In this week’s Media Bites we dissect a Coca Cola commercial that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl. The Coke ad shows the Billionaire businessman Mr. Burns as down on his luck, so the people of Springfield give him a Coke to make him feel all better.
In the real world, it is working class families who are losing their homes and taxpayers are bailing out the very financial institutions that brought about the economic collapse in the first place, according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity.
According to a new project from the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation the US government has already promised the State of Israel $30 billion in military aid from FY 2009 – 2018.
The campaign now has a new online resource to help people in the US figure out how much of their tax dollars will be used to fund Israel. According to this new resource taxpayers from the state of Michigan will give $728,813,339.85 in Military Aid to Israel over the next 10 years.
This money could have been spent instead to:
Provide 8,849 households per year w/affordable housing grants OR
Provide 12,098 job seekers per year w/green jobs training OR
Provide 21,549 children per year w/ early reading education OR
Provide 590,228 people per year w/primary health care.
The US Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation also is encouraging people to sign a petition to send to Senators Levin, Stabenow and the Congressperson representing your district.
We also encourage you to share this information with people through your own networks. How many people do you know who are hurting economically would be supportive of this much of their tax dollars going to Israel?
Earlier today, New York Times columnist David Brooks spoke at a luncheon hosted by the Economic Club of Grand Rapids. Amway Chief Executive Doug DeVos joined Brooks at the podium. The topic of the luncheon presentation was “Building the Case for Investments in Children.”
Brooks, a self-described political conservative, was once a liberal who even did a parody piece on the icon of US conservatives, William F. Buckley. Brooks has written two books and writes a regular column for the New York Times, as well as other Washington-based publications.
In a recent Times column Brooks derided Haitian culture as the root problem facing the ability of Haitians to rid themselves of poverty. Brooks believes that Haitians are “progress-resistant” in part, because they practice voodoo religion. Brooks also makes the sweeping claim that “we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty.” The columnist never articulates who “we” are, but towards the end of the column he advocates for aid programs abroad that embrace the philosophy of organizations such as Harlem Children’s Zone and the No Excuses schools. I mention Brook’s comments on Haiti since it was relevant to the topic that he addressed with the Economic Club.
Brooks was brought to Grand Rapids to speak about the importance early childhood education. Everyone in attendance was given a folder with information about a local program called First Steps, which is co-chaired by Doug DeVos. First Steps of Kent County is an effort to provide some comprehensive planning to promote better opportunities for early childhood education and development.
Brooks spent the first part of his presentation telling jokes about Washington politicians, which seemed to get the crowd in a good mood. However, he spent around thirty minutes speaking about education in America. Brooks made the claim that the US became the richest nation in the world because it had the most educated country. Brooks did not support this statement with any sources, but he went on to say that in the past 30 years the US has squandered its commitment to education.
The New York Times columnist went on to say that now there are some examples of educational models that seem to understand what it takes to make kids successful. Here Brooks cites some of the same organizations he did in his article on Haiti, like the Harlem Children’s Zone.
Most of what Brooks talked about was how recent research has shed new light on how we understand child development. He mentioned new research on brain development, conscious and unconscious thinking amongst children, cognitive development, attachment theory and how children can learn while they are in the womb. All of this sounded interesting, but what was the point of sharing this information with members of the Economic Club of Grand Rapids?
Brooks spoke to why child development was important to the business community at the very end of his talk and during the Question and Answer period. He said that parents who are taking their kids everywhere from sports practice to piano lessons and other extra-curricular activities will have children that learn the importance of competition. “These kids will develop a healthy work ethic, whereas in working class environments, kids don’t learn to compete.” Brooks also said that these kids are likely to make more money when they grow up because of their exposure to competitiveness.
This idea fit well into some of the information that was in the packets provided to everyone in attendance. There was one document put together by the Committee for Economic Development, which was headlined, “The Economic Promise of Investing in High-Quality Preschool.” This document was based on a study by the Committee for Economic Development. The study said that, “In the future, ensuring US economic competitiveness and growth will require a highly educated and skilled workforce.” Thus it was made clear that today’s business leaders need to see that early childhood education is important to future US economic competitiveness and a worthwhile investment.
Now the purpose of the talk by David Brooks became much clearer. This clarity was affirmed by the first question from the audience, which asked about the effectiveness of the Choice program in Milwaukee and how the voucher system works better. This is the type of education that the DeVos’s have been supporting for years, particularly Dick & Betsy DeVos through the organization that Betsy chair’s, All Children Matter. All Children Matter has been promoting a privatized, voucher system of education.
The next questioner asked, “How do we get the unions to embrace this kind of educational model?” Brooks responded by saying that this is not likely to happen and that the unions are one of the main barriers to moving this type of education mode forward. Brooks also said that the political cycle and Washington politics is a significant barrier, because politicians would “rather talk about Wall Street and Afghanistan than talk about educating children.”
All in all what Brooks had to say was some what of a mixed bag in terms of what needs to happen to improve education for children in this country. However, it seemed clear that those who organized the event were interested in focusing on a specific outcome of investing in early childhood education……..how will it make the US economically competitive for the future.
I just came back from watching a very entertaining, and at the same time, very inspiring film. The Yes Men Fix the World made me laugh and made me think about what people can do to confront power.
The Yes Men, for those who are not familiar with them, are two guys who engage in a form of street theater, where the often pose as corporate or government spokespersons and present proposals they would like these centers of power to enact.
In The Yes Men Fix the World they create a fake website for Dow Chemical and then get invited by the BBC for an interviewed based on the website. On this fake website the Yes Men claim that Dow Chemical, which bought out Union Carbide, will now pay out $12 billion dollars to the thousands of people who have suffered from the chemical accident in Bhopal, India in 1984. The BBC took them seriously and this announcement was news worldwide even after it was discovered that this was a staged action.
The film looks at several instances in recent years where the Yes Men have fooled people in power or news agencies by passing themselves off as representatives of big oil or the US government. The actions are well thought out and very creative.
More importantly, the film challenges the fundamental tenets of free market capitalism. The Yes Men present the audience with a critique of the economic philosophy, and the idea that markets make us free. As part of the documentary, they go an interview several “experts” from economic think tanks (like the American Enterprise Institute and the CATO Institute) to get their take on the importance of the free market.
In many ways this film is an artist version of an analysis of the free market system that Naomi Klein provides in her groundbreaking book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. The Yes Men take one of the lessons learned from Klein’s book and expose the hypocrisy of the private sector in collaboration with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD was working in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to demolish public housing and turn over property to private contractors to build more upscale housing.
Overall, The Yes Men Fix the World is a well-produced film that will make you laugh out loud and inspire you to challenge power. The film will be showing 3 more times in Grand Rapids this week at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA) – Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 5pm. If you have a chance to see it we highly recommend it.
As millions of people get set to watch the 2010 Super Bowl in Miami, Florida, people may be unaware that the station broadcasting the football game will be allowing one controversial ad and censoring another.
CBS, which is one of the largest media conglomerates in the US, has decided it will air a Pro-life ad being paid for by the religious right organization Focus on the Family. The ad will feature former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother talking about why she did not have an abortion.
Tebow not only is featured in this Focus on the Family ad, but the far right organization also promotes the football player’s foundation. CBS’s decision to air the controversial ad has been questioned by many national organizations such as the Women’s Media Center.
At the same time CBS is refusing to air another controversial ad, one that was submitted by a gay men’s group called Mancrunch.com. So why the double standard? Boston Globe writer Derrick Jackson points out that this is not the first time that CBS has rejected ads from groups supportive of LGBT rights. The national broadcaster rejected an ad from the United Church of Christ in 2004, which welcomed gay and lesbian people into their congregation.
Censorship usually doesn’t work as a tactic and will no doubt lead to more attention to the Super Bowl ad that was censored. GRIID encourages our readers to take action by supporting what the NARAL Pro-Choice America organization is advocating.
We also have posted the ad that CBS is censoring.
We are almost two months removed from the global climate summit that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. In December, we provided some analysis of how the climate summit was reported on in the West Michigan news media.
Since mid-December there has been virtually no local news coverage around the issue of global warming. If one looks at the online environmental page of the Grand Rapids Press, the last local story about global warming was in October of 2009, when students organized a rally and march in Grand Rapids.
The rest of the local news media remains silent on this issue and does not have any special sections on their web pages focusing on what might be considered the most urgent issue of our day. However, one can find online opportunities to sign up for contests or browse any number of Lifestyle sections.
Media as Usual as the Earth Simmers
If one is looking to the national news media for better coverage around the issue of global warming, they will be sorely disappointed. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting dedicated its most recent issue of Extra! magazine to the topic of national news coverage of the international climate summit.
In their February issue, FAIR contributors look at topics such as Climate coverage over the past decade in the US, how Newsweek deals with oil industry lobbyists and the New York Times coverage of global warming. Miranda Spencer has an interesting piece entitled, “Environmental Journalism in the Greenhouse Era.” Spencer notes that while the urgency of global warming and other environmental issues has increased, many news agencies have downsized their reporting or eliminated positions.
“CNN’s standalone science and environment team was eliminated (SEJ.org, 1/15/09), and the Weather Channel’s weekly climate program, Forecast Earth, was canceled (WashingtonPost.com, 11/21/08).”
How, Spencer also points out that while mainstream media is cutting back on its commitment to environmental journalism and global warming reporting, there are some emerging news media that focus on these issues. The most promising according to Spencer is Climate Central, a small group of scientists and communicators dedicated to “providing clear, honest, nonpartisan, and up-to-date information to help people make sound decisions about climate and energy.”
Another good article in the recent issue of Extra! looks at the climate e-mails that were released before Copenhagen ended up overshadowing the summit. Writer Julie Hollar dissects what the mainstream media referred to as “Climategate.” The problem with the story being the focus of much of the coverage is that it provided an opportunity for global warming deniers to communicate their propaganda that minimizes the seriousness of global warming.
One last article worth mentioning is a piece by Neil deMause. His article, Sidelining Cap and Trade’s Green Critics, contends that there was a double standard in reporting on the issue of carbon trading when looking how pro-business lobbies criticism was reported compared to green critics.
The whole issue of the February 2010 Extra! magazine is worth reading and can provide readers with a better sense of how to read environmental news coverage and why there seems to be less of it.
This Wednesday, the Grand Rapids Community College Diversity Lecture Series continues with author and activists Angela Davis. Davis will speak at Fountain Street Church on February 10 at 7pm. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Angela Davis has been a writer, speaker and activists for over four decades now. Angela became involved in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, was a member of the Communist Party in the US and later active in the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
In the early 70s she was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list and a target of the agency’s COITELPRO campaign – a counter-intelligence campaign that sought to discredit, harass, imprison or assassinate dissidents in the US. In 1972, Davis became a political prisoner in the State of California.
Since her time in prison Angela Davis has been a professor at several universities in the country, teaching feminist studies and Black history. Davis is the author of several books and has focused her attention and scholarship on the issue of prisons in the US, what she calls the Prison Industrial Complex.
The most recent books by Angela Davis are Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons and Torture, Are Prisons Absolete?, and she wrote an introduction to a new edition of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas. Later this month, City Lights Books will publish her newest book, The Meaning of Freedom.
White Supremacists and other opposition
When it was announced last summer what the schedule for the 2009-2010 GRCC Diversity Lecture series, objections to Davis being a presenter were made public. Grand Rapids Community College Trustee Richard Ryskamp publicly condemned the school’s decision to include Davis on the schedule. Ryskamp was quoted in the Grand Rapids Press as saying, “Angela Davis has been a member of the Black Panthers and the Community Party, violent hate groups. She supplied weapons to groups that used them to kill people, and the communists have killed tens of millions of people over the years.”
Ryskamp, who was elected recently as a GRCC trustee, is not shy about his conservative christian worldview, but he was not the only person to object to Davis’s visit. If you read some of the online comments at Mlive.com in response to the article about Ryskamp, you can see that some people have clear issues with Davis speaking in Grand Rapids.
One respondent said, “Funny how when a Black Racist comes to town they are welcomed with open arms and hailed as a champion of free speech. I wonder many of these hypocrites would be defending a KKK member or Neo Nazi if they were speaking. I am willing to bet a lot of money that the same people who idolize this racist would be demanding that the KKK members be barred.”
However, MLive was not the only place that people voiced their objections to Angela Davis. The White Supremacist and white Nationalist website Stormfront also generated a significant amount of coverage at the time of the Press article. Here are a few comments from the site:
“Angela Davis is a communist. Feminist. Former Black Panther. She ran for vice president in 1984 in the Communist Party US. Let’s get involved and stand against filth like this.”
“Is that n**ger still around?!!! Hope you create a major turnout-best of luck to you all!!”
One posting has a quote from John Wilkes Booth – “This country was formed for the White not for the Black man. And looking upon African slavery from the same stand-point, as held by those noble framers of our constitution, I, for one, have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings that God ever bestowed upon a favoured nation.”
It is important for people who attend this lecture to be aware that White Supremacists may be in attendance and might ask questions about “diversity.”
The Foreclosure Response screening of American Casino brought a good size crowd to the Celebration Cinema theatre. The film documented how, beginning with deregulation in 1980, predatory lending practices began defrauding Americans of their homes. The American dream became an American nightmare as crooked mortgage loan
officers learned they could easily falsifying mortgage applications—without the applicant’s knowledge or consent; bring a totally different loan and payment amount to the closing table than previously discussed; and high pressure folks into trusting and signing on the dotted lines.
In a nut shell, deregulation actually made people losing their homes a profitable venture for investors at the top of the chain. When banks realized the guarantees they sold were going to leave them with gigantic losses, they conned insurance firms, like AIG, into insuring the guarantees. Who bails them out? The same American taxpayers that deregulation screwed over in the first place. The film stated that by the time we are done bailing these giants out from their own failed craps shoot, it will cost every American $42,000.
American Casino documents how large financial firms, like Wells Fargo, specifically targeted minority homeowners. The film profiles a young high school social studies teacher, a middle aged social worker and a minister. All are well educated, good hearted, articulate African Americans—and all were victims of predatory lending. Two end up losing their homes, one remains homeless, sleeping in a friend’s car.
The film also discusses the effects of foreclosures on neighborhoods. Lowered property values cause more foreclosures. As homes stand vacant, meth labs, rats and, in California, disease-carrying mosquitos breed illness, crime and high costs for municipalities.
After the film, panelists Darel Ross, Lighthouse Communities, Inc.; John Smith, Legal Aid of West Michigan; and Tracie Coffman, Home Repair Services fielded audience questions. The discussion started out well but would have fared better had more homeowners asked questions rather than professionals. One query that brought concurrence among the crowd was “Why don’t the mortgage companies share in the devaluation of a home along with the homeowner?”
Of course, the panelists had no answer for this one. While these and other agencies are providing homeowners facing foreclosure with excellent guidance with new federal programs designed to keep folks in their homes, the elephant remains in the room.
People who already lost their homes will never get them back. Another wave of foreclosures is eminent. The investors, who made billions by defrauding millions of Americans, go unpunished and are still making their million dollar bonuses. Few new regulations are being put in place. And, while keeping people in their homes, programs to help homeowners don’t give a cent to homeowners stuck with sub-prime mortgages. They only adjust the mortgages so the people can pay a little less interest or take longer paying them off.
Foreclosure Response is tackling the job of working with city and state governments to implement measures that will help Michigan neighborhoods overcome blight and reduced property values. They are also enlisting neighbors to join the Eyes Wide Open Vacant Building Watch. Other opportunities for action will be posted on www.ForeclosureResponse.org in the coming months.
There is no shortage of local news coverage of last night’s State of the State address by Governor Granholm. News agencies in the Grand Rapids market all provided stories that gave a summary of what the Governor had to say, with most of the emphasis on jobs and state budget cuts.
Most local news agencies also had stories that focused on reactions from politicians and candidates. WXMI 17 ran a story that included comments from two State Representative and one State Senator. There comments tended to follow along parties lines, some with criticism and no concrete solutions to the issues addressed in the Governor’s speech.
The Grand Rapids Press also had a reaction piece, with seven responses from State legislators from West Michigan. Most of these responses were critical of the Governor’s speech, but some of the elected officials did acknowledge their willingness to work on some of the proposals put forth.
A WOOD radio story included reactions to the Governor’s speech from a few State Representatives and three of the Republican candidates for Governor. All three of the GOP gubernatorial candidates had negative responses to Granholm’s speech.
One thing that was missing from all the coverage was that there were no non-partisan perspectives. The WOOD radio story included a comment from the Mackinac Center, but one would be hard pressed to say that this organization did not have a partisan bias in favor of Republicans.
Protestors
In addition to reaction from legislators and candidates there was a fair amount of coverage about the various citizen groups that came to the State Capitol to express their views before the State of the State address. However, there were several different groups represented their, a fact that sometimes got lost in the coverage.
The WOOD radio story said that the protestors gathered outside in what “they had said would be about the State of the Citizen.” The Clear Channel station makes no distinction between the groups that had gathered. The Fox 17 story also at times doesn’t make any clear distinction in their story about protestors, not until their was a conflict between some of the groups present.
The Press ran an AP story that did acknowledge some of the groups protesting outside the capital, such as the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and the Detroit-based group Moratorium Now Coalition. The article also acknowledges that there was a student group at the capitol protesting education cuts, but it is not clear how this group was organized. The student group was with the MSU Undergraduate Alliance.
The best coverage we found on the groups protesting was from the independent online news site, The Michigan Messenger. Reporter Todd Heywood provided readers with a good balance of comments from several groups on the lawn of the State Capitol. Heywood also did a nice job of verifying some of the claims made by protestors based on their what the Governor actual said in her speech.
Another good indication of the independent journalism provided by The Michigan Messenger was their investigation into some of the material being handed out by those organized by the Michigan Taxpayer Alliance. Heywood said there “was passing out DVDs which he said every American needed to see. Among the five videos were two outlining the Jewish conspiracy to destroy America (Missing Link and Know Your Enemy) and one on the need to be a member of a militia or be tried and hung for treason (Constitutional Militia).”
A collapsing economy. A massive earthquake in the long-suffering country of Haiti. The Supreme Court inviting corporations to control our elections. Health care “reform” turned into a gigantic gift to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. With all this in the current news cycle, why should we turn our attention to a court case in Colorado that seems to be about—bumper stickers?
On January 27, the United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit, ruled on Weise v Casper. This case, which got little mainstream media attention, is actually a significant First Amendment case that was brought into court with the help of the ACLU. It addresses one of the many staggering violations of citizens’ rights to free speech that occurred during the last decade.
In 2005, George W. Bush gave a speech at a museum in Colorado. It was a public event, funded by the government. But as usual, the Bush White House vetted the audience. Even though the tickets were supposedly handed out on a first-come first-served basis, Secret Service agents turned away audience members who might possibly disagree with Bush’s speech. Anyone who ever attempted to attend a George W. Bush event during his presidency is thoroughly familiar with this “perimeter of protection.” It denied not only protesters but any non-conservatives the right to hear their president speak—while all taxpayers footed the bill for the appearances.
At the museum event, Leslie Weise and Alex Young, who’d been given their tickets by their congressional representative, were kicked out before the speech started. Alex Young was physically dragged from the building, and Leslie Weise was “escorted” out after him. Why? Because Secret Service agents noticed that they’d arrived in a car with a ‘No More Blood for Oil” bumper sticker on it. And now a federal appeals court has said that there’s no problem with that treatment.
Never mind that a similar case, involving a protester’s sign during the Vietnam War era, came to a completely different conclusion because, the court said, the sign represented the protester’s own views and therefore “was entitled to the greatest constitutional protection.” This decision also ignores another groundbreaking case, New York Times v Sullivan, in which the court stated, “The right of an American citizen to criticize public officials and policies and to advocate peacefully ideas for change is the central meaning of the First Amendment.” And while we’re at it, let’s shove aside dozens of other rulings in the past 30 years that have consistently protected free speech in this country.
The 10th Circuit Court knows better. It has now decided that the bumper sticker was immaterial; that Weise and Young did not have any “inherent right” to hear their president speak; and that the Secret Service had the right to throw them out of the museum because, even though it was a public event, it was held on private property. Plus (where have you heard this argument before?) the Secret Service agents were just following orders.
One judge on the case, William Holloway, was so appalled by the majority decision that he wrote an unusually blunt dissenting opinion. In it, he pointed out that Weise and Young had gotten their tickets openly, had not done anything to disrupt the event or even indicate that they planned to disrupt it—that their sole “crime” was that they made it plain via a bumper sticker that they disagreed with Bush’s policies.
First Holloway slammed Bush by stating, “It is simply astounding that any member of the executive branch could have believed that our Constitution justified this egregious violation of plaintiffs’ rights.”
Then Holloway turned on his fellow judges and called them “misguided,” adding, “We address here speech that is unquestionably protected, or more accurately, entitled to be protected under the First Amendment. It is severely distressing that such protection is not forthcoming from this court.”
Why is this case important? It sets a precedent that other conservatives can use to attack free speech in the court system. This decision clearly ignores basic First Amendment rights—since the bumper sticker, just like the protester’s sign, is an expression of an individual opinion. As the decisions pile up, they will take on the authority of case law—and be followed routinely in future court rulings.
Just as importantly, the outcome of this case is another example of how the last decade’s far-right-wing appointees to the judicial bench are going to change the way that we are able to express our opinions and exercise our rights as citizens for years to come.
If the ACLU is not successful in finding a way to get this decision overturned, you can bet that Weise v Caspar will haunt future cases for a long time to come. In the meantime, think about what you put on your car bumper, carry in a march, or write to a newspaper. In the not-so-distant future, thanks to the 10th Circuit Court, you may find that speaking your mind is no longer your protected right under the law.
