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Committee Against Utility Shutoffs

About the Committee

In early May, workers and young people voted to establish the Committee Against Utility Shutoffs (CAUS) to take forward the work initiated by the Citizens Inquiry into the Dexter Avenue Fire: Utility Shutoffs and the Social Crisis in Detroit. The Citizens Inquiry was launched by the Socialist Equality Party after a series of deadly house fires in Detroit that were the result of the shutoff of gas and electrical service by the local utility monopoly, DTE Energy.

Nearly a dozen people have been killed in utility-related fires since the beginning of the year, including two disabled brothers and their friend in a January 5 fire on Dexter Avenue, and three children, ages 3-5, in a March 2 fire on Bangor Street.

On April 13, the commissioners of the inquiry issued their findings, indicting the energy giant and the government for these and other fatal house fires. They insisted that the company’s top executives and government regulators be held accountable.

CAUS, which meets every two weeks in Detroit, is planning an aggressive campaign to reach the working class in the coming weeks and months. Sylvia Young, the 32-year-old single mother who lost three children in the Bangor Street fire, urged workers and youth to join the committee and take up this fight.

Join the Committee

The Committee Against Utility Shutoffs has been formed on the basis of the findings and recommendations of the Citizens Inquiry into the Dexter Avenue Fire. To join, please fill out the form below.

  • Obama, Cheney and Snowden’s revelations

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 19

    It was in November 1973 that President Richard M. Nixon, ensnared in the deepening Watergate scandal, uttered the phrase for which he will always be remembered: “I am not a crook.”

    Nearly 40 years later, President Barack Obama used a Monday night television interview to give his own variation on the same theme, insisting to the American public that he is not Dick Cheney.

    Obama gave the interview largely to counter revelations about crimes far more serious than those committed by Nixon and his co-conspirators. Over the past two weeks, documents leaked by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden have revealed state surveillance programs carried out behind the backs of the American people and in violation of basic constitutional rights that target millions of people in the US and around the world.

  • No to war in Syria!

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 18

    The World Socialist Web Site categorically condemns the Obama administration’s decision to directly arm the right-wing Islamist mercenaries conducting the Western-backed war for regime-change in Syria.

    We denounce the meeting of the leaders of the G-8 major powers in Northern Ireland as a gathering of criminal warmongers to plot Syria’s dismemberment. As in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan before it, the Syrian intervention is a violent and predatory war to subjugate a former colonial country to the strategic and profit interests of imperialism.

    The unrestrained lying by the Obama White House and the corporate media about the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad employing chemical weapons in the country’s civil war convinces no one. It is an unmistakable echo of the discredited “weapons of mass destruction” propaganda manufactured as a pretext for invading Iraq a decade ago.

  • Social counterrevolution in Detroit

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 17

    Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr announced a plan Friday to wipe out the pensions and health benefits of all current and retired city workers, condemning nearly 20,000 retirees and their families to poverty and poor health. The de facto dictator of Detroit is calling for the elimination of $9 billion in workers’ benefits at one stroke.

    Orr outlined an attack on the working class unprecedented in modern history. Not even the Greek government, acting as the instrument of the European Union and the banks in imposing brutal austerity measures, has proposed such a sweeping attack on basic health and retirement benefits.

    The move marks a new stage in the drive by the American ruling elite to utilize the economic crisis that erupted in 2008 and the resulting mass unemployment to destroy all of the gains won by workers in a century of struggles. This, as the World Socialist Web Site has insisted, is nothing short of a social counterrevolution. Detroit is to set a precedent for similar attacks in cities across the US and internationally.

  • Obama moves to escalate Syrian slaughter

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 15

    The announcement that the US is moving to directly arm the Islamist militias and other armed gangs laying waste to Syria represents a further descent into crisis and outright criminality by the Obama administration.

    US and other Western officials report that the Pentagon has also provided the administration with plans to impose a no-fly zone to carve out a swathe of Syrian territory at least 25 miles deep along the Jordanian border for the purpose of massing, training and arming proxy forces to invade Syria.

    These measures, which will be taken in alliance with Britain and France, the two former colonial overlords of Syria and the surrounding region, are part of a war of aggression aimed at subjugating an oppressed, former colonial country to the strategic and profit interests of Washington and its closest NATO allies.

    The White House claim that this military escalation is a US response to the regime of Bashar al-Assad crossing Obama’s “red line” and violating “international norms” by using chemical weapons against the so-called “rebels” is an insult to the intelligence of the people of the United States and the world.

  • Turkey, Syria and the hypocrisy of US imperialism

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 14

    From the Bush administration’s launching of the war of aggression against Iraq in 2003 through to the Obama administration’s backing of a war for regime change in Syria a decade later, Washington has continuously draped its predatory policies in the Middle East in the false banners of “human rights” and “democracy.”

    Such claims have been thoroughly refuted, in the first instance, by the immense human suffering and oppression wrought by US militarism in the region. It is estimated that the US “liberation” of Iraq cost a million lives, turned millions more into refugees and lay waste to the country’s infrastructure and social institutions. In Syria, the promotion of a sectarian civil war by US imperialism and its allies has claimed more than 80,000 lives, while again producing millions of refugees and ravaging an entire society.

  • Defend Edward Snowden!

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 13

    The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party call on all workers, students and youth within the United States and internationally to come to the defense of Edward Snowden.

    Snowden is the target of a massive government witch-hunt organized in response to his courageous exposure of secret and illegal surveillance programs targeting millions of people in the US and around the world. His defense is a matter of the greatest urgency.

    The Obama administration has already said it plans to indict the 29-year-old former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor. Congressmen, senators and media commentators have denounced him for treason and demanded that he be jailed for life or executed.

    The charge of treason is a vicious libel. Snowden is not the one betraying the democratic principles embodied in the Bill of Rights. By exposing the conspiracy against these rights and coming forward at the cost of his career and possibly his life, he is defending them.

  • Obama administration prepares charges against NSA whistleblower

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 12

    The US Justice Department is preparing to file criminal charges against Edward Snowden, the intelligence contractor who has revealed the existence of vast and unconstitutional domestic spying programs, according to media reports Tuesday.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently interviewing Snowden’s family and friends in preparation for filing charges, and FBI agents visited the home of his father and stepmother in Pennsylvania Monday. That day, Snowden checked out of the Hong Kong hotel where he was staying, and his current whereabouts are unknown to the public.

    The White House categorically defended its conduct of the domestic surveillance programs Tuesday. White House spokesman Jay Carney said at a press conference that Obama “believes as commander-in-chief that the oversight structures that are in place to ensure that there is the proper review of the kinds of programs that we have in place, authorized by Congress through the Patriot Act, and FISA do strike that balance” between constitutional rights and the interests of the state.

  • What Edward Snowden has revealed

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 11

    Edward Snowden, the former CIA information technology employee and contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), has performed an immense service to the people of the United States and the world by lifting the veil on the military-intelligence spying apparatus, which operates in secrecy and in violation of the most basic constitutional rights.

    The World Socialist Web Site calls on workers around the world to come to the defense of Snowden, who is now the subject of a ferocious assault by the American state.

    The whistleblower quite justifiably fears for his safety. The Obama administration has launched a criminal investigation; leading political figures, both Democratic and Republican, have denounced his actions as “treason;” and political pundits have called for his execution. He is currently the subject of an intense global manhunt, as the American government seeks his capture and extradition.

  • Who rules America?

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 10

    President Barack Obama’s defense of secret government programs to spy not only on the American people but also countless millions all over the world has been followed by threats from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to prosecute those involved in leaking information about the massive surveillance operations.

    In a statement issued Saturday, Clapper denounced the British Guardian and the Washington Post for publishing “reckless exposures” of programs run by the Pentagon-based National Security Agency (NSA). These programs spy on the US and world's population on a daily basis and capture hundreds of millions of Internet communications, including emails, chats, videos, photos and credit card receipts.

    Reuters cited Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials who said the government is expected to open a criminal investigation into the leaks. As far as the Obama administration is concerned, the crime is not the flagrantly unconstitutional invasion of the privacy rights of the American people, but the exposure of these acts before the public.

  • Obama defends massive spying on Americans

    From World Socialist Web Site - June 8

    President Barack Obama on Friday staunchly defended wholesale government spying on the phone calls, emails and other communications of the American people.

    Speaking to reporters in San Jose, California in advance of his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Obama referred to media exposés of secret data-collection programs by the Pentagon-based National Security Agency (NSA) that target hundreds of millions of Americans as “hype.”

    He characterized the NSA's daily collection of telephone records of all customers of the major US telephone companies, first revealed Wednesday by the British Guardian newspaper, and the NSA and FBI's tapping into the servers of major Internet companies to access emails, photos, chats and documents, exposed Thursday by the Guardian and the Washington Post, as a “modest encroachment” on constitutionally protected privacy rights.

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Fires burn throughout Detroit

From sep - September 8

Dozens of houses burned down in Detroit Tuesday as fires blazed through all parts of the city, overwhelming the local fire department.

Firefighters were brought in from the surrounding cities of Harper Woods, Warren, Dearborn, Grosse Pointe and Highland Park, the first time the city called in outside firefighters since the 1967 riots.

Residents and firemen said that the majority of the fires were caused by downed electrical wiring. According to residents, DTE, the city’s main electrical company, failed to respond in a timely manner to complaints about the failure of the electrical infrastructure.

A total of 85 structures caught fire after heavy winds downed over 700 power lines, according to statements by Detroit Fire Commissioner James Mack and DTE officials.

The largest fire, which destroyed at least a dozen houses, took place on Robinwood Street on the city’s East Side. The blaze was apparently set off when a power line or transformer, which had been shooting sparks for days, ignited and set fire to a garage.

Michigan governor signs law witch-hunting workers for “energy theft”

From sep - July 22

The Committee Against Utility Shutoffs (CAUS) condemns legislation signed into law by Michigan’s Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, Tuesday, sanctioning a crackdown on poor residents in Detroit and other cities for alleged “energy theft.”

The five-bill law is chiefly sponsored by Democratic state senators in Detroit, but it is overwhelmingly supported by both parties in the state legislature. The legislation is designed to cover up the responsibility of the real criminals—utility giants DTE Energy and Consumers Energy—for the deadly house fires and other tragedies that result each year from the termination of gas and electrical service to hundreds of thousands of working class families in Michigan.

It is designed to sanction the actions of DTE that led to the deaths of two wheelchair-bound brothers (Marvin and Tyrone Allen) and their housemate in a January 5 fire on Dexter Avenue and another deadly fire March 2 on Bangor Street. In both cases, the company cancelled service to the homes, allegedly because they had illegal connections.

The Committee to Oppose Utility Shutoffs has been formed on the basis of the findings and recommendations of the Citizens Inquiry into the Dexter Avenue Fire. To join the committee, click here.

Citizens Inquiry into the Dexter Avenue Fire holds first hearing

From sep - March 21

At the initial public hearing of the Citizens Inquiry into the Dexter Avenue Fire, held Saturday at Wayne State University in Detroit, Inquiry commissioners heard testimony from residents, experts, and researchers about utility shutoffs and house fires in Detroit, the practices and political influence of energy giant DTE, and the broader social crisis in the city.

The testimony revealed nightmarish conditions in Detroit overseen by a political establishment dominated by corporate interests. A number of residents spoke of the abusive and arbitrary character of DTE’s policies, and several spoke of relatives injured or killed as a result of utility shutoffs. Experts and investigators detailed the lack of assistance to those in need of help, the influence wielded by DTE over politics in Michigan, the profits of DTE and its investors, and the origins of the social crisis in the city.

Citizens Inquiry into the Dexter Avenue Fire: Utility Shutoffs and the Social Crisis in Detroit

The Socialist Equality Party is calling on workers, young people and all those concerned about the worsening social conditions in Detroit to participate in a fact-finding inquiry into the January 5 house fire on Dexter Avenue that killed two disabled men and another Detroit resident. The inquiry will be held on March 20, from 1-5 pm, at Wayne State University in Detroit (see below for full details). Contact us today to become involved!

The Dexter Avenue Fire Inquiry - Post-hearing Interviews