Positive Voices: A New Publication for Social Justice?

I just finished the inaugural issue of the publication Positive Voices. According to comments from the publisher, Positive Voices “is a new monthly paper dedicated to promoting social justice, civility, debate and honest dialogue.”

West Michigan can certainly use more media, particularly media outside of the commercial realm, so in that sense Positive Voices is a welcomed addition. However, after reading the first edition I was somewhat disappointed in the content.

The front cover features a picture of the ArtPrize entry known as Nessie, so right away I was somewhat confused as to how this was promoting social justice. There were several short stories that dealt with public transit, senior citizens and the Grand Rapids budget crisis which were interesting commentaries, but not hard news.

There were two articles that particularly caught my attention. First, local UAW director Sue Levy wrote a story about the 10^th anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle. In this short article, Levy comments briefly on the impact that the Seattle protest had, but does talk about what can be learned from that historic protest. Instead, Levy puts her hope in the current administration and a piece of legislation that has been endorsed by Michigan Senators Stabenow and Levin.

Introduced this past summer, the Trade Enforcement Priorities Act of 2009, a bill that is supposed to give the Federal government more enforcement authority when deal with trade partners to make sure that US workers and businesses benefit from trade. However, this legislation is weak and is too narrowly focused on a “Buy American” mentality, which doesn’t sufficiently protect American workers from losing their jobs. A more effective strategy would be for people to advocate that the administration re-negotiate NAFTA, CAFTA and other regional trade agreements which have been devastating for workers in the US and abroad. The Obama administration said they would renegotiate these treaties all throughout his campaign, but so far has not delivered.

Another article, which had me scratching my head, was by Jose Amoros, founder of The Washington and Marshall Institute Project. In this article Amoros is responding to the December 1 speech by President Obama calling for 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan. Amoros defends Obama by calling him a realist. The article is a superficial treatment of the President’s foreign policy and offers no real analysis nor does the writer support any of the claims he makes. Amoros does a show on Public Reality Radio called “Foreign Policy and You,” where more often than not he takes a right-leaning position on major foreign policy issues, particularly with Latin America.

Positive Voices is part of WPRR Public Reality Radio and features many of the same people writing for this publication that also have shows on the radio station. Again, we welcome any new efforts in non-commercial media that is attempting to explore issues of social justice, even though the first issue doesn’t seem to fulfill that intent. The publisher does welcome input and ideas for what to report on. Contact Positive Voices at (616) 656-2619 or e-mail rick@thepositivevoices.com.