I just received notice of this call to a demonstration on Friday, July 18, at 12:30 PM starting at Cobo Center:
Anyone else know anything more about it, please add comments. Let's have a great NN/DKos turnout!
Added: For more details about the convening groups and their positions, please read this article in The Progressive, "A National Call to Link Arms for Detroit."
Here's an excerpt:
On July 18 thousands of activists and dozens of organizations will converge on downtown Detroit to protest the privatization of the city’s assets and the disconnection of water to tens of thousands of low-income residents. The UN has called the shutoff a human rights violation. Demonstrators from around the country will rally in Hart Plaza at 1 pm, linking arms with the citizens of Detroit to protest the hostile corporate takeover by Wall Street banks and their ALEC-led political allies in the Michigan Statehouse, including Governor Rick Snyder.
July 18 marks the one-year anniversary of the announcement by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr that Detroit must file for bankruptcy—a decision that County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina immediately ruled violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn. “I have some very serious concerns because there was this rush to bankruptcy court that didn’t have to occur and shouldn’t have occurred,” Aquilina stated. Orr and Snyder managed to circumvent her ruling, and the bankruptcy proceeded. The next few months will determine how successful they will be.
On July 4 the activist community of Detroit put out this call to action:
“We call on activists everywhere to come to Detroit on Friday, July 18th, for a rally and march to fight the dictatorship of emergency manager Kevyn Orr, appointed by millionaire Republican Governor Rick Snyder, and backed by Wall Street bankers and the 1 percent. Under a state-imposed bankruptcy, the City of Detroit workers face severe cuts to their pensions and tens of thousand people face water shut-offs.
"The banks, which have destroyed Detroit's neighborhoods through racist predatory sub-prime mortgages and saddled the city of Detroit with fraudulent financing, continue to loot the people of Detroit.
Detroiters have lost their democratic rights – 'elected' officials serve at the pleasure of the unelected Emergency Manager – and may be fired at any time.”
-- Detroit Moratorium Now and Freedom Fridays Coalition
For those attending NN14, there is a panel with Detroit and other Michigan activists who have been exerting their best efforts on behalf of democracy since the Emergency Manager takeovers. It is "Fighting for Democratic Practices after an Emergency Manager Takeover in Michigan: Report from the Trenches," to be presented on Thursday, July 17, from 9:00-10:15 AM, in room 142 AB of Cobo. One of the featured speakers is Maureen Taylor, the chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and a leader in the water rights battle. Some of you may have "met" her thanks to Egberto Willies' diary yesterday,
Detroit activist slams reporter on air for lying about water shutoff to thousands, which leads off with a clip of an interview in which Ms. Maureen takes her inept interviewer to school. Another is Brandon Jessup, who led the Michigan Forward petition drive to repeal Public Act 4 in 2012. (It was successful, though the will of the people was immediately overruled by the GOP-dominated legislature and governor.) They and the other speakers on the panel will have plenty to say about the damage to democracy that the EM legislation has authorized here in Michigan, and the threat that it poses if taken up elsewhere.