anti-Semitism

This episode also explores Ford’s anti-Semitic writings in the Dearborn Independent and his book The International Jew, as well as the mutual admiration he and Adolph Hitler shared. It fails to mention the considerable direct and indirect assistance Ford provided the Third Reich in rebuilding the German military machine. See Ford and the Fuhrer

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*Hoover’s views flew in the face of most economists, who viewed the Great Depression as a crisis in overproduction and under-consumption.

**At the height of the depression, 150 Detroit families were evicted everyday and someone died of starvation every seven hours.

Hidden History: The War of 1812

This PBS documentary offers the highly sanitized mainstream version of the War of 1812, a historical event Canadians study in school but not Americans. This was the only war in history in which the US invaded Canada and lost. The main weakness of the documentary is its failure to point out that the US money supply was 80% controlled by London banks – both before and after a pointless war that ended in stalemate (see How the US Uses War to Protect the Dollar).

The “official” justification for the US declaration of war in June 1812 was the British policy of seizing US merchant ships headed for France. Owing to their war against Napoleon (1803-1815), the British seized hundreds of US merchant ships and impressed 6,000 US merchant sailors to serve in the British Navy. The final straw occurred when the British fired on a US naval vessel, the USS Chesapeake, which was harboring four British deserters.

According to the documentary, the true motivation was the desire of President James Madison and young Congressional Republicans to seize Indian and Canadian lands for sentiment and development.

For me the most significant aspect of this war was the strong antiwar movement that arose opposing it. Northern banks refused to finance the war (it was eventually financed by London’s German-owned Baring’s Bank) and New England states, which threatened to secede, refused to volunteer their militias.

For the fist year of the war, the US government relied mainly on state militias, as service in the US army was voluntary and pay and conditions were abysmal. The poorly led US militias made three disastrous attempts to invade Canada at Detroit, across the Niagara River and north through Vermont’s Champlain Valley. The US militias were defeated, despite outnumbering Canadian forces five to one. Most of Britain’s military forces were tied up fighting Napoleon in Europe. The Canadian side relied on a few British regulars, Native American warriors led by Tecumseh and French, Scottish and British farmers defending their land.

In 1814, the British captured Napoleon, releasing 60,000 troops for service elsewhere. In August 1814, they sacked and burned Washington (including the Capitol, the White House, the Library of Congress and the Navy Yard) and the city was only spared by a freak hurricane that forced British troops to retreat.

The Battle of Baltimore and the Battle of New Orleans would spell a reversal of fortune for the US. By this point the US had more professionally trained troops, though they depended heavily on Baltimore residents to build ramparts and state militias to help defend the city. The successful defense of Fort McHenry (Baltimore) in September 1814 would inspire Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. Congress would make it the US national anthem in 1931.

My favorite part of the documentary depicts the Battle of New Orleans in which Revolutionary War hero Andrew Jackson successfully led 4,000 irregulars – consisting of poor white farmers, slaves, creoles, and Native Americans – against 10,000 highly trained and experienced British troops.

The battle is celebrated in Johnny Horton’s 1959 ballad The Battle of New Orleans (the second video). The audio is blocked in the documentary for copyright reasons. Too bad Congress didn’t make Battle of New Orleans the national anthem. They should have.

 

 

 

Relocalization: “Reshoring” the US Garment Industry

photo credit: seattlemade.org

The creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995 would lead hundreds of US corporations to shut down their American factories and “offshore” them to third world countries with lower wages and fewer environmental regulations. This trend was most pronounced in the textile and clothing industry. Between 1900 and 2011, US employment in apparel manufacturing dropped by over 80% from 900,000 to 150,000 jobs.

Thanks to the largely grassroots relocalization movement, this trend seems to be reversing. According to economist and author Michael Shuman, rebuilding local economies devastated by trade deregulation is one of the most effective tools for dismantling corporate rule. For every dollar spent in a local business, 45 cents remains in the local economy – in contrast to 10 cents for every dollar spent in a corporate retail chain. (See 2010 Harvard Business Review)

America’s Burgeoning Sewn Goods Industry

While most local economy activism has focused on food production and banking, the last decade has also witnessed numerous attempts across the US to “reshore” sewn goods production. Efforts in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit and Portland have been the most successful. Consumer research suggests the most important driver behind this movement has been growing consumer demand for corporate transparency and accountability. A  2014 Nielson Survey reveals that 42% of consumers are “willing to pay more for products and services provided by companies committed to positive social and environmental impacts.”

Consumers are also increasingly concerned about the environmental profile of the textile and clothing industry, the world’s second most polluting industry (behind oil). Third world dying mills, which use 200 tons of water for one ton of fabric, cause serious contamination when they return the water to local rivers untreated.

They’re also really wary of a particularly environmentally destructive trend known as “fast fashion”. The latter produces cheap, poorly constructed clothing to be worn once or twice and discarded.

Seattle’s Experiment with Sewn Goods Manufacture

Seattle is the latest city to attempt to foster the development of a local sewn goods industry. In 2015, the Seattle Good Business Network (SGBN)* received a Duwamish River Opportunity Grant to investigate opportunities for expansion of sewn goods manufacture in Seattle.

Sewn Goods Case Studies by Rachel Beck and Molly Parkhan, the report of this investigation, is a fascinating read. I was particularly intrigued by their detailed descriptions of the origins thriving sewn goods industries in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit and Portland. The report finishes with some optimistic predictions and solid recommendations for the successful expansion of Seattle’s local sewn goods industry.

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*Founded in 2010, SGBN is a “network of residents, local businesses and non profit and municipal organizations dedicated to building a vibrant and sustainable local economy based on shared environmental and community values.”

The Mexican-American Singer Who Inspired the Anti-Apartheid Movement

Searching for Sugarman

Directed by Malik Bendjelloul (2012)

Film Review

I watched an intriguing documentary on Maori TV this week about a group of white anti-apartheid musicians who decide to investigate the background of an obscure Detroit singer who became the hero of the white anti-apartheid movement. Prior to watching the film, I was totally unaware of South Africa’s white anti-apartheid movement.

During the early 1970s, apartheid South Africa was a virtual police state. White and black activists who spoke out against apartheid (or censorship, police violence, death squads, etc) faced three year prison terms. Those who engaged in street protests faced even harsher penalties.  According to the musicians interviewed in the film, Sexto Rodriguez’s iconoclastic music gave a whole generation of white South Africans the courage to resist the oppressive regime they lived under.

An anti-establishment Afrikaans band was the first to widely popularize Rodriguez’s music. Prior to 1994, it mainly circulated underground as specific songs were specifically banned by the apartheid regime. Despite being virtually invisible in the US, his two albums eventually sold 500,000 copies in South Africa.

Despite his immense popularity, South African musicians and activists knew absolutely nothing about Rodgriguez’s background. In fact, there were rumors circulating his career had ended when he committed suicide during a performance (in one version he shot himself in the head, in another he set himself on fire).

After months of investigation, music historian Craig Bartholomew-Strydom eventually learned that Rodriguez was still alive working in housing demolition in Detroit. He and other Rodriguez fans arranged to bring him to South African in 1998 for a revival concert attended by 20,000 people.

Following the concert he returns to his quiet working class life in New York, though he eventually performs six more concerts.

Hits (in South Africa) serve as the soundtrack for the film. Despite his strident anti-establishment views, he’s clearly an extremely accomplished singer-songwriter. Thus I guess it’s no surprise, his music was suppressed* in the US.

For copyright reasons, I’m unable to embed the film. However it can be viewed free (for the next few weeks) at the Maori TV website:

http://www.maoritelevision.com/tv/shows/tuesday-festival-documentaries/S01E001/searching-sugarman

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*In the US, anti-capitalist music isn’t overtly censored. Prior to the Internet and YouTube, people never heard it if record companies chose not to promote it.

Let’s All Move to Michigan, Shall We?

Exported from Michigan

Jon Vander Pol (2014)

Film Review

Exported from Michigan is a slick rah-rah promotional film about the glories of doing business in the state of Michigan. Even though it’s an obvious propaganda piece, it’s always interesting to track the key messages the mainstream media is trying to foist on us. The main message I see this film promoting is that society (ie government and corporations) no longer have an obligation to guarantee full employment. It’s up to the 20-30% of American young people who are unemployed to solve the problem themselves by becoming self-employed entrepreneurs.

Despite the film’s irritating lack of balance, I was gratified to see its heavy emphasis on local economies, civic engagement and community building. I’m in total agreement that local businesses are the key to a thriving economy – states tried to increase employment with tax breaks for multinational corporations learned from bitter experience corporations have no loyalty to the welfare of local communities.

The filmmakers argue that Michigan began sliding into recession long before the 2008 economic crisis, owing to a steady exodus of the big three automakers that began in the 1970s. Michael Moore’s 1989 film Roger and Me focuses on the economic devastation Flint Michigan experienced after GM closed their auto plant and laid off 30,000 workers.

Among the film’s highlights are the urban agriculture movement in Detroit, where one-third of the land is abandoned; the craft beer movement, involving 140 microbreweries across the state and employing 37,000 people; a proliferation local art fairs and music festivals aimed at building community awareness and civic engagement, high tech manufacturing start-us that focus on robots and wind and solar technology and the development of a specialized medical research center in Grand Rapids. In all these endeavors, there’s a strong expectation that new physical plants will be sustainably constructed and adhere to triple bottom line principles.*

The decision to showcase the Big 3 auto companies, which still employ one out of seven Michigan workers, mystified me. A GM executive talks about the failure to innovate and “complacency” over consumer needs that led to their bankruptcy and bailout in 2008. He doesn’t mention the 30 million vehicles GM recalled in February 2014 due to faulty ignition features that caused cars to catch fire – nor that GM knew about the fault for a decade before issuing the recall.

Although there’s brief mention of the Detroit seniors who’ve had their pensions cut as the city’s 2013 bankruptcy, the film fails to examine the tragic effect of these cuts on their lives. There’s also no mention of the tens of thousands of Detroit residents who’ve experienced water shutoffs nor the city’s condemnation by UN human rights.

View the film free at Exported from Michigan

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*Triple bottom line principles place people and planet before profit.

 

Obama’s Privatization Agenda

Guest post by Steven Miller

(This is the 3^rd of 6 guest posts in which Miller describes how Obama is re-engineering society on behalf of the ruling elite.)

Part III – Obama’s Privatization Agenda

From Obama’s State of the Union Address:

“So, tonight, I propose a “Fix-It-First” program to put people to work as soon as possible on our most urgent repairs, like the nearly 70,000 structurally deficient bridges across the country. And to make sure taxpayers don’t shoulder the whole burden, I’m also proposing a Partnership to Rebuild America that attracts private capital to upgrade what our businesses need most: modern ports to move our goods; modern pipelines to withstand a storm; modern schools worthy of our children.”  (9)

This statement is a call for privatization that follows the speculative agenda described previously. Supposedly “to save taxpayer’s money”, the President offers corporations ownership of the public infrastructure that was formerly built by and for the public. Infrastructure includes roads and bridges, also schools and universities, the electrical grid, water and sewers, parks and ports, airports and dams. Obama even proposes to sell the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA –  see Republicans Veer Towards Socialism), Roosevelt’s signature project that electrified the South. His plans open the door to the full seizure and privatization of public resources as corporate private property. What was originally built for free public access will increasingly be available only to those who can afford the fees.

Since the financial Meltdown of 2008, the federal government has been “nationalizing” the levers of control of society in the interests of the capitalist class. The Bailout began with the proclamation that “banks are now agents of the government”. It is moot to discuss whether the banks took over the government or the government took over the banks. They are merging together. Mussolini, the theoretician of fascism, held that fascism was the merger of the corporations and the state.

Obama quickly intervened in Detroit to reorganize the auto industry, though he refuses to intervene today to protect the city government or pensions. The federal government is reorganizing both public education and health care. The NSA revelations show that the federal government has also nationalized everyone’s information.

Since 2001, the Department of Homeland Security, financed at an average of some $30 billion a year, has privatized many government functions and outsourced a huge number of police activities to corporations. As Occupy demonstrated to all, DHS has virtually federalized the police.

It is important to understand the state and its powers. The state – including the army, the courts and the police – is distinct from the government. The government collects taxes and decides how to spend public money. This is essentially the administration of things. The state’s role is guaranteed by the rule of law to use coercion and force to protect the property of the ruling class and to guarantee its rule. Hence the state is principally about the control of people. This distinction is fundamental to understanding the maneuvers and powers of capitalism today.

No longer under public accountability or control, the state apparatus today plays a major role in engineering how society will be transformed for the ruling class. Just as in other periods of US history, the state operates to implement the policies of the dominant block of capitalists. Currently this means the state will use its powers of force to facilitate the privatization of everything tangible.

References and Resources

9)  www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2013

To be continued.

photo credit: SS&SS via photopin cc

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Steven Miller has taught science for 25 years in Oakland’s Flatland high schools. He has been actively engaged in public school reform since the early 1990s. When the state seized control of Oakland public schools in 2003, they immediately implemented policies of corporatization and privatization that are advocated by the Broad Institute. Since that time Steve has written extensively against the privatization of public education, water and other public resources. You can email him at nanodog2@hotmail.com

Originally posted at Daily Censored