When the ACLU of Michigan Flint Branch held a panel discussion on emergency management last week, activist Claire McClinton pointed out that the event was being held at a site where autoworkers staged a landmark sit-down strike in the 1930s.

That action – with workers asserting their rights and making sure their voices were heard – proved to be a pivotal moment in the history of organized labor. In fact, it can be argued that what those union members did went even further than that, helping to strengthen American democracy by increasing the collective clout of the working class and providing a much-needed balance to corporate power.

So there’s no small amount of irony in the fact that Flint is now part of what can be called an experiment in anti-democracy.

Read the whole blog over at Democracy Watch.

By Curt Guyette, Investigative Reporter