Report from Detroit about the Michigan legislature passing bills to reverse the results of the election, and about plans to oppose from below the suppression of democracy.
Michigan
Voting is broken in Michigan
September 26, 2018Michigan voters describe examples of how voting in Michigan is seriously flawed, leading to voter disenfranchisement.
Detroit cops’ abuses
August 29, 2017Detroit police invaded our neighborhood, indiscriminately stopping people and impounding cars.
Union betrayals
November 30, 2016Latina union activist in Detroit questions how working people lost out in the school board elections and the ballot measures in the recent election and, noting that the AFL-CIO supported the Dakota Access Pipeline, asks, “Which side are you on?”
I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.
May 6, 2016Part I of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Discontent is seething in the U.S. among workers, youth, Blacks, women, LGBTQ, including elements of the new society. Fear of revolution is powering neo-fascism opposing the revolt.
Detroit retirees fight for public workers
July 7, 2014Intense pressure builds as 38,000 retired Detroit City workers approach a voting deadline on the fate of their pensions and healthcare benefits under the Plan of Adjustment of the unelected Detroit Emergency Manager for the city’s bankruptcy filing.
Same-sex marriage
May 20, 2014Roundup on advances and resistance on same-sex marriage in churches and states.
Detroit fights blight, but who profits?
April 5, 2014We don’t want our neighborhoods razed for “profit-making capitalist folks.” Detroit residents are concerned with improved quality of life in our communities.
Detroit workers fight for jobs and pensions
December 4, 2013Yesterday, a judge approved Detroit bankruptcy. Emergency manager Kevyn Orr outrageously claimed that the attack on workers’ pensions would be “thoughtful, measured and humane.” Read the News & Letters article for a view from the other side of the class struggle.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part I
October 11, 2013Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part I
Detroit defends homes
September 11, 2013Detroit Eviction Defense came out of the Direct Action Workgroup of Occupy Detroit about two years ago. We work with people who want to save their homes. We have saved about 60 so far.
Detroiters organize in class war
May 8, 2013The entire state of Michigan voted against the harsh emergency manager law, Public Act 436, last November only to have the lame-duck state legislature vote it right back in before year’s end. On the day, March 28, that Act 436 took effect, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager fired the interim superintendent of schools. … Meanwhile, neighborhoods languish under mounting piles of trash, abandoned houses, stores, factories and vehicles. City services are reduced by mandatory budget cut “furloughs.” The challenge for Detroit residents is: can we stand up and organize ourselves for quality living and working conditions, some of which includes wresting support and services from our unelected new leaders? Can we articulate and realize a future Detroit developed for human needs?
The politics of degenerate capitalism
May 2, 2013The rulers are not about to sit back and let revolt freely develop. All sorts of reactionary ideas and attitudes have been ushered into the mainstream of politics and the media.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2013, Part 2
April 26, 2013AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY
When the Green Movement started in Iran over the 2009 election, the so-called leaders were part of the government who were against Ahmadinejad. The growth of the movement of women and youth got so big it became “out of control” by the so-called leaders. The government leaders got scared because [=>]
Attacks on organizing
April 6, 2013The number of unionized workers in the U.S. last year dropped by 400,000 members, to 14.3 million workers. Assaults on unions like right-to-work legislation in Indiana and Michigan and laws narrowing the right to union representation in Wisconsin had a huge impact on unions. The most important development is the transformation of union leadership from being militant fighters to contract concessionary specialists and corporation supporters.
Undoing Michigan election
February 6, 2013Editorial
With lightning swiftness a super-majority of Michigan lame-duck Republicans passed a series of oppressive bills at the end of December. Defying voters’ expressed views, they passed an anti-union “right-to-work” law, an anti-abortion bill and a dictatorial emergency manager act. This was accomplished despite a record number–over 12,500–of protestors who stormed and occupied the legislative chamber [=>]
January-February 2013 issue of News & Letters is now online
February 2, 2013Lead
Uprisings in Egypt and Syria confront counter-revolution
Slightly over two years since the beginning of Egypt’s revolution, those heady days can seem distant. The current government of Mohamed Morsi was able to push through a reactionary Constitution. It includes anti-working class Articles allowing for child labor and forced labor, in certain circumstances; limits the right to [=>]
Flint’s emergency manager targets labor
February 29, 2012Flint, Mich.—In November, Flint was placed under the control of an emergency manager for the second time. This time is different, because under a law passed in March of last year the financial manager can end collective bargaining agreements (with state approval), run up debt, increase property taxes and sell property.
The first time around Flint [=>]
Vetoing city elections: Benton Harbor and Michigan’s “emergency financial manager law”
May 23, 2011Flint, Mich.– Michigan has a new emergency financial manager law that threatens the very existence of local governments and of collective bargaining agreements. This law, effective March 16, is the direct result of the election of a Republican governor, Rick Snyder, and a Republican House and Senate.
Under the old law, the financial manager effectively took [=>]
Michigan support rally
April 7, 2011Lansing, Mich.–It was a dreary, overcast, cold day at the Capitol building here on Feb. 26 when over 2,000 came from all over the state to show solidarity with workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Driving in from Detroit, one could pick out those heading for the rally by the bumper stickers on their cars.
The sound [=>]