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

On May 18, 2011, Bank of America, Citi and Chase, three of the largest racist, predatory lenders in Detroit, along with Fannie Mae, the government agency that bails out the banks with every foreclosure and does most of the evictions of homeowners at 36th District Court, sponsored a conference about continuing their takeover of Detroit through their front organization, “NeighborWorks.” Mayor Dave Bing opened the conference, spelling out his agenda of cutting public services and the wages and jobs of city workers to pay off the city’s massive debt service to the banks. Even some of the attendees joined the protest, called by Moratorium NOW!

No cuts by Snyder, Bing, or Council; no EM!

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – All over the world, poor and working people are rising up against the International Monetary Fund and the international banks. During the G-20 summit held last June in Toronto, Canada, in the midst of a global economic crisis, government officials announced it was time to reduce multi-trillion dollar budget deficits blowing up like nuclear bombs everywhere.

The simplest way to reduce the debt, of course, would have been to quit paying it, as Third World nations have been demanding for decades. But that was not on the agenda of the G-20. Instead, plans were laid to chop down the very pillars of civilization, services and infrastructure meant to fulfill basic human needs: housing, schools, hospitals, public transportation, even water and food.

Protesters rose up in Toronto, burning police cars and battering banks. Prior to Toronto, and since then, the world’s people have targeted the banks everywhere, in massive protests from Ireland to the Philippines, from Mexico to Africa. They know who the enemy is and they are mobilizing.

But here in Detroit, we have been awfully slow to learn.

An example is the current debate over the city of Detroit budget, taking place with the threat of Public Act 4 hovering overhead like a giant vulture. No matter that Bing is flapping one wing of the vulture while Gov. Rick Snyder flaps the other wing.

Tashi Kiya demands: Cut debt service!

Both Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council are busy laying the blame for the city’s alleged budgetary crisis at the feet of public workers, their wages, pensions, and benefits, and the money spent on services for Detroiters. Meanwhile, even some so-called progressives are diverting the fight by creating imaginary castles in the air where Detroiters will live in green spaces, return to farming, and resurrect underground creeks flowing to the Detroit River that were covered over more than a century ago.

The City Council as a whole wants to cut even more from the budget than Bing, a scenario that has happened for several years now. Oh, for the days when Maryann Mahaffey and others did battle with the Mayor to advocate for the people and the workers.

Today, both the Mayor and the Council are missing the elephant in the room.

After a huge set-to with the Council, Bing finally coughed up a 440 page “Deficit Elimination Plan,” mainly filled with mind-boggling charts and diagrams that will lead to permanent crossing of the eyes if studiously read all the way through.

“Our latest forecast . . . . shows that if we take no action our annual deficits will grow from the $53MM projected in 2010/11 to $337MM by FY 2016; with an accumulated deficit of $1.5 B by 2016,” Bing says.

Bing and bosom buddy Snyder

“ . . . .We have shared the data with Council members and met with budget staff early in the debate. We have also met with State Executive Officials including the Governor, the Treasurer, and their team to communicate our analysis, the 2012 budget and the deficit elimination plan.”

Bing then proceeds to unveil his plan, the Bing-Snyder plan. It boils down to getting more out of the little people by hook or by crook or by PA 4.

Bing plans to turn the city around and end up in surplus status by 2015 through the following measures:

• 

  AFSCME protest 2010

  First and foremost, reducing pension and medical costs; if the unions don’t agree by Sept. 1, 2011, the PA 4 vulture will darken the skies. Remember, many pensioners make only a few hundred a month if they retired before 1994, and many current workers are at poverty-level wages after years of wage concessions. The pension systems have already agreed to defer this year’s payments due from the city.

• More lay-offs, wage cuts and furlough days, further reducing available services as well as the city’s tax base.
• Increasing property tax collection by $5 million at a time when Detroiters continue to be thrown out of their homes right and left by the banks.
• A gain of $17 million by hiking the income tax rate for individuals back to 2.5 percent, under an agreement with Snyder, through legislation introduced by Rep. David Nathan (D-Detroit). What income? The plan says the official unemployment rate in Detroit is 22 percent, but we ALL know that MOST of the folks in poor communities are out of work.

• 

  Federal assistance line in Detroit

  Compuware (wonder how much Bing is paying them to do so) is coming up with a plan to shake loose $154.9 million from resident non-filers, $21.8 million from corporations, and $6.5 million from commuter non-filers. Again, how many residents are working?

• Taxing the casinos more? Don’t be fooled. Bing is not talking about taxing casino PROFITS, but about taxing INDIVIDUAL WINS. Poor little senior citizens.

• 

  DTE protest Photo by Daymon Hartley

  Restoring the utility tax of 5 percent. That’s NOT a tax on the utilities like DTE, which makes billions every year in profits. That’s a tax on the utility USERS. Is Bing insane? How many Detroiters have their utilities shut-off now because they can’t afford to pay their bills, let alone pay an additional tax?

• Outsourcing Public Lighting Department (virtually already done, with Detroit paying DTE big bucks for its power.)
• Outsourcing DPW—more profits for mob-controlled waste management companies.
• Regionalizing D-DOT and reducing the city subsidy to this enterprise agency. What will happen to the jobs of D-DOT workers and the taxes THEY pay? What will happen to Detroit commuters and their routes—who will control where the routes go and who gets the jobs?

• 

  City and county workers protest Bing, Ficano

  Consolidation of Health Department, Buildings and Safety, police lock-ups with Wayne County. Ficano is already at war with his workers—more of the same, fewer jobs.

• Combining the Recreation Department with DPS, already experiencing dissolution.
• And etc.

 The one thing Bing makes clear he will not cut is (bated breath here) – THE CITY’S DEBT PAYMENTS TO THE BANKS.

And herein lies the true insanity. If there was ever a time for a solution posed by former Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy during the Depression years of the 1930’s – a moratorium on debt to the banks, IT IS NOW!  If not now, when? When the banks are blazing in the skies, having fallen victim to the just wrath of the people?

Just look at the city’s own figures on its debt, taken from the 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. THE CITY’S TOTAL DEBT TO THE BANKS AS OF 2010 WAS $7.7 BILLION, more than seven times this year’s budget of $1.2 billion:

But the chart above does not show the real picture, because it takes into account only the principal on the city’s debt to the banks.

READ THE CHART BELOW AND WEEP, BUT THEN RISE UP—DEMAND AT LEAST A MORATORIUM ON THE INTEREST ON DETROIT’S DEBT TO THE BANKS!  THE BANKS HAVE DESTROYED DETROIT, NOT ONLY THROUGH FORECLOSURES, BUT THROUGH USURIOUS INTEREST RATES AND OTHER PRACTICES.

Adding the figures below, from the 2010 CAFR, the city paid a total of $433,691,964 in debt to the banks in 2011. Of that, $216,418,043 was in interest alone. THE INTEREST ALONE IS FOUR TIMES MORE THAN FOUR TIMES THE 2011 DEFICIT BING CITES! The U.S. government has bailed out the banks to the tune of trillions of dollars–TIME FOR PAYBACK!



From the Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee (JAJC)

Detroit

• Gross mismanagement
• Lack of oversight
• Passing the buck

Pros. Kym Worthy asks City Council for money for her own crime lab investigation, May 11, 2009; thousands of prisoners are still waiting for their cases to be reviewed; Worthy's office has said it destroyed all of its files prior to 1995

Sounds familiar?  The Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee (JAJC) views the Detroit Police Department Crime Lab debacle as a reflection of the worst aspects that occurred in the Aiyana Jones murder case.   In her public role, Kym Worthy is becoming the Lady Macbeth of Wayne County.  Just like Lady Macbeth tried to minimize the crimes of her famous husband, Kym Worthy is seeking to minimize the problems endemic inside the Detroit Police Department. 

But, just as Banquo’s Ghost returned to haunt the house of Lady Macbeth, so too does Aiyana Jones keep returning from the grave to plead for justice.  Lady Macbeth could not wash her hands clean of her misdeeds, and neither can Kym Worthy wash her hands clean of the responsibility for not providing justice for Aiyana Jones. 

Rodrick Carrington, Lamar Grable, Darren Miller, victims of serial killer cop Eugene Brown

Aiyana Jones

Malice Green

defenseless Detroiters.”  Lawrence goes on to explain that this has created a climate that allows media pundits close to the Bing and previous administrations to spin these tragedies in order to downplay their culpability.  The only good that might come out of all of this is that the community will have a chance to start anew as all of these players, regardless of their rank, status and history, are shown the door.

Voters and Community Groups Intervening in Suit to Ensure that All New Yorkers Are Equally Represented in State and Local Legislatures

May 20th, 2011

Albany, NY – This week, top civil rights organizations filed a motion in New York Supreme Court asking to intervene to help defend New York’s new law allocating people in prison to their home communities for redistricting and reapportionment.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Center for Law and Social Justice, D?mos, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Prison Policy Initiative, representing fifteen rural and urban voters and three statewide nonprofit organizations, are seeking to defend the new law against a legal challenge brought by New York State Senator Elizabeth Little and others. 

The lawsuit, titled Little v. LATFOR, names the New York State Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) and the Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) as defendants.

Why have Michigan legislators done nothing to count prisoners in home districts?

The new law requires that incarcerated persons be counted as residents of their home communities, in accordance with the New York State Constitution’s provision that incarceration does not change one’s residence. The legislation applies to state and local legislative redistricting, and would not affect federal funding distributions.

Previously, legislative districts with prisons were credited with the population of the disenfranchised people temporarily incarcerated there. This practice, often called prison-based gerrymandering, gives extra influence to voters who live in the district with the most prisons, and dilutes the votes of every resident of a district with no (or fewer) prisons. The new law corrects this bias and assures that all communities in New York have equal representation in our government.

The most dramatic examples of prison-based gerrymandering are in upstate counties and cities.  For example, half of a Rome City Council ward is incarcerated, giving the residents of that ward twice the influence of other city residents. Recognizing the distorting effect of prison-based gerrymandering at the local level, thirteen New York counties with large prisons – including four in Senator Little’s district – have historically exercised their discretion to remove the prison populations prior to redistricting.

The new law brings consistency to redistricting in New York, prohibiting the state and all local governments from giving extra political influence to districts that contain prisons. Sen. Little’s lawsuit seeks to have the new legislation struck down, the effect of which would require  legislative districts – most notably her own, which contains 12,000 incarcerated persons – to include prison populations in their apportionment counts to the detriment of all other districts without prisons.  Returning to this practice would not only unfairly inflate the districts of those with prisons at the expense of those without but also violate the New York State Constitution.
The organizations seeking to intervene include:

• 

  Hazel Dukes, Pres. New York NAACP

  The NAACP New York State Conference, the state-level body in New York of the NAACP, a membership organization dedicated to protecting and enhancing the civil rights of African Americans and other people of color. The Conference has approximately 90,000 members statewide. “Persons incarcerated in correctional institutions do not participate in the life of the town or county where they are incarcerated,” said Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference. “Sen. Little and her co-plaintiffs are seeking to reverse one of New York’s most important civil rights advances in the previous decade, which would unfairly dilute the voting rights of New Yorkers in every corner of the state.”

• 

  Susan Lerner

  Common Cause/NY, the New York branch of Common Cause, a nationwide, nonpartisan organization with 20,000 members in New York State that advocates for honest, accountable, and responsive government. “The way legislative district lines are drawn impacts citizens’ ability to participate effectively in our democracy,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause / NY. “Prison-based gerrymandering is a fundamentally unfair practice whose end was met with overwhelming applause. Voters in every region of the state would be hurt by a repeal of the new law.”

• 

  VOCAL members Brian Pearson and Ramon Velasquez speak with Gov. Paterson after he voted at 134th St. and Lenox Ave. on November 2, 2010

  Voices of Community Activists and Leaders – New York, or VOCAL -NY, a statewide grassroots membership organization building power among low-income people who are living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, drug use and incarceration, along with the organizations that serve them, to create healthy and just communities. “Many of our members live in communities that are heavily impacted by the criminal justice system and have a disproportionate number of residents sent to state prison,” said Ramon Velasquez, a VOCAL-NY leader. “Every district that has fewer prisons than Senator Little’s district loses representation from prison-based gerrymandering, but the districts that see many of their members counted in prison lose even more.” 

 
By the CNN Wire Staff

May 22, 2011 11:56 a.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• McKinney says she was invited by the “nongovernmental organization for fact-finding”
• McKinney: “Last thing we need to do is spend money on death, destruction and war”
• McKinney: “I think that it’s very important that people understand what is happening here”
• State TV is fiercely loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

QUOTE FROM GREEN PARTY LEADER CYNTHIA MCKINNEY IN LIBYA:

“I want to say categorically and very clearly that these policies of war … are not what the people of the United States stand for and it’s not what African-Americans stand for,” she told state TV.

(CNN) — A former U.S. congresswoman slammed U.S. policy on Libyan state TV late Saturday and stressed the “last thing we need to do is spend money on death, destruction and war.”

The station is fiercely loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and her interview was spliced with what appeared to be rallies in support of the embattled Libyan leader.

“I think that it’s very important that people understand what is happening here. And it’s important that people all over the world see the truth. And that is why I am here … to understand the truth,” former Rep. Cynthia McKinney said during a live interview.

She said she was invited to Libya by the “nongovernmental organization for fact-finding,” adding that she intends to bring more people to the country soon so that “they too can understand.”

NATO warplanes have been pounding military targets since March after the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution to protect civilians by any means necessary, as Gadhafi’s forces try to quash a nearly three-month revolt against the leader’s roughly 42 years of rule.

Gadhafi’s government has repeatedly urged the international community to send fact-finding teams to Libya to report what’s happening on the ground.

eAt one point during the interview, state TV cut to what it said were live airstrikes, hitting Gadhafi’s compound.

“Is that a bomb?” McKinney asked.

“I want to say categorically and very clearly that these policies of war … are not what the people of the United States stand for, and it’s not what African-Americans stand for,” she told state TV.

The former Georgia representative also slammed the economic policies of U.S. President Barack Obama and said the government of the United States no longer represents the interests of the American people.

“Under the economic policies of the Obama administration, those who have the least are losing the most. And those who have the most are getting even more,” she said. “The situation in the United States is becoming more dire for average ordinary Americans, and the last thing we need to do is to spend money on death, destruction and war.”

Separately, McKinney appeared on state-run Press TV this week in Iran. She was reported to be in Tehran attending the International Conference on Global Alliance Against Terrorism for a Just Peace.

https://youtu.be/qGaoXAwl9kw

by Sean O'Neal May 28, 2011

Published on AV Club

(VOD ed. note: I was stunned and heartbroken when I woke up this morning to the news that Gil Scott-Heron had died at the age of 62. We were the same age. He was a hero of unparalleled stature to my generation. His profound and unique soul, his love for the people, and the fact that he never left them for fame and fortune are his legacy, along with his songs. All of them are available on line for free. The following biography was the best I could find, along with videos of his songs. We love you Gil, and we will carry you in our hearts forever.)

 News broke last night of the death of Gil Scott-Heron, the influential writer, poet, and musician whose marriage of politically charged spoken verse, propulsive rhythm, and blues and soul textures paved the way for hip-hop (though he would often reject that notion). The cause of death was not immediately made public, although his publicist said that he had taken ill shortly after returning from a European trip. He was 62.

“I’ll take care of U” Jan. 2011, from “I’m new here”

Scott-Heron started out as a devotee of the poet and novelist Langston Hughes, moving from his Jackson, Tennessee hometown—where he was raised after being born in Chicago—to study at Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University, where Hughes had matriculated. It was there that Scott-Heron would write two early novels, The Vulture and The Nigger Factory, the first being published when he was only 19. He also formed the band Black & Blues with Brian Jackson, who would become one of his most frequent collaborators throughout the 1970s.

His first album, 1970’s Small Talk At 125th At Lenox, was recorded live at a nightclub at the titular address, with Scott-Heron (proclaimed on the cover as “A New Black Poet”) reciting his fiery verse over a minimalist backing of congas, piano, and guitar. It contains two of Scott-Heron’s most famous works: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “Whitey On The Moon.” The latter was a mordant bit of street-level social commentary in which Scott-Heron contrasted the government’s recent triumph of the moon landing with the very real problems that were left behind here on Earth (“Was all that money I made last year / For whitey on the moon?”).

Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b54rB64fXY4 to watch video of “We Almost Lost Detroit,” which discusses how DTE’s Monroe nuclear power plant almost melted down in 1966.

“Spirit” album with “Message to the Messengers”

And “Revolution”—which became even more popular after a full band re-recorded version was released in 1971—offered a dizzying array of pop culture references in its sly satire of a nation distracted by movie stars and sitcoms and the empty promises of consumerism, its wake-up call (and titular refrain) becoming a touchstone for generations of activists, poets, and musicians.

Scott-Heron’s incredible run of 13 albums in the ’70s and early ’80s, beginning with 1971’s more musically oriented Pieces Of A Man and continuing through 1982’s Moving Target, made him a critical darling, though widespread popularity eluded him. His essential 1974 album Winter In America came closest to breaking him through to a mainstream audience, thanks to the success of Caribbean-flavored single “The Bottle” (a song that’s been sampled by many hip-hop artists over the years, from the Jungle Brothers to De La Soul) and a jazz-fusion sound that incorporated African and funk rhythms. Many critics and artists over the years have pointed to Winter In America as a sort of blueprint for the hip-hop and neo-soul that would soon spring up in its wake.

Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b2F-XX0Ol0 for music video of “The Bottle.” Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VqGWfq0Btg for “Pieces of a Man.”

“The Bottle” from Pieces of a Man

For his part, Scott-Heron always rejected the notion that he had anything to do with hip-hop, preferring to call his music “bluesology,” and even occasionally saying that he didn’t want to “take the blame” for what rap would become. He would address his uneasy relationship with the genre he helped inspire most directly on 1994’s “Message To The Messengers”: The opening track on Spirits, Scott-Heron’s first album since taking a nearly 12-year break from recording, “Message” acknowledged that hip-hop was coming from the same place as the street poetry movement he’d been a part of alongside people like The Last Poets and The Watts Prophets, with Scott-Heron offering them some sage advice from the elder generation.

Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaD-FKIfYgk to listen to “Message to the Messengers.”

Album cover “Pieces of a Man”

“We got respect for you rappers and the way they be free-weighin’” he said, “But if you’re gon’ be teachin’ folks things, make sure you know what you’re sayin’”—urging them to learn “the real deal about past situations,” preach a message of peace to “all them gun-totin’ young brothers” killing each other, and clean up all the derogatory rhymes aimed at objectifying women.

While not everyone in the rap community heeded his words, obviously, Scott-Heron nevertheless became a hero to scores of hip-hop artists over the years, championed by everyone from Chuck D to Kanye West (who most recently sampled “Comment #1,” from Scott Heron’s debut, on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s “Who Will Survive In America”). And thus Scott-Heron remained a looming cult figure throughout the ’90s and beyond, even as his career was often derailed by problems with drugs, which led to two incarcerations for cocaine possession in the last decade as he struggled openly with his addictions.

Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJJi0k8wPhc for music video of “The Needle’s Eye” from album “Pieces of a Man.”

Nevertheless, Scott-Heron remained active in his later years, enjoying a renaissance in 2010 with the acclaimed, XL-released I’m New Here, which set his words to minimalist electronic music by producer Richard Russell. It’s a dark and haunting album, full of some of Scott-Heron’s most autobiographically searching material ever, and at times it borders on weary elegy in its ruminations on his own mortality. The black pall that hangs over it was lifted somewhat by the follow-up remix We’re New Here, in which The xx’s Jamie Smith provides new context with slightly brighter samples, turning the eulogy into something downright exuberant at times. Taken as a pair, both albums provide a fitting bookend to Scott-Heron’s musical worldview, which wallowed in street grime but found the hope and beauty in it too. Listening to either would make a worthy tribute to the man today—as would, of course, any of the other albums we’ve talked about here, or any that we didn’t mention, all of which are essential pieces of Scott-Heron’s legacy.

Gil Scott-Heron lives on

To listen to more Gil Scott Heron songs, only a small part of his vast repertoire, click on the links below:

Mexican workers protest against union-busting bill

By Dan La Botz

April 25, 2011

(Ed. note: the unions that stopped the bill are independent of the country’s parties. Recent actions against PA 4 in Michigan have been carried out by unions in league with the Democratic Party. See upcoming story on Benton Harbor protest against Gov. Rick Snyder May 7, whose organizers ruled out targeting Whirlpool for its corporate takeover of the city.)

Independent unions in Mexico, including the embattled electrical workers (SME), forced legislators to shelve their union-busting bill with weeks of protest.

Tens of thousands demonstrated for weeks against a right-wing attempt to destroy union rights in the legislature. They appear to have stopped the bill, at least for now.

 No, this is not Wisconsin but Mexico, where employers and the official government-connected unions joined with a center-right party (the PRI) to push a law that would virtually dismantle workers’ rights despite longstanding constitutional protections. Continue reading →

Smoke rises above buildings in Tripoli early on Tuesday after numerous heavy explosions, reportedly from NATO airstrikes, were heard in the Libyan capital. Louafi Larbi/Reuters

Smoke wafts over the city, including from an area close to the Gadhafi compound  

msnbc.com news services 5/23/2011  

TRIPOLI, Libya — NATO warplanes bombarded targets in Tripoli with more than 20 airstrikes early Tuesday, striking around Moammar Gadhafi’s residential compound in what appeared to be the heaviest night of bombing of the Libyan capital since the Western alliance launched its air campaign against his forces.

(Click on  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fUxVgxj0vc to hear specialist discuss how war against Libya has long been planned. Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeSjEOY2fd8&feature=share to see video of extensive protests in Libya against bombing and in support of Libyan leader Gadhafi.)

The rapid string of strikes, all within less than half an hour, set off thunderous booms that rattled windows, sent heavy, acrid-smelling plumes of smoke over the city, including from an area close to Gadhafi’s sprawling Bab al-Aziziya compound.

Libya bombing May 23

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said at least three people were killed and dozens wounded in NATO strikes that targeted what he described as buildings used by volunteer units of the Libyan army.

NATO said in a statement that a number of the strikes hit a vehicle storage facility adjacent to Bab al-Aziziya that has been used in supplying regime forces “conducting attacks on civilians.” It was not immediately clear if the facility was the only target hit in the barrage. Bab al-Aziziya, which includes a number of military facilities, has been pounded repeatedly by NATO strikes.

Libyans protest NATO bombing

The military aircraft whooshed low over the city during the night, the strikes coming in series of three loud booms, a pause of minutes punctuated by the hissing sound of low-flying jets, then more shaking, shuddering strikes, shaking windows miles away from Bab al-Aziziya. The sound of other more distant explosions could also be heard.

Pro-Gadhafi loyalists beeped their car horns and fired guns, shouting their support for the Libyan leader. Armed men sprayed the night sky with gunfire in response. Men screamed and shouted outside the hotel where journalists were staying, declaring their loyalty to Gadhafi.

Baby injured by NATO in Libya

Observers described the bombing as the heaviest attack on the Libyan capital since NATO began its air campaign on March 19 after the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution to protect civilians after Gadhafi responded to the public uprising against his rule by unleashing his military and his militias.

In one room of the Tripoli Central Hospital, the bodies of three mangled men in their twenties lay on stretchers, their clothing ripped and their faces partially blown away and dusty. A nurse, Ahmad Shara, told reporters taken on a government-escorted visit to the facility soon after the strikes that the men were standing outside their homes when they were killed, presumably by shrapnel.

May Day protest of U.S./NATO war on Libya, in San Salvador

One man who identified himself as a relative walked into the room where the bodies lay. He halted at their sight, turned around and loudly slapped his hands on a wall as he cried out in shock.

Around 10 other men and women lay on stretchers. They appeared moderately to lightly wounded.

“We thought it was the day of judgment,” said Fathallah Salem, a 45-year-old contractor who rushed his 75-year-old mother to the hospital after she suffered shock. The wide-eyed man described how his home trembled, his mother fainted and how the younger of his seven children cried as they heard the rolling explosions.

Protest in Britain

“You were in the hotel and you were terrified by the shaking — imagine what it was like for the people who live in slums!” Salem said, as he interrupted a government spokesman to speak to a crowd of foreign reporters at the hospital.

“Honestly, we used to have problems (with the regime),” he said in Arabic. “But today we are all Moammar Gadhafi.”

NATO to use attack helicopters
Despite NATO bombing runs, the rebels have not been able to break Gadhafi’s grip on the west of the country, including the capital Tripoli.

NATO attack helicopter

In a significant new deployment of firepower, France and Britain are bringing attack helicopters to use in the strikes in Libya as soon as possible, French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said Monday.

The use of attack helicopters would appear to mark a new strategy for NATO, which has relied on strikes by fighter planes and seen that result in a stalemate on the ground as Gadhafi forces adapted, often turning to urban fighting to make such strikes more difficult.

Nimble, low-flying helicopters have much more leeway to pick targets with precision than high-flying jets. But they also are much more vulnerable to ground fire. The alliance has had no military deaths since it first started enforcing a no-fly zone on March 31.

Protest in Minneapolis

Longuet said the helicopters would be used to target military equipment such as Libyan tanker and ammunition trucks in crowded urban areas while causing fewer civilian casualties. Longuet said France would essentially use Gazelle helicopters, which have been around for some 40 years, but can also use the Tigre, a modern helicopter gunship.

NATO, which said in its statement that it took care to “minimize the risk of collateral damage to the fullest extent possible,” has been escalating and widening the scope of its strikes over the past weeks, hiking the pressure on Gadhafi, while the alliance’s members have built closer ties with the rebel movement that has control of the eastern half of Libya.

‘Signal’ of US support for rebels

U.S. and Obama behind war on Libya; NATO is a smokescreen

Meanwhile, the highest-ranking U.S. diplomat in the Middle East was in the de facto rebel capital in eastern Libya on Monday — a show of growing support for the loosely formed movement that seeks to oust Gadhafi.

A State Department statement called a visit to Benghazi by Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, “another signal of the U.S.’s support” for the rebels’ National Transitional Council, which it called “a legitimate and credible interlocutor for the Libyan people.”

Several countries, including France and Italy, have recognized the NTC, while the United States, Britain and others have established a diplomatic presence in Benghazi. Germany has also opened an office in Benghazi, the German government said Monday.

Aircraft carrier off Libyan shores

Qatar is the only Arab country that has recognized the rebels, and Gambia is the only nation in Africa to offer recognition.

Libya’s rebels have scrambled to organize their fighters and create a political leadership since the outbreak in mid-February of the uprising that seeks to oust Gadhafi, in power for more than four decades. Rebels now control the populated coastal strip in the country’s east and the western port city of Misrata, which Gadhafi’s forces have besieged for months. They also control pockets in Libya’s western Nafusa mountain range.

During his three-day visit, Feltman will meet with council head Mustafa Abdul-Jalil and others. Feltman departs Tuesday. He declined to answer questions by a reporter from The Associated Press Monday.

The visit follows the opening of a European Union office on Sunday by that body’s top diplomat, Catherine Ashton, who said she looked forward to a better Libya “where Gadhafi will not be in the picture.”

Rebel leaders welcome the diplomatic contact, but say only better weapons will help them defeat Gadhafi.

“It is just not enough to recognize (us) and visit the liberated areas,” spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga told The Associated Press. “We have tried very hard to explain to them that we need the arms, we need funding, to be able to bring this to a successful conclusion at the earliest possible time and with the fewest humanitarian costs possible.” Continue reading →

Greg Thrasher at April 13 Lansing rally against PA 4

 In our nation because of America’s greatness, dissent and alternative opinions are not only protected but in some venues even welcomed.  In a republic where democracy exists due process and the rule of law are part of the foundation of a civil society.  When politics define if a person is a terrorist or criminal the summary execution of Osama bin Laden, rather than his capture alive by our military forces brings pause.
 
For a nation that suffered and still reeks with pain of 9/11 does a war on terror bring justice or vengeance? I prefer justice from the scene of a courtroom rather than the barrel of a gun. The death of Osama bin Laden must be viewed not only in the context of the war on terror. We must also evaluate his death from the perspective of retribution and vengeance. Yet these insights have to be reviewed in the context of our values and principles. Even the purpose of people like Osama bin Laden requires examination.

Osama bin Laden

After we return from the celebrations, political bravado and the media’s agenda in the portrayal of this event at some point we must have the courage to understand why people would wage war against another nation. Why would people wrap themselves in bombs and kill innocents. Why do nations invade the sovereignty of another’s borders? Is there ever a reason for the killing of innocents even when the reasons are inhumanity and oppression?

Is it appropriate for a nation in its quest to defend its borders and citizens to execute a terrorist rather than capture that person and bring them to justice? Can a military force make justice? Should a nation allow its principles and rules of law to be articulated by a barrel of a gun or the rules of engagement in a war on terror? Does justice just belong to those who define it? Are the rules of law just for those who have power? It is JUSTUS or JUSTICE depending on what side you are on?

Bombing in Libya escalates

Can one wage war in a humanitarian fashion? Is a nation correct in ignoring those who call themselves freedom fighters but instead indicting them as terrorists? Is a patriot a cheerleader for a nation’s ego and nationalism? We must have the courage and integrity to ask the questions and challenge the dogma, rhetoric and propaganda.

I choose not to run outside and wave my flag after the death of Osama bin Laden. Instead I prefer to understand why people do what they do. Is it the conditions one lives in or is it a personal decision? I want to wage a movement of humanity. I want to serve in the community of peace and be an advocate for civility and justice that revolves around the respect and dignity of all people everywhere on our planet.

In a nation where evil and good exists I want to always have the ability to decipher the code of justice or vengeance and not allow my government, media, political interest groups and others to decipher this code of justice or vengeance for me. I will always reject the politics of an execution whether it involves a terrorist or the execution of a criminal by the state. 

By Greg Thrasher, VOD Contributing Editor

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Mother begs plantation owner not to sell her children at auction

By Diane Bukowski

Putting Detroit Public Schools on the charter auction block recalls nothing more clearly than the sale of African children by plantation owners as their families wept. After kidnapped Africans won their freedom, one of the first things they did was establish a system of public schools for all, without regard to race, class, or gender.

In the DPS release announcing that 18 charter organizations had bid on 50 Detroit Public Schools, Robert Bobb said, “We are pleased with the broad experience of many of the organizations that applied and their potential to transform academically-challenged schools . In a number of cases, applicants already run one or more schools that significantly outperform the DPS schools they seek to operate, as measured by the Excellent Schools Detroit report cards.”

The bidders listed have specifically selected DPS schools Jemison, Gardner, Carver, Howe, Davison, White, Loving, Burns, Noble, Nolan, Stewart, Brewer, Detroit City High, Catherine Ferguson, Hancock, Barsamian, MacDowell and Clark, although they are expected to be in the running for a total of 50 schools.

Grades for schools run by charter bidders run mainly in the C overall range, with several showing F’s in reading.  Of the 18 DPS schools the bidders specified, however, 8 have B scores, 4 have C scores, and one has a D-Alert on the state’s Ed YES! Scale. For the most part, they outperform schools operated by bidders on the chart below. Many charter schools listed with better grades are not located in poor urban areas.

Four of the charter organizations listed were blasted in a Detroit News article as posted on a website below:

SUBSTANDARD CHARTERS FAIL MICHIGAN STUDENTS

Posted at http://www.susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=1225

By Brad Heath
Detroit News 10/26/03

Marchers take off from Catherine Ferguson Academy May 10

Six companies responsible for teaching more than 17,000 of Michigan’s charter school students provide an education that falls short even of some of the state’s most troubled inner-city schools.

A Detroit News analysis shows those shortcomings are hidden by minimal scrutiny of how the companies manage more than $123.7 million in tax money each year.

The low-performing companies include three of the biggest for-profit charter school managers in the state, whose students often fall far below minimum standards in reading, writing and math, state education records show. The companies’ schools also spend a smaller share of their budgets in the classroom than others.

Marchers tell DABO: NO charter schools!

While charter schools overall are less likely to meet state standards than traditional schools, Michigan has put thousands of students’ educations in the hands of a few companies that lag behind even faltering districts like Flint and Grand Rapids. Of the 40 companies that run charter schools, six had lower fourth-grade English and math scores than those cities.

Management companies oversee nearly every aspect of 151 of the state’s 200 charter schools, including what is taught and who teaches it, making Michigan one of the nation’s biggest venues for private control of public education.

What’s more, there has been no comprehensive attempt to monitor how the companies perform.

CFA marchers head down Woodward May 10 (photographer was in her car behind the march with a phalanx of other cars; she was later ticketed for blockading traffic because she wouldn't pull over into the marchers)

Instead, oversight rests with more than two dozen universities and school districts that track individual schools. The state Education Department lacks even a full list of which companies run charters in Michigan, let alone a way to measure their success.

“Nobody has asked whether they’re doing a decent job,” said Nancy Van Meter, the director of the American Federation of Teachers’ Center on Privatization. “Nobody has a handle on this, and it’s a question taxpayers in Michigan need to ask: Are you satisfied with this use of your tax dollars?”

Mother protects children from rain outside DABO May 19

State officials say they want more scrutiny of management companies, including performance and financial reviews, but say limited money and staff makes that impossible.

Critics have argued for years that letting companies run public schools — instead of merely supplying textbooks and buses — will hurt students as the companies cut costs to turn a profit. That concern takes on increasing importance as Michigan continues its rancorous debate over whether to raise the cap on the number of schools public universities can charter.

The News found that students attending schools run by the Leona Group, Mosaica Education and Charter School Administration Services have test scores that lag even compared with other charters. Those companies serve more than a quarter of students in Michigan’s charter schools. Three others — Alpha-Omega Education Management, Black Star Education Management and CAN Associates — each manage one school.

School operator fired

Monica Smith and speaker at CFA rally at Fisher Bldg. May 10

In the 10 Michigan schools run by Mosaica Education Inc., for example, only two of every five fourth-graders was able to read as well as the state says they should. And one in five met the state’s minimum standards in writing and math, according to the Michigan Educational Assessment Program tests.

One of those schools, Detroit Advantage Academy on the city’s west side, fired Mosaica last year after board members complained that the company wasn’t making promised improvements, missed reporting deadlines and failed to give school board members timely updates on how tax money was being spent.

“Had they been able to do everything they were required to do in our contract, we wouldn’t have terminated them. That includes educational goals. It includes providing financial reports,” said Karlena Glenn, a Detroiter who serves on the school’s board.

The bottom line was that the board no longer trusted Mosaica to administer public money, she said.

Outside Fisher Bldg. May 20

Mosaica contends the board didn’t have the authority to fire it.

Mosaica and other management companies say they take their own measurements of students’ progress, and each claims to be making gains. Companies contend parents who aren’t satisfied would leave. Enrollment waiting lists, they say, are evidence of success.

Gabrielle Garner of Southfield enrolled her daughter in Charter School Administration Services’ Southfield Academy this year, in part because she liked how closely it resembles a private school, with students required to wear uniforms. Students at the school have lower test scores than Southfield’s traditional public schools.

More important than who runs the school, she said, is that her daughter is happier and seems to be getting a better education than she was in an Oak Park public school last year.

“What’s important are the results we get,” she said. “Everyone here is working parents, and we just want the best for our kids.”

Explanation falls short

Demo at Mayor Bing's state of the city address March 2010

One classroom at the Voyageur Academy, a for-profit charter school in Detroit run by the Leona Group, bubbles with fourth-grade voices speaking Spanish. The school is small, with about 330 students. Parents get report cards every week. Principal Roderick Atkins knows his students by name.

Still, students at Voyageur lag behind the Detroit Public Schools on elementary school exams. Last year, 39 percent of fourth-graders read as well as the state said they should, compared with 55 percent in Detroit Public Schools.

Voyageur was warned by the state this year that those scores didn’t show enough progress.

“It wasn’t good. We’re still trying to figure out what happened,” said Atkins, who left a marketing job with General Motors Corp. to run the school. Test scores for Voyageur’s seventh- and eighth-graders, taught in a different school, exceeded public school averages. Continue reading →