The city looks for leadership.
And jumping into the vacuum is…
The exceptionally undistinguished former state representative who went on to be a city wealth-transfer bureaucrat who was distinguished, if “Anti-Distinguished” is a thing [1].
Remember – if the ineffective, over-his-head Pajama Boy Frey gets replaced, it’ll be by someone worse, farther to the left, and an even more overt puppet of the far-left interests that are calling all the shots in the city.
[1] And whose mother was in fact the bureaucratic gargoyle in the denouement of this story. While the sins of the mother aren’t necessarily visited on the child, I’m guessing the pie doesn’t fall far from the cow. .
This is how death spirals work.
At one time I would have said that Minneapolis’s bourgeois attractions (U of M and other colleges, museums, parks, etc.) would save it. But all of these are in decline due to the feckless covid response.
The political class has been screwing the pooch since last March, and there is no end in sight because they don’t want to stop screwing the pooch.
Well with Umbrella Man still on the loose, the Wuhan Virus ravaging unchecked through the population, and the long promised violence of the Chauvin trial imminent, the City desperately needs someone capable of marshalling all the Resilience™ the city can muster.
Macarthur Wheler, I had forgotten that Minneapolis had a “resilience officer.”
And his focus is “racial equity, economic inclusion, environmental justice.”
So, Minneapolitans, you are in good hands! Surely your resilience officer has plans to deal with a city ravaged by covid closures and riots.
Oddly enough, after nearly four years of having a “resilience officer”, Minneapolis has gotten more brittle.
Correlation doesn’t equal causation, of course, but given that “resilience” bureaucrats who contribute nothing to real resiliency are a part of the modern ruling class’s wealth transfer plans, correlation pretty much leads you inexorably to, well, causation.
“Now is the moment we can build new, better systems that truly work for all of us regardless of race, income, zip code, gender or ability.”
Well, with that kind of specious bullshit she’s a shoe-in with the potato heads in Minneapolis.
But what is it about this moment that makes that rattle can think it so special? Is it the we’re on the verge of a second civil war? That the US capital is swathed in razor wire? Is it the active guerilla war black yutes are conducting in vibrant zip codes? Is it the dementia patient in the White House, or his slut of a VP?
By making it work for people of any ability, is she signaling to the tens of thousands of illiterate, low IQ peasants pouring into the country?
It’s a special time, no doubt. But not for building anything.
Who was it that said “moderation in all things”, and can I kill him?
Oscar Wilde. And he’s been dead for 100 years or so.
And getting control of my spam blocker is going to involve pretty much re-building my site. which I don’t have time to do ATM.
Sorry.
I don’t know who Bill Glahn is, but his Twitter feed is quite interesting. The following is a series of tweets between him and some others that I found interesting because it ends up using the Curley Effect to explain what’s going on. It’ll probably get moderated.
– The mistake is believing that the decline of Minneapolis is due to incompetence, poor governance, bad luck, or forces beyond their control. Decline is a choice. In this instance, decline is a strategy.
– And the end goal being ….
– A city that better matches the interests and goals of the people in charge.
– The goal of the last crop of leaders was to create a “luxury city” along the lines of New York and San Francisco. A walkable city for empty nesters full of interesting restaurants.
– What went wrong do you estimate?
– Empty-nester progressive condo owners don’t share the same goals as the wokerati.
– I am gonna think about that. Sure are a lot of “luxury condos.”
– The more luxury condos, the greater the demand for public safety, walkable streets, and functioning services. The wokerati have no ability or interest or providing those items. Too “conservative. ”
– The current skyline and downtown housing boom is evidence of their success. But that success brought new expectations for public safety and functioning services.
– Two different and incompatible visions are in conflict. New Detroit is winning, luxury condoland is losing.
– The reason why Detroit and Newark never recovered is that the people in charge of the ruins preferred to rule over the ashes.
– A model of the Curley effect, in which inefficient redistributive policies are sought … by incumbent politicians trying to shape the electorate through emigration of their opponents or reinforcement of class identities.
You should enlist the help of “Redhead Ranting”, Mitch. She’s got a really snazzy site.
Maybe you could collaborate!
I got one by the moderation demon!
The “wokerati” are aging boomers who protested the Vietnam war, voted McGovern and demanded “power to the people”, then quietly took plum positions in government, academia and business. They dutifully indoctrinated their kids, who dutifully took the lessons to the next step with their own kids.
The wokerati parlayed their well paid careers into a retirement of luxury condos in city centers and season tickets to the symphony. Now they wake up to find their grandkids hate them with passion and are intent on burning it all down and ask “where did we go wrong”…while still voting left.
That is the picture I get whenever I see a story of an elderly person getting the shit beat out of them in the heart of a vibrant, urban city…and ngl, I chuckle.
From the frying pan, into the fire.
If you want to avoid the moderation queue, just buy an SITD premium membership.
That’s how Emery gets past moderation.
Kate Knuth. Our former mediocre state rep here 50B. Besides her mom’s crimes against humanity, her dad was also in the lege and got out before the ethics cops could get him. He’s been an environmental lobbyist for years; Kate pretended to be a greenie for a time, but in truth straight-up grifting is the family business. If there’s any bright side, she’s more transactional than ideological, but there’s nothing in her history to suggest she would be any better than Frey, Hodges, or any of the other worthies in Minneapolis.
I visited the Redhead Ranting site. It is snazzy, I’ll give her that. And she gave a hat tip to SITD in a couple of posts, which is nice.
But the blog post color was blue on black, eye strain, doesn’t work for me.
Worse, she has her own troll debating Mitch about why Liberal cancel culture is justified because Conservatives did it. Straight up Tu Quoque logical fallacy but Mitch is too polite to mention it and point out how asinine the guy’s analysis is.
I think I better stay in my yard.
Then:
Applicant: I’m hoping to overthrow the traditional American way of life, replace it with $ocialism. I want to work here so I can undermine society from within.
Manager/Principal/McCarthy: We’re trying to preserve the traditional American way of life. You not only can’t work at undermining society here, you can’t work at it anywhere. You’re blacklisted.
Now:
Applicant: I’m hoping to preserve the traditional American way of life. I want to work here so I can support it from within.
Manager/Principal/Wokerati: We’re trying to overthrow the traditional American way of life to replace it with $ocialism. You not only can’t work at supporting society here, you can’t work at it anywhere. You’re canceled.
See? Identical. And therefore, cancel culture is completely justified.
tried to be tricky to sneak past moderation. They’re onto me.
It’s the Ci@lis part, JD
I only get moderated when I include > 1 link.
What the heck is wrong with you guys?
Also, my comments have a Fleisch-Kincaid reading level of grade 12+.
Educate yourselves, SITD commenters. It wouldn’t hurt you to break the spine on a book once in a while. Use Latinate words with lots of syllables, not their Anglo-Saxon equivalents.
Maybe buy a special jacket for smoking. I understand that ladies don’t like the smell of cigar smoke, and may faint if they catch a whiff of tobacco smoke on your clothing.
Please, Gentlemen! Women are the weaker sex! I always where my smoking jacket & a fez when I post a comment. I suggest that you do the same.
I now realize that my previous comment may be construed as sexist.
This is ridiculous. Women can produce, from a single sperm, a human being.
This is an awesome power.
For their part, men can only harness the power of lightning.
Jenn at Redhead Ranting is an old friend. She has a slighty different set of goals with her blog but I’ve been a fan for 5-6 years, now.
MO: ++++