Michigan Forward Secretary Treasurer LaToya Henry explains petition requirements; Ms. Henry has a masters' degree in broadcast journalism and runs her own communications, public relations, marketing and branding firm, WardHill Omni Media LLC.
By Diane Bukowski
January 25, 2011
DETROIT — LaToya Henry, secretary-treasurer of Michigan Forward, which initiated the petition drive to Repeal Public Act 4, reported encouraging news Jan. 24 at the NAACP “Allies and Issues” meeting.
“As of today, we have collected over 190,000 signatures on the petitions to repeal Public Act 4,” she said. “Our goal is 250,000 [only 161,000 valid signatures are required]. We have until March 29 to turn the petitions in, but we are not waiting. We have set a target date of February 29 for everyone to turn in their petitions still out there. Detroiters can turn in petitions either to the AFSCME Council 25 Hall [600 W. Lafayette in downtown Detroit], or to the NAACP office here [8220 Second, New Center area].”
She said 10,000 petition signatures have been turned in during the last week alone, in the wake of a Jan. 2 rally held at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church. She said Michigan Forward and its allies will announce the date they will be traveling to Lansing to present the petitions to the State Board of Canvassers, to allow participation by supporters.
PA4 IS APARTHEID!
Henry cautioned that all petition circulators MUST be REGISTERED VOTERS 18 YEARS OF AGE AND OLDER. She said there has been some confusion about that matter and they have had to toss out some petitions. But she called on those younger than 18 to help out by coming to the AFSCME office to participate in verifying petition signatures, matching them up with voter rolls.
“February is Black History Month, and we are asking everyone to send us notices of Black History events, either to obtain petitions themselves or to have some of us come out to collect signatures.
Rev. Edward Pinkney (l) at Benton Harbor protest against Snyder and PA4
She noted that NAACP members have been going to DTE centers to collect signatures. The Michigan Forward website at http://michiganforward.org/ also lists dates and times for the Rosa Parks Transportation project, where petitioners gather every day at the Rosa Parks Bus Terminal in downtown Detroit to gather signatures. Many are also riding the buses to do so.
Email addresses for Michigan Forward are also listed on their website.
It was reported earlier in the meeting that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder finally met with Michigan’s Black Legislative Caucus regarding a letter sent to him Dec. 7. (Click on Conyers and elected officials letter to Snyder re EM to read letter.) An attendee said that Snyder appeared to be listening to their concerns, but that he concluded by saying that he will be mounting a legal challenge to the Repeal PA4 petition drive once the signatures are turned in,
“There is a strong possibility this will happen,” Henry said. “But attorneys Herb Sanders and Richard Mack of AFSCME, with others, are already preparing for this.”
Henry also reported that Michigan Forward and the NAACP sent a letter to Gov. Snyder and Michigan Treasurer Andy Dillon asking for transparency in the emergency manager review process, for details such as when the meetings are happening and what exactly the process involves.
Mayor Hilliard Hampton of Inkster said at the meeting that the process there involved the review team taking officials aside one or two at a time and then drawing up their own reports. The first meeting of the Detroit review team was held in Lansing with little notice, and was closed to the public and the media. Dillon held only a short press conference afterwards.
The Detroit review team seems to be following the same process, having met Jan. 24 separately with City Council President Charles Pugh and President Pro-Tem Gary Brown.
In another venue, Metro Times columnist Jack Lessenberry launched a vicious pro-Snyder attack on Detroit, calling for Detroit not only to have an emergency manager, but to be folded wholesale into Wayne County. He claimed that none of Detroit’s Black leaders have come forward with a real alternative to Detroit’s economic crisis. He said the city administration has been borrowing money irresponsibly and cannot be trusted to resolve its own issues.
This is not the first time Lessenberry, who lives in West Bloomfield in Oakland County, the wealthiest county in the U.S., has displayed outright racism in his approach to matters involving Detroit. Years ago, he disparaged steelworker Malice Green, who was beaten to death by white police officers Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn in 1992, as a “crackhead.”
Solution to Detroit's ills
Lessenberry ignored an alternative that has been repeatedly raised by the well-known Moratorium NOW! Coalition Against Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs, an alternative which was also brought up at the NAACP meeting and has been the focus of Occupy Wall Street protests across the country.
In the 1930’s, as VOD also has constantly recalled, Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy helped initiate national legislation for a 10-year moratorium on the city’s debt to the banks so that the city could take care of people literally starving to death in Detroit, including city workers, the homeless and the jobless.
Lessenberry cited Dillon’s initial financial report on Detroit, which said the city had paid out $579 million on its debt to the banks in the current year alone, and has a long-term debt of $7 billion. Dillon claimed the total figure was $12 billion including the city’s pension obligations, but neglected to note that the city borrowed $1.5 billion in pension obligation certificates in 2005 to cover the entirety of its outstanding pension obligations for years to come.
Lessenberry also paid no attention to the fact that Detroit and other cities and states across the U.S. are suffering because of U.S. military spending, which gobbles up at least 60 percent of the nation’s revenue.
VOD EDITORIAL COMMENT TO JACK LESSENBERRY: WE NEED LESS OF YOU, IN FACT ZERO OF YOU, THROWN IN OUR FACES BY THE METRO TIMES, WHICH BEGAN AS A PROGRESSIVE NEWSPAPER BUT HAS CLEARLY BECOME, AS ONE OF MY CITY CO-WORKERS USED TO CALL IT, “THE METRO SLIME.”
Aiyana’s aunt LaKrystal Sanders, grandmother Mertilla Jones, and mother Dominika Stanley in front of national Stolen Lives banner listine the names of thousands killed by police; Aiyana’s name is first on the Michigan listing.
Family members from NYC, NC, Minnesota and elsewhere embrace them; Campaign against “Stop and Frisk” police policies introduced in NYC
By Diane Bukowski
Jan. 20, 2011
Arnetta Grable (l), host of the conference, listens as Mertilla Jones describes her family's agony at Aiyana's death and its aftermath.
DETROIT – Aiyana Stanley-Jones’ mother, grandmother and aunt met with families from all over the country whose loved ones have been killed by police on Jan. 14, during a national conference held in Redford, Michigan by several coalitions. It was hosted by Arnetta Grable of the Original Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality.
Dominika Stanley, Mertilla Jones, and LaKrystal Sanders were warmly and sorrowfully greeted by the participants, who came from as far away as New York City, Minneapolis and North Carolina. New York participants brought with them documentation that law enforcement has killed at least 323 residents of New York and New Jersey since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 40 of them since 2010, and that 7,000 people are killed nationally by police every year.
Jesse Barber pours libations as family members call out the names of loved ones killed by police; in addition to the Jones family and Grable, attendees included Juanita Young and Danette Chaviz of NYC (at left)
The Stolen Lives project, sponsored by the October 22 Coalition Against Police Brutaliey, has documented the deaths of over 2,000 people nationally at the hands of police, listed by state on a banner displayed at the meeting.
Aiyana Stanley-Jones’ name is first on the list of those killed in Michigan. Everyone at the conference table was in tears as Aiyana’s family members described Aiyana’s killing by Detroit police at the age of 7 on May 16, 2010, and the events since then. (Video below shows Aiyana’s induction into the Stolen Lives list in New York City in July, 2010, as family member speaks by phone.)
Aiyana’s grandmother Mertilla Jones said her daughter LaKrystal convinced her to join with others in organizing against police killings. She recalled how Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley burst into her home after an incendiary grenade was thrown through the window, seconds before he shot Aiyana to death.
Killer cop Joseph Weekley, still portrayed on website of "The First 48." which was filming as he shot Aiyana to death.
“The look in his eyes said ‘kill,’” Jones recalled. “Then they blamed me for my grandbaby’s death.” Jones said Aiyana, the only daughter of seven children of her son Charles Jones and Dominika Stanley, was “mine.”
“Now they have my son locked up,” Jones continued. “They have continued to harass my family until this day. But I know who I raised—eight children, six boys and two girls, and they are not murderers. I can’t bring Aiyana back, but I can bring my son Charles and his brother Norbert home. The majority of my kids are sons. I have 22 grandchildren, and I am so scared for all of them.”
Charle.s Jones with daughter Aiyana before she was killed by Detroit police
Jones’ next hearing is Thursday, Jan. 26 at 1:30 p.m. in front of 36th District Court Judge E. Lynise Bryant-Weekes.
Jones said her son Norbert Jones was unjustly convicted on charges of felony murder, and sentenced to life without parole in July, 2010, two months after Aiyana died.
“My children used to have respect for the police, but no more,” Jones said. “Every time we turn around, they are harassing us. The Warren police took my daughter Krystal’s car. Why should we be put off the courthouse grounds after Charles’ hearings before we can even talk to his attorney, and why aren’t they allowing all of his family into the hearings?”
Jones said the family who moved into the flat where they had lived during the raid named their newborn daughter “Aiyana” after her granddaughter.
Family members gather in honor of men killed by Officer Eugene Brown: Rodrick Carrington, LaMar Grable, and Darren Miller outside Prosecutor Kym Worthy's office after she once again refused to charge Brown in the deaths, despite an internal police report recommending that he be charged.
Grable and others said they too had experienced constant harassment and retaliation by the police and government forces when they protested the murders of their loved ones.
Detroit cop Eugene Brown killed (l to r) Rodrick Carrington, Lamar Grable, and Darren Miller
Grable, who is a co-founder of the Detroit Coalition, fought a 10-year battle for justice after her son Lamar Grable, 21, was shot eight times to death by three-time killer Officer Eugene Brown on Sept. 21, 1996.
During that time, she said her two other children faced constant stops by the police. Her son Aaron Grable is currently incarcerated after an illegal stop and search by Detroit police, as is the son of Cornell Squires, another Detroit Coalition member. Squires and his son were victimized by former Detroit Officer Robert Feld and William “Robocop” Melendez, both of them the subjects of repeated lawsuits and brutality charges..
‘They always blame the victim,” Grable said. She finally won her day in court against Brown, where world-famed forensic pathologist Werner Spitz testified Lamar had been executed as he lay on the ground. Brown admitted on the stand that it “was possible” he had shot Lamar in the chest on the ground after shooting him in the back and turning him over. His admission led the Michigan appeals and Supreme Courts to deny the City of Detroit’s appeal of a $4 million jury verdict.
Family members including Juanita Young, mother of Malcolm Ferguson (center) weep as Danette Chavis, mother of Gregory Chavis (2nd from right), speaks.
Other family members were present to plan a continuing offensive against what they said is a national epidemic of police murders and brutality.
They included Juanita Young, of New York City, who assured Aiyana’s relatives that they will find comfort and support working with other victimized families.
“”We have turned the police brutality coalition into an underground railroad for victims of the police,” Young told the Jones family. “They’re going after my children to get at me… But they are not going to make me shut up,” she said earlier in an article published at http://rwor.org/a/174/juanita_young-en.html in the newspaper Revolution.
Malcolm Ferguson
Young’s son Malcolm Ferguson was shot and killed by New York plainclothes police officer Louis Rivera on March 1, 2000. She too fought a long battle in court, with a jury finally awarding her a $10.5 million verdict in 2007. The New York Supreme Court of Appeals reduced the judgment to $2.7 million in 2010.
Young herself was brutalized and arrested by police in 2006. A jury later acquitted her of charges in that case, but on August 8, 2009, NYPD officers raided her home again.
“Over a dozen plainclothes police officers broke down the door, attacking Juanita’s oldest son, James (JJ) Ferguson,” Alice Woodward wrote in the Revolution article.
Layla, a North Carolina organizer, provides musical background for libation ceremony
“They pulled down JJ’s pants, knocked him to the ground and turned him over face down on the pavement. They pushed their knees into JJ’s neck and back, choked him, punched him, handcuffed him and pepper-sprayed him. JJ was vomiting and had several bumps on his head as he was put into the police car. Police also sexually assaulted Juanita Young’s oldest daughter, Saran, while Saran held her baby in her arms. They arrested seven people including two of Juanita Young’s daughters. JJ Ferguson was charged with several serious charges, the six others were given a summons for disorderly conduct.”
Nicholas Heyward, Sr. at right
Nicholas Heyward, Sr., also of New York, told the heart-rending story of his 13-year-old son Nicholas Hayward, Jr.’s killing by New York housing officer Brian George, also known as “Robocop,” on Sept. 27, 1994.
His child was playing “cops and robbers” with others in the Gowanus Houses park in Brooklyn, using a toy gun with a bright red tip that did not look like a real gun. George shot him in mid-sentence as he said, “We’re only playing, we’re only play. . . .” according to witnesses’ accounts. George was never charged.
Nicholas Heyward, Jr., shot to death by NYPD police at age of 13 in 1994
Afterwards, Heyward, Sr. was repeatedly picked out by cops, harassed and arrested for things like walking his dogs without a leash.
“My fight in the struggle for justice continues because we continue to see authorities exonerate brutal, murdering cops no matter how clear the evidence of their crime,” Heyward said in an account of the case published in the book Stolen Lives, “Because we bury too many of our children while the cops who murder them walk free. Because the mainstream media continues to cover up and help justify police assaults on the people.”
The park where Nicholas, Jr. was killed has been re-named “Nicholas Nequan Heyward, Jr. Park,” and has become a center for community organizing against police brutality, with annual events on October 22, and a mural depicting the child. A foundation established in his name gives out basketball scholarships every summer, has a mentoring program and sponsors numerous other events. Its website is at http://www.nicholasheywardmemorialfoundation.org/
Memorial mural for Nicholas Heyward, Jr.
Jesse Barber of Greensboro, North Carolina, attended the national conference, still fighting against police brutality on behalf of her son Gilbert Barber, killed at the age of 22 by Guilford [“Guilty”] County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Gordy in 2001, and others.
“Our people have always been killed by police,” Barber said.
Bilbert Barber's photo is held by his parents Calvert Stewart and Jesse Barber (Photo: The Campus Echo)
An account of what happened, “Crying Murder,” was published by “The Campus Echo.”. According to the article, Barber had a one-car accident, then was pepper-sprayed and shot three times by Gordy, who claimed he approached him in a threatening manner and shot at him, a startling similarity to Brown’s claims in the Grable killing. Evidence at the Brown civil trial showed that Brown himself likely shot twice into his bulletproof vest while not wearing it.
The family’s attorney told the Campus Echo that Barber was dragged into a nearby church, where pools of blood and five of Barber’s teeth were found, some still attached to gum tissue. The church furniture was covered with blood. Police claimed Barber knocked his own teeth out with a wooden collection plate, but a dental forensic specialist testified that was “highly unlikely.” For more information, go to http://web.nccu.edu/campus/echo/archive10-0102/c-murder.html
Gregory Chavis
Danette Chavis, mother of Gregory Chavis. killed by the NYPD on October 9, 2004, was one of the most outspoken members of the New York delegation during the meeting of Jan. 14. The entire conference took place over three days, Jan. 13-Jan. 25, 2012.
“My son Gregory was shot in the back by a police officer; and the police prevented his friends from carrying him to the hospital, which was sitting across the street from where he was shot,” Danette Chavis earlier told Revolution newspaper. “I am angry. I am tired of fighting them, but something keeps me going.”
Ms. Chavis warned the assembly that there is a movement to pass legislation to make it illegal for people to videotape police officers in action. Twelve states have so far passed laws against this, although several have been overturned by federal circuit courts of appeals. However, the move to make this illegal on a federal level has not ceased. See http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/08/opinion/la-oe-turley-video-20111108
Imam Luqman Abdullah speaks on behalf of Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) in 2008
In a recorded statement, she told members of the New York Coalition that people from every police precinct in the country who have experienced killings and brutality at the hands of police must address U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to demand justice. To date, however, Holder has not done so. In 2010, the USDOJ exonerated the FBI and Detroit police in the assassination of Detroit’s Imam Luqman Abdullah.
A New York Oct. 22 Coalition member addressed the assembly about the group’s latest venture, “STOP STOP AND FRISK,” in a conference call. He said that in the last two years, NYPD has recorded 250,000 cases where police stopped individuals and searched them.
Detroit cops Michael Parish and Michael Osman, who allegedly initiated policy of "Stop and rape" Black men
“Less than 10 percent of the stops were valid,” he said. “Only two percent resulted in charges being brought. The policy is aided and abetted by NYPD’s policies placing quotas on the number of arrests made by officers to determine who is more ‘efficient.’ Most times people are stopped for no reason, sometimes just for standing in front of their own buildings, and then they get $250 tickets for loitering.”
The spokesman said the coalition has organized occupations outside New York courthouses to protest this policy.
Communities United Against Police Brutality members from Minneapolis
In 2006, two Detroit officers, Michael Osman and Michael Parish, upgraded this policy to abject depravity, stopping dozens of Black men in broad daylight on public streets, stripping them, and penetrating them anally under the guise of drug searches, as well as otherwise sexually abusing them. Their actions fit the state definition of criminal sexual conduct (rape) in the first degree. Such searches are illegal without a court order and must be done by medical personnel.
Osman and Parish never faced charges despite broad publicity (the story was broken by this reporter, who did a series on the cases in The Michigan Citizen, which was followed up by the daily media).
Shockingly, a member of Communities United Against Police Brutality, (CUAPB www.cuapb.org ), from Minnesota’s Twin Cities, said such police rape of Black men is prevalent in Minneapolis to this day. Several members of CUAPB attended the conference.
Sign at San Quentin prison in CA; hunger strike began at Pelicay Bay prison
October 22nd Coalition organizer Scott Trent, of North Carolina, addressed the meeting on the connection of the epidemic of police brutality with the mass incarceration rate in the United States, which has 2.5 million people in prison, the largest per capita rate of any country in the world. He recalled the 2010 Georgia prisoners’ strike, where thousands of prisoners across the state refused to leave their cells for weeks, facing extreme retaliation including beatings and charges. Last year, prisoners across California conducted weeks-long hunger strikes to protest the brutal conditions of their solitary confinements, many of which have lasted for decades.
(To read proposed action statement brought by Trent to the meeting, click on Oct. 22 proposed statement.)
Some of conference participants pose for group photo at end of Jan. 14 session
Former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney
By Cynthia McKinney
January 21, 2012 10:59 AM
Most people know about being “Sleepless in Seattle.” Well, I am “snowed in in Seattle!” But even six inches of snow in Seattle don’t keep me from becoming steamed when I read the latest news reports on the activities of the U.S. war machine:
At a time when U.S.-Iran tensions are the highest I have experienced in my lifetime, Danger Room of wired.com breaks a news story on 19 January 2012 that a new United States commando special operations team is operating near Iran. Meanwhile, a columnist in Lebanon’s “The Daily Star” newspaper writes that Syria increasingly looks like Libya. And at the same time, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta admits in a press conference that he believes that the annual number of sexual assaults in the U.S. military could number as high as 19,000. This is from the Administration that shamefully accused the Libyan Jamahiriya military of issuing Viagra to its soldiers and using rape as a weapon.
U.S. troops currently on ground in Libya (Photo: Libya Free Press)
And finally, coming hot on the heels of an Algeria-ISP report that that the Obama Administration offered to reconstitute the Libyan military, forming desert troops, special forces, and a Libyan air force, tunisiefocus.com reports that U.S. troops are already in Libya, in Brega, Ras Lanouf, and Sirte, in order to secure Libyan oil for western markets at a very cheap price.
Libyan troops at Mitiga Air Base on 41st anniversary of US withdrawal, prior to the current US/NATO war on Libya
Last week, I reported on numerous reports that I had read indicating that U.S. troops were on the island of Malta waiting for the word to deploy to Libya. If the above reports are correct, then it would appear that that word has been given. Interestingly, the reports of U.S. troops were reported in several African, Libyan, and Russian online sites, yet there was no response from either Malta or the U.S. In fact, the Russian site za-afriku.ru as late as 19 January 2012 wrote, “The administration of the United States still has not refuted a lot of messages in various MEDIA for the transfer of 12000 troops on Malta as a preliminary step to the further redeployment in Libya in order to control the deteriorating situation in the country.” Continue reading →
Congress is on the verge of handing sweeping, unprecedented control over how we use the Internet over to a bunch of major corporations, with devastating consequences for our ability to communicate freely and without fear of reprisal.
Pending federal legislation would force nearly every domestic website to engage in a tremendous degree of self-censorship to ensure it won’t be subject to serious legal and financial liability. Any website featuring user-generated content—think YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, not to mention the user comment sections of blogs, news sites, and commercial/retail sites like Amazon—would be forced to scrutinize every last post to ensure that none contain links to vaguely-defined, so-called foreign “rogue” sites that may fall afoul of US copyright law.
The unjustifiable repercussions of self-censorship, for both content producers and content consumers, strikes at the root of ColorOfChange’s purpose—to amplify those voices historically marginalized by the powers that be. Black Americans’ effective and powerful history of organizing—and our victories in gaining freedoms, rights and respect—has always been dependent on our ability to use the latest technology to share information and communicate with each other. Today, maintaining an open Internet is critical to protecting and building on the progress we’ve made—our ability to compete on a level playing field and have our voices heard on the Internet is unmatched in any other media platform.
This over-broad Internet policing scheme elevates corporate interests over freedom of expression, and is an immediate threat to Black folks’ full participation in civic, social, and cultural life. Please join us in urging Congress to block any bill that suppresses our voices online:
BUILD FEB. 4 EMERGENCY DEMONSTRATION TO STOP U.S. WAR AGAINST IRAN: NO WAR! NO SANCTIONS! NO INTERVENTION! NO ASSASSINATIONS!
A broad spectrum of U.S.-based anti-imperialist and anti-war organizations, including the IAC, agreed on a Jan. 17 conference call to hold coordinated protests across the country on Saturday, Feb. 4. The demands will be: “No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations against Iran.”
The ad-hoc group that took part in the call decided that although there are only two weeks to organize, it will invite anti-war forces around the world to join in to make this emergency protest a global day of action.
U.S. President Barack Obama; 60 percent of U.S. budget goes to Pentagon
All agreed on the need to stop U.S. imperialism and/or Israel from launching a military attack on Iran. There was also a consensus that the new sanctions President Barack Obama signed into law on Dec. 31 — with the goal of breaking the Iranian central bank — were themselves an act of war aimed at the Iranian people. The political activists on the call raised the danger of a wider war should fighting break out in or around Iran.
While the organizations involved had varied assessments of the Iranian government, they all saw any intervention from U.S. imperialism in the Southwest Asian country as a threat to the entire region and to peace. Some of the people on the call who are originally from Iran and who were in touch with family and friends there conveyed the Iranian people’s anger at the recent assassination of a young scientist.
There was agreement to make “no assassinations” one of the demands to show solidarity with the Iranian population as well as to condemn the U.S. and its allies for criminal activities against Iran and its people.
As of Jan. 19, the organizations that called the actions or endorsed later included:
United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC), the International Action Center (IAC), SI! Solidarity with Iran, Refugee Apostolic Catholic Church, Workers World Party, World Can’t Wait, American Iranian Friendship Committee, ANSWER Coalition, Antiwar.com, Peace of the Action, ComeHomeAmerica.us, St. Pete for Peace, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality-Virginia, WESPAC Foundation, Peace Action Maine, Occupy Myrtle Beach, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, Twin Cities Peace Campaign and Bail Out the People Movement (BOPM).
Individual endorsers include authors David Swanson, “When the World Outlawed War,” and Phil Wilayto, “In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation’s Journey through the Islamic Republic”; and U.N. Human Rights Award winner Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general.
The list is expected to grow steadily as word spreads. Right now people can follow developments on the Facebook link: No War On Iran: National Day of Action Feb 4,http://www.facebook.com/events/214341975322807/.
On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions.
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule. We Move to Amend.
Inspired by our friends at Occupy Wall Street, and Dr. Cornel West, Move To Amend is planning bold action to mark the second anniversary of the infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision!
Occupy the Courtswill be a one day occupation of Federal courthouses across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday January 20, 2012.
Move to Amend volunteers across the USA will lead the charge on the judiciary which created — and continues to expand — corporate personhood rights.
Americans across the country are on the march, and they are marching OUR way. They carry signs that say, “Corporations are NOT people! Money is NOT Speech!” And they are chanting those truths at the top of their lungs! The time has come to make these truths evident to the courts.
Defend Democracy! Stop Gov. Snyder E. Manager! A No Struggle, No Development! Production By Kenny Snodgrass (comments at end of article.)
Marchers demand an end to EM’s in majority-Black cities like Detroit WHAT WILL OBAMA DO?
By Diane Bukowski
January 25, 2011
What will Obama do about PA 4?
DETROIT – This week, U.S. President Barack Obama plans to visit Michigan as part of his campaign kick-off for President in November, 2012, according to recent reports. He is beginning today in Iowa and then will travel to Arizona.
It is unclear if he will come to Detroit, where the city’s residents are in imminent danger of being returned to the status of Blacks in the South prior to the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That movement included the heroic voter registration drives, the integration of the public school systems, and the National Voting Rights Act that Dr. King and hundreds of thousands fought and died for.
President Obama’s visit to Michigan will be a momentous opportunity for the nation’s first Black president. But will he address the fact that Detroit residents are in danger of losing those same voting rights to Emergency Managers, as have the residents of other majority-Black cities in Michigan, and that majority Black school districts are being decimated and replaced by charter schools to What Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did at make way for new “gentrified,” the Edmund Pettus bridge in Alabama white-dominated neighborhoods?
To date, the Voice of Detroit has received only a noncommital response from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Zochitl Hinojosa regarding a letter U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit) sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s Dec.2. The letter asked that the USDOJ open an investigation into violations of the National Voting Rights in Michigan due to Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager, or “Dictator” law as some have termed it. (Click on U-S-Representative-John-Conyers-Jr-s-Letter-to-Attorney-General-Regarding-Michigan-Emergency-Manager-December-1-2011[1] to read letter.)
Thousands of marchers proceed up Geddes Rd. to Gov. Snyder's house at 2016 Valleyview Drive in a wealthy gated community in Superior Township, on MLK day, Jan. 16, 2012
Hinojosa replied on Jan. 23, “We are reviewing the letter and decline further comment at this time.” She implied that no response has yet been sent, almost two months after the letter was received.
On Jan. 24, a member of Conyers’ staff said that his office has not received even a courtesy reply indicating the USDOJ will look into the matter, explaining that they do not comment on investigations until charges are brought. Eighty communities across Michigan are in deficit and many have been for years. However, predominantly white communities do not face the PA4 lash.
Young marchers: MLK wanted "army of the poor"
“As we come to grips with the reality that fully two-thirds of the states in the United States have legislated some form of voter suppression policy, according to Ben Jealous of the National NAACP, clearly Public Act 4 is not just significant in Michigan,” Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said in a recent release. “This is a part of a national agenda to place a chilling effect on the potential electorate of 2012; and the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama.”
Marchers head down Valleyview Drive toward Snyder's house
But therein lies the rub. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The attack on Michigan’s Black electorate, or Obama’s failure to respond to the demands of Blacks in the U.S., by cutting the military budget and ending wars abroad to fund the cities and provide jobs, and to overcome attacks on the voting rights of Black peoople?
“Years ago, WEB Dubois made the decision not to participate in the election because of neither party’s willingness to confront the chronic problems of black unemployment and racial inequality,” Dr. Boyce Watkins, editor of Your Black World.com, said in a recent video conference. “Given that black people are worse off economically than they’ve been in two decades, should the same option be considered today?” (Video at end of story.)
What about the option to devote the people’s energies instead on mass direct action like that initiated by the national Occupy Wall Street movement?
Snyder's residence at 2016 Valleyview Drive is marked in red on aerial map of gated enclave
MLK DAY MARCH ON GOV. SNYDER’S HOUSE: “THE PEOPLE’S ARMY”
Snyder home in at 2016 Valleyview Drive, located at far end of all-white, walled and guarded enclave
On the national Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday Jan. 16, 3,000 Michigan residents came from all over the state to converge on Governor Rick Snyder’s mansion in the exclusive gated community of Valleyview Estates.
Edith Payne, who marched with Dr. King, said “The EM law desecrates the memory of Dr. King and all he died for. Our government needs to obey U.S. and state laws, and Public Act 4 violates those laws.” Payne is one of the litigants in a lawsuit against the act, which Snyder has stalled by getting the state Supreme Court to override the Ingham County Circuit’s right to hold an initial hearing on the suit.
PA4 = RACISM!
It was an awesome spectacle. Marchers chanted, “Who who who are we? We are the people’s army!” and “Dictators and Snyder say good-bye, we’ll run this state and occupy.” They came from Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Inkster, Muskegon Heights, Pontiac, Washtenaw County, and numerous other areas suffering under Snyder’s soft-spoken but dictatorial rule.
Wealthy whites living in the compound brought their children to the gates to see all the Black, working and poor people gathering outside. Snyder never moved to the governor’s mansion because he wanted his daughter to continue attending school in their wealthy district rather than in Lansing, which is 23 percent Black, with a per capita income of only $19, 408.
Young marchers with BAMN were among the most militant
Marchers raised the issue of the $1 billion Michigan budget surplus just announced by Snyder and the state legislature. The surplus resulted from huge cuts in funding for education and revenue-sharing to the cities, and the public assistance cut-offs of tens of thousands of mainly women and children, in a state where jobs are few.
It was a windfall for the banks, which will claim a large part to re-pay the state debt. Like the little pig on a current commercial, corporate executives meanwhile are going “whee, whee, whee” all the way to the bank to celebrate their own $1 billion tax break.
Pastors speak; Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, second from right, cheers but was not heard to speak
Retirees are left paying taxes on their pensions for the first time, as breaks like the homestead property tax rebate are being steadily eliminated, and union contracts are being busted, downgrading workers’ wages and eliminating their benefits.
Marchers chanted, “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” as they proceeded miles down Valleyview Drive to Snyder’s home. “We don’t need emergency managers, we need emergency re-investment,” they shouted, and “We want our money, we want our share!”
Only a few state police guarded Snyder's enclave from entry by marchers.
As Councilwoman JoAnn Watson has repeatedly raised, the state of Michigan owes the city of Detroit over $220 million in revenue-sharing funds, part of a deal negotiated under a previous governor in which the city agreed to cut its income tax rates. Snyder has made the specious argument that he is not obligated to carry out what another governor negotiated. Even though the money would cover Detroit’s expected deficit of $155 million, he said it would only represent a “stopgap measure.”
Marchers on Jan. 16 were barred by only a scarce few state troopers from actually entering the compound, although there was an open walkway gate.
WHAT WOULD DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. HAVE DONE?
Occupy marchers began a sit-in outside Snyder's compound.
Some of the young participants from Occupy Detroit and By Any Means Necessary began an occupation blockading the entrance to the compound, but march organizer Rev. Charles Williams II of the National Action Network told them it was time to leave. He declared the march over by 5:30 pm, although it was supposed to last until 7 p.m. according to his own Facebook posts.
Speeches by Williams, Bullock, and other organizers are featured in the video above, by Kenny Snodgrass, and need not be repeated here.
Snyder's chief of staff talks Snyder-speak to Rev. Williams, who later told marchers to leave as they began a sit-in outside the gates
According to an article in Ann Arbor.com, Williams also spoke politely to Gov. Snyder’s chief of staff Dennis Muchmore during the rally, asking him to relay the marchers’ message to Snyder, who was nowhere to be seen, and who certainly did not welcome marchers to his home.
“We certainly recognize the concerns and we share those concerns, and we want to make sure that all of these cities are vibrant and have got a financial status for the future that can be sustained,” Muchmore told AnnArbor.com afterwards, using Snyder soft-speak.
“I think everybody has a concern about what happens to cities or school districts or townships when they have a problem financially,” he said. “We think that in each of these situations, what we’ve got to do is try to find some kind of common ground between the community to solve the problems. If we can do that, we will do that.”
State worker at march on Governor’s house; public assistance has been cut off to thousands of recipients
Such Snyder soft-speak may be making inroads with some Black politicians, including City Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown who has advocated a “consent agreement,” as Snyder has done. Brown and Council President Charles Pugh met with members of the review team Jan. 24, although Council members JoAnn Watson and Kwame Kenyatta refused to do so, citing the unconstitutionality of Public Act 4.
But during an NAACP “Allies, Activities and Issues” meeting the same day, Pugh’s aide Quantez Pressley said Council members are experiencing doubts about the matter.
“After several conversations with [Snyder] administration officials along with the State Treasurer,” Pressley said, “many Council members are nervous about the prospect of a consent agreement as thethe state envisions it. It looks like an emergency manager under another name.”
Snyder resides in Washtenaw County; residents oppose PA4
The Detroit Public Schools lasted three months in 2008 under a draconian “consent agreement” before former Gov. Jennifer Granholm decided a complete state takeover was in order for a second time.
As Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said last year, “A consent agreement consents to the takeaway, the giveaway of Detroit. It has a trigger that says if you don’t pay your bills on time, or numerous other situations, you end up on a slippery slope to an emergency manager (EM) within seconds. There is nothing to be gained from giving away our city, we don’t have that right.” (Click on VOD story http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/12/31/no-pa-4-consent-agreement-or-em-for-detroit/.)
VOD asked Rev. Maurice Rudd, an ally of Williams, whether their organizations would call for a tactic that would hit the powers that be in their pocketbooks, namely a boycott of Michigan businesses, if the current petition drives and lawsuits to defeat Public Act 4 fail or are stymied by state legislation or the governor.
Valleyview residents go for a stroll during the march.
“We haven’t decided that yet,” Rudd said. Rev. Jesse Jackson of Rainbow:PUSH responded to the idea with an emphatic “No” last September outside Detroit’s state building, during a march against the imminent public assistance cut-offs of thousands.
Marchers from Muskegon included Charles Nash and James Barber
VOD spoke to some of the marchers to get their perspectives.
Charles Nash, a former school board member from Muskegon, now mentors youth for a non-profit agency.
“Muskegon Heights schools have been taken over by an EFM, who is looking at the possible shutdown of our school district, or combining it with another one,” Nash said. “This will cause unemployment, and force students to attendother districts.”
Muskegon Heights is 76.3 percent Black.
“When you destroy the tax base through lay-offs and unemployment, and diminish revenue streams, there will be no more local services,” said James Barber of Muskegon County. “Only the wealthy folks at the top are benefiting.”
Inkster delegation at march
Bishop Walter Starghill Jr, of the Face to Face Outreach Ministries in Inskter, said, “Other cities with financial problems way worse than Inkster, like Allen Park, have not faced EM takeovers. We’ve done everything they asked for, but are still faced with an EM. We want elected officials, not anyone who does not know Inkster and what it can be. We want our share of the state surplus, we pay taxes, but they’re financing everyone else.”
Inkster Mayor Hilliard Hampton
Inkster Mayor Hilliard Hampton said at the NAACP meeting Jan. 24 that the city’s EM review team has now sent its report to State Treasurer Andy Dillon, and that he does not expect positive results. He called on Black mayors all over the state to join forces to stop the racist takeovers.
Inkster is 72.3 percent Black.
The Flint Journal reported that that city’s EM Michael Brown has now sent his financial plan for the city to State Treasurer Andy Dillion, pending release to the public. Brown has already laid off at least ten employees, and terminated the city’s civil service commission and ombudsman office.A young organizer from Flint at the march said Flint is the only city in Michigan which still has an occupy camp. He was among those who sat down outside the gates of Snyder’s enclave to increase the militancy of the protest.
Flint is 56.6 percent Black.
Mari Cruz Lopez was among many youth who attended the march representing the By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) coalition. She read a telling statement from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s. speech to the Aug. 28, 1963 March on Washington.
“In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capitol to cash a check,” Dr. King proclaimed. “When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This was a promise that all men, yes Black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable’ rights of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.
Mari Cruz Lopez reads the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity in this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us on demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. . . .This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality . . . .And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
Video above from Kenny Snodgrass, videographer, whose comments follow:
Sunday January 15, a press conference was held to “Stop The Emergency Manager Law!” This has been used to come into cities having economic crises, but people feel it is only a new way of taking over our cities’ government and taking away our democracy!
A press conference was held at The Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, MI. Some of the people attending were Senior Pastor Charles E. Williams II, Associate Pastor Rev. Charles E. Williams Sr., Rev. Al Sharpton, Congressman John Conyers, Charles Simmons, esq, Associate Minister Sandra Simmons, etc.
Then on Monday they celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday by going to the Governor’s house in the Ann Arbor MI. area, where they rallied and march for the rights of Michigan citizens: Who Will Run The City Of Detroit? People came from Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, Ecorse, Highland Park, Muskegon etc. —
A No Struggle, No Development! Production By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer,
The U.S. police state process that began under the Bush Administration and completed under the Obama Administration, persecutes thousands of innocent citizens known as “targeted individuals,” a term used in the Federal Buerau of Investigation’s secret counterintelligence operation, Cointelpro, according to the Church Committee congressional hearings in the 1970’s.
That intolerable assault by congress and the president, nevertheless officiated martial law in the United States, according tocivil and human rights defenders. It gave the president and military powers to target and silence anyone opposed to police state corruption, to treat them as enemy of the state targeted individuals to be secretly or overtly silenced.
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
Article 9of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” This human right that the U.S. military, CIA and subcontractors have violated in other countries under the Bush and Obama Administrations, is now, under the Obama administration, to be “officially violated” within the U.S.
Innocent targeted individuals persecuted by U.S. Police State
Below is Turley’s list of 10 reasons the U.S. is a police state, condensed with additional attention regarding human rights abuses of innocent targeted individuals. As highlighted below, life in a police state is nothing new to innocent American targets, many of whom have pleaded for years, especially since 2001 when their ranks dramatically began increasing, that their families, friends and public advocates learn about police state targeting tactics and help defend them from their government’s targeting abuses, including assaults with secret weaponry including directed energy weapons (DEWs) and other high-tech abuses in the U.S.
4. Warrantless Searches: The president may now order warrantless surveillance on innocent targeted individuals, including forcing companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the PATRIOT ACT in 2001 and in 2011. Obama extended the power, including searching everything related to a targeted individual, “from business documents to library records.” The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens – and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party,as targeted individuals have consistently reported since 2011.
Joseph Weekley shot 7-year-old Aiyana Jones, to death May 16, 2011, as depicted by artist
5. Secret Evidence: The government routinely uses secret evidence to detain targeted individuals and uses secret evidence in federal and military courts. “It forces dismissal of cases against the U.S. by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm ‘national security,’ as claimed in various privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question.” Even legal opinions have been classified, allowing government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. Some cases never get to court and Federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs. Civil and human rights defender organizations have called to expose and expunge innocent targeted individuals on watch lists subjected to persecution, a call that officials have dismissed to date.
(VOD: In the case of the Detroit police murder of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7, on May 16, 2010, killer cop Joseph Weekley’s charges of “involuntary manslaughter” were brought in a secret grand jury proceeding, while her father Charles Jones faces charges of first-degree murder. Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/10/31/child-killer-cop-weekleys-trial-set-for-april-30-2012-in-death-of-aiyana-stanley-jones/ along with other VOD stories on Aiyana, accessible by putting “Aiyana” in the search engine.)
6. War Crimes: World-wide pressure to prosecute officials responsible for torturing, including waterboarding, “terrorism suspects” during the Bush administration was dismissed by the Obama administration in 2009, saying it would prevent CIA employees from being investigated or prosecuted for torture and related war crimes, violating U.S. treaty obligations and Nuremberg principles of international law, all based on human rights. When courts in Spain and other countries moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials to prevent them, despite U.S. historically claiming the same authority regarding alleged war criminals in other countries. The torture business is lucrative. Continue reading →
In another venue, Metro Times columnist Jack Lessenberry launched a vicious pro-Snyder attack on Detroit, calling for Detroit not only to have an emergency manager, but to be folded wholesale into Wayne County. He claimed that none of Detroit’s Black leaders have come forward with a real alternative to Detroit’s economic crisis. He said the city administration has been borrowing money irresponsibly and cannot be trusted to resolve its own issues. 
