SEP Pamphlets

This pamphlet draws the connection between the growth of police violence in the United States and the erection of a police military intelligence apparatus that operates without any legal or constitutional constraints. There is a parallel between intensifying police violence at home and the pursuit of war overseas.

The growth of social inequality is at the heart of the destruction of democratic rights, and as such is directed at the entire working class - black, white, Hispanic and immigrant alike. Obama, the president of "Hope and Change", bolsters the American elite's War on Terror, imposing ever greater restrictions on fundamental rights; on the other hand, the administration relies on proponents of identity politics, such as Democratic Party operative Al Sharpton, to confuse and divide the working class.

The bankruptcy of Detroit - the largest municipal bankruptcy case in US history - was a political conspiracy and a social crime, designed to set a national precedent in the looting of employee pensions and public assets. The Workers Inquiry into the Bankruptcy of Detroit and the Attack on the DIA and Pensions, held February 15, 2014 at Wayne State University, exposed the political, social and economic forces behind the bankruptcy. The booklet contains reports on the social and historical context, the record of political conspiracy involving state and local authorities and the Obama administration, the legal aspects, the rape of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the economic parasitism behind the decline of the once-powerful industrial city.

The articles in the this pamphlet expose the financial swindles behind the crisis in Detroit and the impact of plans to privatize the Detroit Institute of Arts. They review the conspiracy involving Detroit Emergency Manger Kevyn Orr, Governor Rick Snyder, US Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, and the Jones Day law firm to drive Detroit into bankruptcy in order to slash pensions and other worker rights.

The fight to defend the artwork at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is of the highest importance to young people and workers in Detroit, across the United States and internationally. In threatening the collection of one of the premier art museums, the ruling elite is demonstrating it antagonism to everything of value in the development of human thought and culture.