It has taken a global pandemic to stop water shut offs and restore it to homes in Detroit. Barely two weeks ago, the Governor and the Mayor denied the request of activist groups to stop water shut offs for public health concerns. While we are all grateful that the city and state are acknowledging the danger, water shut offs create for everyone, state officials need to do some serious reflection about how they have been thinking about our connections to each other and their public responsibilities.

The control and containment of human beings is a primary aim of right-wing forces around the globe. The efforts to refine methods of control are accelerating under Donald Trump. Although he is by no means the chief architect of these efforts, or solely responsible, there is no doubt that he and his allies recognize the political and financial gains to be made in surveillance, control, and containment of large groups of people. They are fostering fear and distrust to manipulate people and protect their own wealth and power.

Governor Gretchen Whimer needs to rethink her refusal to declare a statewide moratorium on water shut-offs. If there is one major lesson from the spread of Covid-19, it is that we are all connected. More than three months ago, people went to purchase dinner in an open market in Wuhan China. This was a very ordinary, everyday task. But it was there that some few people were exposed to a new virus, emerging in crowded cages of live animals. Today the virus has spread to 58 countries. Over 83,000 cases have been reported and most people believe this is an understatement. At least 2,900 people have died, many of them healthcare workers. This week, for the first time, the daily toll of new cases outside China has begun to outstrip the rate of infection there. The first person in the US died from it.

Facial recognition is big business. Since September the number of police agencies with access to this technology has doubled. Nearly 900 agencies across 44 states now have systems that not only increase police capacities, but interface with home security systems. One such system, Ring, is promoted as increasing neighborhood safety. Ring spokeswoman Yassi Shahmiri says, “When communities and local police work together, safer neighborhoods can become a reality.” In most cases, this new, hyper-invasive technology has never been proven to be more effective than other, more human ways of creating safety.

Last week Councilman Scott Benson reached a new low in public argument. Over the last few months, he has opposed efforts to provide civilian input on the purchase and use of surveillance technologies.

Many people hoped Governor Gretchen Whitmer would bring a more thoughtful, responsible approach to the education crisis. But her recent comments on the controversial third-grade reading law and the future of public schools demonstrate a lack of serious understanding of what is happening to our children.

The fragility of modern life was underscored this week. The spread of the novel coronavirus has been rapid. This weekend the death toll passed 300, with the first person outside of China dying of the disease. Authorities are reassuring people that there is no immediate risk to public health in the US. The New York Times reported “While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat.”

This week nearly 200 people attended the Detroit City Council meeting hosted in district 5, by President Pro Tem Mary Sheffield at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church. Much of the meeting was devoted to the progress made on the “People's Bill of Rights,” a package of bills “aimed at creating upward economic and social mobility for Detroiters focusing on low income and generational Detroiters.”

Detroiters have been faced with the horrific news that many of our family, friends, and neighbors have been driven out of the city illegally. Thanks to careful reporting by the Detroit News, we have learned that 90% of the tax delinquent homes were illegally over assessed between 2010 and 2016. The News calculated 28,000 homes were foreclosed since 2013 because of this. The amount of over taxation was estimated at $600 million. The dimensions of this scandal are staggering. 

The possibility of war with Iran cooled a little this week, thanks to the mature decisions of the Iranian government.  Unlike President Trump, who took the most extreme action offered him by his advisors, Iran chose a limited show of force, firing 16 missiles into a base housing Americans in Iraq. Miraculously no one was hurt. But in the tensions caused by Trump’s decision to kill Maj Gen. Qassim Suleimani,  176 people were killed when a civilian passenger jet was shot down by Iranian defense forces, fearing it was a missile attack.

The decision by Donald Trump as President of the United States to order the murder Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran was an act of war. It is a war crime and a crime against humanity. It is murder made possible by the illegal use of state power. The President, Vice President Mike Pence, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who encouraged this action, are equally guilty.

We are at the beginning of a new decade. Across the political landscape, people are reflecting on the 2010’s and the first decades of the new millennium. Among liberal and progressive voices, despair seems the primary result of these musings. The New York Times year end editorial explains “Fear and distrust are ascendant now.” They cite the 16 year high in hate crimes, growth of nationalism, attacks on civil rights and democratic institutions, climate catastrophe, and distrust in the mechanism we have established to create more human and just futures as the accumulated results of our actions and inactions.