VOICE OF DETROIT: The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

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 .  

The late President Ronald Reagan and current U.S. President Barack Obama. Photo montage: courtesy of The Black Agenda Report

Bruce Dixon

         By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

         Apeil 10, 2013

They say that elections do matter, and that there are real differences between Republican and Democratic presidents. But backing up the view to 30 years, that difference looks a lot more like continuity, both at home and in America’s global empire.

Is This Barack Obama’s 2^nd Term or Bill Clinton’s 3^rd Term, or Ronald Reagan’s 9^th?

U.S. soldiers with captive citizens of Grenada, a predominantly Black, socialist-led country..

The answer is yes to all three. Ronald Reagan hasn’t darkened the White House door in decades. But his policy objectives have been what every president, Democrat and Republican have pursued relentlessly ever since. Barack Obama is only the latest and most successful of Reagan’s disciples.

Like the present era, the Reagan presidency marked a series of decisive rightward turns for US empire at home and abroad.

U.S. soldiers threw bodies of Panamanians, from the predominantly Black neighborhood which housed Gen. Noriega’s headquarters, into mass graves.

Reagan’s invasion of Grenada, along with his bloody contra wars in Central America and southern Africa signaled the renewal of on and off the books of US military interventions when and wherever the logic of empire suggested, and regardless of namby-pamby concerns of human rights, domestic or international law. But if being a Republican means you can be a naked imperialist at home as well as abroad, being a Democrat like Barack Obama means making sufficiently ambiguous noises war and empire to enable corporate media and your own campaign to manufacture a false narrative of actual and substantive difference between Democrats and Republicans.

U.S.invaded Somalia in 1993, but the Somalians fought back. Here they drag the body of a dead U.S. soldier through the streets of Mogadishu.

The first president Bush invaded Panama, and landed US troops in Somalia, a supposed “humanitarian” intervention. Bill Clinton massively increased the shipment of US military hardware and training to more than 50 of Africa’s 54 nations, fueling the conflict in Congo which has taken 7 million lives to date. That’s continuity of purpose and of policy.

In Barack Obama’s case all he had to say was that he wasn’t necessarily against wars, just against what he called “stupid wars.” Corporate media and “liberal” shills morphed that lone statement into a false narrative that Barack Obama opposed the war in Iraq, making him an instantly viable presidential candidate at a time when the American people overwhelmingly opposed that war. Once in office, Barack Obama strove mightily to abrogate the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq which would have allowed US forces to remain there indefinitely. 

An Iraqi army soldier, accompanied by U.S. army soldiers from Fox Troop, Sabre Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, walks down a field as plumes of smoke rise from a burned irrigation canal in a deserted area on the outskirts of Balad Ruz, in Iraq’s Diyala province, some 75 kilometers ( miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2008. Soldiers from Fox Troop burned thick growth inside irrigation canals as they were searching for weapons caches in the area. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

But when the Iraqi puppet government, faced with a near revolt on the part of what remained of Iraqi civil society, dared not do his bidding, insisting that uniformed US troops (but not the American and multinational mercenaries we pay to remain there) stick to the withdrawal timetable agreed upon under Bush, liberal shills and corporate media hailed the withdrawal from Iraq as Obama’s “victory.”

Barack Obama doubled down on the invasion and occupation of large areas of Afghanistan, and increased the size of the army and marines, which in fact he pledged to do during his presidential campaign.

US Major General David Hogg inspects Ugandan troops. Photo Ryan Sutherland

Presidential candidate Obama promised to end secret imprisonment and torture. The best one can say about President Obama on this score is that he seems to prefer murderous and indiscriminate drone attacks, in many cases, over the Bush policy of international kidnapping secret imprisonment and torture. The Obama administration’s reliance on drones combined with US penetration of the African continent, means that a Democratic, ostensibly “antiwar” president has been able to openly deploy US troops to every part of that continent in support of its drive to control the oil, water, and other resources there.

The MPLA of Angola vanquished the U.S.-supported anti-revolutionary UNITA front after years of a bloody civil war.

The objectives President Obama’s Africa policies fulfill today were put down on paper by the Bush administration, pursued by Bill Clinton before that, and still earlier pursued by Ronald Reagan, when it funded murderous contra armies of UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambque. It was UNITA and RENAMO’s campaigns, assisted by the apartheid regimes of Israel and South Africa that pioneered the genocidal use of child soldiers. Today, cruise missile liberals hail the Obama administration’s use of pit bull puppet regimes like Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, all of which shot their way into power with child soldiers, to invade Somalia and Congo, sometimes ostensibly to go after other bad actors on the grounds that they are using child soldiers.

Under Barack Obama, U.S. has “boots on ground” all over Africa, under AFRICOM.

If either George Bush, or if Ronald Reagan had openly deployed US troops to Africa on anything like the scale President Obama has, black America would be up in arms. They wanted to. They couldn’t. It seems that now, by giving us a black president, the empire can get just about whatever it wants.

It works the same way at home. Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush would have liked to tamper with social security, but dared not. All Reagan could do was tell welfare queen jokes, and despite Reagan’s open disdain of organized labor, NAFTA was a distant wet dream of corporations and billionaires. The first president Bush proposed NAFTA but could never get it through Congress.

Bill Clinton had John Engler co-chair his “welfare reform” task force”

Former Michigan Gov. John Engler

It took a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who marshaled a minority of Democrats in Congress to vote with Republicans both to pass NAFTA and to eliminate welfare. It was Bill Clinton who publicly embraced Republican myths about balancing the US budget, while allowing liberals to imagine he would deliver a “peace dividend.” The second president Bush openly trumpeted right wing lies about the solvency of social security and the (lies which Barack Obama happily repeats to this day) and tried more than once to privatize it. Again, that’s continuity across administrations and parties.

True to form, Obama picked the ball up where his predecessors left it and has run relentlessly righward ever since. Barack Obama uses the language of the elites when he calls social security, Medicaid and Medicare and other federal benefits “entitlements” and asserts that their growth must be trimmed. He championed the formation of a deficit reduction commission chaired by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson, both advocates of privatizing social security and drastic cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and federal benefits and tried to fast-track their recommendation through Congress. Fortunately that recommendation never came.

Numbers of Black and Latin youth in prison have skyrocketed under Obama.

Just last week, Obama offered as his opening position in negotiations with Republicans, the chaining of social security and all other federal benefits to the consumer price index — a monstrous betrayal that will reduce social security benefits by as much as $100 monthly by a decade from now. It wasn’t anything he had been cornered into by Republicans. It was the point from which Barack Obama decided to start. That’s continuity. Only a Republican president, like Richard Nixon, could go to China in the 1970s. Only a black Democrat can break his promises to labor on championing a card check law, refute his commitments to a just and fair media with network neutrality, and do nothing to roll back the prison state which has engulfed black and brown youth. Only a black Democrat could deport more Latinos than all the last three Republicans together, in his first term alone.

VIDEO ABOVE: Gil Scott Heron: “Winter in America”

In the game of advancing the interests of the American people, it seems, Democrats and Republicans are not mutual opponents. They are a tag team, each one pushing the ball further and further down the field in the wrong direction. It’s still winter in America, and the dead hand of Ronald Reagan still guides this nation, decades after his exit from the White House. Welcome to the 9^th term of Ronald Reagan, in the person of Democrat Barack Hussein Obama.

One could also argue, since we are in the grips of the greatest depression, although we don’t call them that any more, since the 1930s, and Obama’s economic policies bear more in common to Herbert Hoover than to Franklin Roosevelt, that we’re living through Herbert Hoover’s third term as well. But we’ll save that for another day.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and lives and works near Marietta GA. He is a state committee member of the GA Green Party and can be reached at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com. 

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th

No Emergency Financial Manager For Detroit! City Council April 9, 2013         A No Struggle, No Development Production! By KennySnod

Posted April 10, 2013

Overturning Emergency Manager! We oppose Emergency Managers because they rob us of our right to elect our own local representatives and deny democratic self-rule at the local level. We are demanding our elected leadership remember that they were elected by the same people who voted in the referendum against PA4 Nov. 6th, 2012. We demand that you abide by their decision.

Protesters in downtown Detroit demand cancellation of Detroit’s debt to banks.

Now we’re working to “Overturn Emergency Manager In Detroit!” We ask you to sign our “White House Petition: 1) End the Consent Agreement/ No Emergency Manager. 2) Begin the Justice Department Intervention, and 3) Stop Voter Suppression and Constitutional Violations. At: http://wh.gov/wGJK. We also ask you to join us in our 1) Our Mass demonstration, rallies, press conferences to protest and denounce the actions of Governor Snyder and his collaborators; 2) To expose the criminal nature of the banks and the corporation who are at the root of the financial crisis in Detroit and throughout the State of Michigan; 3) We must link this struggle in Detroit with the plight of other cities throughout Michigan like Benton Harbor, Flint, Highland Park, Inkster, Ecorse, Muskegon. As well as dozens of other cities in the USA like California, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Rhode Island and many others facing similar crises.

A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author of 1} From Victimization To Empowerment… www.trafford.com/07-0913  eBook available at www.ebookstore.sony.com
2} The World As I’ve Seen It! My Greatest Experience! {Photo Book}
YouTube: I have over 390 Video’s, over 136,000 hits averaging 5,000 a month on my YouTube channel @ www.YouTube.com/KennySnod

PRES.PUGH INTRODUCES DISCUSSION WITH SHINOLA AWARD                 (VOD apologizes for use of racist graphic to make our point)

 CITY COUNCIL MOVES AHEAD WITH JONES DAY VULTURE CONTRACT 

By Diane Bukowski

April 13, 2013

DETROIT – Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh and his majority cadre apparently didn’t “know sh-t from Shinola” regarding the Jones Day law firm contract during meetings held April 9 and 10, which ended with their moving the costly contract for a vote at Council to be held April 16 in Council Chambers at 10 a.m.

(Definition–sh-t from Shinola: common saying in U.S. beginning 1950’s re: lack of knowledge, ignorance.)

Dameeko Williams of Project Save Detroit 2013.

“This is nothing but vulture capitalism,” Dameeko Williams of Project Save Detroit 2013, representing the city’s youth, told Council before their deliberations. “Jones Day only represents the banks and the bondholders, like Comerica, Wells Fargo and Chase which hold most of Detroit’s debt..” 

Pugh opened the session April 9 by introducing his friend from Shinola, LLC, Randy Montgomery, who said he and his partners will make watches, bicycles and other “cool Detroit” paraphernalia at the College for Creative Studies.  Pugh sponsored a special award ceremony for this white-owned business, whose officers he met at a meeting of the white-dominated Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, a corporate front for privatization. 

Charles Pugh with officers of Shinola, LLC at Council April 9, 2013.

Shinola? Apparently Pugh et. al. are not old enough to remember Shinola shoe polish. Incredibly, the owners of Shinola, LLC bought the rights to the name from that company, ignoring associations of black shoe polish with racist black face caricatures of old. (See racist Shinola ad above; VOD hereby apologizes for reprinting it to make our point.) 

But perhaps the symbolism was appropriate. 

Speakers say Kevyn Orr represents “vulture capitalism.”

Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr (African-American) is fronting for his alleged former employer Jones Day, a white-dominated law firm associated with right-wing racist causes and foundations.  Case in point, Shelby County v. Holder. a challenge to the Voting Rights Act just heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. (See earlier VOD stories on Jones Day; links at bottom of article.) 

Detroiters blasted Council throughout public comment (as seen in Kenny Snodgrass’ video above), before its discussion of Jones Day. VOD even brought copies of its latest article on Jones Day to educate the Council, but to no avail. Just as the majority evidently did not read the Consent Agreement, which gave away virtually all their powers, before approving it April 4, 2012, they prefer to read the sound-byte version of affairs from the big-business media to make their decisions 

Rev. Charles Williams II, representing Michigan chapter of National Action Network.

“We are here from the National Action Network because we believe that Jones Day is a destroyer of democracy, we are standing against it and asking you to vote NO,” Rev. Charles Williams II told the Council. “Jones Day in one month got almost 12 million of TARP (federal Troubled Asset Relief Funds) to restructure Chrysler under bankruptcy. They bailed out the big companies, but 40 creditors pulled away from Chrysler, as unions and others were left out of the bail-out.” 

Valerie Glenn of Free Detroit-No Consent said the Jones Day contract and others let to firms like Miller Canfield, Ernst & Young, Conway McKenzie and Milliman constitute corporatocacy and genocide. 

“You will go down in history as the administration that completely destroyed Detroit,” Glenn said. “We call for your resignation.” 

Theo Broughton of Hood Research speaks at City Council April 9, 2013.

Theo Broughton of Hood Research agreed. 

“If Jones Day partners are getting $1100 an hour, we urge you to vote NO,” she said. “All of these firms are sucking up the city’s money.” 

Cecily McClellan, a laid-off city worker and Vice-President of the Association of Professional and Technical Employees said, “Billionaires are trying to turn Detroit into a playground for the wealthy. They are the real criminals.” 

One woman asked Council members a simple question. 

Speaker asks: What does democracy mean to you, Gary Brown, James Tate and Saunteel Jenkins?

“Our democracy has been taken away, our constitutional rights have been violated,” she said. “I ask you Gary Brown, James Tate, Saunteel Jenkins—what does democracy mean to you?” Is anybody able to step up to the table and answer my question?” 

Saunteel Jenkins replied haughtily, “Those who are here to express disagreement with this body are showing our expression of democracy.” 

Ironically, a Council police officer present interfered with the First Amendment and this newspaper’s right to democracy during the session, preventing VOD videographer Kenneth Snodgrass from standing with other news photographers on the side of the Council table to take his videos and photos properly. When VOD editor Diane Bukowski’s camera malfunctioned, she was forced to borrow his camera to take photos, despite her protest to the officer that Snodgrass had VOD credentials and should be treated equally.

Pastor Willie Rideout speaks against Jones Day contract.

Pastor Willie J. Rideout of All God’s People summed up, “We are the people. We voted you in. You came to our churches to get you elected, and now we are telling you to vote no on Jones Day, say no to the creditors, stop this predatory movement. Push the Emergency Managers out and put the money back into our cities. Let the millionaires and billionaires pay their taxes.” 

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson agreed, “Detroit’s debt to the banks should be re-negotiated. Banks and bondholders should not be paid first.” 

The Jones Day contract was actually being referred to the Internal Operations Standing Committee for its meeting the following day. Councilwoman Brenda Jones, who chairs that committee, agreed to have a Committee of the Whole session then for the entire Council to ask questions about a contract they had just received in committee. 

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson at table April 9, 2013, gives telling look at Council members Saunteel Jenkins and Kenneth Cockrel, Jr.

Council Pres. Pro-Tem Gary Brown contradicted Adam Hollier of Mayor Dave Bing’s office about the bid process for the contract. Hollier claimed it went through regular bid channels, but Brown said he discovered it had not gone through the Purchasing Division, but through a special process. 

Councilwoman Jones, chair of the Internal Ops Committee, asked her fellow committee members James Tate and Andre Spivey on April 9 not to move the contract to the full Council yet, calling for due diligence. 

The Committee heard a presentation in support of Jones Day from Edward Keelean, Acting Corporation Counsel in the wake of the Mayor Dave Bing’s demotion of his predecessor Krystal Crittendon after she stood up against the consent agreement and the hiring of Miller Canfield, a co-author of Public Act 4. 

David Whitaker, head of the Council’s Research and Analysis Division, said they had done a partial report on the contract but had not been privy to numerous documents Keelean discussed during the meeting, despite asking for them repeatedly. 

Jones asked that RAD be given sufficient time to make a full report, but  she was outvoted by Tate and Spivey, leading to more blistering condemnation of those Council members during public comment. 

Long-time activist Ken Parks was to the point in his remarks. 

“We are big-time debt slaves to the masters of finance capital,” he said. “If we are going to restructure, we need to restructure our priorities, so that people are first and profits are second. The banks said from the start they knew their loans were not repayable; it’s up to them to take responsibility. It is time again for a Year of Jubilee, where our debts are forgiven.”

____________________

Related articles:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/04/08/costly-jones-day-em-contract-faces-council-vote-tues-apr-9-come-at-9-am/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/31/detroit-council-to-vote-on-jones-day-contract-firm-represents-criminal-banks-holding-citys-debt/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/27/detroiters-march-in-cleveland-tell-jones-day-and-banks-get-out/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/23/detroit-leaders-announce-drastic-direct-action-to-fight-em-banks/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/20/banks-behind-detroit-emergency-manager-takeover/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/17/detroit-efms-law-firm-advises-worlds-biggest-crooks-including-libor-banks/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/01/18/the-gang-rape-of-detroit/

Residents of South Korea call on U.S. Secy. of State John Kerry, who is currently in their country, to start peace talks with North Korea, instead of promoting war.

By Jay Janson

March 30th, 2013 — Dissident Voices

While staring at the New York Times front page photo of the bat-winged nuclear-capable B-2 Stealth Bombers up in the blue sky on their first non-stop long-range mission from the US on their way to a practice sortie to end in a mock bombing drop of inert munitions on a range off South Korea’s coast, I ponder.

U.S. warplane

The thought that ‘enough is enough’ will apparently never arise in the mind-set of those commanding the first planet-encompassing space-age military, blown up now to an uncontrollable magnitude and fueled by an uninterrupted flow of trillions of dollars by ledger line pre-occupied elite of the speculative investment banking community; a community possibly still being led by multi-war promoting confidants of ninety-eight year old David Rockefeller.¹

Koreans have been victims of U.S. war crimes for more than a century.

Former president of Korea, Lee Myung-bak dutifully bought loads of new US weapons of mass destruction. Does he ever remember watching his two tiny siblings begin to slowly die before his eyes during a US bombing raid on his family’s farm? As the nuclear capable black bat wings make their run over her beloved Korea, does the new President, Park Geun-hye, keep in mind her father’s point blank assassination by the head of the, allegedly American overseen, Korean CIA?

Following is a short history of homicidal crimes against humanity bitterly suffered in the Land of the Morning Calm from savage attack, conquest, and manipulation by the most recent of the many mindlessly brutal white colonial empires to one degree or another descendent from the barbaric Goths and savage raid-or-trade Vikings.

Painting of Koreas fighting U.S. invasion in 1871.

1871, June 10 — Adm. Rodgers, commanding five warships and a landing party of over 1,230 men armed with Remington carbines and Springfield muskets attack Choji Fortress of Kanghwa-do, and proceed to occupy the whole island (116.8 sq mi), killing 350 Korean defenders of the island while losing only three of their own, withdrawing to China when the Korean army sends in reinforcement armed with modern weapons. This war known in Korea as Sinmi-yangyo and as the 1871 US Korea Campaign in America.²

1905 — US President Theodore Roosevelt cuts all relations with Koreans, turns the American legation in Seoul over to the Japanese military, deletes the word “Korea” from the State Department’s Record of Foreign Relations and places it under the heading of “Japan,” approving of what will be a brutal, too often murderous, forty year occupation, during much of which, Koreans are forbidden even to speak their language; an unconstitutional act of the US president, said to have been in exchange for acceptance of the continuing US occupation of the Philippines by Japan, recognized as a half-brother empire of the European colonial powers.³

On March 1, 1919, Koreans gather at Tapgol Gong-won (current day Pagoda Park in Seoul) to protest Japanese rule and fight for independence.

1918 — President Woodrow Wilson officially recognizes Korea as territory of the Japanese Empire, refuses to receive delegations from Korea and Vietnam demanding restoration of sovereignty, delegations mistakenly hopeful for Wilson having proclaimed before both houses of Congress, as an addendum to his ‘Fourteen Points“ of a day earlier, “National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. Self determination is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action…. that peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but that all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them;” a promise become known in the third world as an infamous, cruel and preposterous lie (the Japanese occupiers were deadly in punishing all those involved in the country-wide March 1st Korean Independence Movement).

US troops arrive in Korea to partition the country 1945.

1945, September 8 — US State Department officials, arrive in Korea with the US Army, disband the government of the Korean People’s Republic created September 6, in Seoul, by delegates from local peoples’ offices from all provinces throughout the peninsula formed when Japan announced intention to surrender (August 10), proceed without any Korean authorization whatsoever, to immediately cut Korea into two parts to be occupied by US and Soviet troops and establishing a military government, flying in from Washington DC (in General MacArthur’s private plane), Singman Rhee, to head it; eventually installing him as president of a separate South Korea Government that will include collaborators, and will outlaw all strikes, declare the KPR and all its activities illegal and begin a deadly terror of persecution of members of the disallowed Korean Peoples Republic, communists, socialists, unionists and anyone against the the partition and demanding an independent Korea.⁴

Mass grave of Koreans slaughtered under U.S. backed regime.

1946-1949 — The US in effect declares war on the popular movement of Korea south of the 38th Parallel and sets in motion a repressive campaign dismantling the Peoples’ Committees and their supporters throughout the south, becoming massively homicidal as Rhee’s special forces and secret police take the lives of some 200,000 men, women and children as documented recently by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by the National Assembly of the Republic of (South) Korea; on the Island of Cheju alone, within a year, as many as 60,000 of its 300,000 residents are murdered, while another 40,000 fled by sea to nearby Japan some two years before the Koreans from the north invade the South. [Wikipedia]

U.S. bombs Korean city 1950.

1950, June 28 — The US attacks by, air, sea and land, aiming at the southward invading army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North), which nevertheless unifies the peninsula in five short weeks (except for the US defended port city of Pusan); with little resistance from South Korea’s ROK military as most of its soldiers either defect or go home; over the next three years US will commit dozens of high death toll documented atrocities (some recently apologized for) as American planes level to the ground almost every city and town of any appreciable size in the entire peninsula, north and south, in the end threatening to drop the atomic bomb, and be charged with germ warfare by some not easily dismissed sources.

UN members vote to impose sanctions on North Korea.

1953-2013 — The US using its control over international financial institutions and its power over the financial policies of most of the nations on Earth, keeps in place economy crippling sanctions and trade blockades (only loosening them slightly from time to time in attempts to halt the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea production of nuclear weapons as it faces a US, constantly condemning it in intense belligerency, massively armed with ever new nuclear weapons. (US sanctions obviously violate Principle VI c. Crimes Against Humanity: “inhuman acts done against any civilian population.”)

U.S. and South Korean navy vessels in war exercises off the coast of Korea, March 18, 2013.

1945-2013 — The US Government, under control of its speculative investment banking elite, uses the gigantic world-wide reach of its likewise controlled US media cartel to manufacture an upside-down reality regarding US business and government intentions in Korea (and elsewhere), by blocking, slanting, omission, disinformation, misinformation and a virulent demonization of a nation once bombed flat, twice over, by US war planes; a six-decade propaganda campaign surely prosecutable as a media crime against peace under Principle VI c. of the universally signed on to Nuremberg Principles in the UN Charter.⁵

2010 May — An example of ‘sentence 8’ is the Russian Navy derided, and Chinese government ignored story of a old North Korean torpedo having cut in half a modern South Korean warship in an area where days before, US-ROK live fire exercise war games were menacingly taking place off the coast of North Korea; detailed investigation by Japanese found that a US minesweeper, known to have left the day before, might have been practicing with the newest US spider mine weapon, entirely capable, as most modern mines are indeed capable of, blowing a small warship into two pieces; though a discredited and fabulous US accusation, this media doctored widely broadcasted UN backed accusation has however, become accepted as fact by most of the entire Western media audience and will continue on into the future as the truth until the day it can no longer be of interest).⁶

2013 March — A second example of US media crimes against peace, is the present startling situation, as offered in US TV and print media, namely, that of the somewhat tiny nation, North Korea (size of US State of Pennsylvania), threatening the greatest military power the world has ever seen, possessing tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, with a nuclear attack, not for the sake of the bravely warning of its defense and retaliation power to ward of a feared attack from US planes and ships which periodically fire heavy weapons of mass destruction within earshot of its capital Pyongyang as part of frequent military exercises off its coast; the whole world is constantly ‘informed’ of what a madcap menace its leader is, by a Pentagon fed US media, which at the same time is justifying US bombings, invasions, occupations of some three dozen other small nations. (Citations and author bio follow.)  Continue reading →

Leamon WIlson, Pres. AFSCME Local 312, at right, with other bus mechanics at City Council hearing a few years ago. For a long time, Leamon was also President of the Presidents’ Council of the 17 AFSCME Citry of Detroit Locals. Leamon was 55 when he died yesterday.

From Diane Bukowski, editor of VOD, and for 20 years a union leader with AFSCME Local 457:  It is with a heavy heart that I publish this notice. I was just informed yesterday that Leamon Wilson, President of AFSCME Local 312, representing bus mechanics, and for many years President of the AFSCME City of Detroit Presidents Council, passed yesterday at the age of 55.

Leamon (;l) protests with others at the Mayor’s State of the City address in 2004.

Leamon was a beloved and militant leader, who at one point was fired by the Kilpatrick administration for his leadership of his local. We picketed with other AFSCME workers at DDOT headquarters to get him back.

Leamon was fearless, and loved his members and the City of Detroit. He fought for us tooth and nail, and was not afraid to be associated with “lefties” like myself and others. His heart was with the union, the workers, the people, and no doubt the toll the struggle took on him through all these years may have contributed to his death.

Leamon at WWTP protest.

Leamon was at every protest, he fought hard at the negotiating table for his members. He supported me absolutely when I was on trial for doing my job as a journalist for the Michigan Citizen, charged and convicted falsely of two felonies for taking photos of the aftermath of a fatal state trooper chase on Detroit’s east side in 2008. Not only did he come to my trial as a witness, he let my defense committee use his local union HQ for a rally.

LEAMON WILL BE SORELY MISSED. LONG LIVE LEAMON WILSON AND HIS SPIRIT! DOWN WITH THE FASCIST FORCES DESTROYING OUR CITY!

GOING HOME SERVICES:

Visitation

Sunday, April 14, 2013;     3 – 8 p.m.

O.H. PYE Funeral Home  

17600 Plymouth Rd. near Southfield and Jeffries Freeways    Detroit, MI

FUNERAL MONDAY, APRIL 15, 2013

Family hour   9:30 A.M.

Funeral            10 A.M.

KADESH MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH

20361 Plymouth Rd. Detroit, MI  48228

REPAST AFTER SERVICE:         AFSCME Council 25 Hall                     600 W. Lafayette @ Third             Downtown Detroit, MI 48226

VOD: The following essay by Leamon’s son Leamon E. Wilson won him the AFSCME Family Scholarship; it is published on the AFSCME Co. 25 website. Leamon E. Wilson will start college this year

WHAT AFSCME HAS MEANT TO OUR FAMILY

By Leamon E. Wilson

On July 19, 1995 I was born into the AFSCME Family. My father had recently been elected as President of AFSCME Local 312, the Local representing mechanics employed by the Detroit Department of Transportation. Dad had worked his way up through the ranks, serving as a steward, chief steward and grievance committeeman before accepting the nomination to run for President of the Local. Three years earlier he had met my mother, a union representative, when she successfully argued that the employment of one of the local’s members should be restored, primarily because of the employer’s misconduct. According to family legend, when the grievant received his job back and full compensation for the time he was out of work, Dad fell in love and the grievant – “Uncle Hank” – was best man at the wedding and later named as my godfather!

AFSCME workers in Labor Day Parade wearing green NO EM shirts Sept. 5, 2011.

This brief, albeit comical, history is important because all of my life I have been surrounded by the love and support of people who believe that caring for and service to others is a privilege given to each of us. I participated in my first Labor Day parade when I was just over one year old. My father pushed my stroller – shaped like a car – during the parade. Although I had taken a few steps two days after my first birthday, I really began walking after the parade, mimicking the marchers I had watched that morning. My mother swears that I marched around the living room for hours. I don’t remember this, but I do know that it was not my last march.

AFSCME and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists protest at CAYMC May 27, 2010

As the son of a union activist I have had the opportunity to participate in protests over collective bargaining agreements, violation of contract terms and job losses. As young as I can remember I have accompanied my father to grievance meetings, community meetings and union meetings. As a very young child I was usually handed to one of the female members who would care for me and protect me as my father argued (i.e. yelled) to get his point across. As I grew older, the task for ensuring my safety was turned over to “one of the guys,” which generally meant that I could have my fill of anything in the vending machines while my father argued (i.e. yelled) to get his point across.

During all of these years I have also had the privilege of meeting political, civic and religious leaders throughout the community, a unique opportunity not generally available to the average student. I’ve seen first hand the compassion and commitment demonstrated by members as they fought for the right to make a decent wage or to prevent non-union vendors from taking away their jobs altoegther. I’ve seen the stress and devastation families experience when layoffs or job eliminations force them to lose what most of us would think are basic life necessities – a home, food, transportation and the ability to support their children.

Detroit AFSCME workers in green shirts flooded April 13, 2011 Lansing rally against PA 4.

Throughout it all my parents have consistently reinforced the value of these experiences – the importance of standing in the gap for the disenfranchised; for being the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves; and for ensuring that the rights of all peoples are never diminished or eliminated. The obligation to serve and give back is as engrained in me as my name. The AFSCME Family Scholarship will help me reach my goals and continue a long standing tradition of being a gatekeeper for those in need. While I may or may not end up in a unionized profession, these experiences have taught me how to be a better person, to be compassionate, and, as my father would say, to always be caught doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

Thank you for the opportunity to walk proudly in the path he forged.         

VIDEO BELOW SHOWS PRES. LEAMON WILSON SPEAKING AT CITY COUNCIL HEARING, FIGHTING FOR HIS MEMBERS, BUS RIDERS               

Recent VOD stories featuring AFSCME Local 312 President Leamon Wilson:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/08/27/d-dot-deputy-dumped-will-feds-charge-nojay-bing-brown/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/02/22/regional-authority-will-likely-own-46-new-d-dot-buses-10-member-board-has-only-one-detroit-rep/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/02/09/bing-to-slash-bus-routes-d-dot-jobs-feb-24-contractor-gets-big/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/11/05/bing-keeps-buses-broken-drivers-and-riders-in-danger-blames-youth/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/11/05/bing-keeps-buses-broken-drivers-and-riders-in-danger-blames-youth/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/10/27/occupy-detroit-calls-for-march-for-ddot-workers-and-riders/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/09/20/bus-workers-riders-blast-bing/

Protest at Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.

 Contract includes unlimited charges for work, including asset sales

Brushes off “conflict of interest” re: Jones Day’s representation of most city creditors

Bars affirmative action in hiring, including U.S. EO 11246 compliance

Refuses to comply with  “ban the box” city ordinance re: ex-offenders 

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – The Detroit City Council is expected to vote on an open-ended, open cost “debt restructuring” contract with Jones Day  at its regular session Tues. April 9, 2013 at 10 a.m. Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr worked for the firm beginning in 1984, allegedly terminating his tenure when Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder anointed him EM. 

Tom Barrow, President of Citizens for Detroit’s Future

“My friends, why is this not an obvious conflict, obvious to even non-Detroiters who think an EM is a great idea for Detroit but not themselves?” Tom Barrow, President of Citizens for Detroit’s Future, asked. “Orr is so cold that he will now USE the Detroit city council to do what he could do by himself. . No, instead he wants the Detroit City Council to do it and thus make it appear and enable him to say “the city of Detroit hired” Jones Day. We have Miller Canfield, Buckfire and now Jones Day. I guarantee once they get their hooks into us, these folks will not let go until at least 100 million is charged. This is so wrong!!! So wrong!

Under the newly-minted EM act, PA 436, Detroit’s EM must approve everything city officials do. However, many Detroiters feel their Council could at least take a stand on behalf of the people, and vote a resounding NO! 

Snyder appoints EM Kevyn Orr as Mayor Dave Bing stands by, in Oreo arrangement.

The contract’s initial term of services is from March 15 to Sept. 15, 2013. But an attached letter to Mayor Dave Bing says it can last as long as Orr is EM. Under PA 436, he is supposed to stay 180 days, but only if Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder doesn’t want him to stay longer. Jones Day says it will charge $3.35 million for “Core Re-structuring.” 

To read the complete contract, click on Jones Day contract.

CONTRACT COULD COST DETROIT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS

However, the letter to Bing says the firm will charge additional costs for a massive amount of non-Core Restructuring work, which will be performed by its Managing Partner Stephen Brogan and partners David Heiman, Bruce Bennett, Corrine Ball, and Heather Lennox. (See profiles of these lawyers and their activities at the end of this article.) 

Rates quoted in the letter are: 

 JONES DAY PARTNERS COMING TO DETROIT

These Jones Day partners are specified in the contract. However, an unknown number of other staffers will also be hired. The contract specifically forbids the use of “affirmative action” in hiring.

That work includes “work related to Pension Certificates  Participation and related swap and interest agreements,” other than legal analysis. It will charge to handle litigation relating to labor or pension disputes or proposed changes to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, now before U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox.

DWSD workers on strike last September; Orr has said DWSD is “on the table” for monetization.

Jones Day will charge Detroit for work on “(a) any asset dispositions, privatization, or similar transactions, or any other capital-raising transactions; and (b) any transactions necessary to implement a negotiated financial restructuring, such as new debt instruments, new labor contract, or other agreements beyond restructuring term sheets.” 

It will charge for work relating to EM Acts PA 72 and 436 or challenges to Orr’s power, and for “contingency planning for a potential chapter 9 bankruptcy filing by the City, or the conduct or administration of such a case.” 

LIBOR scandal is massive.

Jones Day represents UBS AG and a partner of SBS Financial, the firms which sold Detroit a predatory “pension obligation certificate” (POC) loan of $1.5 billion in 2005. The city has had to pay an additional $1 billion to hedge funds for betting the wrong way on which way the market would go, prior to the great economic collapse of 2008. 

UBS AG just paid a $1.5 billion fine to the U.S. Department of Justice for interest-rate rigging in the LIBOR scandal and faces other related litigation globally. 

The firms are also involved in $474 million in fees Wall Street raked in as a result of interest swap deals. (See article below from Bloomberg Businessweek.) 

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings announces lawsuit against UBS, Citigroup, JP Morgan and numerous other banks for interest rate rigging. Why hasn’t Detroit joined in?

During Gov. Snyder’s press conference announcing Orr’s appointment March 16, VOD specifically questioned Orr about the UBS AG loan to the City of Detroit and the USDOJ fine, asking him what he would do about the banks. He responded only in generalities. 

Later, VOD emailed him asking him if he would investigate whether LIBOR banks including UBS AG have caused the city economic damage, and pursue legal action against them, as did the City of Baltimore and many other municipalities and pension funds around the U.S. Orr never responded to the email, and never admitted that Jones Day had UBS AG and SBS as clients. 

Jones Day admits in its letter to Bing, “Some of Jones Day’s clients may have, or develop, interests adverse to the City.  .  . We will promptly inform the City of any client relationships that may raise conflict concerns as such matters are identified over the course of our engagement. We will work with the City to address any conflicts as circumstances require.” 

Jones Day says further that it “will not represent any person or entity in any matter adverse to the City without its express written consent.” 

It appears to be a case of too little (or nothing), too late. As the Bloomberg Businessweek article points out, Wall Street firms including Jones Day clients are responsible to a great degree for Detroit’s economic decline, the matter which Jones Day is allegedly to address. 

Kevyn Orr was Jones Day’s minority recruitment director, but he appears not to have done a very thorough job, as evidenced by photos of partners on the Jones Day website. Jones Day further states in its contract that it “shall not be required to comply with any affirmative action provision or related employee data-gathering or auditing requirements . . . . ” It also refuses to comply with U.S. Executive Order 11246, which requires affirmative action in hiring. Jones Day claims it is not subject to this order because it is not a federal contractor paid out of federal funds.

Supporters of the Voting Rights Act at U.S. Supreme Court during hearings on Shelby County v. Holder.

The contract also refuses specifically to comply with Detroit’s new “ban the box” ordinance, which would eliminate questions about previous criminal offenses until later in the interview process.

Jones Day partner Michael Carvin opposed Voting Rights Act Sec.5 as well as HHS contraception mandate in Obamacare.

Showing its racist tendencies, Jones Day has been an active supporter of Shelby County Alabama in recent hearings before the U.S. Supreme Court, in which it is trying to overturn Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act which requires many Southern states to obtain federal preclearance for all voting procedure changes before they are implemented.

Most recently, Jones Day partner Michael Carvin spoke at a Heritage Foundation briefing on the “(Un)Constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” in Washington, D.C, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Shelby County v. Holder.

White voters are “wide open to electing black Democrats … as much as white Democrats,” Carvin told the audience, according to a Feb. 24 article in the Roll Call newspaper.

Many protesters of the EM appointment, in signs and at Council, have advocated “debt re-structuring,” appearing to confuse it with a moratorium on payments of the city’s debt or actual cancellation, actions which have been demanded in Third World countries for years and which are now being demanded in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland and other European countries. 

“Debt re-structuring,” as it has been carried out in those countries, while getting the banks to back off some of their immediate demands for payment after massive general strikes and protests, is however, inextricably tied to austerity measures. 

In 2004, the Detroit Public Schools District “re-structured” a $220 million loan taken out by then state-appointed CEO Kenneth Burnley. It spread the debt out over 15 years, resulting in soaring interest rates. The agreement to “re-structure” the debt specified that payments would come directly from the state’s per-pupil aid to DPS. As a result, to ensure re-payment of that and other loans, a state trustee gets DPS per-pupil aid and parcels out 80 to 90 percent of it to the district’s creditors. (Click on  Banks take 90 cents of every state aid dollar for article by this author published in the Michigan Citizen in 2004.)

The devastation of DPS, and the destruction of the futures of Detroit’s children, is directly due to “debt restructuring.” DO NOT BE FOOLED.

PROFILES OF JONES DAY PARTNERS COMING TO DETROIT

STEPHEN BROGAN, JONES DAY MANAGING PARTNER 

Stephen Brogan in the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia, where Jones Day has three offices.

The current managing partner of Jones Day is Steve Brogan, a 1977 Notre Dame Law grad, and a current member of Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees. Brogan was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General during the Reagan Administration (1981-1983), Jones Day represented Brogan’s alma mater the University of Notre Dame, and other Catholic organizations, pro bono in their lawsuit challenging Obamacare’s contraception inclusion mandate. It has also represented the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland in its child abuse lawsuits. 

DAVID HEIMAN

Corporate cannibal Wilbur Ross

David Heiman has been part of teams representing WL Ross & Co., owned by billionaire Wilbur Ross, a conservative Mitt Romney supporter and global corporate buy-out specialist who was involved with the owners of Sago Mine in W. Virginia, where 12 miners died after numerous safety violation citations. Heiman has also been part of teams representing Lehman Brothers, whose collapse triggered the 2008 world-wide economic meltdown; the Chrysler LLC buyout by Fiat; Gould Electronics, accused of contamination at a site in Omaha, Nebraska by the US EPA, and USG Corporation, which went bankrupt settling asbestos personal injury liabilities. 

BRUCE BENNETT 

Enron’s CEO Kenneth Lay during trial.

“Prior to joining Jones Day in May 2012, Bennett was the lead debtor’s counsel in the country’s largest municipal bankruptcy (County of Orange, California), following a $1.7 billion loss in county investment pools. As counsel to the debtor, Bruce was the architect of the plan of adjustment that . . . .resulted in the recovery of more than $870 million for the county. . .,” says the Jones Day website. “Bruce also successfully resolved many other large bankruptcy cases for lenders, note holders, and equity interest owners, including Adelphia Communications, Enron, Fountainebleau Las Vegas, Green Valley Ranch, Hawaii Medical Centers, Lehman Brothers Treasury Co., Olympia & York, and Tribune Company. 

Corinne Ball  

Protest in London against cuts in pensions and public services.

Jones Day announced in April, 2011 that Ball would lead Jones Day’s restructuring effort in Europe, where it has dozens of offices.  She was the lead lawyer in the Chrysler bankruptcy and in the Dana Corporation global settlement in the UK which targeted the company’s pension systems, transferring them to Centerbridge and other investors. She obtained settlements to eliminate “an enormous accumulated liability for health and life insurance benefits for retirees from its unionized and nonunion workforces, and to modify its collective bargaining agreements with active employees, allowing Dana to compete in the troubled auto industry upon emergence from bankruptcy. This “Global Settlement” resulted in the elimination of almost $1.5 billion in accumulated post-retirement benefit obligations, and the creation and funding of Voluntary Employee Benefit Association (VEBA) trusts,” says the Jones Day website. 

She also helped WL Ross & Co. with numerous acquisitions of European-based companies. 

Heather Lennox 

According to Jones Day, “Heather Lennox has . . . substantial experience counseling clients in fraudulent conveyance, illegal dividend, fiduciary duty, piercing the corporate veil, and mass tort issues in bankruptcy. She has represented a number of entities in the structuring and consummation of spin-offs, secured financings, distressed sales and acquisitions, ring-fencing transactions, and other out-of-court restructuring transactions.

Heather has represented, among others: Copperweld Corporation, CSC Industries, Dana Corporation, Fruehauf Trailer Corporation, Great American Communications Company (a prepackaged case), Hostess Brands, Inc., LTV Steel Company, Metaldyne Corporation, and Oglebay Norton Company as debtors’ counsel, and significant creditors in the Delta Airlines, Forum Health, HomePlace Stores, Northwest Airlines, Pittsburgh Penguins, R.H. Macy, Southern Air Transport, United Airlines, US Airways, and Wornick Company bankruptcies.

For a formatted printout of this article, click on COSTLY JONES DAY CONTRACT.

Related articles:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/04/08/only-wall-street-wins-in-detroit-crisis-reaping-474-million-fee/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/04/08/reek-general-strike-battled-imf-austerity-measures-em-to-bring-same-to-detroit/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/04/07/privatizing-detroit-water-sewerage-dept-will-cost-customers-dearly/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/04/01/detroit-pension-systems-under-attack-actuary-disputes-milliman-report/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/04/01/afscme-local-457-called-for-moratorium-on-debt-to-banks-in-1992/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/31/detroit-council-to-vote-on-jones-day-contract-firm-represents-criminal-banks-holding-citys-debt/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/27/throw-out-detroits-em-power-to-the-people-not-the-banks/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/27/detroiters-march-in-cleveland-tell-jones-day-and-banks-get-out/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/26/vampire-capitalism-comes-to-detroit-mi-and-dekalb-county-ga/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/24/from-detroit-to-cyprus-banksters-in-search-of-prey/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/20/banks-behind-detroit-emergency-manager-takeover/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/20/detroit-water-dept-on-the-table-says-efm-commissioners-approve-report-rooted-in-lies/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/23/detroit-leaders-announce-drastic-direct-action-to-fight-em-banks/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/19/wall-street-v-woodward-ave-will-detroit-em-address-predatory-interest-rate-swaps/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/17/detroit-efms-law-firm-advises-worlds-biggest-crooks-including-libor-banks/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/03/12/grand-theft-of-detroits-water-dept-imminent-water-board-mtg-wed-march-13-2pm/

Much of Detroit’s streets look like this one in Highland Park, which shows Cassandra Cabil at her home after Highland Park cut a deal with DTE to remove half the city’s street lights. Under a new Public Lighting Authority, 40 percent of Detroit’s street lights, many already gone, will also be permanently removed. The blame lies with Wall Street. Photo: Carlos Osorio

 (VOD has taken the liberty of re-publishing this entire article, which clearly lays out the role Jones Day clients, including UBS AG, SBS Financial Services, BOA’s Merrill Lynch, and JP Morgan Chase, in what continues to amount to the gang rape of Detroit. Detroit’s City Council will vote Tues. April 9 on a costly “debt-restructuring” contract with Jones Day. Council members should read this and beware. The article confirms much of what VOD has already written over the last two years.)

By Darrell Preston & Chris Christoff – Mar 13, 2013 8:24 PM ET

The only winners in the financial crisis that brought Detroit  to the brink of state takeover are Wall Street bankers who reaped more than $474 million from a city too poor to keep street lights working.

The city started borrowing to plug budget holes in 2005 under former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was convicted this week on corruption charges. That year, it issued $1.4 billion in securities to fund pension payments. Last year, it added $129.5 million in debt, 9.3 percent of its general-fund budget, in part to repay loans taken to service other bonds.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announces appointment of Kevyn Orr as Detroit EM March 14, 2013.

Detroit, which is trying to avoid becoming the largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy, struggles to serve residents after revenue declined when the auto industry collapsed and the city began to empty. Michigan ’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, [has named] an emergency manager, who will have to address debt and derivatives taken on in the last eight years.

“We have no lights, no buses, poor streets and now we’re paying millions of dollars a year on our debt,” said David Sole, a retired municipal worker and advocate for Moratorium Now Coalition, a Detroit group that fights foreclosures and evictions. “The banks said they need to be paid first. But there is no money.”

Dave Sole of Moratoriun Now! speaks at rally against EM March 6, 2013.

The city, which peaked at 1.85 million residents in 1950, has lost more than a quarter of its population since 2000. The 700,000 inhabitants who remain endure unreliable buses, inadequate police and fire protection and broken street lights that have darkened entire blocks.

Covering Shortfalls

Banks including UBS AG (UBS), Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) have enabled about $3.7 billion of bond issues to cover deficits, pension shortfalls and debt payments since 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Liabilities rose to almost $15 billion, including money owed retirees, according to a state treasurer’s review.

The debt sales cost Detroit $474 million, including underwriting expenses, bond-insurance premiums and fees for wrong-way bets on swaps, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That almost equals the city’s 2013 budget for police and fire protection.

Protesters rally outside CAYMC in Detroit as EM takes office March 25, 2013.

The largest part is $350 million owed for derivatives meant to lower borrowing costs on variable-rate debt.

Municipal borrowers from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have paid billions to banks to end interest-rate swaps that didn’t protect them. In the bets, a municipal issuer and another party exchange payments tied to interest-rate indexes.

‘Pay Later’

“The banks promise to get you the money and say you can pay later,” said Greg Bowens, spokesman for Stand Up For Democracy, a Lansing group that campaigned last year to repeal the law allowing appointment of a financial manager. “They get their fees off the top, and you trust that they’re doing what’s in your taxpayers’ best interest.”

Moratoriun Now and Occupy Detroit protect the home of a Detroiter facing foreclosure.

As banks were collecting fees from bonds, some targeted city homeowners with subprime loans that led to foreclosures, depressing real-estate values and tax revenue, Sole said. About one-quarter of Detroit’s housing units are vacant, according to Detroit Future City, a 50-year blueprint for recovery. In some areas, entire blocks are deserted. Properties have been stripped of plumbing, wiring and whatever can be sold.

The home town of General Motors Co. (GM) has been running general-fund deficits of $155.4 million to $331.9 million since 2005, when Kilpatrick was mayor, and has been firing workers to save money.

Killing Fields

Last year, it cut police staffing by 11.6 percent to 2,836, according to budget documents. Killings spiked. Detroit had 411 homicides last year, up 9 percent from 2011.

Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poor’s (r) and Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings sell Detroit City Council on %1.5 billion UBS AG loan in 2004.

On March 11, Kilpatrick, a Democrat, was convicted on corruption and fraud charges. He and co-conspirators executed a “wide-ranging racketeering conspiracy involving extortion, bribery and fraud,” U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said in a statement.

Kilpatrick’s attorney, James Thomas of Detroit, declined to comment.

While his client ran Detroit, the city embarked on two of its most expensive bond issues, first paying $46.4 million in fees to UBS and others to borrow $1.4 billion for pension obligations.

A year later, the city paid $61.8 million, including insurance costs, for UBS to sell $948.5 million in bonds, replacing two-thirds of the debt sold the previous year.

Some pension debt traded at about 65 cents on the dollar in the most recent trade Feb. 12, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Wrong-Way Bets

Detroit also entered into swaps contracts with UBS and SBS Financial Products Co., which serves as a counterparty on swaps transactions.

The arrangements are a bet on the direction of interest rates and can raise costs if they move unexpectedly.

Detroit CFO Jack Martin Aug. , 2012.

Rates fell, leaving a liability of $439 million on June 30, 2012, according to a city report. That has fallen to about $350 million as rates went back up, said Jack Martin, Detroit’s chief financial officer.

The borrowing “likely contributed to our current problems,” said Martin, who took his job in May, 2012. “It was the way people did business back then. We are where we are now and working hard to right the ship.”

The city makes periodic swap payments from money generated by casinos.

Public Interest

Wall Street firms could end the deals and call for full payment because Moody’s Investors Service last March cut unlimited general-obligation bond ratings to B2, five levels below investment grade, according to the city’s 2012 financial statement. In November, Moody’s cut the rating again, sending it down two levels to Caa1.

The cuts mean there is “significant risk in connection with the city’s ability to meet the cash demands” under the swap, according to Detroit’s financial report. Continue reading →

General strike in Greece against austerity including “debt-restructuring” IMF policies. Banner reads: Stop Austerity, Growth Now. Greeks protested is every major city.

By G. Dunkel on March 1, 2013

(VOD: The Detroit City Council is to vote Tues. April 9 at 10 a.m. on a costly “debt-restructuring” contract with Jones Day, the world’s third largest law firm, whose clients include most of the major banks which hold the city’s debt. In Greece, Italy, Spain, France and other countries, people have held general strikes and mass shutdowns to protest similar policies.)

Just days before an inspection team was due to check that Greece’s new austerity measures were in place, tens of thousands of workers took to the streets on Feb. 20 and shut the country down. The strikers made it clear that “reforms” that leave patients without health care and drugs, students without education, taxpayers without money, families with no one employed, workers without labor rights and 68 percent of the youth without jobs are really attacks on the Greek people and their standard of living. (Greek Reporter, Feb. 20)

Police hold Greek farmers back during protest in Patras, Greece Feb. 20, 2013

The inspection team is from the Troika — the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — which offered its first bailout to Greece in 2010 after three years of recession. The Troika offers only more austerity.

As an example, the minimum wage was cut by 22 percent in 2012 from $989 a month to $772 and just $673 for youth, with another 10 to 15 percent decrease due in 2013.

Protest in Athens at Parliament Building Feb. 20, 2013

What’s worse is that, according to the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) relying on official statistics, only 600,000 workers out of 1.5 million employed in the private sector get a regular paycheck. Most employers in Greece pay anywhere from 3 to 15 months late; workers keep on working in the hopes of getting back pay or at least severance.

Many of the workers getting minimum wages are in the private sector.

Protest marches took place in 70 cities, with large demonstrations on the island of Crete, and one action attracting 18,000 participants in Thessaloníki, Greece’s second largest city. Farmers, whose access to credit is under attack by the Troika, actively blocked, in particular, the highway between Athens and Thessaloníki.

Youg woman in Feb. 20, 2013 protest in Greece.

In Athens, two demonstrations followed the same route, ending at Syntagma Square in front of the Greek Parliament, both with similar demands. The Greek Communist Party (KKE) supported the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) union confederation’s march and the other march by the GSEE, together with the Civil Servants’ Confederation. The main press services of France and Germany both reported significantly from 50,000 to 60,000 participants.

According to AFP, the main banner carried by PAME read, “No to modern sweatshops, hands off collective labor agreements.”

KKE General Secretary Aleka Papariga led a large KKE delegation at PAME’s demonstration. She told the crowd: “The working people who are suffering must take a decision. To discover their strength and advance combatively, towards the rupture and overthrow, to the very end. Otherwise, they will find themselves trapped against the wall.”

At the other march, the GSEE, the union movement close to social democratic parties, explained: “We are fighting for collective bargaining agreements, for measures to be finally taken against unemployment and to ensure our democratic and working rights.” Some of PAME’s demands made the same points.

One of hundreds of protests in Greece over the last several years.

Syriza, a major presence in the GSEE/ADEDY march, is an electoral coalition of social democratic and left parties which heads the opposition. Syriza said it wanted to use the strike as a springboard to force out the coalition government led by the conservative prime minister, Antonis Samaras. “The general strike aims to bring down the government and annul (the austerity) agreement and measures,” Syriza said in leaflets handed out this week.

Greek President Karolos Papoulias, whose role is symbolic, commented, “We are faced with a societal explosion if any more pressure is put on society,” ruminating, perhaps, over the constant barrage of pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions that he nonetheless supports. (Greek Reporter, Feb. 20)

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(VOD editor Diane Bukowski: Thanks to those brave souls who held this slowdown on Tigers’ opening day April 5. I have personal sympathies based on the fact that I work part-time in a downtown location squarely in the midst of tail-gating and drunken suburban mobs, on Bagley near Grand Circus Park. From 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. that night, Tigers fans spent the day in parking lots and streets and sidewalks around our building getting completely blasted, openly drinking alcohol (illegal), urinating in the streets and on our building, then coming INTO our building. Someone kicked down the locked door to a non-functioning toilet on my floor, and defecated in it anyway, leaving a terrible odor. If this had been a BLACK mob, police would have hauled away hundreds, cracked heads, and probably shot a few.  But there were no police to be seen. This added insult to injury on top of the EM appointment, and made it difficult for me to leave the office to service my homeless clients.)