So the Bucks new team president Peter Feigin dropped in on Madison this week - - a city economically, racially and in many other ways diametrically opposed to the bigger and genuine urban area to the east - - to opine that Milwaukee is an antiquated, racist outlier American city.
Fine, ye NBA mogul, ignorant of regional reality and history and devoid of everyday manners, political smarts and appreciation for the daily, yearly, life-long efforts of tens of thousands of people of good will around here who work to right wrongs instead of lobbying and squeezing public dollars to goose along their privately-owned, exclusive franchises run by out-of-state billionaires:
Feel free to refund to the city its $47 million in subsidies we rubes are coughing up to help build your sports palace with its top-shelf amenities, ticket prices and high-profit food and drink.
Turn back the assets city taxpayers have forfeited for your business pleasure, including a primo downtown parking facility/perpetual cash machine, and a closed off city street you couldn't put a price tag on.
And if needed, write a check for the city's half of $80 million in reduced state aid to Milwaukee County that city taxpayers may have to cover.
In fact, sign on for the full $80 mil, just to show some sincerity and to remove all the irony from the bucks supporting the Milwaukee Bucks.
We can spend the money we're sacrificing for you business more directly addressing problems we know more about than do you.
Fine, ye NBA mogul, ignorant of regional reality and history and devoid of everyday manners, political smarts and appreciation for the daily, yearly, life-long efforts of tens of thousands of people of good will around here who work to right wrongs instead of lobbying and squeezing public dollars to goose along their privately-owned, exclusive franchises run by out-of-state billionaires:
Feel free to refund to the city its $47 million in subsidies we rubes are coughing up to help build your sports palace with its top-shelf amenities, ticket prices and high-profit food and drink.
Turn back the assets city taxpayers have forfeited for your business pleasure, including a primo downtown parking facility/perpetual cash machine, and a closed off city street you couldn't put a price tag on.
And if needed, write a check for the city's half of $80 million in reduced state aid to Milwaukee County that city taxpayers may have to cover.
In fact, sign on for the full $80 mil, just to show some sincerity and to remove all the irony from the bucks supporting the Milwaukee Bucks.
We can spend the money we're sacrificing for you business more directly addressing problems we know more about than do you.
Well told. Milwaukee is mostly viewed as nothing more than a cash cow for too many politicians and bid-ness people. And after those greed-heads extract wealth from the city and its residents and take that money elsewhere, they like Feigin have the gall to dump on the city for all its problems.
ReplyDeleteJust goes to show, there's boatloads of money to be made on poverty. This is why it persists. Funny how there is absolutely no reporting on how poverty functions to create markets for crappy stuff most would never choose to buy. It creates division between the haves and have-not's.
ReplyDeleteBut mostly, it is exploited to turn fear and anger against essentially powerless masses - as if the reason the middle class is being destroyed is because of the economically challenged instead of the true culprit, the wealthy elite that hijack our economy and democracy.
The failures in cities like Milwaukee have little or nothing to do with government and everything to do with disinvestment and dysfunction in the private sector. And the most glaring proof?
The Bucks arena and every other sports stadium funded by the masses for the economic benefits of a few elite.
And all the media will tell us is the lie that fans make a difference in a sporting event's outcome.