It was a very nice piece by Jack Lessenberry today, October 5, 2009 on WUOM-FM, about my encounter with Matty Moroun’s shotgun-totin’ goon, though many people deserve credit for weighing in against the megalomaniac Matty.
The Windsor Star has been on Matty’s case from the get-go.
But it’s heartening to see coverage by Crain’s, the Detroit News, Channel 7.
Jack himself and Curt Guyette of the Metro Times have worked hard to focus attention on the hijinks of our bilious billionaire. Curt’s revelation that Matty failed to fence one side of the bridge while claiming security concerns for the other pointed up the ineptitude if not the sheer idiocy of the tycoon’s legal case.
And then there’s Gregg Ward, whose seemingly minute-by-minute e-mail broadcasts keep us up to date on the latest tricks by Matty.
Thanks again, Jack.
As always, drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
For so long, Moroun and his bridge company were able to operate out of the public eye to the point where he is one of Detroit’s biggest property owners, as well as de facto controller of the Port of Detroit. Moroun’s political contributions pave the way for his behind-the-scenes schemes. So many Michiganders have had their homes and their livelihoods bulldozed and ground under by his sometimes illegal actions for so many years. Meanwhile, the Windsor Star’s Dave Battagello labored almost alone in the journalistic vineyards in reporting on Moroun.
Moroun’s public face — his right-hand man, Dan Stamper — has been disingenuous at best, as he has equivocated, denied and, evidently, outright lied with impunity when it comes to weasel-wordedly answering questions about Moroun’s greedy actions that have loosed the tycoon’s own Four Horseman of the Apocalypse: Destruction of Neighborhoods, Destitution, Decay, and Dereliction. (If, God forbid, any of the young people who worked to clean up Moroun’s Michigan rail depot develop Mesothelioma from the building’s asbestos, a Fifth Horseman — Death — could join the other four.)
But Truth crushed to earth will rise again. Where once the Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry’s Gregg Ward stood almost alone in bringing Moroun’s dictatorial actions to the awareness of people on this side of the border, he has been joined by Jack Lessenberry, Joel Thurtell, and Curt Guyette, and in recent years, those Four Musketeers — backed by increasing numbers of the news media, as well as State Representative Rashida Tlaib and other unbought area politicians — have been confronting Moroun’s Apocalyptic Horsemen, in an attempt to prevent them from further galloping roughshod over area communities and people’s lives.
Money talks — but there are some people who cannot be bought.
Ride on, Musketeers!
Right on, Musketeers!
Ride on, Write on, Fight on!