Welcome to the New Plantation

If your barely-disguised goal is to deny democratic and civil rights to everyone who is not white, male, hetero, christianist conservative, why fuck around with cutting public services and firing teachers?

Just turn whole cities into feudal kingdoms for your corporate owners.

Laura Flanders at The Nation:

In the United States, “German stability culture” looks mild to some living in Michigan. In the name of fiscal responsibility, Governor Rick Snyder has taken the power to appoint unelected “financial managers” to take over cities that are struggling with deficits and debts. Four Michigan cities are already controlled by Snyder’s overseers. They have the power to fire city councils, nullify union contracts, end collective bargaining and privatize whatever’s left to be privatized.

Governor Snyder has already announced his intention to review the city of Detroit for possible “emergency management.” That would put 49.7 percent of the state’s African-American residents under leaders critics are comparing to plantation overlords. And just (last week), Michigan’s state Senate passed a bill that would help the process along. For a summary of the bill, visit the invaluable Chris Savage at Electabog.

Suffice to say, it doesn’t take a Hungarian neo-Nazi to establish authoritarian rule under a paper-thin veneer of democracy. It doesn’t even require a veneer.

People throw around the term "Un-American" to describe anything they don't like, but this - literally eliminating elective government - is unspeakable in a nation of, by and for the people.