As Americans, we are taught that our government is “of, for and by the people.” Many of us even brag that our justice system is the fairest in the world. No recent court case shatters that myth as thoroughly as that of Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, MI.
In the latest example of justice denied, the Michigan State Court of Appeals denied Rev. Pinkney’s motion requesting bond pending appeal. That was the 232nd day he has languished in prison, where in his words, he is “paying a debt to society I do not owe.” He was tried, convicted, sentenced and jailed by a court that admitted it had no evidence that he changed dates on petitions in a recall campaign of a corporate backed mayor. Instead, years of community activism were presented as “proof” he committed a crime.
What kind of activism brings the government down on you like that? The kind that warns you that the corporations have taken over government. In Benton Harbor, that corporation is Whirlpool. When Whirlpool closed production in Benton Harbor in the 1980s, it permanently laid off its workers. From that point, the Whirlpool Corporation no longer needed the Benton Harbor working class. Benton Harbor became the poorest city in Michigan.
The police and courts went on a reign of terror. Open rebellion sparked by a police killing followed with the city occupied by the national guard in 2003. The state legislature later passed the Emergency Manager Law, giving the governor the power to appoint dictators that replace mayors and city councils in Michigan cities. The first of these was sent to Benton Harbor. The Emergency Manager facilitated the privatization of all things public into the hands of Whirlpool. The workers resisted this process every step of the way, and continue to do so.
Under capitalism, the purpose of government is to guarantee and protect the maximum profits of the corporate ruling class. Benton Harbor unmasks the masquerade of government as an unbiased mediator between the interests of the growing impoverished masses and the corporate elite.
Rev. Pinkney has been the most consistent voice in the interests of the poorest masses. Sending a SWAT team to arrest him, using a virtually all white jury to help guarantee his conviction, and sentencing him to 2 1/2 to ten years in prison, shows the lengths to which the corporate state will go to try to stop a movement. The movement must defend its leaders. Free Rev. Pinkney!
