From Nicosia, Cyprus, to Detroit, Michigan, the global financial octopus is squeezing the life out of society, stripping away public and individual assets in a vain attempt to fend off its own, inevitable collapse. The bankers \u201ctroika\u201d that effectively rules Europe prepares to reach into the individual accounts of ordinary depositors on the island nation of Cyprus to fund the bailout of their local banking brethren. Across the Atlantic, a corporate henchman makes arrangements to seize the assets and abolish the political rights of a Black metropolis. The local colorations may vary, but the crisis is the same: massed capital is devouring its social and natural environment. Either we liquidate the banksters, or Wall Street will liquidate us.<\/p>\n
The proposed seizure of a big chunk of every ordinary Cypriot depositors\u2019 accounts, in the guise of a one-time \u201ctax,\u201d was shocking even by the standards of the Euro Zone\u2019s overlords: the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission. The original diktat<\/a> to finance new lines of credit for Cyprus\u2019s over-extended banks called for snatching 6.75 percent of the cash of customers with balances below 100,000 euros ($129,500), and 9.9 percent above that threshold. When the public went berserk, it was proposed that depositors with 20,000 euros or less be spared \u2013 but Cypriot lawmakers balked. The banks are now closed, to prevent people from withdrawing their money. But Europe\u2019s ruling triumvirate at the bankers\u2019 lair in Brussels continues to demand that the public-at-large pay to keep the global criminal financial enterprise humming, or be starved out. \u201cIn the absence of this measure, Cyprus would have faced scenarios that would have left deposit-holders significantly worse off,\u201d they said<\/a> \u2013 disaster banksterism.<\/p>\n A rapscallion Black lawyer for the notorious corporate law firm Jones Day delivered the bankers\u2019 ultimatum to Detroit. Emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr, anointed by Michigan\u2019s Republican governor, is a bankruptcy specialist whose mission is to liquidate the assets of the 82 percent Black city, especially the revenue-producing Water and Sewerage Department. Orr\u2019s firm\u2019s clients \u2013 which, according to their website<\/a>, include \u201cmore than half of the Fortune 500 companies\u201d \u2013 have plenty of experience at liquidating in Detroit. Butch Hollowell, general counsel for the local NAACP, says Wells Fargo<\/a> has \u201cdone more foreclosures in Detroit and the state of Michigan than any other firm,\u201d and is Detroit\u2019s number one property tax scofflaw. Jones Day also represents Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and CitiGroup.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are firms that not only got billions in TARP bailouts, but they\u2019re also the same ones that defrauded people into signing these predatory leases which cause the crash of the housing market,\u201d said Hollowell. \u201cDetroit has been hit harder than anyplace in the country on that score\u201d \u2013 hugely aggravating the city\u2019s money problems. Financial manager Kevyn Orr\u2019s job is to extract more booty from Detroit for the bankers\u2019 vaults.<\/p>\n To facilitate the theft of the city\u2019s property, its citizens must first be stripped of their political and civil rights, through the neutering of their elected officials. Orr looks forward<\/a> to the project. \u201cWhile I understand there\u2019s a lot of concern and emotion behind the concept that I\u2019m depriving people of certain rights,\u201d he said, \u201cactually it\u2019s very consistent with both the history of this country and specifically in this state.\u201d What he\u2019s about to do \u201cis democracy in action.”<\/p>\n This corporate concept of democracy has already devalued the franchise of the 49 percent of Michigan\u2019s Black population that live in municipalities and school districts under the thumb of outside financial managers, a violation of both the Voting Rights Act and the one man-one vote rule embodied in the 14th Amendment, says the NAACP\u2019s Hollowell.<\/p>\n