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

 By Richard Hubbard LONDON | Mon May 7, 2012 11:30am BST (Reuters) –

Greek and French election results rattled investors on Monday by undermining confidence in the region’s plans to cut spending and tackle its debt crisis, sending the euro to a three-month low. European shares also traded lower, with Greek stocks down 6.4 percent .ATG, but reaction was muted with the UK market closed for a holiday.

Investors sold the bonds of other weaker euro zone members after the two pro-bailout parties in Greece failed to win a parliamentary majority, rekindling fears over the country’s future in the single currency.

“With the new political situation in Greece, a (euro) exit has become much more possible than before,” said Carsten Brzeski, senior economist at ING.

In a more widely expected result, French Socialist candidate Francois Hollande claimed the presidential seat from Nicolas Sarkozy, increasing concerns that his government may try to weaken a German-led austerity drive across the region.

The signs of a renewed political crisis in Europe came just as Friday’s U.S. nonfarm payrolls report dealt a heavy blow to hopes of recovery for the world’s largest economy, sparking a widespread selloff on Wall Street and on Asian markets.

“The election results at the weekend are not helpful to calming the worries already in the market after disappointing (U.S.) payrolls report on Friday,” said Gerhard Schwarz, head of equity strategy at Baader Bank.

The euro zone’s blue chip index, the Euro STOXX 50 .STOXX50E, opened down 1.1 percent, to 2,222.37, its lowest level all year but later recovered to be off 0.45 percent. The euro hit a low of $1.2955 in Asian trading as the election results become clear but with the key UK market closed, it climbed back to trade around $1.3035, at the bottom of its $1.30-$1.35 trading band seen since February.

PERIPHERAL BONDS HIT

Europe’s sovereign debt markets were most affected by fears over the future of the region’s fiscal austerity policies, with investors fleeing to safe-haven German government bonds. German Bund futures hit record highs of 142.44, up 14 ticks, while investors sold Spanish and Italian bonds. Cash 10-year German yields were 2 basis points lower at 1.56 percent, within a whisker of the record low. Bond investors were expected to keep away from other peripheral euro zone markets in the coming days as they watch efforts to form a ruling coalition in Athens.

(VOD: video below is from last year’s elections in Spain, which unseated the “Socialist Party” there because it had not responded to the suffering of the people. “Socialist Parties” in Europe do not necessarily mean socialist revolution.)

Spain has become the recent focus of the debt crisis and industrial output for March confirmed the economy’s weakness. The government is expected to announce a rescue plan for ailing bank Bankia as part of a wider reform of the banking system, sources said on Monday.

The Spanish 10-year government yield was up six basis points at 5.84 percent but analysts expected it to re-test the psychologically important 6 percent. World equities reflected the sharp falls on Wall Street in the wake of the latest payrolls report and further selling in Asia after the European election results became clear.

The MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS fell 0.8 percent to 14-week lows at 319.01 points after Wall Street posted its worst week of the year last week when new jobs data showed U.S. hiring slowed for the second month in a row. U.S. stock index futures pointed to further falls on Monday. The surprisingly weak non-farm payrolls report for April fuelled fears of a drop in energy demand helping send Brent crude oil below $113 a barrel, its lowest level since late January. (Additional reporting by Toni Vorobyova; editing by Anna Willard)

VOD comment: Global banks have no interest in investing in the prosperity of the people, only condemning them to more unemployment, minimal wages and benefits, privatization, and poverty. That is why it is important for people to attend the rally listed in the post below. The BANKS are the enemy of working and poor people world-wide. Whether elected officials can overcome their sovereignty remains to be seen. Only an all-out revolt of the people like that of the Paris Commune, which took over the banks, can win in the end.

Oakland police and May Day protesters face off. Video courtesy of KNTV.

MSNBC  May 1, 2012

Protesters across the world hit the streets Tuesday on May Day to rally against austerity measures and call for higher wages and more jobs.

Marches turned violent in Oakland, where protesters pounded on bank windows and went face-to-face with a police line, and in Seattle, where protesters dressed in black smashed windows and police pepper-sprayed some in the crowds. 

Protesters playing cat-and-mouse with police pounded on windows of banks and other businesses, SFGate.com reported. After surrounding a downtown Bank of America branch, protesters chanted, “Oakland is the people’s town; strike, occupy, shut it down.” they also gathered at a Wells Fargo bank branch. Police later confronted demonstrators marching through downtown. Video by NBCBayArea.com showed at least one protester being dragged away by police.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A group of May Day protesters dressed in black clothes and wearing face makeup smashed windows in downtown Seattle. Video courtesy KING

In Seattle, windows were broken and police arrested a handful of protesters as about 100 marched in downtown, NBC station KING reported. Many marchers were dressed in dark clothes, wearing face makeup and carrying sticks, live TV video showed. Police pepper-sprayed several protesters as problems developed. KING reported numerous tires slashed and large amounts of glass on the ground from vehicles and buildings, including the old federal courthouse, smashed by protesters. Peaceful protesters remained at the downtown Westlake Plaza, where speeches and concerts continued, KING reported.

“Part of me, I want to understand where they’re coming from and then they pull something like this,” said Sam, who would not give his last name, as he saw the back window of his car smashed out by protesters. Sam was on holiday from his home in British Columbia. “I’m from Canada,” he said, “imagine the impression this gives me of the United States.”

Occupy Detroiters marched from old train station to Grand Circus Park

 In the United States, the protests are seen as the biggest test for the Occupy movement since many of its camps were shuttered late last year. Occupiers in more than 100 cities across the country were expected to protest on the day that traditionally celebrates workers’ rights.

“We’ve got hundreds of people out already and I know a lot of people are going to be trickling in as the day goes along. We’ve had pickets at the Bank of America, Chase, Disney,” Mark Bray of the Occupy Wall Street PR team said as protesters in Manhattan chanted “We are the 99 percent” in the background. “(The) mood is very spirited, the rain is lightening up.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

About 1,000 Occupy protesters were based at New York’s Bryant Park. As about 250 protesters left to march on banks after noon, they chanted “Out of the stores, into the streets” and “Banks got bailed out; we got sold out.”

Robby McGeddon, 47, a tech worker carrying a maypole for May Day, said, “There’s too much fear for the general public to actually want to strike. They don’t want to lose their job. … We haven’t reached that tipping point where people are more frightened for some place to live. … It will get to the tipping point but right now we’re just practicing.”

“We’re trying to find new, positive community-building ways to engage and protest and be a part of the burgeoning civil dialogue about what this country should be doing,” said Daphne Carr, 33, co-organizer of the Occupy Music Working Group.

About 300 musicians led a march of about 1,000 down Fifth Avenue to Union Square in Manhattan. The crowd swelled to about 3,000 later in the day as unions reperesenting teachers, transport workers, nurses, musicians and others in lively afternoon of art and music.

Carr said music making “has been eroded from our public sphere so we’re taking and re-claiming the right to play music publicly together in the streets, in the parks without permits, and that it’s a safe and natural part of being a part of the city.”

“Get a job,” one man said as he elbowed his way through the crowd of protesters.

“This is like the resurgence of the Occupy Wall Street movement,” said photographer Joel Simpson, 65, of Union, N.J., as the “guitarmy” sang “This land is your land” in the background. Though most of New York City didn’t know the May Day protest was going on, he said, the Occupy movement “touches public consciousness in a very broad way and politicians have to at least pay lip service to it.”

Some of students who walked out against Southwestern HS closure in Clark Park April 25, 2012/WSWS photo

By Lawrence Porter

http://www.wsws.org
April 27, 2012 

Over 200 students at two high schools in Detroit’s southwestern neighborhood, Southwestern High and Western International, walked out of class on Wednesday to protest the closure of Southwestern, the poor conditions at Western, and the growth of charter schools.

Students from Western said they walked out of school just before 11 a.m. in sympathy with the students at Southwestern High School, which is among nine schools slated for closure next year in the Detroit Public Schools district.

Natalie Rivera/WSWS photo

“Our walkout at Western was inspired by the walkout at Southwestern and it was in solidarity with it, but it was also against the conditions in our school system,” stated Freddie Burse, one of the leaders of the walkout.

Freddie said the students organized the event themselves via Facebook after a student heard that there was going to be a walkout at Southwestern.

“The purpose of the demonstration was to make our voices heard and to speak up on our education system because we feel there are a lot problems there,” continued Burse.

“We are also opposed to the growth of charter schools. The main one here is Caesar Chavez. The privatization of schools is the death of the school system.”

Several students said they were especially upset with the announcement that Southwestern High School would be closed next year.

Denby High students Anjanette Payne, 16; Zana Davis, 17; Marquita Kennedy, 16 and Tamara Hollis, 17. “As a senior, I feel it’s not just about me, it’s about other kids too,” said Davis, one of the organizers of the boycott. (Laura Phelps / The Detroit News)

“It’s about trying to save Southwestern High School,” stated Natalie Rivera, a junior at Western, as she and several hundred students gathered in Clark Park with students from her school and Southwestern. “We are tired of the closing of the schools. We want them to stop.

“Southwestern students walked out so we felt we should walk out in solidarity. We want all of the schools to join together,” continued Rivera. “We don’t even have proper books in the school. We have to learn with old stuff that is not updated. The teachers take their own money to pay for the stuff we need.”

The walkouts at Western International and Southwestern are the third student walkouts in the last month in Detroit.

Denby High students Anjanette Payne, 16; Zana Davis, 17; Marquita Kennedy, 16 and Tamara Hollis, 17. “As a senior, I feel it’s not just about me, it’s about other kids too,” said Davis, one of the organizers of the boycott. (Laura Phelps / The Detroit News)

Last month students at Denby High school walked out after the announcement that the school will be placed in the new statewide district for what are being billed as low-performing schools—the Education Achievement Authority (EAA). Another spontaneous protest took place at Fredrick Douglass Academy when 50 students walked out because they did not have teachers. After protesting that they wanted an education, the students were suspended for a day.

The Detroit school system has been decimated by the actions of a series of Emergency Managers—state-appointed directors that take over a school district in financial distress, that have been appointed by both Democratic and Republican governors—the systematic defunding of the system by state and federal administrations and the collapse of city property tax revenues, the archaic basis of public education funding in the US.

Avontae Latham/WSWS photo

The present Emergency Manager, Roy Roberts, appointed by Republican Governor Rick Snyder, is implementing the closure of Southwestern. Roberts, a former General Motors executive, has outlined a plan to model a new school district dominated by charter schools similar to the New Orleans Recovery School District created after Hurricane Katrina. The charter school policy is in line with President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top educational initiative.

Avonte Latham, a junior involved in the walkout, said the government should provide more financial assistance to the Detroit school district. “I feel Michigan needs to give more money for schools. This is holding things back by closing schools,” charged Avonte.

“I don’t think they should be closing schools every year. They are forcing people to leave Michigan. When they decided to close Southwestern HS we decided to take a stand. Enough is enough. They are taking the schools out of the DPS system and putting them in a new system. It’s not right.”

Gabriela Alcazar/WSWS photo

Several students and their supporters said the closure of Southwestern would have a major impact on the choices for schools next year. Gabriela Alcazar, a community activist who attended the protest, said the students at Southwestern have been given two choices for schools that will only make matters worse.

“If Southwestern is closed the student will either go to Western or Northwestern,” stated Alcazar. “Southwestern is already overstretched with 1,700 students. Northwestern is 15 miles away.”

The author recommends:

Detroit schools manager names schools to close this fall
[10 February 2012]

Jerry White campaigns in Detroit against school closings
[14 February 2012]

Detroit school czar targets 15 schools, 600 teachers
[21 March 2012]

School districts throughout Detroit area face cuts
[18 May 2011]

STUDENTS SUSPENDED IN WALKOUT HOLD FREEDOM SCHOOL 

Students protest in Clark Park, across the street from Western International High School in Detroit Wednesday, April 25, 2012. Students suspended for the action are now planning to hold a "freedom school" in the same pa

By David Sands

April 27, 2012 

Students suspended for walking out of class at Detroit’s Western International High School earlier this week to protest school closures and demand a better education, are holding a “freedom school” Friday in Clark Park, across the street from their official school building.

Students left class Wednesday morning to protest the closing of Southwestern High School, which many fear would lead to overcrowding at Western, and to demand more resources and greater teacher engagement for the district’s schools.

Southwestern’s nearly 600 students will be offered space at Western International and Northwestern high schools next year, according to the district.

Detroit school board member Elena Herrada waiting to testify against consent agreement at Detroit City Council meeting April 2, 2012

Detroit Board of Education member Elena Herrada told the Detroit News that up to 180 students were suspended from Western and Southwestern high schools following Wednesday’s action. Detroit Public Schools spokesman Steven Wasko told The Huffington Post about 100 students were suspended for five days following the walkout.

School officials at Western did not return repeated requests for comment.

Wasko said concerns about a potential lack of supplies at Western are unfounded. “Western was one of the schools with top scholarships awards, coming in after Renaissance and Cass” high schools for the 2010-11 school year, securing more than $13.9 million in grants and scholarships.

One Western student told The Huffington Post she could be facing more than a suspension. Raychel Gafford, 17, said she has been singled out by school authorities for her vocal role in the walkout and that the district’s police have indicated she may face unspecified charges.

Gafford said students are organizing the freedom school for the same reasons they walked out. “We’re sticking together and we’re not backing down from this,” she said. “We were thrown out of school for fighting for an equal education and we’re doing this to show we’re still going to be learning even if we got kicked out of school.”

Classes at the freedom school will be held with help from community volunteers for the duration of the students’ suspensions, including over the weekend.

Greg Pratt posted this photo with an account of the Freedom School on its Facebook page

A Facebook page promoting the freedom school puts the number of participating students at more than 150:

We do not understand why we are being punished with a loss of educational opportunity when that is exactly what we were fighting for. To further demonstrate our commitment to education, we will be attending our own school taught by ourselves and community educators for the duration of our suspension.

Gafford said the freedom school would cover a number of subjects, including the history of the civil rights movement, hip-hop, and art classes, and that space would be provided for students to make up missed class work.

Raychel’s mother, Amber Gafford, 34, said she supports her daughter and other students fighting for a quality education.

“I wish there were more kids doing this,” she said of their decision to walk out. “The children, they aren’t doing it to be malicious to the school. They have a reason they’re doing it. Their voices should be heard.”

The freedom school is the latest in a series of recent student actions at Detroit schools.

Around 50 students were suspended March 29 after leaving their classrooms at Frederick Douglass Academy to protest the school’s shortage of teachers. And hundreds of students marched in front of Denby High School on March 16 to protest their school’s transfer into a new state-run district.

Below is WSWS video of parents protesting former DPS EFM Robert Bobb’s firing of Western High School principal.

Kawhnua Liggins takes her daughter to day care April 24; her D-DHS grant to pay for it has now been cut/Photo ClickonDetroit Channel Four

By Diane Bukowski

April 29, 2012

DETROIT – A union representing Detroit Department of Human Services (D-DHS) workers filed suit April 19, demanding the restoration of millions in federal funds withheld by Michigan Department of Human Services (M-DHS) director Maura Corrigan since Oct. 2011. The suit requests the maintenance of D-DHS’s designation as a Community Action Agency (CAA), and an injunction preventing Wayne Metro Community Action Agency (WMCAA) or any other entity from taking over its programs.

APTE President Dempsey Addison at first Occupy Detroit march in 2011

“As a result of Director Corrigan’s illegal cut-off of CSBG funds to the City of Detroit, the neediest Detroiters are being denied desperately needed services, services which are vital to their very survival,” says the lawsuit. It was filed by Attorney Jerome Goldberg on behalf of Dempsey Addison, President of the Association of Professional and Technical Employees, and DHS employee Cecily McClellan.

(Click on APTE lawsuit and letters to read suit as well as letters from APTE to the federal government.)

D-DHS assists residents in fighting foreclosures, evictions and utility shut-offs, provides food, clothing, day-care and transportation, and helps fund non-profits like Young Detroit Builders. It also ran the city’s home weatherization program, which was turned over to WMCAA April 1, with hundreds of workers and contractors left unpaid, and work on homes unfinished.

Funding for the city’s Head Start Program, amounting to $55 million, which D-DHS coordinates through contractors, is being transferred as well.

Detroit Head Start program; funding transferred from D-DHS

Kawhnua Liggins, who was taking her toddler to a day care program, told Channel Four reporter Paula Tutman April 25 that she needs the grant D-DHS provides. Tutman reported it had been cut the day before and that three-quarters of the families at the day care center have lost their grants beginning last fall.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing gets hug from Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who now controls him and city's government.

“If I don’t have that money, I could lose my job,” Liggins said. “Jobs are bad right now, so I only work part-time. Child care is every bit of $150 to $200 a week, and my check is only $120 a week. I can’t afford to pay rent and my other bills on top of child care.”

Council President Charles Pugh told Tutman that funds were cut due to alleged mismanagement, but was not quoted regarding the letter City Council sent to the state refusing to voluntarily de-certify D-DHS. (Letter is attached to lawsuit PDF referenced above.)

(Click on http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/Detroit-families-say-they-re-struggling-after-state-cuts-funding-to-human-services-department/-/1719418/11860610/-/o703bo/-/index.html to view full broadcast.)

Mayor Dave Bing, who now reports to the state under the recently enacted “Financial Stability [Consent] Agreement,” announced in his April 12 budget address that he would cut off all funding for D-DHS in the coming year.

Debra Taylor at earlier meeting of Detroit Financial Review Team

“Michigan has become up South, the new Jim Crow,” Debra Taylor testified during a state administrative hearing April 23. “You can’t just dress this pig up and put perfume on it. Turning over D-DHS has nothing to with the city’s deficit or with mishandling of funds. It is racism, another power grab along with the illegal Public Act 4 takeover of Detroit.”

The suit requests a temporary restraining order and writ of mandamus (to compel a government officer to perform a duty) against defendants Corrigan, Mayor Dave Bing and Kirk Lewis. A hearing is set for Friday, May 11, 2012 at 9 a.m. before Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Kathleen McDonald in the Coleman A. Young Center, 2 Woodward Avenue, Rm. 1507.

The suit says laws a review of any proposed termination of funds must be completed at both the state and federal levels BEFORE funds are cut-off. It challenges the state’s assertion that D-DHS has been responsible for massive misuse of funds. D-DHS workers face lay-offs this June as a result of the allegations. (Click on DHS Closing for documents APTE gathered containing favorable state D-DHS audits under Stacie Gibson, former director of the Michigan Bureau of Community Action and Economic Opportunity.)

“The state violated federal guidelines and the legal process when it withheld $8 million over six months ago,” lawsuit plaintiff Addison testified at the April 23 hearing. “It hurt thousands of Detroiters by cutting off essential services. What right do you have to sit here like a judge and mislead the people?”

D-DHS Commissioner Tia Comart speaks at state hearing April 23; Stephanie Comai is at right on judge's bench

Stephanie Comai, Acting Director of the Bureau of Community Action and Economic Opportunity, and an M-DHS employee, presided over the hearing in a State Court of Appeals (COA) courtroom in the Cadillac Building. She and two others sat at the bench normally used only by COA judges.

The little-publicized hearing was a step in adversarial proceedings brought by the state subsequent to the Detroit City Council’s earlier vote against voluntary termination of D-DHS’s CAA status. (Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/03/06/corrigan-demands-council-hand-over-control-of-city-dhs/  for earlier VOD article.)

Detroiters who opposed takeover of D-DHS at hearing April 23.

Mayor Dave Bing previously told the state the “city agreed” to the voluntary termination, but statutes require that the City Council also sign off.

Dozens of Detroiters who testified April 23 demanded copies of the state’s “comprehensive monitoring report” recommending de-certification of D-DHS and its specific reasons for doing so, which was not provided at the meeting. Comai referred to it in a March 23, 2012 letter to D-DHS director Ursula Holland, attached to the APTE lawsuit.

The lawsuit says such a report must be submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but “on information and belief, a report in conformance with [federal law] stating the basis for such a determination has not been prepared and submitted.”

Comai said she would send a copy to those who requested it at the meeting, including this reporter, but it has not yet been received.

WMCAA President Jodi Adamovich, board member Thelmas Chonko, CEO Louis Piszker, who operates for-profit Thornton Park LP out of WMCAA Ecorse office

Comai said M-DHS plans to temporarily turn D-DHS programs over to the Wyandotte-based WMCAA, while issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) open to non-profits which will be “a high-performing effective service operators.” She said WMCAA would be opening offices in Detroit shortly to resume services that have been cut off.

Precinct Delegate and former Detroit School Board Member Marie Thornton challenged Comai’s statement that D-DHS is the ONLY one of 30 CAA’s in the state with compliance problems.

“You said the 29 other agencies are perfect,” Thornton declared. “Well, tell me about the 29 perfect agencies so I can say to Detroit, ‘Shame on you.’”

Precinct delegate and former Detroit school board member Marie Thornton at earlier meeting

She asked whether Comai would open an investigation into corruption at WMCCA. Testimony was given that WMCAA’s CEO Louis Piszker runs a for-profit real estate company, Thornton Park Limited Partnership, out of WMCAA’s Ecorse office, and that WMCAA sold a property to his business for $10. Confronted with an increasingly hostile audience, Comai reluctantly said she would.

Several speakers asked Comai why she is not investigating Mayor Dave Bing as well, since he directed former D-DHS director Shenetta Coleman to use $400 million in federal grant funds to help pay off the city’s $1.5 billion Pension Obligation Certificates (POC) debt, as well as to fund construction of new offices for D-DHS at the Herman Kiefer Health Complex on Taylor. (Click on lawsuit)

Several of the Department’s elected Commissioners testified angrily that they had not been consulted by the state about the proposed action, as required by state law. The failure to do so is also cited in the APTE lawsuit.

Les Little speaking at City Council hearing on consent agreement

Comai said they had spoken with the commission chair, but Commissioner Tia Collette Comart said the chair is appointed by the Mayor and has not shared any information with the rest of the commission.

“I am the first chair, and am in an elected position,” she said. “No one said anything to the first chair, the second chair, only to Mayor Bing. “I am a Head Start parent and assistant secretary for Hartford Memorial’s Head Start program and I object to this attack by the state. ” She gave her email address in testimony, which is commissionertia@gmail.com.

Commissioner Carolyn Thompson said, “Detroiters’ voter rights are being trampled. I am insulted that I am being asked to re-apply with the new CAA for a position to which I was already elected. The City of Detroit is ravaged by poverty, but now you are cutting residents off of utility assistance and other vital services.”

Michigan Auditor General Thomas McTavish

“It’s time for Detroit to do what a bunch of patriots did in the 1700,’s” said Les Little. “We have been under assault from the State of Michigan since Public Act 4 and the consent agreement. Time and time again services we pay taxes for have not been rendered to our people.”

Several speakers challenged Comai because M-DHS itself was cited by State Auditor-General Thomas McTavish for a lack of financial controls and millions of dollars in questionable purchases, in an August 16, 2011 audit.

The audit revealed that the same employees created and processed invoices and then approved the checks to pay them. McTavish also found a lack of documentation for purchases of computers and other electric applicances allegedly provided to M-DHS clients, among other issues. For further information, click on http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/08/dhs_audit_finds_millions_in_qu.html.

We Pay Our Taxes! Why Doesn’t GE! – – A No Struggle, No Development Production!   By Kenny Snodgrass

Thousands of citizens marched at the GE Annual Shareholder Meeting in Detroit Michigan on April 25, 2012 at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance. Marchers came to demand that GE “Pay Their Fair Share Of Taxes.” They marched on East Jefferson and on the river front side as well. About two dozen shareholders were escorted out of the meeting, after standing to make their demands heard. They included Pastors William Rideout, Homer Jamison and Walter Starghill of Detroit and Inkster. The Free Press reported that GE Vice Chair and Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin said “We pay our taxes.” GE paid $2.6 billion in taxes to the USA last year, but they were offset by tax breaks, according to the marchers.

  *A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author of From Victimization To Empowerment…

www.trafford.com/07-0913  eBook at www.ebookstore.sony.com

 I have over 275 community videos and over 87,000 Hits
on my YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/KennySnod  

GE protesters packed East Jefferson curb to curb April 25, 2012

By Diane Bukowski

 April 26, 2012 

Youth participated in protest en masse

DETROIT – Thousands of  marchers, many of them Black youth, union members and church leaders, occupied the streets of downtown Detroit for several hours April 25 outside General Electric’s national shareholders meeting at the Renaissance Center. 

They chanted non-stop, “GE, pay your taxes” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho, corporate greed has got to go!” They came from metro Detroit, and from all over the Midwest in busloads, including Wisconsin and Ohio. 

Leaders skillfully coordinated the mass occupation of the streets, keeping the marchers in solid blocs behind the RenCen, where they were supposed to remain, and then down the side streets onto East Jefferson and up to the front doors of the RenCen. Despite threats and shoving by Detroit police on horseback and in dozens of cars, they were not able to make arrests. 

Protesters round the side of the RenCen to confront GE at front

Pastors William Rideout, Homer Jamison and Walter Starghill from Detroit and Inkster led the occupation after disrupting the shareholders’ meeting inside.  They tried to present GE CEO Jeff Immett with a bill for $26.5 billion, which they said the company owes the U.S.  in back taxes based on the 35 percent statutory rate. 

A GE spokesman said the company paid $2.9 billion GLOBALLY, but had its tax rate reduced due to falling sales in previous years. 

Many of the protesters have occupied DTE's headquarters as well.

The three pastors, along with Good Jobs Now! and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), have also led militant occupations of DTE Energy’s downtown Detroit headquarters, again with large contingents of Black youth. A group of young women carried letter placards spelling out “D-T-E” during the march. 

Youth celebrate the rising of the 99 percent against GE

In a city where many youth have lost hope for their future, the numbers participating in the GE protest were astonishing. They danced and chanted, excited to be fighting the real public enemy, instead of each other. 

“This affects me,” said Jataveyis Price, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He carried a sign calling GE a tax dodger. “The youth could have education, jobs and health care by getting all these tax dodgers out and fixing our deficit.” 

Jataveyis Price

GE is known for moving its plants overseas to take advantage of low wages, leaving hundreds of thousands jobless in the U.S. 

Jerome Jackson, who is fighting the foreclosure of his home in Inkster, came in his wheelchair. 

 “If GE paid their fair share, it could be used for bringing our city out of the red and into the green.” 

Jackson has another hearing pending June 7 at 2 p.m. in 22^nd District Court, and is being supported by Moratorium NOW!, Occupy Detroit, and People Before Banks, who have rallied outside his home. 

Charles Whitmore is the regional coordinator for MoveOn.Org, representing western Wayne and Oakland Counties. 

Charles Whitmore and Chuck Altman (l), Jerome Jackson (r)

“GE is a criminal for not paying its fair share,” Whitmore said. “They are holding up the economic recovery with their tax breaks, along with the subsidies that the oil companies and other corporations get. Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations are people, they need to become good citizens. It’s so ironic that the corporations could actually make more money by cooperating with the people instead of laying them off and foreclosing on them, because they would have more customers. “ 

Chuck Altman added, “GE is a major defense contractor, with contracts from the Pentagon for equipment like jet turbine engines. This country needs more butter, not more guns.”

Carrying signs proclaiming, “Windmills not Weapons,” Carolyn Doherty and Charlotte Kish explained, “GE also makes machinery for nuclear reactors, which are unsafe at any price.” 

JOBS NOW!

Marchers wearing purple SEIU T-Shirts were everywhere. Chris Michalakis, president of the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, said the planning committee for the march included the United Auto Workers (UAW) and other unions as well. 

However, no signs from the UAW, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and other major unions were in evidence. 

Tax the 1% for Health Care

Before the march, the daily media including Nolan Finley of the Detroit News blasted the protesters’ plans.

“. . . there’s a real risk . . . investors will witness instead a confirmation that Metro Detroit is ground zero for the destructive war against wealth and business,” Finley proclaimed April 22. “Groups tied to the Occupy Wall Street movement and the United Auto Workers’ 99% Spring action SWAT team have been recruiting protesters to stage an anti-World Trade Organization-style protest in the streets around the RenCen.

“But if massive numbers of raucous demonstrators disrupt the GE meeting, it will be a disaster for Detroit,” Finley continued. “Other business gatherings will avoid the city like the plague, hurting the convention business and killing jobs. More broadly, it will affirm that Detroit is still in the clutches of militant unions, hostile to business and a lousy place to plant money.”’

Pastor leads prayer at front of RenCen; if pastors can organize the people, why can't union leaders?

The News later reported that UAW President Bob King was re-considering his union’s participation. 

SEIU was in the house: where were the other unions?

Despite the recent disastrous state takeover of Detroit, and the cut-offs of hundreds of thousands of state residents from public assistance, many major unions have refused to call on the economic clout still held by Michigan workers. So far, leaders have refused to declare an all-union general strike, like those in Greece which forced the international banks to reduce their demands for that country’s debt payments by 75 percent. 

The only time many union leaders appear to unite is to negotiate contract concessions as a group, despite the fact that such concessions have sapped both the union membership and living and working conditions for people everywhere, since the 1970’s. 

The turnout of thousands, predominantly youth, at the RenCen April 26 shamed  these other unions. Combined with the resources of the major unions, the national 99% movement could eventually triumph against the “destructive war” on working and poor people.

Protesters take the streets behind RenCen, backing off police

Sanford and Jones families march together April 23 outside Frank Murphy Hall; beautiful signs for Davontae, Aiyana and Charles were made by a niece of Mertilla Jones

 Families of two men unite to demand their release and the imprisonment of killer cops Joseph Weekley and wannabe George Zimmerman 

By Diane Bukowski

April 26, 2012  

Taminko Sanford (l) and Mertilla Jones (center) discuss their children's cases as Jones' 14-year-old grandson listens April 23.

DETROIT – Families and friends of  Davontae Sanford, 14 when he was  convicted in 2007 of four murders to which another man has confessed, and Charles Jones, father of Aiyana, 7, killed by Detroit police in 2010, rallied together to demand freedom for the two men April 23. 

It was the first time the families of the two young men met. Their grief and anger poured out in chants of “Free Davontae, Free Charles, Justice for Aiyana,” and “Brick by brick, wall by wall, we’re going to fight until we free them all,” as they marched outside the Frank Murphy Hall in downtown Detroit for two hours. 

Davontae's two sisters and father Jermaine Tilmon

“George Zimmerman killed an innocent child for nothing,” said Davontae’s father Jermaine Tilmon. “They just freed him on bond today, but they have had an innocent child locked up for five years. Give Davontae a bond right now. What they are doing is unconstitutional.”

Both Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida in February and  Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley, who shot little Aiyana Stanley-Jones in the head as she slept with her grandmother, are free on bond. Weekley was granted a personal bond after being charged with manslaughter nearly two years later, while Zimmerman’s family raised $15,000 for a 10 percent cash bond. Both killings enraged people across the world.

 Davontae’s 14-year-old sister DeShonda said, “It’s crazy what they’re doing to him. It doesn’t make any sense. We were so close, oh my god, I love him. He is the best brother to me. He is amazing.” 

Taminko Sanford and others in Davontae's family demand justice for all

Sanford’s attorneys have now filed an affidavit with the appeals court, in which Vincent Smothers admitted to the drug house killings of four people on Runyon Street and explicitly exonerated Davontae. (Click on )  Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Brian Sullivan refused to let him testify during proceedings on a motion to withdraw Sanford’s confession, obtained by police without the presence of his mother or an attorney. 

Aiyana’s father Charles Jones faces first-degree murder charges in the death of Je’Rean Blake, based primarily on the hearsay testimony of jail-house snitch and six-time convicted felon Jay Schlenkerman. A final conference for their joint trial is set for May 4, with the trial scheduled for June 20, in front on Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Skutt.

Jones family members included Mertilla Jones (behind grandson in red jacket, Aiyana's mother Dominika Stanley, second from left, and Charles Jones' sister LaKrystal Sanders (r)

 “We support Davontae and the family of Trayvon, and all those who are unjustly locked up,” Aiyana’s grandmother Mertilla Jones told the marchers, after she and Davontae’s mother Taminko Sanford spoke with each other and tearfully embraced. Jones’ daughter LaKrystal Sanders and Aiyana’s mother Dominika Stanley, along with many youngsters and others from the large Jones and Sanford families, also attended the march. 

Jones family wears T-shirts demanding justice for Aiyana, freedom for Charles

“My grandson is 14, the same age as Davontae was,” Jones said, her arm around his shoulders. “One day you all could be standing in our shoes. We want freedom for our kids.. Someone had the nerve to invite my niece to a benefit for Weekley’s daughters, so that they can live the life-style to which they are accustomed, and go to college. But my son will never have a father-daughter dance with Aiyana, or see her walk across the stage to get her high-school diploma or college degree, or walk her down the aisle to get married.” 

Weekley lives in Grosse Pointe Farms, while the Jones family lived on Lillibridge in a poor east-side Detroit neighborhood. 

Aiyana was Charles Jones’ only daughter of seven children. His mother said police trained guns on his toddlers when they arrested him in his Ypsilanti home earlier this year. 

Charles Jones with daughter Aiyana Stanley-Jones

A Detroit police “Special Response Team” threw an incendiary grenade into their Detroit home before killing Aiyana on May 16, 2010, as A&E’s “The First 48” filmed the assault, although they knew little children were inside then. Jones said they trampled over the toddlers while rampaging through the house, then grabbed Owens’ 15-year-old daughter and made her and her father sit on the blood-soaked couch where Aiyana died.

Police threw Charles Jones in blood and glass on the home’s floor, and arrested Jones herself, holding her for several days. They continue to claim in civil lawsuit proceedings that she “interfered” with Weekley. 

Khalid Fareed Muhammad speaks to families

Khalid Fareed Muhammad called for charges to be brought against the officer who threw the grenade through the window, as well as the rest of the team. That team included Kata-Ante Taylor, who according to Jon Marko of the Fieger law firm, ran with Aiyana out of the home before her family could hold her in her dying moments. 

According to eyewitnesses, Taylor executed 18-year-old Artrell Dickerson in 2009, shooting him in the back as he lay on the ground. He never faced charges. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has not charged a single Detroit cop in the killings of dozens during her tenure. 

A “grand jury” composed of Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny brought the charges against Weekley, but it was Worthy who charged Charles Jones. 

Roberto Guzman, on bullhorn, leads march

Roberto Guzman, an organizer of the rally, passionately condemned Worthy’s actions in the Sanford case and others he has been involved in fighting. He ended talk in tears as Taminko Sanders and Mertilla Jones embraced him. 

“Why, Ms. Worthy, do you continue to deny this child justice?” Guzman asked in a portion of his talk, which detailed the history and  constitutional violations in Sanford’s case. “Kym Worthy knows she can stop the appeals process right now by filing a Confession of Error with the Court of Appeals. . . .Obey the principles of due process, a fair trial and the laws of humanity!   . . . .set this child free!  You are committing a greater crime in continuing to condemn him to prison, rob him of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  He will never be able to get a high school diploma, raise a family and live life to his fullest all because her sin is pride. 

Taminko Sanford and Mertilla Jones embrace Roberto Guzman as he weeps after his talk

“Freedom fighter Frederick Douglass said, ‘No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at least finding the other end fastened about his own neck.’  Your crime in condemning this innocent child is enormous; and here again you leave a trail of tears. “ 

(Click on Sanford Speech  to read full speech with history of Davontae’s case.) 

For more information on the cases of Aiyana and Charles Jones, call 313-825-6126; for more information on the case of Davontae Sanford, call 313-272-1406. Davontae also has a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100002107776225.

DETROIT SHALL RISE AGAIN

By David Rambeau 

April 24, 2012 

Introduction

Back in the 60s when there was much social and political ferment in our communities, many of those involved in “The Struggle ” were regularly reading writers like Frantz Fanon, Stokely Carmichael, W. E. B. Dubois, Walter Rodney, Malcolm X and a host of others to use as references to make points during the heated public discourse that occurred. Nowadays those who have benefited from that strife seem to have forgotten, and more likely denigrated, the historical perspectives that were brought to bear in the many arguments back then over contemporary issues. As far as I can tell every comment today comes off the top of the head, the cuff of the sleeve or the seat of the pants. Freedom of speech is fine, but you hope they would add some intellectual yeast to their comments. They never do.

Analysis

Occupy Movement has been protesting the banks' rape of the cities for months

The annual interest on Detroit’s debt to its creditors (banks, for example) is $600 million on a debt of about $12 billion or a rate of 5% annually. Negotiate a cut in that rate to 2.5%, the interest declines to $300 million and then Detroit has a tidy budget surplus. No state financial (review) control committee, (three white boys and seven negroes) no control (consent) agreement for the city council (five negroes and four blacks). If you’re keeping a cultural and financial scorecard. (I use the term “negro” in the socio-historical context delineated by E. Franklyn Frazier in “Black Bourgeoisie”.)

The “Negroes” on the City Council

And a little wiggle room for the city’s budget and some anguished creditors. But they can handle it. In ten years at 2.5% instead of 5% they still suck $3 billion out of an improverished, non-productive, dependent community, far more than what they deserve.
The banks shouldn’t be getting a quarter in interest after what they did to the people with their sub-prime mortgages, but that’s another story. Have you heard of any pressure the city (the mayor, his minions and the city council) is putting on their partners? That’s right, when you owe your creditors in the billions, they are no longer merely creditors, they’re partners. Or don’t you know how the game is played with the big boys. Check out Billie Sol Estes.

Workers in Greece forced banks to reduce debt payments by 75 percent although they themselves took concessions

When you need a break they give it to you. When you’re in a tight situation, they better give it to you or you go belly up…if you’ve got any guts. (The system of exploitation has to be maintained without warfare or collapse. That’s what’s happening right now in Europe. We are Greece or Spain or Italy confronting Germany, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

(Comparative analysis is always instructive, to a point, but I digress.)

At least that’s what you tell them, and let them sweat with that thought for a few minutes. The banks got bailed out by the President, and now you ask them for payback. What can they say, “Go see the colored guy in the White House.”

I don’t think so.

Detroit financial review team celebrating with Massa Dillon

Meanwhile what do these bid whist negroes do, these alienated individuals devoid of history, culture, ideology, organization and identity? They rationalize. They go along to get along; they write mediocre op-ed pieces for the corporate media to disguise their dilemma. Whom do they think they are fooling? They must do something or they’ll have to commit suicide.

However, ghosts don’t have to commit suicide. Ghosts are capable of looking in the mirror, seeing something dark and nappy and believing that it’s relevant. The blues is real; the slam dunk is real. They, in contrast, are an unfortunate necessity for the system, a pimple on the pig’s behind, a well-dressed, suburbanly attired pimple, but a pimple nevertheless. The Black Power political run in Detroit from 1973 till 2012 has come to a close with the control (consent) agreement. We’re back to where we started with minor changes to placate the upwardly mobile and frustrate the masses.

Women of the Black Panther Party

In the 60s and 70s a serious challenge to things as they are, or were, was disturbing the system. After WWII the powers-that-be wanted to return to business as usual, but couldn’t, so when challenged on the home-front, adjustments were made. Eventually we got some affirmative action, some voting rights, an increase in elected officials and a modicum of change, particularly for those in position to take advantage of the opportunities.

However, systems counter-attack, which brings us, in a sentence, to what’s going on in Detroit today. I understand the mayor and the council majority. They get to continue receiving their checks every two weeks, their pensions and benefits, their elected positions of status, their non-union, at-will staffs whom they can torment whenever they choose, and other perks to inflate their egos. So what if they’ve signed away their power and the people’s democratic rights. You can’t have everything. It’s tough out here being a pimp, or a pimple. Anything beats being unemployed or on welfare or being homeless. Besides, nobody is hiring ex elected officials these days.

So what’s next? The unions and the black-blacks (the people of color who holler, and march and present two minutes of rhetoric at government meetings) must punish those who sold them out. They’ve got to recall them. That requires organization, patience, focus, resources and work, none of which are easy to come by. And that’s just the first step. The process only gets increasingly difficult. That’s what makes it interesting and that’s what separates the men from the boys, in addition to history, culture, ideology, study and identity. A luta continua.

David Rambeau in the day (Facebook photo)

This has been another Rambeau Report for For My People. If you want more information, access your public library and read Thomas J. Sugrue, “The Origins of the Urban Crisis”, “Capitalism and Slavery” by Eric Williams, and “The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual” by Harold Cruse. For openers. Post your comments on my facebook site at http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1047977978 or send a letter to the editor. 

David Rambeau is a free-lance writer located in Detroit, MI. Access his websites on facebook: David Rambeau – and – Concept East Theater. (Check out http://sylviatestblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/friendsofbroadside-fwd-uban-theater.html for more information on Concept East II.)

Stop The War On Our Youth! – – A No Struggle, No Development Production! By KennySnod * Stop The War On Our Youth! There’s No Justice In Condemning An Innocent Child to Lift In Prison or Death!

Kenneth Snodgrass is the official videographer/photojournalist for VOD. See is bio on the About page.

Families, friends, and supporters of Davontae Sanford, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Dad Charles Jones, Trayvon Martin. Protest April 23, 2012 at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice

George Zimmerman, killer of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, is now out on bond, joining Detroit cop Joseph Weekley, killer of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones. They are free to roam the streets, while Davontae Sanford, 14 when he went to prison for murders to which another man confess to, and Charles Jones, Aiyana’s dad, are behind bars.

Davontae’s mother has just now heard from her son for the first time since January. He is being held in solitary and was under barbaric conditions until intervention by his supporters. Charles Jones, still grieving for his daughter Aiyana, killed May 16, 2010, is in the Wayne County Jail without bond based solely on the testimony of some jail-house prisoner. We would like to hear the truth about Davontae Sanford. There No Justice In Condemning An Innocent Child to Life In Prison or Death For A Crime They Did Not Commit! – –

A No Struggle, No Development Production! By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer, Author of From Victimization To Empowerment…
www.trafford.com/07-0913 eBook available at www.ebookstore.sony.com
YouTube – I have over 275 community videos and over 87,000 Hits
on my YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/KennySnod

Channel 7: Protesters demand justice in two high profile cases;

Organizers say black men are being targeted

VOD STORY ON RALLY TO FREE DAVONTAE SANFORD AND CHARLES JONES, AND JUSTICE FOR AIYANA STANLEY-JONES AND TRAYVON MARTIN APRIL 23 COMING SHORTLY. Rally was covered in the Detroit News and Free Press (Freep video at bottom) as well as Channel 7 (video above). Channels 2 and 4 ran versions of the following AP story.

DAVONTAE SANFORD CASE: DETROIT HIT MAN TAKES ANOTHER STEP TO HELP CONVICT

Monday, April 23, 2012 4:56 PM EDT

By The Associated Press

Davontae Sanford at court hearing two years ago

DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit hit man in prison for eight slayings has signed an extraordinary confession to four additional killings in a bid to persuade the Michigan appeals court to order his testimony and possibly free a young man who is locked up for murder.

The sworn affidavit by Vincent Smothers was filed last week by a lawyer for Davontae Sanford, who at age 15 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Sanford, now 19, insists his own confession was false, and he has struggled to have his conviction thrown out.

In a three-page statement, Smothers said he was hired in fall 2007 to kill a drug dealer as part of a feud between competing gangs. He said Sanford, a neighborhood kid who was just 14 at the time, was not his accomplice.

Vincent Smothers

“I have never used a juvenile as an accomplice,” said Smothers, who is serving a 52-year sentence for eight other murders.

A few months ago, Smothers offered to testify in court on behalf of Sanford. But in February, Wayne County Judge Brian Sullivan declined and, at the same time, rejected Sanford’s request to set aside his conviction.

Smothers hopes the affidavit — a formal, detailed recollection of what happened on Detroit’s Runyon Street — will make a difference with the appeals court.

“I have nothing to gain by agreeing to testify,” said Smothers, 31. “No one is pressuring or threatening me to testify. I am testifying because Mr. Sanford is innocent of the 4 murders on Runyon Street and should be exonerated.”

Smothers said he and another man, nicknamed Nemo, scouted the location earlier in the day by playing catch with a baseball a few doors away. They returned and starting shooting — Smothers through the front door with an AK-47 and Nemo with a handgun through a window.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy still refuses to stop prosecution of Davontae Sanford or at the very least grant him an appeal bond.

He said they immediately found victims dead on separate couches. Smothers said a young boy was in bed in another room and a woman was hiding under the bed. They were not injured.

“Just after we left the house, I fired my AK at a person across the street, who had fired at me,” Smothers said, a reference to a minister who has admitted firing a gun that night.

In April 2008, Smothers was arrested in suburban Detroit. He quickly admitted participating in 12 murders-for-hire, including the ones on Runyon Street, but was only charged with eight. At the time, Sanford had already pleaded guilty and was in custody.

“At one point during the interrogation, when I was being escorted to the bathroom, I told a bald detective that they did not have the right person convicted for the Runyon Street murders,” Smothers said in his affidavit.

The Wayne County prosecutor’s office has refused to back away from Sanford’s guilty plea. But it hasn’t explained why Smothers was never charged, despite the confession to police, and why a gun directly linked to the Runyon Street slayings was recovered from a home associated with Nemo.

When asked about the affidavit, Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for prosecutors, said her office will wait to hear from the appeals court.

Sanford’s attorney, Kim McGinnis, wants the appeals court to overturn the trial judge’s decision and allow her client to withdraw his guilty plea or, alternatively, put Smothers on the witness stand