The US assault on Iran is blatant Imperialism and it is what the US has been doing with Iran since the CIA coup of 1953
We are 1 week into the US assault on Iran as of this writing. I just finished an 8 week class on the history of US foreign policy since WWII. In that class I created a framework to analyze US foreign policy, which you can find here.
Before I use this foreign policy analysis framework for what the US is doing to Iran I want to speak briefly about what the Democratic Party and specifically Rep. Scholten’s position is on the current US assault on Iran.
In her weekly Email messages Rep. Scholten said this on Monday, March 2nd:
At the time of this writing, six United States service members have lost their lives in this operation. We must be clear-eyed about what is happening here–Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the ENTIRE world. It’s beyond time that the United States held them to account.
Now, it is true that Rep. Scholten did recently vote to not give the Trump Administration War Powers but this has done nothing to prevent the US military from continuing to bomb and murder Iranian civilians. The more important vote coming up will be whether or not the Democrats oppose the Trump Administration’s request for $50 billion supplemental military funding bill to further punish Iran.
1. A Brief History of the US and Iran is a history of US Imperialism
The Iranian people and the Iranian government as early as 1951 wanted to nationalize the oil that was being pumped from the earth on Iranian land. Such an action was a major no no, since the oil interests (both British and US) were not in favor of allowing Iranians to benefit from domestic oil production.
The British initiated an economic blockade on Iran once they announced that Iranian oil was for Iranians. However, the Iranian government under the leadership of the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh was able to weather the economic blockade and continued to use oil production to benefit Iranian society. US strategists working with the CIA began developing a plan to oust the Mosaddegh government and put in his place the Shah, who would dismantle the law that said Iranian oil for Iranians.
In the summer of 1953, the CIA initiated a coup and then installed The Shah of Iran who became an important ally of the US in the Middle East until 1979. During the Shah’s reign he suppressed dissent, was very anti-Islam and created his own secret police known as SAVAK. According to Blum:
“The notorious Iranian secret police, SAVAK, created under the guidance of the CIA and Israel, spread its tentacles all over the world to punish Iranian dissidents. According to a former CIA analyst on Iran, SAVAK was instructed in torture techniques by the Agency. Amnesty International summed up the situation in 1976 by noting that Iran had the “highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran.”
The brutality of the Shah of Iran is what eventually led to the Iranian revolution in 1979, which was led by Islamic clerics who had nothing but contempt for the US, primarily because of the decades long US support of the Shah.
In an attempt to destabilize Iran the US was providing weapons to Iraq throughout the 1980s to go to war against Iran, resulting in 1 million dead. When the US attacked Iraq in 1991 with the so-called Gulf War, it provided the US another opportunity to monitor Iran. In 2003 the US invaded Iraq and began to establish military bases which was one of the goals, in order to have more permanent military presence that was closer to Iran. (reflected in the map above) Every US administration since 1979 has treated Iran as a terrorist state, even though Iran has not invaded another sovereign nation.
For more insights into the history of US/Iranian relations check out the US government declassified documents put together by the National Security Archives.
2. Geopolitics in the US assault on Iran
The map above should tell you all you need to know about the geopolitics of the US and Iran. The US has militarily occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, has provided billions of military aid to Israel, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The US military has also assaulted Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The US has imposed the most brutal economic sanctions in history on Iraq from 1991 – 2003. The Middle East is a major hub of oil production and narcotics trafficking. Lastly, because of the proximity of Russia and China to this region, the US has always included this dynamic into what the short-term and long-term policies have always been.
3. US Economic interests regarding Iran and the region
I already addressed this in the geopolitics section, but the role of oil is a major factor and has been since Iran nationalized its oil in the early 1950s. There is also the economic function of US militarism and the military industrial complex, which I address in point 6 below.
4. US Military role in Iran
You can see from the map above how many US military bases are in that part of the world, essentially surrounding Iran. For a detailed account the role that US military bases play in US foreign police see David Vine’s excellent book, Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World. US military presence in proximity to Iran has been a reality for decades, thus allowing the US to engage in assaults whenever they want, gather intelligence and and provide support to US allies in the region, specifically Israel, which is currently a partner in the current US assault on Iran.
5. Human Rights/Human Cost in the US assault on Iran
According to one source, “The death toll in Iran has reached at least 1,332, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. Children account for about 30% of those killed in the U.S. and Israeli attacks, government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani. Dropsite News goes on to say, “The U.S.-Israeli attacks have damaged 3,643 civilian sites, including 3,090 homes, according to the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand. In addition, 528 commercial and service centers, 14 medical or pharmaceutical facilities and nine Red Crescent facilities, have also been damaged.”
6. US Military Industrial Complex and the US assault on Iran
The US military use of weapons like Patriot missiles and Tomahawk missiles, along with all of the other weaponry and US military vehicles, drones, telecom resources, etc. is a massive benefit to US military contractors. This is exactly why US military companies spend millions to fund candidates, along with spending millions on lobbyists to make sure that their profits continue to increase. The profit motive is particularly important when the US used the weapons that we all as taxpayers pay for.
7. US University role in weapons research
Universities across the US have played a vital role in supporting US militarism for decades. Numerous US universities engage in Research and Development (R&D) of weapons systems, whether it is through the federal government sponsorship of schools or corporations that contribute money to departments in exchange for R&D. Check out this link for concrete examples of Federally Funded Research and Development Centers and University Affiliated Research Centers.
8. US Media Coverage and Public Opinion regarding the US assault on Iran
If you looked at how the major commercial news media outlets have reported on the US assault on Iran over the past week and then think about the first seven of the US foreign policy analysis framework I have included, it would be safe to say that the news media has miserably failed the public when it comes to providing robust analysis and coverage.
There is an excellent interview on the media watchdog site Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting with Gregory Shupak who provides solid analysis of US media coverage. In addition, there is an important article entitled, Corporate Media Buries Story of US and Israel Killing 168 in Girls School Attack, which demonstrates how the large US media outlets have minimized or ignored the US killing of 168 people.
9. US Domestic response to the US assault on Iran
There have been protests and marches over the past week throughout the US, but no significant actions that have targeted policy makers, weapons manufacturers or any other sector of society that ultimately benefits from US Imperialism abroad. This may change in the coming weeks and months, especially of the US military continue to assault Iran and cause more death and destruction. It is also important to think about the importance of developing robust strategies and tactics moving forward, since marches and traditional protest with sign holding will not effecting disrupt the US military assault on Iran or anywhere else in the world.
On Saturday, in the early afternoon, about 20 people went to the home of the Chair of the Kent County Commission – Ben Greene – to push demands that he and his fellow commissioners adopt the 6 sanctuary policies that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding over the past 14 months.
Those who participated in the action had handheld sign, noisemakers, and a few homemade yard signs that were left behind to send a message to Commissioner Greene, to neighbors and motorists passing by his house.
Earlier on in the action two people went up to the front door to deliver a letter to Commissioner Greene, which had a place for him to sign and commit to adopting the 6 sanctuary policies and get his fellow commissioners to do the same, which you can see here.
After several knocks on the door Commissioner Greene did come out and asked what was happening. Someone who was delivering the letter and attempting to get the Commissioner to sign said, “we are providing you an opportunity to publicly support the campaign from Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE to agree to adopt the 6 sanctuary policies the community has asked you to adopt.” Greene took the letter and then said, “Thanks for this. Let me look it over and get back to you.”
For the next twenty minutes people continued to hold signs, participate in a series of chants and continue to send a message to Commissioner Greene that he needs to be a real leader and agree to adopt these policies that would prevent Kent County from cooperating or collaborating with ICE in any way.
Those six sanctuary policies are:
- Policies restricting the ability of state and local police to make arrests for federal immigration violations, or to detain individuals on civil immigration warrants.
- Policies restricting the police or other county workers from asking about immigration status.
- Policies prohibiting “287(g)” agreements through which ICE deputizes local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law.
- Policies that prevent local governments from entering into a contract with the federal government to hold immigrants in detention.
- Policies preventing immigration detention centers from being established in Kent County, which would include the use of the Kent County Jail as a detention facility for ICE.
- A policy that will not allow the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to share Flock camera images or any other information gathered by county staff with ICE or any other law enforcement agency seeking to arrest, detain and deport immigrants.
This action will be followed by having people attend the Kent County Commission meeting this Thursday, March 12 at 8:30am and continue to demand that they adopt these policies that would contribute to limiting the horrors that ICE is in inflicting in Kent County.
Movimiento Cosecha also taped the entire action, which you can find here.
Yesterday I had my settlement conference in court for my January 5th arrest for demanding that Kent County end ICE holds
I previously reported that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE held protests at the Kent County Sheriff’s office to confront the Sheriff about why they were holding immigrants for ICE at the jail. The group of five have been involved in the two previous protests and were working with Movimiento Cosecha to do an escalated action at the Kent County Sheriff’s office, where we were arrested on January 5th.
Since then all five of us plead not guilty and at yesterday’s settlement conference I once again plead not guilty and I am demanding a jury trial. I actually didn’t even have to go before a judge, since the court contact my lawyer just prior to my arrival, since my lawyer affirmed my not guilty plea and communicated to the judge that I wanted a jury trial.
My lawyer did inform me that the judge might offer one more settlement hearing, especially since I was only charged with trespassing, in the hopes that I might change my plea. Even if that doesn’t happen it is likely that a jury trial would not happen for months since the case log for my judge is backed up.
I am in no hurry since we are still working to end ICE holds at the Kent County Jail and the campaign that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE continues to pressure both Kent County and the City of Grand Rapids to adopt the six sanctuary policies they have been demanding since January of 2025.
The six sanctuary policies are:
- Policies restricting the ability of state and local police to make arrests for federal immigration violations, or to detain individuals on civil immigration warrants.
- Policies restricting the police or other county workers from asking about immigration status.
- Policies prohibiting “287(g)” agreements through which ICE deputizes local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law.
- Policies that prevent local governments from entering into a contract with the federal government to hold immigrants in detention.
- Policies preventing immigration detention centers from being established in Kent County, which would include the use of the Kent County Jail as a detention facility for ICE.
- A policy that will not allow the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to share Flock camera images or any other information gathered by county staff with ICE or any other law enforcement agency seeking to arrest, detain and deport immigrants.
Immigrants continue to be held at the Kent County Jail for ICE, where they will be then taken to the GEO Group-own detention center located in Baldwin, Michigan. Movimiento Cosecha continues to hear from immigrant families who have recently had a family member at the Kent County Jail, that ICE holds are being implemented even after people are posting bond for them to be released.
When Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response briefly spoke with Kent County Sheriff, Michelle LaJoye-Young last November, she refused to answer whether or not the jail was engaging in ICE holds.
According to the American Immigration Council:
- With the funding provided by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ICE has enough funding to operate upwards of 135,000 detention beds through the end of FY 2029.
- These changes in arrest practices have led to a 2,450% increase in the number of people with no criminal record being held in ICE detention on any given day.
The lives of thousands of immigrants are at stake, since ICE detention facility conditions are horrendous, on top of the fact that families are now economically suffering, along with the trauma that has been inflicted on immigrant families. This Is why I plead not guilty and why I want a jury trial.
The workshop began with a brief summary of the previous three sessions that took place in the Fall of 2025. I wrote about the one in September and November of last year. These workshops were initiated by Professor Kang who has been conducting interviews with people who were students or staff at the Grand Rapids Public Schools since the 1960s, interviews you can find here.
What follows is information that was presented at the beginning of the workshop, all of which provided participants with context before the conversation began. To see all the slides, go here.
The Introduction of School Choice in Michigan, known as Public Act 362 (1993), created Michigan’s charter school law. Then there was Proposal A (1994), asSchool funding law, which provided the financial mechanism to operate charter schools. Under this system, funding follows the student and since parents were now starting to send their kinds to non-public schools and non-neighborhood schools, school districts began to see their budgets reduce.
Next was presented a quote from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
“When the Michigan legislature enacted Public Act 362 of 1993, the law which sets up the guidelines for new “public school academies” or “charter schools”- it sent a powerful message to both the education establishment and parents desperate for new options. No longer would public schools be shielded from competition, insulated from accountability, and immunized against the choices of their customers.”
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is the oldest right wing think tank in Michigan, which has received millions in funding over the decades from the DeVos family. The Mackinac Center crafts policies and influences state politicians to adopt them. This organization is also part of the larger far right policy group called the State Policy Network.
In 2000, Betsy DeVos and her husband funded a multimillion-dollar, and ultimately unsuccessful, ballot initiative to create school vouchers. DeVos had been pushing charter schools and the privatization of public education nationally, and thought she could get a voucher system passed in Michigan. It was roundly defeated. In response to this defeat, in 2001 Betsy DeVos created and funded the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP) as a mechanism to push charter schools and to privatized education systems.
Here is a video of Dick DeVos speaking at the Heritage Foundation in 2002 about the importance of undermining public education. Pay attention to the language and the strategies he references in this brief clip.
All of this context is what led the Grand Rapids Public Schools to have to deal with less funds, to begin closing schools and restructuring the school system in Grand Rapids, which began under GRPS Superintendent Bert Bleke.
At this point the discussion began and many people shared their own experiences and observations about how the Charter School, reduced budgets and how GRPS restructuring impacted their life or the lives of their children.
The GRPS had created several alternative schools or specialized schools, which made sense in some ways, but the restructuring has perpetuated racial and class segregation within GRPS schools. One example that was raised was the closing of the Native American School program at Lexington School.
Someone also raised the issue of white flight beginning in the 1960s and its longterm consequences. Another person noted that white families began moving back to Grand Rapids in the 1990s, resulting in some neighborhoods being gentrified and white parents pushing for more options within the GRPS, especially at the Middle & High School level.
One person talked about the pushback from parents who had their children at Hall Street School, which was later changed to Cesar Chavez School. This pushback came primarily from Latine/Latinx parents.
Several people who teach within the GRPS system talked about how principals that have turned schools around were then moved to another school, often against what they wanted. People talked about how frustrating it was to lose this kind of good leadership and how these principals have developed a healthy culture within the schools they were leading.
Towards the end every participant shared their own K-12 experience, even of they did not go to a Grand Rapids Public Schools. It was interesting to hear everyone’s education experience, which allowed people to compare and contrast how the Grand Rapids Public Schools dealt with critical issues compared to school districts around the state or around the country.
Another false solution is being proposed on ending homelessness by a Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce initiative
Both MLive and Crain’s Grand Rapids Business posted articles about an announcement from the people who started the house 100 individuals in 100 days campaign in 2024.
The Crain’s story headline is claiming this is a GR Chamber of Commerce campaign, even though they are working directly with the Grand Rapids Area Coalition to End Homelessness and local service providers. In the first paragraph of the Crain’s article it says, the targeted goal is to end homelessness downtown this year. Of course this is the goal, as the GR Chamber of Commerce and the business interests in downtown Grand Rapids believe that their ability to make profits is being threatened by unhoused people tend to be downtown during the day. Remember, the GR Chamber of Commerce proposed an ordinance in 2022 to criminalize the unhoused, which the City of Grand Rapids adopted in 2023.
In fact, the government affairs staff member at the GR Chamber of Commerce, Josh Lunger, was calling for an increase in GRPD cops, since unhoused people were a threat to the safety and commerce of the people and businesses in downtown Grand Rapids.
This new initiative is called the Downtown Pathways Project. The Crain’s article then states:
Downtown Pathways partners hope to create a smart homeless response system, build a safe and welcoming downtown, connect stakeholders with clear roles and provide transparency throughout the process, said Ryan Kilpatrick, founder and CEO of Flywheel Community Development.
The only action I could find from this new initiative is to secure $100,000 in funding to conduct a fair market rent study. I’m not sure what another study will find, but it seems that someone will be getting paid to conduct the study. I’m also not sure why we need another study about the cost of rent in this city, since the National Low Income Housing Coalition has already provided us with the average cost of rent per zip code in Grand Rapids. For example, in the 49503 area people would have to make $27.88 an hour to afford the average cost of rent in that zip code.
Ryan Kilpatrick, the founder and CEO of Flywheel Community Development Services, is quoted in the MLive article, stating:
“What’s happening right now in Grand Rapids is the payment standard for rent from a federal housing voucher is lower than what rent actually costs. So what we need to be able to do is communicate with HUD that there’s a difference between what they’re willing to pay and what rent actually costs.”
It is important to note that Kilpatrick also works for Housing Next, which is a GR Chamber of Commerce create housing entity that push market based solutions to housing, plus he works for the DeVos Family Foundation and their Facing Home Initiative.
Regarding the point that Kilpatrick makes about HUD, to be clear he is suggesting that HUD needs to increase the amount of funding for housing vouchers. While this might seem like a compassionate response, the best thing that this new initiative could do would be to advocate that people living in Grand Rapids earn a living wage. If the average cost of rent would require that people make $27.88 an hour, then a living wage would be closer to $40 an hour.
The Downtown Pathways Project partners would not endorse paying people a living wage, despite the fact that this would be the most effective strategy within a market based housing system. Paying people wages that will allow them to afford the cost of housing would be a real solution, not a false one, like what this group is offering.
Having the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce partner with the Coalition to End Homelessness will always result in false solutions. The GR Chamber of Commerce, like all Chambers of Commerce has over the past century opposed an increase in the minimum wage, has opposed organized labor efforts to defend the interests of workers, has fought to privatize government services and always puts business interests above public interests. The Crain’s Grand Rapids Business article nor the post from MLive even bother to address whether or not the Downtown Pathways Project is working towards the most effective strategies.
On Monday night the East Grand Rapids (EGR) City Commission voted to not adopt a proposed resolution that would not permit the East Grand Rapids Police Department and other city departments to cooperative with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The resolution, which had been proposed at a previous EGR meeting and reads as follows:
1. The documented and enforced policies and procedures of the Department of Public Safety shall specifically
a. Include “immigration status” as a named protected class in its Fair and Impartial Policing Policy; and
b. Prohibit officers and representatives from contributing resources or participating in federal immigration enforcement activities including, but not limited to:
i. Riding along with federal immigration and customs enforcement officers;
ii. Conducting joint investigations with federal immigration and customs
enforcement officers; or
iii. Sharing investigative information with federal immigration and customs enforcement officers.
2. The City shall not use, nor provide for use, any public land, facilities or other resources for the establishment of a federal immigration and customs enforcement detention center.
3. The City shall not enter into any 287(g) agreement with federal immigration and customs enforcement agencies.
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:
We call on the Kent County Sheriff to immediately cease compliance with any and all detainers issued by federal immigration and customs enforcement agencies and refrain from holding any person in detention at the request of federal immigration and customs enforcement agencies for the purpose of investigating immigration status or securing their presence for immigration enforcement actions.
Before the public was allowed to comment on the resolution, the EGR Police Chief gave a brief presentation about what the department already does. The Chief of Police published FAQ on ICE/immigration related matters, which you can find here, along with the March 2nd agenda, the resolution, the FAQs and other EGR Public Safety-related procedures.
The EGR Chief of Police expressed that he didn’t think the resolution was necessary, since his department already doesn’t cooperate with ICE.
Public comment period was then opened and of the 21 people who spoke on the proposed resolution, 19 were in favor and only 2 were opposed, which is a ratio that has been similar in Grand Rapids. The comments that supported the resolution were based on demonstrating compassion for immigrants, the cruelty that ICE has been inflicting around the country, the realities of what people have heard coming out of the GEO Group-owned ICE Detention Center in Baldwin, people’s faith which calls on them to welcome the stranger and to simply not want to see the horror that ICE has inflicted in communities like Minneapolis recently.
The elected officials and the City Manager then spoke about the resolution. Some commissioners asked specific questions of the Police Chief, while others addressed questions to the City Attorney.
The Police Chief said that the only way our cops would cooperate would be if ICE has a signed judicial warrant. This is a response that is often given, as if having a judicial warrant makes what ICE is doing any less repressive and unjust. The City Attorney stated that the resolution would not have the same weight as an ordinance, stating he was not sure what the resolution would actually do.
At one point, in response to a commissioner’s question the Police Chief said his reading of the proposed resolution would limit some things that his department would do. He followed up those comments by saying that his department would cooperate with ICE in order to keep the peace. This is similar to the City of Grand Rapids and their Foreign National’s Policy, which states:
The policy allows officers to provide assistance to federal immigration authorities when there is an emergency that poses an immediate danger to public safety or federal agents.
There were two EGR Commissioners that spoke out emphatically against the proposed resolution, arguing that they would not support the resolution as they did not want to tie the hands of the EGR police and did not want to make East Grand Rapids a target of ICE. This is also a common retort from people who are not being targeted by ICE. What Movimineto Cosecha says is that they are constantly being threatened by ICE and have been since ICE was created in 2003. Making a public statement in solidarity with undocumented immigrants is a statement of solidarity.
In the end the East Grand Rapids City Commission did not vote on the proposed resolution, but it did decide to post the FAQs that were created by the Police Department, which is not a statement of solidarity with members of the affected communities, undocumented immigrants.
The only news coverage was from WXMI 17, which acknowledged that the majority of those who spoke during public comment were in favor of the resolution. However, the only public comment that viewers heard in the story was from a person who opposed the resolution. In addition, most of the voices heard in the Fox 17 news story were the Police Chief and the City Attorney, both of whom were not in favor of the resolution.
The local news media continue to demonstrate their bias with all the coverage they have given to the former GRPD Police Chief Eric Winstrom. Hell, they provided an unquestioning platform for Winstrom to say whatever he wanted and there was no indication that any of the reporters challenged Winstrom’s claims.
Probably the most egregious claim that Winstrom made was that he left because of the anti-cop sentiment in Grand Rapids. Since this was the main talking point from Winstrom, one would think that any competent journalist would then go and speak with individuals and organizations that have questioned the GRPD, challenged the GRPD, protested against the GRPD and even organized to defend the GRPD. The local media has chosen to not talk to people involved in any of these efforts.
It is instructive to note that this same news media also provided Winstrom an earlier platform where he could talk about what the last 4 years have looked like to him in Grand Rapids. To counter Winstrom’s narrative I methodically looked at stories during his 4 years in Grand Rapids and wrote an article entitled, Killing and assaulting Black people, protecting power and criminalizing dissent: A grassroots account of what Chief Winstrom actually did over the past four years
In that article I talked about how the GRPD under Winstrom’s leadership killed Patrick Lyoya and how the local news has reported on it. I also wrote about how the local news reported on these issues in the just prior to the Schurr trial in an article entitled, Local news coverage leading up to Schurr’s trial has been influenced by his lawyers, experts, a failure to provide community voices and a pro-GRPD bias.
I talked about how the GRPD has been criminalizing dissent in Grand Rapids, particularly when it comes to BIPOC organizers that have been demanding Justice for Patrick in an article entitled, The criminalization of dissent in Grand Rapids.
I talked about how the GRPD has been doing the bidding of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce and other downtown business owners, by enforcing the City’s ordinances that essentially criminalized the unhoused.
I have shown how the GRPD has tried to intimidate those acting in solidarity with immigrants being targeted by ICE in a a recent article, and how Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have documented lots of evidence that the GRPD is collaborating with ICE.
I wrote two articles recently, both of which show how the GRPD are loved by those with wealth in this city and how the GRPD functions to protect the economic interests of the Capitalist Class.
I also wrote about how under Winstrom’s watch the GRPD killed another Black man in an article entitled, The GRPD killed another Black community member: Those in power have a script, but we don’t have to follow it.
If former GRPD Chief Winstrom wants to complain about an anti-cop sentiment then he and the local news need to come to terms with the fact that the GRPD ultimately protects systems of power – both political and economic – that they try to limit or silence free speech, that they criminalize dissent and that they disproportionately police in Black and Brown neighborhoods to manage those populations, using force whenever they want to.
End Note:
In the past two years I have done methodical documentation of MLive and the three GR-based TV stations – WOODTV8, WZZM13 and WXMI 17 on a number of issues. However, the vast majority of stories has to deal with public safety matters. In the 2024 study (linked below) of all these 673 stories that centered around crime, there were only 11 stories about the GRPD actually preventing crime, which means in most of the stories the GRPD showed up after a crime had been committed. This should tell us something about the real function of the GRPD.
2024 Local News Monitoring Project
Out of the 433 stories in the first six months of 2025 that were about the GRPD, the courts or public safety matters, only once was there a story where the GRPD prevented a crime or violence.
Cops and Capitalism go hand in hand: GRPD says they will need more cops when the Amphitheater opens
Last week WOODTV8 posted a story with the headline, GRPD: Each amphitheater event will require entire shift of officers.
The WOODTV8 story quoted a GRPD cop who stated:
“It is going to put a strain on our staffing. It will take at least 24 cops initially. That is a significant number of officers. That’s an entire patrol shift. We are dedicated and committed to doing that, but it will be really difficult to do 50 times in six months.”
This is not a new sentiment on the part of the GRPD. In October of 2024, WOODTV8 also interviewed a GRPD Captain who was quoted as saying:
“We want to expand our numbers in the next couple years quite a bit. So I would say in the next couple of years — without speaking for the city commission, they’d have to approve it — but we would like to be in that 330 or 340 range. There’s a lot going on downtown with the amphitheater coming in, the soccer stadium. There’s excitement with the river transformation. There is a lot of great restaurants and nightlife down here.”
This is just one more justification for the GRPD and the City of Grand Rapids to increase the number of cops.
At last Tuesday’s Public Safety Committee meeting, which you can watch here, there was a GRPD officer saying that the department is talking about dedicating 20 or more cops per event at the Amphitheater. At 20:45 into the video Mayor LaGrand – with a smile on his face – talking about public safety and special events saying, “in plain English that means what are we going to do about the Amphitheater and the Soccer Stadium.”
Someone from the city then talks about parking issues, but at about 32:50 into the video, where a GRPD officer is talking about crosswalks, he then says “it’s going to take at least 24 officers to police those intersections.” The cop was specifically referring to just the Amphitheater events and the need to have at least 24 cops for so-called safety.
In the fall of 2025, I reported that the Amphitheater had already used $80 million in public funding for that Grand Action 2.0-led project. Thus, the public – without public consent – has been fleeced $80 million for the Amphitheater and will be paying for at least 24 GRPD cops to work the Amphitheater events, to make sure that tourists and people with money will be protected from unhoused people or political dissidents who might interrupt their plans to have dinner & drinks before attending live concerts with overpriced tickets.
This is the natural outcomes within the system of Capitalism, where the public pays a large portion of the bill, while private business reap the rewards and get protect by the cops so their profits aren’t interrupted. As Brian Bean says in his important book, Their End is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism and Abolition:
“Cops patrol, maintain, recreate, enforce, and repress resistance to a racist capitalist system. Thus, the abolition of the police requires a breaking with capitalism. Abolitionist politics have always been a contested field, with anticapitalist politics a prominent, if not dominant, tendency. Angela Davis, one of the more prominent abolitionist figures, explains, “Ultimately we are going to have to dismantle this system and move in a socialist direction.” Mariame Kaba states, “We’re not going to abolish the police, if we don’t abolish capitalism by the way! It ain’t going to happen.”
Cops and Capitalism go hand in hand. The Capitalist Class creates laws that allows them to expand their wealth, then uses cops to protect their assets and their ability to expand their profits at the expense of others. In Grand Rapids the Capitalist Class is made up of the DeVos, Meijer and Van Andel families, who will ultimately reap the benefits of the ongoing push to add add more cops to the GR Police Department, which also means that BIPOC communities will be at an even greater risk of being brutalized by the GRPD.
Michigan’s Rep. Scholten and Senator Slotkin both release statements condemning Iran as the US attacks that country
The Trump Administration has unilaterally decided to attack the sovereign nation of Iran, with the support of Israel. Most US news stories provide some context for why Israel is involved, but there is limited information on why the US has such a contentious relationship with Iran.
A Brief History of the US and Iran
The Iranian people and the Iranian government as early as 1951 wanted to nationalize the oil that was being pumped from the earth on Iranian land. Such an action was a major no no, since the oil interests (both British and US) were not in favor of allowing Iranians to benefit from domestic oil production.
The British initiated an economic blockade on Iran once they announced that Iranian oil was for Iranians. However, the Iranian government under the leadership of the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh was able to weather the economic blockade and continued to use oil production to benefit Iranian society. US strategists working with the CIA began developing a plan to oust the Mosaddegh government and put in his place the Shah, who would dismantle the law that said Iranian oil for Iranians.
In the summer of 1953, the CIA initiated a coup and then installed The Shah of Iran who became an important ally of the US in the Middle East until 1979. During the Shah’s reign he suppressed dissent, was very anti-Islam and created his own secret police known as SAVAK. According to Blum:
“The notorious Iranian secret police, SAVAK, created under the guidance of the CIA and Israel, spread its tentacles all over the world to punish Iranian dissidents. According to a former CIA analyst on Iran, SAVAK was instructed in torture techniques by the Agency. Amnesty International summed up the situation in 1976 by noting that Iran had the “highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran.”
The brutality of the Shah of Iran is what eventually led to the Iranian revolution in 1979, which was led by Islamic clerics who had nothing but contempt for the US, primarily because of the decades long US support of the Shah.
In an attempt to destabilize Iran the US was providing weapons to Iraq throughout the 1980s to go to war against Iran, resulting in 1 million dead. When the US attacked Iraq in 1991 with the so-called Gulf War, it provided the US another opportunity to monitor Iran. In 2003 the US invaded Iraq and began to establish military bases which was one of the goals, in order to have more permanent military presence that was closer to Iran. (reflected in the map above) Every US administration since 1979 has treated Iran as a terrorist state, even though Iran has not invaded another sovereign nation.
For more insights into the history of US/Iranian relations check out the US government declassified documents put together by the National Security Archives. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/project/iran-us-relations
Scholten and Slotkin statements
Rep. Scholten begins her statement with “The Iranian regime posses a profound threat to US interests, Israel, our Gulf partners and global security.” Scholten doesn’t begin with the fact that the Trump administration bombed Iran without Congressional approval, but goes out of her way to make Iran the bad actor in this situation. Scholten then continues to demonize Iran making all sorts of claims without providing any evidence.
Senator Slotkin doesn’t begin her statement by demonizing Iran, but she does say at one point:
“As a former CIA officer who served three tours in Iraq, I have no love lost for the Iranian government. They’re a state sponsor of terror, responsible for the deaths of Americans. I saw it up close in Iraq and elsewhere.”
Again, an elected official making claims without providing evidence to substantiate such claims.
Both Slotkin and Scholten make it a point to criticize the Trump Administration’s failure to get Congressional approval, but they both make it a priority to demonize Iran and avoid talking about how Israel fits into the US attack on Iran.
For those wanting to investigate beyond the headlines I would recommend the following independent news and analysis sites:
Ever since Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE were founded in 2017, they have been clear that the function of ICE is to terrorize immigrant families, to separate immigrant families and cause lifelong trauma to immigrant families.
These two groups have been on the ground in Kent County for nearly a decade resisting ICE and providing community care to families that have already been harmed by ICE. These two groups do educational work, outreach work, have a hotline for people to call when they are being threatened by ICE, provide accompaniment, do daily patrols, monitor ICE activity, connect families with legal resources, material and financial support, transportation and offer sanctuary to individuals and families that no longer feel safe where they live.
Movimiento Cosecha does these things because they are part of the affected community (they are immigrant-led) and GR Rapid Response to ICE does these things because they follow the lead of Movimiento Cosecha and affected communities.
The problem now is that there are groups like Indivisible Great Grand Rapids (IGGR) who don’t listen to the affected communities and don’t follow the lead of Movimiento Cosecha GR to demand that ICE be abolished. Instead, IGGR (in their weekly newsletter) is asking their members – people who are not being threatened by ICE – to adopt the so-called reforms that are being pushed by the Democratic Party, which I will list below. However, it must be stated first that Indivisible groups have existed since Donald Trump won the election in 2016. They are essentially a Democratic Party front group. I say this because after Biden was elected Indivisible was no where to be found. After Donald Trump was elected again in 2024 Indivisible magically re-appeared.
What Movimiento Cosecha has said all along is that under Democratic Administrations immigrants are also being arrested, detained and deported. ICE violence doesn’t stop when Democrats occupy the White House or control Congress, it continues with millions of immigrants being arrested, detained and deported. The following so-called ICE reforms will not end family separation, trauma and harm for immigrants, but it will make those who are not being terrorized by ICE feel better because the optics of ICE won’t seem so cruel.
Here is the list of reforms from the Democratic Party that are highlighted, followed by my response.
- Requiring a judicial warrant to enter private property (as the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment already requires) – this sounds nice, but ICE tactics have been to wait til people they are after leave their house/apartment and then apprehend them and send them to a detention center.
- Verification of non-citizenship before detention and banning racial profiling and profiling based on job, language, and accent – again, this sounds nice, but immigrants from the global south have been racially profiled ever since the US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. US immigration practices is rooted in racial profiling and simply verifying non-citizenship will not stop ICE from racial profiling.
- Prohibiting immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks and requiring them to wear ID and body-worn cameras – this is all about optics and does nothing to stop ICE from terrorizing immigrants. Making ICE have badges and not covering their faces makes white people feel better, but will do nothing to prevent ICE from arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants.
- Prohibiting arrests at hospitals, schools, daycares, churches, polling places, and courts – a nice sentiment, but why limit ICE from arresting immigrants at just these locations? Terrorizing immigrants at their homes, their workplaces or when they are out shopping and going to the pharmacy are equally cruel. Again, this demand is about optics and makes white people feel better about ICE .
- Allowing states to investigate potential crimes committed by DHS and to sue DHS over detention conditions, and requiring state coordination for large-scale operations – This isn’t a bad idea, but how will this be enforced? Also, we know that local police are cooperative with ICE all around the country, so will people/communities be able to sue local police departments for assisting ICE in their terrorizing of immigrants?
- Safeguards including immediate access to attorneys for detainees, allowing states to sue DHS for violations, and unlimited congressional access to ICE facilities – also not a bad idea, but why didn’t Democrats demand this during the Biden and Obama Administrations? Immigrant detainees were being mistreated and many of them died under those administrations as well.
- Prohibit tracking and databases of individuals engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment – Again, these activities have happened under Democratic Administrations, plus government surveillance of people in the US has been happening for a very long time regardless of who sits in the White House.
- Codification and enforcement of a use of force policy – Use of force policies by ICE and local law enforcement always protects the cops. This is why groups like Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE use the phrase – ICE and Cops go hand in hand. The carceral state has always used the threat of force to manage populations, especially BIPOC populations, so simply codifying use of force policies will provide even greater legal protections for ICE and local cops.
As a white ally and accomplice in the struggle for immigrant justice, I call on other white people and white-led groups like IGGR to stop using partisan politics to direct your actions and follow the lead of immigrant communities that are demanding that ICE be abolished now!!!
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 