Rep. Meijer votes for $778 Billion US Military Budget, which was passed with overwhelming Bipartisan support
Last week, 3rd Congressional Representative, Peter Meijer, voted to for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022, which passed the House by a vote of 363-70.
The 2022 US Military Budget is $778 billion, which is $25 billion more than what the Biden Administration originally asked for. Now the Senate needs to approve the 2022 US Military Budget, which seems to be but a foregone conclusion.
This makes the 2022 US Military Budget larger than the one in President Trump’s last year, despite the fact that the Biden Administration has formally ended the 20 year US military occupation of Afghanistan. The US Military occupation of Afghanistan cost billions over the past 20 years, which has been part of the larger so-called US War on Terror, which has cost US taxpayers $21 Trillion since September 11, 2001.
Rep. Peter Meijer released the following statement on his vote in favor of the massive US Military Budget:
“For sixty years, the NDAA has received strong bipartisan support, and I’m pleased that tradition continued this year. I was glad to vote in favor of this bill to fully equip our service members and give them a pay increase, enhance military readiness, and generally provide for a strong national defense. This summer’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrated how critically important it is that we strengthen our military and give our men and women in uniform every tool and resource they need to defend our nation and keep us safe. After months of debate and compromise, I was happy to see the House and Senate come to a bipartisan agreement that prioritizes our military and does not include any poison pills, including any ‘red-flag’ provisions. Last night’s passage signals to our adversaries that the U.S. remains ready and equipped to respond to threats at home and abroad. I was proud to support this bill, I hope the Senate does their part to pass it quickly.”
Rep. Meijer claims that the US withdrawn from Afghanistan was botched, yet he says nothing about the disastrous twenty year US occupation of that country, the thousands of Afghani deaths, the several thousand US military personnel that died, nor all the other disastrous consequences of that occupation.
However, Rep. Peter Meijer does accurately use the term bi-partisan support for the 2022 US military budget, and he rightfully acknowledges that this bi-partisan support has existed for sixty years. My own read of the bi-partisan nature of US Militarism and US Imperialism is that it has last longer than 60 years. In fact, one could argue that there has fundamentally been bipartisan support for US militarism throughout the entire history of the United States of America.
This bipartisan support of US Militarism over the past 60 years has translated into the following:
- Bipartisan support for US Wars of Aggression in places like Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq & Afghanistan.
- Bipartisan support for US military aid to other wars/repression by other countries, specifically illegal wars/acts of aggression, based on United Nations rulings, such as Israel, Egypt, Indonesia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Angola, just to name a few.
- Bipartisan support for weapons sales to dozens of countries, with a recent example being Saudi Arabia.
- Bipartisan support for massive taxpayer subsidies to US military contractors, who manufacture the weapons used by the US Military and many other countries because of US weapons sales. According to the National Priorities Project, US Military Contractors have made $3.4 Trillion over the past 10 years.
- Bipartisan support for continuing to spend Trillions on militarism instead of funding housing, health care, education, or investing in the fight against the Climate Crisis.
This Bipartisan support for US militarism is addressed in a recent article by the Feminist and Anti-war group Code Pink, which writes:
Let’s make no mistake about this: Congress’s choice to keep investing in a massive, ineffective and absurdly expensive war machine has nothing to do with “national security” as most people understand it, or “defense” as the dictionary defines it.
U.S. society does face critical threats to our security, including the climate crisis, systemic racism, erosion of voting rights, gun violence, grave inequalities and the corporate hijacking of political power. But one problem we fortunately do not have is the threat of attack or invasion by a rampant global aggressor or, in fact, by any other country at all.
Maintaining a war machine that outspends the 12 or 13 next largest militaries in the world combined actually makes us less safe, as each new administration inherits the delusion that the United States’ overwhelmingly destructive military power can, and therefore should, be used to confront any perceived challenge to U.S. interests anywhere in the world—even when there is clearly no military solution and when many of the underlying problems were caused by past misapplications of U.S. military power in the first place.
I wholeheartedly reject and oppose Rep. Peter Meijer’s vote to keep funding US Militarism, but he is correct when he says that this effort has been Bipartisan for decades.
On Tuesday, the City of Grand Rapids discussed updating the GRPD surveillance policy during the Committee of the Whole meeting. MLive devoted a whole article to it, noting that City Manager Mark Washington is “expected to be approved by City Manager Mark Washington on Jan. 3, 2022.”
The MLive article does provide a decent overview of the updated draft of the City’s surveillance policy, ending with a bullet point list of issues that the updated policy would address. The article also notes that the City of Grand Rapids partnered with the NAACP and the ACLU to refine the policy. Both entities are legitimate entities, but they do not speak for the entire community.
There are numerous things that are problematic about the updated draft of the City’s surveillance policy, issues that the MLive article does not really address.
First, the updated draft of the City’s surveillance policy is not hyperlinked in the article. This is always critical, since any one of us can bring our own interpretations to the table when looking at policy language, and MLive is no exception. Here is a link to the updated draft City Surveillance policy, as was discussed during the Committee of the Whole meeting, specifically pages 4 – 15.
Second, the MLive article says that the changes to the City’s Surveillance policy was driven by the public opposition to the ShotSpotter technology that the GRPD wanted last year. What the MLive article fails to mention, is that there was a well organized campaign to oppose the ShotSpotter technology, from a coalition of groups, who produced a statement (linked here) with several of the groups circulating an online action alert that hundreds responded to and some of the coalition member groups did actions outside the homes of several City Commissioners to pressure them to vote no.
Third, there is mention in the MLive article that when the GRPD wants to use new surveillance technology, the City will have to a public hearing for approval. This is certainly a step in the right direction, but why is there no scheduled public hearing on the adoption of the updated City Surveillance policy itself? Also, why is there no transparency on the existing surveillance practices and technology that the GRPD currently uses? I sent a letter to the City of Grand Rapids about this very issue one month ago, with no response from the City Commissioners, the Mayor or the City Manager.
Lastly, the language of the draft of the City’s Surveillance policy is vague enough, so that the GRPD and the City could justify using surveillance technology whenever they determine. Here is the language:
“Extenuating circumstances” means incidents involving a good faith belief that an imminent danger to individual safety or public health is likely.
“Imminent danger” means a hazard exists which could reasonably be expected to cause death or serious physical harm immediately or before the imminence of such hazard can be eliminated through normal compliance enforcement procedures.
If recent history has taught us anything, then we should all be well aware of the fact that the laws currently in place overwhelmingly are in favor of protecting the police. In the past 18 months in Grand Rapids, we have seen the City Attorney and the City Manager stop any efforts to reduce funding for the GRPD, with vague language about “what is legal.” We have seen the GRPD repeatedly harass, intimidate and arrest Justice for Black Lives members, always justifying the arrests with their interpretation of the law or their selective enforcement of City ordinances. We have also seen numerous efforts to obtain GRPD documents through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, where the information is highly redacted.
Considering the history and the bad faith efforts of the City of Grand Rapids around policing issues, the public should be highly skeptical of the City’s updated Surveillance policy.
GRIID 2022 Winter Class: The Function of Policing in the US and how we can work towards a world Without Police
In this 8-week class, we will explore the history of policing in the United States, its role in maintaining structural racism and how it has been used to suppress social movements.
We will also look at more contemporary dynamics with policing, investigating the notion of community policing, the practice of counter-insurgency by police departments, and the bi-partisan support for increased funding for policing.
Lastly, we will look at the movement to defund the police, using numerous writings from activists coming out of the abolitionist tradition, a discussion about the Movement for Black Lives Defund the Police toolkit and several other recent reports that challenge the dominant narrative that society needs police and that they keep us safe.
This will be a great opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and respond to all those liberal memes, like this one.
This class will take place on Monday evenings, from 6:30 – 8:30pm, beginning on Monday, January 17. The class will be held for 8 consecutive weeks, ending on Monday, March 8.
GRIID is asking for a $25 suggested donation for the class and will be re-directly the funds raised to groups working on defunding the GRPD. However, you will not be turned away if you can’t contribute financially.
If you are interested in signing up, please send an e-mail to jsmith@griid.org. There will be a 15 person limit for the class, which will be conducted virtually.
Activists that have been trying to remove the Confederate statue in Allendale, are now suing the Township for Free Speech violations
It has been roughly 18 months that activists have been organizing to remove the Confederate statue in Allendale. The protest began in the summer of 2020, about the same time that the country erupted over the price murder of George Floyd.
Allendale Township has fought the activists on the removal of the Confederate statue from the very beginning, often arguing that to remove the statue is to remove history. Other players, such as Ryan Kelley, the co-founder of the American Patriot Council, also joined the fight to defend the Confederate statue, while at the same time calling the COVID pandemic a hoax and opposing any kind of government measures to protect the public from the spread of the virus.
In October of 2020, Kelley and his minions organized a rally in the park where the Confederate statue is located in Allendale. A counter-protest was organized, which drew a great deal of media attention, although often failing the report on more critical aspects of the protests.
In March, we reported on the four activists who were charged by Allendale Township of defacing the Confederate statue, although the charges were essentially bogus.
In May of 2021, the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists had called for a boycott of an annual concert series held in Allendale. That concert series was cancelled.
Now, four civil rights advocates have filed a federal lawsuit in the Western District of Michigan against Allendale Township for censoring speech promoting racial justice. The lawsuit asserts that Allendale, located in Ottawa County, Michigan, unlawfully violated their free speech rights by allowing people to pay for messages on engraved bricks in a local park promoting a wide range of individual interests, but rejected bricks with messages supporting racial equality.
According to the Media Release from the four plaintiffs:
In an August 2019 meeting, the Township Board reinstated a decades-old fundraising program that allowed community members to purchase bricks to be engraved with messages of their choice and placed in the township’s Garden of Honor surrounding statues commemorating various wars. The Board did not limit the type of message applicants could have inscribed on a brick. Bricks in the park today have messages such as, “I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE,” “ALLENDALE ANIMAL HOSPITAL,” and “ALLENDALE CLASS OF 2003.”
One of the statues in the Garden of Honor is of a Confederate soldier and a Union soldier with a small, enslaved Black child between their legs. Following the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, many Americans began calling for the removal of Confederate statues. Numerous community members, including plaintiffs, and organizations, such as Grand Valley State University, have urged Allendale to remove the Confederate soldier—thought to be one of the only Confederate statues north of the Mason-Dixon line—from the Garden of Honor. Thus far, the Allendale Township Board has refused to remove or replace the statue of the Confederate soldier.
Plaintiff Tony Miller is a Black veteran of the United States Navy. In March, Miller submitted brick applications to honor the service of Black and Indigenous Americans in the U.S. armed forces and to promote racial justice. Miller’s submissions included either the phrase “Black Lives Matter” or “Indigenous Lives Matter” followed by the name of a veteran. Because the brick display faces the Confederate statue, Miller hoped his bricks would make a particularly powerful statement.
In response to the brick applications of Mr. Miller and a few other civil rights advocates, the Allendale Board decided to change the rules for inscribed bricks and to allow only messages that stated a veteran’s name, branch of service, dates of service, war or conflict, location of service, rank, unit, medals and awards, and/or POW or MIA status. Even though Mr. Miller and the other plaintiffs submitted brick applications before the Board adopted the new policy, the Township Clerk rejected all of their applications because they did not meet the brick program’s new content requirements.
Mr. Miller stated, “I just want to make Allendale a more welcoming home for families like mine. It’s not fair for the Board to change the rules just to prevent us from promoting racial justice.”
The lawsuit asks the federal court to order Allendale to install the bricks with racial justice messages that were applied for before the rule change.
To view the legal complaint, click here.
Minimum Wage increase is an insult to workers in Michigan: Time we realize that workers have more power than politicians
On Friday, MLive posted a story about the minimum wage in Michigan, stating that after the New Year, the minimum wage will go from $9.65 to $9.87.
$9.87 is an outrageously low wage, it is so low that it is insulting to workers, no matter what kind of work you do. The soon to be $9.87 an hour minimum wage in Michigan does not even cover the most basic necessities. In fact, a $9.87 wage would not even cover the cost of rent for people in Michigan.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, people in Michigan need to earn at least $15.62 to cover the cost of rent. For people living in Grand Rapids, even earning $15.62 would not be enough considering what the cost of rent at many places in the city.
Of course, $15.62 an hour is what a single person would need for a one bedroom apartment. If you are a single parent, and need a two bedroom apartment, then you would need to earn $18.55 an hour, just to be able to afford rent. This doesn’t necessarily cover the cost of utilities, food, health care, transportation and you can pretty much forget about having money left over to do something entertaining. If you add student loans to the equation or child care costs, you are likely to go into debt or to have two jobs just to make ends meet.
Clearly, the politicians who pass minimum wage laws have rarely ever worked for at minimum wage, especially once they were out of high school. And when I say politicians, I’m not just talking about Republicans, but Democrats as well. Think about it. Earlier this year the Biden administration had originally proposed an increase to the federal minimum wage, up to $15 an hour. Even with the Democrats controlling the White House, the Senate and the House, they could not get a $15 federal minimum. wage increase passed, especially with several Democrats voting against the proposed increase.
A more effective way to raise wages, to get employers to pay a livable wage, is to organize in your own workplace and to support workers who are organizing to demand just wages. In fact, as we have seen in recent months, more and more workers are realizing that they have a great deal of leverage and power, even if it is just withholding their labor until employers begin to respect them with paying a more just wage. We have seen this with Kelloggs recently and lots of other places that are already unionized. However, even in places that are not unionized, especially in the service industry, many places are beginning to pay $15, $18 or even $20 an hour because there are lots of workers who will no longer submit to working for less than what they can reasonably live off of.
The history of the labor movement, especially in the earlier part of the labor movement, has demonstrated that by organizing themselves and making demands of employers, they were able to win better wages, benefits, safer working conditions, etc. In fact, all existing labor laws were the direct result of workers organizing, engaging in strikes and other tactics to win their demands. Politicians have never initiated living wage demands, workplace safety demands, worker benefits, etc., those things have come about because of the organized efforts of workers themselves. In fact, according to Cloward and Piven’s book, Poor People’s Movements, most major labor victories happened because of spontaneous worker actions, especially the sit-down strike.
According to Jeremy Brecher’s book Strike!, there were 48 sit-down strikes in 1936 and 477 sit-down strikes in 1937. All of this happened before most of the New Deal policies were put into effect. In fact, most labor historians acknowledge that the tremendous amount of labor unrest was what pushed the Roosevelt Administration to adopt the New Deal Policies in the first place.
All of this is to say that workers have more power than bosses and if we are organized we can not only win a livable wage, but we can create a world that is not dictated by Billionaires, corporations or the Capitalist Class.
With a nearly unanimous vote, the Michigan House passes bill to provide $300 Million for policing
Three weeks ago, we reported on proposed legislation that would provide $300 million in funding for police departments to hire more cops and fund addition police programs.
In our previous GRIID posting we wrote:
Michigan’s House Speaker, Jason Wentworth was quoted in the MLive article as saying:
“Michigan’s men and women in uniform deserve to know that they are a priority and that their work is important to us. In an era when far too many people are attacking law enforcement and looking for ways to defund the police, we chose to stand with them and find solutions together.”
HB 5522 passed overwhelmingly, with a vote of 97 – 3, with seven legislators abstaining. The 3 no votes were all from Republicans, which means that every Democrat (not including those who abstained) in the Michigan House voted for the $300 million in police funding.
The near unanimous vote for more police funding is consisted across the country and has been for decades, with both parties choosing to provide massive amounts of funds to police departments, while social programs are constantly being cut. You can see which politicians in Michigan have been receiving financial support from police unions, by going to the site No More Cop Money.
Even MLive responded to the false perception that Democratic lawmakers were in favor of defunding police departments. In an article posted on December 2nd, the MLive reporter writes:
Despite repeated claims from Republican lawmakers in Michigan that state Democrats supported defunding police departments, most large Michigan cities are spending more on police services in wake of last year’s racial justice movement.
In other words, Democratic lawmakers are just as committed to funding police as are GOP lawmakers. Again, this is consistent with police union funding of candidates, both Republican and Democratic candidates. If one looks at the largest police union in the country, the Fraternal Order of Police, you can see that between 1990 and 2020, Democrats had received more funding from the FOP than did Republicans in both the House and the Senate.
Back to the near unanimous vote in the Michigan House to provide $300 million in additional funding to the police, one could argue that this might be in part because Democrats who will be up for re-election in 2022, will not want to be perceived as anti-police or soft on crime. It will be interesting to see which candidates in Michigan will be receiving funding from police unions during the upcoming election cycle.
GRIID 2022 Winter Class: The Function of Policing in the US and how we can work towards a world Without Police
In this 8-week class, we will explore the history of policing in the United States, its role in maintaining structural racism and how it has been used to suppress social movements.
We will also look at more contemporary dynamics with policing, investigating the notion of community policing, the practice of counter-insurgency by police departments, and the bi-partisan support for increased funding for policing.
Lastly, we will look at the movement to defund the police, using numerous writings from activists coming out of the abolitionist tradition, a discussion about the Movement for Black Lives Defund the Police toolkit and several other recent reports that challenge the dominant narrative that society needs police and that they keep us safe.
This will be a great opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and respond to all those liberal memes that say, “Defund the police doesn’t mean get rid of the police, it means………”
This class will take place on Monday evenings, from 6:30 – 8:30pm, beginning on Monday, January 17. The class will be held for 8 consecutive weeks, ending on Monday, March 8.
GRIID is asking for a $25 suggested donation for the class and will be re-directly the funds raised to groups working on defunding the GRPD. However, you will not be turned away if you can’t contribute financially.
We will not be using a singular book for this class, rather chapters from numerous texts, which GRIID will provide in digital form. The sources we will be using come from the following books:
- Violent Order: Essays on the Nature of Police, edited by David Correia & Tyler Wall
- Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, by Kristian Williams
- Abolition For the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons, edited by Colin Kaepernick
- A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete, by Geo Maher
- Life During Wartime: Resisting Counter-insurgency, edited by Kristian Williams, Will Munger and Lara Messersmith-Glavin
- Movement for Black Lives Defund the Police Toolkit
If you are interested in signing up, please send an e-mail to jsmith@griid.org. There will be a 15 person limit for the class, which will be conducted virtually.
In 1984, I spent 48 days in jail for refusing to sign a statement saying I would never do Civil Disobedience at a Nuclear Weapons factory in Michigan
On December 2, 1984, there were 13 of us who were arrested at Williams International, a Michigan-based company that manufactures guidance systems for nuclear weapons.
It has been 38 years since I was arrested at Williams International, but in many ways it feels like yesterday. It was an unseasonably warm December day in Michigan, and just before the 1st Shift came into work, we blockaded the entrance to the factory, a factory where death was being manufactured.
After about 40 minutes, we were all arrested and taken to the local jail to be processed in, but ended up going in front of a District Court Judge and charged with trespass. When the judge got to me, he looked at my name and asked if I had been before him for the same charge. I said no, that would have been my brother. The judge joked that this seems to be a family affair and asked if anyone else from my family was involved. I said that my mother was in the courtroom that day, and pointed to where she was seated.
The judge then asked me if I had a problem with breaking the law. I responded by saying that December 2nd was the day that Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, thus breaking an unjust segregation law. I also stated that it was legal to manufacture, deploy and detonate nuclear weapons, which are weapons of mass death. Therefore, like Rosa Parks we were defiantly breaking a law that we believed to be unjust.
We were all sentenced to pay a $50 fine, which none of us ever ended up paying.
However, the 13 of us arrested at Williams International were also being charged in Circuit Court, since Williams International had created a court supported injunction, which barred anyone from doing civil disobedience at the company’s factory. So, we were back in court on December 3rd, but this time the judge gave us an indefinite sentence, meaning we would stay in jail until we signed statements saying that we would never go back to Williams International again. All 13 of us refused, so we were taken into custody and placed in the Wayne County Jail.
This was the first time I had gone to jail, so those in charge of the Wayne County Jail decided to separate those of us arrested. I was placed in a six-man cell with 5 African American guys. I had already planned to not eat once I got arrested, so when the meal time came around I told those in my cell that they could have my food. Offering them my food helped to break the ice between us. They asked why I was arrested. I told them for civil disobedience at a factory that manufacturers nuclear weapons and they said, “you are a crazy fucking white boy.”
From that moment on, all 5 of the other men in my cell were joking with me and sharing the reasons why they were there. None of them had any legal support, so I asked our legal support team to look into their cases and get people to visit them and write letters to the judge. Within 5 days, I was moved to the Shiawassee County Jail, near Flint, because the Wayne County Jail administrators did not want people to any kind of organizing or solidarity work inside that jail. I really wasn’t the catalyst for this, since the other men in my cell were simply asking for solidarity and support. In fact, they were the catalyst, and they were acting in a long tradition within the Black Freedom Movement, using jails/prisons as a means of doing organizing work, a reality so well documented in Dan Berger’s book, Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era.
While at the Shiawassee County Jail, they put all of us into a six-man cell, utilizing cots and wanting to prevent us from “organizing other inmates.” Because the jail was so close to Flint, we were paid a visit by the editor of the Flint Voice, Michael Moore. This was before Moore had produced Roger & Me and wasn’t well known outside of the state.
We also grabbed the attention of the group Amnesty International (AI). AI was interested in our case, since we were not in jail for something we had done, but because we refused to say that we wouldn’t come back to Williams International again and engage in direct action. In legal terms, the judge was binding our conscience, since we refused to sign a statement. Amnesty International saw us as prisoners of conscience and decided to organize a campaign calling for our immediate release, since we were now officially political prisoners.
The attention our case received had now expanded and Williams International did not want all of this attention, which included increased news coverage. In addition, several of us had not eaten since we went into jail, so that was also getting lots of press. At the same time, the Shiawassee County Jail administrators were freaking out, since they did not want anyone dying from a hunger strike in their jail.
The combination of our collective refusal to eat and the Amnesty International campaign eventually resulted in our release from jail, some 48 days after we had been arrested.
I learned a great deal about how the jail system worked, how the court system worked, and how corporations wielded tremendous power as a result of my decision to engage in civil disobedience to resist nuclear war. All Power to the People!
Art by Shelby Lijewski
World AIDS Day: Remembering what Reagan AIDS Commission member Richard DeVos had to say about AIDS and the Gay Community
By 1987, 40,000 had died from AIDS in the US and despite the growing epidemic the federal government did not take any formal action until later that year. Reagan did appoint the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic in the summer of 1987; it was later renamed the Watkins Commission, after its chair.
With the appointment of this commission, Reagan was able to appease those who demanded a more sustained federal response to AIDS. He also answered the concerns of the New Right by appointing an AIDS commission that included few scientists who had participated in AIDS research and few physicians who had actually treated people with AIDS. In addition, the commission included outspoken opponents of AIDS education, such as New York Cardinal John O’Connor. O’Connor was not only opposed to AIDS education, he was openly hostile to the Gay community.
Religious Right leader Gary Bauer, who was in the Reagan administration in 1987, said of those appoint by the President:
…..the panel was designed to be ”a cross-section of thoughtful Americans” rather than another medical or scientific group that would duplicate dozens of previous efforts. ”We intentionally tried to get people from a wide variety of walks of life, and took the risk that there would be disagreements and fireworks,” Mr. Bauer said. He also called it ”a good group” to deal with such issues as insurance coverage and care for AIDS patients and said he doubted that quarantines, school policy or casual transmission would become a major focus.
The Religious Right was particularly incensed by the AIDS crisis and saw it as purely a result of immoral behavior, especially in the Gay community. Religious Right leaders at the time, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, equated the deaths with the Gay community as retribution from God for their “sinful” lives. Falwell not only despised the Gay community, he despised the larger society which “tolerated” Gays. Falwell’s famous statement was:
“AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals, It is God’s punishment for a society that tolerates homosexuals.”
Rich DeVos and the AIDS Commission
One of the people appointed to the 13-member AIDS Commission was Amway co-founder Richard DeVos. DeVos was chosen in part because he was one of the largest financial supporters of the Republican Party, but also because of his role in the Religious Right.
In an interview with MLive a few years ago, DeVos made some pretty revealing comments about his attitudes towards the Gay community while sitting on the AIDS Commission.
When HIV first came out, President Reagan formed a commission and I was honored to be on that commission. I listened to 300 witnesses tell us that it was every body else’s fault but their own. Nothing to do with their conduct, just that the government didn’t fix this disease. At the end of that I put in the document, it was the conclusion document from the commission, that actions have consequences and you are responsible for yours. AIDS is a disease people gain because of their actions. It wasn’t like cancer. We all made the exceptions for how you got it, by accident, that was all solved a long time ago. That’s when they started hanging me in effigy because I wasn’t sympathetic to all their requests for special treatment. Because at that time it was always someone else’s fault. I said, you are responsible for your actions too, you know. Conduct yourself properly, which is a pretty solid Christian principle.
Not only does DeVos show his homophobic bias, his comments demonstrate his ignorance of the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS. It was within this climate of homophobia and inaction on the part of the federal government that AIDS activism would take a new direction in 1987, with the creation of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). We encourage you to watch this powerful documentary film that chronicles the work of ACT UP, United in Anger.
West Michigan Foundation Watch: The Edgar & Elsa Prince Foundation – financing the far right
West Michigan Foundations generally submit their 990 documents two years behind the current year. We just got done posting information on several West Michigan Foundations for their 2019 990 documents. However, one foundation, the Edgar & Elsa Prince Foundation, has already submitted their 990 documents for 2020.
The 990 documents are legally required to provide some transparency for foundation contributions, but it also provides us with a window into how the area’s largest foundations are spending their money to support far right causes that serve both an ideological and political function.
For those who don’t already know, Edgar and Elsa Prince are the parents of private mercenary profiteer Erik Prince and former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Edgar Prince made his wealth in manufacturing and he and Elsa had been funding the far right for decades. We follow these families and their foundations because we believe it is important for people in West Michigan to know how much the far right is financially supported in West Michigan.
The Edgar & Elsa Prince Foundation 2019 990 documents can be found at GuideStar.org. According to Guide Star, the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation has a little over $11 million in assets. This Foundation is governed by Elsa Prince Broekhuizen, Erik Prince, Emilie Wierda, Eileen Ellens, Alan Hoekstra and Renselaer Broekhuizen.
What follows are some of the more prominent organizations that the Edgar & Elsa Prince Foundation contributed to in 2020. Their foundation contributed just under $3 million for 2020, to mostly conservative Christian entities. We include the name of the entity receiving foundation money, the amount and a brief description of each organization.
Haggai Institute – $600,000 – The Haggai Institute is a Christian evangelical entity that provides leadership training for people around the world to convert people. The Haggai Institute believes that only Jesus can bring joy to the world, not governments, education or any other spiritual tradition.
Family Research Council – $50,000 – The Family Research Council is a DC-based entity that was created in 1980 and has played an influential role with numerous administrations, beginning with the Reagan Administration. The Family Research Council advocates a theocracy, which means that religion should be the true ruling power.
Prison Fellowship Ministries – $100,000 – The Prison Fellowship Ministries was founded by former Nixon Administration staff Charles Colson, who was sentenced to jail for his role in the Watergate scandal. The Prison Fellowship Ministries practices far right Christianity and is part of the State Policy Network, which connects far right groups across the country to promote policy changes at the state level, changes which further the far right agenda.
Christian Leadership Institute – $25,000 – The CLI was co-founded by Richard DeVos Sr., to provide training to Christian leaders to spread a message of conservative Christianity in West Michigan, across the US and around the world.
Acton Institute – $30,000 – The Acton Institute is a far right think tank based in Grand Rapids that was founded in 1990 to promote the relationship between Christianity and Capitalism. Elsa Prince and Betsy DeVos have been former Board members with the Acton Institute.
Freedom Alliance – $30,000 – Freedom Alliance is an entity that was founded by convicted Iran Contra scandal participant Col. Oliver North. The Freedom Alliance promotes US militarism and encourages people to join the US military.
Media Research Center – $25,000 – The Media Research Center is a far right media watchdog, which seeks to counter the so-called leftist press in the United States.
Council for National Policy – $15,000 – The Council for National Policy (CNP) was founded in 1981, with board membership and funding from the Coors, Koch and DeVos families. The CNP is the subject of Anne Nelson’s book, Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right, and has played a critical role in the anti-lockdown protests across the US since the COVID 19 pandemic began.
Mackinac Center for Public Policy – $10,000 – The Mackinac Center is a far right think tank based in Midland, Michigan, which has a long history of promoting far right stat policy. The Mackinac Center was instrumental in getting the Right to Work policy adopted in Michigan during the Synder administration and they have been active in the past year opposing COVID 19 policies in the state.
Alliance Defending Freedom – $100,000 – The Alliance for Defending Freedom is a Conservative Christian group of lawyers that defends religious groups around anti-LGBT policies and other religious right issues.
American Values – $30,000 – American Values is another conservative religious entity, which perpetuates the so-called values of the United States, but are rooted in far right principles. In a recent post they made the following comment:
In the aftermath of the Rittenhouse verdict, Marxists and revolutionaries took to the streets, using his exoneration as a match to try to set America ablaze. Make no mistake about it: They are Marxist and they are revolutionary. These radicals want a race war in America.
Gateways to Better Education – $100,000 – Gateways to Better Education was created to provide resources and strategies to Christians – teachers and students – who are in the public schools and want to insert their Christian beliefs into public school life. Their partner organizations is a who’s who of far right groups.
Center for Military Readiness – $15,000 – The CMR claims to be a group that supports US troops, but their website is filled with US military and foreign policy analysis and is run by mostly former high ranking US military officials.
Live Action – $25,000 – Live Action is an anti-abortion organization that claims to have the largest online pro-life presence. They use lots of the same scare tactics and misinformation to counter the pro-Choice movement.
Protect Life Michigan – $35,000 – PLM is an organization that attempts to develop anti-abortion leaders across the state at the high school and college level.
Moms for America – $5,000 – Moms for America is a women-centered far right group that mixes nationalism and Christianity. Moms for America has most recently been a central component in the anti-vaccination movement, particularly with K-12 schools.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 