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

There will be a VOD story coming shortly on Council EMA hearing Nov. 13.

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  Highland Park school board member Robert Davis

  COA rejects lawsuit v. DPS EFM Roy Roberts, PA 72 standing

• State high court chief justice earlier noted law negating return of repealed acts

By Diane Bukowski

November 17, 2012

DETROIT – Highland Park School Board member Robert Davis, who has ceaselessly fought Michigan’s Public Act 4, repealed Nov. 6, has forced the issue of whether all the state’s “emergency financial managers” must now be ousted to the state Supreme Court.

In response to Davis’s lawsuit filed Nov. 13, a Michigan Court of Appeals (COA) First District panel ruled Nov. 16 that Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts remains in place under PA 4’s predecessor law Public Act 72.

State Treasurer Andy Dillon

“I’m thankful for their expeditious review of the matter, and now once and for all the Supreme Court is going to decide the issue and the will of the people,” Davis responded in published remarks.

State Treasurer Andy Dillion re-appointed Roberts and seven other PA 4 emergency managers as PA 72 “emergency financial managers” after the placement of PA 4 on the ballot, pending the November vote.

The COA opinion echoed Attorney General Bill Schuette’s stance that voters repealed PA 4’s repeal of PA 72. During oral arguments on whether to put the PA 4 referendum on the ballot July 25, Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young, Jr. appeared to scoff at that opinion.

He read into the record MCL 8.4, which says, “Whenever a statute, or any part thereof shall be repealed by a subsequent statute, such statute, or any part thereof, so repealed, shall not be revived by the repeal of such subsequent repealing statute.”

DPS EFM Roy Roberts and puppetmaster Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder

When he asked the COA for a writ of mandamus enforcing MCL 8.4 on Nov. 13, Davis said, “The law in the state of Michigan is very clear . . . . When an act is repealed, it’s as if it never existed.”

The First District COA panel disagreed.

“Petitioner’s reliance on the anti-revival statute, MCL 8.4, is unavailing,” Presiding Judge Kirsten Frank Kelly wrote. “The plain language of MCL 8.4 includes no reference to statutes that have been rejected by referendum. The statutory language refers only to statutes subject to repeal. Judicial construction is not permitted when the language is unambiguous. Driver v Naini, 490 Mich 239, 247; 802 NW2d 311 (2011). Accordingly, under the clear terms of the statute, MCL 8.4 does not apply to the voters’ rejection, by referendum, of P A 4. Even if the rejection of P A 4 is deemed to operate as a repeal subject to MCL 8.4, the voters rejected P A 4 in its entirety by way of the referendum.” Click on Davis v Roberts COA for ruling.

“Oh, really?” Chief Justice Young responded to the Schuette’s attorney John Pirich, July 25. http://cst.clickstreamtv.net/mpi/cst.html?account=sbm&clip=&flashVersion=10&playlist=07_25_12_msc&realVersion=&route=1&cstSessionID=8017731&sessionID=M20121

Two of the three judges on the appeals panel, Kirsten Frank Kelly and Michael Riordan, were on the panel that delayed placement of the PA 4 referendum on the ballot, after hearing arguments on the petition’s type size. Although they essentially supported voters’ right to the referendum, they refused to order the Board of Canvassers to comply. Instead they unsuccessfully asked for a meeting of the entire Appeals Court to clarify the matte

Attorneys for Stand Up for Democracy and others then appealed to the Supreme Court, which ordered the referendum’s placement on the ballot.

Riordan was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Governor Rick Snyder this year. Snyder previously considered appointing Kelly to the Supreme Court. The third appeals judge, Christopher Murray, was previously chief legal counsel for former Governor John Engler.

The stance of the entire Supreme Court remains to be seen when Davis’ appeal is heard. Young is one of the ultraconservative justices on the Court who has been supported by the Republican Party. Whether the more “liberal” justices will agree with the COA is questionable.

Pontiac City Council member Kermit WIlliams is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit v. PA 72 filed Sept. 26.

Earlier on September 26, the Sugar Law Center, The Center For Constitutional Rights, Sanders Law Firm, Melvin “Butch” Hollowell and Goodman & Hurwitz PC filed suit in Ingham County Circuit Court on behalf of Council members from Pontiac City Council members Donald Watkins and Kermit Williams, four Benton Harbor city commissioners, and all nine members of the Flint City Council.

“At this moment, there is no law authorizing the use of emergency managers in the state of Michigan,” Sugar Law Center director John Philo said in a release. “The suit we filed is based on the obvious fact that there cannot be emergency managers without the legal framework to support them. The new law has been suspended and the old law is dead.”

The suit asks for the restoration of the council members to their legally elected positions, and the removal of “emergency financial managers” Joe Harris of Benton Harbor, Ed Kurtz of Flint, and Louis Schimmel of Pontiac. The suit challenges the reinstatement of PA 72 prior to the election.

The case is set to be heard Dec. 5, 2012 before Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina.

A separate lawsuit filed by members of the Flint City Council led by its chair Scott Kincaid awaits hearing in Genessee County Circuit Court Judge Neithercut Dec. 18, 2012.

EM’s and EFM’s in all the cities involved have sold off city assets such as the Pontiac Silverdome and the city’s 11 water plants, parts of Benton Harbor’s publicly-owned Jean Klock Park, its public radio station, and golf courses in Flint, along with laying off hundreds of city workers and privatizing city services.  ‘

“I think what it shows is that the issue is bigger than Flint, and emergency manager law doesn’t fix the long-term problems that the state creates by cutting our revenue, declining property values and legacy costs,” Kincaid said in published remarks.

Emergency financial managers continue to operate also in the cities of Ecorse and Allen Park and the school districts of Highland Park and Muskegon.

Whether the residents of Michigan will continue to stand for this policy of “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied” remains to be seen. Rev. Edward Pinkney, a long-time community leader in Benton Harbor, addressed the need for a people’s fight for democracy, in the streets if need be. (See video below.)

•  Residents challenge control by banks, state
• Detroit not broke according to FAB docs; duty to bargain reinstated
• Mayor Dave Bing colludes with State Treasurer Dillon to withhold bond funds

November 14, 2012 

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT– Despite the definitive defeat of Michigan’s Public Act 4 (PA4) at the polls Nov. 6, its minions handling City of Detroit governmental affairs appear determined to stay until they are dragged out by their heels.

Detroit’s “Project Management Director” Kriss Andrews (I), told VOD he and the Financial Advisory Board are not leaving. Here he presents report to FAB Nov. 12, 2012.

Members of the community and city workers appear equally determined to see them vanish into the dustbin of history. At meetings of the city’s “Financial Advisory Board” (FAB) Nov. 12 and of the Detroit City Council Nov. 13, they demanded “people before banks,” and excoriated state-appointed officials and their elected collaborators. They said that “social tension” in Detroit is rapidly rising.

Financial Advisory Board meeting Nov. 12

Linda Willis demands cancellation of Detroit’s debt to the banks during protest at Bank of America held May 9, 2012.

“We are proceeding forward with the reform agenda,” Walter ‘Kriss’ Andrews told VOD at the beginning of the Nov. 12 meeting of the FAB, established by the city’s PA4 Financial Stability [consent] Agreement (FSA). “We are not planning to stop at all. The repeal of Public Act 4 didn’t put one dime in the city’s coffers.”

The nine-member FAB is an appointed board which can overrule the city’s elected officials.  Andrews is the “Project Management Director” for Detroit, appointed to his $220,000 -a year position by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing to enact a “reform agenda” by dismantling the city.

Andrews presented a 77-page report to the FAB. He claimed it shows the city is in imminent danger of going broke. However, the report does not include in city revenues the remaining $81 million the city borrowed from the state under the consent agreement, or pending property tax payments. Instead, it adds a costly “re-structuring analyst,” likely a firm. Detroit would be liable for half the costs of that firm.

Marie Thornton, with granddaughter Tylynn behind her, demands the FAB disband at their meeting Nov. 12.

“This is an illegal meeting of an illegal board,” long-time community activist and former Detroit School Board member Marie Thornton countered during public comment. “There is no Public Act 4. There is no Public Act 72. You do not exist!”

Cecily McClellan, vice-president of the city’s Association of Professional and Technical Employees (APTE), told the FAB to clear out.

“The whole board and every position created under the consent agreement, including Kriss Andrews, must leave, cease receiving their salaries, and restore the powers of our elected officials,” McClellan said. “It’s time now to develop a reconstruction plan for Detroit, including the restoration of the Detroit Health, Workforce Development and Human Services Departments.”

She and other speakers said the banks have been the only forces to benefit from PA 4 and the FSA, after devastating the neighborhoods of Detroit and other majority-Black cities in particular with predatory lending and foreclosures.

“We need to hold the banks accountable for what they have done to Detroit,” Stephen Boyle of Free Detroit-No Consent said.  People before banks! Why is our blood shed rather than that of the banks? The risk they’ve created has spread across the entire nation.”

According to city records, Detroit paid $597 million on its $16.9 billion debt to the banks in the previous fiscal year.

FAB chair Pierce’s bank a defendant in national “LIBOR” lawsuit

FAB chair Sandra E. Pierce was previously CEO of Charter One Michigan, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, being sued for rigging interest rates.

FAB chair Sandra Pierce was formerly CEO of Charter One Michigan, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

The City of Baltimore, other cities, states, and investors are suing RBS and 12 other global banks in a mammoth federal class action, “IN RE LIBOR-BASED FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS ANTITRUST LITIGATION,” for rigging rates in interest “swaps.” The plaintiffs contend the banks’ criminal actions have robbed them of billions of dollars that should have been spent on services for their residents.

They allege the banks conspired to “unlawfully manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate for the U.S. dollar (‘LIBOR’) from August 1, 2007 through such time as the effects of the Defendants’ illegal conduct ceased . . . .”  The banks named are members of the U.S. Dollar LIBOR panel, which set global borrowing rates.

Pierce announced at the beginning of the FAB meeting that the group was going into a “brief” closed session to obtain a legal opinion from its attorneys on the current status of PA4 and the FSA.

Detroit City Council members Gary Brown, Saunteel Jenkins, and Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. herded out of the room along with the FAB to the closed session. The three did not take with them their own Charter-mandated legal counsel. Detroit voters just approved Detroit Proposal C, which cemented Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon’s powers to take even the Mayor and Council members to court for City Charter violations.

City Council member Gary Brown (rear l) and former Council member Sheila Cockrel (center), who supports the FSA and the FAB, attended the FAB meeting Nov. 12. Brown and Council members Kenneth Cockrel Jr. and Saunteel Jenkins participated in FAB closed session. In front are Marie Thornton and Wayne Bernard, who both spoke against the banks/state takeover of Detroit.

Brown and Jenkins refused comment when the group returned after two hours. But Council member Andre Spivey, who arrived after the closed session, told VOD, “No, I wasn’t in the session, I’m not a member of the Financial Advisory Board.”

FAB attorneys declare PA repeal restored ‘duty to bargain’

On the group’s return, Pierce read a brief statement claiming the FSA remains intact despite the repeal of PA4, with the exception of “provisions 4.1, 4.3 and 4.4 related to the duty to bargain.” (Click on for FSA terms.)  The statement claimed the remainder of the FSA is valid under Public Act 7.

Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon.

Crittendon is preparing a statement for the City Council on the effects of the PA4 repeal. In earlier opinions, she said clearly that most of the FSA derives from PA 4, and that there is no statutory basis at all, even under PA4, for the existence of the FAB.

Now even the FAB’s legal counsel has gutted a large portion of the FSA, declaring that the roles of Bing, the FAB and Andrews in approving or terminating labor contracts, laid out in FSA sections 4.1 and 4.3, are null and void as a result of the PA4 repeal. They also said that the city’s duty to bargain with its unions under state law, which 4.4 negated, is now restored.

Ironically, City of Detroit Labor Relations Chief Lamont Satchel then reported on the progress of the “City Employment Terms” (CET) unilaterally imposed on city employees by Bing and the FAB July 16. The CET, which should now also be now null and void, includes wage and benefit cuts, work rule changes, layoffs, departmental shutdowns, and attacks on the city’s pension system.

“Progress has continued on CET implementation despite legal and other challenges,” Andrews said in the executive summary of his document. “More than half of the changes have been implemented; the majority of the items are on track to be completed by 1/31/2013.”

As the monkeys indicated, “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

The section of Andrews’ document titled “Escrow Release Milestones Status” shows that the state is deliberately restricting Detroit’s revenue from the $137 million loan the city received as part of the consent agreement.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and State Treasurer Andy Dillon collude to keep FSA in place.

Mayor Dave Bing said Nov. 13 that he and State Treasurer Andy Dillon had signed a new agreement in the wake of the PA 4 repeal (see link to “Escrow Release Milestones Agreement” at end of story.

In a statement, Bing said, “We are committed to our reform agenda as it is the only way for the City of Detroit to achieve financial stability and to improve the quality of life for our citizens. . . . The Milestone Agreement is a significant tool that will help us succeed in transforming Detroit.”

Dillon echoed the mayor.

:The benchmarks Mayor Bing and I have established provide the city with a transparent roadmap to receive bond proceeds that have been set aside in escrow,” Dillon said. “The funds from the bond proceeds were never intended to fund the status quo in Detroit, but rather aid with its government reforms.  While some progress has been made in the city since the signing of the Financial Stability Agreement in June, it is moving slower than what all parties would have anticipated.  There is still much work to be done.”

The states of New York and New Jersey are suing Ernst & Young, which cooked Lehman Brothers’ books before the company’s collapse, which had a domino effect across the U.S. in 2008.

In order to obtain $20 million November 20 and $10 million December 14 from the so-called “escrow account,” the document says Detroit’s City Council must approve contracts with Milliman, a national firm based in Seattle, Washington which plans to gut the city’s pension system, Ernst & Young, and Attorney Mike McGee of Miller Canfield, a co-author of Public Act 4.

Those contracts are set for a vote at the City Council Committee of the Whole Nov. 20.

Numerous other measures are laid out, including the gutting of the city’s Public Lighting and Transportation Departments. The section also ignores the city’s duty to bargain under state law, as well as Crittendon’s authority under the charter to approve contracts with outside law firms.

City Council meeting Nov. 13 

The following day, residents and union workers and leaders jammed Council chambers to denounce the proposed contract with EMA, which would cut 81 percent of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s workforce (see separate story).

They also took the Council to task for its 5-4 vote for the Fiscal Stability Agreement. Corporation Counsel Crittendon, and Council members JoAnn Watson, Brenda Jones, and Kwame Kenyatta had argued that they should take no action on the agreement until the people’s vote on Public Act 4.

Campaign to repeal Public Act 4 was victorious.

“When do the lies and bullying stop?” asked Ed McNeil, executive assistant to Al Garrett, president of Council 25 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

“We hear we’re going to run out of cash in November and December, we were running out of case in August, July, June, May and April,” McNeil said. “The whole purpose is to lay the basis for another PA 4. Somebody here in Detroit has to stand up. Get the people of Lansing out of the city of Detroit, get rid of the Financial Advisory Board, the Project Management Director and the CFO. Get them the hell out of here. Without them, the city wouldn’t be broke.”

Council 25 funded the campaign to defeat Public Act 4. No other union in the state put money behind it, instead spending hundreds of millions on the unsuccessful campaign for Proposal 2, which would have put the right to collective bargaining into the state’s constitution.

Valerie Burris speaks at City Council Nov. 13, 2012, telling them to stop payment to bondholders until people’s needs are met.

An inside source said those unions claimed the issue of PA 4 was “toxic,” i.e. it related to racial issues because nearly every city under the lash of PA4 has been majority-Black.

Valerie Burris summed up the opinions of many others confronting the Council.

“We must stop being reactionary and begin being revolutionary,” Burris said. “We must put services for the people before bonds. The people are tired and are beginning to raise up. We have to be bold, stop paying the bondholders. What are they going to do? Take us to court? When people are broke, they take care of their families first before they pay their credit card bills. Take care of the people, not the banks!” 

Related documents:

• Click on FAB 11 12 12 for full report presented by Kriss Andrews Nov. 12, 2012.
• Click on escrow_release_milestones for complete description of what the state wants before it gives Detroit its own loan money.
• Click on FSA Consent Agreement 4 4 12 for full text of consent agreement.
• Click on Crittendon opinion 4 1 12 for Corporation Counsel’s advice to Council on FSA.
• Click on  Crittendon May 1 letter for her subsequent analysis of FSA.

 

School Board member Tawanna Simpson (r) helps post eviction notices at DPS EM Roy Roberts’ offices Nov. 12, 2012.

• Rally at DPS HQ held Nov. 12
• Lawsuit filed by Robert Davis
• Protesters go to Lansing to stop EAA law

By Diane Bukowski

November 15, 2012

DETROIT – Detroiters took both direct and legal action this week to remove Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts and the state’s other EM’s, in the wake of the defeat of Public Act 4.

On Nov. 12, community and religious leaders, teachers, parents and school board members came out in pouring rain to deliver notices of eviction to Roberts at his offices on the 14^thfloor of the Fisher Building.

DPS Board Member David Murray outside Fisher Building Nov. 12, 2012.

“We are going to drive him away,” Detroit Board of Education member David Murray declared. “We want to put an end to the criminalization of our children. The people overwhelmingly said Nov. 6 that we do not want Public Act 4, but Roberts and others are determined to continue to oppress our people. They are trying to lock our children out of leadership roles for the future.”

Rev. David Bullock, chair of Michigan Rainbow PUSH, said, “It is a travesty of justice that despite the resounding repeal of Public Act 4, Mr. Roberts and emergency managers around the state remain in office. All emergency managers should be given notice by Gov. Rick Snyder to step down. If we have to march again on Snyder’s house, we will.”

Bullock said it is their position that Public Act 72, a limited version of PA 4 which does not grant administrative duties to “emergency financial managers,” is no longer on the books either. State Attorney General Bill Schuette earlier issued a non-binding opinion that it is in place.

“If the EM’s need help moving,” Bullock said, “we are ready, willing and able to bring moving trucks and deliver boxes and tape to pack their things. We have plenty of unemployed people in the state that we can pay to carry out this job.”

The school district’s offices were closed for half a day in observance of Veteran’s Day, but ralliers, who kept growing in numbers, marched up to the 14^th floor of the building and posted eviction notices all over the walls and reception window gate.

They listened to community leaders including Elder Helen Moore, who called on them to attend a Jan. 29 congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. on the de-funding and disenfranchisement of majority-Black school districts across the country.

Last December, U.S. Representative John Conyers Jr. sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to open an investigation of federal Voting Rights Act violations by state officials enforcing PA 4. They have concentrated almost exclusively on the state’s majority-Black cities.

Holder never sent a response. Neither President Barack Obama nor other top leaders of the Democratic Party have ever weighed in on the validity of Public Act 4.

Detroit Board of Education President Lamar Lemmons, Elder Helen Moore, and Rev. David Bullock outside Fisher Building Nov. 12, 2012.

On the legal front, Board President Lamar Lemmons Jr. said the $500.5 million Proposal S bond funds are still under Roberts’ control after voters re-affirmed the proposal Nov. 6. He said the board would be suing to remove Roberts. Roberts continues to prevent the board from meeting on DPS premises, claiming he is still in charge of financial affairs under PA 72.

Confirmation of such a lawsuit was not available at press time. But meanwhile, Robert Davis, the Highland Park school board member who has filed numerous lawsuits related to Public Act 4, filed an emergency petition with the State Court of Appeals to remove Roberts and to find that PA 72 is no longer in effect with regard to other EM’s, according to published reports.

The State’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young has already opined on that issue.

During a hearing July 25 on whether to put a referendum to repeal Public Act 4 on the ballot, Young read into the record MCL 8.4, which says, “Whenever a statute, or any part thereof shall be repealed by a subsequent statute, such statute, or any part thereof, so repealed, shall not be revived by the repeal of such subsequent repealing statute.” 

Also pending is the continuation of a lawsuit filed by the school board’s attorney George Washington earlier against Roberts after PA 4 was certified for the ballot Aug. 8. The suit has been transferred to Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Annette Berry, from Judge John Murphy, according to attorney Hugh “Buck” Davis.

Murphy ruled that PA 72 was still in effect after the referendum to repeal Public Act 4 was certified for the November ballot Aug. 8. But he said that if PA 4 was repealed, he would entertain motions to allow the board to take back 15 Detroit Public Schools which were transferred into a state-run “Educational Achievement Authority” district for the five percent of the state’s “lowest-performing schools,” all in Detroit.

On the evening of Nov. 13, the school board again voted to restore the EAA schools, during a crowded meeting.

Many of those who rallied at the DPS headquarters Nov. 12 boarded a bus to Lansing Nov. 13 for a House Education Committee meeting on HB 6004, which would enshrine the EAA in state law.

•  Detroit youth played major role; 82 percent of city voted NO on Prop 1
• Snyder, Bing, et. al. connive to keep bank-imposed austerity measures 

By Diane Bukowski 

November 10, 2012

U.S. President Barack Obama carried Oakland and Macomb counites in Michigan, but they were among only eight counties that voted to keep PA 4.

DETROIT– After a strenuous grass roots battle, Michigan voters struck down Public Act 4, the notorious “local dictator law,” by a solid margin of 52 to 48 percent on Nov. 6. In Detroit, 82 percent of voters, including many youth,  opposed the PA 4 referendum, known as Proposal 1, tipping the balance.

Only eight of 83 counties voted to keep the act. Wealthy and populous Oakland and Macomb counties, which border Detroit, the largest Black-majority city in the world outside of Africa, were among the eight counties voting for Public Act 4, according to state election results. President Barack Obama nonetheless carried those counties in the race for the nation’s highest office.

Cecily McClellan, another Free Detroit-No Consent leader, shows off her power to Detroit sweatshirt at mayoral campaign rally for Tom Barrow Nov. 2, 2012.

“We did it!” exulted Monica Lewis Patrick during an impromptu celebration Nov. 9 at a downtown restaurant. She said chaos at many election sites in the city, including hours-long waits and a virtual uprising at the Coleman A. Young Recreation Center, did not discourage voters.

At one site, a young man with his wheel-chair bound brother said they were among many voters directed to the wrong polling place by City Clerk Janice Winfrey’s office.  At the initial site, they waited for two and a half hours, but persisted, going to the correct polling place afterwards to cast their ballots.

Video below, by Kenny Snodgrass, is a collage of rallies against PA 4 takeover of Detroit and other largely Black cities, with many youth.

“I saw young women with their babies waiting in line,” Patrick said. “When we were campaigning, we talked to many young people at clubs and other places, to educate them about PA 4. We found that many were already familiar with the issues.”

Patrick works with Free Detroit-No Consent, a small group founded April 4, after Detroit’s City Council voted 5-4 for a “Fiscal Stability [consent] Agreement” to stave off the appointment of an emergency manager under terms of PA 4.  Under that agreement, a nine-member corporate-dominated Financial Advisory Board, two state-appointed city officials, and the state’s treasurer and governor have veto power over the city’s elected officials.

The Detroit Public Schools district is also suffering the effects of PA 4, under EM Roy Roberts. More than half of the district’s schools are closed, and many others have been turned over to a state-run “Educational Achievement Authority.”

Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon.

Significantly, Detroit voters also passed local Proposal C, which cements the power of the city’s Corporation Counsel to interpret and enforce the City Charter, by legal action if necessary. Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon earlier challenged the consent agreement in court but was shot down by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette, who said he did not believe that any city official could overrule the Mayor.

Since the passage of the PA 4 consent agreement, Detroit has unilaterally imposed lay-offs and wage and benefit cutbacks on its employees, while planning a pension system takeover.  The city has shut down three key federally-funded departments. It plans to cut the workforce of the city’s mammoth Water and Sewerage Department by 81 percent, and lease the city’s world-renowned island park, Belle Isle, to the state for a total of 90 years including renewals.

Brandon Jessup, CEO of Michigan Forward, initiated the petition referendum campaign to repeal Public Act 4. Here he speaks at Feb. 28 rally celebrating state-wide collection of over 240,000 signatures.

“We realize that, like in the city of Detroit, you have roughly 35% of the people trying to manage 100% of the city’s costs,” Brandon Jessup, 31, the young Detroiter who birthed the PA 4 referendum petition drive, said in an earlier interview with the Urban Policy Institute.

“We have some corporate entities in the city of Detroit that don’t pay their taxes annually,” Jessup explained. “They use the city of Detroit as a tax write-off. That’s not fair when we look at our city lights being off, our city buses pretty much breaking down, and you leave that to what, 30 percent of the community, that’s facing more pay cuts from whomever they may work for?  . . . Our problem is that we have too many hands idle in this state; we lost 867,000 jobs over a ten year period. So no matter what you do, the State can’t intervene, the State has to create jobs, they have to get people back to work.”

Gloria (Aneb) House, Steven Boyle, Monica Patrick and Valerie Glenn celebrating PA 4 defeat. They also belong to Free Detroit-No Consent.

Jessup founded Michigan Forward, working with a small crew and eventually with funds from the state’s largest public union, Michigan AFSCME Council 25, to gather over 240,000 petition signatures to put the referendum on the ballot. Attorneys from Council 25 and progressive law firms fought a drawn-out court battle which culminated with the state Supreme Court ruling Aug. 8 that the measure should go on the ballot.

The defeat of Public Act 4 is a Wall Street nightmare and may comprise part of what sent it into a tailspin after the elections Nov. 6. Most Wall Street pundits had said that stocks usually soar after a national election no matter which party wins the presidential race, but that did not happen.

Wall Street predatory lending to Detroit: Joe O’Keefe of Fitch Ratings and Steven Murphy of Standard and Poor’s tell Detroit’s City Council on Jan. 31, 2005 to approve a disastrous $1.5 billion pension obligation certificate bond, which Detroit has defaulted on twice. It added to the city’s mammoth debt burden.

Why?

PA 4 guaranteed payment of the massive debt to the banks owed by many municipalities and school districts in Michigan. It allowed state-appointed “emergency managers” or “consent agreement” administrators to unilaterally impose grueling austerity measures on the people to compensate.

These included seizing and selling public assets, dissolving or merging cities, townships and school districts, eliminating collective bargaining, closing vital public services without a hearing, and privatizing them without legislative oversight by bodies like Detroit’s City Council.

Protesters demand cancellation of Detroit’s debt to the banks during march in downtown Detroit May 9, 2012.

“It has always been a tenet of municipal credit that at some point paying debt service may come in conflict with, and be superseded by, a government’s obligation to provide essential services such as education, public health, and safety,” Wall Street bond rating agency Fitch Ratings said in an Aug. 20 report.

The report goes on to stress the necessity for state intervention in such cases, and says Public Act 4 was “perhaps the strongest program in the nation, as it allows a state-appointed emergency manager to ‘reject, modify, or terminate terms and conditions of an existing contract.’” By “contract,” Fitch referred to labor agreements. (Click on Fitch Ratings Local Govt Downgrades to Persist for full report.)

“Flint, Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Pontiac, and Detroit Public Schools have all had emergency managers appointed to administer their financial affairs,” Fitch said in a report issued Aug. 3 while the Michigan Supreme Court was deliberating the placement of PA 4 on the ballot. “Some were appointed under PA 4 while others were appointed under PA 72. As Detroit’s fiscal stability agreement has several features that rely on the existence of PA 4, most notably the ability to suspend collective bargaining, the repeal of PA4 could weaken or nullify the agreement. This may have an adverse effect on the city’s ability to continue the reforms already begun under the agreement and therefore stabilize and improve its credit quality.”

State Attorney General Bill Schuette issued an earlier, non-binding opinion that the repeal of Public Act 4 would result in the restoration of the earlier, less stringent “Emergency Financial Manager” Public Act 72.

State Treasurer Andy Dillon at raucous Detroit Financial Review Team meeting, where the crowd drowned out deliberations by corporate members.

Until recently the daily media has repeated Schuette’s opinion like a mantra. The Bond Buyer reported Oct. 12 that Snyder, State Treasurer Andy Dillon and Budget Director met with all three Wall Street ratings agencies in New York to argue for a restoration of Michigan’s AAA bond rating in anticipation of a $100 million state general obligation bond sale Nov. 8, two days after the election.

They stressed that even if PA 4 is repealed, PA 72 would be restored.

“That law lacks what is considered Public Act 4’s most powerful feature, the ability to unilaterally amend or terminate a labor contract. But it’s still workable, Dillon said,” the Bond Buyerreported. “The state lived with PA 72 from the late 80s until 2011, so it works. What is better about PA 4 is the ability to come in sooner and get out faster. It would just take us longer under PA 72. If you can’t negotiate the contracts, then you just have to wait them out. It’s slower and more painful, but it will happen.”

Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young.

However, Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young shot that argument out of the water during oral arguments on the PA 4 ballot question July 25.

Attorney John Pirich, who represented the AG’s office during the proceedings, argued that if PA 4 were repealed, its repeal of Public Act 72 would also be negated.

Young read into the record MCL 8.4, which says, “Whenever a statute, or any part thereof shall be repealed by a subsequent statute, such statute, or any part thereof, so repealed, shall not be revived by the repeal of such subsequent repealing statute.”

Young declared, “It’s still repealed, albeit by a law that might be suspended.”

Snyder, Dillon and Bing are now frantically scrambling to find a fix, including the introduction into the state legislature of a new version of Public Act 4. Meanwhile, lawsuits filed by the Flint City Council, the Sugar Law Center, and others are pending in various courts calling for a re-iteration of what the state’s Chief Supreme Court Justice has already declared:

THERE IS NO EMERGENCY MANAGER LAW, FINANCIAL OR OTHERWISE, ON THE BOOKS IN MICHIGAN.

Michigan’s people must be ready for a head-on assault by Wall Street on their right to control their own destinies, not face continued control by the banks and corporations which have devastated their lives.

“If it takes going to jail, that’s what we’re going to have to do,” one PA 4 opponent said Nov. 9 at the restaurant celebration.

Related articles:

Brandon Jessup interview:   http://www.michiganpolicy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1161:an-interview-with-brandon-jessup-michigan-forward&catid=62:urban-affairs-interviews&Itemid=251

Michigan Supreme Court oral arguments on PA 4:

http://cst.clickstreamtv.net/mpi/cst.html?account=sbm&clip=&flashVersion=10&playlist=07_25_12_msc&realVersion=&route=1&cstSessionID=8017731&sessionID=M201211101288FC5D788&server=&speedZone=300&wmpVersion=9&referenceID=&emailCampaignID=&recipientID=&fileID=

• VOD NOTED EARLIER HIS ABSENCE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS
  
• VOD FILED HATCH ACT COMPLAINTS AGAINST BING, BROWN, D-D0T’S BILL NOJAY IN AUGUST, FED. OFFICE REPORTED PROBE ONGOING

By Diane Bukowski

November 10, 2012

DETROIT– Detroit’s Channel 7 news is reporting that Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown has resigned. VOD recently noted his absence from public meetings.

VOD is investigating to see if this is related to our filing of Hatch Act complaints against Mayor Dave Bing, Chris Brown, and former D-DOT Deputy Director Bill Nojay. Nojay left in August amid controversy over his running for office in New York State while overseeing federal funds at D-DOT.

VOD was recently informed by the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel that it continues to investigate those complaints.

The complaint against Brown cites his acknowlegment to the media that both he and Bing knew of Nojay’s run for the New York State Assembly at the time he entered the race, as follows from VOD story:

“Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and City of Detroit Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown were fully aware of Nojay’s situation, according to an article in the Detroit News Aug. 23.

“’The mayor’s office was aware of his radio show and was informed when he  decided to run for office,” Chris Brown, the city’s chief operating officer,  said in an email,’ wrote News reporter Christine McDonald.

“’Mr. Nojay conducted  these activities during off-hours. … Mr. Nojay campaigned on weekends.This department directly affects the lives of Detroiters and the mayor is  concerned about what happens in Detroit, not New York.’”

Thus, Nojay, Bing and Brown may all be complicit in violations of the Hatch Act. VOD is contacting the federal Office of Special Counsel for information on their ongoing investigation of Nojay and today filed a complaint of its own against all three individuals.”

A case of foot-in-mouth disease, Mr. Brown? Still going to file slander charges against VOD as you threatened, for calling Mike McGee a co-author of Public Act 4, which he himself admitted in print (another case of foot-in-mouth, we suppose)?

Related articles:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/10/22/dillon-bing-cabal-at-council-demands-action-on-drastic-re-structuring-of-detroit/

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

 

FROM: The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Thursday, November 8, 2012

Now that Barack Obama has been reelected President of the United States of America, it is imperative that the racial justice movement hold him and his administration accountable for the extrajudicial killing of Black and oppressed people throughout the country.

Pres. Barack Obama and family. Aiyana Jones had the same right to grow up in the loving embrace of her family as Obama’s daughters.

 

The Obama administration must assert its authority over the various law enforcement entities throughout the country and stop the discriminatory policies and programs that demean and endanger Black life like racial profiling, stop and frisk, the war on drugs, and mandatory minimum sentencing that facilitates mass incarceration.

In the first six months of 2012, one Black person every 36 hours was executed in the United States. Since January 1, 2012, police and a much smaller number of security guards and self-appointed vigilantes have murdered at least 140 Black women, men and children.

Aiyana Jones with baby brother before her murder by Detroit police.

 

This epidemic constitutes an egregious human rights crisis that the Federal Government has a fundamental obligation to address. As party to the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) the United States government has an obligation to protect the lives of racial minorities. The government is also obligated under various civil rights laws and executive orders to protect the lives of African Americans.

Our movements must step up our organizing and action over the course of the next several days, weeks, months and years to ensure that the Obama administration complies with our demands. We call on you to once again join us in raising the basic demands listed below by continuing to call, fax, and email the White House and the Department of Justice and tell them to act now!

Tommie Staples Jr., second from left, killed by Detroit cops Barron Townsend and Steven Kopp in 2007 for monitoring police stops of neighborhood youth. Townsend also killed Dennis Crawford in 2004. Although the families won substantial court settlements, none of the cops were charged and are still in the street. /Family photo

 

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement urges you to demand that the White House and the Department of Justice take the following corrective measures to respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights of African Americans:

1. A Federal investigation into the civil and human rights violations taking place with the impunity of local police forces throughout the country.

2. A Federal review of the rules of engagement authorizing the use of deadly force being employed by police forces throughout the country.

3. The creation of a Federal database, in line with the 2008 CERD Committee recommendations, that documents cases of extrajudicial killings and acts of police brutality against racial minorities throughout the United States.

4. The issuing of Federal injunctions against those police departments where two or more extrajudicial killings of Black people have occurred over the past nine months.

5. The issuing of Federal consent decrees authorizing the creation of locally elected Police Control Boards in cities and/or counties that demonstrate patterns of systemic racial profiling, brutality, and extrajudicial killing.

Detroit cop Joseph Weekley, who killed 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in 2010.

 

6. The creation of a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice to eliminate institutional racism and its expressions in racial profiling, police brutality, extrajudicial killing, mass incarceration and discrimination in housing, educational access, health care, employment, banking and credit markets.

Please call or email the White House and the Department of Justice at the addresses provided below and make your voice heard.

White House
202.456.1111 Comment Line
202.456.2461 Fax Number
To email the White House use the following link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

Department of Justice (DOJ)
202.353.1555
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

Please send this information to your friends, family, and associates and ask them to support this action and to spread this information and action request to their friends, families and associates.

To demonstrate your support for this action tweet us at @MXGMNational to let us know that you have called the White House and the Department of Justice. You can also let us know by sending us a message on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MXGMnational?fref=ts.

For more information please visit us at www.mxgm.org. Forward!

Detroit cop Kata-Ante Taylor killed Artrell Dickerson, 18 and was part of the assault team that murdered Aiyana Jones.

 

Comment below is from Kiana, Artrell Dickerson’s friend, who saw cop Kata-Ante Taylor execute him next to the Cantrell Funeral Home after Artrell’s friend’s funeral:

I WAS THERE . I WAS NO MORE THAN 10 FEET AWAY. I SPENT ARTRELL’S LAST DAY, LAST HOUR, LAST MOMENT WITH HIM. I KNEW ARTRELL ALMOST HIS WHOLE LIFE. HE WAS SWEET, LOVING AND CARING. HE DID WHAT EVER HE COULD DO FOR ANYONE. I WATCHED MR. TAYLOR SHOOT HIM IN HIS BACK AND BECAUSE HE IS A COP HE GOT AWAY WITH MURDER. MY FRIEND NEVER GOT A CHANCE TO EVEN HAVE A CHILD. HIS LIFE WAS CUT DOWN BY A TRIGGER HAPPY COP. I JUST FOUND OUT HE WAS INVOLVED IN THE AIYANA JONES THING AND MR. TAYLOR IS STILL A COP WHILE AN 18 AND 7 YEAR OLD ARE GONE. I STILL CRY EVERY DAY FOR MY FRIEND I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT MY FRIEND AND ITS BEEN ALMOST 6 YEARS. IN SEPTEMBER HE WOULD HAVE BEEN 23. I WONDER IF MR. TAYLOR KNOWS HOW HIS ACTIONS HAVE AFFECTED OTHER PEOPLE.

Related stories:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/10/11/detroit-police-sex-scandals-who-is-monitoring-police-brutality-2/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2010/10/25/ella-bully-cummings-killer-cop-chief/

• ANGELA DAVIS Welcome To Detroit!  
• A No Struggle, No Development Production! By KennySnod

Published October 25, 2012

[Angela Y. Davis] Though her activism and scholarship over many decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in movements for social justice around the world. Her work as university educator has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice.

In the 1970’s, Angela Davis was brought up trumped-up charges of kidnapping, conspiracy, and murder and placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, leading to her imprisonment for eighteen months. Her case, which highlighted a racist criminal justice system, led to international condemnation and the “Free Angela” movement. Committees from around the world, including Detroit, worked for Angela’s freedom until 1972, when she was acquitted of all charges at her trial.

Angela Davis is the author of nine books and has lectured throughout the US and the world. She also one of the founding members of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex.

http://youtu.be/YxGO6JCgLDQ

In Struggle, Development and Unity
Kenny
Internal change bases External, Qualitative change bring Quantitative, Universal connection Opposites, Negation of Negation

Kenneth Snodgrass –
Author of “From Victimization to Empowerment
The Challenge Of African American Leadership
The Need of Real Power”

Website: www.trafford.com/07-0913
eBook available at http://ebookstore.sony.com/search?keyword=Kenneth+Snodgrass
Author of “The World As I’ve Seen It! My Greatest Experience!”
{ 12 x 12 Photo Book, 76 Pages & Over 205 Photos. By Kenneth Snodgrass }
KennySnod  – Has 350 Video’s – over 109,550 hits, 4,400 hits a month @ www.YouTube.com/KennySnod

International freedom fighter, Communist focused on racism, prisons, undocumented workers, imperialist wars, women’s rights, Palestine

By Diane Bukowski 

November 5, 2012

(VOD note: This story has been moved up to the eve of the elections because Prof. Davis called for mass struggle. See related articles on Jonathan Jackson and Green Party below this.)

Prof. Angela Davis (second from left) on stage with (l to r) Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, UAW VP Cindy Estrada, Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Chris Michalakis and others, while choir performs at Fellowship Chapel.

DETROIT – Some speakers at the packed “Welcome to Detroit, Angela Davis” rally  Oct. 24 at Fellowship Chapel used it mainly as a mass “get out the vote” rally for Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama.

But during her speech, Professor Angela Davis, world-renowned freedom fighter and Communist, stressed the need for mass struggle against the forces of capitalism, racism, and militarism that are destroying the U.S. as well as countries across the globe. While she did not underestimate the historic nature of the election of a Black president in the U.S, calling it “earth-shaking,” she put it in context.

Occupy Oakland converges on the Port of Oakland, shutting down docks and disrupting banks Nov 2, 2011.

“People forgot the limits of electoral politics,” Prof. Davis said, after describing the elation in the streets of her home city Oakland, California on Nov. 4, 2008. “We forgot that we were electing a President of the United States, the imperialist, militarist, racist, anti-union United States.”

Prof. Davis said she still believes Obama will be the most responsive of the two major party candidates to pressure from the people, noting that he is the first sitting President to endorse gay marriage. But she asked the audience to imagine how the last four years would have been if people had taken to the streets to bring change themselves.

Sitdown strikes paralyzed the U.S. in the wake of the historic plant sitdowns in Flint, Michigan, 1937.

“People were waiting for Obama to emerge as new FDR,” she said. “But was it really FDR who gave us on his own accord unemployment insurance and social security? No, it was the masses of the people in the street, struggles led by communists in the 1930’s, sit-down strikes, marches all over the country, unemployed councils, eviction defense committees. . . .We will never elect a president who will lead us to the promised land.  We have to take it on ourselves. As the great Black poet June Jordan said, ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’”

Article on Prisoners’ Labor Union of Jackson, Michigan.

She paid tribute to the Occupy Movement of 2011, saying, “If Occupy did nothing elese, it created an opportunity for us to talk openly and critically about capitalism. She then laid out a people’s agenda for the coming period including as major points:

An end to all union-busting and expansion of unionization. Prof Davis called the U.S. a “prison nation,” housing 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated people while representing only five percent of the world’s population. She called on the labor movement to organize prisoners, noting that a demand of the Attica Rebellion was a prisoners’ labor union. She recalled that prisoners in California formed such unions afterwards, demanding minimum wage and vacation pay. [Here in Michigan, prisoners at Jackson also formed the Michigan Prisoners Labor Union, which this author fought to support along with the Prisoners Solidarity Committee.]

Rally against ICE raids on undocumented workers, students and families in Clark Park, Detroit Oct. 20, 2012.

Support for undocumented workers.“It was undocumented workers who established the May 1 holiday,” Prof Davis said. “They taught us that our struggles always have to be anti-racist, anti-xenophobic, and not anti-communist.  No human being is illegal. We want a world free of racism, poverty, homophobia, transphobia, a world that respects our environment. . . .Undocumented youth represent one of most important struggles for democracy today. Education not deportation! Education not incarceration!”

U.S. warship

An end to U.S. imperialist military incursions. Prof. Davis noted that during the Obama administration, the U.S. moved from its occupation of Iraq to the occupation of Afghanistan, and has promoted “the most deadly form of Islamophobia.” She did not however, mention simultaneous U.S. military incursions into Africa and the rest of the Middle East in the wake of the bloody U.S.-NATO occupation and destruction of the African nation of Libya.

Support for women’s reproductive rights. Prof. Davis noted that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has sworn to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. She added, however, “Roe v. Wade did not necessarily guarantee poor, Black, Latino women the right to an abortion if they so choose, because it was based on the right to privacy between women and doctors. What about all the women who don’t have doctors?”

An end to the occupation of Palestine. “Since 1948, Israel has confiscated the land, natural resources and future of Palestinians. . . . this was not so much genocide, but rather conscious strategies causing the population to flee, de-territorialization, creating a land without people for a people without a land. Does that sound familiar?” At that point, people in the audience cried out “DETROIT, DETROIT.” Davis also drew the comparison to the forced movement of the indigenous people of the U.S., Native Americans, off their land.

Support for the struggle of Black people in the U.S.including recognition of the role played internationally in that support. “Suppose there had not been international support for Black American struggles from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where do you think we would be today?” Prof. Davis asked. “Many of the cases from the civil rights movement were publicized initially in the foreign press.”

Assata Shakur in Cuba after liberation from U.S. prison. Photo: Kenny Snodgrass

Prof. Davis has been in Detroit many times, the last in 1994. But her 1972 appearance at the State Fairgrounds in Detroit, during a rally packed with 10,000 supporters, gives context to her appearance this year.

The photo at beginning of Kenny Snodgrass’ video above is from that rally, which celebrated Prof. Davis’ acquittal of capital charges related to the heroic courthouse rebellion by Jonathan Jackson and other prisoners in 1970, in support of Black Panther Party Field Marshal George Jackson and the Soledad Brothers.

It took place at a time when revolutionary spirit in the U.S. and abroad was at its height. That spirit must be renewed, particularly among the youth. Black youth in particular have been demonized, criminalized and incarcerated by the powers that be, but this must stop. Jonathan Jackson, 17, George Jackson, 20 when he was sent to prison, and Angela Davis, 26 at the time of her arrest, along with the Black Panther Party to which George Jackson belonged, showed the way for today’s youth.

 

Jonathan Jackson, 17, with William Christmas, James McClain and Ruchell Magee take judge, prosecutor, three jurors as hostages to waiting van Aug. 7, 1970. San Quentin guards and court cops started firing. Jonathan Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed, along with Judge Haley. Magee and Assistant District Attorney Thomas were wounded.

 

 

By Stephen Millies
Published Aug 8, 2010

(Thanks to San Francisco Bay View newspaper for preserving most of photos included with this article.)

Jonathan Jackson was only 17 years old when he gave his life for oppressed people on Aug. 7, 1970, when he went to the San Rafael, Calif., courthouse to free his older brother George Jackson, along with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette — the “Soledad Brothers.”

These three revolutionary inmates were charged with killing Soledad prison guard John Mills. Just before Mills was thrown over a third floor railing, a grand jury exonerated fellow officer O.G. Miller for shooting to death Black inmates Cleveland Edwards, Alvin Miller and W.L. Nolen on Jan. 13, 1970. African-American witnesses weren’t allowed to testify at the whitewash hearing.

Soledad Brothers George Jackson in the middle wearing glasses, between John Clutchette (left) and Fleeta Drumgo. Jonathan had intended to free his brother, but George was not in the courtroom the day he stormed it. George Jackson, field marshal of the Black Panther Party, was assassinated by prison guards on Aug. 21, 1971.

While no evidence linked the Soledad Brothers to the killing of Mills, California Governor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan wanted to kill them in the state’s gas chamber because they were revolutionaries.

George Jackson was internationally known for “Soledad Brother,” a book-length collection of his letters from prison. “I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me,” he wrote.

A field marshal of the Black Panther Party, George Jackson had already spent a decade behind bars for a $70 robbery. As an 18-year-old he was given a one-year-to-life sentence for being a passenger in a car whose driver allegedly robbed a gas station.

George Jackson with little brother Jonathan the last time he was home.

Jonathan Jackson went to Judge Harold Haley’s courtroom armed with guns. San Quentin prisoner James McClain was there, defending himself against frame-up charges of assaulting a guard following the beating to death of Black inmate Fred Billingsley by prison officials. Fellow inmates Ruchell Cinque Magee and William Christmas were also in the courtroom as witnesses for McClain.

Like the enslaved Africans who joined John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, these three San Quentin prisoners immediately joined Jonathan Jackson’s freedom fight. Judge Haley, assistant prosecutor Gary Thomas and three jurors were made their prisoners.

“We are revolutionaries,” they proclaimed. “We want the Soledad Brothers free by 12:30.”

According to Black Panther Party veteran Kiilu Nyasha, “The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station and broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the immediate release of the Soledad Brothers.” (San Francisco Bay View, Aug. 3, 2009)

California Superior Court Judge Harold Haley with shotgun taped around his neck during Jonathan Jackson’s Marin Co. Courthhouse rebellion. Photo by Jim Kean, Marin Independent Journal.

But the capitalist class would rather have one of their judges killed than let Black prisoners go free. As Jonathan Jackson drove away in a van, San Quentin guards and court cops started firing. Jonathan Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed, along with Judge Haley. Magee and Assistant District Attorney Thomas were wounded.

“Free Angela! Free Ruchell!”

The courageous action of these four Black heroes at the San Rafael courthouse shook the capitalist state from the White House to the local police precinct.“Psychologically the slave masters have been terrified by the boldness and innovative tactical conception,” wrote Fred Goldstein in Workers World. “No court is safe anymore.” (Aug. 20, 1970)

Angela Davis and Jonathan Jackson march to free George Jackson and the Soledad Brothers in 1970.

Scapegoats had to be found. Magee and Angela Davis, who had chaired the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, were put on trial. Jonathan Jackson had been a bodyguard for Davis and three of the guns used at the San Rafael jailbreak were registered under her name. That was enough for Gov. Reagan to try to send Davis to the gas chamber as a “conspirator” responsible for Haley’s death. In 1969 Reagan had gotten trustees at the University of California, Los Angeles, to fire the radical philosophy professor for being a member of the Communist Party.

For two months Davis eluded the FBI, which put the Black communist on its“10 most wanted” list. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listed her as being “armed and dangerous” — an official invitation to shoot her on sight. President Nixon congratulated Hoover for the capture of Davis and labeled the Black woman “a terrorist.”

From her prison cell Davis declared, “Long live the spirit of Jonathan Jackson!”

The Black community mobilized coast to coast to defend their sister. More than 200 “Free Angela Davis” defense committees were formed [initiated largely by the Communist Party). Members of every Workers World Party branch joined and supported these committees.

Ruchell Cinque Magee

People rallied in Cuba, the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as well. On June 4, 1972, a jury acquitted Angela Davis of all charges.

Tried separately from Davis, Magee had adopted the name “Cinque”after the African leader of the 1839 slave revolt on the ship Amistad. The original Cinque was freed by a Connecticut court. Ruchell Cinque Magee, who also was part of a slave revolt, was convicted of kidnapping after murder charges were dismissed.

Judge Morton Colvin refused to adjourn the trial for a single day when Magee’s mother died. Yet Colvin recessed the hearing for two days following former President Truman’s death. At one point this bigot-in-robes kicked all 40 Black spectators out of the courtroom. (Jet, March 1, 1973)

An appeals court forced Colvin to allow former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who later founded the International Action Center, to help defend Cinque. Jury foreman Bernard J. Suares stated in a 2001 affidavit that the jury actually voted to acquit Cinque of kidnapping for the purpose of extortion.

Ruchell Cinque Magee remains imprisoned today. Jailed for 47 years, he is the longest held political prisoner in the U.S. and possibly the world. As an accomplished jailhouse lawyer, Cinque has freed dozens of fellow inmates.

You can write to this heroic freedom fighter at Corcoran State Prison. The address is Ruchell Magee # A92051, 3A2-131 Box 3471, C.S.P. Corcoran, CA 93212

Black August

One year after his younger brother sacrificed his life, George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards on Aug. 21, 1971. George Jackson’s murder sparked the Attica prison rebellion in which 29 prisoners were slaughtered by billionaire New York Gov., Nelson Rockefeller.

On March 27, 1972, the two remaining Soledad Brothers — Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette — were acquitted by a San Francisco jury.

“Courage in one hand, the machine gun in the other,” was how George Jackson described his 17-year-old brother Jonathan.

Sources: “If They Come in The Morning” by Angela Davis and other political prisoners; “The morning breaks; the trial of Angela Davis” by Bettina Aptheker.

Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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Related article:

http://www.voxunion.com/the-attica-prison-uprising-at-40/

By Ashahed M. Muhammad

Asst. Editor- | Last updated: Oct 25, 2012 – 10:31:36 AM

• Green Party candidate Jill Stein wants to be president
• Dr. Stein is highly critical of President Obama’s expansion of drone wars in Yemen and Somalia, as well as sending armed troops into parts of Africa, which she believes was hastened once it was discovered that there was oil in Central Africa.

  

  Green Party Presidential Candidate, Dr. Jill Stein (Right) and her vice-presidential running mate Cheri Honkala (Left) accept their nominations at the 2012 Green Party Convention in Baltimore, MD. Photo: Barbara G. Green

(FinalCall.com) – A recently released report from the Center for the Study of the American Electorate found this year’s estimated national primary turnout has reached a new record low.

According to the Virginia-based non-profit, non-partisan research institute, between 95 and 100 million eligible voters may sit out of this year’s election.

Though many disenchanted voters are unhappy with the binary presidential options presented by America’s two-party dominated political system, many either select what they consider to the lesser of two evils, while some opt-out of voting altogether.

Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein articulates a view shared by an increasing number in the U.S. who have grown tired of corporate controlled political parties and their strong-armed dominance within a structure that only seems to benefit the wealthy.

She hopes to mobilize those nearly 100 million American citizens. Even if she were only able to mobilize a portion of those disaffected voters, the electoral landscape would be altered remarkably.

To put that goal and number in perspective, President Barack Obama won the 2008 election receiving over 69 million votes. His vanquished Republican opponent John McCain received just under 60 million.

When asked, she is very clear about why she is running for president and quickly runs down a long list of issues she considers important for the future of the country.

“I think we are in crisis,” said Dr. Stein. “People are losing their jobs, their homes, wages are going down, affordable health care and higher education are being placed out of reach. Our civil liberties are under attack, there is a racist war on drugs and racism is alive and well in America,” she added.

Dr. Stein says the wealthy few are doing better than ever, benefitting from crony capitalism, squandering trillions of dollars on foreign wars. There have been bailouts for Wall Street and tax breaks for the wealthy, while austerity measures are being thrust upon everyone else.

“I think the people of America and ordinary people all over the world in fact are at the breaking point and we need to take it and turn it into a tipping point,” she said.

A viable option?

The Green Party of the United States describes itself as “a federation of state Green Parties committed to environmentalism, non-violence, social justice, and grassroots organizing.”

Cynthia McKinney, formerly Green Party presidential candidate and six-term U.S. Congresswoman, speaks against the U.S.-NATO occupation of Libya on Aug. 27, 2011 in Detroit.

In 2008, former member of Congress Cynthia McKinney was the GP’s presidential candidate and tapped activist Rosa Clemente as her vice-presidential running mate. They garnered 161,680 votes in the election and were on the ballot in 32 states.

On November 6, voters will find Dr. Stein on the ballot as an available choice in at least 85 percent of the voting booths around the country, including the prized states of California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida and Ohio.

“We have benefitted from the hard work that Cynthia and Rosa did together. They were fighting this battle at a very difficult time and they were ahead of the curve,” said Dr. Stein. “A lot of people are waking up to the reality that a corporate sponsored candidate and a corporate sponsored political party isn’t going to solve this for us, so we have benefitted from the trailblazing that Cynthia and Rosa did,” she added. Continue reading →