An Open Letter to the Detroit Economic Club

After listening to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush deliver a rather unremarkable speech at the Detroit Economic Club last Wednesday, I was compelled to offer an opposing economic worldview on my Facebook page the following day and to add to my apologetic ideas expressed in a tribute article I wrote on Adam Smith, known as “the Father of modern economics”:

Here is my latest essay on the literary and intellectual Classics,

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/washington/150207

Question to Facebook Friends:

Was I taught in school about the fundamentals of capitalism, the free market and the supply and demand philosophies of Adam Smith?

The only mention of Adam Smith I had in school was a final paper I had to write about him in a high school economics class where the teacher didn’t give us any teaching aids, books, or reference materials (other than an outdated textbook with missing pages). Of course most of us students didn’t do very well on that assignment, yet it lit a spark in my mind that Adam Smith was a man I needed to learn more about, therefore in my 50 year quest for knowledge my journey led me on Christmas Day 1982 (my senior year in college) to convert to a conservative worldview and become an adherent of the Supply-side economics ideas of economist legend Thomas Friedman and President Ronald Reagan which from 1982-2007 gave America the longest, continuous peacetime economic growth in American history. Economic ideas derivative of the genius of Adam Smith.

Spread Enlightenment … Spread Veritas (truth)!

I was born in Detroit and graduated from Cass Technical High School (1979). To date I have written 9 books, published over two dozen law review articles, translated into 10 languages, on 4 continents. I have written over 1,000 essays, articles, monographs, and Socratic dialogues on at least 15 different academic disciplines, and have been a college professor for 15 years. I only recited this small part of my curriculum vitae not to boast, but to expose the hypocrisy of the American Dream – that if one works hard enough, that in this country you can become whatever you want to be. That American Dream is a cynical myth. The American Dream of reality is that one can become whatever you want to be… IF you believe in these three existential ideas: Evolution, Socialism, Progressivism, AND have powerful people, connected people, rich people of the same worldview in high places to pave the way for your success. That’s the Real American Dream.

Exhibit One: Why hasn’t the elite Detroit Economic Club ever invited a native Detroiter, perhaps even a Black conservative intellectual to speak about ‘Reaganomics’ which is Supply-side economics? Ironically, Ronald Reagan gave such an economics address here in Detroit, July 17, 1980, at Cobo Hall where he accepted the Republican Nomination for President of the United States. Since that historic speech I have tried in vain to obtain the American Dream by scrupulously building a respectable resume as a Black conservative intellectual and legal scholar from Detroit, yet I have never been invited to the Detroit Economic Club, nor even ever asked to write a single news article for my three hometown newspapers – the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, or the Michigan Chronicle, nor have they ever published a single line mentioning my existence, nor has any of my Detroit alma maters (Cass Tech, University of Michigan, Michigan Law Review) ever invited me to speak to the students at those schools to demonstrate that not all Black people think alike. (About 10 years ago I once invited myself to speak at the University of Michigan and at Michigan State University and was well-received, but most students there viewed me like a novelty, or a Martian from Mars). Nevertheless, ironically, each year hundreds of thousands of Black people are mentioned in these same papers and appear on all forms of Detroit media including TV, who have never contributed anything of lasting significance to society, or more pointedly, are celebrated for promoting ideas destructive to America’s founding values like Natural Law, Natural Rights, real Justice (not ‘Social Justice’) and the original intent of America’s constitutional Framers.

Do I exist? Do Black conservatives of accomplishment exist in Detroit? In Michigan? … In America?

Civil Rights: Liberty or Socialism Slavery?

How can this egregious omission happen in Detroit, in 2015, when racism and discrimination based on ideology or creed was said to have been eradicated under federal law and eliminated 50 years ago with that iconic handshake between LBJ and MLK at the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Does the Detroit Economic Club and Detroit institutions only care about Black people when they commit grotesque crimes, or can shoot a basketball, catch a football, hit a baseball, sing, dance, shuck and jive, or play an instrument (incidentally, I am a classically trained French hornist). Nevertheless, why does Detroit historically have a venal hostility to Black conservatives? Are we that dangerous to ignore lest another Justice Clarence Thomas pops up exposing the Progressive worldview as a grand, genocidal fraud? Is the Liberal-Socialist vision for America so myopic and parochial that the power structure in this city is only interested in giving notice to people who are down and out like ‘Walking man’ James Robertson, a Detroiter who walked 21 miles roundtrip to work every day for years and was recently given over $300,000 and a new truck by strangers who admired his persistence?

Don’t misunderstand my analogy, I’m not angry at nor envious of the man who was given a truck so that he can now drive to work: that was a very admirable deed by all who gave. However, my inquiry here is infinitely much deeper and my critique, exceedingly more profound and goes directly to the existential war of ideas that has occurred since the founding of America – between Natural Law and conservative philosophy, founded in the original intent of the constitutional Framers vs. Positive Law and Progressive philosophy, founded in Charles Darwin’s evolution atheism, Karl Marx’s Socialism and Communism and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Will to Power and Ubermenchen (Superman, Think: Nazi Aryans), and John Dewey’s Education Socialism.

In other words I ask you Detroit Economic Club, does Detroit care about Black conservative intellectuals whose ideas transcend the existential Welfare Slavery of the Democrat Socialist Party? If so, then why can’t conservatives have a seat at the table to help bring Detroit back from the economic abyss it has been mired in since the late 1950s? Does the Detroit Economic Club care only about giving a forum to progressive political hacks like Jeb Bush to feign and fake like he is a Reagan “conservative” or does the Detroit Economic Club care about the supply side economic ideas promoted by the legendary economist, Milton Friedman and President Ronald Reagan which if implemented in this city could lead to a real and lasting Renaissance in Detroit, not just economically, but morally and intellectually?

Since 1957, with the death of Detroit’s second to last Republican mayor Albert Eugene Cobo (1950-57), Detroit has tragically only promoted unionism, welfare dependency, John Dewey atheism public schools and socialism slavery. Instead Democrat Party Detroit has treated conservatives and conservative ideas including conservative economic worldviews as irrelevant thus transforming Detroit from “The Paris of America” (which it was called circa 1912) to the Beirut of America (which it has been since the Detroit Riots of 1967). However, as I look at Detroit I find this city symptomatic of cities across America; I believe that conservative ideas are more relevant and necessary for effective policy change today than they were ever before.

George S. Schulyer: A forgotten Black conservative intellectual

One way I am trying to positively affect the marketplace of ideas is that I co-host a local radio show here in Detroit called Joshua’s Trial. Radio Host, Pastor Levon Yuille is a doctrinaire Black conservative who has been doing this show for over 10 years, yet because the Leftist media monopoly here in Detroit are only interested in promoting Democrat party politics, they ignore him and act like he doesn’t exist. For example, during Joshua’s Trial’s annual Pro-Life rally outside Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit, I’ve personally witnessed the media jump in their vans and drive away and hide in the back parking areas when approached by Pastor Yuille to inquire about doing a “fair and balanced” news story of our event. (I chronicled one such event in a 2013 essay.)

Recently I had a colleague of mine, Dr. Jack Kerwick, discuss an article he had written several years ago on the outstanding, but largely forgotten Black conservative intellectual, George Schuyler (1895-1977). I had to admit that I had never heard of this intellectual and iconoclastic Titan. My radio interview of Dr. Kerwick on Feb. 7th was a huge success with both the listening audience and my radio colleagues all wanting me to do a follow up interview of Dr. Kerwick’s articles discussing the forgotten conservative legacy of George Schuyler. Schuyler was a prolific journalist who wrote on a variety of subjects for over 50 years; 40 of those years writing for the second largest Black newspaper of his day, the Pittsburg Courier. Schuyler also contributed 10 articles to the great social critic H. L. Mencken’s newspaper, The American Mercury. Mencken and Schuyler were very good friends and colleagues and since both men were critical thinkers and ardent iconoclasts, it comes as no surprise that Schuyler didn’t follow MLK and the Civil Rights establishment of his day in supporting LBJ’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here’s a passage from Dr. Jack Kerwick essay citing Schuyler’s unimpeachable constitutional worldview:

Laws like the Civil Rights Act of ’64 we will be able to add to the voluminous body of “largely unenforceable legislation [that] has everywhere been characteristic of political immaturity” generally and the United States in particular. Schuyler writes:

“New countries have a passion for novelty, and a country like America, which grew out of conquest, immigration, revolution and civil war, is prone to speed social change by law, or try to do so, on the assumption that by such legerdemain it is possible to make people better by

force

.” (Emphasis in original.) ….

In other words Schulyer here was echoing the Roman statesman Cicero who said, Summum ius, summa iniuria or “more law, less justice.” If Detroit and America is to survive Detroit must overcome one-party rule and the existential Progressive Revolution where I have now written 4 volumes providing real, systematic solutions to combat Barack Obama’s promise he made to America 5 days before first being elected president of the United States in a speech on Oct. 30, 2008. Obama said, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming [i.e., Deconstructing] the United States of America”. Overcoming the historic and disastrous effects of Socialism can only be achieved if conservative philosophers, writers, teachers, professors, media and regular citizens have courage and heart and not be beguiled by Progressives; to demand an active seat at the table of power for real political and ideological change in Detroit and beyond.

Epilogue and Challenge to the Detroit Economic Club

To the Detroit Economic Club and to the media journalists, administrators, teachers, radio and academic colleagues I have copied on this correspondence, please don’t allow Black conservatives like Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, Allen West, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter Williams, Pastor Levon Yuille, and many other anonymous and lesser-known Black conservatives like myself and my son, Stone, a young, promising conservative writer and high school senior, be thrown upon the ash heap of history… forever forgotten like George Schuyler. America’s survival is at stake! For as one of my dear friends, a Holocaust survivor once wrote,
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

~ Elie Wiesel

I love America and I bleed red, white and blue, therefore, while I would be honored to speak in front of such a prestigious national organization, this Open Letter to the Detroit Economic Club is of course both literary and rhetorical – a dream deferred which I understand will never happen, consequently it is infinitely more important to me, for the survival of America and for the preservation of her Judeo-Christian traditions to have the Detroit Economic Club who has set on her lofty perch since 1934, interacting with like-minded White members, but not with the Black people of Detroit like me – watching in silence as Detroit, “The Paris of America”; “The Arsenal of Democracy” “The Motor Capital of the World” sank into the abyss of Socialism slavery and Democrat Party hegemony. Detroit Economic Club, therefore you have a mandate and own a duty of restitution to all citizens of Detroit to do these two projects to bring Detroit back from the brink of economic destruction, back from the abyss of the Progressive Revolution.

First, establish a Detroit Economic Club in every public high school and charter high school in Detroit and provide tutorial services and college scholarships to worthy students to escape the intractable ghettos of Detroit that have aborted the hopes and dreams of generations, of millions of Black people in Detroit. Have the DEC ‘Graduates’ come back to Detroit and give lecturers and show the next generation that you can make it in America!

Secondly, I demand that the Detroit Economic Club establish a think tank IN DETROIT – to teach men, women, and our youth here in Detroit to use and live everyday by conservative principles; to passionately declare to all citizens of every socio-economic group that whosever is willing to forsake the chains of Socialism slavery by changing their thinking and their worldview, can deliver themselves and their generations from poverty, if each Detroiter (and America) choose to return to the Supply-side economic policies of Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, who together with America’s constitutional Framers, all owe a tremendous debt to the Father of modern economics, Professor Adam Smith.

VERITAS!

Professor Ellis Washington, J.D.

Director, Salt and Light Global LLC