The local food justice group Our Kitchen Table will be hosting a workshop on how to can dill pickles this Saturday.
Part of OKT’s mission is to provide people with the skills necessary to become more food independent and create greater food sovereignty in the Greater Grand Rapids area.
People can bring jars and ingredients if they want to this Saturday. The ingredients that will be used are pickling cucumbers, distilled vinegar, salt, peppercorns, fresh dill and fresh garlic.
Pickle canning workshop
Saturday, July 28
2 – 4pm
Madison Square CRC
1441 Madison SE, Grand Rapids
For more information on this event or other OKT projects and resources, call 616-570-0218.
Arab Spring, Libyan Winter: Interview with Vijay Prashad
This video is re-posted from ZNet.
Vijay Prashad discusses with Newsclick how the US and its allies have struck back against the mass movements that overthrew Ben Ali and Mubarak. This is what he terms as the Libyan Winter. He analyses the forces that the US and its allies are putting together and the danger to the region from these forces.
Prashad is the author of the recently released book Arab Spring, Libyan Winter, published by AK Press.
Why don’t we just talk about the weather……
It is a late Saturday afternoon in July as I compose another column for Recoil. The most obvious and most pressing issue to write about seems to be the weather.
So far, there have been multiple days of record-breaking temperatures in Michigan and across the country, along with extreme lows in precipitation. Trees in my backyard are losing leaves and everywhere I look yards are brown.
The heat has been so oppressive that it is frequently the first thing people talk about, even in very casual settings. To date MLive has run a few stories about the record temperatures, but only one story that “asked” the question of whether or not the most recent heat wave is related to climate change.
I’m not going to waste writing about the need to respond to the oil-industry funded global warming denial sectors in the US, other than to say that it is absurd that much of the US news media still provides equal time/print space to those who claim that human activity has not contributed to climate change. Even in Grand Rapids we have meteorologists who deny there is any evidence that global warming is even an issue.
Instead, I want to address people who have come to terms with the fact that climate change is real and might be the most urgent issue of this generation. Still, it is not an easy topic to address. First, because it often feels quite overwhelming and secondly, most of us don’t haven’t really felt the direct effects of global warming both because of our privileges in the world and our location.
However, there are millions of people who are suffering the direct effects of global warming right now around the world. One well-researched book worth reading that sheds light on this fact is Christian Parenti’s, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence. Parenti documents how global warming has caused massive displacement, drought, unstable weather patterns, food & water shortages and has even forced the US military to develop strategic planning scenarios for the future when more people will be scrambling for a declining amount of livable space.
Since we have the privilege of not enduring these hardships brought about because of climate change, we have the opportunity and responsibility to do something about it.
Ever since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007, the consensus amongst the scientific and environmental community was that the world needed to reduce current carbon emission levels 80% by 2050. This means we have less than 4 decades to reduce current carbon emission levels by 80% or we will have gone past the point of no return. Serious stuff.
Unfortunately, what many environmentalists and green capitalists have done since then is to convince us to buy electric cars and put florescent light bulbs in our homes, which will do virtually nothing to reduce the level of carbon emissions necessary for future survival. Now, I’m not saying people can’t make lifestyle changes, which would be wise even if we weren’t at a critical stage in history, but lets be honest and acknowledge that carbon emissions are primarily produced from institutional entities and systems.
Climate activists are well aware of the fact that industrial manufacturing, agribusiness, fossil fuel driven transportation and militarism are the four main generators of carbon emissions. Each of these systems perpetually engage in practices that by their very nature are ecologically destructive and impact global warming. Whether it is clear-cutting forests for crops, paving over soil for roads, using coal-powered electricity to manufacture products or the consumption of millions of gallons of oil daily to power the US military alone, these are the real culprits that need to be drastically altered or dismantled if we are serious about the 80% reduction by 2050. In fact, each of these institutions could be radically altered if we abolished the system of capitalism.
Of course, there is no easy plan of action and no 10 simple things you can do to save the planet blueprints here. However, the first task would be to recognize that these are the things that cause the most damage and therefore that is where we should put our energies.
Some easy targets for action would be to stop the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, which means no more pumping and exploring for oil, no more mining of coal and no more extracting of natural gas, particularly through the method known as fracking.
A great deal more could be said about what needs to be done and how we do it, but this is a conversation that should be had in the company of other people who also want to seriously and honestly take action to respect life on this planet. Hell, who knows, it might even be fun and rewarding. A good place to start in Grand Rapids would be with the group Mutual Aid GR, which is hosting an Action Meeting on August 8 at John Ball Park.
No Compromise in defense of Mother Earth!
Yesterday, MLive ran a short article about an upcoming Youth Summit being held at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids.
The article states that the focus of the summit is on the “Great Lakes Water Resources,” and that the student participants will, “examine the many competing demands for Great Lakes waters and create sustainable solutions for the future health and vitality of this precious natural resource.”
The Youth Summit is being put on by a group known as, The Keystone Center, which the MLive article provides a hyperlink to. However, the MLive reporter offers no description of The Keystone Center only to say that it brings together public and private partners.
The Keystone Center is dominated by corporations on both their board and on every advisory members group they have for each area of their work. For instance, the Field to Market project is centered around agriculture, but is dominated by corporations such as Cargill, Monsanto, Bayer CropScience, DuPont and Coca Cola.
The Keystone Center has a Biotechnology Advisory Board, a Green Products Roundtable and a Surface Mining in Appalachia project. Their Energy program is also stocked with corporate board members, from such eco-friendly entities such as Shell, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Duke Energy Corporation, the American Petroleum Institute (lobbying group for big oil) and the Nuclear Energy Institute (lobbying wing of the nuclear industry).
The list of board members for all of their projects don’t exactly inspire tremendous environmental optimism. When looking at the organizations sponsoring the Youth Policy Summits, it is like a who’s who of anti-environmental corporations. This list includes The Altria Group (formerly Phillip Morris), the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, Coca Cola, Cargill, ConAgra, Dow Chemical, DTE Energy, GM, Merck, Shell, Verizon and WalMart.
One can only imagine the kind of information that students will get at the Youth Summit. It seems clear that The Keystone Center is nothing more than a front group for corporate America, with a mission to influence young minds on how “Green” the member corporations are.
As we have reported in previous months, the DeVos family continues to be a major financial funder in the 2012 elections.
According to the most recent data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the DeVos family has contributed collectively just over a half a million dollars so far in the 2012 election cycle – $571,000. However, it is important to note that this is just the amount they have collectively contributed from the 49503 zip code and we all know that most of them have multiple homes in multiple locations.
Here is a breakdown of the DeVos Family 2012 Election cycle contributions:
Dan DeVos $87,800
Richard DeVos $85,900
Dick DeVos $71,800
Betsy DeVos $70,800
Pam DeVos $68,300
Helen DeVos $62,900
Doug DeVos $62,800
Maria DeVos $58,300
Rick DeVos $2,500
The DeVos family members have also used a variety of titles and affiliations when making contributions such as Amway, Alticor, The Windquest Group, RDV Corp, The Orlando Magic, DP Fox Venture, Self-Employed and my favorite…….homemaker. Betsy DeVos actually referred to herself as a homemaker.
By posting this information on how much money the DeVos family has contributed to the 2012 election cycle is not just to make a point about their desire to influence the outcome of the elections, it is also to acknowledge that this is just one tactic they use to influence economic and political policy.
The DeVos family has inserted themselves in many other capacities in order to influence and benefit from political and economic policy, such as owning prime property in downtown Grand Rapids, owning sports teams, funding cultural events, sitting on the board of the Right Place, being part of the Econ Club of Grand Rapids, the One Kent Coalition, the West Michigan Policy Forum, Grand Action and the Regional Air Alliance of West Michigan.
This of course is not an exhaustive list of where DeVos family members or their money is involved, but it does remind us of how much power they wield in West Michigan and why that power must be challenged.
This article by Glen Ford is re-posted from Black Agenda Report.
Earlier this month, on a Friday evening after most of the White House press corps had gone home, President Obama gave himself the power to take over, or shut down, all of the nation’s communications systems – including the Internet. The executive order is supposedly designed to preserve “survivable, resilient, enduring” and effective communications so that the government can speak to the people in the event of some emergency. But what he has authorized is the imposition of total silence except for the sound of his own voice.
Clearly, in a legitimate emergency, the government needs ways to communicate – but that does not require a monopoly. So, why is Obama giving himself – and any president that follows him into the Oval Office – a total communications on-and-off switch?
The administration claims it is authorized to bring all communications under its control by the 1934 Communications Act, which allows the takeover of broadcast stations and other wireless media if there exists a state of war, or the threat of war. Back then, of course, the public was fairly sure that they knew what “war” was: Congresses declared it. The “threat” of war was pretty self-evident, too: it was when other nations were threatening to attack the United States, or vice-versa.
However, we are now in what both Presidents Bush and Obama have made clear is a perpetual war, a war that is not defined by any legal norms or foundational statutes, a war against whoever the president decides is the enemy – which can include American citizens. Both of these War Presidents have told us in multitudinous ways that we are on a war footing – and have not been off it since 9/11, and will not be on any other kind of footing until some future president gives the “all clear” sign.
Obama’s executive order has nothing to do with getting out an effective distress call to the nation during a crisis. The “emergency” he has in mind is a State of Emergency – martial law. He is methodically preparing the infrastructure for a police state. Obama already has in place his preventive detention legislation, which he signed into law in the news-less hours of last New Year’s Eve. It empowers the president to lock up whomever he chooses, without charges or trial, and to keep them for as long as the executive sees fit. Based on the near-limitless powers Obama already claims to possess, he can also kill such enemies of the state if that is in the interests of national security in this time of war. There is nothing that he recognizes as law that says he can’t take such drastic executive action against thousands, or tens of thousands of Americans in one sweep.
And now, with his new executive order, if the president finds it convenient, he can take over the national communications network – down to the last, feeble Internet voice – to explain why it was necessary for all those people to disappear.
Or maybe he’ll say nothing at all. And nobody else will dare to say anything, either.
There is a new report from the group Political Research Associates (PRA) that looks at recent reactions and campaigns from the right wing against LGBT organizing entitled, Resisting The Rainbow: Right-Wing Responses to LGBT Gains.
Since the 1980s there have been many gains made by the LGBT community across the country, but anti-gay organizations and individuals have not remained silence or complacent in the face of these gains, according to the new report from PRA.
The new report identifies these key aspects of the right wing response to LGBT gains:
- Conservative religious interests are alive and well, and they continue to transmit homophobic messages.
- Although the Christian Right is still influential, the political landscape has changed.
- The use of homophobia as a political tool is still a successful strategy for mobilizing and increasing right-wing political power.
- The Right has developed a limited, but repeatedly-used, set of homophobic arguments. Many homo-phobic frames get recycled, especially if they were successful in the past.
- The Right’s anti-LGBT strategies are complex and sophisticated.
- The current broad coalition on the Right, including the Tea Party, must be taken seriously, especially in the 2012 elections. Not only could the presidency be held by a conservative, but any number of state or local fights could be swayed towards conservative results.
- Some anti-LGBT organizations have surprising levels of influence.
- Despite clear indications they are losing the war on LGBT rights, the Christian Right core of the anti-LGBT movement will not soon abandon its opposition.
- Funding streams for anti-LGBT campaigns continue to come from many of the traditional foundation and individual sources that fund other Religious Right causes, but there are new developments.
The report also includes case studies and profiles of prominent anti-LGBT individuals and organizations.
Of particular importance are the list of recommendations by PRA that current LGBT organizing and campaigns should take to heart. Too often progressive or left groups tend to dismiss the right wing, particularly the religious right wing, as just crazy, but this is a mistake. These recommendations provide a useful framework for long-term strategizing.
- Keep the long view. It is tempting to focus only on the LGBT issue of the moment, whether it be legislative, judicial, or cultural. Such threats necessarily require immediate resources and creative tactics. But it is also necessary to look beyond today’s right-wing campaigns and the next election cycle, to consider the overall context of the LGBT movement, including key trends and future possibilities.
- Interpret data about the Right to create a solid analysis that fuels strategic opportunities. So much information is readily available now from a wide array of sources that it is sometimes difficult to separate reliable facts from conclusions based on assumptions. It is vital to screen available information for its dependability, and analyze the data to identify salient issues and frames. Only careful consideration of the Right’s use of frames, both within and outside the anti-LGBT arena, will help activists determine their direction and strength. Funders should support LGBT organizations and their allies to undertake this type of research.
- Reevaluate the progressive LGBT movement’ s goals and focus.
- Cultivate broader coalitions across issue areas to develop allies, increase support, and contribute to a broader social justice agenda.
- Prepare for the inevitable backlash.
This useful and timely report should come as an important asset in the continuing struggle for LGBT and Queer justice no matter where you live.
This Day in Resistance History: Declaration of Sentiments at Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls 1848
On July 19, 1848, hundreds of women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to kickoff the Women’s Rights Convention, which gave birth to the Suffrage Movement.
The convention began with Elizabeth Cady Stanton reading what was called the Declaration of Sentiments. After reading the Declaration the first time, Stanton read it again, section by section, so those in attendance could deliberate on each part. The Declaration was revised and then voted on for approval by the women.
This Declaration was a set of resolutions and list of sentiments that clearly set the tone for greater women’s equality. The Declaration of Sentiments begins with a re-writing of the Declaration of Independence to include the rights and freedoms of women, which was then followed by this list of facts about how men have treated women:
- He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
- He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
- He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.
- Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
- He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.4
- He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.5
- He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
- He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.
- After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government, which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.
- He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.
- He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.
- He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education—all colleges being closed against her.6
- He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.
- He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.
- He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.
- He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.
This list of facts is a powerful indictment against Patriarchy and those who have benefited from it.
Considering the ongoing war against women, it would serve us well to not only become familiar with the ground-breaking work of the women at Seneca Falls in 1848, but to take a cue from them on the need to be clear about what is being done to women today and what direction the current women’s movement must take.
For those of us who identify as men, this date in resistance history should be a clarion call to not only be in solidarity with women, but to fight against male privilege and patriarchy in all its manifestations.
This article by Glen Ford is re-posted from Black Agenda Report.
The Obama Justice Department is in theater mode, again, pretending to threaten the bankster class with criminal penalties – prison time! – for their manipulation of the global economy’s benchmark interest rates.
The Justice Department claims to be building criminal and civil cases in the LIBOR scandal, which in sheer scope is the biggest fraud by international capital in history. But that’s all a front, a farce. Barack Obama has spent his entire presidency protecting Wall Street, starting with his rescue of George Bush’s bank bailout bill after it’s initial defeat in Congress, in the last days of Obama’s candidacy. He packed his administration with banksters, passed his own bailout and, in collaboration with the Federal Reserve, channeled at least $16 trillion dollars into the accounts of U.S. and even European banks – by far the greatest transfer of capital in the history of the world. Obama has reminded the banksters that it was he who saved them from the “pitchforks” of an outraged public. He pushed through Congress so-called financial reform legislation that left derivatives – the deadly instruments of mass financial destruction that were at the heart of the meltdown – untouched.
Wall Street may or may not remain loyal to Obama, but Obama has been loyal to Wall Street, the guys who gave him the campaign cash to become a viable candidate. His Attorney General, Eric Holder, a corporate lawyer to the core, is busily staging a pre-emptive LIBOR prosecution of bankers in order to shield them from legal action by a host of other government agencies and, ultimately, from the global universe of parties that have been harmed by the bankster’s schemes– a list that stretches to infinity. Holder’s job is to monopolize the LIBOR case, to the extent legally and humanly possible, grabbing jurisdiction and consolidating the cases against the banks with the aim of reaching a settlement that does not further destabilize the financial system.
Holder and his boss already pulled that trick earlier this year with settlement of the bank “robo-signing” scandal – a scheme that would have ranked as the “crime of the century” until LIBOR came along. A small group of state attorney generals were holding up an administration-brokered settlement that effectively gave the banksters immunity from prosecution, in return for a measly $25 billion payout. Obama used every power of his office to pressure the state law officers into line. The last one capitulated with a promise from Obama that a “special unit of prosecutors” would expand the investigation into abusive mortgages practices. You haven’t heard a peep about it, since.
Now Obama and Holder are playing the same diversionary game, making tough noises about criminal investigations of the LIBOR conspirators. But the Justice Department has already given immunity to Barclay’s Bank, of Britain, and to the Swiss banking giant UBS. More immunities will follow. The reason Eric Holder is staging criminal investigations is because that’s the only way he can protect the bankers, through immunities and by gradually narrowing the scope of the case. In the end, there will be settlements all around, and the banksters will move on to even more fantastic heights of criminality – thanks to the loyal, protective hands of President Obama.
Earlier today about 250 activists from across the state came to Lansing to continue the fight against legislation that would deny women reproductive rights.
Today’s rally and lobbying effort was a follow up to the June 12th rally that initially brought women and men out to protest those in the Michigan Legislature who attempted to silence female colleagues who dared to use the word vagina when talking about reproductive justice.
Beginning at 10am, some women gathered on the capitol steps to help take copies of a petition signed by over 115,000 people demanding an end to the anti-women legislation passed or proposed in the Michigan Legislature in recent months.
Starting at 11am, the formal rally began that included numerous female speakers from around the state. There were women from the National Organization of Women, the Michigan Nurses Association, Planned Parenthood, Breastfeeding Mothers Unite and Mothering Justice.
An organizer with Mothering Justice was the first to speak and made it clear that this rally and this movement was not just about reproductive justice, but many justice issues. They laid out their plan to fight for what they referred to as Our Mama’s Agenda:
- Paid Sick Days
- Access to Affordable Child Care
- The Elimination of Wage Theft
- A Higher Minimum Wage
- Paid Medical Leave Insurance for Every Worker
The speaker from Mothering Justice stressed that these issues are inseparable and that we need to fight for all of them together. Other women stressed the need to organize and educate about this issue from now until Election day, while others shared person stories about being discriminated and excluded from the political process.
There were several organizations that also had information tables and before the formal rally began there was a spoken word artist who had written two poems in response to the absurdity that a state legislator could not use the word vagina during political debate. There was also a fabulous sing along, where people used traditional songs, changed the lyrics and inserted the word vagina whenever possible. One example was the Beatles song, She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, which was song with the words, Vagina, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
After the hour-long rally people then went to their State Representative or State Senators office to demand that they vote against any of the proposed legislation that has been detrimental to women’s rights.
We also took time to interview Dani Vilella, an organizer with NOW in Grand Rapids, who also works for Planned Parenthood about the day’s event.
