The money behind the candidates in Michigan – Part IV: Grand Rapids City Commission races
This is our fourth and final post looking at the most recent campaign finance information for this quarter. In Part I of this series, we look at the campaign contributions for the Governor’s race in Michigan, while Part II looked at the campaign funding for the West Michigan State Legislature races. In Part III, we uncover who the recipients were and how much money the DeVos family contributed in the most recent campaign finance deadline. In today’s post we take a look at campaign contributions going to candidates for Grand Rapids City Commissioner.
Now that the Grand Rapids City Commission seats are on the same year as the other elections, we’ll be able to see if those races get lost in all of the election chatter, or if they will have more people vote in those races that in previous years.
There are three seats on the Grand Rapids City Commission that will be up for grabs, with Senita Lenear being term limited and Kurt Reppart and Joe Jones running as incumbents. No other candidates have announced as of this writing, but that doesn’t mean that both incumbents haven’t been raising funds.
In the 1st Ward, Kurt Reppart will attempt to get re-elected for a second four year term. You can find campaign finance statements for all of the local candidates for City and County races by going to the Kent County Clerk’s site and clicking on Campaign Finance Reports at this link.
For the most recent quarter, Kurt Reppart reports having raised $2,855 in the past two quarter filings. We are including the past two quarter filings, since we did not report on Grand Rapids City Commission candidate campaign finances during the October deadline. Some of the larger contributions are from:
Aaron Jonker – President of Wolverine Building Group: $500
Casey Kornoelje – Owner of Farmhouse Wellness: $500
John Glover – Executive Director of Wellhouse: $300
Ryan Schmidt – Partner Indigo Design & Development: $200
Joe Jones – 2nd Ward Commissioner: $250
Milinda Ysasi – 2nd Ward Commissioner: $100
Plus two $100 contributions from people living in Pennsylvania.
2nd Ward City Commissioner Joe Jones received fewer contributions, but all of them were in larger amounts, compared to Reppart.
$1000 – Brian Britton, President and CEO, National Heritage Academies and his wife Kalli Britton contributed an additional $1000
$1000 – Darryl Elmouchi, President at Spectrum Health West Michigan
$1000 – Rosalynn Bliss, Mayor of Grand Rapids
$1000 – Mark Murray, Vice Chairman of Meijer
$1000 – Mike VanGessel, CEO of Rockford Construction, plus $1000 from Gayle VanGessel
$1000 – Christina Freese Decker, President & CEO of Spectrum Health
$1000 – Michael Price
$1000 – David Cassard, Mercantile Bank
$1000 – David Quade, Regional President of Horizon Bank
$1000 – Daniel Bowen, Principal Owner of Dempsey Ventures, plus $1000 Sharon Bowen
$1000 – Michael Jandernoa, Chairman of 42 North Partners
It is instructive that Joe Jones received $14,000 in contributions from 14 different contributors. Some of the contributors are part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, such as Jandernoa, VanGessel and Murray, while Brian Britton works for one of the organizations that make up part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, the National Heritage Academies.
In Part I of this series, we look at the campaign contributions for the Governor’s race in Michigan, while Part II looked at the campaign funding for the West Michigan State Legislature races. Today, we’ll take a look at the DeVos-backed candidates based on the most recent campaign finance data, specifically candidates running in Michigan.
According to data from OpenSecrets.org, members of the DeVos family and DeVos-owned companies have contributed to the re-election campaign of Rep. Peter Meijer. For the most recent quarter of campaign finance data, Meijer received campaign contributions from the following DeVos family members and DeVos-owned entities:
Amway/Alticor Inc. – $5,000
CWD Real Estate – $4,583
RDV Corp – $2,900
Pamela Roland (DeVos) – $2,900
In the 4th Congressional District race, which now pits Fred Upton against Bill Huizenga (re-districting), there are no DeVos contributions to either candidate. The DeVos family has consistently supported Huizenga, but they may be waiting until the primary vote to contribute to this race.
Based on data from the Michigan Secretary of State’s office and their campaign finance requirements, here are the candidates that members of the DeVos family have contributed to, Republican Committees and contributions for the ballot initiatives run by Let MI Kids Learn:
Dick DeVos
MI Senate Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
Wentworth Majority Fund 2 – $10,000
Kent County Republican Committee – $25,000
Let MI Kids Learn – $100,000
Betsy DeVos
MI Senate Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
Let MI Kids Learn – $100,000
Doug DeVos
MI House Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
MI Senate Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
Kent County Republican Committee – $25,000
Let MI Kids Learn – $50,000
Maria DeVos
MI House Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
MI Senate Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
Let MI Kids Learn – $50,000
Daniel DeVos
MI House Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
MI Senate Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
Kent County Republican Committee – $25,000
Wentworth Majority Fund 2 – $10,000
Compete Michigan Political Action CO – $10,000
Ottawa County Republican Committee – $50
Pamela DeVos
MI Senate Republican Campaign Committee – $41,975
Cheri DeVos
Kent County Republican Committee – $25,000
Wentworth Majority Fund 2 – $10,000
Adding all of those campaign contributions to just these candidates/ballot initiatives, comes to a total of $823,208 for the most recent quarter of campaign finance reports. While this is a substantial amount of money, we know that this will increased significantly before the November Election. GRIID will continue to track this information and demonstrate once again that the politics of the DeVos family is far right, supporting candidates and initiatives that hurt BIPOC people, working people, people who identify as LGBTQ, immigrants and other marginalized communities.
Last week, in Part I of this series, we looked at the major campaign contributors to all of the candidates running for Governor in 2022. Today, we want to look at incumbents and candidates for the Michigan Senate and House races in West Michigan.
Senator Winnie Brinks – incumbent – Here are the top campaign contributors to Brinks, who represents the 29th District in Michigan.
Next Era Energy PAC – $1,500
Bob Vanstright – $1,000
Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters – $1,000
Michigan Professional Fire Fighters – $1,000
Ruth Spagnuolo – $1,000
Ford Motor Company – $1,000
Jeff Cranson – $500
Phil Skaggs – Will be running for a State House seat based on the redistricting commission map. His top contributors are:
Committee to Elect Phil Skaggs – transferred assets – $17,601.93
Phil Skaggs – $13,000
For Our Futures Fund – $50
Rep. Tommy Brann – Incumbent – Brann is currently the State Representative for the 77th District. His top campaign contributors for the most recent quarter are:
Michigan State Police Troopers Association – $1,000
Michigan Community College Association – $250
Michigan Licensed Beverage Association PAC – $250
Michigan Bank PAC – $250
Great Lakes Education Project – $250
Friends of West Michigan Business – $150
David LaGrand – Incumbent – LaGrand is currently the State Representative for the 75th District. His top campaign contributors for this quarter are:
Grand Rapids FireFighters Union PAC – $5,000
Michigan Laborers Political League PAC – $2,500
Sid Jansma (Wolverine Gas & Oil) – $1,050
Stephanies Changemaker Fund – $1,000
Robert Vanstright – $1,000
Karen Vanstright – $1,000
Jon Bylsma (Attorney Varnum) – $1,000
Bruce Bartel – $1,000
Kevin Toler (Hill Island Financial) – $1,000
DTE Political Action Committee – $500
John Hunting – $500
Rachel Hood – Incumbent – Hood is currently the State Representative for the 76th District. Her top campaign contributors for this quarter are:
Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters – $1,000
DTE Energy PAC – $500
Delta PAC – $250
Kellogg Better Government Committee – $250
Thomas Albert – Incumbent – Albert is current the State Representative for the 86th District. His top campaign contributors for this quarter are:
Michigan Values Leadership Fund II – $10,000
Albert Majority Fund – $10,000
Building Experience NOW PAC – $5,000
Comcast Co. and NBC Universal PAC – $2,500
United Parcel Service Inc. PAC – $1,000
Mark Huizenga – Incumbent – Huizenga is currently the State Representative for the 74th District. His top campaign contributors for this quarter are:
Compete Michigan PAC – $5,000
CMS Energy Employees PAC – $1,000
MI Pediatric Action Society PAC – $250
Bryan Posthumus – Incumbent – Posthumus is currently the State Representative for the 73rd District. His top campaign contributors for this quarter are:
Wentworth Majority Fund – $5,000
Wentworth Majority Fund 2 – $5,000
John Kennedy (CEO Autocam) – $1,050
Michael Jandernoa (42 North Partners) – $1,000
Mcalvey Merchant PAC – $600
Farm Bureau PAC – $600
CMS Energy PAC – $500
Steve Johnson – Incumbent – Johnson is currently the State Representative for the 72nd District. His top campaign contributors for this quarter are:
Michigan Credit Union League PAC – $1,000
Blue Cross Blue Shield MI PAC – $500
Association of Builders and Contractors PAC – $500
Michigan Retailers Association PAC – $500
National Federation of Independent Business MI PAC – $250
For all of these candidates, the amount of campaign contributions will rise significantly as we grow closer to the 2022 Elections. We will continue to track the campaign finances, because to truly understand politics, you should always follow the money!
GRIID Class – The Function of Policing in the US and how we can work towards a world Without Police: Part III
For week 3 of the class on Policing in the US, we read and discussed three separate articles, two of which were from the book, Violent Order: Essays on the Nature of Police.
We read and discussed the introduction from Violent Order, which is entitled, On the Nature of Police. This introductory piece is important, since he provides a larger framework for how we need to think about the function of policing.
In the introduction, the authors challenge us to come to terms with how we have been socialized into think that police departments are necessary for a civilized society. To counter this socialization, the authors argue that the real function of policing is to maintain order, particularly to maintain the order of capital accumulation for the dominant class of society. With this notion of maintaining order, the police also make sure that we see nature as commodities within the economic system and that when people question or disrupt this order they are savages, animals or heathens. The police will intervene around issues of theft and assault, since those disrupt order, but they do nothing to confront structural violence, such as low wages, high rent or the corporate assault on the environment. In fact, the police will protect those forms of structural violence, since they are the result of capital accumulation.
The second piece we read from the book Violent Order, was entitled, Disrupt Order: Race, Class and the Roots of Policing. Here, the author argues that there are three ways to approach policing – to reform it, to expand it or to abolish it. There is a brief overview of the historical function of policing in the US, which then shifts to a look at how it has evolved. The author presents information on how US policing has adopted numerous tactics from the US military, which were learned during imperial occupations, such as in the Philippines during the end of the 19th century through the early part of the 20th century. The author further presents information on how the US military began to provide weaponry for police departments after the urban uprisings of the 1960s, through programs initiated by the Johnson Administration, which also included law enforcement grant programs after the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. (See Elizabeth Hinton’s book, America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s.)
In addition, the reading discusses the increased use of police repression, such as the COINTELPRO by the FBI, often in cooperation with local law enforcement agencies. The use of such programs was a domestic application of the US military’s use of counterinsurgency to fight against anti-colonial forces. Applied domestically by police department, insurgent were Black, Indigenous and other groups resisting the social order and the counterinsurgency became part of the so-called “community policing” model adopted by police departments across the country.
This chapter ends with a look at some efforts to move beyond reform, such as the #8toAbolition campaign, which was a direct response to the more reform minded campaign known as #8CantWait. One addition abolitionist effort that was discussed was the Movement for Black Lives vision platform, which lead to developing policies such as the BREATHE Act.
The third piece we read and discussed was from Kristian Williams, which provided further analysis of how US police agencies adopted a counter-insurgency model used by the US State Department and applied it to insurgent movements in the US. In the counterinsurgency strategies used by police departments, the tactics used are heavy surveillance of insurgent groups – often social movements – working with non-profits and churches to gather intelligence and to get residents to be informants for the police.
Another approach is “carrots and sticks”, often referred to as winning hearts and minds. Some examples in Grand Rapids would be the GRPD youth programs, which are essentially designed to present themselves as the good guy to marginalized youth, with the hope that these youth will see cops as necessary or even as a desirable profession. The other program, which is more recent, is called Clergy on Patrol, where the GRPD encourages faith leaders to work directly with them, take them out on patrol, with the underlying goal to bring clergy into their camp instead of working in opposition to the police.
In week four, we will be reading a number of essays from the book, Abolition for the People, and discussing an abolitionist vision of a world without police.
Betsy DeVos moderates panel of carefully selected people to promote the Let MI Kids Learn Ballot Initiative
On Wednesday morning, the Let MI Kids Learn campaign hosted a 45 minutes zoom call, featuring former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
In late October, we reported on the Senate and House bills that passed in the Michigan Legislature, bills that will do what Betsy DeVos has been attempting to do since 2000, with her failed school voucher ballot initiative. Then in November, GRIID reported as a response to Gov. Whitmer’s veto of the legislation passed in October, the Let MI Kids Learn campaign had begun to undo Whitmer’s veto and put the issue on the ballot in 2022.
Betsy DeVos spoke briefly at the beginning of the forum, making her usual remarks about so-called school choice, critiques of public education and how parents are not included in their children’s education. All of these claims have been her main talking points since she began to work on dismantling public education over the past several decades.
Nothing of what DeVos had to say was new. However, what was both interesting and instructive, were the other people who were part of the zoom call.
The forum was hosted by a staff member of Let MI Kids Learn, Amy Hawkins. Hawkins runs and operates Generation Strategies, which claims to help group deliver their message. Hawkins is part of the Conservative Christian movement and her website says that her work is trusted by the likes of Hillsdale College, Unlock Michigan – which opposed the Stay at Home orders in 2020, Sen. Mike Shirkey and Citizens for Traditional Values, to name a few.
Those who were hand picked to be on the zoom call with Amy Hawkins and Betsy DeVos were Celeste Mentag, Jay & Kate Woodhams, Cameron & Shante Pickford, Jimmy Greene and someone named Shayla. Shayla, who claimed to be a public school teacher, never gave her last name, never named the school she worked for and said that she had her daughter in a private school.
Celeste Mentag is part of the Detroit Founders Classical Academy This school is sponsored by the Conservative Christian school Hillsdale College. The website for the school isn’t very transparent, plus there wasn’t a great deal of information for the public to access. However, the Facebook page for Detroit Founders Classical Academy was rather telling. There are posts saying that schools are teaching the Black Lives Matter principles, other posts that are dismissive of Critical Race Theory and Charlie Kirk, who is with the far right group Turning Point USA.
There are similar posts on Celeste Mengas’ Facebook page, such as anti-CRT posting and even a meme with Trump 2024.
Jay and Kate Woodhams did not identify with a particulate group and they were both reading from a script.
There was also Cameron & Shante Pickford, who identified as homeschooling parents. What they didn’t tell you is that Cameron Pickford is the communications director for the DeVos-created political group, the Michigan Freedom Fund, and has been in that position since 2017.
The other person who spoke on the forum hosted by Let MI Kids Learn, was Jimmy Greene. Jimmy Greene is the President of Associated Builder and Contractors of Michigan, who spoke most about students learning trades so they could better enter the workforce. Greene is also a Black Conservative, who has endorsed John James (heavily funded by the DeVos family) and many other Republican members of the the Michigan Legislature.
One thing we know about the DeVos family is that they are very strategic and that do not want to be part of efforts unless they can control the narrative. This zoom call with Betsy DeVos, which was hosted by the Let MI Kids Learn campaign, clearly demonstrated that they only wanted people invited to present who would present the same ideological and political views that the DeVos family has been about for the past three generations.
If you want to endure the content of this forum, you can watch it by going to this link.
On Monday, MLive ran two articles that focused on campaign finances and the Michigan Gubernatorial race. The first article was headlined, Rinke leads Republican fundraising for governor, but Craig collected more from supporters. The second article was headlined, Whitmer collects $2.5M for re-election, gives Michigan Democratic Party $3.5M raised for recall defense. 
Let’s start with the campaign finances for Governor Whitmer. The MLive article provides readers with a total raised through the January 31st deadline, but most of the narrative consisted of the money she raised in anticipation of a recall campaign. In fact, there are no names of donors included, except one, which was money she returned because it was from the recall campaign.
The MLive article says that 92% of donors contributed $200 or less. However, this narrative is a bit misleading, considering that the top 550 contributors gave between $1,000 and $50,000. In other words, most of what Gov. Whitmer has raised in the past fundraising period is from large donors. Some of those donors are:
Michigan Education Association – $30,500
Operating Engineers Local 324 PAC – $15,000
Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 333 PAC – $13,000
Michigan Association for Justice – $10,000
Meijer Political Action Committee – $10,000
Blue Cross & Blue Shield – $10,000
Auto Dealers of Michigan – $10,000
Independence Blue Cross PAC – $7,000
Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers – $6,150
Michigan Bankers Association – $5,500
Ford Motor Company – $5,000
The MLive article on the GOP candidates for Governor, focused on the top two fundraisers Kevin Rinke and James Craig, with less information on a few of the other GOP candidates, like Garrett Soldano, Tudor Dixon, Michael Brown and Perry Johnson (who just announced, so there are no campaign finance records for him). Far Right candidate Ryan Kelley, did not even receive a mention in the article. If you click on the names of the GOP candidates who raised money during this campaign finance quarter, you can see who contributed to their campaigns.
What is clear so far from the coverage, is that candidates who raise more money are given more attention, regardless of their platform or their previous involvement in electoral politics. As with most things in a Capitalist society, money rules.
Should the public be celebrating the announcement that GM is investing $7 Billion in Michigan?
On January 25th, it was announced by Gov. Whitmer and the CEO of General Motors, that the the auto manufacturer would be investing $7 Billion in Michigan. Here is what MLive reported:
General Motors, building toward an all-electric future, plans to invest $7 billion and create 4,000 jobs across four manufacturing sites in Michigan.
Supported by $824.1 million in state incentives, the Detroit automaker will expand an Orion Township plant, build a Lansing electric battery manufacturing facility and make upgrades to two Lansing area plants.
The commercial news media has been treating this announcement as good news for the state, with almost celebratory coverage across the board. What we don’t find in the reporting since this announcement, is much critical inquiry or even basic questions/information that might be useful to Michigan residents. Here are a few things to ponder with the GM announcement.
First, there are no eyebrows raised about the fact that the State of Michigan will be providing $824.1 Million of incentives. (Remember incentives, like subsidies, are costs that will be insured by public tax dollars) According to the Press Release from Gov. Whitmer’s office, the incentives are:
A Critical Industry Program grant in the amount of $600 million for the creation of up to 4,000 jobs related to the Orion Township and Ultium projects;
An 18-year Renewable Energy Renaissance Zone which will require a minimum investment of $1.5 billion with the potential for up to $2.5 billion, estimated to be worth $158 million;
A Strategic Site Readiness Program grant in the amount of $66.1 million awarded to the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) for public infrastructure and utility upgrades.
These three state incentives were decided upon by the Michigan Strategic Fund. The Michigan Strategic Fund is governed by a Board of Directors, made up of state office holders and numerous business people. This means that the public has no say in the $824.1 Million incentives being provided to GM. Imagine how $824.1 Million could have served the public in the form of housing, health care or other basic necessities.
Second, the announcement told us that the $7 Billion GM investment would lead to 4,000 new jobs. Would those jobs be equivalent of the current rate for new union employee in the auto industry? Would these new jobs come with health care and other benefits? This is always a critical question to ask, especially since in the 2008/2009 federal government bailout of the three auto manufacturers, there were strings attached, like a two tiered income system, with cuts in pay and benefits. Unfortunately, the UAW, who also released a statement about the $7 Billion investment, said nothing about what was negotiated or what this will mean for rank and file workers. This is a far cry from the days when the UAW engaged in wildcat strikes in Michigan in the 1930s and 40s.
Third, there is virtually no discussion in the news coverage of this announcement, what the environmental impact of the continued manufacturing of cars, even electric cars, will be. It goes without saying that fossil fuels-dependent vehicles create a great deal of carbon, which is a major contributor to Climate Change. However, there are ecological consequences of manufacturing electric vehicles. Electric vehicles still rely on extracting numerous minerals, both for the car in general and for the battery
Electric vehicle batteries rely on minerals such as cobalt, lithium and nickel. Most of these minerals are mined in developing countries, or the more honest term for these countries, the Global South. The mining of these minerals often takes place with no environmental regulation, with the pollution of local water systems often being the result. Another consequence of the mining of resources for electric vehicle batteries is that there is labor exploitation. A recent United Nations post stated:
Nearly 50% of world cobalt reserves are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which accounts for over two-thirds of global production of the mineral. About 20% of cobalt sourced from the central African nation comes from artisanal mines, where some 40,000 children work in extremely dangerous conditions, according to UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency.
Then there are environmental consequences in the form of road, parking lots and all the things associated with the continued manufacturing of private vehicles. The economic and environmental costs associated with the construction and maintenance of road and parking lots is astronomical, costs which are usually incurred by the public.
Fourth, the failure of news agencies to question the announcement from GM also sniffles our collective ability to imagine other possibilities when it comes to transportation. Imagine what it would look like if during the Governor’s State of the State address would have included that there would be massive public incentives to create light rail systems in Michigan? What would it mean in terms of human and ecological sustainability to have mass transit be the primary solution to transportation, rather than the continued manufacturing of private vehicles? This is partly due to the fact that we have a for-profit media system, which relies on advertising dollars to make money.
I for one am not celebrating the announcement that public funding was used to offer incentives to a privately company, which is beholden to its stock holders and not those who work there. I am not excited that the shift to electric vehicles will not substantially reduce environmental catastrophe around the planet. I am not jumping for joy that the company that was part of a real conspiracy to buy up urban mass transit systems in the early part of the 20th Century – General Motors – will continue to dictate the future of our collective transportation needs. (See the documentary film Taken for a Ride) And I am not happy that public money will once again be used to primarily benefit the private sector, a decision which I and the rest of Michiganders had no say in.
The Acton Institute despises the Movement for Black Lives, but they love it when Black people embrace Capitalism
Ever since the Black-led international uprising in response to the police murder of George Floyd, the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty has gone out of its way to denigrate the Movement for Black Lives.
GRIID has been documenting Acton’s position on BLM since June of 2020 and their overt support of White Supremacy. Here are links to several posts calling them out on their anti-Black Lives Matter stance:
The Grand Rapids-based Acton Institute has essentially declared war on the Movement for Black Lives
Acton Institute refers to BLM as a cult
Acton claims that the 2020 uprisings hurt Black people
Acton condemns Black author Ibram X. Kendi
In November of 2021, the Acton Institute once again attacks the Movement for Black Lives during the Kyle Rittenhouse trial
Black Freedom and Free Market Capitalism
Now that we have made it clear that the Acton Institute despises the Movement for Black Lives, they demonstrate their own White Supremacist arrogance by invite a white professor and author to do a lecture on how Black people can flourish by embracing Free Market Capitalism.
Rachel Ferguson, who is a professor at Concordia University Chicago, and the author of the forthcoming book, Black Liberation Through the Marketplace, was invited to speak during an Acton Institute lecture series. Two weeks later, Ferguson was the guest on the Acton Institute’s radio show, Acton Line, to discuss her new book and how Black people can flourish in the market place. Ferguson’s basic argument is that the most effective way for Black people to respond to structural racism is to become get access to capital, become an entrepreneur and to create wealth.
Now, I am all in favor of Black people getting access to capital in the current Neoliberal Capitalist economy. However, having access to capital is not enough. Becoming entrepreneurs is not enough, especially since not everyone can be a business owner. Black people and Black families need to be able to earn a Living Wage, no matter what kind of work they do. More importantly, Black people deserve reparations. Black people deserve reparations for the centuries long harm that Structural Racism has done to them.
If Black families are earning a Living Wage and if reparations are honored, then the whole issue of access to capital becomes less of an issue. You see, Rachel Ferguson and the Acton Institute only like Black people who buy into Black Conservatism. The Acton Institute is not decrying the structural racism that Black people face on a daily basis and when Black people make demands in the tradition of the Black Freedom Struggle, like the Movement for Black Lives, the Acton Institute calls them terrorists and blames them for the economic condition of poverty.
What is instructive about this dynamic of eschewing the Black Freedom Struggle and advocating for Black access to capital, is that there are groups in this community that also despise the Black Freedom Struggle and promote Black economic conservatism. Of course the Acton Institute does this, but they are a think tank and promote policy. When it comes to the issue of Black people gaining access to capital and eschewing the Black Freedom Struggle, there are two DeVos-created entities that come to mind.
Start Garden and AmplifyGR, both created by and funded by the DeVos family, push the idea of wealth creation and access to capital for Black people, while simultaneously distancing themselves from the tradition of the Black Freedom Struggle. In fact, both of these groups, like their funding source, the DeVos family, are historically antagonistic towards the tradition of the Black Freedom Struggle, as is currently being practiced by the Movement for Black Lives.
This should come as no surprise, since the DeVos family has also been a major funder of the Acton Institute, as well as having numerous family members serve on Acton’s Board of Directors.
Money can be very seductive, but it is also a tool that the DeVos family, the Acton Institute and faux intellectuals like Rachel Ferguson use to present themselves as a friend of the Black community. The reality is that those with political and economic power have always used that power to manipulate and control the Black community. In fact, this is exactly what Todd Robison names as Managerial Racism in his book, A City Within a City: The Black Freedom Struggle in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Editor’s note – Rachel Ferguson spoke to a mostly white audience when speaking at the Acton Institute lecture series in December. She is scheduled to speak to a mostly white audience again, when she presents the thesis of her book at Hope College on February 7th. This makes sense, since white people love white authors who don’t challenge them with issues like white privilege and complicity in white supremacists policies.
Why are Senators Stabenow and Peters supporting military aid that could lead to war?
Last week, the US Senate proposed S.3488, a bill that would provide a significant amount of funding to Ukraine and NATO allies against Russia.
The language of the proposed funding states:
To counter the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and Eastern European allies, to expedite security assistance to Ukraine to bolster Ukraine’s defense capabilities, and to impose sanctions relating to the actions of the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine, and for other purposes.
A few days later, the US House of Representatives submitted their own proposal to provide funding that would lead to war.
According to a recent article in The Intercept:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told members on a caucus call Tuesday that she’s looking to skip marking up the bill and move it straight to the House floor, setting up the possibility of a vote as soon as early next week, two congressional sources told The Intercept. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to talk to the press. Pelosi’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
“This is how the space for nonmilitary options gets slowly closed off in Washington, without any real debate,” one of the sources, a senior Democratic aide, told The Intercept.
The Intercept article went on to state:
The legislation would send $500 million from the Foreign Military Financing program to Ukraine for 2022. That amount would have made Ukraine the third-largest recipient of funding from the State Department’s FMF account in 2020, surpassed only by $3.3 billion to Israel and $1.3 billion to Egypt. (That year, the FMF program gave Ukraine $248 million.)
Other sources of independent media have also been providing important information and analysis of why the US government’s rush to provide weapons and funding for Ukraine are a potentially catastrophic decision. Common Dreams reported:
As the New York Times reported Tuesday, the U.S. “has authorized Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to send Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukrainian forces, augmenting the Javelin anti-tank missile deliveries to Ukraine that Britain began this month.”
Such developments in recent days have intensified concerns that the U.S. is on the verge of embarking on yet another military intervention that could have devastating human consequences.
Warning against military action and pressing all parties to engage in diplomatic talks, Bridget Moix of the Friends Committee on National Legislation said Tuesday that “war represents a calamitous failure of governments to do their most basic job of keeping their people safe.”
Joseph Gerson, who is the President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, also provides important analysis in an opinion piece that was posted on Common Dreams on Monday:
This has been a totally unnecessary crisis, fueled in large measure by U.S. insistence on maintaining NATO’s “open door” policy, when the reality is that there is no way that France or Germany will agree to Ukraine becoming a NATO member state. Resolution of the crisis could be hastened were Biden or Blinken to state the obvious: “We understand there are deep insecurities on all sides. Given that our allies are in no hurry to welcome Ukraine into NATO, we propose a moratorium on new NATO memberships. Beyond that, we look forward to a range of constructive negotiations to establish an enduring Eurasian security framework for the 21st century.”
So why are US politicians, like Michigan Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, so quick to want to support militarism as a response to this potentially disastrous situation? Part of the issue is that the US weapons industry has been spending on average $100 Million a year since 2000, to lobby members of Congress, according to OpenSecrets.org.
A second reason that the Congress is so quick to support military solutions, has to do with the long-standing role that weapons manufacturers play in campaign contributions. Again, according to OpenSecrets.org, in the 2020 Election cycle alone, the top 20 weapons contracts contributed a little over $47 Million to political candidates. It is also important to acknowledge that this campaign funding from weapons contractors is bi-partisan, with Republicans holding an ever so slight edge on campaign contributions in the 2020 Election cycle.
When it comes to Michigan Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, we can see that they too have received lots of funding from US weapons manufacturers. This is especially the case when facing re-election. For example, in 2018, the last time that Senator Stabenow was up for re-election, she received $70,301 from weapons contractors. When Gary Peters was running for re-election in 2020, he was the recipient of $208,387 from companies that make weapons for the US military. None of this should come as a surprise to those who actually follow the money when it comes to politicians.
What is always instructive is how the bi-partisan consensus on US militarism stands in stark contrast to the message of people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Just days after the federal government celebrated to birthday of Dr. King, they jump at the chance to push more policies that essentially promote militarism and imperialism. Senator Peters, like so many members of Congress, posted a commemorative video for MLK Day, yet when it comes to actually honoring the legacy of Dr. King, Peters and most of his colleagues shit on his grave.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
GRIID Class – The Function of Policing in the US and how we can work towards a world Without Police: Part II
For the second session, we read chapters 4 and 5 from Kristian William’s important book, Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America.
Chapter 4 is entitled, Cops and Klan, Hand in Hand, which deals with the historical legacy of the relationship between cops and White Supremacist groups. This chapter begins right after the Civil War, with the creation of groups like the KKK, which were a direct response to the efforts during the Reconstruction era.
Williams looks at how the former slave patrols were now formalized police groups that did whatever they could to prevent the Black community from gaining any kind of legal and economic rights. The author also presents how state legislators passed Black Codes, which were designed to “regulate” those formerly enslaved and to impose segregationist policies. Williams offers numerous examples of riots that were organized by white people against Black populations, seeking to intimidate, harass and do direct bodily and economic harm to the Black community. In some cases the police did nothing to intervene, and in most cases the police led the riots against Black people.
In the 20th Century, this relationship between the KKK and the police was revived with the second wave of the Klan beginning in the 1920s. This relationship flourished during the Civil Rights era, as cops in both the north and the south were active members in the Klan, with the author giving examples from Alabama, Mississippi, and Michigan. In numerous instances, the FBI even used KKK informants to gather information of Civil Rights activists.
In another part of Chapter 4, the author shows how the practice of racial profile by police, became even more institutionalized means of monitoring, harassing and arresting a disproportionately hight number of Black and Brown community members.
Chapter 5 is entitled, The Natural Enemy of the Working Class, deals with how police forces have always been used to not only policy working class people, but have been used by the Capitalist Class to suppress worker demands and worker uprisings.
This chapter makes it clear that with the industrial revolution in the US, with more and more factory workers or workers in the mining sector, police and other security forces were used to suppress worker demands and worker-led strikes. Williams makes it clear that law enforcement agencies targeted labor organizers and always worker in cooperation with the Capitalist Class to suppress any kind of labor uprisings. The author gives examples of the IWW, the Bread & Roses campaign, the 1934 strike wave and many others, always demonstrating how cops worker in the service of capital.
Even though most labor unions became more business-friendly throughout the 20th Century, there were always insurgent worker movements, like the United Farm Workers and those that became more radicalized after the passage of NAFTA and other trade policies. The anti-Globalization Movement was also targeted by the cops, especially during the late 1990s through 2001, before the movement was derailed because of 9/11.
In week 3 of the class, we will finish our reading and analysis of what the US system of policing does to suppress movement work in general, using several different readings. One important reading we will be using is an essay about how US police agencies adopted a counter-insurgency model used by the US State Department and applied it to insurgent movements in the US.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 