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The city of Detroit - home of the US auto industry, militant unionism, and African American political power and culture - is now facing the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. Since 1950 it has been losing population and tax revenue due to a combination of de-industrialization, outsourcing, and the flight of middle and working class people to the suburbs. Now the state’s Republican rulers are trying to use a financial crisis they helped create in order to gain control of Detroit’s remaining treasures (including its water, land, and art museum) and completely destroy the labor movement and progressive African American political power in the process. Their strategy is to subvert democracy and majority rule by imposing a city manager with dictatorial powers to oversee the selling off of city assets, cutting services and gutting pensions and benefits to satisfy banks and corporate creditors.
