Climate Meetings Have Become Conferences of Polluters
(This article by Patrick Bond is re-posted from CounterPunch.)
Judging by what transpired at last week’s global climate negotiations in the former West German capital, Bonn, it appears certain that in just over five months time, the South African port city of Durban will host a conference of procrastinators, the ‘COP 17’ (Conference of Parties), dooming the earth to the frying pan. Further inaction on climate change will leave our city’s name as infamous for elite incompetence and political betrayal as is Oslo’s in the Middle East.
It appears certain that Pretoria’s alliance with Washington, Beijing, New Delhi and Brasilia, witnessed in the shameful 2009 Copenhagen Accord, will be extended to other saboteurs of the Kyoto Protocol, especially from Ottawa, Tokyo and Moscow, along with Brussels and London carbon traders.
What everyone now predicts is a conference of paralysis. Not only will the Kyoto Protocol be allowed to expire at the end of its first commitment period (2012). Far worse, Durban will primarily be a conference of profiteers, as carbon trading – the privatization of the air, giving rich states and companies the property-right to pollute – is cemented as the foundation of the next decade’s global climate malgovernance.
Indeed, a telling diplomatic move in Bonn was when Pretoria negotiators, weighed down by team members from maxi-polluters Eskom, Sasol and the National Business Initiative, tried to break African solidarity against European Union plans for opening up new carbon markets (in exchange for Europe emitting much more GreenHouse Gas pollution) – instead of doing the honorable thing by paying the EU’s vast climate debt to Africa straight up.
A local alignment is now approaching in which on the one hand Pretoria’s Bantustan-type politicians and officials will legitimize ‘climate apartheid’ once the COP17 begins at the Durban International Convention Centre, at the same time they support every homegrown, climate-destroying action in sight:
* building two of the world’s four largest coal-fired power plants for $20 billion each at Kusile and Medupi
* digging a vast new $14 billion port in South Durban, announced last week
* constructing a new $12 billion heavy-oil refinery in Port Elizabeth; and
* offering shale-gas fracking exploration rights to South African, Norwegian and US firms in the fragile Drakensburg mountain range
To top it off, the promised $100 billion/year Green Climate Fund, far larger than any other financing source ever assembled, is co-chaired by another Northern-pliant Pretoria politician, national planning minister Trevor Manuel, a man who takes his responsibilities so lackadaisically that he offered no visible objection to these eco-catastrophic investments.
Indeed as finance minister, Manuel repeatedly gave SA’s state power corporation Eskom the green light to continue supplying the world’s cheapest electricity to BHP Billiton and the Anglo American Corporation while raising poor people’s power prices to unaffordable heights so as to pay for the expensive plants.
Manuel apparently thought so highly of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) that in late April he preferred to stay home in Cape Town, unsuccessfully seeking votes for the ruling party (it lost to the conservative opposition in mid-May municipal elections), instead of going to the Mexico City conference where in absentia Manuel was given GCF design co-leadership. In all the talk of his joining the EU-rigged race for International Monetary Fund managing director, which Manuel quit on the last day, June 10, not a word was uttered about climate or his GCF co-chair responsibilities.
The GCF may do far more harm than good, especially if Manuel’s team authorizes the financing of ‘false solutions’ such as biotech, Genetically Modified trees and plants, timber plantations, nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage, or seeding the air with the coolant SO2 and the sea with iron filings to create algae blooms. He has already pronounced that the GCF should raise up to half its funds through carbon trading.
But Manuel will fail not only because of periodic carbon market collapses but because, as Third World Network director Meena Raman complained last week, “Only a few [6] days of negotiations have been set aside for the GCF Technical Committee between now and Durban, while there are many complex issues to resolve… [How can they] execute the difficult and important task in such a short period of time?” At the May 30 GCF workshop in Bonn, only co-chair Kjetil Lund of Norway attended parts of the session, but Manuel and the third co-chair, Mexico’s Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, were no-shows.
This typifies the disrespect that state and business elites show for climate negotiations. Because Pretoria can’t be trusted to lead the world in December, says Michele Maynard of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, “African civil society is calling on the South African Government to have an open, democratic and accountable process. That means saying when, where and who they are meeting and how they will let the people actually impacted by climate change have their say.”
Maynard continued, “This is all the more urgent as we hear that New Zealand and the US are driving the introduction of ‘soil carbon’ markets into the negotiations. These markets are false solutions that will only fuel the land-grab in Africa and seriously undermine the ability of poor Africans to feed themselves.”
The Kyoto Protocol will be the first casualty of Durban, everyone predicts. The North wants a voluntary ‘political commitment’ sometimes called ‘pledge and review’ to replace the binding emissions reductions requirements made in 1997 in Kyoto.
To be sure, the civil society movement Climate Justice Now! is disgusted by Kyoto’s
* low targets (just 5 percent decrease in emissions since 1990);
* ease of exit (especially by the world’s worst tar-sands polluter, Canada);
* lack of sanctions against big polluters for not participating (the US and Australia) or for missing even weak targets (nearly everyone);
* failure to penalize corporate beneficiaries of vast coal operations in sites like South Africa; and
* reliance on carbon markets to make emissions cuts more palatable to big capital, thanks to the sleazy deal done by Al Gore in 1997 in exchange for official US support (but the Senate vote against Kyoto was 95-0!).
Still, a binding global deal is ultimately needed, and replacing Kyoto with a voluntary ‘Durban Package’ would be disastrous given the US, EU and Japanese track-record on underfunding, cheating and bribery. Thanks to last December’s release of US State Department cables by Julian Assange and Bradley Manning (presumably, as he remains uncharged in Leavenworth prison in Kansas), it is undeniable that Clinton underlings Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing are bullies who should be banned from all future negotiations. The EU’s Connie Hedegaard happily joined them to plot defunding the GCF in February 2010, according to WikiLeaks.
To meet scientific requirements for planet-saving emissions cuts requires a binding UN effort like that made in 1987 in Montreal to ban CFCs, the chemical that was widening the deadly ozone hole. But given the rise of neoliberalism (1990s), neoconservatism (2000s) and their subsequent fusion as the dominant ideologies within the United Nations, a repeat of the Montreal Protocol is not possible anytime soon.
So at the last two climate COPs, in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancún (2010), Pretoria lined up squarely with the worst environmental wreckers. The result, according to Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Pablo Sólon, at a Bonn press conference, are “commitments of emissions reductions that leads us to a scenario of [a temperature increase of] 4 degrees Celsius. And that is absolutely unacceptable. We need to come out of South Africa with commitments of emissions reductions that will put us in a scenario of between 1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to preserve our planet and life as we know it.”
Concluded Sólon, one of the few negotiators brave enough to speak truth to power inside UN’s dead space, “South Africa is the place to fight against the new apartheid against Mother Earth and its vital systems.”
Local activists will join this fight knowing their politicians and officials are terribly destructive. One reason Durban will be regarded in future as the city that amplified climate apartheid, is the elites’ hunger to codify and even celebrate market-based environmental governance, including the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) programme.
According to Sólon, “There is a proposal in the Cancún agreement that focuses everything on … guidelines in the capacity of forests to capture CO2. We must not focus on how to prepare forests for a market mechanism, we must fight deforestation now.”
REDD’s most dogmatic advocate has been the World Bank, which is also the trustee for the Green Climate Fund, leading to civil society demands for its repulsion. “The World Bank is part of the climate problem, not the climate solution,” Sebastian Valdomir of Friends of the Earth International said at Bonn. “Its appalling social and environmental track record should immediately disqualify it from playing any role whatsoever in designing the Green Climate Fund, and in climate finance more generally.”
Case in point: the Bank’s $3.75 billion loan to Eskom last year, mainly to fund the Medupi plant in spite of well-known conflicts of interest (African National Congress investments in Hitachi boiler construction) and worsening inability to pay for electricity by poor South Africans, who continue ‘service delivery protests’ at amongst the highest rate in the world.
Rather than expect the dubious bankers to tackle our greatest challenge, Sólon proposed an international financial transactions tax to fund climate aid. The North’s existing commitments, such as the supposed $30 billion in fast track funding pledged by Hillary Clinton at Copenhagen through 2012, is proving to be just as reliable as the G8’s Gleneagles Summit 2005 financing pledges to Africa.
Conferences of promisers are a dime a dozen, as they say in the US, and conferences of empty pledges, such as Clinton’s, as unveiled at Bonn by her own colleagues on June 7 (“there will not be $100 billion a year in the GCF”), have one main purpose: to deflect the world’s justified anger at how Northern pollution threatens us all.
There is another deflection trick we can expect in Durban, just as at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, when Third World Network’s Martin Khor condemned the host chair (Thabo Mbeki) for importing the exclusionary methodology of the World Trade Organisation’s ‘Green Rooms’. Venezuela’s negotiators in Bonn last week criticized Pretoria’s “proliferation of innovative ideas” that were hashed out beyond closed doors.
Against top-down disasters like these, can activists change the balance of forces? Last Friday as Bonn was drawing to a desultory close, the Durban-born leader of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, showed exactly the spirit required, while attempting delivery of a 50,000-strong petition to an offshore drilling rig run by Cairn Energy near Greenland.
As Naidoo approached the rig, the Leif Eriksson (named after a Scandinavian Viking, a tribe renowned for looting, pillaging and raping), he was hit by near-freezing water cannon blasts and then arrested ‘indefinitely’ for violating a court injunction.
Said Naidoo, “Arctic oil drilling is one of the defining environmental battles of our age. I’m an African but I care deeply about what’s happening up here. The rapidly melting cap of Arctic sea ice is a grave warning to all of us, so it’s nothing short of madness that companies like Cairn see it as a chance to drill for fossil fuels that got us into this climate change mess in the first place. We have to draw a line and say no more.” The same line will have to be drawn against the Durban Conference of Polluters, and it appears Saturday, December 3 will be a global day of action when in Durban and your hometown, the strongest possible stance will be needed to finally address the mess.
(This article by Diane Bukowski is re-posted from Michigan Citizen.)
With no input from community members or city workers, a group of Detroit’s top business barons, appointed by U.S. District Court Judge John Feikens, is studying the possible sale, regionalization, or private management of the city’s water department.
The panel, which includes executives from GM, Ford, DTE and Detroit Renaissance, is also studying the possibility of a costly 50-year refinancing of the department’s $5.4 billion debt. Its final report is due in the spring, with Feikens set to act on it afterwards.
Feikens has said that he wants to end the ongoing war between Detroit and its suburbs over control of the department, which serves 4.3 million people in an eight-county area, employs nearly 3,000 workers, and has an annual budget of $1.48 billion. Detroit built the system over the past century, financing it with billions in bond issues.
Ford Motor Company executive Tim O’Brien, the panel’s co-chair, denied that Feikens will necessarily actualize the options being studied, but community and union leaders say they are alarmed.
“It’s just an outrage,” said Maureen Taylor of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. “Feikens should retire. He doesn’t have the right to steal ownership of the water department from us. We are certainly not above picketing outside his residence.”
Taylor said the water department has budgeted 45,000 water shut-offs to Detroit residents who can no longer afford rising rates this year, and the problem will only worsen if the city loses control.
John Riehl, president of Local 207 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), has long protested internal privatization at the department. He has said costly private contracts have already resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs for city workers, and severe reductions in the quality of service, including failure to properly maintain the system.
“Such a takeover would be terrible for Detroit’s citizens and workers,” he said. “It means increased water rates and service cutbacks while private companies profit and Detroiters have no control.”
He said his union has asked for a public hearing in front of Detroit’s city council on the matter, but no date has yet been set.
The city’s charter forbids the sale or wholesale privatization of water department assets without a general vote of its residents. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has additionally said, “The City of Detroit will NEVER give up control of the Water Department.”
Feikens, who is 88, has supervised the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) under a federal consent decree related to pollution control since 1977. As a federal judge, he has the power to override state constitutional guarantees of the city’s ownership of DWSD, including its home rule provisions. But he has said he prefers that the city voluntarily concede some of those protections.
At an April meeting of the Southeast Michigan Consortium for Water Quality in Dearborn, Feikens summarized his stance.
“DWSD’s system, vital as it is to the health and quality of life in southeastern Michigan, has faced repeated challenges from some suburban communities who are prevented by the state’s constitution from having any say in the ownership or operation of DWSD,” he intoned.
“At the same time, the people of Detroit who provide this valuable service are barred by state law from receiving any financial benefit or profit for doing so. This dilemma will not be resolved by legislation or litigation. It demands cooperation on the part of the southeast Michigan communities and the agreement by DWSD to modify the protection given to it by the state’s Constitution as part of a regional settlement.”
He designated F. Thomas Lewand, of the law firm of Bodman, Longley and Dahling, LLP, as “Special Master” to oversee the study group, which he appointed last year. To date, Lewand has submitted $233,547.46 in itemized bills to DWSD under Feikens’ orders.
Those bills refer to extensive research on the possible sale of the water system, with assets first being transferred from the City of Detroit to the water department itself; the possible creation of a regional authority to oversee DWSD and the make-up of its board of directors; and the possible engagement of a private management group.
The bills also refer to research on the impact such alternative structures would have on the department’s eligibility for state and federal funds, and the possible assumption of the department’s bonded debt.
In an Oct. 17 ruling, Feikens ordered DWSD Director Victor Mercado to procure the services of banking firms to examine the department’s current bond structure, and options for restructuring its debt.
The department is not in deficit, and currently has AAA bond ratings on Wall Street. But Feikens told Crain’s Detroit Business, “. . .preliminary figures point to possible savings of up to $60 million a year if bond terms are pushed out to 50 years while keeping rates where they are at.”
Feikens said Detroit would perhaps retain about $40 million of that, while the suburbs would get $20 million. He said he is also looking at the possibility of Detroit charging user fees to the suburbs.
Serving on Feikens’ panel are former Michigan governor William Milliken, Ford Motor executive Tim O’Brien, DTE Vice-President Paul Hillegonds, General Motors executive Doug Rothwell, PVS Chemicals CEO Jim Nicholson, attorney David Lewis, businessman and former Piston Dave Bing, and S. Martin Taylor to the panel.
Many of those individuals are key figures in the recent formation of One D, a supergroup including New Detroit, The Detroit Regional Chamber, and Detroit Renaissance along with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan. They also head committees of Kilpatrick’s Next Detroit Transformation Team, which has recommended privatization and sale of city assets among other options.
O’Brien said the panel has only been doing its “homework.”
“It is premature for anyone to say that because we are studying options, that we have reached a conclusion that the system ought to be privatized or sold,” he opined. “That is not the direction we’re heading in. But it would be inappropriate to pre-empt our conclusions, which are due in the spring, by discussing them now.”
He continued, “The judge’s purpose is to allow this region in its totality to benefit from a system that has some of the highest water quality in the world and some of the lowest rates. But the region also has massive infrastructure problems that will require significant capital investment in the future.”
He said the panel is contemplating the restructuring of the department’s debt “not to make the banks wealthy, but because it makes sense for Southeast Michigan.”
O’Brien said community members and other stakeholders will be brought into discussions after the panel issues its final report.
Really Really Free Market planned for this Sunday
Really Really Free Market
Noon to 5 p.m.
Sunday June 26, 2011
The Bloom Collective
671 Davis NW, Grand Rapids
This Sunday, The Bloom Collective is hosting a Really Really Free Market on the lawn outside of Steepletown Center, at the corner of 5th St. and Davis Ave. NW. This is the fourth time the infoshop has hosted an “RRFM.” In fact, after hearing about Really Really Free Markets in other parts of the country, The Bloom introduced the idea to the area in July 2008 with this announcement:
Let’s share what we’ve got and ask for what we need, because there is enough for everyone. Let’s respond to the corporations that would rather the landfills overflow than anyone get something without paying. Let’s meet this month to show that we mean what we’ve been saying–we want an alternative, and we’re going to invent it for ourselves.
That market was a huge success. In addition to folks bringing and taking yard-sale type items, the day included musicians, free bike repairs, a family sharing kombuchu mothers, a sketch artist and introductory Spanish lessons. For a few hours, the market turned the vacant lot at the corner of Fuller and Wealthy into a microcosmic community living an alternative to capitalism. A neighbor in charge of maintaining the vacant lot came by with ideas of asking folks to leave. Instead, he walked away with a few free items he needed and a smile on his face.
That Really Really Free Market even got coverage in The Grand Rapids Press.
After that first Really Really Free Market, a group of dedicated local folks, known first as simply Really Really Free Market and then Good Morning Revolution, took on the task of hosting regular markets at the Wealthy/Fuller location and elsewhere around town. Today, the Really Really Free Market is pretty much an established event that radical folks and others look forward to attending on a regular basis.
Do you want an alternative to consumerism and greed, the two cornerstones of our economic system? Come on down to the Really Really Free Market on Sunday. Bring the stuff you don’t need, take the stuff you do. Share some food, music or whatever other talents you have. And, be inspired to find other alternatives that demonstrate another world is possible.
Carl Levin continues to support bloated military budget and corporate welfare for weapons contractors
On Friday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin announced that the committee has completed its “mark up” of the 2012 Defense Authorization Act.
The proposed military budget for 2012 is as big as ever with Levin not only approving of the largest military budget in the world but gloats over the amount of contracts he was able to secure for Michigan contractors.
The report from the Senate Armed Services Committee is lengthy, but we’ll provide some of the major highlights of this bloated military budget:
- Extends through fiscal year 2017 significant funding for counter-insurgency training and programs, specifically for Afghanistan.
- Ongoing funding for projects fighting WMDs.
- $12.8 billion for Afghan Security Forces.
- Billions in funding to promote the use of renewable energy sources for the military – like that is not the most absurd contradiction ever.
- Authorizes $10.4 billion for U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), an increase of 6 percent above fiscal year 2011 levels.
- Renewal of DOD contracts for the failed War on Drugs.
- Increased funding for ballistic missiles.
This bloated military budget comes with perks for weapons contractors in Michigan. Here is a listing of the companies and the amount of the contracts they were awarded in the 2012 military budget:
- $444 million for the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV). Arvin Meritor of Troy, AAR Mobility of Cadillac, and a number of other Michigan companies are involved in the production of FMTVs.
- $685.8 million for the Army’s Stryker armored vehicle. General Dynamics Land Systems of Sterling Heights is the prime contractor for the Stryker armored vehicle. Many Michigan companies serve as suppliers in support of this program.
- $161.6 million for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) recapitalization. Many Michigan companies support the HMMWV program as suppliers.
- $663.9 million for the Abrams Main Battle Tank program. General Dynamics Land Systems of Sterling Heights is the prime contractor for the Abrams program and more than 200 Michigan companies serve as suppliers.
- $34.6 million for the Lightweight 155mm Howitzer. Howmet Castings of Whitehall is a major contractor for the Lightweight 155mm Howitzer program.
- $674.5 million for the Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles. Detroit Diesel manufactures and supplies the engine for this program.
- $3.34 billion for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. Spartan Chassis of Charlotte, Arvin Meritor of Troy, and Demmer Corporation of Lansing and many other Michigan companies are involved in this program.
- $250.7 million for Bradley Fighting Vehicle modifications. L-3 of Muskegon is a major contractor for the Bradley program.
- $1.8 billion for Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) construction. Marinette Marine, just across the Michigan border in Wisconsin, is one of two shipyards building LCS and employs several hundred Michigan residents and relies on many Michigan suppliers.
In addition, there is $2 billion allocated for universities to conduct research for the Department of Defense. Levin states, “Many Michigan universities perform high quality fundamental research for the Department of Defense in all fields of science and technology.”
It should come as no surprise to those who follow campaign finance that Senator Levin would fight so hard for military contracts to come to Michigan, especially since military contractors like General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin have been significant contributors to Levin over the years.
Some might argue that these contracts provide jobs in Michigan and while that is true the amount of money allocated to the military industrial complex in Michigan in the form of jobs is miniscule compared to the amount of money that has left Michigan to fund the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.
According to the National Priorities Project over $32 billion has left Michigan to fund these wars over the last 10 years while our schools are grossly underfunded, our infrastructure crumbles and the number of people living in poverty increases.
The “liberal” Senator Levin continues to demonstrate that he is beholden to the military industrial complex with his support for weapons manufacturers. At the same time Carl Levin’s support for the highly militarized foreign policy of the US shows he is a zealous supporter of the US imperial project abroad.
Earlier today roughly 50 people gathered in downtown Grand Rapids to protest the economic policies implemented by the Snyder administration in Lansing.
People gathered in front of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce building at 111 Pearl Street since the GR Chamber has played a significant role in crafting and supporting these new economic policies such as the elimination of the Michigan Business Tax.
The local Chamber office was close today with a sign attached saying that their staff was on retreat. No one present at the demonstration knew if this was just coincidence or if the Chamber decided to avoid any confrontation.
The protest was organized with the help of several local unions, particularly the Teamsters who have begun a new organizing effort locally and across the country.
People held signs for more than an hour and moved along Pearl Street chanting slogans like, “the banks got bailed out, we got sold out” and “We will fight, we will win, Cairo, Madison, Michigan.” After about an hour 2 Grand Rapids cops arrived to tell the demonstrators that they were “being too loud.” One demonstrator asked how this could be when there are weekly outdoor concerts in the downtown area that create much more noise than people engaged in free speech. The cops didn’t seem interested in hearing any logical argument.
GRIID spoke with one of the organizers from the Teamsters, Terry Hoogerhyde and a retired teacher Esther Turner. Here are there comments:
For the past several years, GRIID has been involved directly, or reported on, local actions that sought to raise awareness of the cost of the US’ continuing occupation of Afghanistan. Those actions included hosting journalist, Anand Gopal, peace activist Kathy Kelly, a teach-in on Ending Occupations with keynote Phyllis Bennis and marches that commemorated the eighth and ninth anniversaries of the US occupation of Afghanistan.
These marches reiterated the financial costs of the occupation that are being paid for with local and state tax revenue, revenue that could be used to fund our schools, healthcare, parks, food security, housing for the homeless or unemployment for the many now out of work.
One of the rationales for the paying the high costs of occupation that is often highlighted by the Whitehouse and US media is the liberation of Afghan’s women. Sad to say, the US presence in Afghanistan has only worsened women’s plight here. Women’s groups inside Afghanistan like RAWA and Afghan’s Women’s Mission have made this clear since the occupation began. Their accounts were recently corroborated in a June 15 article published in Al Jazeera English, “Afghanistan ‘most dangerous place for women.”
Afghanistan has been ranked as the world’s most dangerous country for women, with Congo taking a close second position, a Thomson Reuters Foundation expert poll has said. Violence, dismal healthcare and brutal poverty afflicts women in Afghanistan, while in Congo there are horrific levels of rape, the survey conducted by TrustLaw, an arm of Thomson Reuters, said on Wednesday. Pakistan, India and Somalia ranked third, fourth and fifth respectively in the global survey of perceptions of threats ranging from domestic abuse and economic discrimination to female foeticide, genital mutilation and acid attacks.
“Ongoing conflict, NATO airstrikes and cultural practices combined make Afghanistan a very dangerous place for women,” Antonella Notari, head of women change makers, a group that supports women social entrepreneurs around the world, said.
The survey asked 213 gender experts from five continents to rank countries by overall perceptions of danger as well as by six risks. The risks were health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking. Some experts said the poll showed that subtle dangers such as discrimination that don’t grab headlines are sometimes just as significant risks for women as bombs, bullets, stonings and systematic rape in conflict zones.
“I think you have to look at all the dangers to women, all the risks women and girls face,” Elisabeth Roesch, who works on gender-based violence for the International Rescue Committee in Washington, said. “If a woman can’t access healthcare because her healthcare isn’t prioritised, that can be a very dangerous situation as well.”
Afghanistan emerged as the most dangerous country for women overall and worst in three of the six risk categories: health, non-sexual violence and lack of access to economic resources. Respondents cited sky-high maternal mortality rates, limited access to doctors and a near total lack of economic rights. Afghan women have a one in 11 chance of dying in childbirth, according to UNICEF.
While Obama may be talking withdrawal, the terms are already being brought into question. Plans are already underway for a tenth anniversary march calling for bringing US troops home from Afghanistan. The Grand Rapids march is being coordinated through the United National Antiwar Committee. For information on getting involved, contact local organizer, Fermin Valle.
Last week’s vote in Holland on an ordinance that would have included revised a non-discrimination ordinance to include “Sexual orientation” and “gender identity” was narrowly defeated by a 5 – 4 vote.
Within days of the vote it was reported that a well-known anti-gay organization was going to work on unseating 3 of the 4 Holland City Council members who voted for the ordinance to be revised. The Campaign for Michigan Families spokesperson Gary Glenn was quoted as saying:
“Given the serious threat these discriminatory gay rights ordinances have proven to pose to religious freedom in other communities, pro-family residents of Holland can’t afford the risk that a single council member might be replaced or pressured to change his vote and allow such a dangerous policy to become law.”
Glenn then went on to say that his organization would provide financial support for candidates, which would like to defeat those who voted in favor of the ordinance.
The Press reporter in Saturday’s story referred to The Campaign for Michigan Families as connected with the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association and described this group as “pro-family.” On Sunday, the Press published another short article about Gary Glenn and The Campaign for Michigan Families who were responding to the claim that Holland residents who favored the ordinance were seeking a referendum so that the people of Holland could vote on the proposed ordinance.
In this second article Gary Glenn is referred to as an “anti-gay rights activist,” which is certainly more accurate than the previous article that described Glenn’s organization as “pro-family.” However, in both articles the Grand Rapids Press reporters do not elaborate on what Gary Glenn or the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association (AFA) actually stand for and what kind of campaigns they have been involved with in the past.
According to SourceWatch the AFA considers itself to be a fundamentalist Christian lobbyist group. The AFA has been involved in local and national campaigns against abortion, pornography, same-sex marriage, deregulation of the oil industry and more recently the defeat of the Employee Free Choice Act. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the AFA as a hate group because of their use of hate speech to “help drive the religious right’s anti-gay crusade.”
Indeed, Gary Glenn has a long history of attacking the LGBT community and going after candidates that are either identify as LGBT or support the LGBT community. For example, last year it was reported in a state House race in Michigan Gary Glenn was the voice on a robocall that attacked a lesbian candidate. In the robocall message Glenn used the word homosexual 10 times. Here is the robocall attacking candidate Toni Sessoms.
Gary Glenn was also involved in recent efforts to prevent any anti-bullying legislation in the state because Glenn believed it was a Trojan Horse for the gay community to imposed their agenda on everyone else.
“The homosexual activists are using the bullying issue, as you indicated, as a Trojan Horse. Their real objective is to establish in Michigan state law and in other states sexual orientation — i.e. homosexual behavior — and gender identity — i.e. cross-dressing — as the legal basis of rights and protections. So all we said was why do you insist on segregating students into these special protected class categories like sexual orientation and gender identity and then dole out protection against bullying expressly on the basis on a student’s membership in one of these protected classes, in other words, a segregation strategy.”
Lastly, it should be noted that at least two Ottawa County family foundations have donated money to the American Family Association. One is Jack and Mary DeWitt Foundation and the other to a much more significant degree is the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, which has funded numerous anti-gay campaigns in Michigan and around the country.
All of this information provides real context to the significance of the statement by Gary Glenn and The Campaign for Michigan Families, a context, which the GR Press fails to provide. If the community is to understand the players involved in these kinds of campaigns then it is extremely important to have as much background information as possible so that people can make well informed decisions about what to support and what to oppose.
Update: A link was sent to us with more details on who has provided funding to The Campaign for Michigan Families, specifically financial contributions in 2010.
Wednesday the Holland City Council voted 5-4 to defeat a recommendation to draft a change to the city’s Non-Discrimination Ordinances and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the categories which it is illegal to discriminate against in housing or employment.
The council meeting can be viewed, in its five plus hour entirety, here (http://www.macmedia.org/hollandcouncil06152011.html).
The measure, if drafted and passed, would have protected gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals from discrimination by landlords and employers when looking for housing or getting a job (click on the proposal here). A “yes” note by the council would have given city lawyers permission to draft the change, and official language would have been voted on at a later date. The council instead halted process early, denying any city funds go towards a measure to discourage discrimination.
The Human Relations Commission of Holland was appointed by the council to research the topic late last year, and unanimously supported and recommended they support and fund the ordinance change, which would make discrimination punishable by misdemeanor, as it already is for race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, sex, marital status, height, weight, age, handicap, or source of income.
The vote came after over 3 hours of continuous public comment, where area residents expressed support for the measure in a four to one ratio over those opposed (25 to 6, with 3 unclear/undecided). Of the individual comments, about 20% came from local Christian ministers and pastors supporting the change. A lawyer for the ACLU was present and spoke in favor of the changes, as did members of Holland is Ready and The Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance.
Many members of the LGBT community emotionally testified to be harassed or discriminated against within the city limits. Several local residents expressed sadness or concern over their perception that Holland was an “unwelcoming city”, with discrimination throughout. Many citizens stated this atmosphere had caused loved ones, both gay and straight, to flee the city for more accepting locals. Jamie Coon tells her story here:
Stories of discrimination, disenfranchisement, and outright bigotry were all chronicled as having taken place locally. Those opposed insisted that giving rights to the “immoral (homosexuals)” would infringe on their own rights, and some landlords openly stated that they currently practiced discrimination against renters based on their perceived sexuality, ironically highlighting the very need for the measure at hand.
Many opposed to the changes have contended that additional protections “are not necessary”, however the perception of Holland being hostile towards the LGBT community was further supported by research conducted by The Fair Housing Center. Their research (cited by the HRC during the commission meeting) found that, “50% of those gay and lesbian couples in the study looking to buy an advertised home in West Michigan had been discriminated against by the real estate agent because of their perceived sexual orientation.”
This is 20% higher than the state average for housing discrimination based on orientation, the highest in all of Michigan, making this ordinance especially crucial to the movement for equality. The FHC report also shows that the average city with an antidiscrimination ordinance experiences 8% less discrimination than a city without such a law.
Nineteen other Michigan communities have already adopted similar policies and laws. Grand Rapids made the change during the 1990’s, and Kalamazoo passed the issue by public vote “overwhelmingly” in 2009 (giving hope to Holland activists, as a public vote is their only recourse after this defeat, with the exception of changing state or federal law). Ann Arbor was the first to adopt the change in 1978, and Traverse City most recently in 2010 (their board voted unanimously in support). The city of Jackson is the only other community to reject such a proposal, however efforts are currently underway to change the laws there as well.
In addition to the people who spoke at the city council meeting in support of the measure, the chamber itself literally overflowed into the lobby with concerned citizens, about 250 in attendance. The HRC reportedly received feedback from over 600 persons in support of the changes through letters, public comments, emails, and petitions, with 90 persons opposed. Holland is Ready is “a group of local leaders working for the safety, rights and inclusion of GLBT persons” who organized around the council meeting and many (if not most) of those in attendance were seen wearing their buttons.
The above statistics beg the question: why did the city commission vote against the measure if the majority it’s constituents appear to be in favor of the final changes, let alone going ahead with exploring the changes, which a passage would have done?
In order to answer that question one must examine the vote of each member and the reasons they gave for it. Voting in favor of the change were council members David Hoekstra, Jay Peters, Robert Vande Vusse and Shawn Miller. The Mayor of Holland, Kurt Dykstra, and council members Brian Burch, Nancy DeBoer, Mike Trethewey and Todd Whiteman voted to block funding for exploration and effectively continue legalized discrimination in Holland.
Hoekstra, Peters, and Vande Vusse were wholly in favor of passage. Peters stated that “in my gut and in my soul I know that the discrimination that’s been talked about here happens,” that he “overwhelmingly” supported the changes. Vande Vusse shared the concerns of citizens at the meeting, stating that, “the role of this government is to protect the health and well being of the people” and urging his fellows to vote “yes”, Hoekstra along side him.
Shawn Miller expressed concern about “invasive government interventions in personal property rights”. Miller also admitted he was “confused” by the terms “bisexual and transgender” and did not know what they meant. However, Miller agreed to support the measure to draft an ordinance to be reviewed at a later date, with no promises of how he might vote at that time. His position resonates as conservative but reasonable one, especially when compared to his peers.
Todd Whiteman was the only member of the council to openly state he was not in favor of the measure because his “constituents had spoken loud and clear” against it, and further that he was “primarily concerned with the rights of property owners”, again referring to the idea that discrimination is a right of those in power which ought not be impeded.
Mayor Dykstra and members Burch and Trethewey stated that they could not support the council itself passing the measure, though they “empathized” with those in favor, suggesting they bring the issue “in front of the people” for a vote. Burch’s statement was most notable in this regard, as he spoke extensively about his support for the LGBT community, noting his “many gay friends” who he “loves”, that “we all deserve equal rights”, but then stating that a “yes” vote would “end the movement” for equality. In this bizarre, Orwellian exercise in double-think, Burch suggested that the council “implementing a top-down” law on the people of Holland was not good enough for the LGBT people, that only a “vote by the people” would do their fight justice. Burch passionately dared supporters to “imagine the power” that a public vote would have, and in doing so effectively added insult to injury by insisting his disenfranchisement of the LGBT community was actually good for them.
Dykstra and Trethewey held this position as well, though were less cavalier in their presentation. Dykstra had a prepared remark that was clearly written before the meeting even began and the several hours of public comment. One organizer expressed her frustration afterward saying, “why did we all come out here if he wasn’t going to consider (our position)?” This is partially explained by the fact that Dykstra admitted he does not have much interest in the issue of local discrimination, making it clear that his vote was one of political safety in a traditionally very conservative town, putting his own political career in front of the civil rights and equality of others.
Trethewey was visibly unsure and torn, stating his constituents were “split right down the middle” on the issue (which must not have included those present at the meeting or the correspondence received by the HRC). Trethewey wavered, and appeared to be the best bet the measure had of passing, however ultimately retreated, again preferring to force a public vote opposed to representing the interests of a minority group. “We can be progressive and the nine of us can say ‘let’s go, write up this ordinance.’ (But) I don’t think you’re going to get your inclusiveness, you’re going to get something rammed down people’s throats,” he said.
Nancy DeBoer seemed confused and perplexed not only by the issue at hand, but also with her role has a council member, asking at one point, “Can we (the commission) really represent 33,000 (residents of Holland)?” The crowd audibly broke decorum to respond “Yes!,” however she would not support them.
The stance of Burch, DeBoer, Trethewey, and Dykstra, that the issue should be resolved by a public vote and not by the council, is particularly bizarre since this was not the opinion of any of the community members. No person present, for or against the proposal, stated that they supported the measure but that the council ought not vote in favor of it. In addition, the very idea that implementing such a measure is beyond the scope or role of the council is nonsensical, considering the HRC recommended it to the council, and it is within the council’s power to make such changes. In fact, the City of Holland website explicitly states, “The matters handled by City Council include approving of specific building projects, deciding on claims against the City, and making changes to ordinance codes.”
With these facts acknowledged, it becomes clear that the “no” votes with an asterisk noting “empathy” were merely a halfhearted attempt by certain council members to maintain the current power structures while convincing the public that it was actually in their best interest; that they should still vote in support of said council members, even though they haven’t returned the favor in a desperate time of need.
Also notable is that a passage on Wednesday would have only provided the approval to draft an ordinance, not actually implement it. Therefore, supporters cannot simply default to a ballot measure as suggested by some council members, because an actual ordinance hasn’t been drafted yet. Before a ballot initiative can even take place, supports must work with lawyers to draft an ordinance, then that can be voted on by the people of Holland. Had Burch, DeBoer, Trethewey, and Dykstra actually been genuine in their opinions, they would have voted in favor of drafting the ordinance, then brought up their concerns when it came time to actually implement it, allowing voters to decide on a completed ordinance.
As the City of Holland has officially declared it will not support the drafting of an ordinance, it is now up to citizens and activists to draft the ordinance themselves. Jay Kaplan, staff attorney of the Michigan ACLU LGBT Project, was present at the council meeting and his office has indicated to GRIID that they may be aiding in the process.
Supporters of equal rights in Holland, despite sexual orientation and gender identity, can look to the following organizations for resources and support:
Holland is Ready https://www.facebook.com/pages/Holland-Is-Ready/318512633596?sk=info
PFLAG http://www.pflaglakeshore.org/
Equality Michigan www.equalitymi.org
We received a flyer today from the Kent Ionia Labor Council announcing a protest planned for Monday, June 20 in Grand Rapids.
The protest will be held in front of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce office at 111 Pearl St. in downtown Grand Rapids from 11:30AM – 1:00PM.
The State and regional offices of the Chamber of Commerce certainly have a history of lobbying on behalf on business interests, collectively spending over one hundred thousand in lobbying Lansing lawmakers in 2010 alone. The Grand Rapids Chamber hosted Governor Snyder in April and welcomed the then proposal to eliminate the Michigan Business Tax.
The flyer states that people will be showing their “displeasure with the $1.8 billion tax shift from Business to Pensioners and Low to Middle Income Workers.” The flyer invites people to bring their own signs, but does not state how people will be showing their displeasure.
The flyer also states, “The $1.8 Billion Tax Shift has resulted in the taxing of pensions, elimination of the EITC tax credit, the lack of funding for public schools and many other issues!”
(The article below is re-posted from Common Dreams.)
Note: We contacted Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell this morning to find out where he stood on the proposed anti-war resolution, which will be introduced at the Conference of Mayors. As of this posting we have received no response. It is also important to note that as of today, the amount of money that has left Grand Rapids to funded both of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 is $632 million and counting – $410 million for Iraq and $222 million for Afghanistan.
As the Obama administration readies plans for U.S. offices in Afghanistan, it’s not just national office-holders who are demanding an expedited drawdown.
On Friday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors will introduce a resolution calling for a quicker end to the war and a speedier withdrawal of troops. If it passes — a vote will come on Monday — it will be the first time the body has formally called for an end to an military engagement since Vietnam.
The mayors’ formal address of the conflict — which is still being debated, politically, at the federal level — illustrates how widespread skepticism about Afghanistan has become.
Just this week, several top candidates in the Republican presidential field raised serious concerns over the sustainability of current troop levels. On Wednesday, 27 senators signed a letter to the president pressing him for a new strategy and a major troop drawdown.
Unlike senators, mayors have no power of the purse. Nor do any of them currently aspire to serve in the role of commander-in-chief. But the resolution that they are set to consider still serves as a reflection of the current mood with respect to Afghanistan and Iraq.
For starters, opponents of the war remain largely Democratic. The signatories of the pending resolution include more than a dozen Democratic mayors of mid-to-large cities — Dave Norris of Charlottesville, Va.; David Coss of Santa Fe, N.M.; R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis, Minn.; and Carolyn Peterson of Ithaca, N.Y.
The basis of the mayors’ objections is not strictly the morality or strategic basis of the war, but the price tag. The resolution’s first clause references the “severity of the ongoing economic crisis” and “budget shortfalls at all levels of government” as reasons to “re-examine our national spending priorities.” The second clause notes that Iraq and Afghanistan are costing the country approximately $126 billion dollars per year. It is not until the third clause that the authors point to the wars’ casualties. They conclude with a plea for Congress to “bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs.” ”As mayors, we recognize there is an absurdly false choice being put to Americans that we somehow have to pick between all the priorities we care deeply about but can’t touch massive spending on the military,” said Rybak. “There is this rationale that defense spending trickles down to domestic priorities. That is true. I’m happy that the space program developed Tang but that does not mean that’s the end result we should be going for.”
There is only a limited sense about the resolution’s prospects for success. But its supporters suggest that many members will be influenced by the overt national trends.
“I’ve been active in politics for many years in a number of different roles,” Joseph C. O’Brien, the Mayor of Worcester and a co-sponsor of the resolution, told The Huffington Post. “Nationally, the tide is turning on support for interventions abroad, whether Afghanistan or Iraq. … We are spending a billion a month after Osama bin Laden has been killed. And while I appreciate the effort to rebuild nations around the world, we have tremendous needs in communities like mine.”
In order to pass, the resolution would have to go through the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Metro Economies Policy Committee first before heading to the full body for a vote.
That process is similar to what happened in front of the conference 40 years ago. Then meeting in Philadelphia, a group of mayors urged colleagues to go on record as supporting the federal amendment calling for President Nixon to withdraw all American forces from Vietnam in a matter of months. New York City mayor John Lindsay requested that the group invite a veteran of the war, one John Kerry, to speak before the plenary session. Nixon insisted that Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace’s John O’Neill be invited to argue the other side. The debate and subsequent passage of the resolution earned a photo on the first page of The New York Times the following day.
It would be a Christmas-come-early gift for war protesters to get that type of press this go-around. Popular dissatisfaction with Afghanistan hasn’t registered as it did with Vietnam. And while there are a determined number of mayors who feel committed to seeing the resolution through, even they aren’t certain about its chances for success.
“I couldn’t tell you whether it will pass or not,” said Rybak. “Sometimes issues that start small in our group make a great deal of difference globally.”
READ THE FULL RESOLUTION:
1. WHEREAS, the severity of the ongoing economic crisis has created budget shortfalls at all levels of government and requires us to re-examine our national spending priorities; and
2. WHEREAS, the people of the United States are collectively paying approximately $126 billion dollars per year to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan; and
3. WHEREAS, 6,024 members of the US armed forces have died in these wars; and at least 120,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the coalition attacks began.
4. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors supports efforts to speed up the ending of these wars; and
5. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the U.S. Congress to bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy.
