About

The mission of Michigan Downriver is to help empower our people to create new opportunities, new businesses and to cooperate for our common good.

In the past, the Downriver Region of Metro Detroit stood in the background while other regions bragged of superior wealth, costly homes, better schools and high-tech start-ups. The truth is that Downriver is a beautiful place to live — where eagles, hawks and blue herons live; waters teem with fish; and boaters and kayakers enjoy rivers, parks and the International Wildlife Refuge.

But, during the current, endless economic depression, we have become wounded. Home values have tanked to record lows, taxes remain too high, and jobs have disappeared. Worse, we are frightened that our elected representatives have sold us out or simply are serving their own or their ”party” interests to the detriment of the public as a whole.

We work for a living here. Just like our parents and grandparents did. We are proud of that fact. Businesses have and do thrive here because we support them. We believe in and uphold the American Social Contract that created our mutually supportive society through which most of us have prospered and in turn has made it possible to keep this nation strong. We are, all of us, Americans together, “… created equal, … endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Clearly, as it has always been, it’s up to us to create new industries, new businesses and to sustain our communities and support our people in achieving the American Dream.

We have come to realize that soulless, heartless corporations are not concerned for our well-being. And, as Congress has repeatedly demonstrated, neither are our elected officials. That’s our job and the mission of the Michigan Downriver blog is to help make it so.

Ron Baker