New Report on Religious Groups and Political Lobbying
Yesterday, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a new study that looks at how there has been an increased in religious groups lobbying Congress and the amount of money they are spending in the process.
“The number of organizations engaged in religious lobbying or religion-related advocacy in Washington, D.C., has increased roughly fivefold in the past four decades, from fewer than 40 in 1970 to more than 200 today. These groups collectively employ at least 1,000 people in the greater Washington area and spend at least $390 million a year on efforts to influence national public policy.
As a whole, religious advocacy organizations work on about 300 policy issues. For most of the past century, religious advocacy groups in Washington focused mainly on domestic affairs. Today, however, roughly as many groups work only on international issues as work only on domestic issues, and nearly two-thirds of the groups work on both. These are among the key findings of a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life that examines a total of 212 religion-related advocacy groups operating in the nation’s capital.”
From the graphic below you can see what religious groups are spending the most money to influence domestic and foreign policy.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is significantly ahead of all other religious groups in this report and combined with American Jewish Committee is spending over $100 million on influencing US policy towards Israel and the greater Middle East.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is the second largest source of religious lobbying. The $26 million plus the Catholics spent to lobby Congress has been for a variety of issues, but the top two have been to advocate for anti-abortion laws and anti-marriage equality. In fact, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops just unveiled a new anti-Gay Marriage website.
The third largest religious lobbying group, according to the Pew study, is the Family Research Council (FRC). The FRC has a long history of promoting far rights policies such as anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and religion in public life. The FRC, along with Concerned Women for America, the National Right to Life Committee, Home School Legal Defense Association and CitizenLink (an affiliate of Focus on the Family) all are part of the network of religious right groups in the US. Combined these Christian Right groups spent roughly $60 million on influencing national policy in 2009 alone.
This also means that the only liberal or progressive religious group in the top 10 list is Bread for the World. Bread for the World does mostly anti-hunger work around the world with some emphasis on root causes of hunger.
Another important point on the relevance of this new report is that many of the wealthier families in West Michigan, the DeVos, Van Andel and Prince families have all contributed to most of the Christian groups in this top 10 list. However, we could find no evidence of any local news reporting on this connection as of this posting.
Media Literacy: Testing what we know
For years we have used a media literacy exercise when doing workshops to illustrate both how media is constructed and how media can determine what we know and what we don’t know.
We used a branded alphabet to see if people could identify products from one letter. Part two of that exercise was to then see if people could identify current high ranking officials in the White House.
Most of the time people could identify products from one letter over people who had tremendous influence on our economy, politics, education, etc.
We have just added a new media literacy exercise, using a new branded alphabet and juxtaposing this with the Kent County Commissioners. Test your knowledge on what you know. What company does the logo represent? What are the names of the 19 Kent County Commissioners? Think about why some things are more known and what that means in terms of an engaged citizenry. Are we primarily citizens or consumers? The answers can be found here. Read more…
Protecting Male Privilege: The Penn State scandal & media coverage
Considering how much media attention has been given to the Penn State sexual assault case, one would be hard pressed to say they didn’t know anything about this.
However, the amount of news coverage surrounding this story is a double-edged sword. In one sense the amount of coverage provides an opportunity for greater public awareness and dialogue around sexual assault. On the other hand, the quality of coverage has been fairly weak and in some cases misleading.
According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Penn State sex abuse scandal was one of the two stories that dominated national news coverage the week of Nov. 7 – 13. The other story dealt with sexual harassment charges from several women directed at Presidential candidate Herman Cain. The major difference in the coverage was the fact that the women who charged Cain with sexual harassment were not taken as seriously as the victims in the Penn State sexual assault cases.
Another major difference in these two stories is that in the Penn State case there were numerous high officials on campus that knew of the abuse that was taking place, yet remained silent. It should be stated that those who remained silent were men, which forces us to come to terms with the fact that this was not just about crimes committed, as awful as they are, it is also about how male privilege is protected.
Over the weekend, there was an interesting article on Counter Punch, where the writer is comparing the child sex abuse history of the Catholic Church to that of Penn State. The writer makes the point that in both institutions there was knowledge of the abuses for years, yet the official position was to do nothing. However, the article falls short on one major point, in that they fail to name male privilege as the institutional problem.
This gets us back to the issue of how much coverage there has been of the Penn State sex abuse scandal. Even sports writers have been forced to give some attention to the issue, like the leading online sports entity ESPN, which has reported repeatedly on this issue. However, the coverage has been limited in the area of what happened and why, with more coverage being devoted to what this means to the legacy of Penn State coach Joe Paterno.
Few sports writers have actually asked the hard questions and shed light on the ugly reality of male privilege within institutions like Penn State. Left sports writer Dave Zirin is one of those who has challenged male privilege and called out what really happened.
In a recent column Zirin points out that the child sex abuses cases are not the only examples of protecting male privilege at Penn State:
The signs of this malignancy did not emerge overnight. Looking backward, there are moments that speak of the scandals to come. In 2003, less than one year after Paterno was told that Sandusky was raping children, he allowed a player accused of rape to suit up and play in a bowl game. Widespread criticism of this move was ignored. In 2006, Penn State’s Orange Bowl opponent Florida State, sent home linebacker A.J. Nicholson, after accusations of sexual assault. Paterno’s response, in light of recent events, is jaw-dropping. He said, “There’s so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do? Geez. I hope — thank God they don’t knock on my door because I’d refer them to a couple of other rooms.”
At Penn State there is both a student and community effort to protect Paterno and his coaching legacy, but there are also people who are challenging the institutionalized male privilege. If we want to avoid future sexual assault cases like the ones at Penn State, then we have a to talk about how pervasive male privilege is in this society and we have to confront institutionalized male privilege in all its manifestations. If we don’t, then we are ultimately complicit in these crimes.
100 people gather for Transgender Day of Remembrance
About 100 people gathered at Plymouth United Church of Christ last night to participate in a program for the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is always celebrated in late November in memory of Rita Hester, a visible member of the Transgender community who was murdered in 1998. The following year, friends of Rita organized a vigil, not only in memory of Rita, but of all people who have been victims of hate crimes targeting the transgender community. Transgender Day of Remembrance has now become an international day of solidarity.
Rev. Doug Van Doren from Plymouth church welcomed people and invited them to collectively mourn the loss of members of the Transgender community over the past year.
At that point the sanctuary became dark and several people with candles began reading the names of members of the Transgender community. After each person read a name(s) they blew out their candle until all the candles were extinguished.
The next part of the event involved members of the Transgender community sharing their personal stories. One person read a poem, while the other two recounted their own journey. One of the most moving comments made was, “An authentic life is the best life to be living.” This comment spoke to how important it is for all of us to be true to who we are.
The featured speaker for the evening was Julie Nemecek, an ordained pastor, professor and member of the Transgender community. Julie began by saying this is a day of honoring and remembering those in the Transgender community, but it is also a day to acknowledge those who have been victims of hate and Transphobia.
Julie then read part of a poem from John Dunne, No Man is an Island. The speaker said the lives we remember and mourn, are our lives. For whom the bell tolls is an important point for what Transgender Day of Remembrance should be. Julie tells the audience about being in England and watching the bell ringers. Bells would toll to signal someone’s death, but what Dunne was saying and what Julie wanted us to hear is that the bell tolls for all of us…..and we should remember.
Julie, then cited the writer Edmund Burke who said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” The speaker then talked about going to a memorial service of a young transgender person who took his own life. At the service for this person, people asked what could they have done to prevent it. Julie said, “Silence is the greatest enabler” and then looked at the audience and said, “I know you are good people. Don’t do nothing!”
The speaker also cited US President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in quoting Lincoln it was in reference to not forgetting the dead at Gettysburg, which translated into the audience not forgetting members of the Transgender community, which have died. The Dr. King quote was for all of us not to be satisfied until justice rolls down from the mountain like a mighty river. Julie wanted us to commit to seeking justice and acknowledge the struggle continues and even recognized those in Holland who were willing to risk arrest for justice.
Julie finished her comments by citing Susan B. Anthony, a woman arrested for voting, who refused to pay the fine and died 13 years before women won the right to vote. Anthony said, “Failure is impossible.” Julie believes this to be true and acknowledged recent changes in our culture and gain made by the LGBT community. Julie ended her comments by repeating the line from Susan B. Anthony, “Failure is impossible!”
Bloom Collective will host Buy Nothing Day event: Really, Really Free Market and screening of What Would Jesus Buy?
The Grand Rapids Infoshop, the Bloom Collective, is hosting an event for the annual Buy Nothing Day, an event in contrast to the hyper-consumption day known as Black Friday on November 25.
Buy Nothing Day began years ago as a response to the hyper-commercialism and market driven culture, which celebrates shopping. Buy Nothing day counter-acts this consumerism by calling on people to not consume, to base our interactions with others through community building and to challenge the mantra of capitalist culture which says you show love for others by buying something for them.
As a way to celebrate Buy Nothing Day, the Bloom Collective is hosting a Really, Really Free Market (rrfm) where people can share basic necessities with others, which can also include skill share and other means of bartering with people. The rrfm will happen from noon til 4pm.
In addition, the Bloom Collective will be screening the documentary, What Would Jesus Buy? What Would Jesus Buy chronicles a campaign by Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping on a month long tour of the US bringing their message of non-commercialism through street theater.
Really, Really Free Market
12 – 4pm
What Would Jesus Buy?
2:30pm
Bloom Collective
671 Davis NW
Steepletown Community Center
Arundhati Roy addresses the Occupy movement in New York
This video is re-posted from ZNet.
Arundhati Roy, the famous author and activist from India, spoke to a crowd in New York City recently about the Occupy Movement.
Arundhati spoke about the power of this new movement, with its creation of new political imagination and language. She also spoke about how this movement is important in the fight against Empire.
Arundhati Roy is the author of numerous books including, The God of Small Things, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, War Talk, Power Politics and The Cruise missile and the checkbook.
Listen to these powerful words!
550 media workers are being laid off from Booth News/MLive
It was confirmed today on MLive that 550 layoff notices were sent out to employees of the Booth News chain, as part of the company’s “restructuring plan.” Restructuring is code for eliminating workers in order to increase profits.
The “restructuring plan” involves the creation of two new media companies, MLive Media Group and Advanced Central Services Michigan. While these two new entities are being framed as new companies, they are both still part of the much larger media conglomerate Advance Publications.
In the article MLive Media Group President Dan Gaydou engages in a bit of double speak about how many people will be employed under the new restructuring. However, in a November 2nd Media Release, Gaydou was a bit more honest about his motivations for the restructuring and whose interests he serves.
“Our new company will be dedicated to meeting the needs of audiences, regardless of the platform, and developing solutions for our business partners, based on their needs…….. MLive Media Group will focus on innovation and community engagement, measuring our shared success by that of our employees, advertisers, local communities and business partners alike.” 
It appears to this writer that business interests are what is primary and, in a digital world, that means advertisers and underwriters.
It is impossible to say how many people who work for Booth Newspapers will be without a job once the restructuring takes place in February 2012, but numerous current employees will be unemployed. This is not at all surprising for two reasons. First, since Booth Newspapers have been part of the media conglomerate Advanced Publications, their primary goal has been to make a profit, not to inform the public. This major theme is explored in the most recent issue of the magazine Extra, a publication of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, in the cover story, Media Monopoly Revisited.
Second, since Booth Newspapers are not unionized, the ability of workers to resist “restructuring” is very limited. This restructuring has been an ongoing process. We have been aware of the ongoing downsizing of Grand Rapids Press staff, eliminating benefits, using more part time writers and stringers, which definitely affects the quality of journalism that the public deserves.
With the layoff of hundreds of workers, we can expect to see some changes in the quality of information that will be on Mlive. There will no doubt be more information that is culled from other online sources, meaning less on the ground journalism will take place. Another outcome will most likely be an increase in cross-promotional reporting, which will be stories about events that were advertised on MLive.
Lastly, this ongoing shift in how the corporate media operates, with a total disregard for workers, is all the more reason for the public to support independent media and make our own. As A.J. Liebling once said, “Freedom of the Press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
Hip-Hop Against the World!
This article by Jared Ball is re-posted from Black Agenda Report.
What do empires do whenever they sense trouble? A bunch of things, for sure. But one of them is to use those they most oppress in one location to ease the process of oppressing others somewhere else. Hip-hop is now the latest in a pattern of Black radical creation to be turned against itself and, if left unchecked, will serve as the cultural equivalent of the Buffalo Soldier: a new face and representative of empire or as some form of imperial novocaine. Two recent examples demonstrate this. In one part of the world rappers are sent to cleanse an image that simply defies cleanliness while here they are sent in order to co-opt what still has to prove it cannot be co-opted. But in each case the goal is to mitigate against the multitudes of emcees whose work is to give voice to radical thought and to turn this voice of the people against itself. The goal is to turn hip-hop against the very communities who create it and ultimately to turn it against the world.
In the Arab world the State Department has been sending rappers since 2005 to, as Hilary Clinton recently made clear, “rebuild the image” of the United States. It is as if to say that we hope the lyrical bombs we drop on you will somehow make up for the very literal ones that, by the way, are still coming. But as many will remember, this is part of a legacy of sending Black emissaries overseas to convince others of “a sense of shared suffering, as well as the conviction that equality could be gained under the American political system” that began in the 1950s with jazz musicians. And today, from the U.S. to Syria people are looking for “pro-stability rappers” who will help make capitulation to the West “cool.” Today’s “hip-hop envoys” are, in the words – again – of Hilary Clinton, engaged in a “complex game of ‘multidimensional chess’” which is, in part, meant to challenge the potential support given by hip-hop to revolutionary movements. So artists we never hear on radio or see on television, and even those who are somewhat progressive, are sent to promote a version of this country that simply does not exist. Shared suffering perhaps, but by no means any “equality under an American political system.”
“Artists we never hear on radio or see on television are sent to promote a version of this country that simply does not exist.”
And back here at home, what does an empire do when it clearly has no clothes? It invents them, slaps a cool label on them and tries to sell them as proof of empire being ok. We were impressed a few weeks back when an anonymous super-sister called our former rap mogul, now just regular mogul, Russell Simmons as being part of the problem while he spoke on behalf of the 99% at Occupy Wall Street. As we said then she was right so it was of no surprise to see him hugged up last week to super rapper and businessman Jay-Z sporting his new Occupy All Streets tee-shirt. It was a brief but note-worthy attempt at commercializing an anti-commercial gathering. But within 48 hours Jay-Z’s Rocafella clothing line took down the shirt from its website and apparently got the message that this time the emperor’s clothes would have to stay off, at least for now.
But all of these attempts speak mostly to the extent to which hip-hop and all of us are disorganized. Artists need to eat and live but also need to check and be checked on who is sponsoring them. No one can claim to be representing anything when appointed as a representative by someone else, especially when that someone else is an enemy. Hilary Clinton can only claim that “hip-hop is America” without the more appropriate Malcolm X-like amendment that, “hip-hop is a response to the victimization by America,” because no organized body can stand up and demonstrate her fraudulence. Similarly, it should not take a loose confederacy of Twitter-ites to stop Russell Simmons and Jay-Z from even attempting to embarrass us with such a typical corporatist move. So while we know that hip-hop has long-been used to sell anything from products to myths of Black and Brown “success” we must again acknowledge that there seems to have been a devolution in preparing for worse forms of political abuse.
In the end sponsorship matters. The sponsor is as important as the message itself. And when that sponsor is the State Department or major corporations the message nearly loses all other relevance. And in this case it becomes again a situation where hip-hop is turned against itself and indeed the world.
600 turn out for People’s History of the LGBTQ community in Grand Rapids premier screening last night
Last night an estimated 600 filled the Loosemore auditorium and an overflow room in the downtown campus of Grand Valley State University to see A People’s History of the LGBTQ community in Grand Rapids film. An additional 100 people had to be turned away, since we were already at over capacity.
The 1 hour and 45 minute film was the result of 69 interviews, archival photos, video, documents and a research project on how the Grand Rapids Press reported on the LGBTQ community in the 1980s and 90s.
Colette Seguin-Beighley welcomed the overflowing crowd who sat and stood for two hours and took in the rich history of organizing by those who identify as LGBTQ and straight allies.
The project has been amazing on so many levels. As one of the persons heading up the project it was amazing to learn so much about this history and to meet so many fabulous and dedicated people.
James Rider wrote, “I can’t tell you how proud I am after having seen this documentary to have been able to have had a small part in it. You really made a beautiful film showing just how far our community has come in what has really been a very small amount of time. Thank you for making the LGBTQ Community of West Michigan shine and for showing how many beautiful people have helped us to get where we are today!”
Tedi Parsons wrote, “Amazing film with some awesome interviews. Many memories shared and it reminded us all of our past struggles and what more needs to be done. Thank you to everyone involved in this film for bringing our stories to the big screen.”
We heard from dozens of people last night who were moved by the film and wanted to talk about ways to show it in other venues. If people want a copy, they can contact us at jsmith@griid.org.
Online Archive
In addition, we unveiled last night a new wordpress site specifically for A People’s History of the LGBTQ community in Grand Rapids. On that sight you can listen to all 69 interviews that were used in this project. One can also look at archival pictures, documents and video we have collected over the past 10 months. We will be adding more archival video over the coming weeks and eventually adding the film to that site as well. We are also inviting anyone who has any additional archival material they are willing to share for this site to please contact us as well. Lastly, for anyone who wants to tell their story, we invite people to submit a video or audio history of their story or contact us about doing more interviews.
There will be other chances to see A People’s History of the LGBTQ community in Grand Rapids in public venues and as of this writing the following dates are firm:
Sunday, January 8 at 6pm
Plymouth UCC
4010 Kalamazoo SE, Grand Rapids
Thursday, January 19 at 6pm
GVSU Campus Allendale, Cook-DeWitt
If you would like to do a public screening of the film and would want someone from GRIID to be involved contact us so we can publicize the screening.
The Coming War on the Occupy Movement
This article by George Ciccariello-Maher is re-posted from CounterPunch.
As I begin to write this, Occupy Oakland circulates in a by-now familiar pattern: forced from the camp at the break of day, the occupiers reconvened as they have done before on the steps of the Public Library. Later, they will attempt to close a repeating circuit that stretches a short six blocks along 14th Street between City Hall and the Library.
This circuit, moreover, is one which draws its familiarity not only from recent weeks, but also from the early moments of what is a single cycle of struggle spanning years: it was down 14th Street that Oakland Police pursued us during the first rebellion, on January 7th of 2009, that greeted the murder of Oscar Grant. And it was in front of the same Public Library that I crouched behind a bush as an armored personnel carrier sped past, only to sprint off as heavily-clad militarized police-troops dismounted to chase myself and others on foot.
It has become all too apparent that the Occupy Movement is under attack, and that even my title is wholly insufficient: this war is not “coming,” this war has already begun.
Breaching the Limits of Tolerance
Writing from the perspective of a previous cycle of struggle, the radical Frankfurt School theorist Herbert Marcuse described the phenomenon of “repressive tolerance,” in which an ostensibly liberating concept and practice becomes distorted to suit the powerful and legitimate the status quo. According to the political theorist Wendy Brown, the discourse of tolerance serves to mark the powerful as normal while discrediting the “unruly” as somehow “deviant,” and thereby “legitimates the most illiberal actions of the state.” In other words, the repression that comes is not a distinct and corrupted form of tolerance, as for Marcuse, but instead embedded within the idea itself.
This lesson is of paramount importance to the Occupy Movement, but so is its opposite: even the most repressive of tolerance has its limits in the push-and-pull of forces vying for control, and Marcuse’s arguable pessimism on this point must be countered with the optimism of transgressing those limits.
This war began as most do, in the realm of hegemonic struggle where small shifts signal coming offensives. But walking the fine line of counterintelligence and counterinsurgency, the forces conspiring against the Occupy Movement have been anything but subtle. In a crude and thinly-veiled information war, lies are tossed about like the seeds they are, and the media duly parrots line put forth by police and city alike. This “chatter” (to turn the language of the counterinsurgents against them) begins to spread surreptitiously: that Occupy is unsanitary, now dangerously so, now downright violent.
By the time San Francisco Chronicle was citing “anonymous police sources” about the conditions of the camp (bearing in mind that the police were not even allowed into the camp), it was clear to many that a raid was imminent. For the second raid this morning, the warning was even clearer: another anonymous leak to the Chronicle, and a leaked email to parents at a local school about an “overwhelming use of force.”
The script is strikingly similar across the map, from Oakland to Portland, Atlanta to Philly: a Democratic mayor plays nice, claiming to represent “the 99%” and to support the Occupation’s crusade against big business. But at some point, as the chatter increases, the occupation goes badly wrong, becoming unacceptable and violent, unrecognizable to the Middle America for which it claims to speak. A murder, a suicide, a rape, and an overdose suddenly brim with political opportunity. With the stage set, all that remains is for the guardians of good order to step in to defend the common good.
The Students Step into the Fray
The Bay Area Occupy Movement received an unexpected shot in the arm last Wednesday when students protesting the creeping increase in fees in the UC system pitched a small number of tents on the grassy area in front of Sproul Hall. If Oakland Mayor Jean Quan drastically miscalculated when she unleashed the police in late October, the response by UCPD to this seemingly minor disturbance strays into the realm of the Epic Fail. Deploying overwhelming force, UCPD could be seen on video beating and spearing students with their batons, punching some in the face, and even dragging English Professor Celeste Langan down by her hair. Langan would later write about her experience, and another English Professor, Geoffrey O’Brien, was also injured by police on the day.
Such repressive tactics and blatant disconnect between the second-rate cops of the UCPD and the student body are nothing new. Amid the student upsurge of 2009, the UCPD came under heavy scrutiny for its handling of a wave of building occupations, and at least one lawsuit from a friend of mine whose fingers had been purposely broken by a sadistic officer outside the Wheeler Hall occupation. At the height of the repressive wave, I myself was one of many featured on the UCPD website in an openly McCarthyite attempt to foster a snitch culture on campus (website visitors were encouraged to send tips that would aid in identifying the dangerous student organizers). The website was eventually removed through legal action.
But repression breeds resistance, as we well know. As I write this, the November 15th system-wide student strike is but a few hours away, and the mass participation of students in the Occupy struggle promises, if they can successfully link with their counterparts to the south, to offer a much needed injection of energy and numbers.
The Indestructible Oakland Commune
The days following the Oakland General Strike and port shutdown were dominated by a debate that never should have been. Rather than crowing about an unprecedented and unexpected chain of victories, in which Occupiers forced the city to back down and re-took Oscar Grant Plaza only to then embark on a massive if not truly General Strike, which saw up to 25,000 people swarm and shut down the Port of Oakland, some within the metaphorical Occupy camp naively took the bait offered by the city and the police, and amplified by the media. The press talking points went something like this: an otherwise powerful day was sullied by the actions of a small few who broke windows at a bank and assailed the Whole Foods in my old neighborhood.
While this iteration of the “nonviolence” debate was won on many fronts by those promoting nuance and diversity of tactics, this was nevertheless a powerful foothold for those seeking to oust the Occupation once again. Within a matter of days the chatter had increased once again, City Council was almost unanimously urging its removal, and the formerly remorseful Jean Quan, fresh from a visit to Scott Olson’s bedside, was once again urging the Occupiers to vacate. Councilwoman Desley Brooks, whose opportunism apparently knows no bounds, went from sleeping at the occupation (or at least publicly emerging from a tent) to condemning the occupiers in a matter of mere weeks. (Such stage-managed populism is something of a forte: Brooks had previously unleashing her goons on myself and others for apparently undermining her carefully crafted image of sympathy with the people.)
As City Council turned against the Occupiers, and as the City Administrator threatened to go around the Mayor to approve a raid, Quan was apparently disconnected and feigned impotence: as a leaked email from her husband put it, “she does not set policy for the city… council does.” The very same Mayor who had approved the devastatingly brutal raid a week prior finally signed on to allow the same police, under the same police chief, with the same participating agencies, to move in and clear the camp.
This was too much for some within the Quan administration to handle. At 2am, Quan’s chief legal advisor Dan Siegel resigned via a twitter message. Siegel, who I am proud to count as a friend and a comrade, and whose civil rights law firm has tirelessly defended protestors in the past, has been for years fighting the struggle within the Quan administration against all odds. He has chosen to take a principled stand at exactly the right moment.
As Occupiers massed at the Public Library, only to march once again up 14th Street to again seize Oscar Grant Plaza with no resistance from police, the same Plaza the Mayor had just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to clear, it is clear that she has been defeated once again, and decisively so. One wonders what could possibly be next for Quan.
Occupy Philly’s “Wrong Turn”
On the opposite coast, the same script plays out. After initially expressing support for Occupy Philly, and evidently fooling many Occupiers in the process, Mayor Nutter was re-elected by a wide margin last Tuesday, freeing his hand for a radical change in course. The previous week, the Radical Caucus of Occupy Philly had brought forth a proposal to the General Assembly which simply stated that the Occupy camp would not voluntarily leave in preparation for a scheduled construction project in Dilworth Plaza, and would resist eviction. The proposal seemed to shock many who had been lulled into the false sense of security that liberal tolerance provides, but after extending discussion of a modified proposal for an entire week, a four-hour General Assembly decided almost unanimously (150 to 3) to remain in Dilworth Plaza and make preparations for nonviolent civil disobedience in the event of a raid.
Nutter’s first move came in a Sunday press conference, in which he announced his intentions to the world in so many words. “Occupy Philly has changed,” he insisted, and so to must the city’s relation with it change. Conditions had deteriorated, fire codes had been violated, and communication, according to the Mayor, had been unilaterally severed. The shadowy force behind this subtle and unwelcome change, according to Nutter, was the Radical Caucus, a frightening group that had taken over and is “bent on civil disobedience” (I only wonder why he didn’t follow suit with other cities in referring to “violence”). If the central pretext for eviction in other cities has been murder, suicide, and overdoses, in Philly it is rape: Nutter highlighted a sexual assault at the camp as an indication of just how far the movement had fallen.
If the repetition of this same strategy, discredit then evict, across the country were not enough to doubt the Mayor’s words, Occupy Philly itself was quick to respond. At a counter-press conference yesterday, speaker after speaker dismantled Nutter’s claim, piece by piece. The most shocking revelation came from the Women’s Caucus, which was quick to highlight the opportunism and hypocrisy of focusing in on the sexual assault as a pretext to attack the Occupation. As a representative of the Women’s Caucus told the press, “We asked police for help with the eviction of a sexual predator. The police said, ‘It’s not our problem. Get your men to handle it.’”
If anything, the Mayor’s slander has strengthened the resolve of those who will defend the camp from eviction, and here’s to hoping it will open the eyes of some who have claimed that the Mayor was on the side of the Occupation from day one. (The so-called “Reasonable Solutions Committee,” which had spearheaded efforts to hand the Plaza back to the city, appears to be beyond all limits of reason. Its members are now both circulating a petition to repeal the GA’s decision to remain, deemed a “Petition for the Logical” with characteristic condescension, while simultaneously betraying the Occupation as a whole by unilaterally applying for alternative permits from the city).
The Politics of War
From the messy dialectic of the spreading Occupy Movement emerge some expected developments. Solidarity develops among the occupiers, who draw strength from the successes and rage from the repression of their comrades, learning crucial and radicalizing lessons from both. Police and city administrators similarly close ranks (sometimes together, sometimes against one another) gripped with the fear that their power is splintering, that the movements have become ungovernable, that they are slipping the yoke and refusing the straitjacket. A climate of mutual polarization, radicalization, and warfare sets in.
But other unexpected dynamics surface as well, some of which play into the hands of the Occupiers. As Occupations spread from Oakland to Berkeley, the sheer number of available police becomes a question, as individual forces rely on mutual aid programs for costly, large-scale eviction efforts. Word emerges that Oakland’s efforts to remove the camp were sped-up due to the constraints imposed by the impending student strike tomorrow. Here the fallout from the brutality of the first Oakland eviction blows back on the police forces themselves: citing the excessive force in Oakland, Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to block mutual aid assistance between the Berkeley PD and UCPD.
And even those more than willing to participate in brutality have begun to demand more booty and protection: in the run-up to the second Oakland eviction this morning, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department demanded not only $1,000 per officer per day, and the City of Alameda also demanded increased legal protection in the case of a repeat of the brutality that left Iraq veteran Scott Olson critically injured at the hands of an ACSD officer. This increasing legal scrutiny, financial strain, and sheer numerical limitations bode well for the future of Bay Area occupations and those across the nation.
I use the language of war consciously, not out of some desire for violent conclusion but out of a recognition that violence is already there. As our Egyptian comrades made clear in a statement in solidarity with Oakland, “It is not our desire to participate in violence, but it is even less our desire to lose.” Despite the asymmetrical nature of the war that confronts us, the implements are the same: few can deny the shocking militarization of police departments in recent years, or that this heavy weaponry has been all but openly deployed against the Occupiers. If Clausewitz famously argued that war is politics by other means, a formulation which Foucault slyly reversed, the practical reality of the Occupy Movement is that the two are much more difficult to disentangle from one another. Every word from the mouth of these Democratic Mayors, every leak whispered from a cop to a reporter is a rubber bullet in potentia.
I use the language of war because we will not back down, and because as a result, the war will be brought to us.
But more importantly, I speak of war because this is not a one-sided affair, and we should not allow our opponents to strip us of our status as equals simply because we do not respond in kind. Our power is nothing to scoff at, although it circulates in a manner largely distinct from that which we oppose. Just two nights ago, Occupy Portland swelled into the thousands to defend Chapman and Lownsdale squares, facing down riot police, forcing their retreat, and winning the night in the most absolute of terms. Last night, the plaza was cleared and campers removed, but traces of such a stunning initial victory remain in the confidence and compromise of the occupiers as they regroup and go once more into the breach.
And as I finish, I receive late word from Oakland that the occupiers have re-taken Oscar Grant Plaza without more than a symbolic police presence, and even later word of a massive crackdown of Zucotti Park in Lower Manhattan. Another skirmish lost, another battle won, but the long war stretches out before us like an interminable horizon.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 