Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids – Segment Three

One of the 10 principles of journalism is that it must serve as an independent monitor of power.

Now, I don’t claim to be a journalist, more of a media watchdog, but I do engage in movement media. Movement media is reporting and documenting what social movements are doing, which is what I have been trying to do with GRIID since 2009.

However, since I have been monitoring what I call the Grand Rapids Power Structure for nearly two decades, I thought I would start a new segment – Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids. 

The Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids segments will offer brief commentary on those who have power over others in this community. These segments will not replace my regular reporting on the Grand Rapids Power Structure, since those stories will offer more in depth writing. 

As we navigate a second Trump Administration with the likes of Elon Musk, it seems like a perfect opportunity to shed some light on rich and powerful of Grand Rapids, or to frame it the way that radical media from the 60s and 70s would do regarding the Capitalist Class, using the phrase, “up against the wall motherfucker!”

• The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce has recently announced that longtime DeVos political operative Greg McNeilly will be the Chair of the 2025 CEO Summit in June of this year. McNeilly has a long history with the DeVos family, including being campaign manager for Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos in 2006, was the former CEO of the far right group Michigan Freedom Fund, has been a board member of the Betsy DeVos-created Great Lakes Education Project, is currently a board member of the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), and is the Chief Operating Officer for The Windquest Group, which is owned by Dick and Betsy DeVos. It seems like the Chamber’s CEO Summit is in good hands, since their goal is to put more money into the pockets of members of the Capitalist Class in West MI.
• The West MI Policy Forum latest Facebook page post links to an article by one of the Executive Committee members, John Kennedy, President & CEO of Autocam Medical. Kennedy’s article is critical of Gov. Whitmer’s road repair budget proposal, which you can read here. Kennedy contrasts Whitmer’s proposal with that of Michigan House Chair Matt Hall’s plan, which Kennedy refers to as “revenue-neutral.” This is an interesting take, since Kennedy is never neutral on anything. In fact, Kennedy’s relationship with Rep. Matt Hall is anything but neutral, since Kennedy is the fourth largest campaign contributor to the Matt Hall Majority Fund, contributing $100,000.
• Lastly, the far right Grand Rapids Think Tank, the Acton Institute, posted a recent podcast and article about the new book, Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History. The Acton Institute article is essentially saying that secular governments are worse than governments that have a strong religious historical context. The articles provides the following examples of anti-Christian regimes, such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Interestingly enough, Hitler had the support of the majority of Christian churches, especially the Catholic Church. See the book, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. While it is true that Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China and Cambodia under Pol Pot all committed major atrocities, the Acton Institute article completely omits government atrocities committed in the West. If we look at the US alone, a country founded on genocide and slavery, we can see that the US has a long history of brutal military interventions in Latin America and often propping up dictatorship’s in that region. See the well documented book, Endless Holocausts: Mass Death in the History of the United States Empire, by David Michael Smith.