Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Warning: You are about to enter the Twilight Zone.
Imagine, if you will, that you live in a state where a governor wields extraordinary power over its residents. Imagine, if you will, that your governor has the legal
authority to appoint an “Emergency Manager” to oversee the local government in the town where you reside. Imagine that the monetary compensation for the Emergency Manager of your community has no cap. Imagine that your Emergency Manager declares that there’s a financial emergency in your town and then takes over control of it. Imagine that the Emergency Manager can break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services—and can also fire duly elected public officials who serve your community. Imagine, if you will, that the Emergency Manager empowered by your governor to run your town has the right to dissolve your school district and to disincorporate your town. AND imagine that you and your fellow residents have no say about what is going on! Just imagine how you might feel if you lived in a state where that kind of thing was going on. Well, the people who live in Michigan may not have to imagine much longer.
Who, you might ask, will be responsible for transforming the state of Michigan into a Rod Serlingesque otherworldly undemocratic Twilight Zone right here in the United States? Why, Governor Rick Snyder and his bold band of Republican state legislators–that’s who. In January, Governor Snyder called for “Emergency Manager” legislation—and the Republican state legislators were more than happy to comply with his request.
This all seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? I’m not making it up. Karen Bouffard of The Detroit News reported the following: Legislation that would allow emergency financial managers to throw out union contracts and overrule elected officials in financially distressed municipalities and school districts was approved Wednesday by the state Senate. Similar legislation passed in the House in February, and the two chambers are working on a final version to send to Gov. Rick Snyder.
In an article published in The Michigan Messenger, Eartha Jane Melzer wrote:
Under the law whole cities or school districts could be eliminated without any public participation or oversight, and amendments designed to provide minimal safeguards and public involvement were voted down.
An amendment to require Emergency Managers to hold monthly public meetings to let people know how they are governing was rejected by Senate Republicans, along with proposals to cap Emergency Manager compensation and require that those appointed to run school districts have some background in education.
Critics say that Republicans are manipulating concerns about budget problems in order to consolidate power by undermining unions.
According to E. D. Kain: Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.
Mark Gaffney, Michigan State President of the AFL-CIO said: This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen.
Do you agree with Mark Gaffney? Do you think what’s going on in Michigan is an assault on democracy?
SOURCES
Rachel Maddow Exposes Michigan Republicans Secret War On Democracy (Politicus USA)
Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers (Forbes)
Michigan Republicans Use Budget Crisis to make Outrageous Assault on Democracy (AFL-CIO)
Michigan Senate passes emergency manager bills (Daily Tribune)
Emergency managers bill sweeps toward final approval (The Michigan Messenger)
Conyers: Emergency Manager bill ‘raises serious constitutional concerns’ (The Michigan Messenger)
Financial manager bill passes Michigan Senate (The Detroit News)
Michigan bill would impose “financial martial law” (CBS News)
In Duluth, Minnesota, on June 15, 1920, three young African American travelers were lynched after having been jailed and accused of having raped a white woman. The alleged “motive” and action by a mob were consistent with the “community policing” model.
Although the rhetoric surrounding lynchings included justifications about protecting white women, the actions basically erupted out attempts to maintain domination in a rapidly changing society and fears of social change.[32] Victims were the scapegoats for peoples’ attempts to control agriculture, labor and education as well as disasters such as the boll weevil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#Disfranchisement.2C_1877_to_World_War_I
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we should be mindful of where we go…we are in the base process of a cycle
“No group has been more “helped” by the American government than American Indians. Yet no group in America does worse.
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yes, we helped them right out of their land, their culture, their rights. Kind of like we are doing now…to the average American citizen and the labor bloc. I’m with Dr. Brian on this one…he is dead on…stealing, rape, oppression, usurption and the like is not easy to overcome. And btw….restitution and relief of imposed conditions is not, by definition, HELP.
@Maury: See? I think that is the difference between you and us liberals. I and many like me have worked beside the people we think should be helped, and having done that, we see the lies of the right about “self reliance” and “freeloaders” and “responsibility” for the hateful fictions they are.
The public services and tax policies we lawyers, professors, engineers, investors, consultants and business owners and other financially successful liberals are pushing for might well reduce our own income and increase our own taxes. I think it far more likely we would suffer that impact before you would.
You might say, “Sure, go ahead and leave me alone,” and we do to an extent; through pro bono work and charitable work. But we are smart enough to understand two things:
1) If the help is not mandatory then it is not sustainable. A chain reaction develops of the selfish rich exploiting the help for their own gain, and refusing to contribute, so it is the RICH that take the free ride, not the poor that are helped. Every rich asshole that does that incrementally increases the charitable pressure on the volunteers that do contribute, which they cannot meet, or it causes resentments, so more opt out until the help is marginal at best.
The only solution to that free rider problem I know of is to make it illegal to ride free, and we know the free riders are never going to vote against themselves because that is their nature, so a 100% agreement is not possible. We cannot be determinatively ruled by a minority of selfish pricks, that is a tyranny of selfish pricks. So we have to pass some laws, policy and Amendments with much less than 100% agreement, and if that makes the selfish pricks unhappy, that is outweighed by the benefits achieved for all.
2) An ad hoc volunteer approach sacrifices most of the leverage that organized, specialized help could achieve. Institutions gain economies of scale that include providing enough work to keep specialists busy full time, and those economies multiply the leverage of the dollars spent.
“improper then”
bdaman,
I’d hardly call raising GE’s taxes and then letting them avoid them “cracking the whip”. Reagan was as guilty of being a corporatist whore as any of them in recent history. The problems with companies like GE go back at least as far as Johnson. I would say they even existed in the time of Eisenhower, although his stance against the military-industrial complex shows he thought it was as improper than as it is now.
SB cracked
Also who is it that wrote the laws to allow GE and other corporations to use loopholes in order to get to a zero liability.
GE has over 900 employee’s in there tax division.
Fair Tax is what we need.
Yea I agree Buddha, Reagan actually crack the whip on GE then it went down hill after that but we were suppose to get change we could believe in not business as usual.
bdaman,
Just because the current GE graft weasel has Obama in his pocket doesn’t negate the fact this is a long time systemic problem. Former GE weasel weasel Jack Welch had Reagan and both of the Bush cabal in his pocket. See, that’s what partisanship gets you: you miss the whole picture. The bulk of the abuses of the corporate form come from the expanding personality coupled with their ever increasing limited liability which they purchase via the graft – er – campaign finance system. However, both of these abuses are exacerbated by legal perpetual life of corporations. You cannot look at a corporation’s wrongdoing in the terms of singular Presidencies or corporate leadership. To fully grasp the problem, you have to look at corporate wrongdoing in the terms of the entire life of the corporation.
RE: John Stossel. He is little more than a better looking and more articulate version of the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. In some respects, that makes him more dangerous than the more hyperbolic versions of right wing talking heads. Thank goodness Stossel does not have the audience they do.
Is it honest or decent to use the Lumbee, who were able to stay (geographically) where their culture was developed as the standard for tribes who were dislocated onto land incompatible with their culture and cultural traditions?
http://www.lumbeetribe.com/History_Culture/History_Culture%20Index.html
One of my college roommates was of a first people’s tribe.
Destruction of a culture may result in the people of the destroyed culture requiring a long time for building a replacement culture.
The reward for the Cherokee for adapting well to European ways was the Trail of Tears genocide effort.
More hatred does not reduce hatred.
John Stossel put together an excellent program shown on television today exposing the price freeloaders cost to themselves and the American tax payer. It is graft on a gigantic scale. One of the best examples of it at its worst is the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the paralysis of the individual which results from government policies. Click here for an introduction http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385×566379
Stossel wrote the following at Fox News, titled, “Freeloading Doesn’t Help the Freeloaders.”
“No group has been more “helped” by the American government than American Indians. Yet no group in America does worse.
Almost a quarter of Native Americans live in poverty. 66 percent are born to single mothers. They have short life spans. Indian activists say the solution is -surprise- more money from the government. But Washington already spends about $13 billion on programs for Indians every year.
There are special programs in 20 different Departments and Agencies: Empowering Tribal Nations Initiative, Advancing Nation to Nation Relationships, Protecting Indian Country, Improving Trust Land Management, New Energy Frontier Initiative, Climate Change Adaptation Initiative, Construction, Improving Trust Management, Tribal Priority Allocations, Resolving Land and Water Claims, Indian Land Consolidation Program. This is just a partial list.
But that’s still not enough for Indian activists. In my Fox News Special “Freeloaders” (10 pm ET tonight), Elizabeth Homer, who used to be the U.S. Interior Departments Director of American Indian Trust, argues the government must do more.
I say government already does too much. Indians would be better off without government handouts. I have evidence: tribes not recognized by the federal government, tribes that get no special help, often do better.
Members of the Lumbee tribe from Robeson County, NC, own their own homes. They succeed in business. Lumbee tribe members include real estate developer Jim Thomas, who used to own the Sacramento Kings. Lumbee Jack Lowery helped start the Cracker Barrel Restaurants. Lumbees started the first Indian owned bank, which now has 12 branches.
http://mnprager.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/john-stossel-and-the-price-one-pays-for-freeloading/
RE: rafflaw, March 26, 2011 at 11:01 pm
OS,
You are right. Mr. Harris was right on target.
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“Mr.” is offensive to some transgendered people.
“Brian” or “Brian Harris” or “J. Brian Harris” work.
“Rev. Harris” worked for my dad and his parents.
That is also okay with me.
Your choice.
GE abuses was put in place long before Obama, this is a problem that most certainly pre-dates him.
Saw John Stossels freeloaders program last night. EVERYONE should watch the rebroadcast tonight at 10 p.m.
In America today, the biggest recipients of handouts are not poor people. They’re corporations.
General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt is super-close to President Obama. The president named Immelt chairman of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Before that, Immelt was on Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He’s a regular companion when Obama travels abroad to hawk American exports. (Why does business need government to do that?)
“Jeff Immelt is perhaps the CEO who is most cozy with President Obama,” says journalist Tim Carney, who will be a guest on my new Fox News special on freeloading this weekend. “General Electric is structuring their business around where government is going … high-speed rail, solar, wind. GE is lining up to get what government is handing out.”
Businesses love to have government as their partner. There’s safety in it. Why take chances in a marketplace full of fickle consumers and investors, when you can get secure money and favors from the taxpayers? It’s an old story, and free-market advocates as far back as Adam Smith warned against it.
Unfortunately, too many people think “free market” means pro-business. It doesn’t. Free market means laissez faire — prohibit force and fraud, but otherwise leave the marketplace alone. No subsidies, no privileges, no arbitrary regulations. Competition is the most effective regulator.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/24/john-stossel-ge-obama-cozy-government-business-handing-favors-folks-connections/#ixzz1Hnngu0Nr
Brian,
Wonderful….and thank you…I was able to catch it all and recall.
OS,
All I can say about that is if I were the judge? I’d be making Monday a very big day for the police. They’d be very busy rounding up every state official responsible for contempt – including the governor. I bet a few days of riding the pine and eating green bologna sandwiches would break those corporatist idiots from sucking eggs.
Wisconsin Republicans published their Anti-Union Law in defiance of the court order. They made it clear they intend to extend defiance of the Court by implementing it as well, despite the fact the Court has enjoined them from doing so. How low can they go? No one knows. Each time we think they have hit rock bottom in their attempts to steal from the poor and give to the rich, we find new depths being plumbed.
Talking Points Memo has the story:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/wis-republicans-publish-anti-union-law—-in-apparent-defiance-of-court-order.php?ref=fpa
bdaman,
Considering the bulk of the tax code that GE abuses was put in place long before Obama, this is a problem that most certainly pre-dates him. Not to say that he’s not a corporatist bought off scumbag just like everyone in the GOP and the bulk of the DNC – fascism sneaking into the system via campaign finance is the root of our cause of our shell game tax code just like it is most of the systemically bad laws plaguing our government, but let’s put proper cause where proper cause is due. The corporate tax evasion problem is older than Obama. Hell, it’s older the Reagan even although he got the ball rolling faster for certain.
GE they bring good things to life. Like the mercury filled curly Q light bulb that when broken you need a haz-matt team to clean it up. Wonder how many tax subsidies GE received from Obama for all the green jobs to that went to China. Birds of a feather flock together.
OS,
You are killing ms! This Walker is one slimy excuse for a human being. How many jobs did that create in Wisconsin?