Last week to sign up for GRIID Spring 2013 Classes
This is the last week to sign up for the Spring 2013 Classes with us here at GRIID.
We are offering two new popular education classes, both of which will last seven weeks.
The Indy Media Production class is being offered as an opportunity for people to learn independent journalism skills, media analysis and independent media production. For people wanting to be part of a growing movement of independent journalists, videographers, documentary makers, podcasters, zine makers or street media, then this class is for you.
This GRIID Class will primarily be project focused, and the group will be asked to work together to create local Indy media. The nature of this media, the form that it takes, the audience it speaks to, and so on, will be determined by the group. We will do a brief intro looking at the state media locally and nationally before beginning on the project.
The Indy Media Production class will take place on Mondays from 6 – 8pm, starting on Monday, April 8 and will last 7 weeks, ending on May 20.
The second class we are offering, Institutional Racism in Grand Rapids, is an investigation into the function of institutional racism in Grand Rapids. We will be reading the recently released book, A City Within a City: The Black Freedom Struggle in Grand Rapids, MI, which covers the period from WWII through the early 1970s. The author of this book, Todd Robinson, names the institutional racism in Grand Rapids as a form of managerial racism.
In addition to using A City Within a City, we will investigate how institutional or managerial racism functions in Grand Rapids today, by looking at the economic, political and social condition of communities of color, as well as how White Supremacy is manifested in power structures.
The Institutional Racism in Grand Rapids class will take place on Wednesdays, from 7 – 9pm, beginning April 10 and will last 7 weeks, ending on May 22nd.
We are asking $20 for each class (does not include the cost of the book), but we will not turn anyone away for lack of funds. To sign up for either class, send an e-mail to jsmith@griid.org. Location for these classes will be provided to those who sign up.
IWW organizers say today’s rally just the beginning of actions in support of unlawfully fired worker at Star Tickets
Earlier today a group of IWW members and supporters came to a rally in solidarity with Deirdre Cunningham, an IWW organizer who was fired last week for organizing fellow workers.
The unlawful termination of Deirdre Cunningham came on the heels of an organizing campaign that resulted in the majority of Star Ticket workers voting in favor of having a union.
This was just the beginning of an effort to challenge Star Tickets owner Jack Krasula and his anti-union tactics. The IWW stated that they planned to continue having rallies, do fundraising for Deirdre and engage in other tactics to pressure the company to reinstate their fellow worker.
People are encouraged to check the IWW Star Tickets Worker Union Facebook page for updates and continue to flood Jack Krasula with phones calls, calling for the reinstatement of Deirdre Cunningham.
Jack Krasula Phone – 248-945-1127
We also had a chance to talk with Deirdre Cunningham on tape, which is followed by IWW organizer Cole Dorsey talking about the union’s reaction to Deirdre’s firing.
Modern Capitalism’s Hall of Hypocrisy
This article by Paul Buchheit is re-posted from Common Dreams.
Capitalist greed is splitting our country in two. But rather than look objectively at their failures, many of those responsible have been hypocritical, portraying themselves as advocates of freedom and prosperity while the greater part of America slides toward poverty.
Some of the candidates:
1. The “Get a Job” Critic
This usually well-connected person criticizes the jobless for being lazy. But in a recent poll that asked if “the government in Washington should see to it that everyone who wants to work can find a job,” 68% of the general public agreed, while only 19% of the wealthy were in agreement.
Apparently they feel the free market will find those jobs. But as they staunchly adhere to their notion, large corporations are holding trillions in cash, transferring millions of jobs overseas, and paying low-level wages to those who have managed to stay employed.
2. The Illusionist
It all started with a “world is flat” reverie, by which every individual in the world is empowered to accomplish great things. Then on to “create your own job” hyperbole, and on a global scale to the capitalist’s belief that “a billion people have been lifted from poverty through free-market competition.”
The message being spread by the people at the top is that everyone benefits, and everyone has opportunities.
The reality is that only the top of the mountain is flat. Or more accurately, the plateau just below the top of the mountain is flat. Perhaps 10% (or somewhere between 5% and 20%) of the U.S. is doing reasonably well, especially with 93% of non-home wealth owned by the richest quintile of Americans. Everyone else has experienced a 35-year decline in income. But hypocrisy bares its contemptuous soul with its hurrahs for the ever-growing stock market. Outside our borders, world inequality has decreased, but largely because of the rapid ascent of China, while INSIDE China inequality has grown at a pace rivaling the United States. There may be a half-billion young Chinese laborers who are technically above poverty level, but GDPs don’t measure the quality of life or asset distribution of 70-hour-per-week factory workers.
3. The Self-Made Man
Wealthy individuals pride themselves on their successes from meager beginnings. Many of this self-congratulatory group grew up as educated white males in the richest nation ever in the most productive time in the history of the world. They rode the technology engine for thirty years, benefiting from federal funding that provided almost half of basic research funds into the 1980s, and half of research in the communications industry as late as 1990. Now, of course, it’s much different. Globalization and automation have eliminated many of the old opportunities. Half of college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. And while it’s always been more of a struggle for the lowest-income people, it’s even worse now, withmore than half of those individuals in the bottom income quintile remaining there 10 years later. Compared to other developed countries, the U.S. ranks near the bottom in economic mobility.
4. The Government Hater
This candidate opposes government intervention of any type, unless it’s for national defense, homeland security, surveillance, prison funding and the drug war, any subsidies to oil and coal and agricultural companies, bailouts and Quantitative Easing, tax expenditures that mainly benefit the rich, and anything to do with women’s bodies.
5. The Revolving Doorman
Here’s another candidate who hates government interference, but will tolerate it if there’s a friend in the regulator’s chair. A friend like Mary Jo White, connected for 36 years to a law firm that would be monitored by her new position as head of the SEC. A report by the Project on Government Oversight stated that “Former employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) routinely help corporations try to influence SEC rulemaking, counter the agency’s investigations of suspected wrongdoing..and win exemptions from federal law.” General Electric has a particularly smooth-spinning revolving door in the back of its corporate offices. After eliminating 37,000 jobs over ten years, CEO Jeffery Immelt was appointed as chairman of President Obama’s Jobs Council. Secretary of Energy nominee Ernest Moniz has served on GE’s advisory board. And Cathy Koch, a lobbyist for the tax-avoiding company, was appointed chief advisor on tax and economic policy.
6. The Entitlement Basher
This person claims that Social Security recipients are ‘takers.’ Here are the facts. According to the Urban Institute the average two-earner couple making average wages throughout their lifetimes will receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in. Same for single males. Meanwhile, tax expenditures (deductions and exemptions which primarily benefit the very rich) cost us about 8% of the GDP, which is almost exactly the same percentage that goes to Social Security and Medicare.
7. The New American – Love It and then Leave It at Tax Time
Unlimited candidates for the Hypocrisy Hall here, starting with companies like Google and Microsoft that hold onto their foreign cash to avoid taxes, but actually keep the cash in U.S. banks, taking advantage of publicly-funded national security to safeguard the assets they’re not paying taxes on. Then there are pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer who denounce the idea of consumers purchasing cheap prescription drugs from Canada, but then shift patents and profits to offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes. On the individual level, 1,700 Americans renounced their citizenships in 2011. The top Hypocrisy Hall candidate is Eduardo Saverin, who found safe refuge in the U.S. after his family was threatened in Brazil, benefited from American research and technology to take billionsfrom his 4% share in Facebook, and then skipped out on his tax bill. Finally there are CEOs like Doug Oberhelman of Caterpillar, who threatened to leave Illinois unless the highly profitable company received atax break that allowed the company to pay less than 1% of its total net income in state taxes, and then said, “Legislators in Illinois have created an environment that is unfriendly to business and investment.”
8. Realtor for the Slaves
The GEO Group, operator of private prisons, is trying to qualify as a “real estate intensive industry” (REIT). In a company profile GEO refers to itself as having “attractive real estate characteristics.”
What is the nature of GEO’s property? The 13th Amendment says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The private prisons have a room ready for the kids on the school-to-prison pipeline.
So Who Makes It to the Hall?
Only those who can aspire to duplicitous extremes, like Monsanto, whose website proclaims “Monsanto is committed to assuring the safety and quality of our products and promoting a culture of integrity through our business conduct,” after their communications director said “Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible.” Now, that is worthy of recognition.
Interview with student organizer of campaign to prevent Gov. Snyder from being a GVSU Commencement Speaker on April 27
The following interview was conducted via e-mail with Ian Post, one of the student organizers involved in an effort to prevent Michigan Governor Rick Snyder from being a Commencement Speaker this April at GVSU. For updates on this campaign go to their Facebook page.
1) How did this effort to prevent Gov. Snyder from being a commencement speaker come about?
The effort to prevent Governor Snyder from being the Commencement speaker began when a few seniors became aware that he was chosen at the Board of Trustees meeting and voiced their concern at our place of work. As a junior, I saw this as a much larger problem that affected more people than the graduates. This led a couple of concerned students to take action against the administration’s decision.
2) What actions have you taken so far in this campaign?
So far the effort includes a physical petition, an online petition, social networking tools, and one small protest on campus that gathered petition signatures. There will be more protests in the following weeks. We have also been forming a coalition with other campus activist groups that will strengthen the voice of the students.
3) What has been the reaction from students, faculty and staff?
The reaction from students, staff, and faculty has been surprisingly welcoming. Students who see the title of the petition voluntarily approach us and ask if they can sign. When I printed the first petition in the library, a senior approached and asked if it was legitimate and whether or not he could sign. The GVSU staff has been equally supportive as groundkeepers and full-time campus dining employees have asked to sign the petition. The majority of faculty has been reluctant to support the effort, but there are professors who have joined to express their support.
4) Is this a non-partisan effort?
This is a non-partisan effort. This is a much bigger fight for education and democracy. Students are fed up with increasing tuition rates and tremendous debt. This is also the fault of the university administration, but they frequently attribute tuition increases to state funding. Direct democracy has been undermined by lame-duck session bills (Right to Work and private prison bill), referendum-proof bills, the Emergency Financial Manager law, and the Education Achievement Authority that is in progress. The voice of the voter has been replaced with the authoritative decision of a budget-cutting businessman. Although cuts may be needed, they should not be made to the education system. There are other places where cuts can be made without harming Michigan’s students.
5) If you are not able to prevent him from speaking at commencement, are there plans for other actions? On the day of the commencement?
We will not stop voicing our concern until Governor Snyder is replaced as the 2013 Commencement speaker. However, if the administration does not replace him we will continue to protest until, and on, April 27. Further actions to fight for the democratic and education institutions in Michigan will be organized over the summer and implemented in the following years. The Commencement protest may end on April 27, but the larger struggle will move on.
6) Will there be any efforts to involve the larger West MI community that has been impacted from the anti-democratic policies of this administration?
We have been coordinating a GVSU coalition that will provide a forum for dialogue about these kinds of issues. From there, we will decide how to take action. We have also been discussing a regional and state-wide effort, much like the SDS in the 1960s and 1970s. Once the same sort of dialogue resource has begun at other universities in the region, the strength of the student voice will be realized and taken in to effect. Student solidarity is the key, no matter what political or ideological affiliation.
Boeing Helps Kill Proposed Law to Regulate Drones
This article by Pratap Chaterjee is re-posted from CorpWatch.
Boeing, the aircraft manufacturing giant from Seattle, helped defeat a Republican proposal in Washington state that would have forced government agencies to get approval to buy unmanned aerial vehicles, popularly known as drones, and to obtain a warrant before using them to conduct surveillance on individuals.
Local authorities in Seattle and in King county experimented with conducting surveillance from Draganfly Innovations drones last year, only to cancel both programs in the fact of public protest. “I’m not really surprised that people are upset,” said Jennifer Shaw from the American Civil Liberties Union, a human rights group that campaigned against the drones. “It’s a frightening thing to think that there’s government surveillance cameras overhead.”
On February 7, 2013, David Taylor, a Republican member of the state legislature, introduced a bill to regulate drone use. The proposed law quickly won support from several Democratic party politicians on the state Public Safety Committee.
Alarmed by the growing bipartisan coalition, Boeing jumped into the fray. “We believe that as the technology matures, best practices and new understanding will emerge, and that it would be counterproductive to rush into regulating a burgeoning industry,” Boeing spokeswoman Sue Bradley wrote in a statement. (The company makes a variety of drones from the Unmanned Little Bird and the A160 Hummingbird helicopters to the ScanEagle which has been used in Iran and Iraq and the proposed new X-45C combat aircraft) After the company approached several lawmakers, Frank Chopp, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington state, canceled a scheduled March 13 vote on the bill. Instead Jeff Morris, another Democrat who chairs the House Technology and Economic Development Committee, was asked to lead a “more comprehensive study of surveillance issues.”
“This is all about profit,” said a disappointed Taylor. “This is about profit over people’s rights.” While local and state use of drones has been limited to short pilot projects so far, concern about the federal use of drones has been on the rise in the last few months especially as the Obama administration has refused to divulge details on how drones are used by government authorities like the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection agency. Republicans in the U.S. Congress have even voted to ask the Pentagon to reveal whether it is using drones inside the U.S.
Privacy groups have raised questions about what might be legally possible. “We don’t believe that there are actually any federal statutes that would provide limits on drone surveillance in the United States,” says Amie Stepanovich, director of the Domestic Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “The privacy laws that do exist are very targeted [and] don’t encompass the type of surveillance that drones are able to conduct.”
To date lawmakers in some 32 states have introduced bills to restrict drone use. While none have been voted into law (North Dakota and Oklahoma both opposed such laws in order to attract more investment in their states), last month the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, pledged not to conduct drone surveillance and voted in favor of a resolution that calls on the federal and state governments to adopt laws banning “information obtained from the domestic use of drones from being introduced into a Federal or State court.”
Some believe that the use of drones for surveillance is just the first step towards using them for more deadly purposes within the U.S. “The belief that weaponized drones won’t be used on US soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It’s not just likely but inevitable,” writes Glenn Greenwald, the UK Guardian columnist and former constitutional lawyer. “Police departments are already speaking openly about how their drones ‘could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun.’
Greenwald applauds the proposed new laws to regulate drones that are being introduced in states from Texas to Massachusetts which he says “affords a real opportunity to forge an enduring coalition in defense of core privacy and other rights that transcends partisan allegiance, by working toward meaningful limits on their use.”
The Grand Rapids branch of the IWW is organizing a protest for this Monday, April 1st in response to the recent firing of one of their members for organizing fellow workers at Star Tickets.
The protest Facebook event page states:
IWW Organizer Deirdre Cunningham has been fired from Star Tickets in Grand Rapids where she had been working/organizing for years. The termination comes on the heels of a successful union campaign, which won IWW union certification for all Star Tickets Workers. Deirdre was fired on the day the Union was certified in an attempt to scare the other workers away from their Union.
Protest Deirdre Cunningham’s Unlawful termination!
Monday, April 1
Noon
Star Tickets building
620 Century SW, Grand Rapids
If you are unable to attend the protest, the IWW is asking people to call the owner of Star Tickets, Jack Krasula, and demand justice for Deirdre!!
Phone – 248-945-1127
The War on White Supremacy
This article by Solomon Comissiong is re-posted from Black Agenda Report.
Much has been said about the so-called “war on terror,” primarily due to the effectiveness of the relentless US propaganda machine. This cleaver ploy allows United States imperialism to wage war anywhere it wishes – so long as “they” say “terrorism” exists. It matters little that the greatest global manufacturer and purveyor of terror is the United States government itself. The evil cretins that created the “war on terror” scheme also crafted their own rules to justify their destructive actions. These actions have undoubtedly taken well over one million lives, as well as destroyed many more families. Their wretched mantra is, “terror must be destroyed anywhere it exists in world.” They have repeated this tune so many times the systematically dumbed down US populous has bought into it, hook, line, and sinker. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would be proud. Like the lies of Weapons of Mass Destruction being in Iraq, the US government rarely has to show the US populous any evidence that what they are saying is actually true.
Despite the ill-intentioned “war on terror,” there is one ideological war that would be well served, if aggressively launched. An ideological “war on White Supremacy” would do humanity immense favors, especially the people of color who are terrorized by it, every day of their lives. White Supremacy is a most nefarious ideology, created by white people for white people. White Supremacy rears its hideous head throughout the globe and has been responsible for well over 100 million deaths (i.e., African Holocaust, Native American Holocaust). However, White Supremacy not only kills bodies, it destroys minds. It is the programming to believe that white people, their various cultures, and their mores are inherently better than all other people and their respective cultures – period. People are taught, from a very young age, to worship some of them most devilish white people the world has ever known, simply because they are white. This is a vastly under-taught aspect of White Supremacy.
White Supremacy is often limited to being described as some toothless hillbilly or muscle bound and hairless white male with a Swastika etched in to his hollow, yet hate filled, head. This is merely one minor aspect of White Supremacy. White Supremacy, in its essence, is much, much more pervasive than the physical form we are programmed to sometimes see in human flesh. White Supremacy is most effective in its ideological form. Everything else is a destructive manifestation of that ideology.
White Supremacy bores destructive holes into the impressionable minds of children. White children are subconsciously programmed to falsely believe that they are the champions of humanity and that their contributions to the world vastly overshadow that of people of color. White Supremacy blinds them to myriad truths detailing the origins of sciences, medicine, democracy and philosophy came out of African, not Europe. This assembly-line type of programming sets in motion the next wave of future white adults mentally equipped carry out the crimes of their mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. It robs these white children of humanity without them ever realizing they are being developed to see the world in a most limiting and destructive way. Without progressive social intervention many white youth are bound to develop similar socially destructive ways as their elders.
Children of color, on the other hand, are systematically programmed to, not only see white people as better than themselves, but to also extol white people who carried out crimes against humanity against people of color. Within the white settler colony, otherwise known as the United States, children of color are force-fed heaping platefuls of White Supremacy. It is a most psychologically unhealthy meal. They are taught to call slave masters their “Founding Fathers,” men who would have worked them to death had these children been anywhere within the vicinity of these devilish human beings. The likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson all held enslaved Africans against their will. George Washington and Andrew Jackson were also notorious for their assaults on Indigenous people from North America. It is very telling of how sadistic “American” society is, that it would impose these kinds of men upon the minds of children, especially children of color. This is exactly what white supremacist societies do – they force children of color to assimilate. Those aforementioned men, when cited within classrooms and homes, should be held as examples of what not to do. A humane society would do this. The US is far from being a humane society.
The US is a society that routinely abuses and destroys the lives of people of color. African/black and Indigenous/Latino/brown communities are systematically targeted by way of this white supremacist and institutionally racist war that is being waged upon them. Mass incarceration, the Prison Industry Complex, and Police Brutality are all very much lethal aspects of White Supremacy. In a society that rewards European genocidal monsters, like Christopher Columbus, it makes painful sense that the US would be a place that harvests oppression much like farmers do fruits and vegetables. The US is riddled with a legacy of “strange fruit.”
Police brutality is a most deleterious aspect of White Supremacy and Institutional Racism. This is why police brutality disproportionately impact people of color. Thanks to the work of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement we know that in 2012 a black person was murdered by “law enforcement” at least every 36 hours. The white supremacist corporate media did nothing to expose this story. And why would they – they are who they are because of White Supremacy. A revolution to end White Supremacy truly will not be televised – at least not on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS or the like.
The so-called entertainment industry is replete with white supremacist images, messages, and is controlled by White Supremacy and Institutional Racism. This is why the only images shown of Hip Hop Culture, within the corporate media’s usurped airwaves, are that of the most virulently racist and stereotypical images of people of color. These are the acceptable versions of blackness they feel comfortable showing. Again, it matters little that Hip Hop is a culture largely created by African/black youth. The white supremacist power structure that controls the media, that makes destructive images popular while suppressing revolutionary ones, is no different than the white people who stole North America from Indigenous people. Once in control of a resource they are hell-bent on suppressing any semblance of resistance or justice.
White Supremacy is a social disease that infects entire societies, person-by-person, community-by-community and nation-by-nation. It is a plague that has only gotten stronger and more deceptive throughout its existence, which spans over several hundred years. If the US was a sincere and justice oriented nation it would wage an all out war on the ideology of White Supremacy – aimed at destroying all vestiges of a most deadly and disproportionate white power structure. The US’s ongoing existence as a white settler nation precludes it from waging a noble war on White Supremacy. White Supremacy and Institutional Racism largely fuel this country’s lifeblood. The US’s wars are ultimately justified by White Supremacy and capitalism. Historically these wars have been waged for white men by white men. However, with the growing number of people of color within the United States, the white power structure has adapted to the times. In 2008 they selected their newest weapon – Barack Obama – a brown-faced man willing to wage white supremacist/capitalist/imperialist wars for the white power structure he ultimately serves. This, unfortunately, has worked like a lucky charm, thus converting legions of black people (who previously opposed Euro-America’s imperialist wars) into cheerleaders for the same reprehensible wars, simply because the face of Euro-American white supremacy is now a brown one.
The struggle to end White Supremacy is one that must continue and grow even stronger – countless youth of color simply depend on it. Resistance to white supremacist ideology is paramount. If you believe in humanity (regardless of the color of your skin) you must join in this resistance. White Supremacy is a most deadly social malady. It has given birth to Apartheid, Jim Crow, mass murder, chattel slavery – the list literally goes on and on.
People of color must resist White Supremacy in every way they can. We must organize ourselves to combat it – teaching our youth to recognize it is an important first step. People of color must collectively resist White Supremacy, and good intentioned white people must play their own critical roles within this struggle. It is the obligation of any good intentioned white person to go in to white communities and organize an end to the social disease there. After all, White Supremacy emanates from white communities. It is frequently birthed from ignorance and hatred, among several social maladies and complexes.
White people, it is your responsibility to put an end to White Supremacy in your communities just as it is the responsibility of men to bury Male Supremacy and sexual/physical abuse of women. White Supremacy is killing masses of people (physically and mentally). When will we all decide to wage a war on this pervasive social illness/ideology, and put and end to it? Humanity depends on our collective commitment to end it before it metastasizes and puts and end to us all.
Earlier today, MLive ran a story announcing that Rick DeVos was named by GOOD Magazine as one of the, “100 People Pushing the World Forward.”
The MLive article cites the CEO of GOOD, who states of the 100 people selected:
“They are each doing amazing work, and we believe that amplifying their voices will help move the needle on some of the world’s greatest challenges.”
First of all, Rick DeVos does not need his voice amplified, since the news and entertainment media have made sure that he and his projects are widely known. In fact, one would be hard pressed to go a week in West Michigan without hearing about ArtPrize or Start Garden.
Second, there is no real exploration of what GOOD Magazine is all about and what criterion they used to determine who the 100 People Pushing the World Forward are.
In looking at GOOD online, it seems to be another mechanism where people with tremendous amounts of privilege are identified as those “who give a damn.” However, what they give a damn about is never really clarified, but based on the case studies they present, one could certainly draw some conclusions.
These case studies are listed in the GOOD Corps section of the site, which states:
GOOD/CORPS partners with brands and organizations to help them do the same by transforming the values at the core of their identity into actionable solutions that improve both their business and the world.
Essentially, GOOD is a mechanism for people to do things to feel good about themselves, engage in small acts of charity or investment, while never having to critique or challenge the current economic system that perpetuates massive global inequity.
For instance, some of the GOOD Corps case studies are those that work in collaboration with Pepsi and Starbucks. Both companies are based on maximizing profits at all costs, whether those are social or environmental. Pepsi has contributed massively to poor public health by pushing their sugar water on children and communities around the globe, using up valuable water resources in communities that struggle to have access to fresh/potable water, as is well documented in Maude Barlow’s book, Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water.
The Starbucks GOOD Corp project was identified as essentially a program created that allowed Starbucks customers to donate to local charities. Sounds very nice, unless you know something about Starbucks treatment of workers and their role in global politics.
The IWW union has been involved in a nasty battle for years with Starbucks, which has consistently tried to undermine efforts to form a union amongst the baristas. Starbucks has even fired people who talked about unionizing or attempting to do so while working as an employee.
Starbucks is also the target of the international Boycott, Sanctions & Divestment Campaign, since Starbucks not only does business with the State of Israel, but the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Shultz, has been a major support of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
These are issues that could have been easily explored by the MLive writer, instead of just cheerleading once again for Rick DeVos.
How Obama Chose War Over Peace in Syria
This article by Shamus Cooke is re-posted from CounterPunch.
With Syria on the brink of national genocide, outside nations have only two options: help reverse the catastrophe or plunge this torn nation deeper into the abyss. Countries can either work towards a peaceful political solution or they can continue to pour money, guns, and fighters into the country to ensure a steady gushing into the bloodbath.
President Obama will have no talk of peace. He has chosen war since the very start and he’s sticking to it. A recent New York Times article revealed that President Obama has been lying through his teeth about the level of U.S. involvement in the Syrian conflict since the beginning.
The President recently said that the U.S. government continues to give only “non-lethal” military aid to the rebels, but The New York Times revealed that the CIA has been actively funneling and distributing massive shipments of weapons to the rebels over the borders of Jordan and Turkey.
This “arms pipeline” of illegal gun trafficking has been overseen by the U.S. government since January 2012. It has literally been the lifeblood of the Syrian “rebels,” and thus the cause of the immense bloodshed in Syria.
The New York Times reports:
“The C.I.A. role in facilitating the [weapons] shipments… gave the United States a degree of influence over the process [of weapon distribution]…American officials have confirmed that senior White House officials were regularly briefed on the [weapons] shipments.”
The article also explains that a “conservative estimate” of the weapons shipment to date is “3,500 tons.”
So while Obama has repeatedly lied about “non-lethal” military aid, he has been personally involved in overseeing a multi-country flood of weapons into Syria, many of which are given to terrorist organizations. The only effective fighting force for the Syrian rebels has been the terrorist grouping the Al Nusra Front, and now we know exactly where they got their guns.
If not for this U.S.-sponsored flood of guns, the Syrian rebels — many of them from Saudi Arabia and other countries — would have been militarily defeated long ago. Tens of thousands of lives would thus have been spared and a million refugees could have remained in their homes in Syria. The large scale ethnic-religious cleansing initiated by the rebels would have been preventable.
But Obama is so intent on war that he will not even discuss peace with the Syrian government. He has repeatedly stated that there are “preconditions” for peace negotiations, the most important one being the downfall of the Syrian government, i.e., regime change. If a toppling of a nation’s government is Obama’s precondition for peace, then Obama is by definition choosing war.
Never mind that Syria is a sovereign nation that should not have to worry about a foreign country making demands as to who is in power. Obama doesn’t seem to think this relevant. In fact, his administration has been very busy determining who the “legitimate” government of Syria is, by hand picking the “National Coalition of Syrian Revolution,” the prime minister of which is a U.S. citizen.
One of the preconditions for being on Obama’s National Coalition of Syrian Revolution is that there be no peace negotiations with the Syrian government. Of course most Syrians want to immediately end the conflict in Syria, since it threatens an Iraq-like destruction of the country.
The most popular leader of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution, Moaz al-Khatib, recently quit in protest because he was prohibited from pursuing peace negotiations by the U.S.-appointed opposition Prime Minister, Ghassan Hitto, a U.S. citizen who had lived in the U.S. for the previous 30 years.
The Guardian reports:
“Immediately after his nomination as interim [Prime Minister], Ghassan Hitto [U.S. citizen], had distanced himself from Al-Khatib’s willingness to negotiate with elements of the Assad regime in a bid to bring an end to the civil war.”
By appointing Hitto as the leader of the opposition, Obama has splintered the already-splintered opposition while making “no peace negotiations” the official policy of the U.S.-backed opposition, the so-called “legitimate” government of Syria.
Obama also recently pressured the Arab League — composed of regimes loyal to the United States — to install as a member the hand-picked National Coalition of Syrian Revolution as the official government of Syria. The appointment didn’t give as much credibility to the opposition as much as it degraded the Arab League’s legitimacy.
The rebel’s seat in the Arab league implies, again, that the U.S. and its allies are fully intent on “regime change,” no matter how many people die, no matter the existing political alternatives. They will not reverse course.
The Russian government called the Arab League membership decision “… an open encouragement of the [rebel] forces which, unfortunately, continue to bet on a military solution in Syria, not looking at multiplying day by day the pain and suffering of the Syrians…. Moscow is convinced that only a political settlement and not encouraging destructive military scenarios, can stop the bloodshed and bring peace and security to all Syrians in their country.”
Obama has rejected both Russian and Syrian calls for peace negotiations in recent months, as he has greatly increased the frequency of the weapons trafficking plan. Reuters reports on the Obama Administration’s reaction to peace proposals from Russia and Syria:
“…[Syria’s Foreign Minister’s] offer of [peace] talks drew a dismissive response from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was starting a nine-nation tour of European and Arab capitals in London [to help organize support for the Syrian rebels].”
Obama rejects peace because he cannot dictate its outcomes. When it comes to war the more powerful party decides what the peace looks like, and Obama’s rebels are — after two years — still in a poor position to bargain a favorable peace to the United States, no matter how many tons of guns the U.S. has dumped into Syria. This is because the Syrian government still enjoys a large social base of support, something you’ll seldom read about in the U.S. media.
Another sign of war lust from the Obama administration came after the Syrian government accused the rebels of a chemical weapons attack. The U.S. government initially dismissed the accusation, until the rebels later accused the Syrian government of the attack.
But even Syria’s rebels have admitted that the chemical weapons attack took place in a government controlled territory, and that 16 Syrian government solders died in the attack along with 10 civilians plus a hundred more injured. But the rebels make the absurd claim that the government accidentally bombed themselves with the chemical weapons.
No matter who is responsible, the Obama administration plans to hold the Syrian Government responsible for crossing the “red line” of a chemical weapons attack (Obama’s version of Bush’s infamous “weapons of mass destruction”). The red line refers to a direct military invasion, versus the prolonged blood-letting that has been U.S. policy so far.
Obama’s envoy for the United Nations, Susan Rice, issued a statement about the chemical weapons attack that, according to The New York Times, “… repeated previous American warnings that there would be “consequences” if the Assad government used or failed to secure chemical weapons.”
So, if the Syrian rebels get hold of chemical weapons and use them on the Syrian government — as seems to be the case — the Syrian government should be held responsible, according to the Obama Administration, “for not securing chemical weapons.”
There is zero room for truth with logic like this. But the perverse logic serves to protect Obama’s prized rebels, who’ve committed a slew of atrocities against the Syrian population, and who gain key political and media protection from the U.S.
Ultimately, the entire Syrian war was born amid the big lie that the battle began — and continues — as a popular armed struggle. But the real revolutionaries in Syria like the National Coordination Committee, have long ago declared that they want a peaceful end to this conflict.
Obama’s Bush-like determination to overthrow the Syrian government has led him down the same path as his predecessor, though Obama is fighting a “smarter” war, i.e., he’s employing more deceptive means to achieve the same ends, at the exact same cost of incredible human suffering.
This interview is with Mark Switzer, one of the producers of the new GVSU video, You Can Play.
1. What prompted you to get involved with the You Can Play video for GVSU?
Joe had prior knowledge of the project, given his interest and research regarding sports and oppression. Colette (The Director of the LGBT Resource Center) brought Joe Miller and I together, given my interest areas and skills (I have worked on various media projects for the LGBT Resource Center throughout the past 3 years). Joe, Alex (Gillis), and I then met with the SAAC (Student Athlete Advisory Committee), beginning production on the GVSU-focused You Can Play video soon after.
I was most interested by the simplicity and power that the YCP videos hold. Seven simple words (“If you can play, you can play”) are easily said and understood.
2. Why is it important for both the University, and the Athletic Dept in particular, to take a public stand on this issue?
GVSU is an institution—one that creates and enforces various policies, policies that influence the development of students and professionals. The radical lesbian community at GVSU was paramount in challenging various discriminatory policies that have come through over the years. Their actions had results. They changed the culture, and thus, policy had to follow. It is important for GVSU to take a public stand because of their investments. GVSU has been framed as the liberal beacon of West Michigan; this stand is done in support of that claim (which is not entirely accurate…)
3. What obstacles are there in the culture of sports that make it difficult to fight for LGBTQ justice and inclusion?
Homophobia is rooted in sexism, which is manifest in athletics through this positing of hyper-masculinity as the norm. The barriers are clear and rigid within athletics. Case in point: at this time, no active NFL player has ever come out. There is no space for LGBTQ peoples within athletics.
4.What are the hoped for outcomes of the video and this campaign? And what are components (if any) will there be to this campaign at GVSU?
This video has its place within a larger conversation. To say any more than that, to spin it as something that will give way to immediate, cultural change, is ludicrous. At best, one person will see this video (and the others like it), becoming inspired to use less sexist language within the homo-social space of the locker room.
In regards to the smaller-scale, GVSU-based outcomes: It is my hope that by connecting GVSU to this project and giving voice to the inclusive policies within our athletics programs, that we are assisting student athletes with their development—reducing the anxiety that they may feel while coming to terms with their gender identity and/or sexual orientation.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 