Will the water shut offs effect Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's Term?

anonJD · September-30-14, 06:11 PM

Do people that don't pay their utility bills even bother to vote? I seriously doubt it.

Willi · September-30-14, 06:39 PM

Vote or not, democrat, republican, socialist, liberal, treehugger, petasmoocher, whatnot
--- they all get water in their toilets to flush, AND they must pay for the Privledge.
Yes, I say privledge, because privledges can be taken away from society.

**FlyOnTheWall** · September-30-14, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by anonJD

Do people that don't pay their utility bills even bother to vote? I seriously doubt it.

Maybe they don't vote but they sure do scream loud. They were heard all the way to the UN! Now that is some loud screaming and crying. LOL

**professorscott** · September-30-14, 09:52 PM

Originally Posted by FlyOnTheWall

Maybe they don't vote but they sure do scream loud. They were heard all the way to the UN! Now that is some loud screaming and crying. LOL

That's one issue for you: the poor are likely to protest but not vote. For some reason - this has been studied to death; Google it, you don't have to take my word - poverty is strongly correlated with low voting rates. I have no idea why; I'm just stating a well known fact.

Willi · September-30-14, 10:01 PM

People in metro Detroit area need to understand what the difference between :
a.) a privledge
b.) an entitlement
c.) a human right

Ignorance - lacking knowledge or awareness .
If folks barely passed high school they simply choose the first term someone yells and run with it.
A mob mentality ensues, and none of them really know what or why they are doing what they do

**Hypestyles** · September-30-14, 10:27 PM

The coming winter-- and how any water main bursts are handled-- will be an important test of the new stewardship of the water department.

**FlyOnTheWall** · September-30-14, 10:58 PM

Originally Posted by professorscott

That's one issue for you: the poor are likely to protest but not vote. For some reason - this has been studied to death; Google it, you don't have to take my word - poverty is strongly correlated with low voting rates. I have no idea why; I'm just stating a well known fact.

That is an interesting point of view for me. Not one that I will totally agree with though as I live in a community that always has a fairly large turnout for voting and the community that I live in has a lower median income than Detroit. It seems to me that if Detroit is poor then my community is even poorer by about a thousand dollars a year and we have a good turnout.

Trust me, I'm not saying you are wrong but it doesn't seem to hold true in my community. I wonder why that would be.

You have me a thinking about it.

**FlyOnTheWall** · September-30-14, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by Willi

Ignorance - lacking knowledge or awareness .
If folks barely passed high school they simply choose the first term someone yells and run with it.
A mob mentality ensues, and none of them really know what or why they are doing what they do

Hmmm... I'll have to think about this in reference to my response to professorscott above. The difference between Detroit and my little community in northern Michigan. I never see a mob mentality here.

**mwilbert** · September-30-14, 11:12 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

It's called kicking down. Just commenting on how the nation will fall apart and you guys will still be kicking down. And I'm sure it will all make sense to you why you continue to do so.

I'm with poobert here, but if suggesting that poor people need to pay their routine bills even though they are poor is kicking down [[it isn't) then you are correct that probably people will continue to kick down indefinitely. I'm very much in favor of subsidies for the poor, but the DWSD isn't really in a position to provide them.

**erikd** · October-01-14, 09:14 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

They are protesting because it works. People listen. Look, we're talking about it.

The future of Detroit will only come when protesters for absurd things are ignored.

It seems that there is a huge gap between the perception that large numbers of Detroiters are marching in protest, and the reality that very few Detroiters are actually protesting.

The water shutoff protest was mostly about the ACLU, National Nurses United, and the Netroots conference that was being held at Cobo. A significant amount of the protesters were Netroots attendees, and not even Detroiters.

I live in the city, and the only people that I know who were at the protest were from NYC and LA. They were attending the Netroots conference and participated in the protest. I don't know any Detroiters who actually protested.

We have seen the same thing with the media frenzy around the EM protest at city hall, which drew tons of media, but only about 30-40 actual protesters, and the Belle Isle protest, which also was widely publicized and covered, but only drew 20-30 protesters.

The perception and the reality are completely different.