The Academy Award winning film for best documentary in 2010, Inside Job, will be shown this Thursday by the Grand Rapids branch of the IWW.
“The film focuses on changes in the financial industry in the decade leading up to the crisis, the political movement toward deregulation, and how the development of complex trading such as the derivatives market allowed for large increases in risk taking that circumvented older regulations that were intended to control systemic risk. In describing the crisis as it unfolded, the film also looks at conflicts of interest in the financial sector, many of which it suggests are not properly disclosed. The film suggests that these conflicts of interest affected credit rating agencies as well as academics who receive funding as consultants but do not disclose this information in their academic writing, and that these conflicts played a role in obscuring and exacerbating the crisis.”
A discussion of the film will be facilitated by members of the IWW after the screening. The film is free and open to the public.
Inside Job
Thursday, May 19
6:00 PM
IATSE Labor Hall 931 Bridge St. Grand Rapids
Public Act 4, the signed version of HB4214, has been called “financial martial law” that can be waged against any city, town, or public school system in Michigan. GRIID recently reported on the EFM situation in Benton Harbor, where the law is being used to plan the seizing of public property to build an elite private vacation enclave. Despite reassurances at the time of its passage that the “extremes” of the law—such as firing elected officials, and targeting minority communities—would likely not be used because of political pressure, we are already seeing those exact actions put into play.
Now a group of Michigan activists have decided to stop the law cold—with a repeal effort.
Michigan Forward, a Detroit-based nonprofit, has been at the forefront of the repeal effort. Brandon Jessup, chairperson of the group, told GRIID that he was motivated to bring down Public Act 4 because Michigan citizens must “come to grips with this corruption—to speak up and call it corrupt.”
Citing corporate profit gambits that the EFM law allows such as “public parks being enveloped, water systems privatized, and the dangerous level of control that’s defined” in Public Act 4, Jessup says that the Michigan Legislature doesn’t appear to care about the consequences of what they’re doing.
“Snyder said during his campaign that he didn’t need Detroit’s vote,” Jessup told GRIID. “Our urban core needs to be renewed, not torn down and ‘developed’,” he added.
Michigan Forward is working with several groups in the state, including Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which is setting up a headquarters in Benton Harbor, and the Highland Park NAACP.
And now a northern Michigan activist group has also joined Michigan Forward to launch the drive to collect signatures for Public Act 4’s repeal. Reject Emergency Managers is a grassroots group working out of Traverse City. Spokesperson Betsy Coffia states that the name of the group indicates “our real focus, although we support the recall/repeal efforts and overall awareness over all the damaging policies and laws coming out of Lansing.”
In a recent interview, Coffia explained that she was “personally on the phone with my legislators and the Governor’s office prior to [Public Act 4] being signed, and said ‘make sure that you protect local populations, that they have the right to vote, to recall…they should have a say in whether their properties get sold.” None of those protections ended up in the final version of the law. At that point, she and other activists in Traverse City started to study Public Act 4 to determine what avenue could be used to overturn the legislation.
In order to repeal the law, first a petition needs to be drafted. Next, activists must collect 161,305 signatures of voters who want the EFM law repealed. That represents 5 percent of all Michiganders who voted in the election for governor.
Once 161,305 valid signatures are collected to meet the November deadline, the repeal will be placed on the 2012 ballot. However—and this is an important point—the signatures by themselves will suspend the law until the vote.
Michigan Forward submitted a petition to the Board of Canvassers on Friday, May 13. On Monday, May 16, press conferences will be held in Detroit, Traverse City, and Benton Harbor to launch the effort. The drive to collect signatures will start at the beginning of June.
Brandon Jessup explained to GRIID that signatures will not be held while being collected, but will be released in blocks as soon as they are available and verified. Even after the united groups obtain the 161,305 signatures needed, they will continue to collect signatures until the November deadline.
Jessup says that Grand Rapids will be crucial in the collection of signatures, and plans to launch a canvassing effort here. GRIID will keep readers informed, and you can also check Michigan Forward’s website and Reject Emergency Mangers’ Facebook page for up-to-date news on the repeal effort.
Here’s a video created by Flint Public Development which shows citizen outrage over Public Act 4. The video was recorded in Benton Harbor during the Blossomtime parade. Betsy Coffia appears in one interview. She explains problems with the legislation and describes the repeal process:
Film looks at how US Deportations separate families
One aspect of the current US immigration policy that is rarely discussed in commercial media is the harsh reality of how families get separated because of this inhuman policy.
Touring the US right now is the director of the film Tony & Janina’s American Wedding, a new documentary that puts a human face on how the current US immigration policy impacts families. The group Alliance for Immigrant Rights has organized the film tour in Michigan and Justice for Our Neighbors will host viewings in Holland and Grand Rapids on Tuesday, May 17.
“Tony & Janina’s American Wedding is a feature length documentary that gets to the heart of the broken, red tape ridden U.S. immigration system. After 18 years in America, Tony and Janina Wasilewski’s family is torn apart when Janina is deported back to Poland, taking their 6 year old son Brian with her. Set on the backdrop of the Chicago political scene, and featuring Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez at the heart of the immigration reform movement, this film follows the Wasilewski’s 3-year struggle to be reunited, as their Senator Barack Obama rises to the Presidency. With a fresh perspective on the immigration conversation, this film tells the untold human rights story of Post-9/11, that every undocumented immigrant in America faces today, with the power to open the conversation for change.”
The two West Michigan screenings are:
Tuesday, May 17th at noon Herrick District Library in Holland
Tuesday, May 17th – 7pm Woodland Celebration Cinema in Grand Rapids
(This article is re-posted from Reuters.)
The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has hired the founder of private security firm Blackwater Worldwide to set up an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the United Arab Emirates, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
The Times said it obtained documents that showed the unit being formed by Erik Prince’s (pictured here) new company Reflex Responses with $529 million from the UAE would be used to thwart internal revolt, conduct special operations and defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from attack.
The newspaper said the decision to hire the contingent of foreign troops was taken before a wave of popular unrest spread across the Arab world in recent months, including to the UAE’s Gulf neighbors Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
The UAE itself has seen no serious unrest. Most of its population is made up of foreign workers.
Blackwater, which once had lucrative contracts to protect U.S. officials in Iraq, became notorious in the region in 2007 when its guards opened fire in Baghdad traffic, killing at least 14 people in what the Iraqi government called a “massacre.”
One former Blackwater guard pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in those killings, and a U.S. court reinstated charges against five others last month. Prince has since sold the firm, which changed its name to Xe. The firm denies wrongdoing.
The newspaper said the Emirates, a close ally of the United States, had some support in Washington for Prince’s new project, although it was not clear if it had official U.S. approval.
Two UAE government officials contacted by Reuters declined immediate comment on the New York Times report, and the U.S. embassy in the UAE also had no immediate comment. It was not possible to locate Prince for comment.
The Times quoted a U.S. official who was aware of the program as saying: “The Gulf countries, and the U.A.E. in particular, don’t have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help.”
State Department spokesman Mark Toner told The Times the department was investigating to see if the project broke any U.S. laws. U.S. law requires a license for American citizens to train foreign troops.
Toner also pointed out that Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, had paid $42 million in fines in 2010 for training foreign forces in Jordan without a license, the Times said.
According to former employees of the project and U.S. officials cited by the Times, the troops were brought to a training camp in the UAE from Colombia, South Africa and other countries, starting in the summer of 2010.
They were being trained by retired U.S. military, and former members of German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, the Times said.
Prince had insisted the force hire no Muslims, because they “could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims,” the paper said.
Former employees also told the newspaper the Emirates hoped the force could be used to counter any threat from Iran, which the Arab states in the Gulf consider a foe.
Although The Times said the documents it obtained did not mention Erik Prince, former employees had told the newspaper he had negotiated the contract with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Emiriati officials had proposed expanding the force to a brigade of several thousand if the first battalion was successful, the newspaper said.
Spectacle in the Service of Capital
Yesterday, MLive posted yet another article about the latest Rob Bliss “event.” Bliss and company will be filming a lip dub in downtown Grand Rapids to the Don McLean song “American Pie.”
While Bliss is hoping for another huge turnout he has also lined up numerous people who along with Bliss want people to come to downtown Grand Rapids and spend money. I have argued in previous postings about the Bliss phenomenon that while these events may be fun and engage lots of people, they ultimately serve capital interests.
Bliss only organizes these events in downtown Grand Rapids, which only benefits a small sector of the business community. Many of the businesses downtown are upscale and disproportionately benefit people who are already well off. Imagine if a zombie walk were to happen in the Burton Heights neighborhood or the Creston neighborhood or along the Grandville Avenue corridor. If people were buying food the money would surely land in the hands of small restaurants and grocery stores, many of which are owned by people of color.
However, the Bliss events are downtown and serve the businesses interests of some of the same people that Bliss has invited to be part of the lip dub. Among those involved who benefit from money being spent in downtown GR are Dick DeVos, Peter Seechia, Jim Dunlap (banker), Ryan Slusarzy (Amway Hotel), Jay Harnish (DeVos Hall) and Randy Finch (Ice Sculptures Ltd.).
On top of that there are numerous media personalities that also fit into this downtown spectacle in the service of capital model. You have 2 members of WOOD TV 8 (where Bliss works), a WXMI 17 reporter, an on air personality from WTNR, the entertainment website GRNow and a writer for Rapid Growth Media. All of these media entities promote this kind of activity (entertainment that makes money) disproportionately more than news and events that benefit working class people.
Rob Bliss has often been asked why he won’t do events for a cause and he says that he wants to remain apolitical and just promote fun in Grand Rapids. While it would be hard to question the fun that people have at Bliss events it is dishonest of him to say that his events are apolitical, especially when they serve the capital interests of so few.
Purely Upscale Grand Rapids
Earlier this year the Michigan Legislature voted to not only continue using taxpayer money to fund the Pure Michigan ad campaign, they increased it.
The funding was $15 million, but the state’s elected officials voted to add another $10 million bringing the total to $25 million, which Gov. Snyder signed onto in late March. This obviously raises numerous questions, particularly how the state can justify spending so much money to promote Michigan as a tourist destination, when so many public services and jobs are being cut.
Group Tour Magazine noted that much of the additional funding comes from Michigan’s 21st Century Jobs Fund, which again is taxpayers money being directed to benefit the private sector. The Group Tour Magazine article also noted that the TV ads will run 4,500 times just during this TV buying slot on numerous cables stations such as the Golf Channel, the Weather Channel, Fox, MSNBC and the Food Channel.
Just a few days ago the Michigan Policy Network posted a lengthy article provided some interesting analysis on the partisan aspect behind the funding of the Pure Michigan Campaign. The article acknowledges that there are differences between the state Republicans and Democrats, but the differences are only tactical in that both parties support using taxpayer funds to bankroll the ad campaign.
Pure Grand Rapids
The ads themselves focus on specific places throughout the state. One of the ads even features Grand Rapids and is worth deconstructing considering the content and representation of the commercial.
The GR Pure Campaign ad begins with a tight shot of someone playing the piano, which then cuts to a riverfront/skyline scene. From there we see people sitting outside on downtown Grand Rapids, followed by a tight shot of someone painting on a canvas and then a view from inside the public museum.
The next scene shows people walking in front of shops on Monroe Center, followed by an areal shot of downtown and then a couple dinning in an upscale restaurant. These images are followed by two different images of ArtPrize and then the commercial ends with video footage from Meijer Garden.
Like all the other Pure Michigan TV ads the voice is that of Tim Allen and the narrative in the Grand Rapids ad is positioning Grand Rapids as a place for “artful living” and “where food is art.” There are indeed some interesting things in Grand Rapids happening around both art and food, which has been the case for years. However, when the images of art are limited to ArtPrize or institutions such as Meijer Garden the commercial presents a very narrow view of the kinds of art experiments taking place in Grand Rapids. Why not highlight the Avenue for the Arts, ArtPeers, or the Festival of the Arts, which is celebrating 42 years in June?
Like the Fortune Magazine article on Grand Rapids from a year ago and many other promotional pieces about Grand Rapids, the Pure Grand Rapids commercial is focused on all things downtown and Meijer Gardens. Don’t these venues already have huge budgets to promote themselves? If people come to Grand Rapids and only visit downtown they would be missing out on the diverse neighborhoods in the city, all of which have interesting places to visit. Instead we get beautiful images of upscale people in downtown Grand Rapids……not exactly reflective of the majority of people who live in this community.
The focus on downtown GR in the Pure Grand Rapids commercial makes complete sense in terms of tourism promotion. Unfortunately, the people who will benefit from such tourism is a small sector of this community who are already well off while thousands of residents in this town are struggling to make a living.
Media Alert – Say No to the Comcast – FCC Merger
(This Media Alert is re-posted from Free Press.)
FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker is leaving the FCC to become a lobbyist for Comcast – just four months after she voted to approve the Comcast-NBC merger.1
This is just the latest – but perhaps most blatant — example of so-called “public servants” cashing in on companies they are supposed to be regulating. But Baker’s jump to Comcast is particularly egregious. As recently as March, the commissioner was giving speeches complaining that the Comcast-NBC deal “took too long.”
And you wonder why the American people are disgusted with Washington.
Stop the Revolving Door: Demand Congress Investigate Baker’s Conflict of Interest
Congress is already concerned about how the FCC conducts itself. Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has been making a lot of noise recently about alleged ethical violations at the agency. By signing this letter to Congressman Issa, you’re urging him to launch an investigation of Commissioner Baker’s seemingly blatant conflict of interest.
Outside of Washington, people of every political stripe have expressed near unanimous contempt for a system of government that favors powerful corporations at the expense of the many. Sadly, the complete capture of government by industry barely raises an eyebrow inside the Beltway anymore. That’s why Congress needs to hear from you.
Urge Congress to Investigate this Conflict of Interest at the FCC
The revolving door at the FCC erodes any prospect for common-sense public policy — such as strong Net Neutrality rules or a rigorous review of mega-deals like AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile.
A new campaign by Brave New Films/Cuentame is now operating with the intent of providing updated information on both anti-immigration policies around the country and to expose the corporations profiting from immigrant detention.
The campaign states, “Immigrants are for sale in this country. Sold to private prison corporations who are locking them up for obscene profits!
Here are the top 3 things YOU need to know about the Private Prison money scheme:
- The victims: Private prisons don’t care about who they lock up. At a rate of $200 per immigrant a night at their prisons, this is a money making scheme that destroys families and lives.
- The players: CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), The Geo Group and Management and Training corporations—combined these private prisons currently profit more than $5 billion a year.
- The money: These private prisons have spent over $20 million lobbying state legislators to make sure they get state anti-immigrant laws approved and ensure access to more immigrant inmates.
The campaign is also enlisting people across the country who will be part of the nationwide network of Prison Watchers that will follow and expose the players, the money and the victims in this corrupt money making racket. You can sign up to be part of this campaign.
Here is the video they created that is part of the campaign.
Heartwell says No to Privatizing GR’s Water for Now
Yesterday, it was announced by Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell that privatizing the water services was no longer on the table. The Mayor made this announcement on the blog of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC).
Hear is what Heartwell had to say about how he came to the decision to take privatizing the water off the table.
“After Commissioners individually considered this idea they concluded that it is not an option they wish to pursue. And so, rather than bringing the idea to the community for consideration, I have withdrawn it. There is much work remaining for us to do in our journey toward sustainability; none of us can afford to take precious time and energy exploring an option that has little chance of succeeding. There are many other opportunities for transforming local government and we will vigorously pursue those that have the greatest possibility of success.”
What is missing from the Mayor’s comments is the fact that there has been numerous efforts to stop the privatizing of the City’s water system. A Facebook page was created several months ago in opposition to the possibility of water privatization in Grand Rapids, GRIID has been posting numerous articles on the matter and last month the Bloom Collective hosted a forum on the issue. Out of that forum people crafted a letter and got people to sign on demanding that Heartwell take a public stance on this issue. The letter read as follows:
It was brought to our attention that you have recently engaged in communication with the companies Veolia and Suez regarding the potential privatization of Grand Rapids’ water services. We find such communication to be deeply alarming.
In communities where water privatization has occurred, water quality has gone down, water bills have gone up, and control over our most precious natural resource has been removed from the hands of the people to the hands of corporations. This distribution of power places top priority in profit rather than the health and happiness of the people and the environment. This is not something we want for our city and our water. While we understand the gravity of the current economic situation, tampering with the condition and control of our water is absolutely not a solution, and will simply not be tolerated by the people of Grand Rapids.
In our attempts to contact your office and city council members, it has been communicated to us that water privatization is no longer being considered in our city. While we find this moderately relieving, we are requesting an official public statement from you specifically so that we can rest assured that you are committed to keeping water services in the public hands. Pledge yourself and our city to accessible clean water for everyone.
We await your prompt and positive response. In the meantime, we will continue to educate ourselves and our neighbors, and maintain open and probing dialogue regarding the privatization of our water supply. We are prepared to take further action if it is not made explicitly clear by you that Grand Rapids will no longer be considering this option and that negotiation of such has been permanently removed from the table.
It seems that the public opposition has worked and that for now water privatization in Grand Rapids is off the table.
The Economics Club of Grand Rapids is hosting a luncheon on Monday, May 16 and has invited Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to speak to its members. No details of the luncheon talk are posted on the Econ Club’s website, but one would have to assume that Snyder will talk about his policies and proposals that have been met with a tremendous amount of dissent.
In response to Snyder’s noon visit at the Amway Grand Hotel there will be a protest beginning at 11:30am and continuing until 2:00pm outside the Econ Club event. At least three groups are involved in putting together the protest – We Are the People, Michigan Citizens United and We Are One. Michigan Citizens United is behind the Recall Snyder campaign.
The Press Release for the protest stated that groups “will be showing up to protest against many of the proposals that have come out of the Legislature since the beginning of the year.” The accompanying flyer says that people should bring “appropriate” signs.
