There’s a new movie out. Little Pink House is the story of the heroic Susette Kelo, of eminent domain as a crony-corporate giveaway, and of the worst Supreme Court Decision since Dred Scott (or at least since the supremes decreed that growing food on your own property could be “interstate commerce”).
Haven’t seen it yet and probably won’t until Netflix delivers it later this year. But it stars Catherine Keener (always a good sign) and it’s 85/96 on Rottentomatoes.com.
Any of you see it yet?
Here’s an updated new story, buried in it is what I thought I remembered. To this day all that land is empty, so much for all the tax dollars that where supposed to be generated. I like to think that it’s the Universe getting even with the city.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/04/18/eminent-domain-kelo-v-city-new-london-and-pink-house.html
Haven’t seen the movie yet, but also plan to when it’s on Netflix. I know a bit about the area – my mother grew up in New London, my grandparents are buried there, and I still have family very near there.
This was during the time I was active in the Libertarian Party. Was involved in the public uproar against the ‘redevelopment’ plan, and used public access television to assail this most egregious theft of people’s homes. Worked on the campaigns of candidates who opposed this travesty, alas, to no avail.
But hey, the city of New London apologized. And so did one of the Connecticut Supreme Court morons who sided with the city. If there is a Hell, I hope there is a special place reserved for those who perpetrated this, including Pfizer.
It is depressing, to see the destroyed neighborhood. Pisses me off to no end.
Lesson learned – you own nothing. All you have is government permission to use it until someone with more money and power wants it.
I knew the land was empty for a long, long time. I’m glad to hear it still is. Definitely cosmic justice.
I wonder how many millions New London has lost because of what it did to those people and that neighborhood? Not only no big bux from Pfizer and incoming Pfizer employees, but no property taxes from the people the city forced out of their homes.
Yeah, may everyone responsible for that rot.
According to the wikipeda article
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London )
“The final cost to the city and state for the purchase and bulldozing of the formerly privately held property was $78 million. The promised 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues had not materialized.”
Also note that Pfizer, an instigator of the whole affair, added insult to injury – in 2009,
“Pfizer Inc. announced that it is closing the $350 million research center in New London that was the anchor for the New London redevelopment plan, and will be relocating some 1,500 jobs.
The Chronicle editorial quoted from The New York Times:
“They stole our home for economic development,” ousted homeowner Michael Cristofaro told the New York Times. “It was all for Pfizer, and now they get up and walk away.”
The more I think about it, rotting in Hell would be too good for them.
“Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for us as capital or when we directly possess, eat, drink, wear, inhabit it, etc., in short, when we use it. Although private property conceives all these immediate realizations of possession only as means of life; and the life they serve is the life of private property, labor, and capitalization. Therefore all the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by the simple estrangement of all these senses – the sense of having. So that it might give birth to its inner wealth, human nature had to be reduced to this absolute poverty.” Karl Marx
Inner wealth coming soon to a neighborhood near you!
BTW I hope to see this movie soon.
Kelo built on a precedent from the early days of urban renewal when “public benefit” was held to be the same as the Constitution’s “public use”.