For the third year in a row, the Grand Rapids branch of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) will host its May Day celebration at Martin Luther King Park.
The celebration is a commemoration of the historic event known as the Haymarket Affair, which took place in 1886 in Chicago where the state engaged a brutal labor suppression that led to the execution of several labor organizers.
The May Day Celebration is also a way that working people celebrate their power as workers, build mutual aid between each other and resist the capitalist class, which will stop at nothing to expand their profits at workers expense.
This years’ event will include numerous information tables, a Really, Really Free Market, children’s activities, a community potluck and local live music from noon until 9pm. For a listing of the bands, check out the facebook event page. There will also be several people from the community speaking on a variety of justice issues between bands and several poets.
May Day Celebration
Saturday, April 28
Noon – 9pm
Martin Luther King Jr. Park
Corner of Franklin & Fuller in Grand Rapids
Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchu speaks in Kalamazoo
On Friday night several hundred people came out to hear the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Mench Tum. The Nobel Laureate and Guatemalan Mayan spoke on the campus of Western Michigan.
Rigoberta began by talking about the Mayan calendar and Mayan cosmology and its relation to our ability to see the present and the future.
The Nobel Laureate cautioned that we not just look into the future less we become utopic. If we are paying attention to the present we will be able to concentrate on the work we need to do. Rigoberta encouraged the audience to do both, so that we not lose sight of what we want while we do the work we need to do.
Rigoberta continued by talking about the importance of seeing ourselves as a continuation of our ancestors, those who came before us millions of years ago. We are their continuation. “In our ceremonies we celebrate this lineage by always going back seven generations. My name is the same as my grandmother and her grandmother, which in Mayan culture is a way of continually remembering those who came before us.”
Rigoberta then talked about when she won the Nobel Peace Prize 20 years ago. She was living in exile at the time, working with refugees, while the country was in the midst of a war that no one knew when it would end. The country was suffering from a genocidal policy at the hands of the Guatemalan military. Looking back she sees how much has changed, but that so much work needs to continue.
She acknowledged that today the poverty is pervasive in Guatemala, effecting millions. When she goes into the villages she tries to encourage people to do something to change that reality. “We try to encourage each other to contribute something, no matter how small.”
“The solidarity amongst ourselves, and that which we develop with our youth, is a tremendous gift for the future. We have to enthusiastically support education for our youth, we cannot put our faith in the government to fulfill that goal.”
The first question asked of Rigoberta, during the Q&A, was if she would ever consider running for president in her native country of Guatemala. She said she has always fought in two systems, the Mayan system and the Western system, which is full of rules. “Our struggle is between these two systems, where the one does not recognize our traditions and our ancestral system. Another tradition is to not take our land, our water and the other natural resources that we rely on for sustenance.”
“So, if I was President these two systems would still be fighting, so until there is no conflict between these systems, then real change will come. I consider myself as a political person and was part of the first Mayan political party, which did not come about until after the civil war ended. This party is not only Mayan, but it is made up of lots of women, Mayan women who are in leadership positions. It will be a process that will not come quickly to end racism and sexism, but I believe it will happen.”
The next person asked the question about the claim that the Mayan calendar predicts that the world will come to an end in 2012. Rigoberta responded by saying she began her talk by recognizing the Mayan calendar, but she never talked about an end to this world.
She said that this fear mongering is a product of Hollywood to make money. She also said that this hype around the Mayan calendar has political motives of some in order to control the actions of others. She did acknowledge that this is “a time of no time,” where humans live in spiritual, social and material decadence. Therefore,” we need to bring about equilibrium and balance. This is how we prevent the end of the world.”
While it was delightful to hear Rigoberta Menchu speak again, especially after doing human rights work with her in Guatemala, it was somewhat disappointing that there was little information about what is happening in that Central American country today, especially the recent genocide cases.
This article by Jordan Flaherty is re-posted from Dissident Voice.
On April 20, 2010, a reckless attitude towards the safety of the Gulf Coast by BP, as well as Transocean and Halliburton, caused a well to blow out 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. As the world watched in horror, underwater cameras showed a seemingly endless flow of oil – hundreds of millions of gallons – and a series of failed efforts to stop it, over a period of nearly three months. Two years later, that horror has not ended for many on the Gulf.
“People should be aware that the oil is still there,” says Wilma Subra, a chemist who travels widely across the Gulf meeting with fishers and testing seafood and sediment samples for contamination.
Subra says that the reality she is seeing on the ground contrasts sharply with the image painted by BP. “I’m extremely concerned on the impact it’s having on all these sick individuals,” she says. Subra believes we may be just at the beginning of this disaster. In every community she visits, fishers show her shrimp born without eyes, fish with lesions, and crabs with holes in their shells. She says tarballs are still washing up on beaches across the region.
While it’s too early to assess the long-term environmental impact, a host of recent studies published by the National Academy of Sciences and other respected institutions have shown troubling results. They describe mass deaths of deepwater coral, dolphins, and killifish, a small animal at the base of the Gulf food chain. “If you add them all up, it’s clear the oil is still in the ecosystem, it’s still having an effect,” says Aaron Viles, deputy director of Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental organization active in the region.
The major class action lawsuit on behalf of communities affected by the spill has reached a proposed 7.8 billion dollar settlement, subject to approval by a judge. While this seems to have brought a certain amount of closure to the saga, environmentalists worry that any settlement is premature, saying they fear that the worst is yet to come. Pointing to the 1989 Exxon spill off the coast of Alaska, previously the largest oil spill in US waters, Viles said that it was several years before the full affect of that disaster was felt. “Four seasons after Exxon Valdez is when the herring fisheries collapsed,” says Viles. “The Gulf has been a neglected ecosystem for decades – we need to be monitoring it closely.”
In the aftermath of the spill, BP flooded the Gulf with nearly 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants. While BP says these chemicals broke up the oil, some scientists have said this just made it less visible, and sent the poisons deeper into the food chain.
It is widely agreed that environmental problems on the coast date back to long before the well blew open. The massive catastrophe brought into focus problems that have existed for a generation. Land loss caused by oil company drilling has already displaced many who lived by the coast, and the pollution from treatment plants has poisoned communities across the state – especially in “cancer alley,” the corridor of industrial facilities along the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge. “The Gulf is a robust ecosystem and it’s been dying the death of a thousand cuts for a long time,” says Viles. “BP is legally obligated to fix what they screwed up. But if you’re only obligated to put the ecosystem back to where it was April 19, 2010, why would we?”
In the aftermath of the spill, BP flooded the Gulf with nearly 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants. While BP says these chemicals broke up the oil, some scientists have said this just made it less visible, and sent the poisons deeper into the food chain.
Fishing is a huge part of the economy for the Gulf Coast. Around 40% of the seafood caught in the continental US comes from here. Many area fishermen were still recovering from Hurricane Katrina when the spill closed a third of Gulf waters to fishing for months. George Barisich, president of the United Commercial Fisherman’s Association, a group that supports Gulf Coast fishers, says many fishers still had not recovered from Hurricane Katrina when the oil started flowing from the BP spill. Now, he says, many are facing losing their homes. “Production is down at least 70 percent,” compared to the year before the spill, he says. “And prices are still depressed thirty, forty, sixty percent.”
In a video statement on BP’s website, Geir Robinson, Vice President of Economic Restoration for BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization, says that the company believes the legal settlement will resolve most legitimate economic claims. “We do have critics,” adds Robinson. “And we’re working hard every day to show them that we will meet our responsibilities.”
Environmentalists and scientists also complain that Obama administration has let down the Gulf Coast. Viles is critical of the role the US government has played, saying that by inaction they seemed to protect BP more than coastal communities or the environment. “The coast guard seems to empower the worst instincts of BP,” Viles says. “I don’t know if it’s Stockholm Syndrome or what.”
International environmental groups have also joined in the criticism. Oceana, a conservation group with offices in Europe and the Americas, released a report on Tuesday criticizing the US government’s reforms as being either ineffective or nonexistent, saying “offshore drilling remains as risky and dangerous as it was two years ago, and that the risk of a major spill has not been effectively reduced.”
Theresa Dardar lives in Bayou Pointe-au-Chien, a Native American fishing community on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. Dardar and her neighbors have seen their land vanish from under their feet within their lifetimes due to canals built by the oil companies to access wells. The canals brought salt water into freshwater marshes, helping cause the coastal erosion that sees Louisiana lose a football field of land every 45 minutes. The main street that runs through the community now disappears into the swamps, with telephone poles sticking out of the water.
Now, in addition to worries about disappearing land and increasing risk of hurricanes, she fears that her family’s livelihood is gone for good.“It’s not going to be over for years,” she says, expressing a widely held concern among fishers here. “We’re just a small Native American fishing community. That’s all they’ve done their whole lives. Some of them are over 60. What are they going to do? If BP gives them money for the rest of their lives, that’s one thing. But if not, then what can they do?”
Defending Reproductive Justice: An Activist Toolkit
During the 2012 election cycle we have certainly seen plenty of examples of what many might refer to as a war on women and women’s rights in the US.
While this is certainly true both rhetorically and legislatively, it is not a new dynamic. Susan Faludi makes the case in her book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, a book that was written in 1992.
Faludi and many other feminist writers have been arguing for decades that the patriarchal institutions in US society – governmental, religious and private – have been responding to the gains made by women during the 1960s and 70s and won’t stop until they can undo those gains.
Unfortunately, many progressive sectors have limited the fight to partisan politics, which often ignores how both major parties have been eroding women’s rights, in particular reproductive rights, since the Reagan years.
Fortunately, there are some very good resources available to people who want to fight to protect and expand women’s rights.
One such resource is Defending Reproductive Justice: An Activist Toolkit, produced by the group Political Research Associates. The toolkit was originally published in 2000, but was updated in 2009 and made available online for easier access.
In the reproductive justice toolkit you will find an excellent overview of what the Right Claims about reproductive issues. This information is both disturbing and valuable for anyone who wants to come to terms with what the Right is advocating.
There is a second section that presents a progressive analysis of the Right’s claims, which is highly informative in understanding the evolution of tactics used to undermine reproductive rights.
Another section in the activist toolkit is a list of tips for challenging the Right’s assault on women’s reproductive rights. Some of these tips include the importance of understanding the complexity of this right movement and that we should mostly focus on the issues and not the characters involved.
Lastly, the toolkit provides a solid bibliography for further reading and a resource list of groups across the country that are dedicated to Reproductive Justice.
Stop the War on Women Rally in Grand Rapids
In addition to the activist toolkit, we would encourage people to participate in a public rally being billed as the Stop WOW Rally GR. The rally is being organized by several area women’s groups and will take place on Saturday, May 24 from 6 – 8pm at the Rosa Park’s Circle in downtown Grand Rapids.
New Media We Recommend
Below is a list of new materials that we have read/watched in recent weeks. The comments are not a “review” of the material, instead sort of an endorsement of ideas and investigations that can provide solid analysis and even inspiration in the struggle for change. All these items are available at The Bloom Collective, so check them out and stimulate your mind.
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, edited by Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank – This collection of essays, that cover from the 2008 election to the present, is a perfect antidote for the pressure those of the left get from Democrats to vote for the “lesser of evils.” Hopeless offers clear analysis and well-documented evidence that the despite all the 2008 hype, real change has not come with the Obama administration. For those who still want to blame the GOP, they ought to sit down and read this collection of essays that deal with war, foreign policy, reproductive rights, labor issues, the economy, government surveillance, environmental devastation, media policy, immigration, corporate power, lobbying, energy policy, Wall Street, housing foreclosures and racism. The co-editors end the volume with a simple message of……..occupy everything.
Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange, by Fred Wilcox – What the US government did to the people of Vietnam and to its own soldiers by using Agent Orange is one of the most tragic chapters in the history of US foreign policy. Fred Wilcox presents this history through well-researched information and the testimony of US soldiers and their family members who continue to live with the consequences of this chemical weapon. Wilcox also chronicles the history of how the US government denied the harmed caused by Agent Orange to US soldiers. Waiting for an Army to Die is a powerful book that would cause any reasonable person to have nothing but contempt towards the company that manufactured this deadly chemical, Michigan’s own, Dow Chemical.
The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives, by Gilbert Achcar – One of the justifications that Zionists will use for Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine and its treatment of Palestinians is the Nazi Holocaust. Middle East scholar Gilbert Achcar looks at this contentious history and the narratives used on both sides as it relates to the Nazi Holocaust. Achcar divides his analysis into two main section; the period from 1933 – 1947 and from 1947 to the present. In both periods, Achcar looks at how the Arab community viewed the Nazi Holocaust and the clear differences from what he calls the pre-Nakba. The Nakba is what the Palestinians refer to as the ethnic cleansing done by the Israelis against the Palestinians just prior to the creation of the state of Israel. The Arabs and the Holocaust is an important contribution to the historical understanding of ideological differences between Israelis and Arabs, an understanding that is essential for anyone concerned about the future of the Middle East.
Visions of Abolition: From Critical Resistance to a New Way of Life (DVD) – A new documentary that introduces the history, theory and practices of the contemporary prison abolition movement. Weaving together the voices of women entangled in the criminal justice system, along with leading scholars on prison abolition (Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore), this film provides a critical analysis of the disfunctionality and violence of the prison system. The film focuses on the life story of Susan Burton demonstrating how her work at “A New Way of Life” is an inspiring example of abolition in practice. The film provides both a strong critique of the prison industrial complex and the importance of organizing for prison abolition. A great organizing tool!
Yesterday, MLive ran a story based on a brief conversation that several Michigan reporters had with Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, while visiting with US troops in Afghanistan.
“This has been a tremendous experience,” Snyder said. “This is a fabulous opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to the troops in person. There’s great pride. These men and women are making a great sacrifice, putting their lives at risk and service us wonderfully.”
The article also stated that Governor Snyder was on a trip organized by the Department of Defense and that he was traveling with other Governors. What the MLive story did not report was that these trips were no doubt part of a military psy-ops campaign to gain additional support for the US occupation of Afghanistan from US politicians, as was reported last year.
These visits are designed to show a controlled aspect of US military operation in Afghanistan and to communicate key points to visiting officials from the US. Michigan Governor Snyder seems to be embracing their message based on the MLive story and the embedded video, where Snyder is responding to questions from several Michigan reporters.
Snyder stated several times that he was there to “thank the troops and learn about the sacrifices the soldiers are making for us.” Snyder said he was taken to a forward operating base and that the “progress the soldiers were making was amazing.”
Snyder also stated that he was there to talk to Michigan soldiers and to let them know he would be working to find jobs for them when they came back. Unemployment rates for US veterans has always been a problem and last year Business Week reported that unemployment for young veterans was as high as 30%.
During the video interview, WOOD TV8 reporter Rick Albin asked Governor Snyder about the moral of the US troops, particularly in light of the recent pictures of troops holding up body parts of Afghanis the soldiers had killed. Albin did qualify his question by stating that this action was only done by a few of the US soldiers, a qualification which speaks to how well the channel 8 reporter accepts the State Department’s explanation for yet another documented incident where US troops are celebrating the brutality of war. This kind of framing minimizes and marginalizes the level of violence that occurs on a daily basis at the hands of US soldiers, NATO troops and Afghan military personnel working in conjunction with the US operation.
Snyder’s response to Albin’s question avoided talking about the US troops holding up body parts. Instead, the Michigan Governor stated that the “service they were giving was incredible. I wish more Americans could see what our soldiers are doing for us.”
None of the Michigan reporters question this claim or asked how the US occupation of Afghanistan actually served Americans.
It will be interesting in the coming weeks to see how much Governor Snyder makes a point of publicly supporting the US war in Afghanistan, especially now that he has had the official tour provided by the Department of Defense.
Mutual Aid GR produces Zine in preparation for People’s Assembly on Radical Sustainability this Saturday
This Saturday, people with gather to discuss and organize around ways that people can both resist the current environmental catastrophe and create models of living that do not perpetuate the capitalist model, green or otherwise.
People involved with Mutual Aid GR have created a zine they plan to distribute to people who attend the gathering on Saturday. The zine, A Guide to Radical Sustainability in Grand Rapids, provides a framework of the group’s analysis, points of unity to describe how they will operate, resources and tactics and strategies for dealing with food, transportation and energy issues.
The 16 – page document is not a blueprint nor does it have all the answers, instead it is a mechanism to broaden the discussion about how we avert continued ecological destruction.
The zine makes it clear that the current capitalist model is inherently unsustainable and that in order for there to be a future for all species there must be a radical shift from how we live currently. The zine advocates both resistance against global capitalism and the creation of economic models that are truly sustainable.
“We believe that the realities of global warming are real and very urgent. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, which consists of thousands of the top climate scientists from around the world, estimates that humanity needs to collectively and globally reduce current levels of carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. There is no indication that this reduction is happening, in part because the US and other wealthy nations are blocking any real efforts to have global standards put in place immediately.
In addition, most of the so-called “solutions” operate on the assumption that humanity can achieve necessary carbon emission reductions within a capitalist framework. We whole- heartedly reject this framework and believe we need a radical restructuring of society in order to avoid further ecological catastrophe. For us, a “Green Jobs” plan will not work because it does not challenge the current economic system and it enables the worst polluters to continue to make incredible amounts of profit. If there were a massive redistribution of wealth we would not need a “jobs program.”
These issues and more will be discussed at the People’s Assembly on Radical Sustainability this Saturday. There will be breakout sessions to both look at the tactics already suggested with the hope that there will be more ideas that people will bring to the table on Saturday.
A People’s Assembly on Radical Sustainability in GR
Saturday, April 21
11 – 3:00pm
Trinity United Methodist Church
1100 Lake Dr. SE, Grand Rapids
Lunch will be provided by Food Not Bombs. There is no cost to attend and childcare is available upon request grpeoplesassembly@gmail.com.
This article from Glen Ford is re-posted from Black Agenda Report.
The Obama administration’s indifference to the plight of foreclosed homeowners, and total subservience to the banks, is once again on public display. According to a report by the Special Inspector General of the TARP program, the administration has spent only a tiny fraction of the money it was allocated to help those most negatively impacted by the housing collapse. In two years, only a little over 30,000 households have been helped, at a cost of $217 million. That’s only 3 percent of the $7.6 billion TARP is authorized to spend through its Hardest Hit Fund.
No wonder most people think TARP – the Troubled Asset Relief Fund – is only concerned with bailing out the banks. The Obama administration has treated it that way, even though Congress intended a portion of that money to help homeowners recover from the damage the banks had done.
From the day he was sworn in – and even before that, on the campaign trail – Obama has behaved as if the welfare of the banks is all that matters. Tim Geithner, the man he appointed to head the Treasury Department, which in turn runs the TARP program, is a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A previous Inspector General of TARP reported, back in the summer of 2009, that the bank bailout might cost as much as $24 trillion – approaching twice the size of the gross domestic product of the United States. $7.4 trillion of that was to come out of TARP and other Treasury Department programs. That’s more than a thousand times more money than the $7.6 billion set aside for the hardest hit homeowners – but Geithner couldn’t even bring himself to spend that paltry sum on TARP’s Hardest Hit Fund, so almost all of the money has been sitting there, doing nothing for anybody, for the last two years.
Obama apologists will probably claim the president didn’t know that his Treasury Secretary was withholding billions of dollars in aid to the worst hit victims of the housing crisis – which means, they’ll believe anything.
The reason Geithner didn’t spend the Hardest Hit Fund money is because he, like other bankers, believes that helping homeowners in crisis amounts to tampering with “the market” – a euphemism for Wall Street. Obama thinks that way, too. In early 2008, Obama alone, among the three Democratic presidential candidates in the running, rejected out of hand proposals for a moratorium on home foreclosures. He didn’t want to put a cap on mortgage rates, either. Candidates John Edwards and Hillary Clinton supported mandatory or voluntary moratoriums, respectively – but not Obama. He had already made his deal with Wall Street – and he’s kept his promises to the super-rich. Treasury Secretary Geithner sat on the homeowners’ relief money for two years, because his boss wanted it that way.
The Congressional Black Caucus begged Obama to target foreclosure relief funds to areas that were hurt worst by the meltdown – which overlaps with the geography of Black America. That’s what the $7.6 billion dollars in the Hardest Hit Fund was supposed to do. The Black Caucus was shamelessly betrayed by the First Black President. The homes of hundreds of thousands of their constituents could have been saved, but the Obama Team outright refused to spend money lying right there in the accounts. What will the Caucus do? Pretend that it never happened.
“The Earth is news.” Line from Wendell Berry poem The Morning’s News
As I write this, we are just days away from Earth Day 2012. The annual celebration has become an increasingly more problematic one as global capitalism has co-opted much of the public celebrations and public opinion about how we avert a major ecological crisis.
This celebration of global capitalism as the only route to ecological sustainability is the primary message we get from US media. The role of the US media has been startling in its role as a cheerleader of greenwashing and green capitalism in numerous ways.
First, the US commercial media has played a significant role on how the public views climate change. The US media not only gives those who deny climate change equal time on the issue, they also have been reporting less on global warming in recent years.
Second, the commercial media in the US has failed the public miserably by not reporting on the growing international movement for climate justice. This failure means that fewer people are aware of the critical aspects of climate justice globally and the ways in which millions of people have been resisting global warming and the capitalist system of environmental degradation that drives the ecological crisis we face.
Third, the commercial media in the US gives voice to the growing segment of green capitalists who want to convince us all that simply buying the right products will save us from long-term environmental catastrophe. This form of “consumer activism” is not only deceptive, it continues to justify an economic system that is motivated by profits and perpetual growth. Think of the media coverage that celebrates the whole electric car production and sales in Michigan. Granted, the commercial media coverage also believes the expansion of an electric car market will create jobs and provide relief to the state’s economy, even though there is no evidence that this will occur.
Fourth, US commercial media is dependent on hyper-consumerism. Most media sources rely on advertizing, which not only limits their interest in reporting on the ecological consequences of the market system, it means they are a perfect conduit to promote the latest products that are collectively contributing to the destruction of eco-systems, the polluting of water, the contamination of the soil and the extinction of more and more species on a daily basis. The commercial media in the US is dependent on advertising because they operate as for-profit entities that need to make their shareholders happy, no matter the cost to the environment.
Lastly, the commercial media in the US generally ignores efforts by people to present an alternative to green capitalism. It is easy to find news stories on new products, companies receiving green awards or people engaged in mild reformist actions on behalf of the planet, but when do you see news coverage of people calling for a radical shift in economic and environmental policies? In Grand Rapids, the media waits with baited breath to report on Rick DeVos’ latest money making scheme (that is framed as providing opportunities to creative people), but there has been no reporting on efforts like Mutual Aid GR.
Mutual Aid GR is a project that promotes community through the bartering of goods and skills. Mutual Aid GR operates on the principle that the current economic system is not sustainable and that we need to live radically different if there is to be a viable future for humanity.
However, people sharing resources and skills does not make anyone rich, it doesn’t continue the exploitation of the planet and it doesn’t cause wars……..but hey, that isn’t news worthy now is it?
The US, drones and targeted assassination
This short video is re-posted from The Nation.
The use of unmanned drones have been a part of US warfare and foreign policy since the Clinton administration, but the escalation of their use has happened under the Obama administration.
This increase in the use of drones by the US military, particularly in the Af-pak war was recently discussed in a solid article by Tom Barry and is the subject of a new book by Medea Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.
In this episode from VideoNation, author and Nation writer Jeremy Scahill explains the steps taken by the Bush administration and extended by the Obama administration in order to circumvent Congress and carry out targeted killings.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 