A State Of Prosperity, 1954

Spotted at a used book sale:A 74-page booklet featuring 50s bounty, in one part of the country.

Michigan, USA; the 1950s: paragraph after paragraph noting the strength of industry—There are plenty of sections on touring the outdoors and state parks ("more than any other state"). There's also an entire page devoted to sightseeing opportunities here—
With the state booming, Detroit was the fifth largest city in the country, and this was pointed to with pride—The booklet's history suggests some facts that made prosperity possible—And: "We led the nation with a broad program, launched in 1928, to establish county and district public health agencies, which became a model for the nation and which provide 92 per cent of our population in 70 Michigan counties with full-time public health service."An educated, healthy population? Stopping that sort of thing has taken decades, but, we're pretty much there.

And then, there's what had to be stopped most of all— Another quaint point of pride: Michigan's labor history—

Labor Organizes—1818

... Some mistakenly regard the rise of unions as a recent development. Actually, Michigan has been a leader in the organized labor movement ever since its first union, the Detroit Mechanics Society, was founded in 1818.

Trade unions were born and flourished in Michigan in the decade before the Civil War. These groups, in turn, led to the formation of the Michigan Federation of Labor in Detroit in 1889.

The Federation of Labor undertook to organize auto workers as early as 1903, and founded a formal auto workers union in 1916.

And so on, about a history unknown to most Americans.

Which makes it all the easier to stamp out those pesky union elections, along with unseemly things like "free schools for all"; "public libraries"; "public health service"...

Start with Reagan's preaching government hate; add thirty years of right-wing activism. At the state level you get this year's crop of CEO governors installed to do what CEOs do: fire workers, hire cronies, and strip the place of the remaining assets.

In Michigan today, Rick Snyder's particular angle on this is to replace the ballot box with "financial martial law."

The promise of trickle-down prosperity is the public face of this stuff, pitched to a country that didn't exactly learn its lesson in the 80s.

The new tactic in Michigan is also a handy means of dealing with black people living on overly valuable real estate.

With another front being used to shut down public schools and opportunity for the poor.