The Biden Administration paved the way for Trump’s policy of punishing Pro-Palestine campus organizers
In the past few days we learned that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents entered a student residential building at Columbia University in uptown New York and detained Mahmoud Khalil, one of the lead negotiators on behalf of pro-Palestine protesters at 2024’s Gaza solidarity encampment.
Within just a few days, over 2 million letters have been sent to the Department of Homeland Security, to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to Columbia University, demanding the Immediate Release of Palestinian Student Activist Mahmoud Khalil from DHS detention.
Just yesterday, we learned that a New York federal court judge ordered that recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil cannot be deported from the United States until a further court order.
Like several of the Trump Administration’s oppressive policies, the public and the courts have pushed back, so we’ll see what happens with Mahmoud Khalil and those who have been part of the pro-Palestine campus movement.
Of course, all of this is offensive and disgusting, since it means that free speech is no longer protected. However, if we are to honestly engage in fighting this issue, we have to come to terms with the fact that the Biden Administration paved the way for Trump’s policy of punishing Pro-Palestine campus organizers.
Do you remember President Biden’s swift and strong response when pro-Israel extremists reportedly blasted the chemical weapon “skunk spray” on students peacefully protesting at Columbia University earlier this year? Do you remember how the White House condemned the attack, demanded accountability, and called on the school to protect students from such hate?
No? You don’t remember? Of course you don’t. Because none of it happened. President Biden didn’t respond swiftly or strongly to the skunk spray attack. He didn’t respond at all.
How about President Biden’s response when a Texas man hurled racist slurs at a group of Palestinian Americans after a ceasefire protest at the University of Texas in Austin, ripped a Palestinian flagpole off their car, dragged one of them out of the backseat, and stabbed him?
The Biden administration’s silence was nothing new.
On Stanford University’s campus, a driver yelling“F—k you and your people” reportedly used his car to ram an Arab Muslim student attending a ceasefire protest, sending him to the hospital. No response from the White House.
At the University of Texas, pro-Israel extremists disrupted a Palestine Solidarity Committee meeting and hurled profanities at the attendees. No response.
In Arizona, Texas, Georgia, New York and other states, law enforcement agencies have brutalized students and even professors who attended peaceful protests against the genocide in Gaza. Again, no response.
Now contrast the White House’s lack of response to violent actions motivated by anti-Palestinian hate with the White House’s vocal response to inflammatory words that a small number of individuals have allegedly said at or near pro-ceasefire protests on college campuses.
“I condemn the antisemitic protests, that’s why I set up a program to deal with that,” the president said, broadly mischaracterizing the sit-ins led mostly by Jewish and Palestinian students.
In a statement marking Passover, Biden said, “Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses or anywhere in our country.”
Last fall, the White House rushed to falsely claim that ceasefire protesters in Philadelphia were antisemitic for demonstrating outside a kosher restaurant—the protesters actually targeted the business because it held a fundraiser benefiting the IDF.
But the White House said nothing when protesters at November’s March for Israel chanted genocidal slogans. On the contrary, a prominent Biden administration official spoke at the march, sharing the stage with notoriously anti-Muslim and antisemitic pastor John Hagee.
All of what the Biden Administration did or didn’t do, helped to pave the way for the Trump Administration to further target pro-Palestine activists. If the Biden Administration would have condemned violent actions against pro-Palestine activists or spoke up to condemn the witch hunts that Rep. Elise Stefanik from New York was engaged in by going after University Presidents and other campus leaders, it would have made it harder for the Trump Administration to do what they want to do with Pro-Palestine campus organizers.
The same could be said for the role that Rep. Hillary Scholten played in demonizing pro-Palestine campus organizer.
Last April, I wrote a piece about how Rep. Scholten responded to the pro-Palestine campus movement. Scholten wrote in her weekly newsletter:
“I’m sure many of you have seen the ongoing protests happening on college and university campuses across the country right now. The right to free speech and protest is fundamental, but far too many of these protests have crossed the line into harassment, intimidation, and discriminatory anti-semitism. Colleges and universities do not have enough clear guidance on what does and does not cross the line into antisemitism– which has put Jewish students at risk and at the same time, jeopardizes legitimate free speech. Students have the right to peacefully protest, but antisemitism is never –and never will be– tolerated.
As others rushed to the cameras, I got to work on solutions. This week, my Republican colleague and fellow midwesterner Rep. Rudy Yakym from Indiana and I championed our new bill, the PROTECT Jewish Students and Faculty Act, to require colleges and universities to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s official working definition of antisemitism in student and faculty codes of conduct as a condition of receiving Title IV federal funds for financial aid. This way, we’re protecting students and faculty and ensuring that institutions of higher education can be safe spaces of learning and free expression for all.”
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. However, this might be a good time to point out why Rep. Hillary Scholten is on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of justice.
- US students and faculty are organizing to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians and against the US-funded Israeli genocide that has already killed 35,000 Palestinians.
- Many of the campus protests against the Israeli genocide are being led by Jewish students and faculty.
- US students who are organizing encampments across the country are following in the same tradition as previous movements like the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Vietnam and anti-Iraq War Movements, the Climate Justice Movement, and the South African anti-Apartheid Movement, just to name a few.
- US students and faculty are exposing the political and economic commitment that Higher Education has to conformity, especially when it comes to US foreign policy and Israel.
- US students and faculty are also exposing how the police state functions in the US, especially when university trustees and university donors are pressuring campuses to actively suppress this movement.
Instead, what Rep. Hillary Scholten is doing is taken right from the Zionist playbook to blame the victim or anybody else, but never Israel. Scholten is one of 9 co-sponsors of H.R. 7478, which was introduced by Rep. Rudy Yakym from Indiana. Scholten is only one of two Democrats who cosponsored this shitty piece of legislation that includes the likes of Rep. Elise Stefanik from New York. Stefanik has been the person leading the charge to discredit universities who allow Palestine Solidarity actions or Middle East Studies that question Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
It’s bad enough that Rep. Scholten has consistently voted to send billions of dollars in US military aid to unconditionally support Israel and to participate in an AIPAC funded trip to Israel last year, she now wants to use a right-wing tactic to silence college students across the US for courageously denouncing genocide. Rep. Scholten’s legacy as a member of Congress will be that she defended genocide and the suppression of those who opposed genocide. This is also the legacy of the Biden Administration and it paved the way for the Trump Administration to escalate the repression against pro-Palestine campus organizers.
Viva Flaherty – Radical Socialist who documented the furniture workers strike and resisted WWI in Grand Rapids
Last week I posted a story about Voltairine De Cleyre, a feminist and anarchist writer who lived in Grand Rapids in the 1880s. Today, I want to draw attention to Viva Flaherty.
At the time of the 1911 Grand Rapids Furniture Workers Strike, Viva Flaherty was working as the office secretary at Fountain Street Church, which was a Baptist Church in the early part of the 20th Century.
Viva Flaherty documented the 1911 strike because she believed that the “people of Grand Rapids are awakened and enlightened and they can be trusted with the whole truth.” Flaherty went on to say, in her introduction to the History of the Grand Rapids Furniture Strike:
“A strike is a public matter, and if the people are to know how another is to be avoided they should know all the inside facts of this one, so that they may know whom to distrust and on whose shoulders rests blame for a nineteen weeks strike.”
Flaherty makes it clear in her version of the story that the strike was able to endure as long as it did because of the seven unions that were involved, with membership of over 4,000 workers in thirty-five shops in Grand Rapids. She also made it clear in the opening observations of her historical account that the Christian Reformed Church would not grant their members the right to be part of the union, since it was not “founded on divine right.”
On page 8 of the booklet written by Flaherty, she documents the kind of wages earned by those in the furniture industry, stating that of the eight thousand furniture workers employed in Grand Rapids, most made less than $2 a day. Flaherty also mentions that as early as 1909, after furniture workers found out that the price of what they produced had increased by 10%, they demanded that their wages increase. Some of the workers who had made such demands in 1909 were fired shortly thereafter as being agitators.
A commission was established to investigate the grievances of the workers, which included a final report. However, according to Flaherty, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners had designated the commission as, “the hired servant of that powerful union, the Furniture Manufacturers Employers’ Association.”
Such suspicions were affirmed by the furniture industry’s claims that they needed to honor any of the demands from the striking workers around wages, hours, piece work, etc. Flaherty notes that the furniture barons, “repudiated any social responsibility to regulate wages to suit the cost of living.”
On page 17, Flaherty affirms the workers admiration of Bishop Schrembs when she writes:
Such commentary not only reflects that Schrembs was practicing the social gospel, but it also reflects the sophistication of Flaherty and her keen theological observations. What a powerful indictment she makes of the church that endorsed the furniture barons, by stating that they worship the Almighty God of the Pocketbook.
Flaherty then goes on to talk more about the specifics of the strike, beginning on page 18, where she discusses the “riot” on May 15. The “riot” Flaherty was speaking of is when workers and their wives confronted strikebreakers & scabs who were brought in to continue with production after the walkout of 7,000 furniture workers.
It is worth noting here that during the confrontation against the scab workers, many of the women in the crowd, who had been hiding rocks and bricks under their dresses began to throw them at the scab workers and cops who attempted to escort them into the factories. Such disgust at the attempt to break the strike by the furniture barons is captured in the statue dedicated to the 1911 furniture workers strike. At the feet of the woman depicted in the statue, you can see rocks underneath her dress.
The City of Grand Rapids, for its part, not only called for arbitration during the strike, but adopted this resolution on July 24, 1911:
Towards the end of the booklet, Flaherty provides more forceful observations about the furniture industry and reflects a high level of class consciousness that workers had developed in the early part of the 20th century. Flaherty states:
“Capital knows that when the people realize that capital is organized in this country today for the conscious and deliberate purpose of crushing labor in its efforts to become free, the people will make common cause with labor and send the divine right of capital to join the divine right of kings. Industrial freedom is a state which the world as yet has not experienced.”
Flaherty then follows up with a clear indictment against the captains of industry, particularly the National Association of Manufacturers and the Furniture Manufacturers Employers’ Association. These entities were producing their own propaganda that blamed workers for being “class conscious” and for “stirring up trouble.”
Resisting World War I
In May of 1917, several members of the Socialist Party, two clergymen and Feminist/Labor supporter Viva Flaherty were arrested in Grand Rapids for distributing anti-conscription pamphlets near downtown Grand Rapids.
This seemingly mild act of informing people about their rights and about the imperialist nature of World War I was seen as a form of treason. There had been numerous laws passed since the beginning of the United States government, such as the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in 1798, which meant to silence and punish those considered to be, those “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.”
The Espionage Act was passed in 1917, as a means to silence and punish those who spoke out against the US entry into World War I. However, as radical historian Howard Zinn points out, these laws were not applied equally and were meant to target dissidents during WWI, particularly radical labor organizers, socialists and anarchists. Some of those arrested for opposing the US entry into WWI were arrested and jailed, while others were arrested and deported.
The level of contempt that the US government held against radicals involved in labor organizing and anti-WWI activities eventually led to the Palmer Raids (1919-1920) as a justification for “cleansing” the US of radical leftists, socialists and anarchists.
Those arrested in May of 1917 in Grand Rapids fell under the category of dissidents and radicals. There were several who identified as Socialists and then there was Viva Flaherty. Flaherty was the only woman arrested in May of 1917, but she was possibly the most well known of the group, particularly in Grand Rapids.
Flaherty, along with those she was arrested with, were passing out anti-conscription pamphlets on Division Avenue near downtown Grand Rapids and on Bridge Street. They had 15,000 copies printed from the Furniture City Printing Company of Grand Rapids.
The International Socialist Review, published in Chicago, makes mention of the action taken by the state against Viva Flaherty and her fellow dissidents. Published in the July 17 edition of the ISR, this is what they had to say about the anti-conscription action:
Almost all active members of the Socialist Party have been arrested and indicted by a Federal Grand Jury. Principal charge is that the accused, by the circulation of literature and “thru demonstrations, mass petitions and by other means,” conspired to “prevent, hinder and delay” the execution of the conscription law. There were six counts in the indictment.
National Secretary Adolph Germer, of the Socialist Party, was also indicted by the same jury and charged with conspiracy. On learning the “news,” Comrade Germer went to Grand Rapids, submitted to arrest, plead “not guilty” and was liberated on bonds. If necessary, these cases will be carried to the highest courts.
Grand Rapids has a population around 130,000—mostly wage slaves. Scab labor runs its factories. It is a typical American Billy Sunday burg. Therefore all the fury of the pulpit and the press was directed against the socialists.
Among the indicted comrades are Ben A. Falkner, financial secretary of the Local. For years he has been employed in the city water works department. He has been fired and blacklisted by the political patriots. Comrade G. G. Fleser, corresponding secretary of the Local, who had worked eight years for the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad as a stenographer, was discharged by the patriotic rail-plutes. Viva L. Flaherty, social worker and writer; Charles G. Taylor, member of Board of Education; James W. Clement, manufacturer; Charles J. Callaghan, postal clerk (discharged); Dr. Martin E. Elzinga; G. H. Pangborn; Vernon Kilpatrick; Rev. Klaas Osterhuis, and our wellknown, active old-time Comrade, Ben Blumenberg.
The Grand Rapids Press wrote about the arrests, the selection of the jury and the trial itself. Much of the their reporting reflected a bias in favor of prosecution of those arrested for distributing anti-conscription material. There were a few interesting cartoons that ran during the trial in October of 1917, one with the note below Viva Flaherty’s image which says, “Viva Flaherty has many visitors during recess.”
Ultimately, Viva Flaherty and her co-conspirators were not found guilty for the charges brought against them from May of 1917. The trial ended on October 18, 1917, and it well documented by the National Socialist Party in the publication entitled, “Not Guilty.”
Viva Flaherty may not be well know, especially for her opposition to the US entry to WWI and the military draft, but future generations should look to her for inspiration as someone who challenged political and economic power structures in Grand Rapids. Flaherty lived to be 84, eventually dying in 1968.
For week #5 in our collective investigation into the Prison Industrial Complex in Kent County, we continued our reading/discussion of the book, Beyond Courts. However, before that I shared two sets of links.
The first set of links here are about the so-called criminal justice reform movement, where the likes of the Koch brothers and the DeVos family have leveraged their economic resources to push for certain reforms that are motivated on accessing labor.
A second set of links came from our week #4 discussion around ways to dismantled the PIC, examples from various anti-state carceral movements around the country.
https://www.seattlesolidaritybudget.com/
https://griid.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/movement-for-black-lives-defund-police-toolkit.pdf
Chapter 6 focused on the theme that there are no such thing as progressive prosecutors. Here is an excerpt from chapter 6:
“Diversion programs and other reforms—whether reducing racial disparities in prosecutions, or diversifying staff of the prosecuting office, or increasing investigations of police officers in individual, sensationalized cases—all contribute to the legitimacy of the prosecuting office. They are public relations strategies aimed at softening the prosecuting office’s image, while continuing the machinery of criminal punishment under both new and old structures.”
Chapter 7 focused on abolitionist principles & campaign strategies for prosecutor organizing. This chapter provided excellent framing around how to think about the abolition of the prison industrial complex, with clear principles, tactics and strategies that have been utilized by other abolitionists, as is illustrated in the graphic above.
During the discussion on Chapter 7, there were interesting observations made, particularly around the issue of how the non-profit industrial complex makes it difficult to engage in abolitionist work. Not only did this theme filled the rest of the discussion, it influenced what I sent the group to read for week #6.
It was a beautiful sunny day on Saturday, with an estimated two thousand people who showed up to Rosa Parks Circle for International Women’s Day.
There were lots of signs and flags, and lots of speakers who addressed a number of issues from reproductive justice to labor struggles, the Palestine liberation struggle, US militarism, transphobia, mass deportation and environmental justice.
It was difficult to hear many of the speakers, since the sound system wasn’t great and the ice rink at Rosa Parks Circle prevented people from getting close to the speakers. There were a few information tables and eventually a march that began around 1:30pm.
There was upbeat energy emanating from the crowd, and lots of people embracing each other and sharing stories throughout most of the rally. No doubt people left the event feeling inspired and hopeful about moving forward.
One of the early speakers was State Rep. Kristian Grant. She talked about what is happening in Lansing and that she was fighting for us in the State Legislature. She also said that she doesn’t have any more West Michigan Nice in her, nor does she have anymore thoughts and prayers, but that she is ready to burn shit down. (You can listen for yourself) While I would welcome this reality, this is not who Rep. Grant has been in recent years as a State Representative. Rep. Grant failed the statewide coalition of tenants, known as the Rent is Too Damn High, by not fighting for the 10 pieces of legislation that tenants we demanding last fall. It should also be mentioned that Rep. Grant also took money from the Michigan Realtors Association PAC. I find it hard to believe that Rep. Grant is fighting for us and I don’t believe for a second that she is ready to burn shit down.
Then I saw a sign that read, “I can’t believe that we still have to protest.” The sign was being held by a white woman. The sign reminded me of the title of a book from the abolitionist Angela Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. In that book, Davis discusses the importance of movement building and how all of the issues we are confronted with are intertwined.
The march began where Breanna Taylor Way, Pearl Street and Monroe Avenue converge. There was a GRPD cop car parked in the street at that intersection, preventing people from going east on Pearl Street. At that point it became clear that the organizers must have obtained a permit from the City to hold the protest. This dynamic became even more clear after those who were marching in the street were accompanied by a GRPD cruiser. I raise this point since the GRPD has cracked down hard on BIPOC organizers over the past year, specifically when people have taken to the streets for Patrick Lyoya, Immigrant justice or to call for the US to stop sending billions to Israel during their genocidal campaign.
The fact that the GRPD did not have a very strong presence at the rally on Saturday, also suggests that they knew that there would be no disruption of business as usual by the organizers or the fact that the rally was primarily attended by white people. For years, when BIPOC people attend actions, even 50 – 100, the GRPD presence has been overwhelming and often oppressive.
I get that people who attended to rally/march on Saturday are upset about what the Trump Administration has done since January 20th. People not only have a right to be pissed off, they ought to be pissed off. However, this shit show is a constant for Black people, Indigenous people, immigrants, the working class, queer & trans people, those with disabilities and anti-war activists who are confronting US imperialism.
- During the Biden Administration there were on average 1,200 people killed a year by the police, and Black people are 2.8 times more likely to get killed by cops than white people, according to Mapping Police Violence.
- The Biden Administration deported more people in a four year period than were deported during the first Trump Administration.
- Last summer in an article I wrote about the economy, I mentioned a recent ALICE report. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. In that people it stated that 41% of Michigan households live paycheck to paycheck, but that number goes up to 47% for Grand Rapids households. This means that nearly half of the households in Grand Rapids are living paycheck to paycheck!
- People were livid when President Trump scolded Ukrainian President Zelensky, but where was the outrage when Biden embraced Netanyahu during the Israeli genocidal campaign against Palestinians, along with providing billions in weapons that were used to kill families, women and children?
What does it take to get people, particularly white people, to empathize with the struggle of BIPOC, immigrant, queer and trans people? Yes, there was a great turnout at the International Women’s Day rally on Saturday, but where were those people when we were fighting to defund the GRPD, to demand justice for Patrick Lyoya, to demand an end to missing and murdered indigenous people, when the Michigan Democrats failed to vote for driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants or in the fight for trans rights? I say these things not to chastise, but to provide proper context for how we might build a real resistance movement for the future.
Freedom is a constant struggle and we can’t just show up when we are directly affected. As someone who is also white, I invite other white people to practice solidarity and to show up when BIPOC, queer and immigrant organizers are making demands and fighting for justice. Challenge your own comfort, be an accomplice to other people’s liberation struggles, and take risks.
Palestine Solidarity Information, Analysis, Local Actions and Events for the week of March 9th
It has been 17 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
Trump Admin Bypasses Congress to Send Israel $4B as It Blocks Aid Into Gaza
State of Siege: Israel is conducting its largest mass expulsion campaign in the West Bank since 1967
‘War-Crime Starvation Strategy’: Israel Blocks All Humanitarian Aid into Gaza
As Freed Palestinians Describe Torture, Trump OKs $3 Billion Arms Package for Israel
Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing in Hebron
Why the Second Phase of Gaza Negotiations is Failing
Columbia University’s Secret Disciplinary Process for Students Critical of Israel
Israel’s War Decimated Gaza’s Farmlands and Killed Most of its Livestock
Holding US lawmakers accountable for backing Gaza genocide
International Law at a Crossroads: Can Gaza Spark a Global Reckoning?
Analysis & History
Archiving Gaza: The Race to Save Evidence of War Crimes and Mass Destruction
Trump and Netanyahu’s roadmap: Nakba, forcible transfer and expulsion
Image used in this post is from https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/anti-palestinian-racism-on-campus/
Voltairine De Cleyre: Feminist and Anarchist writer lived in Grand Rapids in the 1880s
Emma Goldman once referred to Voltairine De Cleyre as, “The most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced.”
Voltairine De Cleyre was born in Michigan in 1866 and was named after the French Enlightenment writer Voltaire. She grew up experiencing poverty and then was forced to live in a Catholic convent by her father, who thought it would provide a better education for her. Life at the convent did have a positive effect, but not the one that her father had hoped for. What Voltairine developed was not only a critical understanding of the world, she would also eventually identify as an atheist because of the oppressive nature of the Catholic education.
By the early 1880s she moved to the Grand Rapids area and eventually to Grand Rapids and was active in the anti-clerical, Free Thought Movement. Voltairine soon began writing for various publications and exploring other political disciplines. However, it was the Haymarket uprising in Chicago in 1886 that finally brought her to embrace anarchism. More specifically, it was the hanging of the Haymarket Martyrs in 1887, that solidified her belief and commitment in political anarchism.
There is an excellent zine produced by Sprout Distro in Grand Rapids on the history of Anarchism in Grand Rapids, with a section on De Cleyre that is worth citing:
Voltairine De Cleyre was one of the leading figures in the US anarchist space from 1890 to 1910, according to anarchist historian Paul Avrich. DeCleyre was born in the small town of Leslie, Michigan in 1886 and spent the majority of her childhood in St. Johns (both near Lansing). While she lived most of her adult life in Philadelphia, she spent a few years in Grand Rapids in the 1880s. These were important years of her life, marking the period when she became active in radical politics and eventually anarchism. De Cleyre was a prolific writer who wrote both political and literary works, contributing essays and poems to a wide range of anarchist publications. Central to her anarchism was her critique of gender which ran throughout her life’s work, making her one of the major theorists of anarcho-feminism. Her positions with regard to gender were considerable more radical than most feminists of her time (for example, she rejected gender essentialism) and is recognized by at least one of her biographers as “arguably the most radical, revolutionary feminist at the turn of the twentieth century.”
In addition to De Cleyre’s deep feminist thought, she began devoting a great deal of time to the memory and legacy of the Haymarket Martyrs. In fact, between 1895 and 1910, she began to give speeches throughout the midwest and east coast on the anniversary of Haymarket, on May 1. Paul Avrich, the anarchist historian, eventually put together a collection of these Haymarket speeches by De Cleyre, in a small book entitled, The First Mayday: the Haymarket speeches 1895 – 1910.
In the speech she delivered in 1906 in Chicago, De Cleyre shared these eloquent words:
For organizing war upon your system of slavery these men are obnoxious to you; and you seize upon an anonymous act of violence to accuse them of conspiracy! It is ever the coward’s word; and small wonder you impute it to others, in view of the miserable lies and tortures you resort to, to extort confessions of conspiracy from weaklings whom your cruelty drives mad. Well, this time you have overshot the mark. But you wiull not learn by it. So long as teachers rise up to teach the reconstruction of society without you, so long will you do them to death, imprison, persecute somehow until the working people in mass declare an end of your privilege.
However, De Cleyre did not limit herself to writing just about the Haymarket Martyrs. She was a prolific writer of poetry and essays. In her poem entitled, The Burial of My Past, the anarchist wrote:
And now, Humanity, I turn to you;
I consecrate my service to the world!
Perish the old love, welcome the new –
Broad as the space-aisles where the stars are whirled!
Voltairine De Cleyre was an astute observer of the world. She wrote about anarchism and the particularly anarchism in America. She wrote about Direct Action, Crime & Punishment and the Paris Commune. In 1911, the year before she died, she wrote about the Mexican Revolution.
De Cleyre stated, “The Mexican revolution is one of the prominent manifestations of the world-wide economic revolt. It possibly holds as important a place in the present disruption and reconstruction of economic institutions, as the great revolution of France held in the eighteenth century movement.”
Voltairine De Cleyre died in 1912, at the young age of 46. However, despite her short life, she not only impacted those who heard her speeches, she continues to inspire generations of people who will consecrate their service to the world!
For more information on Voltairine De Cleyre, see Paul Avrich’s book, An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre, and The Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre, edited by Alexander Berkman.
Image used here is from a print made by GVSU student Katie Los.
Why are we not focusing as much attention on the Billionaires in our own back yard as we are on Musk and Bezos?
Ever since the January 20th, when Trump reclaimed the White House, there has been a great deal of attention given to Elon Musk’s role in that administration, and rightfully so.
I would encourage people to read the following two articles, both of which provide a substantive critique of Elon Musk and the DOGE. First, is an article entitled, Elon Musk Didn’t Start Flouting The Law With DOGE, which provides solid historical analysis of Musk’s criminal practices. The second article is entitled, The DOGE Charade, which deconstructs what the Musk-led project is actually doing, instead of what he and Trump are claiming.
We should all have nothing but contempt for people who are part of the growing billionaire class. They extract from people and from the earth with the goal of expanding their wealth, regardless of the consequences. I get that people want to focus on Musk and Bezos, but we have Billionaires right here in our community.
There are 11 Billionaires in Michigan and two Billionaire families right here in Grand Rapids…..the Meijer and DeVos families. According to the most recent Forbes Real Time Billionaire page, the Meijer brothers – Doug, Hank and Mark, are all listed as being worth $7.4 billion each. In a recent report, the group Americans for Tax Fairness puts the DeVos family wealth at $5,4 billion collectively. Personally, I think that the DeVos family’s collective wealth is higher than that, but it is so difficult to find hard data, as they, like most members of the Capitalist Class, don’t believe in transparency.
I have written extensively about the DeVos family for more than 30 years, which you can see in my A DeVos Family Reader, entitled, We’re Rich and We Do What We Want. More recently, I wrote a piece, Why are we not more pissed off with the DeVos family regarding the shit show that is the Trump Administration? In that article I provide details on how much money the DeVos family spent in the 2024 election, at the local, state and federal level.
Now, over the past few years, GRIID has been tracking the wealth of the Meijer family, like when we noted that, during the first 18 months of the COVID pandemic, the wealth of Doug & Hank Meijer had grown by $6.7 Billion. We noted that this increased wealth was taking place when so many people were without work and experiencing food insecurity.
Another way that we have looked at the wealth of the Meijer family in recent years is to re-imagine how just the amount of increased wealth they made during the early part of the pandemic could benefit their employees. We noted that if Meijer paid their employees $40 an hour for a 40 hour work week, that would result in a $90,000 annual salary. If Meijer decided to pay their employees such a wage, they would still be worth BILLIONS, meaning their lives would be ridiculously comfortable. The difference is that their employees would now have a less stressful life and be able to have opportunities they didn’t have before.
In another examination of the Meijer family wealth, we wrote in August of 2021:
For the rest of us, we should be marching on the Meijer corporate headquarters at 2929 Walker Ave NW, Grand Rapids, making other demands about wealth redistribution. Imagine what $900 million could do to relieve the harm that thousands of families are currently experiencing in the Greater Grand Rapids area. $900 million would eliminate poverty, homelessness, food insecurity and provide plenty of health care funding. Demanding that the Meijer family give $900 million to be distributed to the thousands of families in this area who are experiencing poverty, systemic racism and other forms of structural violence would still leave Hank & Doug Meijer with $12.6 billion, which I’m sure they could still support their families on.
Considering the fact that the DeVos family is number 49 of the 150 families from the Capitalist Class in the US that contributed over $7 million to the GOP in the 2024 election cycle, it would be safe to say that they are the member of the Billionaire Class in Grand Rapids that is most responsible for the new Trump Administration locally.
If we acknowledge this fact, then why are there no protests and no rage being directed at the DeVos family? Why are we not organizing a campaign to expose them and to undermine their comfort? What is it going to take before we take action action the people who have imposed upon us this nightmare reality we find ourselves in?
Taxing the rich is a nice sentiment, but that is really low hanging fruit. We need to make members of the Billionaire Class, like the DeVos family, feel uncomfortable and let them know that we will not tolerate their efforts to expand their wealth while so many in this community are just trying to survive.
The DeVos family directly contributed to making sure that Donald Trump became President again. Why are we not more pissed off about this family? Like the Meijer family, the DeVos headquarters is located in this city, at the corner of Lyon and Monroe. They have business offices, their investment firm and all of their foundations are housed in one building. Why are we not organizing actions there?
A brief history of International Women’s Day and what is being planned in Grand Rapids
International Women’s Day evolved out of a growing effort amongst women’s and socialist groups to fight for more equality for women at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1908, 15,000 women marched in New York City demanding shorter work hours, better wages and the right to vote. In 1909, the Socialist Party of America designated February 28 as the first National Women’s Day, which was to be celebrated on the last Sunday of every February.
In 1910, at the Second International Conference for Working Women, there was a proposal to have an international women’s day, where women around the world would press for their demands on the same day. The proposal was not adopted until the following year and International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated in several countries around the world. However, something happened just one week later that would galvanize this new international movement.
On March 25, a fire began at the Triangle factory in New York City. It was common practice for factory owners to lock the workers inside until the work day ended and because of that practice 140 women, most Jewish and Italian immigrants, burned to death in that fire. The international women’s movement, labor and socialist movements mobilized around the world to mourn these women and to organize for worker and women’s rights.
For years after the first, the Triangle factory fire became the focus of International Women’s Day and gave birth to the Bread and Roses Campaign. The Bread and Roses Campaign was begun by workers (mostly women) who went on strike at a textile factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts. This strike was organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) with the slogan, “We want Bread, but we want Roses too!”
For decades, International Women’s Day was rooted in the radical tradition, with a deep commitment to intersectionality. Longtime organizer Judy Rebick reflects this in the following comment:
“In the end, my conclusion is that the inter-locking systems of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism will maintain the oppression of women. There is only so far we can go without challenging all of them. That’s why I am thrilled to see the women’s movement become more global, more diverse, more radical and more integrated into other movements for social and environmental change. Even if in the short time, we are less effective in making change, in the long term the change will be deeper and broader.”
What is happening on March 8th in Grand Rapids?
There are not a lot of details about the upcoming March 8th action in Grand Rapids, which is being billed as International Women’s Day – Unite & Resist in Grand Rapids, MI.
The event says it is a Protest/Rally. It is followed by a brief description:
On International Women’s Day, we’re taking to the streets to fight back against the fascist takeover. Join us to defend our rights, our bodies, and our future. No permission needed—just show up and bring others.
This will be a family friendly event peaceful! Please bring signs!
This protest/rally will start at noon at Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids and end at 3:30pm. Unfortunately, no other details are available , with no speakers listed nor are there organizations mention that have organized or sponsored this event.
Earlier today, the Climate Justice Team with the Urban Core Collective (UCC) hosted a Press Conference regarding the increased utility costs that Consumers Energy is imposing on the public. The Press Conference was live streamed and you can watch a video of that live stream here.
Sergio Cira-Reyes, a Climate Justice organizer with UCC, kicked off the Press Conference with these comments:
With the progress of climate change, an alarming crisis is growing as the percentage of income that families have to spend on energy surpasses the 6% allocation that is considered affordable. As recently as 2019, close to 14,000 Kent County families living at 50% of the federal poverty level, were spending 33% of their income on energy costs. Spending six percent of household income on energy costs is considered affordable, yet families are spending more than the 30% that they should be spending on housing alone. Since 2019, the Michigan Public Service Commission has approved a total of $274 million in six annual rate hike requests from Consumers Energy.
A second major points that was raised during the Press Conference, also from Cira-Reyes, was that of all 148 sitting state lawmakers, 102 received campaign funds from DTE Energy or Consumers Energy PACs between 2017 and 2022.” That’s almost 70% of all Michigan lawmakers taking money from the utilities during that time period. The campaign contributions from the utility companies raises serious concerns about whether the policy that the commission leans on to make decisions on our behalf is made by politicians who are in the pockets of the Utilities.
Janet Zahn, who is the Co-Chair of the Grand Rapids Climate Coalition, also spoke during the Press Conference. Zahn addressed how disconcerting it is that Consumer’s Energy was continue to hike utility costs, but was not as committed to increasing the amount of energy it was providing, specifically from renewable sources. Zahn said, “the energy companies should be providing a public service to the communities they operate in, instead of prioritizing profits for their shareholders.”
Another important point that was addressed during the Press Conference had to do with how Consumer’s Energy was disproportionately shutting off electricity to BIPOC consumers. “Besides the less than transparent regulatory process, there are also concerns surrounding reliability and disproportionate disconnection rates tied to race. Consumers Energy ranks among the lowest performers nationwide when it comes to reliability, but most alarming are the systematic disconnections disproportionately targeting BIPOC communities. In his rebuttal testimony to the Michigan Public Service Commission, Boratha Tan on behalf of the Ecology Center, The Environmental Law & Policy Center, The Union of Concerned Scientists and Vote Solar, found a direct correlation between the percentage of people of color living in a census-tract and disconnections by Consumers Energy, even when the area median income was the same. In 2023 “census tracts with a 100% BIPOC population would experience about 120 more residential disconnections compared to a 0% BIPOC population census tract with the same income level.” In other words (using Consumers Energy’s own data), disconnections happen more often in BIPOC communities than in non-BIPOC communities, even when both communities have the same income level.”
The Urban Core Collective (UCC) has decided to intervene, on behalf of residents in Grand Rapids, in order to stop Consumers Energy from increasing rates. In this and past rate cases, UCC also argued for an increase in bill assistance for customers unable to afford electricity, better community engagement and transparency, and equitable investment in energy infrastructure in low-income and BIPOC communities. In the case where the MPSC gave Consumers Energy the green light to increase rates by $92 million, the utility company had sought a $216 million increase in its original application. UCC, along with other advocacy organizations in the state, intervened in that case as well.
Call to Action
The UCC is urging residents to make public comments describing how Consumers Energy’s rate hikes are impacting them. Residents can give their public comment using any of the following three options:
- Attend the next commission meeting on March 13, 2025 which will be take place at 7109 W. Saginaw Highway, Lansing, MI 49817
- Submit a comment via the Michigan Public Service Commission website
- Send a public comment via email by contacting the Commissioners at
lara-mpsc-commissioners@michigan.gov.
If you are interested in the work of the Urban Core Collective’s Climate Justice Team, you can contact Sergio Cira-Reyes directly at sergio@uccgr.org.
The English Only Executive Order from Trump fulfilled a decades-long effort by xenophobic organizations
On March 1st, the Trump Administration put forth an Executive Order that designates English as the official language of the United States.
The move follows the Trump administration’s termination of the Spanish-language version of the White House website and its Spanish-language account on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Both were abruptly shut down within hours of Trump’s second presidential inauguration. Visitors to whitehouse.gov/espanol were met with “page not found” and a “GO HOME” button that sent the user to the English-language page. This button was later updated to read, “GO TO HOME PAGE.”
Part of the Executive Order states:
From the founding of our Republic, English has been used as our national language. Our Nation’s historic governing documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have all been written in English. It is therefore long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States. A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language.
Historically, the U.S. has had no official language, and Spanish was spoken in the lands that now make up the U.S. well before the country’s founding.
Today, there are approximately 43 million people in the U.S. that speak Spanish as their primary language, representing roughly 14% of the entire population. If those who speak Spanish as their second language are included, then the U.S. is the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world after Mexico.
Another inaccuracy from the Trump Executive Order to make English the official language of the US is this comment – Our Nation’s historic governing documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have all been written in English.
The U.S. Constitution was translated into German and Dutch in 1787 and 1788, languages that were widely spoken at the time, especially in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. These translations helped inform the public of the country’s foundational values and allowed for public engagement and participation during the ratification process.
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion and sex, also laid the legal foundation for multilingual services in federal assistance programs. In government programs such as Medicaid, people who speak a language other than English are entitled to treatment equal to that of English speakers.
If you attend a Grand Rapids City Commission meeting, they offer a Spanish language interpreter, even for those wishing to participate in Public Comment. However, the Kent County Commission meetings DO NOT provide translation nor interpretation, despite the fact that there are 11.7 Latino/Hispanics living in Kent County, according to the 2023 US Census.
English Only
For decades there has been an organized effort to make English the official language of the US, starting as far back as the early 1930s, when the America First movement was in fully swing. (See Erika Lee’s book, America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States)
Beginning in the early 1980s groups like US English were formed and, “dedicated to making English the official language of the United States through amendments made to the US constitution,” according to SourceWatch.
US English was also connected to the John Tanton Network, a group of anti-immigration organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform and Center for Immigration Studies.
Over the years they spent millions of dollars lobbying the US Congress to make English the official language. Some of their largest funders were:
- Aequus Institute: $4,000.00 (2004-2008)
- Bill and Berniece Grewcock Foundation: $4,000.00 (1999-2000)
- The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation: $6,000.00 (2002-2007)
- Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation: $248,000.00 (1998, 2000-2001, 2003-2008)
- Donors Capital Fund: $55,000.00 (2007, 2009-2011)
- DonorsTrust: $11,350.00 (2004-2005, 2007-2010)
- Lowndes Foundation: $500.00 (2004)
- The Roe Foundation: $10,000.00 (1998-2005, 2008-2009)
- The Whitcomb Charitable Foundation: $13,000.00 (2007-2011)
Not only did the DeVos family fund this effort, Helen DeVos was part of the Advisory Board of US English up until 2013. This relationship between the DeVos family and the far right agenda, underscores the point I was making in an article last month, entitled, Why are we not more pissed off with the DeVos family regarding the shit show that is the Trump Administration? So why aren’t we protesting outside of the DeVos complex in downtown Grand Rapids?
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 