After World War II, members of the French resistance shaved the heads of French people who had collaborated with the Nazis, and paraded them through the streets. The photo above shows these collaborators, with heads of the City Council 6 superimposed.
The majority on the Detroit city council have done further harm to the besieged metropolis, voting to allow emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s former law firm to represent the city’s interests. “It will be argued that the people’s representatives have effectively given thumbs up to the nullification of Detroit,” thus weakening any legal challenges to corporate dictatorship over the city.
By Glen Ford, executive editor, Black Agenda Report
April 16, 2013
Jones Day offices in Cleveland, where the global law firm was founded.
The Detroit city council voted 5 to 2 to approve awarding the rightwing law firm Jones Day the contract to represent the city’s interests, even as several dozen protesters registered their disgust at the arrangement – until police cleared the chambers. Two council members made themselves absent from the vote.
Jones Day is the same law firm in which Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s state-appointed emergency manager, was a partner before Michigan’s governor made him dictator of Detroit. Which means that Orr, a bankruptcy lawyer who will have the power to dispose of the city’s assets, property and contracts, will work directly with his old firm. Meanwhile, Jones Day already represents a number of banks that are at opposite ends of derivative deals with Detroit, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. Jones Day and its supporters on the council claim they see no conflict of interest.
Kevyn Orr
“Even a blind person can see that this is not right,” said Charles Williams Sr., a protester and member of the National Action Network. It was Detroit’s pro-business mayor, Dave Bing, who pushed for Jones Day to get the contract in the first place. Based on the powers that emergency manager Kevyn Orr claims to have, it would not have mattered if the council had voted against Jones Day; Orr could simply have overridden them.
“The council majority have managed to inflict more injury on Detroit.”
So, why did the Council do it? That’s a question that goes beyond the current assault on democracy in Detroit. The former Motor City is no different than the rest of Black America, where a venal, self-centered Black Misleadership Class holds their fellow African Americans in utter contempt. They grovel before Power, hoping only that some of the crumbs will fall their way. Service to the people is an alien concept to this crowd, whether in Atlanta or DC or Detroit. If they were more competent, they would be even more corrupt, but as often as not they fail even to enrich themselves, and succeed only in impoverishing and embarrassing us all.
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder–Bing has said they are “joined at the hip.”
Kevyn Orr understand that all he had to do to keep a majority of the City Council in check was allow them to continue receiving their salaries, which by law had been reduced to zero and could have been kept there at Orr’s pleasure. Mayor Bing, the corporate water boy, had already proposed in his budget that each council person be reduced to one staff member – certainly not enough to keep track of the machinations of Kevyn Orr and his friends and former colleagues at Jones Day, who will surely feast on the bones of Detroit.
However, even in their impotence, the council majority have managed to inflict more injury on Detroit. By approving the Jones Day contract, the majority has certainly weakened any legal challenges to the disenfranchisement of Detroit’s people. Even though their vote was not necessary, the council majority have endorsed the machinery of Detroit’s disempowerment. It will be argued that the people’s representatives have effectively given thumbs up to the nullification of Detroit, which has ceased to exist as a real city, except as debtor and prey to the bankers.
The Black Misleadership Class cannot – and will not – defend Black people. In the end, they can’t even defend themselves.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
Has anyone ever stop think about , why cities like cleveland, baltimore, boston, new orleans, and a slew of other cities have survived and had major success where DETROIT for the last 50 yrs is always on the comeback trail. Detroit is the headquarters of the big three automotive companys. Take a look around and ask yourself ,what do i see ?? Why does everyone that films in the city only film the abandon houses and the poorer part of DETROIT. And everyone got to have a knock on the city. Yet they continue to make their money in the DETROIT market.
There is a well informed minority in detroit. Their protest and opinions are like words blowing in the wind. The Detroit news media , and the rest of michigan does not take heed to the informed Deroiters , but they lay on the uninformed . Why because they servi a purpose that have plagued Detroit for years. They feed off of Detroit. It`s strange ,everycity around THE CITY, gets by where Detroit constantly suffers. The kicker is the citizens of Detroit don`t have a clue of what is really going on.