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Page_Contents
Michigan
Emergency
Moratorium
African
Americans for Palestine
Latin America School of Medicine
Benton Harbor
Media Choices, Book Stores,
Video, and Music
Events
Calendar
Coalition websites
Political Prisoners websites
Other websites
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Rally For Palestine: Saving al-Quds
September 3 · 2:30pm - 4:30pm
Dearborn City Hall
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FIGHT FOR A PROGRAM THAT PUTS PEOPLE BEFORE
PROFITS AND WAR!
MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES
& EVICTIONS
STOP THE “SILENT BAILOUT”
TO THE BANKS
Today the vast majority of
home loans are backed up the federal government through Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac, FHA or the Veterans Administration. This means when
your home is foreclosed, the government pays off the bank for the full
value of the inflated loan, evicts you from your home, and then sells
off your home to some investor for peanuts. The difference
between what the government reimburses the banks for your mortgage and
the price the home sells for is paid by the taxpayers.
This silent bailout of the banks, which occurs with virtually every
foreclosure, amounts to $400 billion for Fannie Mae- and Freddie
Mac-backed loans, and hundreds of billions more on FHA properties.
Instead of the government evicting us from our homes, the government at
both the federal and state level should declare a Moratorium on
Foreclosures and evictions, just like the foreclosure moratoriums that
were enacted by 25 states during the 1930s. Instead of the government
bailing out the banks by paying off overvalued loans, they should allow
people to stay in their homes with affordable payments based on the
real value of the property.
And the criminal shut-offs of power by DTE and the Water Board must be
halted so people can survive this economic crisis.
MONEY FOR JOBS, NOT FOR WAR
FOR A MASSIVE PUBLIC JOBS
PROGRAM
The Pentagon war budget is
over $700 billion a year, and that doesn’t even include the tens of
billions of dollars a year spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
and supporting Israeli apartheid. It’s time to end U.S. wars and
military occupations abroad. The vast sums spent on war should be
used instead for a massive jobs program modeled on the Works Progress
Administration of the 1930s, and to provide free and universal health
care for all. A “jobless recovery” violates the Full Employment
Act enacted in 1946 and reaffirmed in 1978, which mandates that the
government has a duty to insure jobs for all.
END PRIVATIZATION, WAGE
CUTS AND SCHOOL CLOSINGS
STOP DEBT SERVICE AND
INTEREST PAYMENTS TO THE BANKS
THAT ARE ROBBING CITY
BUDGETS
While services are slashed,
city workers are being laid off and forced to accept draconian wage and
benefit cuts and schools are shut down and class sizes increased, the
same banks that have destroyed our neighborhoods have asserted direct
control over and are robbing the public budgets.
This year alone, the City of Detroit will pay over $220 billion in debt
service to the banks. Casino tax revenues are handed directly
over to U.S. Bank. The banks have first lien on state revenue
sharing dollars. 71% of state aid to the schools, amounting to
$438.2 million this year, goes to the banks instead of being used to
educate our youth. The banks’ grab on school operating funds is
slated to go up to $523.8 million in 2011.
In the 1930s Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy led a national movement for a
Moratorium on the cities’ debts to the banks. We need a
Moratorium on debt service today to stop the banks’ robbery of Detroit
and every U.S. city.
END RACISM & BIGOTRY –
STOP POLICE BRUTALITY
FULL RIGHTS FOR IMMIGRANTS
– NO WORKER IS ILLEGAL
Stop police
brutality. End the stepped up-raids by ICE (Immigration and
Customs Enforcement), the increase in hate crimes against women and
lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender people, and lack of rights and
accessibility for people with disabilities. These ills are meant to
intimidate and divide the working class to prevent the kind of unified
struggle needed against the banks and bosses. We reject the idea
that any worker is illegal and demand full rights for immigrant workers
including the undocumented.
STOP ENVIRONMENTAL
DESTRUCTION
FOR A PEOPLE’S TAKEOVER OF
THE OIL COMPANIES
The BP catastrophe in the
Gulf and the oil pipeline disaster in Michigan point out the need for a
people’s takeover of the oil companies and energy monopolies to stop
their destruction of the environment in their drive to maintain their
obscene profits. Oil and all resources belong to the people and
should be controlled by the people to provide safe energy for all.
STOP UNION BUSTING – PASS
THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT
While corporate profits
increase, wages continue to decline during this “jobless
recovery.” We need to reinvigorate the union movement to
guarantee jobs at living wages for all.
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Moratorium NOW!
Coalition Demands:
- DECLARE A
PEOPLE'S STATE OF EMERGENCY!
- END THE BANKS’
STRANGLEHOLD ON
DETROIT!
- STOP DEBT SERVICE
AND INTEREST PAYMENTS NOW!
- DEMAND A
MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES, EVICTIONS, UTILITY SHUTOFFS AND SCHOOL
CLOSURES !
- DEMAND A MASSIVE
GOVERNMENT FUNDED JOBS
PROGRAM!
These figures represent payments to the banks and financial
institutions for debt service in Mayor Bing’s recommendations for the
2010-2011 budget:
$74,398,313 – Sinking
Interest & Redemption
$96,145,561 – POC Swap Hedge Payment 2009
$164,258,400 – Water Bond
Interest
$5,338,100 – Water Bond Fund Series 2007
$207,996,300 – Sewage Bond and Interest
$46,640,000 – Sewerage Bond
Fund Series 2
While City workers are laid off and asked to take 10%
wage cuts and massive benefit cuts and while much-needed city services
are slashed, the banks and financial institutions are being paid
hundreds of millions of dollars from the City budget. Casino tax
dollars – they go immediately to the banks. State revenue sharing
dollars – the banks have first claim on them. According to the April 4,
2010 Detroit News, for some months this year 80% of state aid to
Detroit schools goes for debt repayment to the banks instead of
classrooms.
The same banks and financial institutions that are
profiting off the city’s financial crisis have destroyed our
communities with massive foreclosures based on racist, predatory,
sub-prime loans. Groups like the Citizens Research Council, whose
report was cited by the mayor in his budget address, are nothing but
fronts for these banks who want to rob Detroit much like they robbed
Third World countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The mayor and
City Council must stand up to the banks and put the needs of the people
before the banks and corporations. We need a declaration of a State of
People’s Emergency and a moratorium on foreclosures, evictions, utility
shut-offs and school closings! Instead of lay-offs and wage cuts for
City workers and elimination of vital services to balance the budget,
the mayor and City Council should place a moratorium on debt service to
the banks.
And let’s demand that the $1.8 billion taken from the people
of Detroit to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan be returned to the city
to fund a massive public jobs program to put the unemployed and youth
to work rebuilding our homes and communities.
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The Banks and
Wall Street are making the plans and pulling the strings!
Mayor Bing and
Robert Bobb are their tools
- Detroit Pension Fund ripoff…Detroit School
closings/layoffs…
- Foreclosures and evictions destroying
neighborhoods…
- City workers face wage/benefit cuts…
- DTE utility shutoffs kill families…
- DMC to be sold…Mayor’s bizarre “downsizing”
plan…
- Immigrant families torn apart by
raids/deportations…
- Detroit unemployment at 45% - why is there no
public jobs program?…
DON’T LET THEM
DESTROY DETROIT
Behind
Mayor
Bing
and
Robert
Bobb
stand
the
big
banks
and
corporate
firms
–
sometimes
working
through
“non-profits”
like
the
Skillman
and
Kresge
foundations.
They
have
launched
a
wholesale
attack
against
the
people
of
Detroit,
our
democratically
elected
bodies
(School
Board
and
Pension
Fund
Trustees),
our
unions,
our
homes
and
schools
–
our
very
right
to
live.
We
already
gave
these
banks
trillions
of
dollars
in
tax
money
bailouts.
Now
they
are
back
for
more.
Moratorium NOW!
Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions
& Utility Shutoffs
313-680-5508
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African
Americans Speak
Out for Palestine
On Saturday, January 31, 2009, MECAWI
sponsored a forum where African Americans and others spoke in
solidarity with Palestine
Detroit leaders of the
African-American community are joining with
people around the world to denounce the U.S.-financed Israeli invasion
and massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli propaganda spread by the mass media in the United States and
free trips to Israel to “wine and dine” African-American leaders cannot
cover up the racism, war crimes and genocide being committed by
Israel.
Below are written versions of some
of the talks:
- Debbie
Johnson – National Committee member of
Workers World Party
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