On March 27th, the House of Representatives passed H.R.1048, known as the Deterrent Act. The Deterrent Act is a Republican initiated piece of legislation that will amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, in order to to strengthen disclosure requirements relating to foreign gifts and contracts.
In reality, The Deterrent Act is part of a larger effort by the GOP and the Trump Administration to allow them to attack college and universities that are engaged in practices that the far right doesn’t support. Indeed, The Deterrent Act is part of the larger war against higher education and should be viewed as an effort to attack what can and can’t be taught at the university level.
The House passed this bill, with 210 Republicans voting for it and 31 Democrats, including Rep. Hillary Scholten. Rep. Scholten once again demonstrated that she is willing to vote with Republicans, especially on legislation that will appease conservative West Michigan. In fact, Scholten was the only Democrat in Michigan to vote for H.R.1048, as you can see at this link.
However, it gets worse.
Last week, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin announced that she was getting behind a bipartisan Senate bill called The Deterrence Act.
On April 15, Sen. Slotkin posted on her website:
Under the DETERRENCE Act, which unanimously passed the U.S. Senate last year, criminals working for foreign adversaries can be sentenced to longer prison sentences. The bill specifically increases criminal penalties for the following federal crimes when the crimes are committed under U.S. jurisdiction on behalf of foreign governments:
- Engaging in a murder-for-hire scheme
- Murdering or attempting to murder certain federal officials, including the President
- Murdering or attempting to murder certain former federal officials, or their families, because of their official actions
- Assaulting certain former federal officials, or their families, because of their official actions
- Kidnapping or attempted kidnapping
- Threats of violence using a dangerous weapon against certain current and former federal officials, as well as their families, because of their official actions
- Stalking
This legislation follows reports that foreign adversaries are increasingly turning to criminals in America to commit violent crimes against their critics, including those who reside in the United States.
Now, many people might read this as a good thing. I mean, “why shouldn’t we protect our elected officials who might be threatened by foreign adversaries?” In this political moment, we have to critically examine legislation like this and not be so easily swayed by their claims, for two reasons. First, there are already significant consequences for anyone, foreign and American, who would attempt to assault, kidnap or murder federal officials. Secondly, this kind of legislation is not so much designed to protect elected officials as it is designed to further criminalize foreign nationals who are critical of US policy.
Can you not see that this kind of legislation will be used to further punish people like Mahmoud Khalil and the Tufts student and Turkish national Rümeysa Öztürk, both of which were arrested by ICE. In fact, Drop Site news recently posted a story entitled, By Weaponizing Arrest Records and Suspending Due Process, the Trump Administration Has Targeted Over 1,000 Foreign Students.
Ultimately, legislation like the one that Senator Slotkin is endorsing, legislation that was crafted by Republicans, will be used to criminalize people who question and confront federal officials through public statements, during town hall meetings and other public appearances. If this kind of legislation were to pass, imagine what the federal government would have done to a student activist who pied Senator Carl Levin back in 2010?
From La Matanza to El Salvador’s prison: A century-long US commitment to El Salvador’s dictatorships
The US government’s decision to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador has received a fait amount of attention. The attention around the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is mostly due to the fact that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump Administration should bring Garcia back, since he was wrongfully deported.
According to a recent article from Jacobin:
On March 16, 2025, El Salvador received a US deportation flight of 238 Venezuelans along with Salvadorans of various documentation statuses. They were incarcerated in El Salvador’s megaprison, the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT), placing them in legal limbo. The conditions of those incarcerated in El Salvador are notorious and likely violate a number of human rights under international law. The United States is paying El Salvador a fee of $6 million per year to house some three hundred deported people.
After the US Supreme Court decision, some national news agencies asked President Trump, while he was entertaining El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele if he would be bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador. The exchange is rather instructive and is included in a recent Democracy Now! show from April 15.
Jeffrey St. Clair, co-editor of CounterPunch, wrote in a recent column:
Trump’s ICEtapo has sent 238 people to El Salvador. A Bloomberg analysis shows that more than 90% of them had no criminal record. And of those with criminal records, only five had been convicted of felonies. This hardly matters. To be sent to El Salvador means you are guilty. You are a terrorist in the eyes of the state that deported you, even if the state’s highest courts have intervened on your behalf. There will be no return. Even two self-proclaimed Autocrats say they don’t have the power to make it happen.
Many commentators have speculated that what President Trump is doing by sending supposed criminals to El Salvador is to test the waters in order to see how much public resistance there is to this practice, since this administration might begin to send political dissidents there as well.
It is always difficult to predict future policies, but it is worth looking at the history of US relations with El Salvador, which could give us a better understanding of what the US government will do and what the American public will tolerate.
History of US/Salvadoran relations
El Salvador gained its independence from Spain in the early part of the 19th century, but they became subject to the US Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine was an imperialist policy, which essentially said that all of Latin America was under the control of the US.
El Salvador, a country the size of Massachusetts, has been living under an oligarchy for most of the nation’s history. Europeans controlled most of the land in El Salvador, which was the result of Spanish colonialism in the region. The oligarchy began to utilize the best lands for coffee production in the late 1800s, thus making coffee exports the number one economic driver of El Salvador’s economy.
In the 1920s, the price of coffee dropped steeply, threatening the oligarchs’ export business. To make up for their loss of profits, the ruling families took over even more land from peasants and cut their workers’ wages in half. Following elections in 1932, in which the government refused to seat elected members of the Communist Party, Salvadoran peasants organized a popular insurrection to demand better living and working conditions. Most of these peasants were part of the indigenous population. The government responded to the strike by massacring an estimated 30,000 people, or 4% of the population, in one week.
This event became known as “La Matanza,” or “The Massacre.” The military government established following La Matanza went on to ban every vestige of indigenous culture, including language, traditional clothing, and music. To avoid further persecution and murder by government troops, the indigenous people began to hide all outward signs of their identity. During La Matanza, the US had warships off the coast of El Salvador in order to support the very government that massacred 30,000 Salvadorans.
La Matanza and the military rule which followed set the political tone of the next several decades in El Salvador, as military dictators followed one another into the 1970s, and all of these dictators had US government support, both militarily and diplomatically. In addition, the US government trained countless Salvadoran soldiers at the famous US Army School of the Americas.
In the late 1970s, an armed insurgent movement known as the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) grew in popularity and began to control part of the countryside in El Salvador. The US government’s response was to zealously support the Salvadoran dictatorship, which included massive amounts of US military aid, US military advisors, the sale of US military weaponry and US political pressure to prevent the Organization of the American States (OAS) or the United Nations from trying to intervene in what became a massive counter-insurgency war. What follows are some some details of the US/Salvadoran relationship during the counter-insurgency war from 1979 – 1992.
- March 24, 1980 – Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated by Salvadoran government death squad members while he was saying mass. Just weeks before his assassination, Romero had sent US President Jimmy Carter a letter demanding he stop sending military aid and send humanitarian relief aid instead.
- December 2, 1980, four US Churchwomen working in El Salvador, were raped and murdered by Salvadoran government death squad members.
- In December of 1981, the Salvadoran Army murdered over 800 people in Morazan Department of El Salvador, which became known as the El Mozote Massacre. The Salvadoran army mostly killed women, children and the elderly in this massacre. The US government defended the massacre.
- During the US financed counter-insurgency war in El Salvador, there were an estimated 8 – 9,000 Salvadoran civilians that were “disappeared.”
- The 1992 UN Truth Commission in El Salvador determined that 75,000 civilians were killed, with the majority of those deaths being committed by the Salvadoran military or extra-judicial paramilitary groups that worked with the Salvadoran military.
- In November of 1989, the Salvadoran military murdered 6 Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter. Many of the soldiers involved were trained at the US Army School of the Americas.
- Several high ranking Salvadoran military officials that were directly responsible for the deaths of nearly 75,000 Salvadoran civilians fled El Salvador after the 1992 ceasefire agreement and found refuge in the United States. The irony of this is that throughout the years of the US-financed counterinsurgency war in El Salvador, thousands of Salvadorans sought political asylum in the US, but were denied.
- After the US financed counter-insurgency war in El Salvador, the US continued to support the ruling class in that country, even intervened to prevent a left Presidential candidate from winning the election there in 2004, got El Salvador to sign on to the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA – which created more poverty and exploitation).
This is the historical context to which we find the current Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. This history between the US and El Salvador should make it clear as to why Bukele is just the most recent iteration of the long-standing dictatorships that have run that country with full US support.
A recent article from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) provides some important insight into why those of us in this country should be concerned about what is happening in El Salvador. The WOLA article provides 4 good reasons for concern:
- Bukele negotiated and offered economic incentives to gang leaders in exchange for reducing homicides.
- The ‘Bukele Security Model’ is based on mass incarceration and human rights violations, but fails to provide any real access to justice or due process.
- The Salvadoran penitentiary system is marred with corruption, where there is no oversight, transparency or accountability.
- There is a generalized environment of fear as civic space is shrinking and human rights defenders and independent journalists are under attack.
While our current attention should be centered on the people that the Trump Administration has sent to the horrific prison in El Salvador, we should also understand that these brutal human rights violations have always been central to the longstanding US military support of El Salvador’s oligarchy, to the murder and disappearances of tens of thousands of Salvadorans during the US financed counter-insurgency war, the US denial of asylum to thousands of Salvadorans fleeing political violence, the US-provided safe haven status for former Salvadoran military officials, and US economic policies like CAFTA that have forced forced to many Salvadorans to become immigrants. This brutality did not begin with the Trump Administration, it is merely an extension of the century-long US commitment to El Salvador’s dictatorships, which translates as US Imperialism.
Palestine Solidarity Information, Analysis, Local Actions and Events for the week of April 20th
It has been more than 18 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. We will also provide information on local events and actions that people can get involved in. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
Extremist Zionist Group Sent List of Palestine Defenders to Trump Officials for Deportation
Rafah “obliterated” by Israel’s attacks
Israeli Policies and Settler Violence Are Driving Palestinians from the Jordan Valley
The Mask Has Fallen: Gaza and the Myth of Western Morality
Fed Up With Israeli Displacement Orders, Palestinians in Gaza City Refuse to Leave
WIZ ACQUISITION PUTS ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE IN CHARGE OF YOUR GOOGLE DATA
Gaza First Amendment Alert (April 18, 2025)
Analysis & History
Omer Bartov on Gaza: “It’s a Misnomer to Call It a War”
CHRIS HEDGES: ISRAEL IS ABOUT TO EMPTY GAZA
Media Censorship in the Age of Palestinian Genocide
Image used in this post is from https://www.rightsanddissent.org/news/gaza-first-amendment-alert-april-18-2025/
The lack of action and silence by most Democratic lawmakers on the arrest and deportation of immigrants and foreign nationals who have spoken out against the US financed genocide in Gaza should tell us something about the Democratic Party.
For example, Rep. Hillary Scholten has said nothing about the numerous students and faculty members throughout the US that are being deported because of their stance against the US financed genocide in Gaza. I checked Scholten’s social media and her Congressional page, and it is nothing but silence. In addition, Rep. Scholten has not be interviewed by the news media regarding these ICE arrests of people who have spoken out in support of Palestine.
Of course, I am not surprised by this, especially since Rep. Scholten has unconditionally supported Israel ever since she took office in January of 2023, something I have methodically documented. Additionally, Rep. Scholten supported the Biden Administration’s position on the pro-Palestine campus movement, which was to chastise them. Nearly one year ago I wrote an article entitled, It’s bad enough that Rep. Hillary Scholten has consistently voted to fund the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, now she wants to condemn students who are publicly opposing genocide. In that article I stated:
Rep. Scholten, the so-called liberal, once again is demonstrating her allegiance to US Imperialism, to Zionism and her commitment to the repression of free speech. Notice that the Congresswoman provides no evidence of antisemitism. You just have to invoke it to make it a fact, just like Zionists preach. On top of the unsubstantiated claim of antisemitism, Rep. Scholten takes it one step further by partnering with a Republican from Indiana to introduce legislation that in reality is meant to further silence critics of Israel and US policies that support Israel.
Now, in regards to the issue of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Rep. Scholten did release a statement, which you can see here on the right. The statement is weak and deeply problematic. First, as Scholten often does, she reminds us that she is an attorney and former member of the Department of Justice, like that really means anything when she supports criminalizing immigrants and genocide in Gaza. Second, Scholten only released this statement after the US Supreme Court ruling and did not condemn what happened to Kilmar Abrego Garcia up until that point. Third, Scholten statement doesn’t center what happened to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, rather it is all about the Trump Administration. Fourth, Scholten ends the statement about how we need to stand united in defense of the rule of law. This is some shit, since the rule of law in the US has justified genocide, slavery, Jim Crow policies, mass deportations, mass incarceration, preventing people from having an abortion, criminalizing queer and trans people, and justifying an economic system that allows less than one percent of the population to expand their wealth while millions live in poverty.
Again, none of this is a surprise, since the Democratic Party has done virtually nothing to actually resist what the Trump Administration is currently doing, except make weak ass statements that urge us to defend the rule of law.
The anarchist writer Peter Gelderloos, in a recent article wrote:
It is insanely delusional to believe that the Democrat[ic Party is capable of changing in a meaningful way, and it is insanely delusional to trust them. They are guilty of genocide, mass murder, mass incarceration, impoverishment, bloody wars, and oppressive politics. The system they uphold, the system they promise can be reformed if we just trust them one more time, has condemned this generation and the next one and the next one to a future of unimaginable suffering, danger, and poverty.
I want to end with what I wrote in a recent article from last week, which is part 3 of a 3 part series:
Over the past few months, especially at the large rallies – those rallies that will not save us – I have seen signs that say things like, “defend our democracy” or “protect the constitution.” As someone who identifies as an anarchist, I in no way want to defend democracy or protect the constitution, especially since the Constitution and the so-called democracy in the US has been built on genocide, slavery, white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and ecological devastation. I don’t want to fight, to struggle, or to take risks, all for some 6th grade notion of what democracy is. I don’t want to pledge allegiance to some flag or give away my power to a government structure that was designed to benefit the wealthiest people in this country. As John Jay, a Founding Father and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, famously stated, “Those who own the country ought to govern it”. Our so-called democracy was designed the way that John Jay and the founders intended.
Episode #1 affirmed stereotypes about Black people, thus perpetuating structural racism. The episode also demonstrated that this TV series will be a highly constructed show with the GRPD dictating the narrative about who they are and what they do.
Episode #2 begins with a roll call at the GRPD, where one of the cops says, apparently some of the homeless people were raising hell at US 131 and Ann St. Viewers then see a GRPD cop in their cruiser and we hear this cop say that there is more crime at night, and that “nothing good happens after midnight.” No clarification or verification of the claims are made, since cops always tell the truth.
In the subsequent scene we hear gun shots being fired, a 911 call, with someone saying that gun shots happened in the street. This is followed by mostly bodycam footage, with a cop saying that they couldn’t find anyone who was shot.
We then see the GRPD in the same neighborhood, looking for clues and talking to residents about the shooting. A GRPD cop then goes to the hospital and talks to a Black woman who saw the shooting, since she brought someone to the hospital who had been hit by a bullet. This is also when we hear that the Black woman that the cop was speaking with said that they were on a “party bus”, which is the name of Episode #2.
Back at the scene of the shooting, where the cops find the party bus, they also find a gun and some bullet shell casings. Everyone the GRPD spoke to who were on the party bus, all appear to be BIPOC people.
Viewers are then introduced to a white female-appearing cop who says they were tasked with heading up the homicide investigation. The GRPD is back at the hospital, where the body of a Black man is on a stretcher and is pronounced dead. The GRPD cop “allows” the mother of the victim to pray over his body during a 30 second clip of the episode. Always important for a constructed TV show to demonstrate to viewers that the cops are compassionate.
About 10 minutes into the episode, the episode brings us back to the GRPD headquarters talking about getting the video footage from the party bus. Chief Winstrom then says that he has full confidence in the female officer. The female cop is attempting to speak with a Black person who saw what had happen, but refuses to give information without a lawyer. Chief Winstrom then calls this dynamic “generational mistrust.” Winstrom is followed by another GRPD cop who says that people who don’t come forward with information as a “societal problem.”
“Generational mistrust” and people not giving cops information as a “societal problem?” It is deeply unfortunately that the producers of this show do not unpack or interrogate these terms, terms which are politically and racially charged. A basic question that could be asked at this point is, do Black people have reason to not trust the police? This is a very basic question, but a critical one to think about and talk about. The All Access PD Grand Rapids show only provides the GRPD’s perspective on this matter. What if viewers heard from Angela Davis, Miriame Kaba, Andrea J. Ritchie, Ruth Wilson Gilmore or Marc Lamont Hill?
Back to the episode………
The cops then look at video from porch cameras and talk about the shooters. Chief Winstrom then talks to the camera saying the the Grand Rapids City Commission wants answers to the increase in shootings over the summer (summer of 2023). The next scene is in a City Commission meeting, with Winstrom addressing the commissioners. Winstrom then talks up Commissioner Knight, with the following scene including Lisa Knight and the mother of the shooting victim.
The episode then cuts to another day, where the GRPD get a call about another shooting, with a AR 15 rifle. The cops find the shooter who is in a vehicle and then takes off. The cops purse the vehicle onto Cesar Chavez Way/Grandville Ave, where the shooter is boxed in. A latino male gets out of the car with no apparent weapon, while the GRPD has guns pointed at him and then releases a police dog on the man. The dog bites the man, and then we see the man bloodied and in cuffs. Winstrom then says that the illegal use of guns is a problem.
The episode then pivots back to the party bus shooting, where the GRPD are now looking at the social media profiles of those who were on the party bus. The social media videos they show are primarily of Black people.
The next portion of the episode involves looking at the guns that was found and the bullet casings. The white female cop who was heading up the investigation received a photo of a Black guy in a white hat, the same white hat that was found at the scene of the shooting.
The potential suspect lives outside the city limits, so the Kent County Sheriff’s Department now gets involved, with them and the GRPD heading to the suspects home. Most of the cops arrive on the scene heavily armed and using an armored vehicle. For the next minute they use bodycam footage, in COPS-like fashion. Eventually, someone in the mobile home comes out and the GRPD begins to ask her questions.
A Black male witness comes in to speak with the GRPD. This witness had a gun and shot it into the air, but his brother also had a gun and fit the image of the photo that the GRPD had. The brother then came in (another Black man), but during the questioning the Black man’s face was not blurred, unlike other people in the episode. The female investigator continued the questioning and the man she was questioning stated he didn’t have a gun. The homicide investigator was “shocked” that this Black man denied having a gun.
The episode ends with the mother of the shooting victim coming in to the GRPD headquarters and talking to Winstrom on camera, praising them for all they have done on this case. The mother states, “You give off a vibe that you really care.” The mother then praises the female homicide investigator, with Winstrom and another cop smiling as the episode credits are rolling.
After watching two episodes, one could easily conclude that only Black & Brown people commit violent crimes and that the GRPD does the work to keep the public safe. However, the reality is quite different, where the GRPD is not preventing violence from happening, it traffics in racial stereotyping and celebrates cops as heroes. Anyone with half a brain is not buying this polished PR shit!
GRIID weekly audio digest #2
In the second installment of the GRIID audio digest, we bring you the following three stories from last week:
- At last week’s Town Hall meeting Rep. Scholten left early to avoid being held accountable and State Rep. Grant would not own up to questions on housing and immigration
- Copaganda: Deconstructing the GRPD TV series on HBO/MAX – Episode #1
- Politicians and rallies won’t save us: We need direct action, disruptions to systems of power and community care
GRIID invites our readers to share this audio digest and suggest platforms that we can share these weekly audio versions of our posts.
One of the 10 principles of journalism is that it must serve as an independent monitor of power.
Now, I don’t claim to be a journalist, more of a media watchdog, but I do engage in movement media. Movement media is reporting and documenting what social movements are doing, which is what I have been trying to do with GRIID since 2009.
However, since I have been monitoring what I call the Grand Rapids Power Structure for nearly two decades, I thought I would start a new segment – Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids.
The Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids segments will offer brief commentary on those who have power over others in this community. These segments will not replace my regular reporting on the Grand Rapids Power Structure, since those stories will offer more in depth writing.
As we navigate a second Trump Administration with the likes of Elon Musk, it seems like a perfect opportunity to shed some light on rich and powerful of Grand Rapids, or to frame it the way that radical media from the 60s and 70s would do regarding the Capitalist Class, using the phrase, “up against the wall motherfucker!”
- Our first example comes to us from the monopoly business press for this city, Crain’s Grand Rapids Business, with the headline, DeVos, Van Andel families named Crain’s Newsmaker of the Year for 3 towers project. I found this story at https://dickdevos.com/, since he apparently likes to promote himself and his family……who knew! The Crain’s article doesn’t quote either the DeVos or Van Andel families, since they pay people to speak on their behalf. ““When you look at the location, it’s truly sitting in the center of an emerging sports entertainment district with the arena, amphitheater, the soccer stadium, just that vision for what could be,” Thomas said. Brad Thomas is the CEO of Progressive Companies and a lead shill on the DeVos/Van Andel 3 Towers Project. His comment about an “emerging sports entertainment district” is instructive, especially since these are all projects that were pimped by Grand Action 2.0, also started by the DeVos/Van Andel cartel. The result, as I have already noted, will expand the wealth of these billionaire families and it will primarily benefit tourists and the other businesses that are in the downtown area. The 3 Towers will also exclude the masses of people who won’t be able to afford any of the projects that Grand Action 2.0 has secured, with hundreds of millions in public money.
- Our second example for this installment of Monitoring the Rich and Powerful in Grand Rapids, centers around how the rich and powerful insert themselves onto Boards in order to have greater control over policy decisions and how money gets spent in this city. For example, the West Michigan Policy Forum is a who’s who of those that make up the Grand Rapids Power Structure. The Executive Committee alone has some of the biggest power brokers in this city, like Dick and Doug DeVos, John Kennedy, Michael Jandernoa, Mike VanGessel and J.C. Huizenga. The interlocking systems of power in this city are incestuous and should be yet another indication of how much power these robber barons have in this community.
Monitoring the most powerful family in West MI: DeVos Family Reader – April 2025 edition
It has been eleven months since I last update the DeVos Family Reader. As always, there has been plenty to report on regarding the most powerful family in West Michigan.
In Howard Zinn’s monumental book, A People’s History of the United States, he constantly juxtaposes the amazing things that people did to fight for liberation and the people behind the systems of oppression that social movements were fighting against.
This is exactly why I have spent years monitoring, investigating and critiquing the DeVos Family. They are the most recognizable and powerful manifestation of the systems of power and oppression in West Michigan. Now, I know there are plenty of people who share the belief that without the DeVos Family, Grand Rapids wouldn’t be where it is today. I fully agree with that belief, but for reasons that are the exact opposite of those who hold the most powerful family in West Michigan in high regard.
This updated version of the DeVos Family Reader includes information and analysis on a variety of local issues, even some that are not directly focused on the DeVos Family, but there are connections.
The main issues that I have reported on since May of 2024 are:
- DeVos campaign contributions in the 2024 Elections, both in the Primary and the November Election.
- How the local commercial news media continues to acts as stenographers for the DeVos Family.
- How the DeVos Family continues to expand their wealthy by using public money for projects like the 3 Towers – announced last September, plus the new soccer stadium will be named the Amway Stadium. In addition, the DeVos and Van Andel families will be the owners of the new professional soccer team in Grand Rapids, which is what GRIID has predicted all along.
- Lastly, GRIID has posted several articles about the connection between the DeVos Family and the Trump Administration, including their connection to the groups behind Project 2025.
The DeVos Family Reader is now up to 815 pages, with more than 3 decades of reporting on the most powerful family in West Michigan.
Politicians and rallies won’t save us: We need direct action, disruptions to systems of power, and we need community care – Part III
Editor’s note: This is Part III of a three part series on movement work, strategies and tactics for the current political climate in the US.
Last week, I began a three part series on why we shouldn’t rely on politicians, the political system or over-reliance on specific tactics in order to create change and work to build the kind of world that we want to see.
In Part I, I addressed why politicians won’t save us, why rallies won’t save us, and why we need to develop goals, strategies and tactics to fight against systems of power and oppression. I primarily used examples from the Civil Rights Movement/Black Freedom Struggle, so I want to expand on that today by talking about Direct Action, disrupting systems of power and oppression, and why it is important if we want to achieve our goals.
In Part II, I talked about the importance of using disruptive tactics, especially if we really want to have an effect on systems of power and oppression, along with the power of Direct Action. Direct action means that we take collective action to change our circumstances, without handing our power to a middle person – bosses, politicians and or any other authority. Direct Action means we take matters into our own hands and not expect those in power to do what we want. Direct Action means forcing systems of power and oppression to do what we want.
In Part III, I want to talk about what we can do with each other, which is to practice Mutual Aid, Community Care and develop forms of self-governance that do not rely on the existing systems of power and oppression. However, before I talk about Mutual Aid and Community Care, I want to address some things about the so-called democracy we live in.
Over the past few months, especially at the large rallies – those rallies that will not save us – I have seen signs that say things like, “defend our democracy” or “protect the constitution.” As someone who identifies as an anarchist, I in no way want to defend democracy or protect the constitution, especially since the Constitution and the so-called democracy in the US has been built on genocide, slavery, white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and ecological devastation. I don’t want to fight, to struggle, or to take risks, all for some 6th grade notion of what democracy is. I don’t want to pledge allegiance to some flag or give away my power to a government structure that was designed to benefit the wealthiest people in this country. As John Jay, a Founding Father and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, famously stated, “Those who own the country ought to govern it”. Our so-called democracy was designed the way that John Jay and the founders intended.
While we are engaged in developing strategies to dismantle systems of power and use disruptive tactics and Direct Action, we need to simultaneously develop our own systems of governance and practice what Stephen D’Arcy calls a Transition Phase. D’Arcy lays out for us in his essay, Environmentalism as if Winning Mattered: A Self-Organization Strategy, what a Resistance Phase and a Transition Phase look like. Much of the Transition Phase should reflect the principles and practice of Mutual Aid and Community Care.
We take care of each other
The immigrant-led group Movimiento Cosecha GR often says, “what we need is already right here in our community.” What Cosecha organizers mean by this statement is not just material needs, but ideas, vision and radical imagination. Radical Imagination – imagining that another world is possible, that we don’t have to settle for what systems of power and oppression give us. As the great Puerto Rican poet, Martin Espada once said, “No change for the good ever happens without it being imagined first, even if that change seems hopeless or impossible in the present.”
Mutual Aid has been a practice in many communities and culture for a very long time. Mutual Aid project are essentially a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on representative, but by actually building social relationships that are more survivable. Check out this video, which provides a wonderful popular education framework for what Mutual Aid is.
I would also recommend that people read the book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this crisis (and the next), by Dean Spade. Spade, who is a long time activist/organizer, proposes four criteria for evaluating the success of a mutual aid effort:
- Does it provide material relief?
- Does it leave out an especially marginalized part of the affected group (i.e., people with criminal records, people without immigration status?)
- Does it legitimize or expand a system resistant left movements are trying to dismantle?
- Does it mobilize people, especially those most directly impacted, for ongoing struggle?
There are several groups that have been involved in Mutual Aid work in Grand Rapids over the years. The Bloom Collective hosted several of the first Really, Really Free Market events around 2007-2008. Really Really Free Markets are where people bring items they no longer need and then people take what they need, which means no one is buying or selling.
In 2017, GR Rapid Response to ICE started practicing Mutual Aid, by providing material support to immigrants that were impacted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violence. GR Rapid Response to ICE continues to practice Mutual Aid in the present. There are other groups, like the the West Michigan Care Collective and Grand Rapids Pullover Prevention. The Grand Rapids Area Mutual Aid Network, which was create at the beginning of COVID in March or 2020, also does amazing work in this community and has provided lots of material aid, including raising several hundred thousand in dollars of Mutual Aid for primarily BIPOC, queer, trans, those with disabilities and immigrant neighbors in the greater Grand Rapids area.
There have also been amazing Mutual Aid Projects that have been created to respond to a particular crisis over the last decade or so. Some inspiring examples are how quickly grassroots mutual aid groups responded to Hurricane Sandy and those that formed with the fires in Los Angeles last year.
Throughout history there have also been fabulous examples of communities practicing Mutual Aid. One of the most overlooked is the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). The BPP is inaccurately represented by systems of power and oppression as simply being gun-wielding thugs, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The BPP was part of the lager Black Freedom Struggle and began in 1966 with their Ten-Point Program, which provided a framework for what they wanted. It is true that the BPP engaged in armed self-defense, but they saw that as only one of their Survival Programs. The BPP’s Survival Programs were Mutual Aid Projects and they developed over 60 of them during their short history. People are somewhat familiar with the Children’s Breakfast Program, but most people don’t know that they had their own ambulance service, free commissary for prisoners program, free clinics, their own newspaper and Liberation Schools. Click here to see the entire list.
These kinds of autonomous Mutual Aid Projects need to be explored and practiced if we want to develop real people power. The history of social service programs that make up the larger US government safety net, particularly the programs that began after the Great Depression did not come out of no where. In fact, there were two primary factors that determined much of what we often call the New Deal programs. First, the New Deal programs that provided material support to families deeply impacted by the Great Depression were modeled after the people-created projects that came directly out of those most impacted. (See Dana Franks book, What Can We Learn from the Great Depression?: Stories of Ordinary People & Collective Action in Hard Times)
Second, the New Deal policies that the FDR Administration put in place was a direct response to the massive public pressure from working class people and organized labor. In the early 1930s there were over 1,000 labor strikes happening on an annual basis across the US (See Jeremy Brecher’s book, Strike!). The US government was forced to create New Deal programs because of the massive resistance to economic conditions that were brought about by the Capitalist Class. If the FDR Administration not passed New Deal policies, the public would have been in open rebellion against the government. And just to be clear, the New Deal policies did not benefit everyone, especially the poorest, Black communities, Mexicans and other groups that were hit the hardest from the Great Depression.
What I have been attempting to communicate in this three part series is that if we just want to get rid of Trump and Musk then we will continue to perpetuate systems of power and oppression. We have to come to terms with the fact that the current political system, the Neoliberal economic system, which is also driven by US imperialism abroad, a system which is bi-partisan, is the very system that produced the likes of Donald Trump.
I don’t want to go back to normal. Normal in the US leaves us with mass incarceration, the climate crisis, a housing system that is rooted in profits, police brutalizing Black, Latinx, immigrant and trans people, plus a political system that is antithetical to anything resembling real democracy. The system ain’t working for most of us, so instead of just hoping for mild reforms and lesser of evils politics, why don’t we practice solidarity, mutual aid and fight like hell for collective liberation.
Palestine Solidarity Information, Analysis, Local Actions and Events for the week of April 13th
It has been 18 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. We will also provide information on local events and actions that people can get involved in. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
“Point-Blank”: Israeli Soldiers Execute 15 Gaza Medics & Rescue Workers, Bury in Unmarked Mass Grave
Breaking the Silence on Palestinian Armed Struggle: A Call for Legal Clarity
Israeli Troops Blow Whistle on War Crimes in Gaza ‘Kill Zone’
UN Exposes Systematic Israeli Rape of Palestinians
The Ecology of Occupation: Palestine’s Struggle for Land and Life
Israel kills children routinely in West Bank
Israel Preparing to Seize Ethnically Cleansed City of Rafah as Part of Permanent Buffer Zone
Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram
Analysis & History
Gaza’s Unbreakable Resistance with Ramzy Baroud
Drop Site Newsroom: Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, and Abubaker Abed on Gaza in Crisis
Image used in this post is from https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-kills-children-routinely-west-bank
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 