Exciting Times in Detroit

Posters have been displayed across downtown Detroit announcing a protest of the City's incinerator, the (dum-da-dum-dum) largest in world supposedly, to be held on June 26th. This is in conjunction with the US Social Forum to be held in the city from June 22nd-26th. The Forum itself is a follow up to a similar activity held in Atlanta in 2007. It is all apparently the work of a group called the Ruckus Society, who happily proclaim that 'actions speak louder than words.'

Indeed they do. The group proposes to sponsor workshops on how to protest more efficiently (protest can be fun!) and another which will examine the corporate control of climate policy. Further, they will offer a Freedom Song and Sounds Institute, where groups will sit together and sing 'songs, chants, rhymes, and more.' And it will all be capped off with a Saturday protest march on the incinerator.

A quick look at a local website dedicated to the protest march itself (we won't furnish it to you; we're giving this far too much credibility as it is simply by discussing it) lists a whole passel of groups associated with the event: Greenpeace, the aforementioned Ruckusers, the Sierra Club, and a whole list of organizations with flash words such as environment and toxic in their names. Finally, the Ruckus Society promises that the famous Leftist Lounge from Atlanta will be available again in Detroit for regular old partying.

Now we see. This isn't anything like a concerned citizens group. This is a fringe element out to make themselves known, and the Motor City is the lucky recipient this year. Further evidence that we are dealing with a bunch of powerless left wing partisans can be seen on the same poles where the banners for the protest can be found: pamphlets pleading for the locals to please open up their homes during the Social Forum to house those coming into town for the festivities.

Gee, when we were young conservative activists we paid our own way to out of town meetings. We didn't plead with anyone to put us up: we found hotels and motels more than willing to take our money to let us stay, restaurants very happy to provide us with food and drink, and community activities in the local watering holes where, well, perhaps we did sing, but it was karaoke, good, honest, regular tunes, and we didn't meet just to discuss the whales. We met to have fun, solely and completely.

These are the new social sticks in the mud, and of the worst kind. They have an agenda. In that light, we're just not sure that the Leftist Lounge is destined to be a particularly happening place. But we may go ahead and observe the protest from across the street, just to see what the Sixties were like.