Before American fascist Henry Ford turned Detroit into a 'motorcity' it was previously a beautifully French-style -designed town created by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. It should have ended up as part of French Canada with the rest of the state of Michigan. But the American revolution changed all that so Detroit fell into the hands of the British ex-patriots. They already owned the town of Windsor (Ontario) on the opposite side of the Detroit river-straights. And just after World War I - enter Henry Ford. Ugh! But this documentary doesn't dwell on who owned what then.

Henry Ford began building cheaply made and designed automobiles in a warehouse in downtown Detroit employing exclusively WHITE laborers only. Why only white? Because one of Mr. Fords first and biggest customer was Adolf Hitler. Hitler who ordered ALL his military trucks (i.e. lorries) built especially from Ford Inc. Business became a hot deal between the two of these white racists! Ford expected his town to become the Western capital of Nazi Germany. And that was only the beginning.

Of course there's scant mention of this triumphant beginning in the 'road movie' we're reviewing here. I've learned long ago that even 'academics' refrain from rocking the boat of their 'sponsors' - like universities who themselves OWE everything they've got and stand for to their 'SPONSORS' : industry itself. Understand? The myth that the academic industry is FREE of pressures from the powers that be - least of all political - is a long standing JOKE in the education industry. For sure! If they deny that fact than their credentials should be reexamined.

Just look at the public information industry (like publishing or broad- casting) and you'll find FEWER features or stories that doesn't PLEASE the advertiser. Get what I mean? And that's why females have moved steadily into strategic editorial management positions in communications - where THEY have become the number ONE target for any PRODUCT being promoted for sale. Yes?

Back to Detroit. Henry Ford was glorified by American industry for having kick-started the CHEAP AUTO INDUSTRY. He on the East side of America and his bosom-buddy Walt Disney on the Western front. both champions of Hitler throughout the 30s and early 40s. (Hitler was a big fan of Mickey Mouse.) They lead the American politicians into believing that Hitler had arrived just in time to save the USA from Communism! The USA showered Hitler with all the war equipment he needed to start World War 2. But this documentary doesn't dwell on the 'political' reasons Detroit fell into ruin. Leave that for another cover-up documentary?

Ford's fascist factories actually developed academic studies measuring the amount of 'labor' any individual worker could endure. And if any worker were not up to the proven highest 'speed' possible they were sacked on the spot. And labor Unions? Forget it. The first American street riots where workers were actually shot dead by national guard troupes for protesting happened in the mid-30s and later in the early '40s in motorcity itself! Freedom of speech never had a chance against industrialist Henry ford!

Then came the depression. Ford and his cheap cars collapsed on their home ground. Ford ended up collecting vagrants and poor teen-agers off the streets Detroit to join his Hitler-style Workers Youth Movement. His aim: to train them to obey their betters and work harder than any other laborers. Wow! But nothing helped put Fordism back together again. After WW2 Europe and Japan began producing cheaper and better mass-market automobiles than anything that came out of Detroit and their giant-size petrol-guzzling autos (left) Formerly Detroit's tallest downtown building - the Hudson Department Store - demolished.

It never occurred to the Yanks - who by then became a world-consumer of cheap petrol - that much less petrol was needed in cars outside the USA.

So? What about all the car workers? What's to become of them? And what about all the Blacks who migrated to Detroit knowing the best they could ever get was work as floor-sweepers. At its peak, before the Wall Street crash, Detroit had doubled its population - from 1-million to 2-million. Since the end of WW2 the population of that town - once the 4th largest in America - had fallen back to less than !-million. And most of them are Black.

One memorable scene in this documentary appears towards the end when a very old black man is telling his grandstand that music or boxing - the remaining industries still active in this forlorn town - should not be regarded as a future for himself "because only one in hundreds ever makes it up there" he tells him. Joe Louis, the boxing champion from the '30s and Stevie Wonder's music from the '50s reminds us of what was left my New Orleans once the whites fled. Detroit singing in the rain?

America is too busy freeing Iraq from Fascism - they say - but not bothering to look at their own home ground disasters or trying to mend their own racist jungle in Detroit. Motor City indeed!

PASTE THE BEST THAT'S LEFT WEBSITES:

http://www.motownmuseum.com/ OR http://soulfuldetroit.com/

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G. P. Solomos was born in Detroit in 1925