Benton Harbor emergency manager (EFM) strips power from all elected officials

[Bozita]

Source: Michigan Messenger

Benton Harbor emergency manager strips power from all elected officials
By Todd A. Heywood | 04.15.11 | 6:05 pm

The Emergency Financial Manager of the city of Benton Harbor has issued an order striping all city boards and commissions of all their authority to take any action.

The order, signed Thursday, limits the actions available to such bodies to calling a meeting to order, approving the minutes of meetings and adjourning a meeting. The bodies are prohibited under the act from taking any other action without the express authority of the Emergency Financial Manager, Joseph Harris.

Actions such as Harris’ are explicitly allowed under a newly approved law which granted sweeping new powers to emergency financial managers. That legislation had drawn large protests, including attempts by some protesters to take over the state capitol building. The sit-in resulted in numerous arrests.

Harris’ move comes as Detroit Public Schools’ emergency financial manager Robert Bobb announced that he would use powers granted to him under the act to change union contracts.

Read more: http://michiganmessenger.com/48278/benton-harbor-emergency-manager-strips-power-from-all-elected-officials

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See the EFM's order at the link.

[freshwest]

1. K & R

[arcane1]

2. Sounds like they're getting "Shock Doctrined" n/t

[FiveGoodMen]

5. Beat me to it!

[99th_Monkey]

12. and "disaster capitalized" too. ~nt

[Webster Green]

3. Mutherfuckers.

I better not say what I want to say. :mad:

[JackRiddler]

4. Schmittian doctrine comes down to the state level. Every town can have its tinpot.

Reminds me of this:

htt ps: // wikispooks.com /wiki/Document:Democratic_State_v_Deep_State

(The link does not render here. Copy and paste URL, but remove the spaces. Or just google title and author.)


APPROACHING THE DUAL STATE OF THE WEST

Ola Tunander

In a 1955 study of the United States State Department, Hans Morgenthau discussed the existence of a US ‘dual state’. According to Morgenthau, the US state includes both a ‘regular state hierarchy’ that acts according to the rule of law and a more or less hidden ‘security hierarchy’—which I will refer to here as the ‘security state’ (also known in some countries as the ‘deep state’) —that not only acts in parallel to the former but also monitors and exerts control over it. In Morgenthau’s view, this security aspect of the state—the ‘security state’—is able to ‘exert an effective veto over the decisions’ of the regular state governed by the rule of law. While the ‘democratic state’ offers legitimacy to security politics, the ‘security state’ intervenes where necessary, by limiting the range of democratic politics. While the ‘democratic state’ deals with political alternatives, the ‘security state’ enters the scene when ‘no alternative exists’, when particular activities are ‘securitised’ —in the event of an ‘emergency’. In fact, the security state is the very apparatus that defines when and whether a ‘state of emergency’ will emerge. This aspect of the state is what Carl Schmitt, in his 1922 work Political Theology, referred to as the ‘sovereign’.


...


After all those years where supposed war contingencies defined emergency and the national security state planned its Garden Plots and Cable Splicers and Shadow Government COGs, in the last few years, have we been seeing the emergence of a Financial Emergency State as a new form of 'sovereign'?

It was done on a grand scale in 2008 with Paulson and the TBTF banks imposing an emergency that only the bailouts could "solve." Here we have the pennyante but in its own way more brutal form on a municipal level. Democracy suspended. Financial martial law. Rule of the technocrat-accountant-philosopher king.

The way Walker's doing it in Wisconsin and the Tea Party governors are operating also evokes the doctrine of emergency as sovereign. (Klein's disaster capitalism is a subset of emergency sovereignty.)


...


(Damn smilies)

[Scuba]

6. They'll put a corporate manager in charge and treat it like a business, with...

...a nice chunk of the taxpayers dollars funneled into their already bloated bank accounts.

[Snoutport]

7. and the people of michigan? they gonna live under dictatorship?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

22. Hey, we voted for our dictator!

Or, the dictator fooled enough normally-democratic voters that he got the governorship.

He ran a sort-of cute clever campaign. I think a lot of folks bought it, forgetting the jobs he exported when head of a computer company.

I have little faith in a recall campaign. I only hope he's a one-term governor.

:hi:

[reggie the dog]

30. the people of benton harbor, with its large black population

where people mostly vote democratic has a dictator at any rate

we need to do shit like this to republican towns only force them to make private companies public

[dhill926]

8. time for torches and pitchforks, Michiganders.......

this is absurd......

[Cirque du So-What]

35. No, not torches and pitchforks

The corporate media would eat that shit up with a knife, fork & spoon. Recall the recent, peaceful demonstrations all over Wisconsin? Largely ignored, right? The corporate media are sharks; one drop of blood triggers a feeding frenzy. Bonus for the conservatroids who think they own this fucking country: Benton Harbor's population is nearly 93% African American. Do you think they'll allow *their* media to ignore even one isolated incident that could be construed as violent? Think again! Tempting though it may be to engage in violence, this is not the sort of publicity that wins hearts and minds; in this case, all publicity is NOT a good thing.

It's time to dust off the playbook that was written during the civil-rights era: nonviolent resistance, strikes, sit-ins, boycotts, symbolic protests, civil disobedience, etc. Indians defeated the British Empire and African Americans defeated Jim Crow using those techniques; defeating the draconian policies of a reactionary governor is well within the realm of possibility...nonviolently.

While on this subject...what's keeping us ALL from getting together and using nonviolent resistance to effect social change ALL OVER this nation? Nothing - that's what!

[ladywnch]

9. so a bean counter can now trump democracy? A non elected,

unknown accountant can overrule a duly elected body and this is constitutional?

IF this is true. If this is allowed to stand......it's over......we've got nothing left.

Although, you gotta love the turn of the worm here. These pukes put this law on the books (probably without reading it - as usual) and never thought it would wind up bringing about their own castration.

[Shadowflash]

10. As a Resident of Michigan..

.. though not that county, this really chaps my ass.

You know it's just gonna spread from here.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

13. It's insane

I don't know how you all can stand it...

[notadmblnd]

21. I expect Detroit is next.

[Citizen Worker]

11. It will be very educational to see this challenged in the courts as UNconstitutional. The question

is, are we living in constitutional republic where voters have a say, or are we living in a dictatorship?

[InkAddict]

14. Meet Joe Harris of Benton Harbor, LOL...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcQfy1SavdQ

[formercia]

15. Nanny State Political Commissar takes control

Just shows how little your vote is worth.

[roxiejules]

16. I doubt the racial demographics is just a coincidence

The racial makeup of the city was 92.40% African American, 5.48% White

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benton_Harbor,_Michigan

[reggie the dog]

31. probably about 80 to 90% democratic voting too

in nearly all white saint joseph across the river you can get away with openly smoking pot on the beach if you are white, people from benton harbor cannot do that, especially if they are black. this place is just across the lake from chicago

[xchrom]

17. Recommend

[MadMaddie]

18. That's what Facism looks like in the morning folks!

[Sirveri]

19. The city should just declare the law unconstitutional and eject the guy.

They going to stop them? I doubt the town sheriff will do it. Take a stand right now.

[notadmblnd]

20. I guess that means the citizens of that town no longer have to pay taxes?

they no longer have representation of their elected officials. I say boycott paying local taxes and let us all just see what kind of haul these thieves rake in for themselves.

[mopinko]

23. don't let the president have any "czars", tho.

the irony. :eyes:

[plumbob]

24. How can a simple statute overrule constitutionally created functions?

Seems to me this would require an amendment to the state constitution.

Surely a court challenge is in the works. If not, someone wake up old Judge Lynch; this shit is way out of hand....

[crickets]

25. +1. This is nuts. -nt

[Thor_MN]

26. Didn't the guy with the funny little mustache get his start this way?

[Hawkowl]

32. bingo!

We have a winner! Funny how people no longer think I'm exaggerating when I call the Rethuglicans Nazis

[sweetapogee]

34. except

if I'm not mistaken, the folks involved in this little mess are not pukes?

[MaeScott]

27. K and R. nt

[jpak]

28. Fascist Pig

yup

[reggie the dog]

29. this looks racist to me

largely black benton harbor gets its elected officals taken over whereas across the river in mostly white saint joseph they get to keep their elected officials

[Doremus]

33. Where are the Benton Harborites? Will they take to the streets?

If this stunning action doesn't compel residents to protest, then there is something truly wrong with us complacent Americans and we are truly fucked.

[Prof Lester]

36. Meanwhile our kids and grandkids are dying in Asia for "democracy"!

We supposedly are "exporting democracy" to various places all over the world. When are we going to export some to those poor souls over in Michigan there? I never heard such flat out nazi bullshit in my whole life! To think it's come down to this!