On Tuesday, April 26 the local group Healing Children of Conflict will host a fundraiser for an Iraqi boy who was seriously wounded by US bombing while playing outside his home in Baghdad.
What follows is a brief account of what happened in 2008 from the boy’s father:
“My son Hamzah was badly injured, covered with blood, stomach and intestines are cut out of his belly, the car was destroyed and part of my house and the houses next to it. I carried my son Hamzah who was in a very bad condition, and ran to the nearest hospital to my home. The doctors told me: “What do you want us to do with him, we cannot do anything; he will die”.
I was crying, begging, they agreed to take him, they took him into the operating room. The operation lasted for 4-5 hours. When he came out, he was in a catastrophic condition; all wrapped in bandages and tubes, and his right leg was plastered.”
Hamzah survived the operation, but he lost one of his legs and has had continuous medical problems since the April 2008 US bombing that changed his family’s life.
Healing Children of Conflict will be bringing Hamazh and his father to Grand Rapids next month for medical treatment and they need your help to cover the costs of the trip and provide other services while they are both in town.
The fundraiser is this Tuesday, April 26, 7:00PM at 25 Kitchen a downtown Grand Rapids restaurant located at 25 Ottawa SW. Tickets are $10 or $25 and there will be a brief informational program along with the meal.
For more information on this event or ways you can support the medical needs of Hamzah contact Healing Children of Conflict at events@healingchildrenofconflict.org.
As a regular practice GRIID makes it a point to monitor local media, whether that is the commercial news media or blogs from the all parts of the political spectrum.
One site we look at regularly is the Acton Institute, a far right organization that philosophically weds Christianity and Capitalism that has its main office in downtown Grand Rapids. The Acton Institute doesn’t believe in global warming and has received significant sums of money from Exxon/Mobil for such a stance. The Acton Institute also has a cozy relationship with the DeVos family and Erik Prince.
Last week the Acton Institute posted a commentary piece on its blog that was attempting to call out a progressive religious leader in the US, Rev. Jim Wallis over the issue of civility. The blog post links to a Democracy Now show where Wallis was a recent guest.
The blog post also makes the claim that there have been vicious and violent attacks against both Governor’s Scott Walker and Rick Snyder. The evidence the Acton writer provides is a video produced by the Michigan branch of Americans For Prosperity.
The video is interesting on many levels. First, this is a classic Media Literacy example of how media is constructed. The person (s) who filmed protestors at the Lansing State Capitol chose to only include footage of signs that convey a certain message, such as “Rick’s Shit doesn’t stink” and others that use Hitler references to Governor Snyder.
The video essentially includes a montage of people with signs that appear to be extreme while viewers listen to piano music. However, the videographer does not talk to those holding the sign to find out what each person really meant by the language of their signs. Are the working class people who are being threatened with layoffs, pay cuts, decreased health benefits and pensions or the senior citizens who are being threatened with increased taxes just expressing anger and frustration? It’s impossible to tell from this highly selective video.
As someone who has been to numerous demonstrations in both Lansing and Grand Rapids over Governor Synder’s proposals I have seen many signs that clearly express anger and frustration and I have talked to many of those with angry signs. What I found out was that while people were angry they were in no way suggesting that the Governor be violently attacked. In fact, the only concrete strategies that people expressed were to either Recall Snyder or to vote him out, both of which could hardly be considered violent attacks.
However, the majority of people that have carried signs at rallies in Lansing and in Grand Rapids have expressed some pretty basic and non-threatening messages such as “Snyder’s policies are an attack on the Middle Class,” “Michigan is not 4 sale” and “Fight the Attack on the American Dream.” Indeed, people have also carried signs using quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, hardly messages that could be considered violent.
What the Koch brothers funded Americans For Prosperity video is really attempting to do is to discredit unions and working class people who are questioning the shock doctrine policies of Governor Snyder. Making them seem violent or ridiculous is clearly the intent of the video, but anyone who has actually attended these rallies knows that the video only portrays a very narrow representation of those protesting and it provides no context for people’s anger.
GVSU Lavender Graduation honors LGBTQ Students
(Colette Seguin Beighley and Joi Dupler contributed to this article.)
Yesterday, the LGBT Resource Center at Grand Valley State University hosted their fifth Lavender Graduation.
Lavender Graduation builds on the university-wide commencement events as an officially supported ceremony celebrating the academic accomplishments of our graduates. This year’s event featured the largest number of Lavender Graduates to date (31) which included not only members of the LGBTQ communities but also student allies who realize that their own experience of being fully human is deeply tied to the liberation of their lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer brothers and sisters.
In the spirit of Audre Lorde who said, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences,” Lavender Graduation celebrates the beautiful diversity of campus LGBTQ communities.
Opening remarks were offered by University President Thomas J. Haas. This year’s Lavender Graduation featured the first keynote address from one of Grand Valley’s graduating seniors, Joi Dupler. Joi is a Women’s and Gender Studies major and a McNair scholar as well as a member of S.A.F.E. (Students Advocating Freedom and Equality), Pipeline LGBT Leadership group, Gender Neutral Housing Coalition, and a participant in “Change U: Training for Social Justice.” Here is an excerpt from Joi’s speech:
“It was from my work with the Gender Neutral Housing (GNH) Coalition, that I truly understood Audre Lorde’s words of wisdom. Within the past few years, I have heard many personal accounts from LGBT students struggling to find safe and comfortable housing at Grand Valley. Their painful stories struck at the core of my heart. In the fall semester of 2009, a straight-A student and active student leader named Randy decided to finally come out to his roommates as a gay man. They reacted with hostility and disgust, forcing Randy back to his place of silence and shame. As the semester progressed, they played “little tricks” on Randy to embarrass him, and gave him nicknames like “Faggo” to belittle him. His only friend that accepted him and treated him with respect was his lesbian female friend named Josie. After Randy disclosed his living situation with Josie, she offered to let Randy transfer to her Secchia on-campus apartment in the winter semester. Together, they approached GVSU staff to ask for an exception, but were told the best option may be to move off-campus– even through research shows students do better academically and socially by participating in an on-campus living experience. Moving off-campus wasn’t an option for Josie and Randy. Instead, Randy moved into a single-unit, and soon slipped into a deep depression that took a toll on his grades and his social life. He went from being a straight A student and active student leader, to being on academic probation and completely uninvolved.
Although I have been living off-campus for a while, I couldn’t help but to feel it was my responsibility to prevent another experience like this from occurring at GVSU. Apparently, many of my Coalition comrades shared my sentiments, since they too live off-campus. Regardless of whether we directly benefit from establishing GNH at Grand Valley, we still recognize the need, and will not stop fighting until we have it. Today, I hope that you will take the next step of actualizing inclusion at GVSU by adopting a GNH option, because you recognize that the place that you sleep should be the LAST place you should have to educate others around difference. – you should feel safe.”
The Milton Ford Leadership Award was presented to Wendy Wenner, Dean of Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, for her leadership in securing Household Member Benefits as well as her instrumental role in the establishment of an LGBT Resource Center on campus.
The LGBT Faculty and Staff Association presented this year’s Prism Award to President Thomas J. Haas, Vice President of Inclusion and Equity Jeanne Arnold, and Director of Benefits David D. Smith for their roles in bringing Household Member Benefits to campus.
Each of the thirty-one Lavender Graduates was then recognized by name and major as he or she received a rainbow tassel. Following that ceremony, graduates were challenged to use their education in service to others – others who could never dream of having the opportunities these students have experienced at Grand Valley.
Bloom Collective to host screening of film that exposes the fur industry this Saturday
The Bloom Collective is hosting a screening of the new documentary film entitled Skin Trade. Skin Trade, produced by the same people who made Behind the Mask, takes a serious look at the fur industry and what they keep hidden from the public.
The Skin Trade webpage states:
“Fur is sexy, beautiful, sensuous and luxurious. Nothing feels better against your skin, and beautiful, sexy, successful people wear it. Fur is also environmentally friendly and is therefore a sustainable resource.
These are the campaigns the fur industry uses to get people to commit the ultimate atrocities permitted against animals. Consumers are misled by retailers who assure them that animals used for fur are humanely euthanized, intentionally hiding the reality of how the animals are hideously killed.
Step inside the world of SKIN TRADE. Hundreds of hours of interviews with insiders, designers, leaders and celebrities compiled in a heart-punching documentary directed and produced by award-winning director Shannon Keith.
This film lends a voice to the voiceless whose skin is ripped from them while often still alive.
Understand what makes this savage industry tick and what it will take to change it.
Whether you are a fan of fur or repulsed by the thought, you owe it to yourself to watch this moving peek inside the dark world of ugly glamour and painful beauty.”
Following the screening there will be a discussion about the film. This is a potluck film screening, so people are encouraged to bring food to share. The Bloom Collective will have some vegan food options available.
Skin Trade
Saturday, April 23
3:00PM
Bloom Collective
671 Davis NW, Grand Rapids
$3 – 5 suggested donation
New Media We Recommend
Below is a list of new materials that we have read/watched in recent weeks. The comments are not a “review” of the material, instead sort of an endorsement of ideas and investigations that can provide solid analysis and even inspiration in the struggle for change. All these items are available at The Bloom Collective, so check them out and stimulate your mind.
Understanding White Privilege: Creating Pathways to Authentic Relationships Across Race, by Frances Kendall – I have found over the years that White Privilege is one of the hardest things for people to admit to. White privilege can often be quite subtle, but make no mistake it is pervasive and a necessary component to maintaining White Supremacy. In Understand White Privilege, Frances Kendell brings years of work as an anti-racism educator and activist. Kendell conducts workshops on understanding and confronting White Privilege and shares many stories from her work in this book. This book is an important contribution in our understanding of how White Privilege manifests itself in the world and what we can do to combat it.
Oppose and Propose!, by Andrew Cornell – For anyone involved in doing anti-oppression work, organized resistance, is part of a collective or works by the consensus process, your work is no doubt influenced by the efforts of the 1970 – 80s radical group The Movement for a New Society (MNS). The MNS was formed as an outgrowth of all the anti-war, feminist and anti-oppression movements of the 1960s. The people involved in the MNS began adopting more anarchist forms of organizing in their radical revolutionary work that involved collective living and using a consensus decision making model. Oppose and Propose! Is an excellent investigation into this movement with analysis and interviews with many of the founding members. Andrew Cornell make the case that the current anarchist movement in the US owes a great deal to the ground-breaking work of the MNS and he offers up some important criticisms of collectivism, consensus and radical organizing.
The Face of Imperialism, by Michael Parenti – Long time historian and radical writer Micheal Parenti has provided us with yet another important work. The Face of Imperialism not only gives readers important analysis on recent US foreign policy it challenges us to think about this policy as raw imperialism. Parenti takes head on the liberal notion that US foreign policy is benign, misguided or well intentioned. The author thinks that too many “left” writers frame US foreign policy as “bad policy” or policy that has “gone wrong.” Instead, Parenti argues that US foreign policy is blatantly imperialist in nature, both in terms of its economic and military actions. The author provides amble historical cases and emphasizes that the primary mechanism of US imperialism is through its economic policy of neo-liberal capitalism. An excellent investigation into why US foreign policy should be clearly named as imperialism.
The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight in It (DVD) – We have all been propagandized to view the WWII generation of Americans as the Greatest Generation because of the sacrifices that people made during that period. This documentary challenges that notion by sharing the stories of some of the thousands of men who refused to fight in the so-called “Good War.” The testimonies of surviving conscientious objectors (COs) are both powerful and insightful in terms of what motivate people who did not believe that war is justifiable. In addition, the film provides information on how these COs not only transformed some of the institutions they worked in during their alternative military service but what influence they had on the anti-Vietnam war movement. An important contribution into this country’s rich tradition of anti-war resistance.
Labor Solidarity March Connects Past with Present
Yesterday, about 100 people gathered in the rain at the Spirit of Solidarity Monument in downtown Grand Rapids.
Yesterday, was also the 100th anniversary of the 1911 Grand Rapids furniture workers strike, which involved thousands of workers who walked off the job during a 4 month long strike. GRIID spoke with local labor historian Michael Johnston about that strike and its significance for today.
Along the march people engaged in chants that ranged from worker solidarity to a recall of Rick Snyder. However, the dominant theme of the chants reflected people’s anger over the economic theft of the nations wealth at the hands of Wall Street and other corporate interests. This sentiment was best expressed in the chant, “They got bailout out, we got sold out!”
Once people arrived at the Alabama Street warehouse site they were invited inside to hear a few speeches. The first to talk with State Representative Brandon Dillon who made the point that the forces behind the anti-worker policies and the state austerity measures are claiming that the economy is in trouble and that cuts need to be made because working people have drained the state budget. Dillion did mention the importance of the 1911 strike, but instead of encouraging working people to engage in direct action he emphasized that what people need to focus on is the 2012 election.
The next speaker was Jay Egan, a retiree with the CWA and President of the local Labor Heritage Society. Jay stated that he is from New Jersey and he is not used to working people not walking off the job as a tactical response to labor repression. Egan admitted that the 1911 strike did not win in “the technical sense, but the furniture owners did start to meet the demands of the workers in the years following the strike.”
Egan then made the connection with what is happening today by saying that despite the federal and state governments claiming that the economic cuts to working people is purely a budgetary response. However, Egan noted that this is little more than a diversion. He stated that Wall Street got bailed out, the banks got bailed out and the mortgage companies got bailout out. “Those in power are saying that the problem is working people. Well, what the hell did we do to cause these economic problems? They are diverting the attention away from them and putting on us and we feel compelled to defend ourselves. I say screw you, you’re a God damn liar!”
Tracey with the local government workers union (GREIU) then spoke to the crowd gathered in the old warehouse space. She said that the City management has recently rejected all of the union’s suggested concessions for the current labor contract negotiations. Tracey also said that the City wants them to accept all their demands, which would include giving back the 2.5% pay raise from last year, further cuts to their pensions, they want to alter the worker’s insurance and change the language of the contract to allow for more temp and seasonal workers.
Tracey said that these kinds of cuts will make it very difficult for many of the workers to maintain cutting financial expenses, especially home mortgage payment. She finished by inviting people to join them in a solidarity picket before the weekly City Commission meeting and that they need support on their contract negotiations since the City is claiming these cuts are necessary before the upcoming 2012 budget can be approved.
The last person to address the crowd was Michael David who is both a member of IATSE and the Kent-Ionia Labor Council. David said that the space that people were standing in up until recently had provided union workers in IATSE and the local Teamsters work through the Michigan Film incentives policy. Dozens of local people were able to make a decent living because of this work in the past few years, but since Snyder cut that program he and many others in the area are now unemployed.
Throughout the speeches the crowd remained animated, often interjecting their own thoughts and feelings about the current anti-worker policies and state imposed austerity measures that threaten their financial well being.
There was no clear strategy laid out during the event on how best to respond to the harsh state and local cuts, but there clearly was plenty of worker rage that could be channel into a popular movement for change.
Organizers also mentioned that next week there will be another action of worker solidarity. On April 28 there is a Worker Memorial Day event at the Kent-Ionia Labor Hall at 918 Benjamin NE in Grand Rapids. This day, recognized around the country, is an opportunity to remember workers who have died on the job, quite often due to a lack of worker safety protection, which have increased since funding and staff for OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act) has been cut.
Corporations, Special Interests Lobbying Taxes to Death
(This article is re-posted from Open Secrets.)
Businesses hate taxes, which is why they love lobbying the federal government in a bid to keep them low, lower or less than that.
And on this day — Tax Day 2011 — the Center for Responsive Politics pause a moment to reflect on the corporation, trade associations and special interest groups that lobbied most during 2010 on taxation issues.
Computer software giant Microsoft leads all others, having filed 50 separate lobbying reports listing a tax issue as the target of its lobbying efforts. Specific tax issues on which Microsoft lobbied would have made an accountant’s head spin, as they ranged from research and development tax credits to “general corporate and international tax issues” to a request for “relief from requirement to file a report of foreign bank and financial accounts relating to retirement plan investments.”
In second place is Altria Group, which owns subsidiaries such as tobacco company PhilipMorrisUSA and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. And you guessed it: the taxation of tobacco products dominates its list of specific issues on which it lobbied last year.
Rounding out the top five most active companies and special interests lobbying the federal government on taxation in 2010 are Verizon Communications, General Motors and General Electric.
| Lobbying entity | No. of reports |
| Microsoft |
50 |
| Altria Group |
44 |
| Verizon Communications |
43 |
| General Motors |
41 |
| General Electric |
33 |
| Intuit |
33 |
| National Cable & Telecommunications Assoc. |
33 |
| Anheuser-Busch InBev |
32 |
| Edison Electric Institute |
31 |
| Expedia |
31 |
| American Council of Life Insurers |
29 |
| Fortune Brands |
26 |
| Business Roundtable |
25 |
| Oracle America |
25 |
| Citigroup |
24 |
| Comcast |
24 |
| ExxonMobil |
24 |
| Managed Funds Association |
24 |
| Wal-Mart Stores |
24 |
| Biotechnology Industry Organization |
23 |
| eBay |
23 |
| Investment Company Institute |
23 |
| Time Warner Cable |
23 |
| Honeywell International |
22 |
| American Petroleum Institute |
21 |
| Brown-Forman |
21 |
| Coca-Cola |
21 |
| NextEra Energy |
21 |
| American Institute of CPAs |
20 |
| American Wind Energy Association |
20 |
| Covidien Ltd. |
20 |
| H&R Block |
20 |
| National Business Aviation Association |
20 |
| New York Life Insurance |
20 |
| Sunoco |
20 |
| Tyco Electronics |
20 |
| Xcel Energy |
20 |
Because of the limitations of federal lobbying disclosures, it’s impossible to determine exactly how much money such companies and organizations spent lobbying on taxation — or any other issue.
But the Center determines this: In all, 1,882 different entities last year lobbied the federal government on tax issues. That figure sets a new mark for one year, as 1,804 different entities (the previous record) lobbied on tax issues in 2009.
Predictably, Taxpayers Against Fraud, the Washington Tax Group, Multistate Tax Commission and the Council on State Taxation are members of last year’s gaggle that lobbied on — wait for it — taxes.
Not all, however, are massive corporations or tax groups. On the list are names from all corners of the business, labor, nonprofit, sports and even government realms.
A tiny taste: the University of Southern California, the Screen Actors Guild, Nassau County in New York, Major League Baseball Commissioner’s Office and the Easter Seals Society.
View the full list here.
IWW Movie Night: This is What Free Trade Looks Like 4/21
The Grand Rapids branch of the IWW is hosting its monthly film screening this Thursday, April 21 with a showing of the documentary film This is what Free Trade looks like: The NAFTA fraud in Mexico, the failure of the WTO and the case for global revolt.
“Filmed in Cancun, Mexico on the occasion of the 5th WTO ministerial in September 2003. An hour of footage from the protests, streets, and halls of a troubled place in troubled times. Designed for use as a companion film to This is What Democracy Looks Like, this is one of the first activist films to carefully explain how free trade operates. It does so from the perspective of the Mexican experience with ten years of NAFTA.”
While the film is several years old it presents a powerful case for how global organized resistance can be affective. It’s also a timely film in that the Obama administration has not only gone back on its word of reforming NAFTA, but the US administration is pushing forth NAFTA style trade policies with Colombia, Korea and Panama.
People are invited to stay after the film for a discussion on global trade policies and organized resistance.
Thursday, April 21
7:00PM
IATSE Labor Hall
911 Bridge NW, Grand Rapids
We Are One Walk in Grand Rapids – April 19
People who organized the April 4 We Are One rally in Grand Rapids have organized another event for Tuesday, April 19. The event is on the 100th anniversary of the Grand Rapids Furniture Workers Strike and will begin at the Spirit of Solidarity Monument that commemorates the 1911 strike.
The flyer circulating for this event reads:
“Advocates for civil and human rights will be walking together for the rights of all workers to bargain for a middle class life, our right to a voice in the political process and the respect that all people deserve. The budget can’t be balanced on the backs of hardworking people and retirees. We need to work together to restore balance, create good jobs and grow the middle class and keep our communities working.”
The walk starts at 4:30 PM on Tuesday, April 19 at the Spirit of Solidarity Monument just south of the Ford Museum off of Pearl Street.
This Day in Resistance History: 100th Anniversary of the Grand Rapids Furniture Workers Strike
On April 19, we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1911 Grand Rapids Furniture Workers Strike. This historic event is not only a little known event in the struggle for justice in Grand Rapids, it is an event that has valuable lessons for how we see struggle against economic and political power today.
The 1911 furniture workers strike did not happen in a vacuum, since workers had been organizing for decades and the business community had created the conditions for such a strike by amassing tremendous wealth and power.
Grand Rapids workers were in some ways ahead of much of the country in terms of labor organizing and class-consciousness. The radical labor group, the Knights of Labor (KOL), began organizing in Grand Rapids in 1883 and were influential in getting Grand Rapids to be one of the first cities to celebrate May Day after the 1886 Haymarket Uprising. The KOL also got members elected to the Grand Rapids City Commission at the end of the 19th Century and early part of the 20th Century.
At the same time the workers were organizing the local business elites were also working on ways to generate more wealth and political control throughout the city. The furniture company owners were a tight knit group that employed about one-third of the workforce in the early part of the 20th Century and had begun their own Furniture Manufacturers Association in 1881 followed by an Employers Association in 1905 that had informational cards on every worker in the furniture industry.
In addition, the furniture robber barons had also begun to control a great deal of the local banks and interlocking systems of control within the furniture industry with owners sitting other boards of directors of each others companies, according to Jeffrey Kleiman’s book Strike!: How the Furniture Workers Strike of 1911 Changed Grand Rapids. In fact, the interlocking system of factory owners and the local banking system was so significant that in the 1920s they were under investigation for violation of the Sherman and Clayton anti-trust acts.
1911 Workers Strike
The unbridled wealth of the furniture barons and the growing labor unrest around the country that was fighting for an 8 hour work day, better wages, better working conditions and the right to unionize was the perfect context for a massive strike in the spring of 1911.
There are discrepancies over the actual number of workers who went on strike, but most historians seem to put the number at 4,000 initially and as many as 7,200 by the end of the 4 month strike. Workers collectively walked off the job on April 19, 1911 in protest against the furniture owners’ lack of response to worker demands. April 19 was also the day after the Furniture Manufacturers Association had published a response to the workers says that they would not agree to collective bargaining.
The strike spread fast and included the support of the Mayor George Ellis and the Catholic Church under the leadership of Bishop Schrembs. Eventually the furniture owners brought in strike-breakers (scabs) to try to keep the factories open and producing. Conflicts occurred between workers on strike and scabs with some documented evidence of violent confrontation and cases where the wives of the striking workers threw rocks at the scabs when coming out of the factories.
According to author Jeffrey Kleiman the furniture barons even attempted to organize a private army to defend their interests but “Mayor Ellis and Kent County Sheriff William Hurley refused to issue permits for arming additional auxiliary protection.”
Another important aspect of the strike was that the workers were from a diverse ethnic background, which included German, Polish and Scandinavian workers. In fact, the only ethnic group that did not participate in the strike was the Dutch workers who were pretty much told by the Christian Reformed Church to not participate in the strike. You can see from this Grand Rapids Herald headline that the CRC demanded that Dutch workers quit unions.
The Strike eventually ended in August with only some of the workers getting their jobs back and few gains made in the workplace. However, the strike did pave the way for worker improvements and future union organizing campaigns in Grand Rapids.
At the same time the furniture owners also took stock in the lessons learned from the 1911 strike and made some of their own strategic decisions. The elites in the city were not happy with the role that Mayor Ellis played in the strike and they set their sites on not only electing people who would be more pro-business, they decided to alter the very nature of city politics.
One thing that disturbed the furniture owners and bankers was the fact that the Grand Rapids City Council was too responsive to the demands of their working class constituents. At the time of the 1911 strike the city was divided into 10 wards, with most of the wards representing specific ethnic groups. Each ward had one commissioner and those commissioners tended to support the ethnic workers during the strike.
The elites in the city decided that democracy was unacceptable so they pushed to have a city charter revue commission. This commission eventually recommended that the city be restructured to have a 3-ward system, with 2 commissioners representing each ward. The new city charter was adopted in 1916 and has remained the same since in terms of the ward structure for Grand Rapids.
Lessons for Today
Looking back on this history can certainly shed light on how the current economic and political climate impacts worker and democratic struggles.
Within the last few years there has been a greater push by the local business elites to demand from the City government greater concessions for their pet projects and economic investments. One only has to look downtown to see who is behind the building projects, but what is less known is how much these projects have received in tax abatements and subsidies.
The long-term benefits of these massive taxpayer supported projects will primarily benefit a small sector of the population while working class people become further marginalized. The 2008 economic crash widened the growing gap between the haves and have not’s with more and more Grand Rapids residents becoming unemployed, under-employed and living in poverty.
In recent years the City’s budget problems have translated in part to an attack on public employees, manifested in the elimination of jobs and the reduction of health and pension benefits. This push to undermine the public sector unions has been exacerbated by the state policies that Michigan Governor Snyder has also imposed since taking office in January. The policies of Snyder have been met with support from Grand Rapids elected officials who have embraced the Governor’s tax revenue incentives.
In addition, a local group of economic elites has been organizing in recent years in order to alter the political process in West Michigan. The West Michigan Policy Forum has its own set of goals for the region and the state, with several of the policies they have recommended already being adopted by Governor Snyder.
Lastly, the same group of elites has been meeting in private to propose a new form of local government. The group calls itself the One Kent Coalition and is following in the footsteps of the furniture barons of 100 years ago who sought to change the political structure of Grand Rapids through money.
It is indeed true that those of fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We can all learn from the 1911 furniture workers strike and apply some of those lessons today. We can either embrace solidarity and justice as our guiding principles or we can allow the economic elites to determine the future of our community. The choice is ours!
