They can run but not hide

Several days after several media outlets, including the Michigan Citizen and the Metro Times, published articles announcing the People's Summit and Tent City in Grand Circus Park, the Detroit Economic Club decided to move it's gathering from Ford Field, only two blocks from the planned Tent City, to the Renaissance Center, more than ten blocks away. According to the DEC email:

The Detroit Economic Club (DEC) will convene The National Summit from June 15-17, 2009 at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center, rather than Ford Field, as originally planned.

Economic pressures affecting business and policy conferences around the world this year have prompted the DEC to make this decision. This will save costs and help to ensure
The National Summit's success as a new national forum for business, government, academic, labor and other leaders to explore priorities for America's future.

All aspects of The National Summit's original vision will be accommodated within this new venue, including the significant dialogue we expect this event will encourage on America's future. The program and content will center on the creation of America's "To Do List" to move the country forward in Technology, Energy, the Environment and Manufacturing.

We say, " You can run but you can't hide from the people."

People vs. the powerful - People’s Summit takes shape

By Eric T. Campbell
The Michigan Citizen

DETROIT — Hundreds of America’s most powerful businessmen and CEOs will convene inside Ford Field on June 15 to discuss the future of the U.S. economy. In fact, the National Summit is described on its website as, “A Gathering to Define America’s Future.”

Area activists have determined that any discourse on the path of the economy should include those who are most affected — the working class and poor of America who have endured the brunt of the current economic upheaval. In response, the Moratorium Now! Coalition has applied to the City of Detroit for a permit to stage a corresponding People’s Summit in Grand Circus Park from June 14-17.

The People’s Summit is hoping to assemble citizens from all over the region to strategize for a People’s Stimulus Plan and an Economic Bill of Rights. Organizers say that the rally will be an opportunity to confront big business with the realities of the economy.

“It was our view that people should be allowed to be out there and discussing their own economic agenda,” Moratorium Now! Coalition member David Sole told the Michigan Citizen. “We believe we have the right to meet, especially with the way the economy is now.”

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In tent city

by Curt Guyette, Metro Times

.... For members of the group Moratorium Now, which began howling about the problems related to foreclosures long before most people were paying attention, the event will be a chance to provide a bunch of rich CEOs with a sharp dose of reality when they show up at Ford Field.

The intent is to set up a tent city at Grand Circus Park. Can you say Hooverville? ...

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People's Summit Organizing Meeting

Come to an organizing meeting for the People's Summit and Tent City, June 14-17 in Detroit to counter the National Economic (Corporate CEO) Summit taking place at Ford Field in Detroit. The meeting will take place:

Saturday, April 11, 1:00 pm
5920 Second Ave. (just north of Wayne State University in Detroit)
Call 313-689-5508 for more information or visit www.moratorium-mi.org

Detroit March and Rally - May 1, 2009

March and Rally
Friday
May 1, 2009
10 AM
Gather at W. Vernor & Woodmere (Patton Park), Detroit
March down Vernor to Clark Park for outdoor rally at noon

Initiated by Latinos Unidos

Lost your job? Losing your home?

Blame the rich, crooked bankers and mortgage lenders NOT immigrant workers!

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DEMAND:

* Jobs at a living Wage
* Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act
* Health care for all
* Housing
* Education
* An end to raids and deportations

Bail Out the People NOT Banks

People’s Summit June 14-17

By Kris Hamel
Detroit

Published Mar 7, 2009 6:59 AM

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions voted unanimously on Feb. 28 to call a People’s Summit in Detroit from June 14-17. Organizers will begin widespread outreach to garner endorsers and draw other organizations into building for the June activities. These actions will include a march along Woodward Avenue for jobs and housing and a tent city in Grand Circus Park of the foreclosed-upon, jobless, underpaid, homeless and all who struggle for social and economic justice.

The People’s Summit will occur simultaneously with the National Business Summit, sponsored by the Detroit Economic Club, taking place at Ford Field in downtown Detroit. Millionaire and billionaire capitalists, including the heads of ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, General Motors, Chrysler, Humana Inc., Ascension Health, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, BNSF Railway Co. and PVS Chemicals, will gather at this event June 15-17. The presidents of the National Council on Competitiveness and U.S. Chamber of Commerce will also be attending.

Calling it “a Gathering to Define America’s Future,” the business summit’s Web site states: “Participants will have direct access to ... top business, government and academic leaders and a voice in shaping the outcome of the discussion.” In order to have a voice, however, a registration fee of $1,495 per person is required.

Those who can afford this exorbitant registration fee will be putting their heads together to discuss “innovation and policy ideas in technology, energy, environment and manufacturing.” In other words, they will be strategizing on how to further increase their profits at the expense of the ever-shrinking middle class, the vast working class and the growing millions living in utter poverty.

These business tycoons will gather in a city reeling from rampant foreclosures and evictions, record unemployment, plant closings, mass layoffs, school closings, cutbacks, union busting and other forms of devastation.

President Barack Obama and cabinet members have been invited to this gathering. Will these business tycoons allow Obama’s economic stimulus plan to proceed? Will they create jobs at living wages? Will homeowners have real opportunities to avoid foreclosure? Or will the suffering and misery continue?

Only a mass struggle of those most affected by the capitalist economic crisis will turn the tide. The Moratorium NOW! Coalition organizers note that so far only the banks and mortgage lenders have been bailed out, to the tune of trillions of dollars of workers’ tax money—money sorely needed to rebuild the lives of the people.

Organizers hope that the People’s Summit will attract everyone struggling for social and economic justice, not just in Detroit and Michigan, but on a national level. Everyone involved in any progressive struggle is urged to organize for the June 14-17 event.

Kris Hamel is an organizer for the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evicitions. She can be reached at krisdetroit@yahoo.com