As we have noted over the years, local news media often regurgitates Press Releases and passes it off as news. This essentially means that news agencies end up being stenographers and not reporters. Such practices is highly problematic, especially when it has to do with Press Releases that come from centers of power.
The most recent example is a City of Grand Rapids Press Release about a forum they are hosting to allow the public an opportunity to hear from a few of the pre-selected candidates to be the next Chief of Police in Grand Rapids. Both WOODTV8 and WXMI Fox 17 “reported” on the police chief forum, but both ended up running a version of the Press Release. Here we provide a side by side example of the City’s Press Release and the WXMI Fox 17 News story.
You can see that the Fox 17 News story is simply a shortened version of what the City of Grand Rapids sent out. This is not journalism, it is simply stenography. If local news agencies chose to actually do real journalism in the case, they might have done some of the following things:
Interview other people from the community, particularly organizations or movements that have been challenging the legitimacy of the GRPD.- Do their own homework on Public Sector Search & Consulting Inc. and found out that they have been contracted to find a new Chief of Police, which is what we reported on last October.
- Question why the City of Grand Rapids will only allow the public to have limited access to the Police Chief Candidates that have been pre-selected by Public Sector Search & Consulting Inc.
- Local news agencies could also hold their own forums, especially broadcasters, since they operate using airwaves that is technically to serve the public interest. Occasionally, local TV stations will host candidate forums, so hosting a forum on policing that is independent of the managed way the City does public engagement, would actually be a more democratic way to get the public involved in making critical decisions in Grand Rapids.
If we don’t demand more of local government or local news agencies, they we will get the same old managed forms of “civic engagement”, which is really just a tactic by those in power to present the illusion that they give a shit about what the public thinks.
PBS documentary on the January 6th Insurrection is worth watch, but they leave out key information about the far right in Michigan
If people have not seen it, we would encourage you to watch the documentary film on the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, entitled, American Insurrection.
The documentary provides fairly sound analysis on the far right groups that were involved in the attempted insurrection, but it fails to provide crucial information about key players on the far right when the documentary shifted to talking about far right terrorism in Michigan.
At 40:10 into the film, they begin talking about the threats against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. There was footage of the vacuum cleaner store in Grand Rapids, where far right people involved in the attempted kidnapping of Whitmer had met. Then at 43:07 into the documentary it cuts to a rally in Allendale organized by the American Patriot Council, with a shot of their co-founder Jason Howland.
What is unfortunate about the PBS documentary is that they never mention the American Patriot Council, nor do they name Jason Howland or mention Ryan Kelley, the other co-founder of the American Patriot Council. This is not a small omission, since Kelley and Howland organized the rally in Allendale that is included in the film. In addition, there is footage and discussion about the anti-lockdown protests at the State Capitol in Lansing, which were also organized by the American Patriot Council, with Ryan Kelley being one of the speakers at each of the anti-lockdown rallies in April and May in Lansing and one in Grand Rapids in mid-May, which we also reported on.
Circling back to the Allendale rally that the American Patriot Council hosted in late October of 2020, it is unfortunate that the PBS film correspondent who attended the Allendale rally, failed to mention that there was a well attended counter-protest that same day, with an equal, if not greater number of counter-protesters. Why weren’t those involved in the counter-protest interviewed as well? There were organizers with the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists that had been trying to get a Confederate statue taken down in Allendale, which Ryan Kelley supported.
In addition, Ryan Kelley was part of the so-called Stop the Steal protests after the 2020 Election, specifically going to Detroit and Lansing, a mere two months prior to the January 6th insurrection in Washington, DC.
Lastly, since the the documentary film American Insurrection was produced in 2021, months after January 6th, the producers of the film should have included the following: 1) that Ryan Kelley, co-founder of the American Patriot Council, which organized the anti-lockdown protests at the Lansing State Capitol, with hundreds of armed White Nationalists – seen by some as a prelude to January 6th; 2) Ryan Kelley and the American Patriot Council were instrumental in organizing Stop the Steal protests in Detroit and Lansing in late 2020; 3) both Kelley and American Patriot Council co-founder Jason Howland participated in the January 6th insurrection; and 4) Ryan Kelley had announced in early February 2021, less than a month after the January 6th insurrection, that he was running for Governor of Michigan. All of this information would have been extremely valuable for the producers of American Insurrection to include.
We are on the eve of the one year anniversary when White Nationalists and other Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building in a desperate attempt to claim that the 2020 Election was fraudulent.
It will be interesting to see how the dominant commercial news media in the US reports on the one year anniversary of the insurrection. It will also be interesting to see if the news coverage will provide an update on the charges and sentencing of those who were arrested on January 6th and those charged and arrested since, because of further investigation.
Will the dominant US news media provide any new information or updates on the US government response to the insurrection and which politicians may have been involved in supporting or promoting the actions of those who stormed the US Capitol? In addition, it would be instructive to provide a much broader assessment of which groups or organizations were part of the insurrection, assisted with planning or supported those arrested. Lastly, it will be interesting to see if the dominant US news media will investigate or discuss the larger significance of the January 6th insurrection and what it means for the broader political culture that exists within this country.
A larger question for all of us to ask is whether or not the federal government’s response to the January 6th insurrection will provide further opportunities to suppress political dissent in the US? This is an important question, for several reasons.
The fact that politicians on both sides are calling for new domestic anti-terrorism laws should concern us all, for several reasons. First, the history of domestic terrorism laws has disproportionately been used against Black, Indigenous, Latin, immigrant, Arab-Americans, Muslims, and other communities that are fighting for a more just world. Second, these kinds of laws are always passed during what are often framed as “periods of a national crisis,” thus taking advantage of moments when the public is vulnerable to swift and harsh state responses.
Third, whether it is the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard or state and local law enforcement, we need to come to terms with the fact that every one of the groups listed have engaged in state terrorism. When cops murder Black people, that is state terrorism. When the National Guard is brought in to put down an uprising, that is state terrorism. When ICE agents round up members of the undocumented community, that is state terrorism. When the FBI targets Black organizations, that is state terrorism.
Lastly, when people, who are not normally the targets of state violence, remain neutral or support existing/increases in state repression and state terrorism, that makes it easier for the state to get away with the violence they perpetrate against people every day!
Local news media and local groups who ideologically align with January 6th
Over the past year, we have tried to pay attention to the responses from groups in West Michigan, specifically those groups which are ideologically aligned with what happen at the US Capitol a year ago.
We wrote several articles in the past year looking at how local groups were responding to the January 6th insurrection. The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty and their founder, Fr. Robert Sirico, have addressed the political violence of the January 6th insurrection. In a TV interview nearly a year, we wrote:
The topic of the TV show that Sirico was on, had to do with the action by White Nationalists at the US Capitol on January 6. Also on the show with Rev. Sirico, was Bill Donohue, President of the ultra-Conservative group known as the Catholic League.
The host of the Catholic TV program framed the issue in a very leading way from the get go, by asking the question: “Why are we seeing more frequent, violent political protests here in the U.S., and what needs to be done about this rioting?”
Such a leading question gave both Donohue and Sirico the opportunity to talk more about the Black Lives Matter protests than the White Nationalists who stormed the US Capitol on January 6.
Rev. Sirico stated, “We need to be outraged – morally outraged – by what we saw in D.C.” for “the same reason that we were morally outraged by what we saw in Seattle, and Portland, and Minneapolis.”
While Rev. Sirico and Bill Donohue kept hitting on the “violence of the left,” the host of the TV show did not question or ask both guests about a fundamental difference between the protests and rebellions that took place after a police officer publicly lynched George Floyd, which was led by Black community members and community organizers, who have been fighting racial oppression for decades all across the US, and the White Nationalists who stormed the US Capitol, primarily to object to the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. The context for these two types of actions are worlds apart.
At one point in the discussion, the Acton Institute founder said, “The ringleaders of riots consist of “a smaller group of irresponsible, ideological people who are bent on destruction, bent on violence, and those people need to be isolated and identified. Those thoughts, those principles, those politics need to be identified and [exorcised] from the body politic.” Rev. Sirico doesn’t provide any information or sources to support such a claim. The fact is, that public lynching of George Floyd by a cop was simply a spark that ignited tremendous righteous indignation from Black and Brown communities that have been subject to various forms of state violence, the effects of brutal Neo-liberal Capitalist austerity measures, on top of a highly radicalized COVID crisis that disproportionately have impacted Black, Brown and Indigenous communities across the US. This was is sharp contrast to the the pathetic grievances of White Nationalists who were primarily motivated by ideology, unlike the lived experiences of those from the Black community.
Another group that was more intimately connected to the January 6th storming of the US Capitol, was the American Patriot Council. In fact, as we reported last year, both of the group’s co-founders (they like to call themselves “founding fathers”) were participants in the January 6th insurrection. One of those men, Ryan Kelley, is also running as a Republican against Governor Whitmer in the 2022 election.
In February of last year, American Patriot Council founder Ryan Kelley stated the following on their YouTube TV show called Bamboozled:
A few bad actors assaulted police, broke windows, and entered the building before police opened the barrier, letting hundreds more inside. The problem for the FBI, is that they have already alleged that some of the protesters planned an “insurrection” in advance. The FBI has vowed to take a hard stance against anyone involved on the 6th. This new, hard line against protestors has already raised questions because they have largely done nothing as terror groups like Antifa and BLM have been rioting steadily since last May. Now, even more questions arise as many ask: if Trump incited the few bad actors on January 6, how did protesters plan it in advance?
In response to these unsubstantiated claims, we wrote:
White Supremacists and White Nationalists have long been known to be the most threatening to people in the US, particularly towards Black, Indigenous and other communities of color. Hell, even the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have identified these groups as representing domestic terrorism. However, the FBI nor the DHS should be considered credible sources on this matter, since both of the groups have a history of targeting Black, Indigenous and other communities of color. More recently, the FBI has targeted, what they refer to as “Black extremist groups”, and historically Black militants and moderates have been tracked by the US government, from Marcus Garvey to Dr. King. In addition, the FBI created a program named COINTELPRO, which was used to monitor, harass, infiltrate and even assassinated Black Freedom Struggle leaders in the 1960s and 70s. (See The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States, by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall.) The Department of Homeland Security, which was created after 9/11, has done a great deal to monitor, suppress and persecute Black, Indigenous and Arab Americans, a practice which was codified after the Patriot Act was adopted in October of 2001.
The American Patriot Council then goes on to say that law enforcement groups have, “done nothing as terror groups like Antifa and BLM have been rioting steadily since last May.” First of all this is patently false. Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies have engaged in significant repression of Black Lives Matter and antifa groups since last May. Even in Grand Rapids, the level of harassment and intimidation against those who have been protesting since the May 30th rebellion is significant, as we have documented.
In communities like Portland, the level of state repression against groups has been significant, which even included federal agents in unmarked vehicles attacking and arresting people involved in the anti-White Supremacy and anti-police brutality protests. Not only are these claims false, we have noted in previous posts that the American Patriot Council has gone out of their way to denounce Black Lives Matter groups, even referring to them as fascists in a video they posted in November.
It will be interesting to see if the West Michigan-based news media bothers to make these connections during their one year after the January 6th insurrection. Our next post will be an analysis of the local news coverage for the one year anniversary.
The Matrix of Policing in Grand Rapids
There has been heightened awareness about the function of policing, since the uprising of 2020, when several million people around the world responded to the police murder of George Floyd. I should clarify, this heightened awareness was within the white community and the news media, since it is well known that BIPOC communities have been well aware of the function of policing in the US ever since policing began.
Having cops around is almost like breathing, you don’t think about it, it just is. Or at least, it has always felt that way. Think about the history of the crime novel, TV shows, Hollywood films and video games, all of which are inundated with cops and cop themes. One thing that is fairly standard in police representation in media, is the fact that while there are some instances where “bad cops” are depicted, it is rare that the institution of policing ever comes into question. In fact, policing is so normalized, that it is hard for us to imagine a world without cops.
In today’s post, I want to look at what I refer to as the Matrix of Policing in Grand Rapids. The Matrix of Policing is essentially an investigation into how policing is so interwoven into our society.
As the graphic shows, there is Department of Homeland Security presence in Grand Rapids, which of course includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). There is also offices for the Michigan State Police in this community as well. However, the primary police entities in Grand Rapids are the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department.
Now, both the GRPD and the Sheriff’s Department are entities that function within the City of Grand Rapids and Kent County. Local governments have the ultimate say in policing, since they not only approve, and to some degree craft policy, they hold the purse strings. In the case of the Kent County Commission, they also have final say in the funding of not just the Sheriff’s Department, but the Kent County Jail.
Quite often people running for local office, also receive funds from the Grand Rapids Police Officer’s Association, which is the cop union for the GRPD.
Then there are the programs that the GRPD implements throughout the community, most of which are youth focused, where cops say they are trying to build positive relationship with local youth, but we all know that this is a PR stunt that is really designed to be a recruiting mechanism for the police. Then there are programs like Clergy on Patrol, which attempted to propagandize local clergy and get them to buy into the mission of local policing.
The Grand Rapids Police Foundation certainly plays a major role in the funding of youth-based programs in Grand Rapids, which essentially provides tax deductible funding opportunities for the GRPD, funding that is outside of public scrutiny.
There are some so-called “checks and balances” entities as it relates to the GRPD. First, is the Office of Oversight and Public Accountability, an entity that is fairly new, but is not independent of the City Government or the GRPD, where they often have to wait months before being able to access police records. A second accountability group is the Grand Rapids Police Civilian Appeal Board, which can review cases and hear complaints, but has no real power to hold the GRPD accountable. Lastly, there is the Public Safety Committee, which involves some residents, but it also has very limited ability to call for accountability.
The GRPD also does contractual work with private entities, such as Mercy Health, which has a contract to have GRPD officers in their Emergency Rooms in Grand Rapids.
Neighborhood Associations also have police officers assigned to their area, often having a desk in the Neighborhood Association offices. This is part due to the fact that most neighborhood associations in Grand Rapids rely on federal funding, which is controlled through the city, which requires that neighborhood associations have cops assigned to their neighborhoods.
There are also two pro-cop groups that we are aware of in Grand Rapids, the iCI Nation and Voice for the Badge. iCI Nation prefers to work in the background, whereas Voice for the Badge was created specifically with the intention of responding to the calls for more police accountability and police defunding.
Then there are all of the College and University courses/programs offered in the area, courses that are in the larger “criminal justice” framework. The Grand Rapids Community College even has a Police Academy, which is also provides potentially new recruits for the GRPD.
In talking about the GRPD and policing in Grand Rapids, one has to include the Local News Media. For more than 20 years, GRIID has been documenting how much the local news media relies on the cops as primary news sources. In addition, the local news media has demonstrated that they often act as an unofficial PR agent for the GRPD, rarely questioning Press Releases or the function of policing in this city.
Of course there are more institutions, organizations and the business community, which relies on or promotes local policing, primarily to protect their interests.
One last group to identify are taxpayers. In Grand Rapids and Kent County, the budgets for the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department come directly from taxpayers. Therefore, if you are not actively questions, challenging and resisting the function of policing in Grand Rapids, then you are essentially complicit in the harm they do on a daily basis.
If you want to explore more about the function of policing, there are still spots available in our GRIID 2022 Winter Class, The Function of Policing in the US.
GRIID End of the Year in Review: Part V – GRIID constructed memes used throughout 2021
In Part I of the GRIID End of the Year Review, we looked at all the commercial news stories that we deconstructed in 2021, and in Part II, we look back at our coverage of what the Far Right in West Michigan was up to over the past year. In Part III, we examined what we identify as the Grand Rapids Power Structure. Part IV is a summary of the work of social movements in Grand Rapids during 2021. In this last post in our End of the Year Review, we want to share several of the GRIID created memes we have used throughout the year.
The following memes are just a sample of the ones GRIID created, but these ones here below are reflective on some of the more pressing issues in Grand Rapids over the past year.
GRIID End of the Year in Review: Part IV – Documenting Social Movements in Grand Rapids
In Part I of the GRIID End of the Year Review, we looked at all the commercial news stories that we deconstructed in 2021, and in Part II, we look back at our coverage of what the Far Right in West Michigan was up to over the past year. In Part III, we examined what we identify as the Grand Rapids Power Structure. In today’s post we are sharing our coverage of the work of social movements in Grand Rapids during 2021.
Historical Movements in Grand Rapids
There were four posts about previous social movements in Grand Rapids, which are always important to remember and to learn from. On January 6th, we wrote an article for the 30th anniversary of the anti-war movement in Grand Rapids that was resisting what was called the US War in the Gulf.
A second historical social movement in Grand Rapids that we wrote about was a more recent movement, the movement to End the Contract with ICE in Kent County. We wrote this piece, not only to document that movement, but to respond to local politicians who wanted to claim that they had ended the contract.
A third historical movement we documented was the Anti-Nuclear Movement, which existed in Grand Rapids from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s. One last historical movement we wrote about was for the 10th anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, which also existed in Grand Rapids.
Current Social Movements in Grand Rapids
The first social movement we wrote about was a movement that is doing Mutual Aid work, known as the Grand Rapids Area Mutual Aid Network (GRAMAN). GRAMAN began at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, since there have been thousands of individuals and families in Grand Rapids that have been deeply affected by the virus. GRAMAN is an autonomous group that raises funds for those most affected during the pandemic, the BIPOC communities. GRIID conducted an interview with them in mid-February.
Another social movement that has been active since 2020, is a movement to remove a confederate statue in Allendale. The Allendale Township has refused to remove the statue, despite ongoing resistance. In 2021, that resistance took the form of charges against activists for altering the statue, a boycott of a summer concert series organized by the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists, and a lawsuit by activists who have been trying to get the Confederate statue removed from Allendale, The lawsuit is about free speech or the lack thereof in Allendale.
Formed in 2017, the immigrant-led movement known as Movimiento Cosecha GR, which has been fighting for immigrant justice, continued to organize in 2021. Shifting from previous May Day actions they have done in Grand Rapids, the movement went to Washington, DC in 2021 to make their demands known to the Biden Administration. In addition, Movimiento Cosecha GR, along with other Cosecha groups in the state, continued to organize to win driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants in Michigan. They organized actions in communities all across the state, then hosted a larger action at the Lansing State Capitol to pressure state officials at a public hearing. At the last minute, state officials canceled the public hearing on driver’s licenses, most likely to prevent Movimiento Cosecha from having a say at the hearing.
The last movement we documented in 2021, was the movement to confront the GRPD, which also involved an effort to Defund the GRPD. The two primary entities involved in this work was Defund the GRPD and Justice for Black Lives (JFBL).
In early March, 8 JFBL activists were arrested during a march they organized that coincided with the trial against the cop that murdered George Floyd. JFBL organized a Press Conference the following day, which we attended and video taped.
In April, JFBL organized another protest march, this time for Daunte Wright, another Black man who was killed while in police custody. Three days later, the City of Grand Rapids released a statement that essentially threatened people who would be protesting the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial.
In May, the group Defund the GRPD was organizing to pressure the City of Grand Rapids to not only reduce funding for the GRPD, but to allow more public input on how public money would be used in the City Budget for 2022. In early May, the City held a one hour virtual town hall meeting on the 2022 Budget, which was an insult to those who have been organizing around how public money would be used. Defund the GRPD had posted their own demands on what they wanted to see happen with the funds, as well as the process for determining the 2022 City Budget. Defund the GRPD also organized people to call in during the City Commission meeting later in May, right before they voted on the 2022 Budget.
In July, the GRPD arrested another JFBL organizer for using a megaphone during a peaceful protest in downtown Grand Rapids. It was at this time that the City began allowing in person meetings for the City Commission, where JFBL activists have spoken at for the past several months.
In November, at a protest following a not guilty verdict for Kyle Rittenhouse, several JFBL activists were arrested again, after the protest had finished. Once again, JFBL held a press conference to respond to the arrests and to counter the claims made by the GRPD.
There were certainly other actions organized in Grand Rapids during 2021, but the ones we documented were from movements that have been able to sustain their resistance throughout the year. It is our belief that these movements, and others like them, are critical for any lasting or systemic change to occur. GRIID has been proud to document these movements.
GRIID End of the Year in Review: Part III – Monitoring the Grand Rapids Power Structure
In Part I of the GRIID End of the Year Review, we looked at all the commercial news stories that we deconstructed in 2021, and in Part II, we look back at our coverage of what the Far Right in West Michigan was up to over the past year.
In today’s post, we want to look at the Grand Rapids Power Structure, which we define as the individuals, organizations and institutions that have tremendous influence over the lives of people in Grand Rapids, while maintaining systems of power and oppression to their benefit.
There are several themes we wrote about over the past year as it relates to the Grand Rapids Power Structure, but let’s begin with the issue of development projects/budgets, which rely on lots of public money.
Most of the development projects we looked at were being spearheaded by Grand Action 2.0. The first one we looked at was their plan to re-develop the area along the Grand River, which is essentially another land grab in a long history of land theft along the river.
In a second article we wrote about Grand Action 2.0 development project, we asked the question…..how do groups like Grand Action 2.0 get away with what they do? The short answer is the fact that they get the right people to sit on committees and boards, people who represent the interests of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, along with pushing the whole Public/Private partnership plan, which means the public pays while the private sector pockets the money. We then posted a second story in May, about this same dynamic.
In June, we wrote about the ongoing development of the proposed downtown Amphitheater project, which is also a Grand Action & DeVos family pet project. We discussed how the City was willing to spend millions to relocated offices, while continuing to ignore the housing crisis and disinvest in the Black community. Then in September, we took a critical look at 12 projects the GR Power Structure is pushing for, calling them the Transformational 12.
The last major development project-related post was a look at a video created by the Johnson Center at GVSU, which was advocating for Inclusive Growth. GRIID responded by saying, “Instead of calling for inclusive growth, we should be demanding economic and racial justice. Now, these terms don’t sound as sexy, but they more honestly center the notion of justice, which means changing power dynamics and taking collective ownership for the harm that has been done by those with power and concentrated wealth.”
Another major theme we looked at in regards to the Grand Rapids Power Structure, is centered around public policy. One of the organizations that makes up the GR Power Structure, is the West MI Policy Forum. In January, they were encouraging people to mask up, primarily because they want their businesses to remain open and for people to go out and spend money. We also pointed out that the WMPF has been opposed to Gov. Whitmer’s Stay at Home policies from the beginning.
In March, we discussed how GOP legislators in Lansing were proposing anti-Trans legislation and how much campaign money the DeVos family had contributed to every Republican who co-sponsored the anti-Trans legislation.
In April, the West Michigan Policy Forum held an event around the theme of criminal justice reform, with one of the major speakers being from the Koch-funded group, Americans for Prosperity. We shouldn’t be fooled by what the West Michigan Policy Forum group is up to, since they, like the Koch Industries, has not come out and publicly condemned the police murder of Black people in recent years, they have not challenged the function of policing in the US and they certainly have not come out in support of the Movement for Black Lives, with the strong calls for prison abolition and the defunding of police departments.
In July, we wrote a piece about the thousands of dollars that members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure contributed to Mark Huizenga, who was running for State Senate. This, once again demonstrates one of the ways that the local power structure maintains their power.
This last major policy piece influenced by the Grand Rapids Power structure that we posted for 2021, was an article in late October about Betsy DeVos finally getting her wish on a defacto education voucher policy passed in the Michigan legislature. In that post we lay out 4 tactics that DeVos has used to push her education agenda in Michigan.
We also looked at the theme of wealth and the wealth gap in Grand Rapids area. Most of the pieces we wrote had to do with the massive increase of wealth by Doug & Hank Meijer. There were three article in 2021 about the Meijer brothers wealth growth, with the last one in early October, which made the point that their wealth had increased $6.7 Billion in the first 18 months of the pandemic.
We also wrote stories using the most recent 990 documents for foundations that are run by members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, specifically members of the DeVos family, but also the Prince family, which you can link to here.
Lastly, we continued to update our document on the most powerful family within the Grand Rapids Power Structure, the DeVos family. We call the document, We’re Rich and We Do What We Want: A DeVos Family Reader, which is the first link on this page.
In Part IV, we will provide an overview of the groups/organizations that are doing transformative and radical organizing work in Grand Rapids. One of the most important things we have been doing at GRIID is to document these social movements, along with articles that provide some a history of previous social movements in this community.
GRIID End of the Year in Review: Part II – Monitoring the Far Right in West Michigan
In Part I of our End of the Year post, we examined the local commercial news coverage of critical issues in 2021. Today, we want to provide an overview of GRIID reporting on the Far Right in West Michigan.
One element of the Far Right in West Michigan that we wrote about over the past year, is the West Michigan connection to the January 6th insurrection in Washington, DC. The Far Right Think Tank, the Acton Institute, was featured on a TV show in mid-January, essentially blaming the political left for the January 6th insurrection.
In late January, we posted a story about how the co-founders of the American Patriot Council, which had been one of the main anti-lockdown groups in the state, had participated in the January 6th insurrection as well. Both Jason Howland and Ryan Kelley were caught on camera at the January 6th insurrection in DC, and for sure Howland went into the US Capitol. Ryan Kelley announced just weeks after January 6th insurrection, that he was running for Governor in Michigan.
Just days after Kelley announced his candidacy for Governor, the American Patriot Council posted an article on their blog claiming that the real terrorists in the US are antifa and the Black Lives Matter protesters.
In early April, the Acton Institute condemned anti-racism author Ibram X. Kendi for suggesting that Jesus was a revolutionary, then turned around and stated that a far right darling, Ayn Rand, was someone who was sincere in her search for God.
In early May, the founder (J.C. Huizenga) of the far right for profit Charter School company, the National Heritage Academies, was caught on tape as saying he didn’t know what the term BIPOC was. Equally outrageous was the fact that Huizenga admitted this at a meeting where he is a board member of The Grand Rapids Promise. The Grand Rapids Promise is using foundation money to create opportunities for students to go to college for free.
Beginning in late June, GRIID wrote a 3-part series on the history of the KKK in Grand Rapids. The first piece was about the 1925 parade the Klan held in Grand Rapids, with several thousand marching in the parade. The second story was about a Klan rally held just South of Grand Rapids at a farm in 1970. A third article took a look at a Klan rally held in front of the court house in downtown Grand Rapids in 1995.
In the second week of July, it was announced that the Proud Boys would be coming to Grand Rapids for a rally, so several groups organized a counter-action, which essentially prevented the Proud Boys from bring their message of hate to Grand Rapids.
In late August, the pro-cop group, Voice for the Badge, was once again posting misinformation on their blog. We critique their commentary, which was claiming that the news media in West Michigan was anti-cop. Not only is this patently false, the local news media often act as a public relations wing of the GRPD.
When schools were getting ready to open again this year, the far right was out in numbers to condemn the school boards, county commissioners and even the Health Department. In fact, the Kent County Health Department had been receiving threats. In September, a group of Republican legislators in Michigan were calling for the Health Department Director to step down or face the consequences. We wrote about those GOP lawmakers and who has been financially backing them for years.
In mid-October, we looked at several far right rallies that were being held in the West Michigan area. These rallies were a mix of the political and religious right, with both rallies being organized by groups that are touring the US.
In late October, Ryan Kelley’s campaign for Governor released its first political ad. GRIID provides a deconstruction of the ad, which not only critiques Kelley’s platform, it demonstrates that he has a penchant for lying.
In mid-November, we wrote a piece that identifies another pro-cop organization in Grand Rapids, the iCI Nation.
Lastly, in mid-December, we posted a critique of an Acton Institute blog article that was essentially creating a false narrative about Kyle Rittenhouse, also making claims that the justice systems works, since Rittenhouse was found not guilty of murdering 2 people.
There were many more article about the Far Right in West Michigan, but this post provides a useful summary, In Part III of our End of the Year series, we will look at our reporting of the Grand Rapids Power Structure in 2021.
GRIID End of the Year in Review for 2021: Part I – Monitoring the Grand Rapids News Media
GRIID has been doing news media monitoring and deconstruction, since we started in 1998. While we don’t do long studies on local news coverage, we continue to monitor and deconstruct local news, particularly around critical issues that are relevant for people in West Michigan.
For the year 2021, we deconstructed forty-one separate local news media stories, with numerous cases of deconstructing multiple media outlets on one story. Several of the stories we deconstructed were also based on blog posts from various far right or politically conservative entities, which we will look at in Part II of our End of the Year Review.
A great deal of the local news stories that we did deconstruct, focused on local government actions or local government agency actions. For instance, WOODTV8 ran a fluff piece about Grand Rapids City Manager Mark Washington in February, The channel 8 piece did not provide any critical assessment of Washington’s role as City Manager and the TV station did not seek out members of the community who had been challenging Washington since he was hired as City Manager.
Then there was coverage of the 2020 racial justice uprising in Grand Rapids, what the news media loves to refer to as a riot. In early March, MLive ran an article about some of the people facing charges for vandalism, without providing any real context for the uprising.
There was a second “riot” story on WXMI 17, just one week after the MLive story. In the channel 17 story, they interview the GRPD, business owners and a museum curator, but completely left out people who organized or participated in the May 30th uprising, particularly those that have still be organizing.
Closer to the one year anniversary of the May 30th uprising, WOODTV8 aired 6 separate stories, all of which continue to hijack a narrative away from Black Lives Matter and a narrative that centers whiteness.
Another major issue that the local news reported on had to do with the far right/reactionary right in Michigan. In mid-January, we wrote about how all 4 of the major daily news outlets, essentially provided the far right with a platform to communicate their misinformation and hate.
In late March, after a Holland restaurant owner was arrested for violating COVID Health protocols, far right supporters held a rally. The local news media reported on the rally, but instead of verifying or challenging their message, they simply provided a platform to present their ideologically-driven misinformation.
In August there was an anti-vaccine rally in Lansing, which was reported on by MLive and WOODTV8. Unfortunately, both media outlets failed to even look into which groups were behind the rally.
In late August, a group called Moms for America, held a Press Conference in Grand Rapids to denounce all the back to school mask requirements. Again, the local news provided no background on who these moms were.
One last theme we looked at in our critique of local news media, looks at how the commercial media news agencies not only act as a PR front for the GRPD and other law enforcement agencies, they report on cops by framing them as a necessary and important institution of public safety. We posted several articles that looked at how the local news media was reporting on policing and police funding:
Is it possible to get the local news media to really question the GRPD?
There were other topics that the local news media miserably failed on challenging or questioning, like what the local power structure was up to during 2021. This is a theme we will explore in Part III of our End of Year Review. In Part II, we will explore our coverage of the far right in West Michigan.
Peters and Stabenow voted in favor of the $786 Billion US Military Budget for 2022, which is a vote in favor of US militarism and US Imperialism
On late Wednesday, the US Senate voted 88 – 11 in favor of the National Defense Authorization Bill, which will cost taxpayers $786 Billion dollars.
As reported earlier this week, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted in favor of the massive US Military budget for 2022, which included 3rd Congressional District Rep. Peter Meijer.
In the Senate vote, there were only 3 Republicans voting against the 2022 US Military budget, while 7 Democratic Senators also voted no. Both Michigan Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow voted for the massive US military budget, as they have in every military budget voted since they both have been in the US Senate.
Both Senator Peters and Stabenow used the occasion of the vote in support of the massive US military budget, to tout their support for Michigan military facilities and Michigan-based military contractors.
What Peters and Stabenow don’t acknowledge is that their vote for the US Military Budget will continue to support:
- 800 US military bases around the world, which are strategically located in places to deploy US troops when they chose to, to protect US economic interests abroad, and to threaten and intimidate other countries who challenge US hegemony.
- Direct US military intervention through the use of soldiers, advisors, and other personnel to support dictatorships or governments with atrocious human rights records.
- Weapons sales to dozens of countries, with a recent example being Saudi Arabia.
- Continued US support for Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
- US military destabilization efforts in countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.
- 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.
- Choosing US Military spending as a priority instead of funding housing, health care, education, or investing in the fight against the Climate Crisis in the US.
In response to the Senate passage of the massive US Military budget, Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies stated:
“Where is all the hand-wringing over the $786 billion military bill that we’ve seen over Build Back Better, which costs less than a quarter as much annually? Congress has completely abdicated their responsibility for the Pentagon budget. They may as well hand over a blank check. Families will stop receiving child tax credit checks next month unless Congress finally passes the Build Back Better Act, but the flow of dollars to stockholders for Pentagon contractors will go on, uninterrupted.”
Peters and Stabenow voted to prioritize militarism over human needs.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 