Maywood California has not only had to disband its police department, but due to corruption and mismanagement will be completely dependent on other cities for all it’s essential services. Why? Because Maywood is out of money. I’ve been writing about Maywood a lot recently, but that’s because it’s a lesson we all need to learn.

That lesson is this: radical Marxist political movements cannot sustain First World lifestyles for Americans once they come to power. In Maywood’s case it was the racist “Brown Power” movement that took over, but except for the outward manifestations of radicalism the city of Maywood is no further left than New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.

The somewhat indelicate Roger Hedgecock paints the picture of Maywood’s decline in this recent Human Events article:

Boasting a population that is 97% Hispanic, more than half foreign born, and 40% illegal, the Los Angeles County, Calif., incorporated city of Maywood has achieved the Reconquista goal. It is now as lawless and chaotic as any place in Mexico. Maywood is a warning to every city and town in America.

The Maywood City Council announced this week that after years of radical policies, corruption and scandal, the city was broke and all city employees would be laid off and essential city services contracted out to neighboring cities or to L.A. County government.

How did this happen? Until recently, Maywood was the model for “brown power” politics.

Maywood was the first California city with an elected Hispanic City Council, one of the first “sanctuary” cities for illegal aliens, the first city to pass a resolution calling for a boycott of Arizona after that state passed a law to enforce federal immigration laws, the first California city to order its police department not to enforce state laws requiring drivers to have licenses to drive, the first American city to call on Congress to grant amnesty to all illegals.

Council meetings were conducted in Spanish. Maywood was the leader in the peaceful, democratic achievement of the La Raza goal to take power in the U.S.

White liberals of course applauded this power grab by their “brothers” in the struggle. But in actuality rather than a liberation from oppression this was ghettoization at it’s most basic. And with the anti-assimilationist sentiment of the community leaders stoking the fires Maywood became a non-territory, no longer American but reliant on American money and authority. At the same time the people of Maywood became increasingly anti-American and racist. And of course, like all leftists, violent:

In August 2006, a “Save Our State” anti-illegal immigration rally in Maywood drew hundreds of protesters—but a larger number of defenders of illegal immigration. The pro-illegal protesters carried signs which read “We are Indigenous ! The ONLY owners of this Continent!” and “Racist Pilgrims Go Home” and “All Europeans are Illegal Here.”

According to newspaper reports at the time, objectors to illegal aliens were subject to physical attacks. A 70-year-old man was “slashed,” a woman attacked, and cars vandalized. Pro-illegal demonstrators raised the Mexican flag at the U.S. Post Office.

Criminality and corruption flourished, in large part due to the influence of Latin American Communism from which the Brown Pride movement was spawned. While the city of Maywood was going broke financially, the leaders of the community had become as morally bankrupt as any Third World tin pot dictator:

For years, the Maywood City Council authorized police checkpoints to stop drunk driving. Drivers without licenses had their cars impounded. Illegals in California cannot get drivers licenses. By 2005, the number of such impounds were in the hundreds. A community campaign was launched forcing the City Council to suspend the checkpoints.

Cars were still being impounded whenever a police traffic-violation stop resulted in a driver without a license. Felipe Aguirre, a community activist with Comite Pro-Uno, an “immigration service center,” coordinated a new campaign against any impounds. He was elected in 2005 to the City Council. He is the mayor of Maywood today.

[…]

The Maywood Police Department was restructured by the new council. A new chief and new officers were hired. Later it turned out that many of the new officers had previously been fired from other law enforcement agencies for a variety of infractions. The Maywood P.D. was known as the “Department of Second Chances.”

Among those hired was a former L.A. Sheriff’s deputy terminated for abusing jail inmates; a former LAPD officer fired for intimidating a witness; and an ex-Huntington Park officer charged with negligently discharging a handgun and driving drunk.

Even the L.A. Times called the Maywood Police Department a “haven for misfit cops.” Their story alleged that a veteran officer was extorting sex from relatives of a criminal fugitive; that another officer tried to run over the president of the Maywood Police Commission; and that another officer has impregnated a teenage police-explorer scout.

It’s easy to make the mistake Hedgecock does and see this story as simply a cautionary tale of the end result of a society that does not encourage assimilation of immigrants. But though Maywood has failed because of the La Raza run political machine at work there, they are not unique in their financial situation.

From the Financial Times:

States around the US are cutting costs wherever possible as they prepare budgets for the fiscal year that starts this week for most of them. Their combined deficit is projected to reach $112bn by June 2011.

Local government activities, such as funding police, school buildings, fire departments, parks and social programmes, are in the line of fire.

“We are where the rubber meets the road,” said Sam Olivito of the California Contract Cities Association, which represents cities that outsource public services. “Local government is the fabric of our nation – it’s what keeps everything working properly.”

The biggest state deficit is in California, which has a $19bn hole in its finances. A series of contentious spending cuts is being debated in the state.

But for Maywood time has run out: the city’s insurance costs spiked because of long-running problems associated with its police department, while revenue from property and sales taxes declined. When city officials failed to respond to conditions imposed by its insurers, coverage was withdrawn.

Despite its problems, Maywood’s experience could be repeated elsewhere. “A lot of cities and municipalities are struggling to make ends meet,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California. “Local governments are so constrained by their budgets – they can’t raise taxes and they have rising pension obligations.”

The real issue with Maywood is an insular leftist culture that seeks to exist parasitically on the life blood of other Americans who are supposedly doing well. The problem is that most Americans aren’t. America can no longer afford to foot the bill for others, whether they are illegals eating up our social service dollars or upper middle class city dwellers who think they have a “right” to “free” health care. No city needs an influx of illegals to collapse as Maywood has, just a population of leftists who don’t understand that money is finite and politicians willing to maintain the illusion that the system is sustainable.

And most cities have that now.

This is America’s future. Unsustainable policies driven by unrealistic expectations that end in ungovernable cities.