We have seen the face of fear and fascism. It is tear gas shot at barefoot children in diapers. We cannot look away. We cannot be distracted by the din of disinformation and denial.

Throughout Michigan people are rallying to challenge the Lame Duck actions of the state legislature. Protest, public demonstrations and outright mockery are tactics being deployed against a secure, smug legislative body. Many groups are placing their hopes in the Governor. They are urging us to call Gov. Snyder’s office and ask him to veto these lame-duck bills. I will join this effort, but I hold out little hope that this governor will be moved to reject the full array of bills being jammed through this legislature.

Much of the country was shocked by the announcement that General Motors (GM) is closing five production plants in the U.S. and Canada. Two of the closing are in the Detroit area. The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, known as the Poletown plant, after the community leveled to enable its construction, will be closed. So will the Warren Transmission Plant. Other plant scheduled for closure are in Lordstown, Ohio, White Marsh, Maryland, and Oshawa, Ontario. About 14,000 people will be affected directly: 8,000 of them salaried workers, and slightly more than 6000 factory workers. GM will reduce its total workforce by about 15%. GM stock went up by 5 percent when they announced the decision.

The poisoning of the water in Flint Michigan was the direct result of a republican dominated lame duck legislature acting to benefit corporations and abuse democracy. Now the republican dominated lame duck legislature is threatening the waters of the Great Lakes.

This week the National Council of Elders met in Detroit. The Council was formed in 2011 by Vincent Harding and James and Phil Lawson, all veterans of the Black Liberation struggle and close associates of Martin Luther King. The purpose of the Council is “to engage leaders of 20th century civil rights movements to share what they have learned with young leaders of the 21st century and to promote the theory and practice of nonviolence.”

Last week Detroit hosted two major national gatherings that point the way to a much better future. The first was the Black 2 Just Transition Assembly & Training organized by the Eastern Michigan Environmental Action Council. Over 100 activists who have helped forge a new consciousness about our responsibilities to one another and the earth gathered to create a progressive agenda rooted in care for one another and our earth. The second, Facing Race, brought together nearly 3000 activists, artists, intellectuals, and organizers to think together about how to create a world that welcomes, supports, and protects all people. These gatherings reminded me of how important it is to look beyond the manipulations of the White House to understand the deep possibilities of people to fashion a new way forward.

This is a time of accelerating homegrown terrorism. The Massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg followed closely behind the shooting deaths of two people in a Kroger parking lot in Kentucky. The killer had gone to the store after being unable to enter the First Baptist Church.

Gary Brown, the director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, recently revealed that the Duggan administration is once again threatening to use water shut offs as a weapon to clear people out of neighborhoods. Brown had scarcely concluded his interview with Bridge Magazine when Food and Water Watch released its first national assessments of water shut offs for non-payment of bills. The report entitled America’s Secret Water Crisis: National Shutoff Survey Reveals Water Affordability Emergency Affecting Millions, is a stark condemnation of the approach Duggan is taking to the water crisis.

Detroit has few friends in Lansing. We have learned over these years of right-wing Republican rule that a favorite trick of those in power is to withhold funds from a city or school district and then declare a financial emergency which their actions have intentionally created. This emergency becomes the justification for imposing an unelected, unaccountable overseer. This single individual supplants all democratic authority and rules in ways that benefit the rich and powerful. This was the bitter lesson of the Detroit Bankruptcy process, the experience of Benton Harbor, Pontiac, and the poisoning of Flint. Emergency managers are bad for democracy, bad for cities, bad for schools, and bad for people who care about fair and equitable decision-making.

This week the Michigan League for Public Policy released a new report on the crisis of education in our state. It identifies the failures of decades of so-called reforms and argues for an honest look at systemic racism embedded in these efforts

The report urges legislators, leaders, and all concerned people to face “the inescapable truth of deep inequities in educational opportunities and outcomes for children based on race, ethnicity, place, and income.”

The push for local and state-wide policies to protect our water is accelerating. This past week saw both a successful student walk-out on count day in Detroit emphasizing the crisis of safe water in the schools and the need for a water affordability plan and a declaration of faith in support of water as a human right by people of faith. On Oct 4th people gathered at the Spirit of Detroit to celebrate over 240 signatures of faith leaders in a call to all people of good will to become stewards of our waters. Faith leaders declared they will continue to organize to stop water shut-offs, get those who have been shut off reinstated, and for a water affordability plan that allows people to pay for water based on their percentage of income.

Detroit young people are taking the lead in challenging the complacency of the Mayor and Superintendent of Schools over the water crisis in our city. Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan (DAYUM) are hosting a Freedom School today (October 3rd), urging students to stand up for themselves, younger students, and their community by striking on Count Day. Elders, university professors, and community leaders are invited to join the students to learn and strategize together about how to continue to press for safe, affordable water and an education that encourages critical thinking, creative action, and collective wisdom.

“I love my museum. I’ll be damned before I let you take it away.” That sentence summed up the determination of the nearly two hundred people who gathered at Sacred Heart on September 19 to organize to protect the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. People want to be sure it remains a place that reflects the heart of the African American community.

It has been 17 years since the attacks on September 11. That was a lifetime ago for the young people entering the military, going to university, or heading to what they hope will be the beginnings of life after high school. Many are preparing to vote. All of them have spent their lives in a country at war. They have known Shock and Awe and a series of promises to end the death and killing. Each promise proved a lie.

Daily life moves quickly. But some moments deserve reflection. This past week we had such a moment, with the funerals of Aretha Franklin and John McCain.

Detroit engaged in a week-long celebration. Neither the 6-hour concert nor the 8-hour funeral could fully encompass the generous, soaring gift of the life of Aretha Franklin.

Early Wednesday I drove to my usual downtown meeting, about 20 minutes from my home. Most of the drive is on freeways. On the few miles of surface streets, I passed four Water Department crews working on broken lines. Two included fire hydrants spewing water into intersections.

Trump’s defense is crumbling. Criminal charges of corruption are moving closer and closer to the White House. The President is now referred to as a Mafia Boss, described as waging war on the rule of law. As guilty verdicts and plea bargains proliferate, more and more people are focusing attention on Republicans in Congress, asking how it is possible for them to remain silent in the face of mounting evidence of corruption, immorality, and greed. Most Republicans cannot find their way to denouncing Trump’s behaviors.

Children working with the Detroit Independent Freedom Schools (DIFS) have been harvesting eggplant, tomatoes, greens, herbs, and other vegetables at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. This is the second summer of the garden celebrating the agricultural expertise of African Americans and fostering skills needed for the burgeoning urban agricultural movement that shapes much of Detroit. Next summer the garden will be part of a visionary landscape, designed to emphasize water as a human right and a public trust.

The week of August 11 to 14 reverberates still from the uprising in Watts. Part of a long history of resistance and rebellion, this uprising, sparked by police brutality, ushered in a period of intense urban rebellions as the long, hot summers from 1965 in Watts to Omaha in 1969 engulfed the country.

Detroit has always been shaped by the impulses of white men. It was established in 1701 in the midst of war by white men pursuing land and access to the wealth of the natural world. Over the centuries, war and violence, the pursuit of personal wealth, and the destruction of the commons have been part of our legacy. But so, too, are the moments of resistance to these efforts. Chief Pontiac forged one of the largest armies contesting imperial expansion on the globe. Henry Ford’s mechanized industrial production, made possible by publicly financed streets, water, and sewers, was contained by the humanizing thrust of the labor movement, emphasizing the dignity of people who work. Many of our streets bear the names of those who wantonly killed, enslaved, stole, and sold other human beings. Yet we also honor the Abolitionist, the outlaws, and the troublemakers and peace seekers.