Reverend Edward Pinkney, speaking from Lakeland correctional facility, the penitentiary in Coldwater, Michigan. The attack on Democracy, the vicious coward attack on Democracy in Benton Harbor, Michigan, shows that the corporation power structure is determined to crush anyone who stands its way. It is a part of the process underway across America in various forms. After the once stable working class community of Benton Harbor was devastated by automation and globalization, and the community began to resist, the race card was played, which is very, very important.
The race card was played to impose the open rule of corporate power as a way of containing the entire area. This technique has been repeated across Michigan, with Black majority cities being singled out and painted by the media as incompetent to run their own affairs, and then emergency managers were imposed on them all across Michigan. The Black communities are the starting point, but the real target is the whole working class and the whole of our society in this country. Let the truth be known, and let’s tell it like it is. The charges leveled against me, Reverend Edward Pinkney, and Benton Harbor, Michigan, are but the latest saga in a ruthless pursuit of the naked corporation rule that is gripping the state of Michigan and will soon be gripping the whole country. In 2011, the current governor, Rick Snyder, signed into law legislation that tells us that it’s obviously in motion about fascism.
The law, aka Emergency Management Law, dispatches unelected managers to designated cities and school districts who issue — and the fast break sale of precious public assets to bondholders, banks, or corporate interests; privatize public service, and dismantle collective bargaining agreements, and more. They are empowered to even dissolve metropolitans and school districts, all the while replacing local elected officials. Benton Harbor, Michigan, the home of the corporate giant, Whirlpool, is a poster child of the Rust Belt postindustrial destruction of the manufacturing life we once knew. Benton Harbor is 90% African American. 92% of the population are unemployed. 90% live below the poverty level, with this rich lakefront, beachfront property, which has now been stolen from the people. Benton Harbor [was] one of the first to experience the wrath of the emergency managers. Now, more than 17 metropolitans and school districts, including Detroit, have been pulled into this mire of dictatorship.
I, the Reverend Edward Pinkney, have become the face of the resistance to the nation thats working class has no rights and that the corporate is bound to respect. Any and all efforts must be made to overturn the charges against Reverend Pinkney as he stepped towards overturning the spread of this model to the rest of Michigan and the nation. The five charges of forgery definitely has no substance. There’s no such charge as forging a recall petition. During the trial, it was indicated that the prosecutor stated that, “We do not need evidence in order to send Reverend Edward Pinkney to prison.” They proved that they do not need evidence. But I’m here to tell you today that I’m fighting back. We must say enough is enough; until we say enough is enough, we’re going to continue on this. And we got to fight together. Stand together. We got to stand like my good friend Lynn Stewart, my good friend Mumia. We all got to stand together and fight this monster before it’s too late. Thank you. You’re speaking with Reverend Pinkney from Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Michigan.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
