White flight, corporate flight . . .

I grew up just outside Detroit and have felt an ache in my heart for this bleeding city for so many years now. It’s long been one of the country’s designated loser cities, beginning in the 1960s, when change hit it hard. The phrase at the time was “urban blight,” a social cancer with unexamined causes that, in the ensuing years, has gotten progressively worse.

A year ago this week, the city, which is predominantly African-American, lost its self-governance when the Republican governor of Michigan appointed an emergency financial manager, an overboss with powers superseding that of all elected officials — including the ability to rewrite laws, break contracts, privatize services and much more — on the premise that only an autocrat could straighten out the city’s disastrous finances. Four months later, Detroit made headlines as the largest city to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, but of course it wasn’t “the city” that did so; it was the emergency manager.

The city, in all its soul and complexity, had been reduced to a single voice: the voice of austerity and, of course, corporate interests.

The frontrunner to become the next president of the United States is playing an old and dangerous political game -- comparing a foreign leader to Adolf Hitler.

At a private charity event on Tuesday, in comments preserved on audio, Hillary Clinton talked about actions by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in the Crimea. “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” she said.

The next day, Clinton gave the inflammatory story more oxygen when speaking at UCLA. She “largely stood by the remarks,” the Washington Post reported. Clinton “said she was merely noting parallels between Putin’s claim that he was protecting Russian-speaking minorities in Crimea and Hitler’s moves into Poland, Czechoslovakia and other parts of Europe to protect German minorities.”

Clinton denied that she was comparing Putin with Hitler even while she persisted in comparing Putin with Hitler. “I just want people to have a little historic perspective,” she said. “I’m not making a comparison certainly, but I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before.”

The Lausche Center was the scene of two hard fought victories for Columbus' own hometown heroines on March 8 against 39th ranked Nashville's Music City Roller Girls. Both Ohio's charter team, the OHRG All Stars, and their B-Team, Gang Green, showed their tenacity and endurance as they fought their way to second half wins in front of a near capacity crowd of more than 750 cheering fans. The first bout of the night saw the two all-star teams face off in what was slated to be a classic struggle of offense versus defense but turned into something very different. Nashville brought a solid offense built around jammers Chelsea Daggers and Ann T. Histamine as well as a new defensive tactic of stacking up on the inside line and blocking OHRG's jammers in tandem.

Suddenly the crisis in Ukraine engulfs the US. As Russian troops move into Crimea, the White House goes into crisis management. Secretary of State Kerry takes off tyo the Ukrainian capital. Our media is barraged with 24/7 instant analyses. Republican Senators and retired generals call for moving American troops to the Polish-Russian border, placing missiles into the Czech Republic, dispatching a fleet to the black sea. Threats are issued and rhetoric escalates.

The Russian dispatch of armed forces to occupy Crimea is a direct and clear violation of basic international law. The moral force of America’s objection is weakened since we trampled international law ourselves in our unprovoked invasion of Iraq, but that does not justify the Russian invasion. The international community should speak clearly to condemn the invasion and to demand that the Putin regime remove Russian troops from the Crimea.

At the same time, the administration, increasingly bellicose Republican Senators and the legions of macho strategists should take a good look at reality.

Is “regime change” in Ukraine the bridge too far for the neoconservative “regime changers” of Official Washington and their sophomoric “responsibility-to-protect” (R2P) allies in the Obama administration? Have they dangerously over-reached by pushing the putsch that removed duly-elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has given an unmistakable “yes” to those questions – in deeds, not words. His message is clear: “Back off our near-frontier!”

Moscow announced on Saturday that Russia’s parliament has approved Putin’s request for permission to use Russia’s armed forces “on the territory of the Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country.”

Putin described this move as necessary to protect ethnic Russians and military personnel stationed in Crimea in southern Ukraine, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet and other key military installations are located. But there is no indication that the Russian parliament has restricted the use of Russian armed forces to the Crimea.