From Oz to Ozymandius

Detroit: The future of America?

For those old enough to remember, Detroit was once a thriving metropolis that was considered America's model city. It had plenty of jobs courtesy of its thriving auto industry; cozy and affordable homes that sprawled across a beautiful landscape and a seemingly brilliant future.

Alas, that was then and this is now. Now, Detroit has become the punchline for standup comics; a destitute town of poverty, misery, mountains of trash, hopelessness, rats, feral dogs, high crime and abandoned neighborhoods.

Many self-styled experts blame Detroit's misery on the auto industry that abandoned the city, beginning in the 1970s. The "experts" claim that cheap Japanese imports that delivered superior fuel economy put the American automakers out of business.

But the Japanese automakers didn't put the American car manufacturers out of business. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are still in business and they're still building and selling a lot of cars and trucks. They just don't build very many of them in Detroit anymore.

That's because the big labor unions drove the automakers out of Detroit and into other towns to build their products. The Big Three now build many of their products in Canada and Mexico. And if Chrysler gets its way, it could be building Jeeps in China in the not too distant future.

Certainly, Detroit isn't the only American city to be visited by poverty and misery. There are other towns such as Scranton Pa., Newark New Jersey, Stockton Ca. and Jefferson County Alabama where the American dream has checked out of. 

And there are cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Cleveland that are ready to follow Detroit's path to misery, poverty, destitution and bankruptcy. From all indications, it isn't a matter of if, but when.

Detroit's collapse offers a grim but necessary lesson that socialism doesn't work. It never has and it never will. Detroit rose on the strength of its people who worked hard and sacrificed of themselves to provide a better future for their children and grandchildren. 

And Detroit collapsed on the weakness of those who embraced the Marxian lie that big government should provide everything for the people so they can party and drink and have sex and get high and enjoy a never-ending cycle of pleasure. 

But for the people of Detroit, the party's over because the town's bankrupt. Isn't that how things usually end up with socialism? Now, detroit.cbslocal.com reports that nearly half of that city's water and sewage customers can't pay their water bills. Detroit resident Rodney Carter wrote: "Call President Obama: he has plenty of taxpayers cash to spend. Wasn’t that a campaign promise he made along with free rent and gas and payin’ my car note…Socialism only works if there is someone to pay for it."

The car manufacturer's used to pay for much of it. But they're long gone, thanks to the greedy labor unions that made it virtually impossible for them to compete with the cheaper imports because of outrageous wage and benefit demands.

And the steel companies and many other heavy industries are also long gone from America's cities and towns. Where have some of them gone? Look towards the eastern world where nations such as China, India, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Russia and Uzbekistan are now rising rapidly as industrial and economic powers. 

And the rise of these nations is prophetic. The ancient Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, who lived about 2,500 years ago, revealed the rise of a powerful political union in the last days preceding the return of Jesus Christ. Ezekiel identified the head of this union as Gog (Russia) and its client states as Magog. (Ezekiel 38-39) Some of the nations that are currently rising in the east will comprise Magog.

As for America and her dying cities such as Detroit, the party's over. And the glorious promises of Karl Marx have once again failed to deliver an economic Utopia. 

According to Marx, religion provides the opium for the masses. If it does, then his economic theories provide the cyanide pill for civilizations.