Outspoken blogger Bill Johnson, a former Detroit News editorial writer, unloads forcefully on Jese Jackson, Al Sharpton and other "dysfunctional demagogues" protesting emergency financial management that begins today.
Bill JohnsonNone has made the slightest contribution to the improvement or advancement of the city. In fact, these political mercenaries have boundless expertise in running their mouths -- and nothing more.
The UAW, AFSCME, NAACP and Council of Baptist Pastors, among others, are busy holding news conferences or blocking traffic. Their supporters have staged 1960-style marches with the intent of painting Gov. Rick Snyder’s emergency manager decision “anti-democratic.”
The street dramas "have little to do with the overwhelming despair faced by the average Detroiter," says Johnson, whose hard-hitting post also appears in his former paper as a guest column.
Who ordained these pseudo-champions of the people as the only legitimate voices of Detroit? Where did they get the moral authority? . . .
The utterings and actions of Jackson, Sharpton and their self-promoting clergy-cult followers are more attuned to holding Detroiters in psychological bondage than helping them rise above their miserable condition. Intoxicated with their ability to generate media coverage, these power-mongering agitators use divisiveness for political advantage -- or to get paid. It is they -- not the system they rail against -- who have failed the people. . . .They sat on the sidelines as unemployment among city dwellers swelled to more than twice the national average. They looked the other way as the city became deluged with untenable levels of crime. They helplessly observed generations of uneducated children become hopelessly mired in poverty. . . . The same people that feign concern about the fiscal crisis were AWOL when it came to diverting high-risk children from criminally violating the life, liberty and property of their neighbors.
