PHOTO/JAMES FASSINGER, STILLSCENES.COM
DETROIT— Detroit, Michigan has now made new history. Judge Steven Rhodes has approved the Detroit Bankruptcy filing which allows the Emergency Manager much greater powers to attack the current and retired public workers.
Although the ruling will be appealed, possibly to the US Supreme Court, the power of bondholders and the government merged together against us is becoming clear. Pension funds are now considered public assets available to be seized to pay the bondholders, while retirees will be forced to suffer.
The 20 plus international news agencies camped out at the Federal Court rushed from the scene after hearing the bankruptcy approval ruling issued by Judge Rhodes, anxious to report this devastating news. What does it mean? It means that we are up against the ruling class like never before. It means that, across the nation, the other 34 states with large metropolitan cities facing declining populations and rising pension obligations had better take heed of this message—nothing is sacred. We have been stripped of our right to vote, and even the Federal courts will not restore that basic entitlement.
What it means is that the “fire sale” of Detroit assets is open to the highest bidder at the lowest cost. What it means is that the rise of technology and its effect on eliminating labor from our workplaces has taken another big bite out of our standard of living. It means that because we are no longer needed in large numbers to produce, our lives are becoming more and more marginalized. Retirees are under full assault because a Federal judge declared that in the Detroit bankruptcy, public workers are not protected. ALL municipal retirees in every American city are now subject to have their health benefits and pensions reduced. Make certain that you understand this . . . senior citizens are pushed into homelessness!
Food Stamps in millions of low-income households have been cut. Empty houses stand in neighborhoods as homeless families pass them on their way to shelters already too full. As we move toward the final stage of this declining economy, we have to see the totality of what is unfolding in front of our very eyes.
The ruling class tells us that poor people have TOO much money, and rich people don’t have enough money. One percent of the nation’s population controls the resources of the nation. Elections don’t work. Candidates don’t hear us. The process is flawed and cannot be corrected in a way that benefits the majority of the residents trying to keep body and soul together.
Objective changes in how things are produced have made a permanent impact on everyone’s quality of life. Humanity is being re-organized on a new world order . . . either the Koch Brothers, the Romney Klan, or the Snyder Group will be in charge of how that new world looks, or working people will take up the mantle of leadership.
My fear is that all the violent protests we watch every night at dinner time on the nightly news , are going to erupt right here in the good old U.S.A . People
Are only going to loose so much before they push back. Hopelessness is a very dangerous emotion and mix that with anger !