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

by Joseph Debro

Dec. 2, 2010

The Bayview Library, at Third and Revere, the center of San Francisco’s Black heartland, has long served as a second home for the children and all the people of Bayview Hunters Point. Now the City wants to replace it with a new building, but who will build it? Low bidder on the project was Liberty Builders, located a block from the library and owned by Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff, who is trusted to hire from the community. But the City just snatched the contract from Liberty and gave it to KCK Builders, a white contractor with no Black participation. Will the community allow KCK to build the library?

The construction industry is infected with the pathology of racism. This infection is chronic. It first occurred in 1867. At that time the practitioners were injecting racism to protect those white people who had less skill than the newly freed slaves who were forced to ply their skills for less money.

Over the years, this infection has evolved under local and national laws. These laws have favored those who bring legacy to the game. Big unions and big contractors have conspired to restrict the number of contractors and workers who may enter the industry. These restrictions do not apply to familial relationships.

There is in law a requirement for something called the joint apprenticeship council. This council is composed of big unions and big contractors. Its effective role is to restrict the membership of unions by limiting training opportunities. These training opportunities are generally limited to relatives and friends of those who control the process.

These whites only-organizations can and have limited the number of Blacks admitted to the training programs. Once a limited number of Blacks are admitted to the unions, dispatch is used to limited the work opportunities. Dispatch is the method of placing union members on the job. Those who run the unions make the decisions on who works and who does not. Who gets good workers and who does not.

Constitutional law and local laws are used to limit the number of contractors. Bonds and insurance are required for bidding and for contracts in the public sector. The private sector is closed by practice. Only White contractors are welcome in the private sector. The private sector does not require bonds. Bonds are only required by government contracts.

As I have stated in previous essays, government has requirements not practiced by other sectors of our economy. The government allows unions to set the rules of competition. These rules are designed to use poor people to attract federal money to an urban venue, then to exclude these same people from becoming union members and contractors.

The only open construction opportunity for descendants of former slaves lies in the public sector. The rules of engagement in the public sector are such that elimination is practiced without contest. Insurance requirements are arbitrarily imposed. The bid bond requirement prevents most small contractors from bidding. When this requirement is waived, as it should be, and a small contractor is low bidder, the bond required to perform the work is almost impossible to acquire. The federal government guarantees insurance companies against loss. Yet the bonding companies continue to discriminate.

In the case of the contract to build the new Bayview Library, the City of San Francisco first showed the citizens of Bayview Hunters Point its contempt for them by going out of state to find a white firm to design this structure for a Black community. Let’s assume this structure was being built in Chinatown. Do you think that the City would have contracted with any but a Chinese designer? I think not.

The City then bid this contract in such a way that any contractor could win, without respect to its employment history. A Black contractor with a history of hiring and training Black youngsters was the low bidder. This contractor was awarded the contract and subsequently disqualified for a reason that was correctable. The second lowest bidder was then awarded the contract. This contractor has no history of subcontracting with Blacks. He submitted with his bid no subcontractors who are Black.

Once again our community is disrespected. Rather than making a requirement that the contractor have a history of training and employing Black people, the City showed no interest in the contractor’s history. If we allow the City to contract in this way, it is on us. Bayview Hunters Point is our turf. Dope dealers know how to protect their turf. Perhaps we can learn from them.

Joseph Debro is president of Bay Area Black Builders, co-founder of the National Association of Minority Contractors, a general engineering contractor and a bio-chemical engineer. He can be reached at transbay@netzero.com.

Mary Ratcliff, editor

SF Bay View

(415) 671-0789

www.sfbayview.com

http://sfbayview.com/2010/san-francisco-locks-blacks-out-from-building-our-own-library/

Also read “Union PLA’s Block Blacks from Construction,” at http://sfbayview.com/2010/union-plas-block-blacks-from-construction/ by Harry C. Alford, co-founder, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

 NewsMax.com

Friday, 03 Dec 2010 07:04 AM

(ed. note: The Wikileaks link on the VOD site to the right has been updated to the Swiss-based, currently active link, http://wikileaks.ch. )

To see stunning Wikileaks video of US airstrike that murdered over a dozen Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0&has_verified=1

PARIS – An American company that had been directing traffic to the WikiLeaks website withdrew its services late on Thursday, making the site invisible for several hours.

EveryDNS.net, which helps computers locate the sites of its members, said WikiLeaks had breached its terms of service, and that it had stopped providing services to the controversial publisher of leaked information at 2200 Eastern time on Thursday (0300 GMT on Friday).

However, WikiLeaks announced on Friday on Twitter that it could be seen using a new address, http://wikileaks.ch , which is operated by a Swiss academic network.

The United States is furious about WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of confidential diplomatic cables that have given unvarnished and sometimes embarrassing insights into the foreign policy of the United States and its allies.

“This is a smart move. Switzerland is known for not bending to international pressure,” said Michiel Leenaars, director of strategy at NLnet, a Dutch Internet research charity.

EveryDNS.net said the WikiLeaks web address that it administered had been bombarded by hackers. This had undermined the service that it provides to its other clients, leaving it with no choice but to find WikiLeaks in breach of its terms of service.

“Wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks,” EveryDNS.net said on its website ( www.everydns.com ).

“These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites.”

Tens of thousands of such registrars exist worldwide that provide DNS hosting — directory services to locate websites that do not maintain their own domain name services — which would be able to provide alternative services to Wikileaks. 

© 2010 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

Also read “The Man Who Knew Too Much” at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LL03Ak04.html

San Francisco Public Defender's office calls for equal rights

Ruling a call to action for next Legislature for public defense reform

For Immediate Release  
Dec. 1, 2010
Contact: Matt Resch (517) 862-2075

Yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed its own ruling from July and reaffirmed the Michigan Court of Appeals ruling in Duncan et. al. v. State of Michigan sending the case back to the Ingham County Circuit Court for further hearings.

In 2009, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected the State of Michigan’s request to dismiss Duncan et. al. v. State of Michigan.  In the Duncan case, plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit from three counties asked the court to declare that failures in Michigan’s public defense system violated their right to counsel under the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions.

In April of this year, the Supreme Court affirmed the Michigan Court of Appeals ruling in Duncan only to reverse itself with another ruling three months later.

The following is a statement in response to yesterday’s court action from Laura Sager, executive director of the Michigan Campaign for Justice, the nonpartisan coalition working with lawmakers to reform Michigan’s system of providing defense counsel to people unable to afford an attorney.

“As the nonpartisan coalition working with state lawmakers to reform Michigan’s failing public defense system, we are very pleased that the Supreme Court has reversed course and ruled once again to allow the Duncan case to move forward.   This ruling is good news and it is a call to action for new state lawmakers preparing to come to Lansing in January that as they develop their Michigan reform agenda, public defense reform is an important constitutional problem that requires their attention.”

NOTE:  The Campaign for Justice is not involved with the Duncan lawsuit. For more information regarding the litigation, please contact Michael Steinberg at 313-578-6814.

For additional information about legislative efforts to reform Michigan’s public defense system, please contact Laura Sager at 517-775-3924

Cuban doctor treats Haitian cholera victims

Brazil, Cuba aid cholera-hit Haiti

World News  Nov. 23, 2010

BRASILIA: Brazil, Cuba and some Brazilian universities have joined forces to provide health care to cholera-ridden Haiti, including building a treatment centre near its capital, the Brazilian Health Ministry said Monday.

The ministry said it signed agreements with Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and Federal University of Santa Catarina to set up a network of health clinics and train 2,340 health workers in Haiti.

“All the activities will be organised with the collaboration of health teams from Haiti and Cuba made up of doctors, nurses and epidemiologists,” it said in a statement.

A separate agreement is expected to be signed later this week with Cuba and the World Health Organisation to create a cholera treatment centre in Carrefour, near Port-au-Prince, to contain the cholera epidemic, the ministry said.

Health workers are already being trained in Carrefour, it added, and Cuba will supply construction workers for the project and later doctors and nurses for the center.

The agreements are part of the humanitarian and financial aid package Brazil promised after Haiti’s devastating January 12 earthquake that killed some 250,000 people and left 1.3 million people homeless.

The cholera epidemic that broke out in mid-October in northern Haiti has so far killed more than 1,300 people and infected more than 57,000, putting in question Sunday’s presidential election.

-AFP/wk

Cuba to send medical reinforcements to Haiti  

 

November 27, 2010

By Shasta Darlington, CNN

Fidel Castro announced Saturday that Cuba will send another 300 doctors and health specialists to cholera-stricken Haiti, where the Communist country has maintained a strong presence even before the devastating earthquake in January.

The new delegation will bring the number of Cuban doctors, nurses and health technicians working in Haiti to 1,300.

“It is of extreme importance to prevent the epidemic from extending to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, because under current circumstances it would cause extraordinary damage to the countries of the hemisphere,” Castro said in a message posted on the state-run website Cuba debate.

“The need to find efficient and fast solutions in the fight against the epidemic is upon us,” he said.

The additional 300 specialists comprise the “Henry Reeve Brigade,” created by Cuba to respond to natural disasters.

Castro said the decision to send them was taken by the Communist Party and the government.

Reflections by Comrade Fidel

http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/2010/ing/f261110i.html

Just a few months ago, on July 26, 2010, Lucius Walker, the head of the American organization Pastors for Peace, at an encounter with Cuban intellectuals and artists, asked me what the solution for Haiti’s problems would be.

Without a second’s delay, I told him: “In today’s world, there is no solution, Lucius; in the future of which I am speaking, there is.  The US is a great food producer, it can feed 2,000 million people, it would be able to build homes that stand up to earthquakes; the problem is the way in which resources are distributed.  We have to return even the forests to Haitian territory; but there is no solution in today’s world order.”

Lucius was referring to the problems of this mountainous, over-populated country, stripped of trees, of fuel for cooking, communications and industries, with a high rate of illiteracy, diseases such as HIV and being occupied by United Nations troops.

“When those circumstances change –I added — you yourselves, Lucius, will be able to take American food to Haiti.”

The noble and humanitarian leader of the Pastors for Peace died a month and a half later, on September 7th, at the age of 80, passing on the legacy of the seed of his example to many Americans.

An additional tragedy had not yet appeared: the cholera epidemic which, on October 25th, reported more than 3,000 cases.  To such a harsh calamity, add the fact that on November 5th, a hurricane ravaged its territory, causing flooding and rivers to overflow.

We must dedicate to this body of dramatic circumstances the attention it deserves.

Cholera appeared for the first time in modern history in 1817, the year in which one of the great pandemics occurred devastating humanity in the nineteenth century; it had a huge mortality rate principally in India.  In 1826, the epidemic reappeared, invading Europe, including Moscow, Berlin and London, moving on to our hemisphere from 1832 to 1839.

In 1846, a new even more harmful epidemic is unleashed, striking at three continents: Asia, Africa and America.  Throughout the century, epidemics affecting those three regions were repeated occurrences.  However, in the course of more than 100 years, taking in almost the entire twentieth century, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean saw themselves freed from this disease, until January 27th, 1991 when it appeared in the Chancay Port in northern Peru; first it extended along the Pacific coast and subsequently along the Atlantic seaboard, to 16 countries; 650,000 persons became ill in a period of 6 years.

Without the least doubt, the epidemic affects much more than poor countries in whose cities over-populated neighbourhoods are massed together, many times lacking drinking water, and the sewers which are carriers of the vibrio cholerae that spreads the disease pour into the drinking water.

In the special case of Haiti, the earthquake destroyed the water and sewer network wherever they had existed, and millions of people live in tents that often even lack latrines and everything gets mixed up together.

The epidemic that affected our hemisphere in 1991 was the Vibrio cholerae 01 biotype El Tor Ogawa serotype, exactly the same one that penetrated Peru that year.

Jon K. Andrus, Associate Director of the Pan American Health Organization, informed that the bacterium that was present in Haiti was precisely that.  From it derived a series of circumstances to bear in mind, which at an opportune moment will determine important considerations.

As we know, our country is educating excellent Haitian medical doctors and providing health services in that sister country for many years now.  There were very serious problems in that field and we were moving forward, year after year.  Nobody could imagine, since there was no history of it, that there would be an earthquake that would kill more than 250,000 persons and cause innumerable wounded and injured.  In the face of that unexpected blow, our internationalist doctors pitched in with greater zeal and tirelessly dedicated themselves to their work.

In the midst of the harsh natural disaster, barely a month ago, the cholera epidemic broke out with a fury; and as we have already stated, in such unfavourable circumstances, the hurricane struck.

Faced with the serious nature of the situation, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, yesterday declared that 350 doctors and 2,000 nurses were needed to battle the disease.

The official made a call to extend the aid further than Port-au-Prince and revealed that supplies of soap and clean water were only reaching 10 percent of the families living outside of the capital, without indicating how many were being reached in that city.

Different UN officials were lamenting the fact in the last few days that the response from the international community to the call for aid made to confront the situation was not even reaching 10% of the 164 million dollars urgently being requested.

“Amos called for a swift and urgent reaction to prevent more human beings from dying of cholera”, informed a news agency.

Today another agency communicated that the numbers of Haitians who had died had now reached “1,523 persons, 66 thousand 593 have been cared for, and more than a million inhabitants are still sleeping in public squares”.

Almost 40% of the sick have been looked after by members of the Cuban Medical Brigade which has 965 doctors, nurses and technicians who have managed to reduce the number of dead to less than 1 for each 100.  With that level of care the number of dead would not reach 700.  As a norm, the people dying were extremely weakened by malnutrition or other similar causes.  Children who are detected on time, generally do not die.

It is of vital importance that we avoid the epidemic extending to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean because in today’s circumstances this would cause extraordinary harm to the nations in this hemisphere.

We urgently need to seek efficient and rapid solutions in the fight against that epidemic.

Today the Party and the Government [of Cuba] made the decision to reinforce the Cuban Medical Brigade in Haiti with a contingent of the Henry Reeve Brigade, made up of 300 doctors, nurses and health technicians, that would add up to more than 1,200 collaborators.

Raul was visiting other regions of the country and was informed in detail about everything.

The people of Cuba, the Party and the Government, are once again measuring up to their glorious and heroic history.

Fidel Castro Ruz

AMTRAK HIRING – PASS IT ON!!!

EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE A DEGREE!   PASS-ON TO SOMEONE WHO CAN USE THIS! Great jobs for young men who aren’t in college and strong young women also! This is Obama money for “infrastructure” the jobs are located all over, paid training in Atlanta. This is an awesome opportunity, please pass this on. These jobs pay good wages.
Training: You will attend two or three weeks of training at the Railroad Education & Development Institute in Atlanta , GA. CSX will pay for travel, lodging and meals as required by collective bargaining agreement.

Track Worker-030702 Job Summary: Work as a member of a crew to install new railroad track, maintain existing track and right-of-way. Replace or repair track switches with specific components. Slide and align tie plates. Drill holes through rails for insertion of bolts and tighten or loosen bolts at joints that hold ends or rails together. Correct deviations in track surface, alignment and gauge
Cut rails to specific lengths etc.

Pay Rate Entry Rate $19.36/hour Full Rate $21.52/hour Promotional/ Advancement Opportunities:
Under Maintenance of Way Collective Bargaining Agreement, Track Workers may be considered for advancement or promotion to other positions within the Engineering Department if qualified.

Machine Operator $23.25 – $24.81/hour
Welder Helper $21.93/hour
Bridge Tender $21.93/hour
Bridge Mechanic $22.65/hour
Foreman $22.71 – $25.53/hour
Track Inspector $23.98 – $25.14/hour

Qualifications: High School diploma/GED; 18 years of age or older; Valid Driver’s License

At CSX, two of the company’s core values are People Make The Difference and Safety Is A Way of Life. We are committed to offering our team members the most competitive compensation and benefits package available, unlimited opportunities for development and growth throughout an exciting and rewarding career, and the safest work environment possible.
 

CSX is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer that supports diversity in the workplace.

Apply online to this and other positions: http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=careers.main

From BoldProgressives.org

BREAKING: The New York Times just reported that Comcast will block Netflix unless a new fee is paid to Comcast — so Netflix’s price goes up and people use Comcast’s video service instead.

This outrageous abuse of power by Comcast comes on the very week that President Obama’s FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce whether he’ll fulfill Obama’s promise to protect the open Internet and Net Neutrality — which would prevent this type of corporate abuse.

The FCC needs to hear from us now, before the chairman’s big announcement this week.

Sign our message to the FCC: “Don’t let Comcast block Netflix or other online innovators for their own profit! Support the strongest Net Neutrality protections possible — and keep Obama’s promise.” Click here.

Then, please tell your friends. We’ll deliver thousands of messages to the FCC this week. Sign here.

What else could Comcast do if the FCC doesn’t protect Net Neutrality?

Internet providers like Comcast can drive their financial competitors (or political opponents) out of business by charging them more, for no good reason — exactly what’s happening right now.

For instance, Comcast could block or degrade iTunes, which competes with Comcast’s own online music store.

Worse, the FCC will soon decide whether to allow Comcast to buy NBC! Can you imagine what Comcast will do to block customers from getting video from ABC, CBS, and other media outlets? This is way more serious than just movies — the FCC’s decision impacts pretty much everything.

Tell the FCC to stop Comcast’s abuse of power and protect the open Internet. Click here — then pass it on.

Thanks for being a bold progressive,

Jason Rosenbaum, Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Forrest Brown, and the PCCC team

P.S. You can read excerpts from the New York Times story on the petition page.

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Want to support our work? We’re entirely funded by our members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. We’ve received over 60,246 small-dollar donations. Can you help us hit 65,000?

Demand That Governor Granholm Declare a State Of Economic Emergency In Michigan To Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shut-offs For The Unemployed

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 12 NOON

STATE OF MICHIGAN BUILDING, 3054 W. GRAND BLVD, DETROIT (formerly the GM building in the New Center)

According to a November 22, 2010 Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency statement, 162,000 people in Michigan have already exhausted their jobless benefits this year from January through November 2010.  181,500 more will exhaust their unemployment benefits from December 2010 through April 2011 if Congress doesn’t approve an extension of federal benefits this week. 

The loss of unemployment benefits has already led to massive foreclosures, evictions and utility shut-offs.  While the state has received $500 million in federal funds for the Helping Hardest Hit Homeowners Program to keep the unemployed in their homes, the major banks have refused to participate, and the state has failed to develop a plan for implementation despite announcing the program last July.  Less than 200 unemployed workers have received the aid they were promised.  With the federal cut-off of unemployment benefits, tens of thousands more unemployed workers will become ineligible for assistance. 

 Join us to demand that Governor Granholm declare a State of Economic Emergency for the Unemployed in Michigan, and use her executive authority under the law to place an immediate moratorium to halt foreclosures, evictions and utility shut-offs for the unemployed, while the government figures out how to insure the survival of hundreds of thousands of Michiganders.

Demand that Congress immediately pass the federal extension of unemployment benefits, and not link this program to provide minimal relief to the unemployed to providing tax breaks for the richest Americans.

MORATORIUM NOW!

COALITION TO STOP  FORECLOSURES, EVICTIONS, & UTILITY SHUT-OFFS

313-887-4344  www.moratorium-mi.org

No to Bobb/Durhal bills, demand debt moratorium

Breaking news: request  from DPS activists to attend Dec. 1 Lansing house committe meeting,

The House Education Committee is scheduled to convene on Wednesday, December 1 at 9 am.  The notice says the purpose is for whatever business may be brought before it, does not specify any bill, which is the normal routine. 

Our concern is that the Bobb/Flanagan takeover bills HB 6576-6579 will be introduced before the committee to be forwarded to the full House for a vote.

Rep. David Nathan is the only Detroit legislator on the House Education Committee. Based on a call from a trustworthy person that Nathan was supporting the bills, Russ talked to him this morning, He said that he does not support the bills in their current form but he will be meeting with Bobb later this morning to see if changes can be made to the bill. 

While this bill offers DPS up to $219 million for debt elimination using tobacco money, it still leaves the $108 million in Bobb’s debt from the last fiscal year. That amount grows daily in this fiscal year. DPS will still be kept in debt bondage to the State of Michigan (which created most of the debt) for years under this bill, with new powers to the state to control our district. This bill does not appear to be a compromise tradeoff to relieve our debt, but using debt as a means to permanently takeover DPS, while giving Bobb and Flanagan more pots of money to spend. 

We must be there to let Lansing know that we are alert to this latest attempt to undermine accountability to the voters, impose state control and that we are determined to fight it. Please respond to aurora917@gmail.com if you can go. Based on the responses, a transportation plan will be developed. Please indicate if you need transportation. Also indicate if you want your name added to a list supporting the call to lobby against this takeover legislation. 

FYI, a critique of the bill sent out earlier, with a short addition, is attached at Bobb-HB6576 arguments.  Please send out as widely as possible.

Helen Moore, Chris White, Debra Taylor, Ernest Johnson, Aurora Harris, Sandra Hines, Russ Bellant

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – A proposal by Detroit Public Schools (DPS) Czar Robert Bobb, embodied in four “Renaissance School District” bills sponsored by State Rep. Fred Durhal (D-Detroit), hardly constitutes “debt forgiveness” for DPS and 41 other Michigan districts with budget deficits, as these officials allege.  (See list of districts at end of article.*) 

 The plan would actually funnel $400 million from the state’s tobacco settlement funds, meant to provide for health care and other human needs, into the coffers of multinational banks to partially pay down the districts’ huge debts. Of that, $219 million would go to DPS.

 The Bank of New York Mellon and the Michigan Finance Authority already mandate that DPS set aside 87 percent of its state per-pupil aid, over $512 million, to pay off its ever-ballooning debt during this school year alone. (See chart at end of story, derived from DPS statistics.**)

 Since the tobacco funds would not completely pay off DPS debt, Detroit and other districts that opt for the plan would continue in “Renaissance School” status indefinitely.

The same banks are already bloated by multi-billion dollar bail-outs from federal tax dollars.

 Who will pay the price for this new windfall to the banks?  According to Durhal’s bills, “Renaissance” districts would have to agree to draconian concessions, including loss of local control, unilateral revisions of union contract provisions, and ramping up of massive privatization and regionalization schemes.

 “I just feel like Bobb and Durhal are looking at possibly another 1967 uprising,” said Wayne County Community College student Antonio Williams during a picket outside Durhal’s Detroit office Nov. 22. “The people of Detroit and the state are certainly not going to continue to take these cuts, and we are certainly going to win.”

 Williams was a student at Northern High School in 2007 when he was tortured by DPS and Detroit police during a protest against massive school closings outside his school. As they held him down on the hood of a police car, they aimed pepper spray directly into his face, and later would not let him wash it off. Numerous others at the protest were similarly brutalized.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers called the Nov. 22 picket after a membership meeting vote, teacher Heather Miller said.

 “They clearly want to divide our schools into sections that are wealthy and white, which get to have quality education, and sections that are poor and predominantly Black, which will not have qualified teachers, class size guarantees, and work rules for the teachers which actually are protection for our children.”

Bridgette Williams said she was fired from DPS after 30 years due to her activity in protesting the dismantling of the district.

 “A lot of people are afraid of retaliation and won’t come out now,” Williams said. “DPS is nothing but a cash cow for these corporations to get rich off privatization, and off of moving the district into charter schools. Proposal S is a catalyst for charter schools.  That $500 million bond is being used to renovate what they call ‘priority’ schools and if those schools don’t make AYP [Average Yearly Progress scores under the No Child Left Behind act”), they will become charters.”

 Bobb put Proposal S on the ballot, and it was allegedly passed in November, 2009.

 State Rep. Fred Durhal said that Bobb came to him with proposals for the bills he introduced Nov. 17, H. B. 6576 through 6579. He contended that the districts involved are in imminent danger of bankruptcy, and that his bills present a better alternative. He also urged their passage before Republican Governor-to-be Rick Snider takes office.

Asked however whether the best solution would instead be to declare a moratorium on the districts’ debt to the banks, he did not disagree.

 Such a moratorium was declared by Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy during the Depression years of the 1930’s, in order to take care of the people’s needs, and was later brought to the U.S. Congress by a Detroit Representative.

 “When the debate over direct Federal loans began in 1933 municipalities facing default were also having trouble refinancing their debts,” said Richard Flanagan, writing in Polity in 1999. “Influenced by Mayor Frank Murphy, Congressman Clarence McLeod, a Democrat from Detroit, proposed that cities with populations over 50,000 be allowed to petition the Federal courts to declare a debt moratorium for up to ten years.”

 Unions and other organizations across Europe and Asia are currently engaging in massive national strikes and other militant uprisings targeting the multinational banks which are demanding austerity measures. These protests are causing Wall Street to shake in its boots, with daily stock averages wobbling up and down.

However, Durhal maintained that he is nonetheless moving forward with the bills, which have been referred to the House Education Committee.

 The bills are an embodiment of Bobb’s “Plan A,” published in July as his “preferred” Deficit Elimination Plan (DEP).

 In that DEP, Bobb used Plan B as a hammer to enforce implementation of Plan A. Plan B would involve the closure of more than 100 schools, leaving only 52 schools left in a district that has already lost over 100 neighborhood schools as a wave of charter schools has taken over. Included in the closures would be the districts’ five career and technical education centers. Continue reading →

— Report and photo by Alan Pollock

Hateful bigots from Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., were met by protests on Nov. 18 when they visited several Michigan cities. The group is rabidly anti-gay/lesbian/bi/trans/queer and infamous wherever they travel throughout the U.S. with their message of hate. They often target the funerals of rank-and-file U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, blaming their deaths on LGBTQ people.

In Detroit about 50 counterprotesters gathered near Wayne State University. At a high school in East Lansing, Mich., some 600 overwhelmed the handful of bigots 100 to 1. The counterprotesters divided into two camps. While 450 held a church-sponsored picket several blocks away, a counterinsurgency of 150 strong rushed the WBC front line and overwhelmed the Phelps group with louder voices and strength in numbers.

The bigots were visibly shaken by the militant crowd. A threatened protest by the WBC at a GI’s funeral later that day in Marine City, Mich., did not materialize. 

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Locking Up Children Without Possibility For Release Is Unconstitutional, Says ACLU

ACLU Release Nov. 17, 2010 

DETROIT, MI – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan today filed a lawsuit on behalf of nine Michigan citizens who were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed when they were minors. The lawsuit charges that a Michigan sentencing scheme that denies the now-adult plaintiffs an opportunity for parole and a fair hearing to demonstrate their growth, maturity and rehabilitation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and violates their constitutional rights.

“These life without parole sentences ignore the very real differences between children and adults, abandoning the concepts of redemption and second chances,” said Deborah Labelle, attorney for the ACLU of Michigan’s Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative. “As a society, we believe children do not have the capacity to handle adult responsibilities, so we don’t allow them to use alcohol, join the Army, serve on a jury or vote – yet we sentence them to the harshest punishment we have in this state – to die in adult prisons.”

Michigan law requires that children as young as 14 who are charged with certain felonies be tried as adults and, if convicted, sentenced without judicial discretion to life without parole. Judges and juries are not allowed to take into account the fact that children bear less responsibility for their actions and have a greater capacity for change, growth and rehabilitation than adults.

The U.S. is the only country in the world that sentences youth to life without parole, and Michigan incarcerates the second highest number of people serving life sentences without parole for crimes committed when they were 17 years old or younger. Currently, there are 350 individuals serving such mandatory life sentences in Michigan. This includes more than 100 individuals who were sentenced to life without parole who were present or committed a felony when a homicide was committed by someone else. Continue reading →