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

Prisoners are shown at the Ryan Correctional Facility in Detroit, Thursday, May 3, 2007. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s administration is scaling back plans to release more than 5,000 parole-eligible prisoners to ensure only nonviolent or sick inmates get out. Under a revised plan obtained by The Associated Press, officials trying to slow Michigan’s prison spending are eyeing around 3,200 inmates for parole, or about 36 percent fewer than originally proposed. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

 ©2012 Timothy Murphy                                                                                                         MDOC #183248, Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility, Ionia, Michigan

(VOD: this article was forwarded to VOD by writer Mitch McKay in December, 2012.)

Protester at Federal Building demonstration in Detroit July 9, 2012 depicts Snyder on his T-shirt.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has wasted no time in brandishing his broad budget battle-axe in an effort to chop away at the state’s excessive deficit by, among other things, closing several State Police Posts and cutting public funding for universities by 15 percent, but with little or no positive reform effect on the out-of-control prison spending that has plagued the state for decades.

Snyder’s prison budget for 2011 comes in at just over $2 billion and appears to be the same ol’ story for Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) funding; retaining otherwise ill-conceived, inadequate or grossly underfunded prison programs and services implemented under former MDOC Director Patricia Caruso & Company, while making minor and largely symbolic changes aimed at diminishing the quality of life for prisoners.

This is in stark contrast to his predecessor, former Governor Jennifer Granholm, who in her tenure as the state’s Governor implemented numerous prison cost cutting measures including closing a total of fourteen (14) of the State’s 47 prisons from 2003 to 2009 (See Prison Legal News [PLN], Dec. 2009, page 46). Snyder’s efforts to solve the prison budget problems appear slightly, if not completely, misguided, perhaps even downright dangerous. 

Detroiters support massive Goergia prison strike in Dec. 2010, standing outside Detroit’s Mound Road prison. Gov. Snyder has since closed the prison, which housed many from Detroit. They have been transferred all over the state, away from family and friends.

His official budget plan calls for closing one prison for an estimated annual savings of $18.9 million, statewide privatization of the prison food service and prisoner store operations, and reducing additional administrative costs to save another estimated $32 million. However, if Governor Snyder thinks that privatization is the panacea for effective service and savings he obviously hasn’t been paying attention to the countless problems experienced by other prison systems that have privatized prison food service operations (See PLN, April 2010, pgs. 1-7).

State. Rep. John Proos

This is a potentially dangerous move for staff and prisoners alike in an already volatile, overcrowded prison system, with fewer work opportunities for already hungry prisoners to supplement their daily diets from the overpriced prison canteen.

In August 2010, under pressure from State Rep. John Proos –R, the MDOC implemented a statewide standardized prison food service menu and dramatically reduced the portion size of prisoner meals in an effort to save an estimated $6 million a year (See PLN, Dec. 2010, pg. 46).

Early rumors indicate that under the new privatization of the MDOC food service operations prisoners will receive only one hot meal per day while being provided cold bag meals or meals-ready-to-eat for the other two meals. And for prisoners serving relatively short sentences, up to a few years, this might be acceptable.

“We are men. We are not beasts, and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such.” (L.D. Barkely, a 21 year old prisoner serving time for breaching parole by driving without a license. He died in the Attica prison assault, shot 15 times at point-blank range.) Twenty-nine prisoners and 10 hostages were shot to death by New York State Police to quell the historic Attica Prison rebellion of Sept. 1971. The New York State Special Commission on Attica wrote, “With the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War.”

However, for prisoners serving Life or long, indeterminate sentences, one must question the wisdom of such an imprudent contract. The more the system squeezes these long-term or Lifer prisoners, the less incentive there is for them to conform and go with the flow. They become embittered and angry at the system that continues to take and take from them. The result is increased violence against staff and other prisoners borne of utter frustration, anger and desperation. This in turn results in increased prison spending to house these now assaultive prisoners in higher custody levels, medical expenses and perhaps even prosecution costs resulting from these otherwise avoidable violent acts of discontent.

In another unwise move touted to save money, Governor Snyder has done away with the Granholm-appointed 7-member Executive Clemency Advisory Council which reviewed some 20 cases a month and made recommendations for or against commutations. Since its inception, to justify the former Governor’s reforms, there have been no commutations for prisoners whose victims have been law enforcement officers or minors; for prisoners who are healthy and have committed armed robbery or criminal sexual conduct; for prisoners who committed first degree murder; or for drug offenders who were responsible for operating a drug ring.

New parole board members appointed by Granholm are shown here with chair Barbara Sampson. Snyder drastically changed make-up of parole board.

In her November 6, 2010 address to the attendees of the annual Michigan CURE meeting Ms. Barbara Sampson, then Chairwoman of the Michigan Parole and Commutation Board (MPCB), reported that “very few individuals whose sentences were commuted…have been returned to prison. And each of those returned had been serving a sentence for a property crime or [minor] drug offense when his or her sentence was commuted.”

By Executive Order 2011-3, which took effect April 15, 2011, Governor Snyder also abolished the Granholm-appointed 15-member MPCB and replaced it with a new 10-member Michigan Parole Board appointed, not by Governor Snyder but, by the new MDOC Acting Director Richard M. McKeon. (Effective June I, 2011 Jackson County Sheriff Daniel Heyns became the new MDOC Director). Five members of the new 10-member board, are former MPCB members including former MPCB Chairwoman Barbara Sampson, and of the remaining five members four are longtime MDOC staff and the other a former prosecutor. Continue reading →

The Wilmington 10, falsely convicted for the 1972 bombing of a Wilmington, N.C. grocery, served many years in prison before their release on various dates, including Rev. Ben Chavis, (bottom left), released in 1979.

 By Jamil Smith, @JamilSmith

12/31/2012

(Thanks to Kenny Snodgrass, VOD videojournalist, for forwarding these articles.)

The Wilmington Ten are truly free, at last.

Outgoing North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue issued and signed a “pardon of innocence” for the group Monday. There are currently six surviving members.

The nine African-American men and one white woman had been convicted in the 1972 firebombing of a Wilmington, NC grocery store during civil-rights protests that arose after police shot an African-American teenager. Between the ten, they received combined sentences totaling 282 years in prison.

The Rev. Benjamin Chavis gives a clenched fist salute after arriving at Washington National Airport on Friday, Dec. 14, 1979, after being paroled by North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt. Chavis, one of the Wilmington 10 defendants, was convicted in connection with the 1972 firebombing of a Wilmington, N.C. grocery. At right is Dr. Charles Cobb, a United Church of Christ official, for whom Chavis will work. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi)

, Governor Perdue, a Democrat, said that she “decided to grant these pardons because the more facts I have learned about the Wilmington Ten, the more appalled I have become about the manner in which their convictions were obtained.” That manner was outlined on our show Saturday by host Melissa Harris-Perry, who added her voice to the more than 130,000 who signed their names to petitions delivered to the governor’s office:

“…it was so overt that by 1977, at least three witnesses had recanted their testimony. And in 1980, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of the Wilmington Ten—noting that the chief witness lied on the stand and that prosecutors concealed evidence.

And now, according to the NAACP, newly discovered notes from the prosecutor suggest he racially-profiled prospective jurors—writing ‘KKK —good’ next to some names and referring to at least one black candidate as an ‘Uncle Tom.’”

Governor Perdue used similarly strong language in her statement about the injustices done in the trial:

This conduct is disgraceful. It is utterly incompatible with basic notions of fairness and with every ideal that North Carolina holds dear. The legitimacy of our criminal justice system hinges on it operating in a fair and equitable manner with justice being dispensed based on innocence or guilt – not based on race or other forms of prejudice. That did not happen here. Instead, these convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina’s criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer.

Wilmington Ten member Wayne Moore, who was 19 at the time of the firebombing and received a nearly 30-year prison sentence, shouted his joy at the governor’s decision via Twitter:

———————-

Wilmington 10 survivors and families today.

WBOY-TV
updated 12/31/2012

By MARTHA WAGGONER
–Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Outgoing North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue issued pardons Monday to the Wilmington 10, a group wrongly convicted 40 years ago in a notorious Civil Rights-era prosecution that led to accusations that the state was holding political prisoners.

Perdue issued pardons of innocence Monday for the nine black men and one white woman who received prison sentences totaling nearly 300 years for the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington grocery store during three days of violence that included the shooting of a black teenager by police.

The pardon means the state no longer thinks the 10 – four of whom have since died – committed a crime.

“I have decided to grant these pardons because the more facts I have learned about the Wilmington Ten, the more appalled I have become about the manner in which their convictions were obtained,” Perdue said in a news release Monday.

The three key witnesses in the case later recanted their testimony. Amnesty International and other groups took up the issue, portraying the Wilmington 10 as political prisoners.

In 1978, then-Gov. Jim Hunt commuted their sentences but withheld a pardon. Two years later, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., threw out the convictions, saying perjury and prosecutorial misconduct were factors in the verdicts. Continue reading →

Autoworkers protest at 2012 Auto Show.

AUTOWORKERS TO TARGET WORSENING WORKING CONDITIONS AS AUTO COMPANY PROFITS SOAR, PLAN TWO DAYS OF PROTEST AT THE NA INTERNATIONAL AUTO SHOW

Contact: Frank Hammer AUTOWORKER CARAVAN
313-863-3219

WHO: Autoworker Caravan
WHAT: Informational Picket Lines
WHEN: Sunday, January 13th and Monday, January 14th, 1:30-3 PM
WHERE: Cobo Center, 1 Washington Blvd,, Detroit 48226

WHY: As the successful turnaround of GM and Chrysler (and Ford’s ongoing success) continue to be touted in the main stream media, the story of the continued sacrifices of the workers who are making it possible continues to be ignored. As a result, the public is left with the impression that autoworkers are sharing in the new-found prosperity, which is decidedly not the case.

Pres. Barack Obama campaigns for auto bail-out at Chrysler Warren Stamping Plant.

Still trying to recover from the “austerity” measures imposed by the White House Auto Task Force during the bailout of 2009, autoworkers are continuing to lose rights and benefits once considered untouchable.

“If they dare complain,” says Martha Grevatt, a tool and die maker at Chrysler’s Warren Stamping Plant, “they are told to be silent and just ‘be happy you have a job.’” Workers are thus being forced, for example, to accept so-called “Alternative Work Schedules” and “Flexible Operating Patterns” by which the employers extract more value from the workers for less pay, all the while their personal and family lives are increasingly disrupted and stressed.

“Maquiladora” plant workers in Mexico.

More and more workers are being hired as low-paid permanent “temporaries,” as the auto companies accelerate to eliminate long-term, permanent workers. According to line worker Debi Muncy, who suffered a work-related injury at her former Ford plant in Saline, Michigan, “once injured on the job, we often are harassed by management, and forced back to work and put back on jobs we shouldn’t do.” In these and other ways the Detroit 3 are importing their so-called “maquiladora” labor practices developed in countries like Mexico, Colombia and Brazil into their US operations.

U.S. autoworkers have more reason than ever to express their solidarity with workers in the global south who are confronted with these “maquiladora” practices. “The auto show is a perfect opportunity,” says Nick Waun, a GM worker in Lake Orion Michigan, “for us to show our support for GM workers in Colombia, for example, who’ve suffered crippling occupational injuries and who’ve been fired by a heartless company. We will stand with these heroic workers who have gone to great lengths – including a 525 day encampment and hunger strikes – to win their jobs back, and their right to a union.”

Fresh from witnessing the attacks on union rights in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and now Michigan, autoworkers will be demanding repeal of such anti-union measures as the recently enacted, so-called “Right to Work” laws. “Allowing these to laws to remain,” according to Chrysler hi-lo driver Melvin Thompson, “will weaken labor and set the stage for Colombia style-working conditions to be introduced here.”

“The global restructuring of the Detroit Three is being accomplished not only at the expense of the workers, but also at a huge cost to the environment,” adds Dianne Feeley, a retiree from the now closed American Axle plant in Hamtramck, Michigan. “Autoworkers will be demanding a restructuring of the auto industry and a retooling of the closed plants, to build what is necessary to stop global warming, and prevent more disasters like Superstorm Sandy. We need renewable energy and more public transit. We know that such a project would unleash workers’ energies and create much-needed jobs for Detroit and other hard hit communities.”

RALLY WITH US AGAINST RICK SNYDER & RIGHT TO WORK!

When: Friday, January 18, 2013
Time: 5:00 PM
Where: Cobo Hall (We will meet here at the Local hall first, located at 2604 Fourth Street, Detroit, MI 48201)

Join us on Friday, January 18th when we tell Gov. Rick Snyder that we won’t stand for his attacks against Michigan workers. As you all know, Snyder signed Right to Work legislation into law in December. What you may NOT know is:

– On average, workers in Right-to-Work states earn $5,000 less than those in free bargaining states.

– Fewer people — 21% of workers in Right-to-Work states — have health insurance.

– The poverty rate in Right to Work states is considerably higher than in free bargaining states.

– Workplace deaths are 51% higher in Right to Work states

The fight is far from over. We have to keep letting our voices be heard so join us at Cobo Hall for this important action. We will meet at the Local Hall at 5:00 pm. See you all there!
Transportation and food will be available. For more information call Good Jobs Now at (877) 740-5033 or email us at info@goodjobsnow.org.  You can also receive our mobile updates by texting ‘weareMI’ to 64336.

www.goodjobsnow.org

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Good Jobs Now will never charge you for text message alerts, but carrier message and data rates may apply. Text STOP to 64336 to unsubscribe, and HELP for more info. Periodic updates, up to 5 per month.

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https://www.facebook.com/events/146719912144768/

Protest initiated by Rev. Charles Williams II and Kenneth Snodgrass.

Group Urges Detroit to Go on Offense To Stop EFM and Protect City Assets

From Tom Barrow, previous mayoral candidate

(DETROIT (JANUARY 8) —-A Detroit civic organization, Citizens For Detroit’s Future (CFDF), headed by prominent Detroit accountant Tom Barrow, today delivered letters to Detroit’s elected leaders calling on them to accept that the railroad is running towards the city and is controlled by conservative interests seeking to take the City’s coveted resources and assets.

Recount hearing on 2009 Detroit mayoral elections, requested by candidate Tom Barrow (l) was packed with his supporters. The Wayne County Board of Canvassers found that over 60 percent of the ballots, including all the absentee ballots, were unrecountable. Was Dave Bing really elected by the people?

“It is clear to city residents and our suburban neighbors– Detroiters all–that our city is being maligned daily and a conservative agenda being perpetrated against it to get what our late Mayor Young called, the city’s ‘Crown Jewels’,” said Barrow.

CFDF has long taken the public stance that a Detroit Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) will be appointed no matter what the Mayor or Council does. Therefore, the city must get off of defense and go on offense to protect the city’s jewels.

“If Detroit’s Mayor and Council continue to act like lambs, conservatives will continue to feast like lions.” Barrow said.

Contrary to the view by some on the city’s council, “it is naive to believe that if you take draconian actions desperately trying to satisfy unrealistic milestones, extremists will somehow like you, be pleased and stop coming after at you…they will not because their agenda is rooted in a phony fiscal ruse which can never to be satisfied.” Barrow explained.

States with municipalities authorized to file for bankruptcy under Chapter Nine of the US Bankruptcy Code.

CFDF’s Executive Board passed a resolution calling on Detroit’s city council to immediately order the city’s law department, not Miller-Canfield, to explore Detroit’s options under Title 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code at Chapter 9, specifically designed for municipalities.

Why a municipal bankruptcy reorganization? Because it is vastly preferable to a state appointed EFM.

Barrow, who has been appointed by the federal courts as a trustee in multiple corporate bankruptcies in the past, said “I understand the process.”

CFDF believes that a conservative railroad is running on tracks designed by the Koch Brothers, Devos and Walton Foundations. These conservative financiers’ plan of EFMs, right-to-work and voter suppression efforts is operating nationally and here in Michigan and goes like this:

First, the EM will be appointed by the conservative state and will be someone we recognize but who has quietly bought into the conservative right-wing philosophy and will wear a seeming Democrat’s suit;

DWSD workers picket Huber plant in Aug. 2012 before striking the Wastewater Treatment Plant in September for one week. They demanded not only preservation of city ownership of DWSD, but also protection of their pensions. Public pension plans may be endangered under a bankruptcy filing.

Second, s/he will render the elected Mayor and Council impotent (thus the people silent);

Third, s/he will sell or transfer city assets including the water department and Belle Isle etc. to private outside interests using the fiscal ruse a la Pontiac, Flint, Benton Harbor, Ecorse etc.;

Fourth, the EFM then will decimate the city’s unions and privatize multiple clear government functions; and

Fifth, its most impactful effect on our over 230-year old democracy, the EFM once in, no matter what anyone says, will last indefinitely and not be accountable to anyone in Detroit. (Just Look at Detroit Public Schools) and become an indefinite overseer.

Conversely under a self-imposed Chapter 9 Reorganization, the Mayor and Council control everything. City assets remain under the ownership of the city and cannot be sold or transferred and the Mayor and Council is given absolute power to set aside any contract they decide.

While a Chapter 9 Mayor and Council can set aside a union contract, a new Mayor and Council will have the same power to re-instate any contract or whatever has been done during that short and interim period.

Linda Willis participates in downtown Detroit protest May 9, 2012 demanding payback from the banks.

But most importantly, because Detroiters are in control and because the primary concern of the bankruptcy court will be the Bond Debt with which the city is fine, it should immediately re-affirm all General Obligation and Special Revenue Bond debt to reassure the financial markets. The city can then on its own:

– Set aside any state or local agreement, including having the ability to abrogate the Consent Agreement, and the Memorandum of Understanding;

– Dissolve the Financial Advisory Board and remove the state’s two $260,000 per year imbedded operatives and all other state operatives whom we have been forced to hire.

In short, by judicious use of Chapter 9, the city can get the state out of its business and allow the current and future Mayors and Councils to run the city subject only to the Court and without state interference. The mayor and council can decide when to emerge from the Bankruptcy Reorganization. Should the city need to borrow it need only ask the court, not Treasurer Andy Dillon or Governor Rick Snyder.

Fitch Ratings Joe O’Keefe (3rd from left0 and S & P’s Stephen Murphy (2nd from right) pressured Council to borrow $1.5 billion in Pension Obligation Certificates unnecessarily in Jan. 2004, from UBS whiah has now admitted to massive fraud.

CFDF has railed repeatedly that the city was NOT running out of cash and that the state’s claims were a ruse orchestrated by their imbedded operatives to generate a false flag media furor to make the city appear inept and incapable of managing it’s finances.

State operatives, with the complicity of some naive elected officials (Note: none of our elected officials are trained in finance), falsely pushed city leaders to borrow money they did not need and then use the funds as a faux bludgeon to demand compliance with a conservative privatizations of city services and hiring more state operative.

All while the city is sitting on a half a billion dollars in its own water department, half of which is “unrestricted” and which, properly structured, could have been used to borrow from ourselves with the interest paid to ourselves.

International Underground Railroad Monument in Detroit’s Hart Plaza.

Around the end of November, the state’s bluff was called by a Council super-majority, 8-1, legitimately concerned with Miller-Canfield’s obvious conflicts representing all sides, the State, the City and even itself (inserted into the MOU with a requirement that the firm be hired “or else”), our Mayor was forced to admit that we would not be running out of cash and will last through the Spring of 2013, contradicting three years of Chicken Little shouts of “We’re running out of money!” That entire argument has now gone quietly away.

Yet, state operatives continue to set up faux milestones designed to get their EFM and make it appear rational and Detroiter’s own fault. This to provide justifications to disintegrate city unions, privatize essential government services and city’s departments and ruining city workers lives, further depressing the local economy.

Trains have been very good to Detroit in the past, but not this one. Our local history, from the metaphorical Underground Railroad that delivered escaped enslaved people to Canada via Detroit; to the great railways that delivered the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II; to the automobile makers receiving steel and supplies from across the nation, it served as a symbol of the city’s dominance. This train, conducted by a conservative Gov. Snyder, however, is steaming toward downtown Detroit to load up on city jewels and must be derailed with this very prudent and necessary step to solvency.

(VOD is researching the issues surrounding a bankruptcy filing, which many Detroiters called for at a City Council meeting today, and will later publish an independent article. An alternate proposal that VOD has raised for years is a moratorium on the city’s massive debt to the banks, a result of predatory lending advanced by Wall Street. As Councilwoman JoAnn Watson has raised, corporations owe Detroit over $800 million.

Additionally, dozens of cities, states and other borrowers are suing global banks including UBS, largely responsible for Detroit’s debt, for rigging interest rates in the LIBOR scandal. UBS just paid the U.S. a $1.5 billion fine, admitting to criminal fraud.)

For more information on how a municipal bankruptcy works, click on http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/Bankruptcy/BankruptcyBasics/Chapter9.aspx

By Beau Hodai, December 30, 2012

Jump to source materials archive for this article.

Records obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy (DBA/CMD) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request indicate that the FBI employed tactics under a “counter terrorism” initiative called “Operation Tripwire” in the monitoring of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists.

[Note: records referenced in this article were obtained by DBA/CMD on November 8, 2012, as a partial response to a FOIA request submitted by DBA/CMD to the FBI on June 7, 2012. DBA/CMD have been analyzing these incomplete materials along with other public records to tell a more complete story of the pattern of domestic surveillance that has been underway.]

“Tripwires,” Mall Cops, and “Radical Cheerleaders”

On October 19, 2011, an FBI agent filed a report, titled “Domain Program Management [,] Domestic Terrorism,” detailing an October 11 briefing given to “Jacksonville Executive Management” (EM) and a supervisory special agent (SSA) “Counter Terrorism Program Coordinator.” The subject of the October 11 briefing had been the potential growth of the OWS movement throughout north/central Florida. (All agent names were redacted from this, and other, FBI reports.)

“During the 11 October intelligence meeting, writer advised EM of the Occupy venues and further advised that they may provide an outlet for a lone offender exploiting the movement for reasons associated with general government dissatisfaction,” wrote the agent, who went on to say that special areas of concern were Daytona, Gainesville, and Ocala, where “some of the highest unemployment rates in Florida continue to exist.”

As such, the report’s author recommended that the Counter Terrorism Program Coordinator, “consider establishing tripwires with the Occupy event coordinators regarding their observance of actions or comments indicating violent tendencies by attendees” (emphasis added).

Occupy Gaineville cheerleaders were targeted by Tripwire.

Interestingly, the report went on to discuss the author’s sharing of information obtained from the FBI Houston field office– as an example of such potential “exploitation”– with the Jacksonville Counter Terrorism Program Coordinator. The FBI Houston information related to the “exploitation” of Occupy Houston by an individual (name redacted) who had allegedly plotted to “kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire.” (It is worth noting here that one of the few other instances of a credible threat identified by the FBI in relation to OWS contained in the DBA/CMD FOIA records relates to an October 2011 instance in which a person reportedly threw a “chemical bomb” made from tinfoil and Drano at “Occupy Maine” protestors after shouting “get a job!”)

US DOJ “Operation Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

According to the FBI, “Operation Tripwire,” established in 2003, focuses on “information and intelligence-sharing operations from the NJTTF’s [National Joint Terrorism Task Force] participating agencies to help identify terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S.” Such information is obtained through intelligence provided by various private sector “critical infrastructure stakeholders,” along with apparent networks of informants established through regional JTTF “community outreach” activities.

An example of Tripwire’s intended use at the time of its inception is as follows: a suspicious pattern of chemical purchases might be provided to the FBI by a merchant. This information would be relayed from the regional JTTF to NJTTF. Continue reading →

Tyrone Travis

 By Tyrone Travis, Detroit Resident

January 1, 2013

Article 4, Section 29 of the Constitution of Michigan, states that no local or special act by lawmakers: 

“…shall take effect until approved by two-thirds of the members elected to and serving in each house and by a majority of the electors voting thereon in the district affected.” 

Since 1996, state lawmakers, in collaboration with the Detroit City Council members and Mayors have denied Detroit residents the above constitutional right, by writing within the state laws language which required only a vote by city council.  When the city council voted (yes or no), they gave VALIDATION to the unconstitutional laws and denied Detroit electors their right to vote on all state laws that affect Detroiters. 

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder

The above Article 4, Section 29 language does not permit city council to pass a resolution selecting one or four options as offered in Section 7(1)(a) to (d) of Senate Bill No. 865, Titled: Local Financial Stability and Choice Act, Signed by Governor Rick Snyder December 27, 2012. (Click on SB 865 draft3 to read full bill.)

The new (which is in fact the old) emergency manager law called The Local Financial Stability and Choice Act, affects the electors in Detroit, by: 

(1) eliminating city government service “departments” and also “sell[ing]…assets” in them, thereby, eliminating employment, services and public ownership of assets. 

(2) “the disincorporation or dissol[ution],” that is, submerging the City of Detroit into metro entities that would have a solid white voting majority that would bring to an end Black local representation, violating federal voting right laws, and, 

(3) the new Emergency Manager (EM) law would be able to borrow monies on – taxpayers, without our consent. 

Detroit City Council

Since 1996 the above collaboration between state and city government have harmed our children and our children’s children, present and future.  They are being deliberately and systematically destroyed and that means genocide. 

Therefore, CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, do not VOTE on any part of the new Emergency Manager Law, YOUR future near or far is on you!  

Chicagto Teachers Union on striek Sept. 10, 2012.

by CTU Communications | 11/30/2012

http://www.ctunet.com/blog/the-black-and-white-of-education-in-chicagos-public-schools

Forwarded by Detroit Public Schools teacher Steve Conn

CHICAGO—The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) released today a report on the “underutilization crisis” in the Chicago Public Schools system, a crisis that has been manufactured largely to justify the replacement of neighborhood schools by privatized charters. The study, titled The Black and White of Education in Chicago’s Public Schools, analyzes the mechanisms and effects of CPS schemes that masquerade as educational policy.

While the policy of neighborhood school closings and charter openings has not moved education in Chicago forward in any significant way, the benefits to charter school operators, private testing companies, real estate interests, and wealthy bankers are growing. Far from being a system of reform that improves education, the policy of closing schools in one area of the city and opening schools in another has been the failed status quo in Chicago for nearly 20 years, and key outcomes are:

• Increased racial segregation in schools
• Depletion of stable schools in Black neighborhoods
• Disrespect and poor treatment of teachers
• Expansion of unnecessary testing
• Decreased opportunities for deep, conceptual learning
• Increased punitive student discipline
• Increased student mobility
• Minimal educational outcomes
  

  CTU President Karen Lewis

“When it comes to matters of race and education in Chicago, the attack on public schools is endemic,” said CTU President Karen GJ Lewis. “Chicago is the most segregated city in the country, and our students of color are routinely deemed as second-class by a system that does nothing but present one failed policy after the next.”

The Black and White of Education in Chicago’s Public Schools has three major sections describing CPS’ failed public education policy. Part One, “Playing Musical Chairs with CPS Schools—Facilities Decisions and School Actions in the Age of Mayoral Control,” assesses the processes and outcomes of school actions, facilities decisions and charter proliferation; Part Two, “Students First or Students Last? Setting the Record Straight on the Portfolio District,” investigates the realities of student outcomes, district and charter budgets, charter waiting lists and the Gates Foundation charter school compact; and Part Three, “Innovation in Name Only: Charter Education,” examines the true nature of charter operators’ alleged innovations—excessive test-focused curricula, harsh student discipline, exploited teachers and reduced teacher diversity and parental input regarding their children’s education.

Chicago Public Schools students.

The study examines the history of school attacks in Chicago, and whether educational apartheid is being implemented under the guise of educational improvement. More than 42,000 students have been directly impacted since CPS school actions began in 2001 and 88 percent of those affected have been African American. Schools where the overwhelming majority of students are children of color have been the primary target—representing more than 80 percent of all affected schools—and Black communities have been hit the hardest, as three out of every four affected schools were economically disadvantaged and extremely segregated African American schools. Continue reading →

Council members (l to r) Andre Spivey, Gary Brown, Charles Pugh, Kenneth Cockrel, Jr., James Tate and Saunteel Jenkins collaborated with Gov. Rick Snyder’s fascist regime. After World War II, French people who collaborated with the Nazis were paraded with their heads shaven through the streets, as shown in this actual (but doctored) photo.

Present drastic cutbacks plan to State Treasurer, big media

Refuse to confront corporations who owe city $870 M, banks other cities are suing for fraudulent lending practices  

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – Six of Detroit’s nine City Council members are openly collaborating as an independent body with state officials, big business media, and Wall Street in a war against the city’s 82 percent Black population, where 51 percent of public school children live in poverty. 

Marchers protested last round of city lay-offs outside Bank of America, demanding a moratorium on the city’s debt to the banks, May 9, 2012.

The six, Council Pres. Charles Pugh, Pres. Pro-Tem Gary Brown, and members Saunteel Jenkins, James Tate, Kenneth Cockrel Jr., and Andre Spivey, met openly with the editorial boards of the city’s two dailies, The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press Dec. 27. According to the newspapers, they presented a plan for drastic cuts in workers’ wages and benefits, 1,000 lay-offs in addition to last year’s 2,500, and the sale of some city assets, in order to address an alleged budget deficit. 

They said they had already sent the plan to State of Michigan Treasurer Andy Dillon, without discussion or approval by the Council as a whole, or disclosure to the people, a likely violation of the State’s Open Meetings Act. They said they hope it will stave off the appointment of a state “emergency manager” under the “Local Financial Stability and Choice Act” signed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Dec. 27 to replace Public Act 4, which was overwhelmingly repealed by state voters Nov. 6. 

Chris Griffiths of Free Detroit-No Consent speaks at City Council in Sept. 2011.

“This reminds me of slavery days,” Chris Griffiths told the Council at its session Dec. 11, where the majority voted for contracts and land sales opposed by hundreds of residents at various meetings. “You guys are doing the exact same thing the white people did to us.” 

An emergency manager (EM) has absolute control over a municipality or school district. The EM can dissolve or regionalize it, sell off its assets, revoke union contracts, and remove elected officials or override their decisions. 

City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, a leader in the battle to repeal PA4, said, “This meeting came as a shock to me. I found out from Council member Kwame Kenyatta who said a staff member at the Free Press told him. I have not received a copy of the plan, and am meeting with legal representatives right now about possible Open Meetings Act violations.” 

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson (r) at Council session Dec. 4, 2012.

Watson has sponsored a resolution calling on the city to collect over $800 million in taxes and other charges owed to it by major corporations. (Click on Money Owed the City12-11-12 final for full resolution as revised.) A recent expose in the Detroit News showed that the Detroit Red Wings, the city’s hockey team owned by local billionaire Mike Illitch, owes $70 million in cable franchise fees to the City. 

Attorney Jerome Goldberg of the Moratorium NOW Coalition called on the city to make the banks pay what they owe for criminal predatory lending practices not only to homeowners, which have devastated Detroit’s neighborhoods, but to the city itself. 

Attorney Jerry Goldberg of Moratorium NOW! calls for city to take blood from the banks, not the workers.

“Rather than taking the blood out of the workers with an additional 20 percent wage cut and requiring them to pay a large part of their pension and health costs, when they have been taking cuts for years, the Council should look at who the real robbers are, and sue them as other cities are doing,” Goldberg said. 

“Dillon is fully aware of the real basis for the city’s deficit,” Goldberg explained. “He and the city’s first financial review team concluded that without interest payments to the banks, the city would have more than enough revenue to fund its expenses. Their report showed the city owes a total debt of over $16.9 billion, with $4.9 billion in interest. The banks’ fraudulent lending procedures, including a $1.5 billion pension obligation certificates (POC) loan in 2004, forced the city to pay an additional $1 billion to hedge funds for betting wrong on which way interest rates would go.”  (Click on Detroit FRT report 3 26 12 for full report.)

Forbes editor apologized for running this earlier cover after UBS admitted to criminal fraud and paid a $1.5 billion fine to the U.S.

According to Reuters, UBS, the Swiss global bank which pressed the $1.5 billion POC loan on Detroit, just paid a $1.5 billion fine, most of it to the U.S. Department of Justice. It admitted to committing criminal fraud in manipulating interest rates from 2005 through 2010. The City of Baltimore and dozens of other borrowers are suing UBS and 12 other banks involved in the so-called “LIBOR” (London Interbank Offered Rate) scandal for their losses. 

“It is an outrage that Detroit’s City Council and Mayor have not joined this fight against the banks,” Goldberg said. “They need to end up in the dustbin of history after the people rise up. We are about to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asking for copies of all city bond documents so we can conduct a people’s review. The state instead is rushing to put an EM in place to ensure payment of this fraudulent debt.” 

The six City Council members had not returned calls and emails for comment for this story before press time, but were quoted in stories in the News and Free Press. The Free Press story included photos showing them laughing and smiling.

Charles Pugh, after voting for consent agreement April 4, 2012.

“My perception is . . . . our plan, if implemented, could work,” Pugh told the News. “There’s got to be some pretty tough cuts of an estimated $15 million a month for at least the next three months.”

He told the paper he had been in touch with state officials, adding, “This time there has to be a plan and the plan (has) to be implemented. The state realized you do have some people in place who are willing to make tough decisions . . . .The real prospect of an emergency financial manager has never been more real and (with) the few options we have left, the mayor realizes this is do or die.” 

Over this Council’s term since 2009, its majority has repeatedly recommended deeper cuts to the workers and poor than even those proposed by Detroit Mayor Dave Bing.

Pugh in particular has scoffed at the public during hearings on the city’s April 4 PA4 consent agreement, a contract with the Miller-Canfield law firm, which helped draft PA4 and acted in the interests of the state against the city in other matters, and the largest land sale in the city’s history, 143.8 acres for $520,000 to Hantz Woodlands, LLC to establish a “tree farm.” 

At a public hearing swamped by over 600 residents opposed to the land sale Dec. 10,  the Council was told that Hantz’ parent company, Hantz Financial, is embroiled in litigation over a $2.2 billion Ponzi scheme the company recommended to investors, and that it paid a $675,000 settlement in 2005 for admitted fraud. However, they voted for the sale anyway. 

During the Dec. 11 hearing, Pugh ridiculed former school board member Marie Thornton as she spoke during public comment, then ordered Council police to remove her. She staged a civil rights-style protest, lying down as audience members shouted to the police to get their hands off her, until Pugh finally relented. 

Marie Thornton

“The Council members would get all dressed up and meet with the media during the holidays,” Thornton, who garnered 90,000 votes in the school board election, said. “But they are powerless now; they are already dead because of the consent agreement. If they think that they are going to get more power from meeting behind closed doors with Snyder and his kind, they are wrong. No one is going to vote for those Negroes in the 2013 election.” 

Pugh has deliberately held key Council hearings in the small Council chambers, rather than the large auditorium down the hall where the Council previously sponsored meetings with large turn-outs. As a result, hundreds, including seniors and the disabled, have been forced to stand outside in the hallway waiting their turn to render one minute each in public comment, unable to see or hear the Council proceedings, another violation of the Open Meetings Act. 

DWSD workers took direct action Sept. 30, 2012, striking for a week against assault on Detroit.

“The Council majority is not working for us,” said Cecily McClellan of Free Detroit-No Consent, and also a laid-off city worker and union official. “They are working for the Chamber of Commerce and corporate America.” 

Jay Henderson, president of the Riverbend Community Association, called for new people’s strategies to regain control of Detroit in the New Year. 

“We need to go back to the tactics of the ‘60’s,” he said. “The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again but expect different results.”

Below is video from May 9, 2011 demonstration against the banks in downtown Detroit.

Related article: http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/12/28/snyder-dillon-ignore-banks-escalate-pa-4-war-on-detroit/

Also see tbe world-wide battle against the banks and corporations portrayed in “Meltdown–The Global Economic Crisis.” (Video below)

THE FISCAL CLIFF: A CONSPIRACY BETWEEN BOTH PARTIES.

© ’12 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[col. writ. 12/11/12]

From every TV and radio news broadcast, the words, ‘fiscal cliff’ are being mentioned, in a tone and frequency of dread and fear.

Listeners, viewers and readers can sense the dread and faux fear, but little clarity arises from the dust.

What is the fiscal cliff?

It is a political creation – made by Congress itself, as a self- made rule to force agreement (but really to blackmail political opponents), or else massive cuts will be automatically made in defense, social services and other government programs.

In the Mel Brooks-made cowboy comedy, Blazing Saddles, a Black sheriff moseys into town to the shock and surprise of the white townspeople. When things get ugly, the sheriff (played by actor Cleavon Little (1939-1992), pulls out his Colt. 45 and points it at himself, warning them to get back, or else he’ll shoot.

The fiscal cliff? It’s “Blazing Saddles.”

LarrY Holmes of Workers World Party.

But, it’s no comedy.

As Workers World’s Larry Holmes sees it, this so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ is a recent political invention designed to erect an American austerity program-cut-backs in social services so that more money could be sucked up by the ruling 1 %.

Holmes, in remarks made to a recent Workers World party conference, made the following analysis:

We are going to hear a lot about the so-called “fiscal cliff”. It is: Worldwide austerity. In Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in Ireland, in South Africa, all throughout Latin America and here in the U.S. From the point of view of the capitalists, the idea is to fix their system on the backs of the workers. They can’t get it from profits because of overproduction, so let’s just go literally into the body of the workers and get more pounds of flesh by stealing things from them. It is a mad, insane exercise in destruction, social destruction. It really should be called “the terminal crisis-of-capitalism cliff.”*

In sum, this is economic warfare parading as a political conflict, between two capitalist parties.

It is a self-made squabble among brothers.

–© ’12 maj

[Source: * Holmes, L., “Reviving a Global Revolutionary Perspective”, Workers World{weekly}, Dec. 13, 2012. http://www.workers.org/2012/12/07/reviving-a-global-revolutionary-perspective/.

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