Leonard Street Farmers' Market
On Thursday March 8, anthropologist Jayson Otto shared the history of Grand Rapids’ farmers’ markets as part of the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council “Grand Rapids Women and the Politics of Agriculture” series. From 1800 through 1946, the number of farmers’ markets steadily rose throughout the US. Grand Rapids was very much a part of this trend, especially from 1914 through 1928, when food costs soared due to the rising dominance of industrialized food production and distribution.
While industry leaders heavily influenced city government to quash the rise of farmers’ markets here, two forces prevented this from happening: farmers resisting through civil disobedience and women working together in a local movement to keep the markets open.
The other sources for food in the city were the many neighborhood grocers as well as the hucksters, underclass folks who sold produce from their carts. The grocers had the power to approve which hucksters could sell this food–and often it was not very fresh.
Around the turn of the century, grocers and food brokers influenced City Hall to outlaw farmers from retailing their wares along stretches of downtown streets, as was their custom. Retailing was discouraged at the wholesale market, which was a food distribution hub to all of Michigan and beyond. However, the small farmers continued to set up their illegal retail stalls–and people continued to go to them for fresh produce for some time. A woman vegetable grower from Wyoming, Mrs. Stall, was among those who resisted.
According to history that Otto was able to unearth, one tough market advocate who made the press of that day, August Raditz, was a white working class woman living on South Division Avenue. She was known for being handy with a scythe and standing up to city hall.
However, upper class white “club” women, Eleanor Nickleson, Helen Russell, Eva Hamilton and Emily Chamberlain were the identified leaders of the woman-led movement. They gathered momentum to establish retail farmers’ markets through a “High Cost of Living” campaign that eventually garnered support from the local Cabinetmakers union, businessman, Charles Leonard, of refrigerator fame, and the mayor of Grand Rapids. (Hamilton went on to be Michigan’s first woman senator). I n spite a strong opposition by male civic leaders, the result was three permanent farmers’ markets in the city: Leonard Street Market, South Division Market (at Cottage Grove) and Fulton Street Market.
When the farmers’ markets were met with threats of being closed in 1934 and 1955, women-led initiatives kept them open. While Otto was able to find photos and information about the Leonard Street Market up to its destruction in the 60s by urban renewal, the demise of the South Division market s seems to be undocumented. He guessed that the 1968 racial uprising may have been the cause.
The encouraging part of Otto’s presentation was the radical role that women have taken in establishing food security in Grand Rapids in the past. The discouraging piece was the lack of historical data around the role that people of color played in Grand Rapids farmers’ market history.
Do you have any recollections of the South Division Market or other farmers’ markets serving Grand Rapids people of color? If yes, please contact the local, women’s grass roots organization, Our Kitchen Table (OKT), OKTable1@gmail.com. The women of OKT are working for food security in Grand Rapids neighborhoods through the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market and food gardening programs. Knowing this history could bring another lost bit of important Black history to well deserved light.
The cost of war in Iraq on the 9th anniversary to the taxpayers of Michigan – $18 billion and counting
Today is the 9th anniversary of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq that began on March 19, 2003.
Much has been written in the past about the US war in Iraq, but since there was a draw down of US troops at the end of 2011, the assumption is that war/occupation is over.
The fact is that the US maintains an ongoing troop presence even after the Status of Forces Agreement known as SOFA. There is no consensus on exactly how many US soldiers remain in Iraq, but former State Department member Peter Van Buren, who served in Iraq, estimates there are at least 17,000 US personnel operating in Iraq, many of whom are soldiers. The difference is that these soldiers were transferred from being under the command of the US military to the US State Department.
The ongoing function of the US soldiers and State Department staff is to maintain security for the US embassy in Baghdad, plus operate and protect at least 15 other facilities throughout the country, most of which are military bases. There are also thousands of private mercenaries still operating in Iraq as contract soldiers through the US government.
The other major function of US troops and State Department specialist is to make sure that Iraq’s vast oil resources continue to be exploited by foreign oil companies, a fact that independent journalist Dahr Jamail reported on earlier this year.
The US invasion/occupation of Iraq was never about WMDs or promoting democracy, it was always about gaining access to Iraq’s oil resources and setting up permanent military bases for greater control of the Middle East.
The question that those of us who claim to stand for justice is, at what cost was/is the ongoing US occupation of Iraq? What follows are not just statistics or bullet points, but realities in which the US should be held accountable for and pay massive reparations. This is an important point, because despite the claims that President Obama got us out of Iraq, his administration not only maintains an occupation and he never acknowledged that the war/occupation was unjust. Obama has said he thinks the justification that Iraq had WMDs was wrong, but he has never said the US invasion/occupation was wrong.
The costs of the 9 years of the US invasion/occupation are also not completely adequate, since they do not reflect the cost of the 1991 US war against Iraq that devastated the country, nor the 13 years of US imposed sanctions on Iraq that resulted in at least 500,000 dead Iraqi children.
However, in this list we will limit the cost to just the past 9 years. These costs are not in any particular order of importance.
1. $802 Billion and counting – this is the amount of US tax dollars that have been spent so far on the war/occupation of since 2003, according to the National Priorities Project. That amount translates into $18 billion leaving the State of Michigan to fund the war in Iraq and $288 million and counting that has left Grand Rapids. We start with the monetary costs to US taxpayers, because it demonstrates the absurd priorities of the US government, especially when so many Americans are living in poverty, losing their homes and have no health care.
2. 1,455,590 – this is the number of Iraqis who have died from the US invasion/occupation since 2003, according to Just Foreign Policy.
3. 4486 – this is the number of US soldiers that have died in Iraq since March of 2003, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.
4. Billions in war contracts – Private companies have made out like bandits by profiting off of so-called reconstruction projects as well as benefiting from the alteration of the Iraqi Constitution, which opened up their economy to allow foreign multinationals to plunder Iraq’s wealth. (see Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine)
5. Radioactive Iraq – Iraq is highly contaminated by the US military’s use of Depleted Uranium in both the 1991 war and the 2003 war/occupation. The Depleted Uranium will plague Iraq for generations to come with birth defects, leukemia and cancer.
6. Torture of thousands of Iraqis – The legacy of US perpetrated torture in Iraq is hard to quantify, but we know that thousands of Iraqis were detained and tortured by US military personnel according to numerous source, including Wikileaks documents. While there were some low level soldiers prosecuted for these crimes, no high ranking official – the ones who gave the orders – were ever charged or prosecuted for torture.
7. Environmental destruction from the war/occupation – Little has been written about the ecological consequences to the US war/occupation, but desert eco-systems have been destroyed, there has been a massive die off of wildlife and contamination left from the burning of oil fields to the use of Depleted Uranium.
8. Over 2 million Iraqi refugees – there is no exact amount, but the United Nations and the Red Crescent both estimate that over 2 million Iraqis fled their homes and the country over the past 9 years of war and occupation.
9. Increased anti–American sentiment – It should not be a surprise to anyone that the US war/occupation of Iraq not only increased the amount of acts of terror against the occupying forces, it has created a whole generation that has nothing but contempt for the US. This anti-American sentiment is impossible to quantify, but it is likely to have devastating effects for years to come.
A People’s History of the LGBTQ Community in Grand Rapids this Saturday at The Network
If you didn’t get a chance to come to the premier screening of A People’s History of the LGBTQ Community in Grand Rapids in November or you want to see it again, The Network is hosting a screening this Saturday.
The LGBT Network of Western Michigan is inviting anyone to join them this Saturday, March 24 at 6:30PM at their space located at 34 Atlas St. SE in Grand Rapids.
There will be lots of food and a discussion to follow the film. The documentary runs an hour and 40 minutes and covers a period from the 1970s through the present, with an emphasis on the late 1980s and 1990s. Those attending the film will hear directly from those that organized and took the risks to fight for equality in West Michigan.
Come hear how the first Pride Celebration was organized, the fight to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance ion Grand Rapids, the fight against HIV/AIDS, Sons & Daughters, the backlash from the Religious Right and the history of LGBTQ organizing at GVSU.
The film screening is free and copies of the documentary will be available for those who want a copy. There is also Facebook page for this event.
If you can’t make it, you can watch the film online as well as view lots of archival documents, pictures, video and all the entire interviews conducted for this project.
This article is based in part by information from Michigan Immigration Reform.
The Senate approved legislation on Wednesday that would allow private firms to run prisons in Michigan, but one of the companies that stands to profit from the legislation is connected to repeated human rights abuse cases and complaints, and has been accused of purposefully pushing immigration reforms that increase detentions, thereby increasing their profits.
The Michigan legislation relates most directly to a facility in Baldwin, Michigan. According to MIRS news, one of the corporations most likely to win the contract is GEO Group, who had operated Michigan’s only private prison until 2005. The firm is has been the subject of multiple lawsuits for the deaths of prisoners and denial medical treatment. In addition, GEO Group helps fund the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) who, along with the Corrections Corporation of America, drafted Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070.
A 2010 NPR report exposed a shareholder conference call during which Geo Group’s CEO admitted that SB 1070 would result in greater profits for the company, and joked about their involvement in its passage. GEO Group, along with other private prison corporations, made campaign contributions to 30 of SB 1070’s 36 co-sponsors. Additionally, GEO Groups parent company, Wackenhut, also profits from our anti-immigrant laws— they hold a contract for the detention and deportation of migrants captured along the US-Mexico border. Human rights watchdog No More Deaths reports that immigrants detained by Wackenhut are regularly denied sufficient food or water.
“Private prison companies like Geo Group are writing our criminal and immigration laws so they can line their own pockets. Michigan citizens want no part of the for-profit prison industry, especially when the profiteers have such a long history of human rights abuses. ” said Ryan Bates, Director of Alliance for Immigrants Rights and Reform. “Our legislature should be looking out for Michigan’s bottom-line, not a private prison company’s.”
To pad their profits, private prison companies often hire too few staff to safely run the prison, and several studies have shown that they result in more abuse, riots, and break-outs.
“Michigan’s public corrections officers are trained to keep our citizens safe and ensure that prisoners are treated appropriately—we’re not in this to make a profit. Private companies are putting us all at risk by under-staffing prisons, poorly training their guards, and lobbying for laws that incarcerate people unnecessarily. We need a corrections system that will look out for the public interest, not a private corporation’s profits.”
This Media Alert is re-posted from SavetheNews.org.
They’re all ignoring a massive public outcry against media consolidation as Obama’s FCC favors new rules that would allow conglomerates to gobble up more local media across America.
Don’t Be Ignored. Stop Media Consolidation Now.
By signing this letter to the Federal Communications Commission, you’re joining thousands of people who have already told the agency to stop this latest attack on independent media. And the public response has been overwhelming: So far more than nine out of every 10 comments to the FCC opposes letting broadcasters snatch up even more media outlets.
Unfortunately, Washington is not listening to us … yet.
President Obama was once an outspoken opponent of media consolidation. In 2007, he said that protecting local, independent and diverse media was “critical to the public interest.”
But times have changed. The president has failed to speak up as his FCC has sided with Murdoch and big-media lobbyists in a push for unchecked consolidation.
Last year, Obama also stood on the sidelines while his FCC approved the Comcast-NBC Universal merger — one of the largest and potentially most disastrous media mergers in history. Now Obama’s FCC is on the verge of weakening the rule that prevents one company from owning both broadcast stations and newspapers in the same market.
Murdoch has long lobbied Washington for this change, which would allow News Corp. to buy up even more local television stations and newspapers in markets from New York City to San Diego. And it would give Clear Channel, Earth’s largest radio conglomerate — and the company that syndicates Rush Limbaugh’s program to more than 600 stations — the power to dominate the dial even more.
Tell the FCC to Side with the People, Not Big Media
Nobody — not Rupert Murdoch or other powerful media moguls — should be allowed to monopolize our print and broadcast media and crowd out independent voices. But corporate special interests have prevailed up until this point, dictating ownership rules to the FCC. And the results are appalling: People of color own just 3 percent of our country’s full-power TV stations and just 7.7 percent of all radio stations. Women own just 6 percent of all broadcast outlets.
By entering thousands of our comments into the public record, we can remind the FCC commissioners to stand up to media giants — and to remember Obama’s pledge to foster more diverse media in America.
By creating real limits to media consolidation, the FCC can pave the way for the kind of independent media that a healthy democracy needs. But the agency needs to hear from you first.
Earlier today, the 10th Inter-Occupational Summit, which was held at the downtown campus of GVSU, began with an opening session by sharing information and analysis on the global corporation Monsanto.
The first presenter used satire and sarcasm to present information on the ecologically destructive company. In many ways this was a refreshing approach to presenting information since it not only provided solid information, it made clear the absurd corporate claims of Monsanto.
By using the company pledge, the presenter methodically examined what Monsanto does. Those in attendance learned about the costly impact of chemicals that the company has sold throughout the world, in order to promote “greater food production.”
Other themes that were presented dealt with GMO seeds, Bovine Growth Hormone – which is in the majority of cows milk sold in the US – and the company’s relationship to the US government over the past several decades. One example of the revolving door between Monsanto and the US government is that the current Supreme Court Judge, Clarence Thomas, used to be a lawyer for the company.
The presenter also addressed how Monsanto has gone after farmers who challenge the company’s seed patents and the consequences of Monsanto’s seed use globally, particularly for small farmers in countries like India.
Other people in attendance also shared information and perspectives on Monsanto and how to both resist the influence of the company and how to create a more independent and autonomous food system.
There were many different perspectives shared on how we move forward with dealing with corporations like Monsanto, with some people emphasizing personal shifts like gardening and purchasing, while others made the point that Monsanto is just one manifestation of a food and economic system that needs to be dismantled.
After the information session, people were invited to make signs for a march that would take place in downtown Grand Rapids, amidst the St. Patrick’s Day festivities.
About 40 people marched downtown to Monument Park, the most frequented space used by Occupy Grand Rapids since it began last October. Along the way people chanted and engaged some of those who came downtown for St. Patrick’s Day. Some people showed support, while others asked, “what is a GMO?”
Once people arrived at Monument Park, one Occupy Grand Rapids member shared a few thoughts on why it is important to protest Monsanto. Those present used the People’s mic in response, as you can see in this short video.
This article is re-posted from CounterPunch.
A new social movement has arrived on the scene and it even has a sexy brand: “The 99% Spring.”
Combining the “99 percent” meme, made famous by the Occupy Wall Street movement, with the “Arab Spring” meme, made famous through the ongoing struggle for democratic rights in the Arab world, the organizers of the movement say they will attempt to carry the momentum created in these social movements forward in the coming weeks and months ahead.
This is exciting stuff, to say the very least.
The 99% Spring movement states its goal with stark clarity:
“In the tradition of our forefathers and foremothers and inspired by today’s brave heroes in Occupy Wall Street and Madison, Wisconsin, we will prepare ourselves for sustained non-violent direct action.
From April 9-15 we will gather across America, 100,000 strong, in homes, places of worship, campuses and the streets to join together in the work of reclaiming our country.
(Snip)
This spring we rise! We will reshape our country with our own hands and feet, bodies and hearts. We will take non-violent action in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi to forge a new destiny one block, one neighborhood, one city, one state at a time.”
Dozens of organizations have already signed onto the call for what looks to be a looming massive uprising.
On March 24-25 grassroots activist leaders, it appears, will be put through a training to lead the 100,000 rallying of the troops.
The revolution, it could be said, has begun!
Or has it?
Yet Another MoveOn.org Front Group?
Beyond the triumphant rhetoric lies a sober truth: “The 99 Spring” is yet another calculated and carefully planned MoveOn.org front group.
Smoking gun one: A WhoIs domain name search yields that The99Spring.com was created on February 9 and the Administrative Contact is none other than MoveOn.org Co-Founder, Wes Boyd.
Smoking gun two: The homepage of The99Spring.com includes a hot link that reads“Get Involved in the 99% Spring.” A click on the link takes you directly to a MoveOn.org “99% Spring Action Training” webpage, where you can either sign up for a listed 99% Spring Training in one’s respective locality, or create your own training.
Smoking gun three: A look at the bottom of the webpage shows the website was designed by Agit-Pop.com. Agit-Pop.com is the website for Agit-Pop Communications, a public relations firm which describes itself as “an award-winning one-stop creative studio delivering strategic messaging, cutting edge New Media and boots-on-the-ground campaigning to the progressive netroots.”
At the very top of its list of clients? MoveOn.org, but of course.
Smoking gun four: A conference call to prepare leaders for trainings will be lead by a MoveOn.org Field Organizer, David Greenson on March 14, according to a 99 Spring email blast.
Smoking gun five: The 99 Spring sent out an email with a subject line that read, “Become a 99% Spring Trainer” from Liz Butler and Joy Cushman. The question then is who are these two?
Butler, her LinkedIn page shows, is the Campaign Director for 1Sky, which in April 2011 merged with 350.org to become known simply as 350.org, the organization chaired by journalist and climate activist Bill McKibben.
Cushman, on the other hand, is the Organizing Director of the New Organizing Institute (NOI), a Democratic Party-aligned, MoveOn.org-aligned front group. NOI hit the ground running in 2004, according to the NOI website, explaining,
“Like the Leadership Institute on the right, the NOI would become the ‘go to’ place for technical and strategic training. We’d begin by training and placing newly trained Internet campaign professionals (online organizers, Internet directors) on dozens of 2006 campaigns. Candidates and organizations, frustrated by their own inability to generate [Howard] Dean or MoveOn[.org]-like results online, would be eager to accept these students, taught by ‘the best in the biz.’”
This portion of the website has since been scrubbed, but can be found via the WayBack Machine.
Eli Pariser, Board President of MoveOn.org, served on the original Advisory Board of NOI, as did MoveOn.org Co-Founder, Joan Blades.
James Ruckers was also included on the initial NOI Board of Directors, who now serves as Executive Director of MoveOn.org’s solidarity with people of color front group, Color of Change, which he co-founded with Van Jones in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Ruckers formerly served on MoveOn.org’s staff as Director of Grassroots Mobilization from the fall 2003 to summer 2005, according to NOI’s website.
A key original NOI staff member included Co-Founder Zach Exley, who now serves as Chief Community Officer at Wikimedia Foundation. Exley worked atMoveOn.org from January 2003–March 2004 and served as NOI’s President from January 2006-April 2010. He also served as Director of Online Organizing and Communications for the John Kerry for President campaign in 2004, all of this according to his LinkedIn account.
NOI’s Inaugural Training took place in late-February 2006 and was described as
“including individuals from Moveon.org, the Kerry and Dean campaigns, the Democratic National Committee, and leading internet consulting firms. NOI trainees did not simply learn the best practices of new organizing – they learned those practices from the best in the field.”
Trainers in the house that cold late-February included two MoveOn.org staffers: Tom Mattzie and Rosalyn Lemieux, who have since moved on (excuse the pun) to stints as a consultant and as a Partner at Fission Strategy, respectively. Exemplifying the revolving door of the Democratic Party non-profit foundation-funded front groups, Lemieux formerly served as Executive Director of NOI from August 2006-2007 before eventually moving onto her current stint at Fission.
Smoking gun six: Recent emails I obtained from the New Organizing Institute show that MoveOn.org and NOI are by-and-large, interchangeable, revolving door type entities that share lists, staff time, and common goals: electing Democrats, cloaked as supporting grassroots, democratic (with a lower “d”) political action.
These emails came from the NOI’s Cristina Sinclaire from the email address 99spring@neworganizing.com. According to her LinkedIn profile page, Sinclaire formerly served as Field Coordinator for the Maryland Democratic Party and as a Field Organizer for Obama for America in 2008 in Ohio, demonstrating her loyalty to the Democratic Party cause. Her Twitter page’s background picture is of a young Barack Obama.
Smoking gun seven: 350.org, it appears, is also “in on this game,” so to speak, as Bill McKibben has signed onto The 99 Spring’s “call to action.” Furthermore, 350.org organizer Joshua Kahn Russell, formerly of the Ruckus Society and Rainforest Action Network, also sent out an email blast on the 350.org list promoting The 99 Spring’s “week of action.” In that email, Russell writes,
“I met about half of you folks who were arrested at the Tar Sands Action last summer when I helped lead our nightly civil disobedience trainings to prepare for the action at the White House.
I’m writing you now, 6 months later, about an opportunity we have to expand and deepen the movement we helped build last summer, in coordination with a whole bunch of other organizations who are beginning to embrace the tools and strategy we put to work in Washington DC.
The opportunity is The 99% Spring, an initiative to train 100,000 people in peaceful direct action this April, empowering people all over the country with the skills and inspiration we need to transform the country. It’s wildly ambitious, and we’ll need to come together in a big way to pull it off.”
Russell proceeds to ask those on the list serve either to sign up to host a training, or volunteer as a trainer, the former request taking those on the list to MoveOn.org’s sign-up page.
Smoking Gun Eight: The Nation magazine self describes itself this way: “The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred.”
In reality, the Nation is heavily hyping MoveOn’s 99 Spring, made clear by the cover of its April 2, 2012 edition, which is a special issue dedicated to the cause.
As grassroots organizer Kevin Zeese points out, there is a genuine (as opposed to manufactured and illusory astroturf) Occupy Spring forthcoming, called for by the true grassroots. The Nation conveniently leaves that one out of its issue, of course.
“What makes The Nation ‘Occupy Spring’ issue — giving Occupy to the MoveOn types – is that there is actually is an American Spring going on,” said Zeese. “All over the country Occupy remains active and we have an upcoming event called National Occupation of Washington, DC, to begin the weekend of March 31 and April 1 that 25 Occupies have endorsed, which The Nation did not even mention.”
This skunk gets even more stinky. One of the featured contributors of this issue, penning an article titled, “Occupy is Dead! Long Live Occupy!” for this issue, was Ilyse Hogue. She is now a full-time writer at The Nation.
“With a spirit of inclusiveness that mimics the slogan, established institutions from MoveOn to National People’s Action to the United Auto Workers are investing collective resources into The 99% Spring, a massive training project that aims to train 100,000 people in nonviolent civil disobedience and economic literacy,” wrote Hogue in her article, a shameless plug for The 99 Spring.
According to her biography on the website, she “…is a social change practitioner, media consumer and analyst, and on-line engagement expert.” Hogue worked at a Democratic Party front group Media Matters for America in 2011 as a Senior Adviser before coming to The Nation in 2012. The smelliest tie of them all: from 2006- 2011, Hogue served as Director of Political Advocacy and Communications for none other than MoveOn.org.
Coming full circle, Hogue also serves on the Board of Directors of Rebuild the Dream, a Van Jones lead Democratic Party front group co-created in June 2011 with MoveOn.org, according to an article by The Nation’s Ari Berman. Rebuild the Dream, many will recall, was one of the key front groups attempting to co-opt Occupy Wall Street last fall, as uncovered by Kevin Zeese.
This skunk stinks!
Yeah, a Front Group, So What?
The eight smoking guns show quite clearly that The 99 Spring is a front group for MoveOn.org, and therefore, as investigative journalist John Stauber have shown in articles past, yet another case study of an attempt at co-option of multiple movements of radical protestation by MoveOn.
This time around, it’s both the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. In times past, it has been the racial justice movement as seen through the lens of the group Color Lines, the Iraq War, and Occupy Wall Street.
In MoveOn.org’s short history, the front group has proven that co-option works, but co-opting Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring has been no easy task for it this time around.
It has been a particularly tough task because the Democratic Party, which it fronts for, is beholden to Wall Street and the Obama Administration whichMoveOn.org dutifully supports, plans on raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the 1-percent during his 2012 election campaign.
Furthermore, the Obama Administration has been largely responsible for supplying weaponry to suppress the Arab Spring, including in places such asEgypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, to name a few.
MoveOn.org has to tell overt lies in order to paint the Democratic Party and its President, Barack Obama, as a friend of democracy and working class. TheBig Lie, it can be said, is only believable for so long.
But ultimately, “So what?” says the cynic. “More of the same shit, just a different day.”
Not so fast, says activist and author John Stauber, an expert in exposing corporate and political front groups.
“What’s going on is very simple. Massive amounts of soft money from unions, wealthy donors and foundations such as the Tides Foundation are flowing into NGOs willing to help support the re-election of Barack Obama, and this MoveOn front group is key to whipping liberals and progressive activists into line to attack Republicans for the cause. The brand and energy of Occupy Wall Street are being coopted by MoveOn’s 99 Spring for this purpose,” he said in an interview.
“This reminds me of the AAEI coalition, another MoveOn front that worked with Nancy Pelosi in 2007 to see to it that the Iraq war was funded and used as a political stick to beat Republicans in 2008. Or the massively funded Health Care for America Now coalition backed by MoveOn in 2009 which made sure that single payer health care was ignored while the White House pushed its pro-insurance industry legislation derided as ‘Obamacare’. In this latest case, the so-called 99 Spring, MoveOn is enlisting other NGOs to create the appearance of a populist uprising from the Left, when it’s all about keeping the rabble in line and aimed at the Republicans to re-elect Obama,” he continued.
As will be seen throughout this series on foundation-funded Democratic Party aligned non-profit groups poisoning the genuine grassroots, MoveOn.org is far from the only culprit playing this rotten and cynical game.
Stay tuned.
A group of people calling for Clear Channel in Grand Rapids to drop the 15 hours a week of Rush Limbaugh from the WOOD Radio station protested for an hour earlier today in downtown Grand Rapids.
The protest, which was called for by NOW Grand Rapids and GRIID saw a slightly different crowd from those that came to the first protest last Wednesday.
The group held signs just outside the entrance to the Clear Channel/WOOD Radio offices at 77 Monroe Center and some of those involved with the protest handed out Dump Rush Campaign material to people passing by.
Over 100 people took information that provided people with some concrete steps to support the campaign, such as:
- Send e‐mails to WOOD Radio Station Manager Tim Feagan at TimFeagan@clearchannel.com or write letters to: WOOD Radio 77 Monroe Center Grand Rapids, MI 49503.
- Pressure local businesses and other entities that advertise on WOOD Radio to pull their funding from the station until Clear Channel stops broadcasting Limbaugh’s program on WOOD Radio AM.
- Share this information with co-workers, friends and neighbors in person or by posting information on whatever social media sites people use.
At one point 2 of us went inside to visit WOOD Radio to look at their public file to see how many more letters have been submitted on this issue. We found that since last Wednesday there were 55 more letters or e-mail messages, which were calling for WOOD Radio to pull the Limbaugh show. There were also 19 letters/e-mails from people thanking the station for airing his program, some of which identified themselves as part of the Tea Party.
We did notice that some of the letters calling for the termination of the Limbaugh program identified as Conservative Christians who also thought that Rush had “crossed the line” with recent remarks targeted at Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke. All today, there have been roughly 150 letters calling for the station to stop broadcasting Limbaugh and 19 in favor of WOOD Radio keeping the show on the air.
The group protesting today also agreed to continue having weekly gatherings outside the station and are inviting people to join them on Fridays at 1:00PM at 77 Monroe Center in downtown Grand Rapids.
If people are not able to make it, it is crucial for people to send letters/e-mails to the station and to contact local businesses who advertise on WOOD Radio.
Within the past few days several of the larger US labor unions publicly endorsed President Barack Obama in his bid for re-election.
For many, this is disturbing news, not just because unions have been under attack throughout the first three years of his administration, but because Big Labor has suggested in the past year that they would not put their money and hopes into an increasingly corrupt electoral process.
On Wednesday, Brian Tierney, a labor journalist, writing on CounterPunch, had this to say about the Labor endorsements:
“Both Republicans and Democrats have been ratcheting up the war against unions, a fact that is making it increasingly difficult for union leaders to justify their support for Obama to their rank-and-file members.
“Notwithstanding all our disappointment with the Obama presidency, it’s clear that the clowns on the Republican side would be devastating to working people,” a Communication Workers of America (CWA) official told In These Times last month. “But we’re anticipating a tougher challenge motivating people because there is a lot of disappointment and letdown,” he admitted.
That’s probably because workers are hard-pressed to imagine what could be more “devastating to working people” than what they’ve seen in the last year alone. Workers have faced the erosion of collective bargaining rights, the first state in the Midwest passing “Right to Work” legislation, an FAA reauthorization bill signed by Obama that makes it more difficult for airline workers to organize, plans for massive layoffs of postal workers nationwide, and ramped-up attacks on public education.”
This morning on Common Dreams, Trade Unionist Shamus Cooke wrote an excellent piece on why many Rank & File workers will not work for Obama’s re-election. Cooke was particularly responding to comments made by AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka.
“If the AFL-CIO President really wanted to assess Obama’s first four years in relation to working people, he should have included the following points:
1) He bailed out the bankers, and his administration has refused to prosecute any of them for the crimes they committed.
2) The shameful lack of action to create the 25 million full-time jobs the AFL-CIO demanded, until recently, to address the jobs depression.
3) The truth of Obama’s health care plan; it slashes hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare; forces working people to buy shoddy corporate health care, and taxes the health care of union workers (so called “Cadillac” health care plans).
4) The Wall Street “reform” bill was weak enough to allow Wall Street to continue acting as it had been before the crisis, thus re-creating the conditions that will inevitably lead to another crisis.
5) Obama was complicit as Democratic governors attacked the wages and benefits of public sector union workers across the United States, rather than raising taxes on the wealthy to handle state deficits. The continuing attack on public sector unions aims at the heart of the labor movement.
6) Obama’s national deficit reduction plan threatens to cut additional hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare and reduce Social Security benefits.
7) Obama’s badly named Race-to-the-Top education program is a direct attack on public education and unionized teachers, since it rewards states for creating privately administered and non-union charter schools, while attacking the seniority of union teachers in publicly administered schools through new “teacher evaluation” schemes.
8) Obama pushed to pass the pro-corporate South Korea, Colombia, and Panama free-trade deals.
9) Obama promised to pass the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act, but never aggressively promoted it. A broken promise.
10) He promised to renegotiate NAFTA, another broken promise, because he did not even go through the motions of pretending to try.
11) He promised to make immigration reform a top priority and did nothing, again without trying.
12) He campaigned against the Patriot Act and then turned around to support it when he was elected.
What is Obama promising unions this election? Nothing. Why make promises to organizations like labor that don’t seem to care if you break them?”
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.
Hollywood 9/11: Superheroes, Supervillians, and Super Disasters, by Tom Pollard – If you wanted to read a solid analysis of how 9/11 has impacted film making in the US, then Tom Pollard’s Hollywood 9/11 is a great source. Part resource guide, part critique, Hollywood 9/11 takes a look at recent films through the lens of primal human emotions such as grief, horror, rage, vengeance, terror and paranoia. Analyzing blockbuster films since 9/11 provides us with an interesting take on films such as Cloverfield, Iron Man and Transformers. Pollard also uses an intersectional lens in his analysis, pointing out racial and gender representations in these films and how that plays into certain social norms, particularly social norms about “the other.” This book is not only interesting for those who love film, but for anyone who wants to critically assess how popular culture images and message impact society.
A People’s History of World War II: The World’s Most Destructive Conflict as Told by the People Who Lived Through It, edited by Marc Favreau – This new volume in the People’s History Series is a refreshing first hand account of WWII that is in sharp contrast to jingoistic books like The Greatest Generation. Editor Marc Favearu has put together an amazing collection of commentary and reflection by US soldiers who struggled to cope with some of the horrors they had committed in Europe and the Pacific, Nazi death camp survivors, Japanese Americans interned in the US during the war, Russian soldiers who fought on the eastern front and scientists who worked on the first nuclear weaponry. Each story provides us not only with the complexity of WWII, but the scope of human suffering committed by Axis and Allied nations alike. An excellent resource to counter the official version of WWII.
Not Written in Stone: Learning and Unlearning American History Through 200 Years of Textbooks, by Kyle Ward – A few years ago Kyle Ward wrote History Lessons, which was a fascinating look at how textbooks from around the world portrayed US history. Not Written in Stone is a fabulous sequel, with the focus on US history as seen through US history books over the past 200 years. Ward looks at major themes such as the European Conquest of Native people, the Revolutionary War, Slavery & the Civil War, Westward Expansion and Industrialism in the US. Each section includes excerpts from various US textbooks over two centuries that amazingly present a rather hegemonic perspective on US history. Ward demonstrates not only the necessity for historians like Howard Zinn, but the harsh reality of how US history has been presented by academics for most of this nation’s history.
Monsenor: The Last Journey of Oscar Romero (DVD) – It has been more than 30 years since the assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. In this new documentary film, viewers get a much deeper understanding of the work and courage of the man Salvadorans affectionately referred to as Monsenor. The film includes new archival material that mixes film footage, audio recordings of Romero’s sermons, pictures and interviews with dozens of people who knew and worked with Romero. Monsenor is an amazing film that not only sheds light on the past, but speaks to the possibility of radical solidarity and love today. Highly recommended.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 