STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 23 May 2014

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7. Koch brothers’ Detroit abomination: Stunning avarice and cruelty reaches new low

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/22/koch_brothers_detroit_abomination_stunning_avarice_and_cruelty_reaches_new_low/

Ta-Nehisi Coates has written the day’s must-read on the legacy of slavery and white supremacy. It focuses on Chicago, and reminds all of us how white mob violence plus white “flight,” backed by discriminatory federal lending policies, kept African-Americans out of many city neighborhoods, and doomed the neighborhoods in which they were allowed to live and buy. It also reminds us that the first “race riots” weren’t what we now mostly associate with the term — the black urban uprisings of the ‘60s – but white violence against black people and black property, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Rosewood, Florida, to Chicago and a horrifying example he happens not to mention: Detroit in 1943.

It’s against that backdrop that the Koch brothers’ new crusade against a landmark bipartisan settlement of Detroit’s bankruptcy crisis seems particularly greedy and cruel. After much controversy and debate, Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has agreed to provide $195 million in state funding that will limit pension cuts to no more than 4.5 percent and protect the Detroit Institute of Art from liquidating its collection.

“This is a settlement. This not a bailout,” Snyder said. “And I want to be very, very clear about that.”

Not so fast, Gov. Snyder. Americans for Prosperity has built a shiny website, shamelessly named StrongerDetroit.com, that shrieks “NO MORE BAILOUTS.” It has committed to contacting 90,000 Michigan conservatives to get them to tell their Republican representatives to buck Snyder and (what rhymes with buck?) Detroit. The group promises to run ads against any Republican who votes in favor of the bankruptcy settlement.

Remember, Snyder is no bleeding-heart liberal; far from it. He has come under fire from Democrats and civil rights advocates for his heavy-handed use of executive power to put the finances of struggling Michigan cities, including Detroit, under state control, often usurping the power of African-American elected officials. In 2012, he flip-flopped on campaign promises to oppose an anti-union right to work law, signing the bill much loved by the Koch brothers.