Michigan Citizens Says Detroit School "Enslaved" By Loans To "Slave Bank", Said Nothing Before The Contract Signature

Silly me.  I didn't notice the page banner of "The Michigan Citizen" before the claims made in the article raised my ire.  After all they are "America's most PROGRESSIVE community newspaper".  This would have tempered my surprise had I known.

"The Michigan Citizen" appears to be an National Newspapers Publisher's Association syndicate.  Thus this article appears in the September 14th edition of "The Final Call" - a soft-syndicate of the NNPA propaganda articles as I have noted previously.

Slaves To Debt?  Worries About Borrowing and Detroit Public Schools

According to an article by their writer Diane Bukowski - The $523.8 million in debt owed by the Detroit Public School system to "Back of New York Mellon" is money owed to a "slave bank".

This is in reference to Alexander Hamilton - a "founding father" of the USA.  According to Hamilton's Wikipedia page while there is only indirect proof that Hamilton owned enslaved Africans - he made several affirmative steps showing his opposition to slavery and the equality of Africans as human beings.

• Hamilton argued that blacks' natural faculties were as good as those of free whites, and he answered objections by citing Frederick the Great and others as praising stupidity in soldiers
• Hamilton later attacked his political opponents as demanding freedom for themselves and refusing to allow it to blacks
• Hamilton was president of the New York Manumission Society
• He supported  Toussaint L'Ouverture in Haiti if for no other reason than to oppose France

But this issue is not about Alexander Hamilton, regardless of how much Ms Bukowski attempts to make it so.  The only "dead presidents & treasury secretaries" that are relevant here are the one's that are lacking in Detroit.  It is the functional insolvency of the city of Detroit as a going concern that made them desperate for money and thus agreeing to the funds from the bank.

I must challenge Ms Bukowski, asking her - "Why didn't you bring these 'slavery facts' about "The Bank Of New York" up BEFORE the official of Detroit with the legal authority to sign the loan agreement for the cash did so?

In the remainder of the article Ms Bukowski does the core progressive tactic of PUTTING THE ADVERSARY ON TRIAL - detailing how "The Bank Of New York Mellon" is the fund manager of the government's "TARP program". It has been accused of "money laundering" $7B in funds from a Russian bank.  

Again - where was this character background check before the first round of $210M to bail out Detroit schools?

The De-incorporation of an Entity

The real issue that Ms Bukowski doesn't want to deal with is the core question of "Is the city of Detroit still a viable financial concern?"

American cities were all once "unincorporated lands".  Community organizers who believed that the land incorporated as a city upon receiving a state charter could afford the people a higher standard of living if they were provided with the franchise right to collect taxes locally to fund the key civic services for the people.

If the state is charged with measuring the competency of this entity to fend for itself prior to granting a charter then there must be some process for the revocation of the charter when the entities' abilities fall below a certain threshold.  

If a corporation can reach a point of insolvency and is thus dissolved after failing to remain a viable concern - so to must it be the case for an incorporated municipality.

The truth is that every STATE has the legal obligation to provide educational services - per the articulation in their state constitutions.   The city was franchised to provide these functions on behalf of the state when the charter was provided.   If the state becomes a mere funnel of money while the individuals that provide over the local insolvency face no consequences for their actions - the local governments around our country degrade into mere state/federal money collection and redistribution nodes.  

The danger in this is that they will switch their consciousness away from the tough economic choices that are involved in the responsible management of an entity over to agents of activism and lobbying.  The people's SOCIAL JUSTICE RIGHTS providing the justification for all funding while shielding them from scrutiny for their incompetency and/or the inability of the economic activities within to sustain the city.

It seems to me that Detroit resides as it does today because there is more ACTIVISM than there is COMPETENT RESOURCE MANAGEMENT toward productive ends..