Rents Will Continue To Rise As Long As Housing Remains A Capitalist Commodity, by Pete Dolack

Gentrification Zone

Image by Matt Brown via Flickr

by Pete Dolack
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Systemic Disorder, May 25, 2022
May 26, 2022

Capitalism marches on. And thus housing, because it is a capitalist commodity, has resumed its upward cost, putting ever more people at risk of homelessness, hunger, inability to access medical care and medications, or some combination of those.

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They Poisoned A City by Dorian Bon

Capitalism Kills

Image by Infinite Ache via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by Dorian Bon
Socialist Worker
January 27, 2016

AFTER MORE than a year and a half of bitter protests, the people of Flint, Michigan, are finally getting some attention from America’s rulers and media for a water contamination crisis that has put thousands of children at risk of lifelong brain and developmental illnesses as a result of severe lead poisoning.

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Chris Hedges: The Death of the American City

Burned out house

Image by Sean_Marshall via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

teleSUR English on Jan 25, 2016

In this episode of Days of Revolt, host Chris Hedges speaks with two esteemed labor activists from Detroit: Darryl “Waistline” Mitchell and Roshaun Harris. They speak of the desperation caused by industrial decline and deregulation in Detroit, especially among Black people. The three also attest to the necessity and inevitability of revolt under such conditions.

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Richard D. Wolff: Capitalism’s Stunning Contradiction, Part 1

Unions Behind Labor Day

Image by Democracy Chronicles via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with

TheRealNews on Nov 10, 2014

Richard Wolff says every capitalist tries to systematically reduce wages, then can’t sell what those wage workers have produced.

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The Detroit Bail-In Template: Fleecing Pensioners to Save the Banks by Ellen Brown

Glass-Steagall Now

Image by Prehensile Eye via Flickr

by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
August 5, 2013

The Detroit bankruptcy is looking suspiciously like the bail-in template originated by the G20’s Financial Stability Board in 2011, which exploded on the scene in Cyprus in 2013 and is now becoming the model globally. In Cyprus, the depositors were “bailed in” (stripped of a major portion of their deposits) to re-capitalize the banks. In Detroit, it is the municipal workers who are being bailed in, stripped of a major portion of their pensions to save the banks.

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Detroit Bankruptcy – American Dream to American Nightmare by Finian Cunningham + Richard Wolff: Detroit a “Spectacular Failure”

Highland Towers

Image by Sean_Marshall via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
July 25, 2013

The recently declared bankruptcy of Detroit City could serve as an epitome of the rise and fall of not just American capitalism, but the capitalist system generally as an historical mode of production. It is a mode of production that is no longer viable as a way of efficiently organizing and sustaining society in the 21st Century. In fact, the system has become the nemesis of American and other societies across the world.

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Detroit: Urban Farming Revolution

Dandelion Salad

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/earthrise/2012/08/2012817102031778843.html

Earthworks Urban Farm

Image by detroitunspun via Flickr

Jul 2, 2012 – Al Jazeera English

In the early 20th century the American city of Detroit was a booming industrial powerhouse and world leader in car manufacturing. But since the major car companies closed their factories, more than a million taxpayers have moved out of Detroit, leaving behind more than 100 square kilometers of vacant land, and nearly 40,000 abandoned houses. A group of visionary residents are now sowing the seeds of an urban farming revolution.

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