* Preemptive Prosecution: The investigation, prosecution and imprisonment of persons by US law enforcement agencies based on religion, country of origin, political beliefs, and alleged aspirational intent - but not necessarily on material actions. For further discussion, please read Preemptive Prosecution – Cheney’s 1% Approach To Justice

The panel presentation will focus on how the ‘War on Terror’ climate and its repressive legal practices in the criminal justice system have affected civil liberties and human rights of Arab, Muslim, African American, South Asian, and all immigrant communities and the broader social justice movement.

Representatives from the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF), Project Salam, CAIR-MI, Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI), and Committee to Stop FBI Repression-MI will be having a panel discussion about their political, social and legal campaigns around these very important issues to address how we can counter and change oppressive policies.

Included in the panels are families who will share personal stories of struggles for justice. The goal of the program is to shed light on the conditions of families and communities suffering under the war on terror, establish alliances across all communities for support, and mobilize our communities to eradicate these oppressive political and legal injunctions.

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FIGHT FOR A PROGRAM THAT PUTS PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS AND WAR!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.