WW II collaborators with shaven heads are paraded through town by the French Resistance on Bastille Day
By David Rambeau
February 2, 2012
We know their names,Ike McKinnon, Irvin Reid, Shirley Stancato, Glenda Price, and Conrad Mallett [appointed to the Detroit Emergency Manager Review Team by Governor Rick Snyder].
What we must decide on is their political, ideological and cultural allegiance; is it to our community or to those who would intensify our political and economic oppression and exploitation?
Conrad Mallett
The proverb says, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” These five plan to sit with those who would disenfranchise the people of Detroit through the imposition of an emergency manager on the city, and with this so-called manager dictate brutal social changes which will complete the deconstruction of our urban institutional and governmental landscape.
Historically throughout Michigan, the emergency manager (EM) dictat emanating from the state government has been perpetrated by both Democratic and Republican administrations (Blanchard, Engler, Granholm, Snyder) on urban areas, Flint, Pontiac, Highland Park, Benton Harbor and Detroit, on city governments and school systems, heavily populated by Black and poor people.
Glenda Price
These so-called managers have summarily removed locally elected public officials, laid off workers, cut workers’ salaries and benefits, sold municipal assets, privatized services, and after a period of time, often two years or more, disappeared from view with the local situation frequently in worse shape than when they first appeared on the scene.
What they never do is examine the systemic social processes that have caused the financial crises, identify or plan productive developments which will alter the people’s condition in the present and the future, or educate and involve the public in the transformative process. Of course, why should they; these are not in the interest of those who appointed them in the first place.
(ITEM: For an in-depth analysis of social change read, “The Rise And Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy, Random House publishers, 909.83 K385r in your Detroit Public Library, another urban institution undergoing severe financial stress.)
Isaiah McKinnon
Fortunately, opposition has arisen from several sources to the disenfranchisement of voters. A petition is circulating to delay and overturn Public Act 4, the emergency manager law. A congressman from Detroit has asked the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, to investigate the legality of Public Act 4; local activists have begun to organize to oppose the financial review process and pundits have begun to characterize the appointed members of the review team.
One writer called The Five “window dressing.”
Irvin Reid
You’ve seen this before. Boss is making a duplicitous announcement while holding a press conference and brings in a few supernumeraries to stand behind him to fool or confuse the people. In this case, five Black faces from high places. And they collaborate with the charade.
After Boss leaves, they will be required to sign off on the fiscal review process while expressing their “concern” for the people whose voting rights have been seriously compromised. Meanwhile, Boss will continue his work eliminating the earned income tax credits, taxing pensions, enacting voter ID legislation, destroying public workers’ unions, limiting workmen’s compensation, welfare and food stamp benefits, drug testing for welfare benefits, eliminating public worker residency requirements as well as sundry other social benefits for the urban poor and black people. The EM is just one tool in Boss’ trick bag and Five Collaborators out of previous, present or long-term self- interest go along for the ride and the rewards.
Shirley Stancato
If you watch the Military Channel, 112 on cable, you’ll regularly see WWII documentaries which feature the war in Europe, particularly France. France had many collaborators with the German occupation and after the French were liberated, they frequently seized the collaborators and publicly shaved their heads.
If and when you see these five pictured in the corporate press or on television making an eloquent comment about how “This is a critical juncture for the city, and we have to decide how we can best provide services to our citizens and ensure they benefit from the best outcome.” imagine the five with sullen faces and freshly shaved heads.
******
David Rambeau
David Rambeau is the long-time host of For My People which airs on Ch 50, WKBD-TV, Saturday mornings at 6:30 a.m.
For more info: 313-871-3333 messages only
projectbait@att.net
(website address – www.projectbait.blakgold.readyportal.net)
