Ayoon Wa Azan (Detroit and other news)

Detroit has gone bankrupt. The municipality declared bankruptcy and I do not know how a dispute in the courts will turn out, but I do know that workers face the threat of losing their salaries, and retirees face losing their benefits. Detroit was once the capital of the world's automotive industry. General Motors was the biggest and most successful American firm. Then it faced setbacks and shrunk, outperformed by Japanese and German, and even Korean cars. Where are Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Studebaker and others? They are all gone, because they were made to break down as soon as the insurance ended. This is what Ralph Nader said in his famous book "Unsafe at Any Speed," about the Corvair. I am reading that Detroit has gone bankrupt; then, I read that it will recover, despite the current difficulties. I hope this will help all people in Detroit, include its large Arab community. I say that Detroit would be able to return to its past glory or even more, if every administration would set aside billions of dollars for reviving big urban centers, instead of sending these billions to a nearly bankrupt country led by a gang intent on murder and occupation, namely Israel, while American cities decay and practically die. Then, the paid-for Congress asks, as the administration is reducing expenditures across the board, to not touch the "assistance" for Israel. As for other news that should be noted, in 2006, a plot to blow up a civilian airliner by British Muslims was foiled. In a moment of anger, the famous British writer, Martin Amis, demanded that British Muslims be banned from traveling, and then expelled from the country. He said that they should be discriminated against to the point of harm. Amis was heavily attacked after his attack on all British Muslims. I recently read that he said he was only angry for a few hours, and that his stance was a big mistake, in asking for collective punishment for a crime committed by a few individuals. I recognize this new stance by the writer and thank him for it, just as I recognized his earlier stance and criticized him for it. He now says that a small increase in immigration would "do England good," after he had preferred to see it closed to foreigners. Israel appointed a new ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, who will take up the post in two months. The representative of Benjamin Netanyahu should be the same type of defender of occupying what remains left of Palestine. I read that Dermer is an American neoconservative who gave up his citizenship in 2005, to become Netanyahu's lies-writer. Some articles on Dermer had the headline: "Meet the new ambassador." I do not want to meet him at all. I was surprised by a small item, "Impeach Barack Obama." I thought it was another Likud attack on him, but found the reason to be the president's statement that he likes to eat broccoli. George HW Bush said once that after he became president, he did not have to eat in anymore, after having had to eat broccoli because his parents told him to. It is too easy to accuse Obama of eating broccoli, so I will let readers select more important reasons. I think about the ongoing financial crisis and the failure to close Guantanamo, the drone war that kills civilians, appeasing the Israeli lobby and Netanyahu, the war criminal. However, I do not want Obama to be impeached; we might get another George W Bush, under a different name, and the old neoconservative policies. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.