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. 

Jackson was also in town to attend Rainbow:PUSH’s Global Automotive Summit at the MGM Grand Casino the following week, during which he wined and dined with the world’s top auto executives. Autoworkers later expressed their views on the matter during a protest outside the “International Detroit Auto Show.” (Click on  http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/01/13/workers-demand-good-jobs-for-all-no-detroit-takeover-outside-auto-show/ ) 

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:

23 Jun 1963, Detroit, Michigan, USA --- Martin Luther King Jr Leading March in Detroit --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

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,

Author of From Victimization To Empowerment… eBook available at http://ebookstore.sony.com/search?keyword=Kenneth+Snodgrass

www.YouTube.com/KennySnod http://www.trafford.com/07-0913

Discussion between Dr. Boyce Watkins and Yvette Carnell on her article at http://www.yourblackworld.com/2012/01/23/yvette-carnell-on-president-obama-and-the-black-community-what-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/

Deborah Dupre

Human Rights Examiner

January 15, 2012 – Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates. 

http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/10-human-rights-abuses-that-show-u-s-is-police-state?CID=examiner_alerts_article

The United States is officially under military dictatorship, martial law, a police state, as detailed in the Jan. 15 Washington Post article, “10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free,” in which Jonathan Turley listed the ten actions that United States leaders, past and present, have taken to replace human rights with a police state.

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.

Human Rights First attorney Raha Wala

Obama signing the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 (NDAA 2012) on New Year’s Eve was an “intolerable” action according to one of the nation’s key human rights leaders and U.S. Justice Party presidential candidate Rocky Anderson. It was a “historical assault” on the nation according to Turley within hours of the signing and “beyond disappointing” according to Human Rights First advocacy counsel Raha Wala. 

That intolerable assault by congress and the president, nevertheless officiated martial law in the United States, according to civil 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.

President Barack Obama proclaimed human rights week 2011 as Sen. Levin revealed on the Senate Floor that, in what constitutes treason and flagrant breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly Article 9, it was Obama who required stripping Americans of their rights in the NDAA 2012.

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

Article 9 of 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.

Detroit's Imam Luqman Abdullah

1. Assassination of U.S. Citizens: President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen “considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism,” (an individual opposed to regime corruption or one placed on a watch-list for revenge). Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen he considers allied with terrorists. Assassination requires spying to determine the whereabouts of a target to kill him or her. DEWs can be employed for secret assassinations. (VOD ed.: e.g. the assassination of Imam Luqman Abdullah in Detroit in 2009; click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2010/10/16/family-religious-and-civil-rights-leaders-outraged-after-doj-exonerates-imam-luqman-abdullah%e2%80%99s-killers/) 

2. Indefinite Detention: Under the NDAA 2012, the law Obama signed on New Year’s Eve 2011, the military can hold targeted individual terrorism suspects and the president has authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While Sen. Carl Levin insisted the NDAA bill followed existing law, “whatever the law is,” the Senate rejected an amendment that would exempt citizens. The Administration opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal court and continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”) 

Bradley Manning, accused of being Wikileaks source, faces military tribunal

3. Arbitrary Justice: The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001. Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.) VOD: click on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-16539409 for the latest on the Bradley Manning military trial.

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 →

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, Washington, D.C.

By Greg Thrasher, VOD Washington DC Bureau contributing editor planeidea@msn.com

January 15, 2012

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ordered a correction to a badly mangled quotation from Martin Luther King Jr. inscribed in granite on the Tidal Basin memorial to the slain civil rights leader.

Salazar has told the National Park Service to consult with the memorial foundation and the King family and to report back to him within 30 days with a plan to fix the carved excerpt. Yet for many this is not enough. Instead of just some minor clerical repairs to the quotation additional quotes and words that reflect the total work of MLK, which included a focus on racial injustice must be a part of the National Park Service’s repairs to the monument. 

The future of Black youth is still gravely imperiled by racism, poverty, destruction of public education, police brutality and mass incarceration

What many people don’t know is that presently none of the quotes on the King memorial mention race nor any words about King’s body of work in America’s civil rights movement. King’s work which encompassed major protests against racial injustice and inequality are not reflected nor present as quotes on the King Monument. To officially ignore the core work of Dr. King is not only a national disgrace but almost Orwellian in construction and design. This omission of Dr. King’s civil rights legacy is an affront to the holiday and the King Memorial.
 
It is shocking to discover that this was deliberate and intentional to not insert any verbiage or words, quotes which recognize the real life work and mission of MLK. This deliberate omission of acknowledgment of King’s body of work in the arena of racial justice reflects a contempt in part for Black Americans . The mission of MLK encompassed more than a kum ba ya cultural drive feeling.  MLK’s work was all about racial injustice as well as concerns about the poor and ending the war in Vietnam.
 
Instead of minor clerical repairs to the King Memorial is it is incumbent that the King Memorial reflect authentic truth and the reality of King’s life and body of work. We must demand a complete portrait of MLK on his memorial not a pc driven almost censored view of the truth about the mission of MLK. 

From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

 “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.”

Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech:

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”

VIDEO BY OCCUPY DETROIT

By Diane Bukowski

January 11, 2012

 DETROIT – As the state speeds towards a train wreck takeover of Detroit, corporate executives and journalists from all over the world are living it up at the gala North American International Auto Show (NAIAS, in the city that is the birthplace of the auto industry. 

Most reporters have said nothing regarding the workers who built the cars that are on glitzy display at the show. They have also ignored the devastation the Big Three automakers have wrought on Detroit over the last four decades. They did not note that profits from events at Cobo Hall like the auto show have been stolen from Detroiters by a regional authority.  

Protester demands companies that leave Detroit should pay tax penalties

 But the Autoworkers Caravan, including workers from all over Michigan as well as Toledo, Ohio, marched outside the show Jan. 8, loudly demanding  jobs at a living wage for all, and a halt to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s move to install an emergency manager over this historic city. 

They chanted, “Wages down, profits high, what do you do? Occupy!” recalling the historic 1937  Flint sit-down strike which led to the formation of the United Auto Workers union, and  “The city of Detroit is under attack; what do we do—stand up, fight back!”  

Protesters demanded jobs and self-determination for Detroiters

“There has been a whole frontal attack on the working-class,” said Martha Grevatt. She has been a Chrysler autoworker since 1987, first in Ohio, and now at the Warren Stamping Plant outside Detroit. 

“Contracts are shoved down our throats,” Grevatt explained. “They are instituting alternative work schedules which are an attack on the eight- hour day. Wages are frozen for the next four years and they are cutting holidays. A shorter work week is needed.  In the 30’s, a primary demand of the Flint sit-down strike was a six-hour day, to employ more people. We stand in solidarity with Fiat and Chrysler workers in Italy and Canada, where Sergio Marchionne, CEO of both companies, is demanding that they take the same concessions U.S. workers have. He is threatening to close their plants and move them to countries like Serbia—global whipsawing.”

(See VOD article—http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/12/13/italys-unions-on-strike-against-austerity-measures/.) 

The Big Three used whipsawing to drastically downsize Detroit by shutting down its main economic base, the auto plants, since 1970, and moving them to non-unionized areas of the U.S. and overseas. 

Historic Dodge Main plant, home of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM)

 “In 1960 there were 35 major auto plants in and around the Motor City—including such well-known operations as the Ford Rouge complex, GM’s Cadillac plant and Dodge Main—employing well over 110,000 workers,” a research paper from the World Socialist Website (WSWS.org) says.  “Today, there are 14, employing less than 22,000 workers, including many earning half the traditional wages—$14 or even $12 an hour, compared to $28. All told, the restructuring of the auto industry has led to a 70 percent drop in Michigan’s auto-related employment since 1989.”  Continue reading →

 In the tradition of Dr. King, we are going to stand in solidarity and fight for the promise of our democratic freedom. In this spirit, we urge you to join us on Monday, January 16, 2012. For those interested in attending the march there are buses leaving from several locations around the state and returning to those locations. Please pick a location convenient to you and call that site location listed below. 

This photo shows Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's home near Ann Arbor. Snyder said that he's staying in his home so his daughter doesn't have to change schools. Snyder plans to use the official governor’s residence in Lansing for meetings and receptions. (AP Photo/Kathy Barks Hoffman)

In response to Michigan leaders passing the Emergency Manager law that allows the state to appoint CEO’s with absolute control and continuing to deny democracy to the 170,000 plus voters that have [so far] signed the petition to repeal Public Act 4 by the Michigan Senate passing S865, we are sending out a call to action for all Americans to Occupy Superior Township for Democracy. 

(VOD ed. note: The Michigan Senate passed SB 865(1) on Dec. 15, 2011 after speeding wildly from its introduction on Dec. 1. It is now in the House. The bill essentially creates a substitute means for the Governor and Treasurer to maintain continued control of municipalities that have emergency managers, even if sufficient valid signatures for the referendum to repeal Public Act 4 have been collected. Click on Analysis of SB 865 as passed by the Senate 2011-SFA-0865-B[1]and on PA 4 2011-SCVBS-0865-9088[1] for the full text of the bill.) 

Benton Harbor rally: Wanda Hill of Detroit and George Moon of BH demand REPEAL PUBLIC ACT 4

This will be a peaceful non-violent assembly. The rally will include citizens, labor, clergy and elected officials from around the state of Michigan. Our drop point is WASHTENAW COMMUNITY COLLEGE, 4800 E. Huron Drive, Ypsilanti, Michigan. Upon meeting there we will march to the gates of Governor Snyder’s neighborhood. [The map is posted at the bottom of this article.] 

Thank you to the event’s supporters: Jobs with Justice, UAW, MEA, USWA, Sugar Law Center, Labor Notes, AFSCME, elected officials all over the state, ministers and clergy from Detroit, Highland Park, Flint, Benton Harbor, Lansing, Inkster, Muskegon, Welfare Rights and ant-poverty advocates, Occupy Detroit, NAACP and many more.:

BELOW ARE DETAILS OF BUS SITES AND MAP OF MARCH ROUTE: Continue reading →

 Florida’s drug testing program was ruled unconstiutional by a Federal judge. Gov. Rick Scott’s wife owns a chain of clinics doing the testing. A similar pilot program in Michigan in 2003 was tossed out by the Michigan Supreme Court.

State Rep. Jeff Farrington (R-Utica), House assistant majority floor leader

(VOD: Michigan Rep. Jeff Farrington (R-Utica), house assistant majority floor leader, introduced H.B. 5223 in Dec. 2011, which would require that all recipients of public assistance be drug tested and denied benefits if the tests are positive. (Click on Welfare drug testing 2011-HIB-5223[1]) The Department of Human Services has now drafted a proposal for such testing.

Individual hearings on the cut-offs of thousands of families from assistance are continuing. According to advocates from Michigan Legal Services, administrative law judges are ruling against the recipients.

The Senate Fiscal Analysis division just released a report predicting that the state will have a budget SURPLUS this year of almost $1 BILLION. It is time for the state’s unions, churches, community groups and others to unite in support of these victims of corporate greed, which has eliminated hundreds of thousands of jobs in Michigan.

Below is a column by a University of Houston doctoral candidate.

Mandatory drug testing of welfare recipients is unconstitutional

By Marc Anderson

Published on: Wednesday, October 19, 2011

State House during vote to cut off public assistance; WHY NOT TEST LEGISLATORS FOR DRUGS?

Under the guise of ensuring prudent government spending and personal accountability, state Legislatures across the country are proposing that mandatory drug testing be a condition for receiving welfare assistance. Everything from food stamps to unemployment benefits would be awarded only after screening for illicit drug use, and supporters are championing this measure as a sensible means of preventing the waste of tax-payers’ dollars on “junkies” and “addicts.”

Whatever the intent, such drug testing policies violate the constitutional rights of those who are already facing financial hardship and simply will not stand up against legal challenge.

Courts have ruled that drug testing constitutes an unreasaonable search; here a technician tests urine taken under mandate.

In previous cases, the US Supreme Court has ruled that drug testing constitutes a form of search, and when carried out by a government agency, falls under the regulation of the fourth amendment. As a result, the prerequisite of probable cause must exist prior to conducting a drug test. Such conditions must be met on a case by case basis, and the blanket approach of screening all welfare applicants is overly presumptive.

In essence, states are taking the position that all welfare applicants are suspected drug users and are subject to being searched. There is no reasonable basis for such suspicion, hence the conviction that this form of obligatory drug testing is illegal. Continue reading →