Obama’s Justification for Bombing Libya
Last night President Obama addressed the country in order to convince the nation that his decision to bomb Libya was the right thing to do.
There has been much written about the uprising in Libya and the US decision to enforce a no-fly zone and then begin a bombing campaign for supposed “humanitarian” purposes.
One of the major questions raised so far was why Obama did not consult Congress first before making his decision on Libya. US Foreign Policy analyst Phyllis Bennis asks the same question. Bennis noted that the President said, “some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
Bennis responds by saying, “The United States of America turns a blind eye to atrocities in other countries all the time. In fact our policies enable those atrocities far too often. Obama spoke of places “where change is fiercely suppressed.” But the only example he mentioned was Iran — an often-discussed possible future target of U.S. military attack. He didn’t mention any of the other places “where change is fiercely suppressed,” such as Bahrain, a regional ally in the Middle East, where U.S. actions – non-military actions – could have real impact.”
Obama also made the claim that he didn’t have time to consult Congress. John Nichols, writing for the Nation noted that Rep. Dennis Kucinich had a clear response to such a claim when he said, “President Obama owes the nation an explanation as to why he had time to consult with 15 members of the UN Security Council, 22 members of the Arab League, and later, with 28 members of NATO, to garner support for an attack with Great Britain and France, but had no time to come to the United States Congress for prior authorization before attacking Libya.”
Michigan members of Congress also weighed in on Obama’s speech, with local Republicans Amash and Huizenga critical of the President, while Senator Levin expressed support. Such weak partisan responses are not what we need when the US takes such politically costly actions as bombing another country.
We need a much more lively debate that provides significant political analysis like the debate that Democracy Now! hosted between Juan Cole and Vijay Prashad or the observations of Paul Craig Roberts. One question we should always ask when the US goes to war is who benefits? According to a recent posting by Open Secrets it seems clear that one of the beneficiaries of this new bombing campaign in Libya are US weapons contractors.
Lastly, one thing seems clear we should be highly skeptical of what the commercial media in the US is telling the public about this bombing campaign and how long they have known about it before reporting on it, an important point made in a recent FAIR critique of a Washington Post article.
Rally Next Monday to protest State policies in Grand Rapids
Next Monday there is a call for local communities across the country to protest the draconian policies of both the federal and state governments.
This call is an outgrowth of the US Social Forum and the People’s Movement Assembly from last June’s gathering in Detroit. The People’s Movement Assembly states:
“On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers demanding their dream: the right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life. The workers were trying to form a union with AFSCME.
On April 4, 2011, join union members, community activists, people of faith, students, youth, LGBTQ, civil rights, and immigrant rights allies to stand in solidarity with working people in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and dozens of other states where well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for: the freedom to bargain, to vote, to afford a college education and justice for all workers, immigrant and native-born. It’s a day to show movement with actions, teach-ins, worksite discussions, vigils, faith events – a day to be creative, but clear: We are one.”
In Grand Rapids the rally is planned for 4:30PM at the State building in downtown Grand Rapids. People are encouraged to come with signs and meet at the corner of Michigan and Ottawa. The flyer that was sent out states, “It’s Time to Pull a Madison in Michigan!”
This will be a good opportunity for people to not only demonstrate their disgust with Governor Snyder’s policies but to talk about the necessity of building a larger and more aggressive campaign to reverse the domestic shock doctrine being imposed on Michigan.
Last week 75 people came to a protest in Grand Rapids while Snyder was in town to promote his Emergency Management Plan. The numbers need to be much bigger on April 4.
It is also worth mentioning that Snyder will be visiting Grand Rapids 2 more times in the near future, which provides people with opportunities to send a strong message to him that we will not put up with these anti-worker, anti-local communities policies. Snyder will be the guest speaker at a luncheon being hosted by the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce on April 11 from 11:45 – 1:30PM and again on Monday, May 16 when the Economics Club of Grand Rapids will be hosting him for a luncheon. Both events will be held at the Amway Grand Plaza.
GVSU Senior Michael Wolf has started a campaign to end the university’s contract with bottled water giant PepsiCo.
The campaign, called Free Water, “is an appeal to Grand Valley State University to terminate its sales of Aquafina (Pepsi co). Although the sales and contract are very lucrative, the university is clearly undermining its own mission to provide Grand Valley administration, faculty, staff, students, and community stakeholders with the required skills and capabilities to become better stewards and responsible global citizens in the workforce, communities, and family life.”
PepsiCo is one of the world’s largest bottled water companies and contributes to significant environmental destruction and the theft of communal water in countries like India. PepsiCo has also admitted that much of the bottled water they sell is actually just tap water.
Despite the corporation’s abysmal track record on environmental issues, PepsiCo wants to present itself as a “green” company. Food and Water Watch has an excellent report on how the bottled water industry is engaging in Bluewashing, which makes they claim that they are promoting water just when in fact the opposite is the case.
The Free Water campaign at GVSU consists of a petition campaign to pressure the university to end its contract with PepsiCo. The petition states:
“With the demanding schedule of college life, bottled water has become a popular item for many Grand Valley students and faculty on the go. But with these convenient beverages, there are numerous long lasting negative impacts on communities and the environment.
In recent years, there has been great work done by many to make our campus more sustainable, but some how in all this progressive change bottled water seems to go unnoticed and unchecked. Although the sales and contract with Pepsi Co. has been very lucrative for the institution, it is clearly undermining its own mission “to provide Grand Valley administration, faculty, staff, students, and community stakeholders with the required skills and capabilities to become better stewards and responsible global citizens in the workforce, communities, and family life.”
In a recent letter to the STARS Assessment Committee, President Thomas J. Haas states “the university will hold themselves accountable for achieving their strategic goals that are built around seven values that define Grand Valley.” These include effective teaching, liberal education, scholarship, service, inclusiveness, community, and sustainability.
So as a community of students, educators, and co-workers, we must all recognize the problems with the bottled water industry and take the necessary steps to reach our goal of a sustainable campus.”
You can sign the petition and help GVSU rid itself of one of their corporate contracts.
Amnesty International, S.A.F.E. (Students Advocating Freedom & Equality), and Nouveaux Socialistes have teamed up to bring a 3 speaker panel to look at what’s behind our massive prison build-up, why so many people of color are locked up and what we can do about it.
From death rows to super-maxes, over 2.3 million men and women sit behind bars today. “Lethal Injustice” speakers are organizing on the front-lines of the fight against criminal injustice, taking a stand against the racist, prison build-up and harsh sentencing like the death penalty. The 3 Speakers are Victoria Law – author, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Mark Clements – former police torture victim, sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile and Randi Jones – activist, organizer, and member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.
Wednesday, March 30
7 – 9PM
GSVU downtown campus
Loosemore Auditorium
This event is free and open to the public. There will be plenty of time for Q&A after the panelists speak.
Over the weekend I was reminded of the fragility of peace around the world, when I was contacted by a local immigration lawyer in order to provide an affidavit for a Guatemalan who is facing deportation.
The Guatemala sign Peace Accords were signed in 1996, after 4 decades of a brutal counter-insurgency war by the Guatemalan army. The armed resistance forces were disbanded after 1996 and there was an agreement for the Guatemalan army to decrease its numbers as well. Unfortunately, the Guatemalan army has not reduced its numbers in any significant way and has been using the so-called war on drugs as a justification for maintaining military bases and maneuvers, mostly near indigenous communities.
In addition there has been virtually no Guatemalan military personnel or state officials brought to justice for war crimes against the civilian population and particularly against the Mayan population, in what the Historical Clarification Committee called a “genocidal campaign.”
In addition, there has been ongoing investigation into the crimes committed during the worst years of the counter-insurgency campaign (1979-1983), some of which has taken on regional projects. One such project is ADIVIMA, a project of support for victims of the political violence in the departments of Alta and Baja Verapaz. Like in other areas of the country, more and more clandestine graves have been discovered which has assisted in the process of determining the crimes committed against people, but also in helping family members have some closure.
When I was contacted over the weekend by an immigration attorney I was put in contact with a Guatemalan woman from Alta Verapaz who was seeking assistance to prevent her brother from being deported. The woman told me about how her father, who was a member of the Guatemalan army, was killed in 1982. At the time she believed that the guerrillas were responsible for his death, but now has seen documentation to prove it was really the Guatemalan military.
While this revelation has been very helpful for the family in understanding whom was responsible for their father’s death, it has created another dilemma for them. Since none of the perpetrators of these brutal crimes are still living in Guatemala and are either in the military or still have military connections it makes it very dangerous for people once they have discovered who was responsible for the crimes, especially if they have been public about their feelings.
Since the 1996 Peace Accords there has been numerous well documented instances of political violence being perpetrated by current and former military personnel towards people who are seeking justice. The most visible case to date was the 1998 murder of Bishop Gerardi by a Guatemalan officer the day after the Catholic Church released its own findings on the political violence in Guatemala’s 40-year war.
The woman who contacted me told me that if her brother is deported back to Guatemala he will be in great danger. This fear that she expressed to me is a well-founded fear as there have been numerous cases of this kind of political violence perpetrated against people who could name those who committed crimes during the war years.
I was more than willing to produce and sign the necessary affidavit and hope it will prevent her brother’s deportation. This is of particular concern now, not just because of the family’s situation in Guatemala, but also because deportations have increased under the Obama administration.
This incident was also a reminder to me that these kinds of policies have a human face to it, where real flesh and blood people, not just numbers, are at great risk of losing their dignity or worse, losing their lives. This should be of importance for those of us in West Michigan, since there are thousands of Guatemalans who live in this area who are at risk of deportation as the growing anti-immigrant sentiment permeates our political culture.
The Guatemala Catholic Church’s report on the years of political violence is entitled, Nunca Mas!, Never Again! We must do whatever we individually and collectively to say Never Again when our fellow humans are put in harms way. Nunca Mas!
Palestinian survivor and film share experience of the Nakba
PALESTINE REMEMBERED: UNDERSTANDING THE NAKBA
7 p.m. Weds. March 30
Film: “The Sons of Eilaboun”
with Nimer Haddad, from the destroyed village of Albassa, sharing his experience
At The Bloom Collective, Steepletown Center
671 Davis NW
(Corner of 5th and Davis)
The Nakba (catastrophe) is often misunderstood in the Western World. Facilitator of this event,Cathryn Young of Olives for Hope has traveled to Israel and Palestine several times. She calls on her experience there to bring a better understanding of the past events which impact the current conflict.
“The Sons of Eilaboun” about one village’s experience with the Nakba. Nimer Haddad, from Albassa in Palestine, will be on hand to add some information about his experience as a survivor of the destruction of his village. Light refreshments will be served afterwards.
“The Sons of Eilaboun” (أبناء عيلبون) tells the story of the human toll that Israel’s Plan Dalet claimed as told by the men and women who witnessed Israeli soldiers commit atrocities on a fall day in 1948. These survivors are determined not to let the horrors of this brutal plan be forgotten. The story of Eilaboun was repeated hundreds of times across the land that today is called Israel. The killing, expulsion and looting of these villages was a tactic spelled out in a document called Plan Dalet, developed by the high command of the Israeli Army to rid the future State of Israel of its Arab inhabitants, which it saw as a threat.
View the trailer:
Michigan is part of Millions Against Monsanto
(Part of this article was reproduced from the Organic Consumers Association.)
The Millions Against Monsanto campaign is forming 435 local chapters, one for each U.S. Congressional District. Our goal is for each chapter to reach 2300 supporters by World Food Day. October 16, 2011, will be a nationwide day of action, turning out 1,000,000 people against Monsanto and in support of our right to know – and choose – what’s in our food. Sign and distribute the Millions Against Monsanto petition. Join your local chapter.
Monsanto has a long history of environmental destruction along with contributing to major human health problems, but this campaign is focused on the corporation’s history of both controlling and modifying our food system.
There are 15 Congressional districts in Michigan and as of this writing there are 8 that have chapters of the Millions Against Monsanto campaign. The 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses Grand Rapids, does not have a active chapter.
Check out this short video produced by the Organic Consumers Association that explains the campaign and the food policies of Monsanto.
This Tuesday the local group Healing Children of Conflict (HCC) will host a free screening of the film Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: US Media and the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.
This documentary is part of a series of films that HCC is hosting over the next few months, along with information about the current conflicts that the US is involved in – Israel/Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to the Media Education Foundation, “Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites–oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others–work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.”
Tuesday, March 29
7pm
Calvin College, Bytwerk Theater in the DeVos Center
Discussion will follow the screening
Sisters shine at 3rd Empowered Womyn’s Health Workshop
Last Saturday, nearly 30 women of all ages came together for The Bloom Collective’s third annual Empowered Women’s Health workshop. Our time together was heartwarming, inspirational and informative.
We ate great food! The workshop kicked off with a brief presentation on good foods and bad foods, as relates to women’s health. Brief, because the wonderful aromas coming from the kitchen made everyone anxious to get on with Nancy Rutledge’s healthy foods cooking demo. She and her assistant, Stella, prepared Gluten Free Cornbread, Quinoa Salad w,Sweet Potatoes and Raisins, Ginger Vinagrette and Black Beans w/Greens and Brown Rice. Here is a .pdf of Nancy’s recipes.
We learned how birth practices impact our society. Next, Shannon Pawson presented a marvelous overview of American birth and what we can all do to change the obstetric practices that make the US almost the most dangerous place on earth to have a baby (in terms of both infant and maternal mortality rates). Sarah also shared how childbirth does not impact just the family but the whole culture. Embracing a home-birth/midwifery model will not only mean better outcomes but also a culture more prone to community and peace. To download Shannon Pawson’s Bloom Birth Presentation and handout, Things You Can Do To Make Birth Better, click here.
We made home brews. Next we moved back to the kitchen to brew our own herbal remedies. Miranda and Bethany facilitated as we mixed up brews of nettle, red raspberry leaves, alfalfa and red clover. Those down with colds added some mullein and ginger to their mixes. Claire AK also shared how weomen can get the specific vitamins and minerals they need from foods we eat.
We took a stand! We closed the instruction portion of the day with a skill-share where Kelsey Hakeem taught us how to pee standing up. We were surprised to learn that girls and women are indeed “equipped” to pee while standing, but cultural mores have prevented us from being taught as children in how to do so. Kelsey instructed us to stand with legs 
part, pull up on the crotch area on either side, thrust the hips forward a bit and go for it. She recommended practicing in the shower. She also mentioned women can buy funnels on-line that make peeing while standing simple—you don’t even have to take down your pants. She uses one when camping.
During this session, others shared more great advice around such topics as herbal birth control and handling urinary tract infections. As we listened, many women took opportunity to sew their own cloth menstrual pads, with guidance provided by Rachel Hamilton, who had presented on menstrual health the past two years.
Sister power! After closing with a restful yoga nidra meditation, we were invigorated, inspired and hopeful about creating more community and making our culture one where women’s wisdom is honored. In all, it was a time when we got to see our sisters shine. The light was bright, beautiful … and full of power.
LGBT organizing in the faith communities – Bringing Our Whole Selves to the Conversation
Yesterday, GVSU’s LGBT Resource Center hosted the 4th of five events this semester as part of their Change U program. Rev. Rebecca Voelkel with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force spoke to an audience during lunchtime about the importance of LGBT organizing in faith communities.
Voelkel is a pastor in the UCC Church, an author and part of what is called the Welcoming Church Movement. This movement of several decades works with faith communities in order to get them to adopt a community policy of being a welcoming and affirming place for people who identify as LGBT.
The pastor began her talk by telling her own story. Her journey began in part because of the TV show Little House on the Prairie, where she developed a “crush” on the actor Melissa Gilbert.
Melissa Gilbert, then played the role of Jean Donavan, the US Lay missionary who was raped and murdered in El Salvador in December in 1980. This led Rebecca to investigate Jean Donavan and then Archbishop Oscar Romero and the struggle for justice on El Salvador.
Rebecca then became involved in the US Sanctuary Movement and even began an Amnesty International chapter at her high school. Eventually, she went to El Salvador in 1987 as part of an accompaniment project of refugees who were returning from exile.
Rev. Volkel talked about the counter-insurgency movement in El Salvador, particularly Operation Phoenix, a campaign that resulted in the death of thousands of Salvadoran civilians. On this trip she met Salvadoran women and asked how they could continue to denounce the government even in the face of such risk. The woman said that she had lost children to the state repression, but she had faith in God, because God through the person of Jesus knows what a suffering body is like.”
Rebecca said that both of her parents were ministers, but she had never heard such a powerful faith testimony until this Salvadoran woman shared hers. She continued to work on Central American issues in the US and on additional trips to that part of the hemisphere. She also investigated Liberation Theology and it was in this investigation that she found the strength to come out as a Lesbian woman.
Rebecca talked about how there is no monolithic representation of religious beliefs, which is why she sees no contradiction with being part of the LBGT movement and the Welcoming Church movement. Some of the religious traditions, like the UCC Church, see it as their duty to work for justice with those in the LGBT community.
Her work takes places in three main arenas. First, she works within specific denominations, which can create space as a welcoming community. The second arena is to get people across all sorts of Christian backgrounds to have a discussion and to work towards justice around LGBT issues. Rebecca says it is important for this to happen because it is the Christian community that has been the main opponent of LGBT issues around the country. The third arena is with leaders from a variety of religious traditions throughout the US.
Lisa Weiner Mahfuz, an organizer within the LGBT community with experience in movement building, then joined Rebecca at the podium to talk about the work they have done together around Proposition 8 in California.
Both women then talk about the fight around Proposition 8 in California that passed in 2008, which was an anti-marriage equality proposition ironically named the Marriage Protection Act. The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force was asked to do some assessment of the outcome of Prop 8 and Rebecca and Lisa shared some of the findings of that work.
Some of the findings from this assessment are:
- Proposition 8 and most of the anti-LGBTQQIA measures are rooted in conservative religion, therefore religious opposition requires a religious response.
- Pro-LGBTQQIA secular-religious partnerships are critical to future success.
- A narrow political campaign frame hinders pro-LGBTQQIA religious work.
One of the reasons that Prop 8 passed, according to the presenters, was because the campaign did not connect to people of color and people of faith. In other words, the campaign was not rooted in specific communities, but applied a cookie-cutter approach that did not take into account specific communal identity.
One of the unfortunate consequences of Prop 8 was that the Right was able to further divide the African American community and the LGBT community by pitting them against each other around the issues of “rights,” which has been a strategy for the past three decades.
Another flaw of the anti-Prop 8 campaign is that it tended to push those most marginalized out of the conversation so that the immediate win is more important than the long-term goal……building relationships and a viable movement.
Therefore, it is critical to build strong alliances with religious folks and the LGBT movement. There are 900 welcoming communities in California, but of those 900 few of the denominations did a good job of mobilizing people to defeat Prop 8.
A model that both Rebecca and Lisa now use, based on what happen in California, has expanded to include LGBT sectors, economic justice sectors, communities of color, the disabilities community and faith communities when developing a campaign. However, when they first attempted this it was a disaster, which taught them it wasn’t enough to get people together to talk but to organize an inter-sectional gathering.
They kept asking themselves how were they going to build trust in relationship with each other? What became clear is that people in the LGBT community, a predominantly secular community, did not know the folks in the Welcoming Church Movement, which meant there was a lack of relationship.
Once they recognized this, they developed a common vision statement that reflected their collective desire for what they wanted the world to look like. Once they had this vision they wanted to talk about their collective values for the conference they were planning. Lisa then quoted Gandhi who said that, “every step along the way must have a step towards liberation.”
A good example of what this kind of work looks like is the document Beyond Marriage, which significantly broadens the discussion about who benefits from marriage equality. Rebecca says that this document moves beyond just same sex marriage to look at how immigrants could benefit from changes in marriage laws or even widowed senior citizens who are taking care of grandkids who they could claim as dependents with the health care.
The point that both speakers were emphasizing was the need to always be more inclusive and expansive when organizing around a particular campaign. This is important both because if means more people have a stake in working on the campaign, but more importantly is has the potential to build capacity for long-term movement building around social justice issues.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 