Fisher Body Plant #1 -- photo by Edward Burtynsky
Fischer Body Plant #2
With the
profits-driven outsourcing of manufacturing for decades , and people of means fleeing
Detroit in droves [a 25% decrease the past decade alone], is it really
surprising that one of the nation’s poorest cities is going bankrupt? See a status report from Reuters. 
There is now
insult to this injury in Detroit. A
consent agreement for emergency management controls the city. Certainly there was abuse and corruption in recent and
past city governments, as in most major cities.
That has cost the budget millions.
But Detroit’s total debt approaches a couple billions. Still we see many cities across the nation with debts approaching bankruptcy. Business Insider reported 16 of them in
December 2010. None of these, except
Detroit, have had emergency managers imposed.
1
Vallejo and
Orange County in California simply went through bankruptcy. Hamtramck, MI was spared with a state
loan. In fact, emergency managers rule
cities only in Michigan, though Indiana and New York are considering
facilitating legislation like our P.L. 4 which Gov. Snyder signed into law early
in his administration. Dallas, Texas has a general operating debt
also in the billions. No talk of
emergency manager takeovers there. 2
And now Detroit et. al.
What is
unique about Detroit, and all the other Michigan cities that now have become
emergency management takeovers, is their very large African American
citizenship. Percent black population in
2010 is as follows for all those Michigan’s cities now managed by edict of the Republican
statehouse: Detroit 82.7%, Flint 56.6%, Pontiac 52.1%, Benton Harbor 89.2%,
Ecorse 46.4%, Highland Park 93.5% { only school district is state managed}. [from U.S. Census data 3]
Contrast this with 19.4% for Hamtramck--given a governor’s pardon. Incredible reversal into plantation politics,
for Republicans who began their party over a century ago, as declared champions for abolition of
slavery. The claim is made by staff of
the Sugar Law Center that 50% of Michigan’s people of color are now under
emergency management.
n the end,
if a city faces bankruptcy, then its local people and representatives should be
the ones held responsible to hammer out agreements with creditors. What gives a state government in the hands of
a different political party, and foreign to the life of the city, the right to
swoop in selling off city assets, and breaking city contracts? These managers
will also determine the budget for voting booths etc. in the upcoming national
election in Detroit. Is this likely to
help or hinder Michigan’s support for the first African American
president?
The petition
to put on the state ballot a proposal to rescind P. L. 4, which brought on this
surge of emergency management, was signed by a healthy surplus of the requisite
voters across the state. In Lansing on
this April 26th it was reject by the Michigan’s Board of Canvassers, by a 2 to 2 vote. The font used
for the heading on the petitions was too small by millimeters.
Some from Gov Snyder's side of the fence are trying to take pictures too, of the protest at their gated community against the emergency manager law on Jan 15, 2012.
Please go to the website Michigan Forward--Stand up for Democracy for more information, and to become involved.
Please go to the website Michigan Forward--Stand up for Democracy for more information, and to become involved.
Martin Luther
King said, “An unjust law is no law at all.”
This is becoming true for too many of our laws and regulations,
especially those that pertain to elections.
The will of the people is being replaced by the will of the
powerful. Please work and pray for a
healing of the wound that could kill our democracy. Those who wield power really do depend on all
the rest of us who don’t have so much.
God help the 99%, to help the 1% see that.
Martin Luther King--In Birmingham Jail
The Last Judgment-- by Rogier van der Weyden
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