Detroit is the Nexus of New American Apartheid:

[MvGuy]

I found this: Certainly deserves a look!

[" A great political and economic implosion is unfolding in urban America, with Detroit as ground zero."]

“What is emerging in the second decade of the 21st century is a new version of American Apartheid, in which the inhabitants of largely Black urban centers are denied a meaningful vote or the legal capacity to safeguard their collective and individual property from the grasping hands of the rich.” A conference in Detroit confronts the crisis, October 5 and 6.
Detroit is the Nexus of New American Apartheid
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
“A great political and economic implosion is unfolding in urban America, with Detroit as ground zero.”
On October 5 and 6, the International People’s Assembly will hold a conferenceAgainst Banks and Against Austerity, in Detroit. By that time, many of the 10,000 party-goers expected at this week’s Congressional Black Caucus annual gala will just be getting over their hangovers, having spent thousands of dollars apiece strutting around DC hotel lobbies celebrating their personal upward mobility amidst Black America’s greatest economic and political crisis in modern times. The conference in Detroit is about the real world, where Wall Street is devouring the public sphere and driving actual living standards inexorably downward for the vast bulk of Americans, especially people of color.
Detroit is the epicenter of the African American economic and political crisis, an 85 percent Black metropolis whose citizens have been stripped of their fundamental democratic rights so that their public assets and private pensions can be confiscated by the finance capitalist class. Wall Street now runs the city outright, through an emergency financial manager. A similar regime prevails in all of Michigan’s largely Black cities, resulting in the disenfranchisement of more than half the state’s Black population. What is emerging in the second decade of the 21st century is a new version of American Apartheid, in which the inhabitants of largely Black urban centers are denied a meaningful vote or the legal capacity to safeguard their collective and individual property from the grasping hands of the rich. In the language of declining capitalism, this is called austerity, but in America it takes the form of a racialized order in which concentrated populations of Blacks have no rights that the bankers are bound to respect. While the party-goers clink their glasses at the Black Caucus gala in Washington, a great political and economic implosion is unfolding in urban America, with Detroit as ground zero.
“The struggle also requires the rejection of what has passed for Black leadership in Detroit and the rest of America.”
The International Peoples Assembly conference demands that the so-called debt to the banks be canceled – not just for Detroit, which supposedly owes Wall Street $22 billion, but for cities, school systems, states and countries around the world that have been purposely made into debt slaves for the rich. Workers pensions and jobs, and the vital services they provide to the community, must be guaranteed. This is a critical demand, since the emergency management regime in Pontiac, Michigan, has stripped the municipal workforce down to only 20 people for a city of 60,000. The unemployed must be put back to work repairing the damage inflicted on Detroit by the bankers’ foreclosure and disinvestment policies. Public education, which is rapidly being privatized, must be restored to the public sphere and fully funded.


There are many more demands, but the solution begins with real popular democracy and the disempowerment of the banks. The struggle also requires the rejection of what has passed for Black leadership in Detroit and the rest of America: a chattering, swaggering, class of self-servers who have been selling the people down the river ever since they got a taste of power on the backs of the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties. These are the folks who will be toasting President Obama this week, in Washington, a servant of the banks who cares no more for the people of Detroit than for the people of Damascus, or Baghdad, or Mogadishu.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted atGlen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Found by Thomas Ward, Did my political growing up living at 5067 Buckingham

[Detroitnerd]

Glen Ford is always provocative and interesting. One of the few African American commentators not to be taken in by the Obama administration.

[JBMcB]

The International Peoples Assembly conference demands that the so-called debt to the banks be canceled

Sounds good, let's see who the top unsecured creditors are:

1. General Retirement System of the City of Detroit, $2.037 billion
2. Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit, $1.437 billion
3. U.S. Bank N.A. [[pension related trustee, administrator), $801.3 million
4. U.S. Bank N.A. [[pension related trustee, administrator), $516.5 million
5. U.S. Bank N.A. [[pension related trustee, administrator), $153.3 million

Yeah, screw those wall street bigwigs and their CoD pensions!

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

It is easier to see a conspiracy of whites trying to "take" Detroit's nice stuff than it is to figure out how to get black families back together.

[Hermod]

"The International Peoples Assembly conference demands that the so-called debt to the banks be canceled – not just for Detroit, which supposedly owes Wall Street $22 billion, but for cities, school systems, states and countries around the world that have been purposely made into debt slaves for the rich."

Ummm, what happens the next time states, counties, cities, or school districts need to borrow money? You can only do this one time.

[nain rouge]

Ummm, what happens the next time states, counties, cities, or school districts need to borrow money? You can only do this one time.

Oh ye of little imagination! I think they're thinking a lil' bigger than that! As in, why should private banks control the bulk of human capital and power? But to someone so entrenched in the system, I'm sure anything outside of the box sounds outlandishly absurd.

[Gistok]

[/COLOR]
Oh ye of little imagination! I think they're thinking a lil' bigger than that! As in, why should private banks control the bulk of human capital and power? But to someone so entrenched in the system, I'm sure anything outside of the box sounds outlandishly absurd.

Yes... why don't we have a coup with an Argentina style Junta where we can nationalize the banks and toss the bank directors out of an airplane over the ocean... and have someone dressed like Eva Peron giving away $100 bills to the poor...

That's thinking outside the box....

[Detroitnerd]

Yes... why don't we have a coup with an Argentina style Junta where we can nationalize the banks and toss the bank directors out of an airplane over the ocean... and have someone dressed like Eva Peron giving away $100 bills to the poor...

That's thinking outside the box....

It's funny to think that this is the popular perception here in the United States, that bondholders are paragons of respectability and that poor governments are addicted to loans, only to become lawless pirates flouting the bondholders and turning bond markets into anarchic chaos.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Ummm, what happens the next time states, counties, cities, or school districts need to borrow money? You can only do this one time.

On the other hand, the next time the banks need a bailout after tanking the economy we all know they'll get it.

[Danny]

Yes, white folks have black folks in the Detroit where they want them, in a instituitional consectration camp. Just like Thomas Ward said for he has seen it.

[Hermod]

It's funny to think that this is the popular perception here in the United States, that bondholders are paragons of respectability and that poor governments are addicted to loans, only to become lawless pirates flouting the bondholders and turning bond markets into anarchic chaos.

If a school district wants to build a new high school and they float a bond issue to cover the cost, how are the people who buy the bonds evil exploiters and criminals?

[MvGuy]

Yaa.......... Danny.... I see Detroit's predicament more in terms of capital vs labor than I see it in terms of black vs white.... or maybe I should say I see the problems of Detroit more as political and economic than as racial.... Listen to this: http://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/000_099/f-018b.mp3 There is more to lead to a conclusion that "forces" were out to get Ruther and the UAW.

[Wesley Mouch]

The article is pandering garbage. But they do have one piece of good advice:

The struggle also requires the rejection of what has passed for Black leadership in Detroit and the rest of America: a chattering, swaggering, class of self-servers who have been selling the people down the river ever since they got a taste of power on the backs of the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties.

Pathetic that they are doing exactly the same thing -- making suggestions that harm people for their own aggrandizement.

All this said, they have a point that society hasn't found a way to address the serious troubles of urban America. New ideas are necessary -- but this kind of blame game talk is a serious mistake.

[TKshreve]

The article is pandering garbage. But they do have one piece of good advice:

Pathetic that they are doing exactly the same thing -- making suggestions that harm people for their own aggrandizement.

All this said, they have a point that society hasn't found a way to address the serious troubles of urban America. New ideas are necessary -- but this kind of blame game talk is a serious mistake.

Sometimes you have to break an egg to make an omelet.

Look, I don't think pointing the finger works very well either, but how on earth are you supposed to change trends that have seeded in and appear to be status quo?

The people we elect will say anything to get elected and go as far as to do the exact opposite directly after their gaining office. More so, there are very little ways to hold their feet to the fire when this happens.

Do we not ask more of our leaders? It seems voters are very disinterested in vetting nowadays. They cast their votes on dubious lines. And many times those lines are incorrect as well. I also think citizens united has exacerbated the issue.

What we need is a natural born leader who exemplifies integrity. Also someone who can overcome the red tape of politics and communicate to the voters opposed to only his/her financial supporters.

[MvGuy]

Fingering what went wrong is not necessarily the blame game........ Yaa, let's look forward and put our energies there, but we must remember that to not remember and understand what was or became wrong in `our past will cause us to repeat past mistakes..... which I believe would be a mistake Detroit cannot afford.......

[Detroitnerd]

If a school district wants to build a new high school and they float a bond issue to cover the cost, how are the people who buy the bonds evil exploiters and criminals?

Bond markets themselves are so chaotic that no government can stand up to them once a run on a currency begins. And would-be creditors are salesmen, given to the same wild enthusiasms over certain markets that any deal-junkie is. There are countless instances where institutions lend and lend to certain governments, then during the inevitable bust cycle demand austerity to get the money paid back that was supposed to be a risk in the first place. Nobody is forcing them to lend money, you know. But they have few regulations, fewer all the time, and get governments running to their help when they're in over their heads. On the other hand, when it comes to erasing debt and reining in bondholders, which actually helps economies grow and forces lenders to fund productive activities, we're all supposed to be aghast at the very idea of it, when ... that's what happened at the end of World War Two and started off the 30 years' miracle.

A lot of this "conventional wisdom" involves a handful of irrational prejudices that serve the needs of the class of lenders, raiders and speculators who do more damage than any pirates or revolutionary "comminists" could.

[oladub]

If Detroit's present population is about 750,000 and 85% are black, 85%=637,500. I don't know what the zenith of black population was in Detroit but everyone in excess of 637,500 has already left Detroit as has most of the white population. While this acknowledgement does nothing to help black Detroiters in their relationship with banks, at least we know that many blacks are able to and have left for other options. Detroit is not quite the prison described.

Banks and other creditors aren't going to get what is due them one way or the other. However, it makes little sense to drive banks into bankruptcy for trying to enforce their end of mostly voluntary contracts. Our politicians would probably, once again, rush to the banks' rescue with loans payable by our children. If necessary, it would make more sense to subsidize Detroiters directly instead of indirectly by shoring up banks.

[Detroitnerd]

Well, we never talk about reining in the banks. If banks want to gamble, that is to say, invest money in risky projects, they should form banks just for that, where private pools of money are invested. What the banks have been doing since the 1970s is gambling with OUR money. That's why the banks have been making riskier investments, because they know the government will bail them out.

Keep investment banks separate and you don't have to worry about this cycle of boom and bust affecting private finances.

[Hermod]

Bond markets themselves are so chaotic that no government can stand up to them once a run on a currency begins. And would-be creditors are salesmen, given to the same wild enthusiasms over certain markets that any deal-junkie is. There are countless instances where institutions lend and lend to certain governments, then during the inevitable bust cycle demand austerity to get the money paid back that was supposed to be a risk in the first place. Nobody is forcing them to lend money, you know. But they have few regulations, fewer all the time, and get governments running to their help when they're in over their heads. On the other hand, when it comes to erasing debt and reining in bondholders, which actually helps economies grow and forces lenders to fund productive activities, we're all supposed to be aghast at the very idea of it, when ... that's what happened at the end of World War Two and started off the 30 years' miracle.

A lot of this "conventional wisdom" involves a handful of irrational prejudices that serve the needs of the class of lenders, raiders and speculators who do more damage than any pirates or revolutionary "comminists" could.

We are not talking international finance and exploitation of third world countries [[unless you consider Detroit to be a third world country).

We a re talking a school district needing a new high school. They have two choices, they can set aside a certain amount of money over twenty year period and then build the high school or they can sell thirty year bonds to pay for the high school now. They then set aside money to pay the bonds off, but they have the school now. They go to an investment bank as an underwriter for the bonds. The bank then sells the bonds to individuals and institutions who are looking for a steady revenue stream [[and being free of federal income taxes on the revenue stream allows the school district to borrow at a lower rate). The bank gives the money to the school district and the school is built.
Where is all of the criminality and cheating that you are going on about? If the school district doesn't want to go in debt, they can defer their needs or desires for a new school.

[Detroitnerd]

We are not talking international finance and exploitation of third world countries [[unless you consider Detroit to be a third world country).

We a re talking a school district needing a new high school. They have two choices, they can set aside a certain amount of money over twenty year period and then build the high school or they can sell thirty year bonds to pay for the high school now. They then set aside money to pay the bonds off, but they have the school now. They go to an investment bank as an underwriter for the bonds. The bank then sells the bonds to individuals and institutions who are looking for a steady revenue stream [[and being free of federal income taxes on the revenue stream allows the school district to borrow at a lower rate). The bank gives the money to the school district and the school is built.
Where is all of the criminality and cheating that you are going on about? If the school district doesn't want to go in debt, they can defer their needs or desires for a new school.

Governments are governments. And Detroit often does fit the Third World model, in the sense that it is an undercapitalized place that fits in pretty well with the neocolonial model. The history of using loans as neocolonial tools goes back quite a ways, certainly into the 19th century.

Think you just have a radical with blinders on ranting at you? Don't take my word for it. Challenge your presumptions, Hermod. Read "Debtor's Prison" by Robert Kuttner for an overview of why unregulated bond markets are doing more damage to the West than a million bomb-hurling terrorists and what can be done about it.

[Wesley Mouch]

Governments are governments. And Detroit often does fit the Third World model, in the sense that it is an undercapitalized place that fits in pretty well with the neocolonial model. The history of using loans as neocolonial tools goes back quite a ways, certainly into the 19th century.

Think you just have a radical with blinders on ranting at you? Don't take my word for it. Challenge your presumptions, Hermod. Read "Debtor's Prison" by Robert Kuttner for an overview of why unregulated bond markets are doing more damage to the West than a million bomb-hurling terrorists and what can be done about it.

I do see your point. And I do agree with some aspects of neocolonialsm in Detroit's situation.

Without being an expect or even well read on the topic, I'd suggest that the difference is that unless you really go to the lunatic fringe of conspiracy theories, most of Detroit's situation and its debt was put into place by popularly elected leaders. So unless CAY, Kwame, and Co. are see to be tools of the white power structure, I can't quite apply the neocolonial theory to Detroit.

But I'm sure it feels good to blame someone else. That' the biggest problem I have with all these theories and anti-EM fights. The best thing for Detroit now is real reform of its own, self-created problems. Outsiders really aren't conspiring to do anything in Detroit. They'd just leave it for dead.

[Danny]

If Detroit's present population is about 750,000 and 85% are black, 85%=637,500. I don't know what the zenith of black population was in Detroit but everyone in excess of 637,500 has already left Detroit as has most of the white population. While this acknowledgement does nothing to help black Detroiters in their relationship with banks, at least we know that many blacks are able to and have left for other options. Detroit is not quite the prison described.

According the 2010 Census Detroit's population now stands at 713,000 in 2012 its population is still shrinking to over 696,000. It's Black population now stands at 550,000. In 1990 Census, Detroit's black population was at 777,000. From 1990 to 2010 black flight was accelerated by 227,000. Over 194,000 were middle income blacks; that leaves about 33,000 low-income blacks left the city. Over 550,000 blacks who now living in the Detroit 376,000 are middle income while 174,000 are in low-income [[about).

Now as you quote about Detroit as not a prison to black folks. It's a prison to black folks if they don't educate themselves, find a decent job and have money to leave. Middle income black Detroiters can leave the city if they want to. They have an education, job and money to do so.

[Detroitnerd]

I do see your point. And I do agree with some aspects of neocolonialsm in Detroit's situation.

Without being an expect or even well read on the topic, I'd suggest that the difference is that unless you really go to the lunatic fringe of conspiracy theories, most of Detroit's situation and its debt was put into place by popularly elected leaders. So unless CAY, Kwame, and Co. are see to be tools of the white power structure, I can't quite apply the neocolonial theory to Detroit.

Well, what color was the skin of the political leaders who groomed him for office? What color was the skin of the business leaders who bankrolled his run and paid him off when he blew it? I've seen George Jackson and the fire chief and lots of other high-placed city officials going out to some of the finer restaurants downtown, and they were all meeting with pink-faced businessmen. I think people have exaggerated ideas of the kind of politics ethnic block voting engenders. Sure, the leaders are black, but they're just gaming the system and making self-serving deals with the white power structure, even if they pander to their constituents like demagogues.

Detroit is Chinatown, right? So the well-connected businesspeople milk the city for abatements and subsidies. The black political class milks the city for paychecks and future favors. And the city continues to suffer. Just because they're popularly elected doesn't mean they're not venal and self-interested.

[hortonz]

To quote the late, great Curtis Mayfield: Educated fools from uneducated schools. If we nationalize all the white-owned banks doesn't it follow that black-owned banks will also be nationalized? And how does THAT benefit the black community? You would be taking black-owned and operated business and putting it in the hands of a federal government that is, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt and owes billions of dollars to the Chinese government.

[Detroitnerd]

To quote the late, great Curtis Mayfield: Educated fools from uneducated schools. If we nationalize all the white-owned banks doesn't it follow that black-owned banks will also be nationalized? And how does THAT benefit the black community? You would be taking black-owned and operated business and putting it in the hands of a federal government that is, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt and owes billions of dollars to the Chinese government.

Well, since 2007, that same government has been picking winners and losers, and has shut quite a few smaller banks that didn't have rampant problems with abuse and criminality. If you want to help black-owned banks, seems to me that shoring up equality of education and opportunity would be the best step, not protecting banks per se. Blacks are last hired and first fired, and all the wealth accumulated by blacks since the 1990s has been wiped out, largely due to the criminality of the big banks. That's what's endangering black-owned banks, not nationalization, which I don't think has even been brought up here.

According to FDIC, there were 54 black-owned banks in 1994.

In 2013, there are 21.

Skewed federal social policy and institutional racism are at work there, not a heavy hand with black-owned banks.

Like a lot of Americans, I feel that law enforcement spends too much time policing people with black skin, and not enough time policing people with white collars.