GRIID Winter 2011 Classes
GRIID is pleased to announce that we have two classes scheduled starting late January. One of the two classes being offered is one of the most requested classes, A History of US Social Movements, while the other class being offered is brand new, Beyond Elections: Obama and the Limits of Electoral Politics.
In the US History of Social movements class we will use Howard Zinn’s seminal work, A People’s History of the United States. The class will look at certain social movements beginning with the Abolitionist movement and talk about what tactics and strategies people used to bring about radical social change. We will also discuss how be can learn from previous movements in terms of how current and future movements will function and be effective.
For the second class, Beyond Elections, we will use as a primary text Paul Street’s new book, The Empire’s New Clothes: Obama and the Real World of Power. In addition to a close examination of the first 2 years of the Obama administration we will also look at the structural flaws of electoral politics – money, lobbying, two-party system, political campaigns, etc. Lastly, we will discuss and explore other models for electoral politics and the relationship between civil society and voting in other countries.
Both classes cost $20 (not including the cost of the book, which each participant must get on their own) and will meet for two hours a week for 6-weeks. The Beyond Elections class is on Wednesdays and begins on January 26th and the History of US Social Movements in on Mondays beginning January 31st.
Both classes meet from 7 – 9pm at the Steepletown Center, located at 671 Davis St., NW in Grand Rapids. For more information or to sign up, contact Mike Saunders at outobol@gmail.com or Jeff Smith at jsmith@griid.org.
If you are confused by the news media reporting on Israel/Palestine, with the focus on government posturing and so-called peace talks, then I would highly recommend that you see the documentary Budrus.
Budrus is the name of a Palestinian village that has responded non-violently to the Israeli plan to build the “separation wall” that would cut through the village land. Wanting to protect their olive trees, cemeteries and not have the ominous presence of the Israeli wall near their homes Budrus villagers began organizing daily demonstrations against the wall’s construction.
The film is filled with inspiring actions and inspiring words from Palestinian men, women and children who courageous face down Israeli soldiers who sometimes beat them with clubs and shoot tear gas, rubber bullets and concussion grenades at unarmed villagers.
The filmmakers also include interviews with Israeli soldiers and officials who make claims about the necessity of the wall to protect Israeli lives and some who believe that the resistance is illegal.
After weeks of protesting the people of Budrus were joined by Israeli activists, international observers and even a delegation of anti-Apartheid activists from South Africa. This type of solidarity did not prevent the Israeli military from increasing the repression and eventually occupying the town of Budrus itself.
However, after 10 months of non-violent resistance the Israeli government decided to cut their losses and re-route the wall to allow Budrus to keep its olive groves and cemeteries.
This film not only is an inspiration it humanizes Palestinians in a way that few documentaries have. We see how Palestinians organize, we go inside their homes, we hear from both young and old, and we see how the Israeli occupation impacts them on a physical, emotional and psychological level.
This film is important to those of us who live in a country that has continued to support this kind of Israeli repression since the 1967 war. Budrus does not talk about how the US has provided diplomatic, military and economic support for Israel, but it does show us how the $3 billion (annual) of our tax dollars are being used.
The film is also important in that it shows that using non-violent resistance is not just about not using violence, but the willingness of people to fight back by standing in front of bulldozers, not allowing Israeli soldiers to club them and even physically dismantling the parts of the wall that are made from fencing. There is nothing passive about the kind of non-violence that Palestinians use that is documented so well by the filmmakers.
The film starts this Friday (January 7th) at UICA and will only be playing for one week. Check the UICA webpage for times and dates of the screening. This film will change how you see the Israeli/Palestinian conflict!
New Video is Response to Obama’s Afghan War Review
The group Rethink Afghanistan has a new short video in response to the Obama administration’s “Afghan Review” statement last month.
The video highlights soldier and civilian casualties and says that 2010 has seen the highest number of US & NATO troop deaths since the war began in 2001. The video also mentions that the war is costing taxpayers an estimated $2 billion each week in Afghanistan. According to the National Priorities Project the US war in Afghanistan has cost the state of Michigan $10 billion since 2001 and the City of Grand Rapids $200,000.
The video from Rethink Afghanistan is not an analysis piece, but is a good visual response to the administration’s insistence that the US war in Afghanistan is going well For a more detailed analysis of the Obama Afghan war review see the article by Phyllis Bennis and Kevin Martin.
It has been almost a year since the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, which killed thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
We wrote back then that what the local news media was doing with all their Haiti coverage has been a form of disaster reporting, where there tends to be little or no follow up to the devastation.
Some local news outlets have reported on the activities of area missionary work, medical relief and the 12 year-old boy who sent teddy bears to Haiti, but there has been little coverage of reconstruction efforts or an analysis of what has happened in the past 12 months.
In mid-April of last year there was a speaker in Grand Rapids that did provide some of this analysis. Dr. Joia Mukherjee, medical director of Partners in Health (PIH) spoke to an audience at Spectrum Health, but there was no local news coverage of her important analysis, apart from what GRIID reported.
Haiti continues to be a disaster and it is important that people in this country understand what is going on, what the roadblocks are to recovery and what role the US government and US-based NGOs are playing in Haiti’s future.
Here is an excellent article by Christophe Wargny, which is re-posted in its entirety from ZNet:
Toussaint Louverture International Airport has returned to good health, clean and almost welcoming. It has escalators and duty-free shops. Jet bridges take you straight from your plane into the terminal, as never happened before the earthquake of 12 January 2010. It gives you hope that reconstruction has begun, or is beginning; the promised billions might have finally hit their first targets. You imagine the bulldozers, the diggers and the site trucks at work: perhaps these explain the traffic snarl-up that the taxi driver immediately tells you is a permanent fixture.
But no: rebuilding the airport is the only project to take shape in almost 12 months, backed by clearing the main urban arteries. Reconstruction has not yet started. Unlike the once solid buildings of now devastated Port-au-Prince, the grip of politicians and notables who have strangled Haiti for two centuries managed to withstand the earthquake. They’ve even stolen the word “reform”, which framed the social movement’s projected rebuilding of the institutions and state structures, and emptied it of meaning. For the moment, “reform” equals “staying just the same”.
We already knew the statistics of a disaster worsened by the inertia (or heedlessness) of a pretend state that lacked form, means or political legitimacy. It’s the urban chaos, the absence of any infrastructure worthy of the name, as much as plate tectonics that explain 300,000 dead, the same number injured or maimed, with more than a million people displaced, most of them now in the hundreds of camps around the capital.
TV reports from Port-au-Prince, always looking for the most graphic images, gave the impression of a razed city. The reality was different, but no less tragic. Some blocks, mainly public buildings several storeys high, were completely destroyed. But in the old central and western districts, three out of four houses more or less survived. As you climb the surrounding slopes (the higher you get, the better off the residents), rubble diminishes. A label on each building attests to work promptly undertaken by hundreds of Haitian and overseas contractors: green indicates habitable, orange that work is needed, red calls for demolition. The higher you climb, the more green. Below everything is red, or is a camp.
There are so many camps in the zone near the airport that you see and smell them as soon as you arrive. They fill the flatlands around Croix-des-Bouquets, Tabarre and the Cul-de-Sac plain. A sea of plastic huts ruffled by the wind undulate in huge white and blue waves, occasionally broken by the colours of other protective materials. Tent after tent – they are so close to each other that you can hardly fit a small plastic table between them. The overcrowding is horrible, with living conditions during the (June to November) rainy season either intolerable or appalling, despite “urgent” and “massive” aid from abroad. Before you reach the centre of Port-au-Prince it is plain that at the present pace, the “emergency” could last forever.
Providing basic needs
People once aspired to join Pétionville golf club. Now it’s home to 30,000 refugees. Yet it has an advantage over other camps: the course architects, with golfers’ comfort in mind, planted superb shady clumps of green, effective at protecting new arrivals from the blazing sun in between tropical showers. The paths are walled with sandbags to channel water during rainstorms. Some schoolrooms have been improvised, there’s a children’s clinic, enough water for all, an internet café some days in a communal area, and refugees have been rehoused not too far from their former homes.
NGOs are responsible for drinking water and other basic needs. They empty the latrines, they bring round mobile water dispensers. Minustah, the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, which arrived after the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the intervention of the US and France in 2004, is here as elsewhere. But there’s no sign of an official Haitian presence. “A government minister here? I’ve never seen one,” a refugee member of the camp’s management team says. “I think they’re worried about what might happen to them.”Not all camps are so well endowed. Even so, storms ravage Pétionville’s tents, which harbour mosquitoes, rats and other vermin. Because life – or the survival instinct – bounces back quickly, small enterprises make sales – fresh sugar cane, Coca-Cola, clairin (a sugarcane-based brandy), soap – along with cafeterias and local crafts. Small shops are doing good business in evil-smelling alleys.
In dry weather the air is full of particles of faecal matter. Like foul water, these carry the cholera bacillus, and cholera has just returned to the island after almost a century. The relatively easy-to-prevent illness – access to clean water and the ability to wash hands limit the risks – has caused major casualties. By mid-December 2010 nearly 100,000 people were affected, 34,000 in hospital and 2,000 dead. Cyclone Tomas, which swept across the island on 5 November, helped spread the bacteria. Septic tanks overflowed, mixing their contents with the refuse borne by the storms, and gushed down into the camps which became huge cesspits, harbouring the cholera bacillus.
Speculators move in
There were predators, too: property owners. Using threats and intimidation, they chased the homeless from land around the golf course. There were skirmishes. Vacant plots became scarce. Speculators jumped in, spurred by the spike in house prices. Because the earthquake destroyed many of the archives and land registries, there has been conflict over title deeds.
Rents tripled because demand jumped as supply slumped. NGOs had little choice but to pay up. Whole new fortunes were created. Those with money made more. A doctor summed it up: “The solidarity of the early days seems far away now. We’re living with an unexpected development – inequalities are spiralling.” They were already the most pronounced in the western hemisphere.
The first objective remains to clear the land. Squads of workers in NGO T-shirts, with spades and brooms that make do for cranes and bulldozers, swarm in the rubble. They clear up each day what the storms drop by night. It’s an understatement to say that productivity is low. Household rubbish, in bins or just trashed, ensures that serious diarrhoea is endemic. Everyone thinks that at today’s speed it will take the trucks more than a decade to clear up.
Moving from tents to stand-by shelters in wood, plastics and corrugated iron (expected life: three to five years) would make things a little less precarious. Construction of 140,000 of these T-shelter dwellings is said to be in hand, even paid for, at $2,000 for a 15-sq-m hut. But where would they be built and on whose land? How would they be procured? Requisitioned? Bought under the counter? In Haiti, housing politics are juggled between five different ministries. In reality, there is no plan. Only 11,000 have gone up in 11 months. By the time the final shelters were to be built, the first would be decommissioned. Meantime the number of “campers” is not falling.
Urban exodus
The catastrophe caused an urban exodus. More than half a million people were accepted by provincial authorities that lacked resources but attempted, with help from NGOs already there and local communities, to provide schools, lodging, medical services, to distribute food, to create building sites, and to offer psychological counselling. Families were called on to take in relatives, sometimes squashing local economies. The provinces have become poorer, reflecting an old Haitian problem – over-centralisation.
After a few months, more than 80% of those who quit Port-au-Prince returned. The services they knew they could find in the capital – including the makeshift camps – seemed better, despite their limitations, than those available near their rural refuges: better schools, better aid, better chances (even if uncertain) of finding work. Internal migration has switched back in the usual direction, rediscovering its own vicious rhythm. All this just makes the camps more permanent.
For a long time now most Haitians have looked to NGOs rather than the state for public services. Before the earthquake, the UN World Food Programme fed almost two million Haitians, with the diaspora taking care of the same number (1). The earthquake has increased dependence. Whether they like it or not, in Port-au-Prince, NGOs are the only means of survival.
Alongside the UN agencies (2), there are some 10,000 organisations around the world helping to support Haiti. More than 1,000 are on the island. Half are unknown to the state, yet identifiable by their logos to all Haitians. Following the old colonists, American and European NGO officials are in just about all the camps. With their luxury vehicles and expensive equipment contributing to the traffic snarl-up, they offer “work for wages” to more than 100,000 people employed in the clean-up. The wage, 200 gourdes (under $7 a day), is a small fortune, which in 2009 President Préval found too costly for the Haitian economy; he would not pay it despite a long struggle with the workforce. But in today’s Haiti, NGOs have more financial muscle than the state.
Humanitarian aid accounted for a third of GDP in 2009. Hundreds of thousands of people live on it, employees and families. Some foreigners – blan in Creole – also live well: Haitians can see that in the restaurants and find enough in rubbish bins to feed the poorest. Practically every Haitian graduate seeks either to emigrate (3) or to join an NGO. It’s safer than working for the state or starting a business. In 2009, after years when “aid” was supposed to encourage “development”, the Haitian state was still dependent on 60% help from international organisations to balance its domestic budget. And even though things are improving, corruption costs the state huge sums in lost taxes. In 2008 and 2009, $300m of oil credits provided by Venezuela under the PetroCaribe agreement vanished. Almost the same amount was spirited away in the public works markets.
Rise of the evangelicals
Churches flourish alongside these organisations – some are also NGOs. Profiting from the state’s absence, evangelical and Pentecostal foundations are a big hit. One afternoon recently, the faithful were gathered in their thousands in Carrefour (the supermarket) in a Port-au-Prince suburb. Heavy American pop music blared from the PA system. The crowd attempted a few dance steps. Sermons by American pastors, translated into Creole, were followed by singing, jubilation, readings and commentary from the Bible from locally based ministers, trained by the incomers in under a year. Sick people were given blessings. “Miracles” happened. Above all, they thanked the Lord for the daily bread from this generous band of militants saying, “Believe and you will be saved.”Beside evangelicals and Pentecostals you see Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists. Ministers of self-proclaimed cults are born every minute. The heavenly army poses as a vanguard, as religious commissars: “We must denounce those who falsely repent, the bad pastors. God is great.” They repeat: “Down with places of Satanism [Voodoo temples].” Was it a fluke that God hit public buildings and the cathedral and ejected the archbishop from his own dwelling?Catholicism is now a minority faith. The sociologist Laënnec Hurbon estimates that 45% are Catholic (compared with 75% a few years ago): magic, miracle-working, guilt cults and new forms of evangelism offer more concrete support networks than the Catholic Church, which has shown itself better at creating elites than at working in a changing and savage urban scene. The Church has prevented any possibility of political reform of Haitian society. Its missionary objective was to create an imaginary shield against reality: to cultivate emotion and eradicate thought. In 30 years we’ve moved from the emergence of a liberation theology – embodied by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, president in 1991, 1994-96, then 2001-04 – to the cult of resignation.
The emergency should be nearly over. But with cholera, it is worsening. Everyone counted on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, with co-presidents Bill Clinton, the UN’s special envoy to Haiti, and Haiti’s prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive. Disappointingly, it has met just three times in 10 months, few projects have been confirmed, and there’s poor coordination between the sponsors. Haitian civil society has been spurned. The donor states, which have yet to match their promises, show a strange tendency to “place” their own firms. They seem a long way from the $10-15bn target announced: just 10% of donations have materialised. In these circumstances, projects – from land registry to training key people, from supporting agriculture to hospitals – are only part-financed, rarely signed and sealed.
As for elections, preoccupations have shifted: shelter, a job, health. The feeling is that Haiti no longer belongs to Haitians. And in the future, “se blan ki desid” (the foreigners will decide). Reconstruction, rebuilding society, reform? The future is more likely to bring a patching-up of the old order. But how can you help rebuild a state which barely works or help a political system based on clientelism, which guarantees a two-speed society?Stuck in traffic, you understand everything. Gleaming, air-conditioned 4x4s with tinted glass and smartphones for some; foot or wheelbarrow for the rest. The politicians, despite a few elements of modernity, have not changed. The earthquake shook the houses but has not touched the fundamentals of Haitian society.
Translated by Robert Waterhouse
Christophe Wargny is a journalist
(1) The most recent state budget was barely $2bn – or the cost of five days of war in Iraq during the mid-2000s. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, the Haitian diaspora accounts for 16% of GDP.
(2) United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Unesco, Unicef, World Food Programme, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
(3) According to a 2007 report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), for every 100 new graduates in Haiti, 80 who have already graduated emigrate, mainly to North America.
Levin, Jobs and the Defense Industry
Just before the Christmas break Michigan Senator Carl Levin announced that the Senate had approved a Pentagon contract to build ships for the Navy that would create jobs in Michigan.
The statement by Senator Levin said that the contract was awarded to Marinette Marine, a company based in the eastern part of Wisconsin, along the Michigan border in the Upper Pennisula. Levin also stated, “The contract for Marinette Marine is expected to fund 500 direct jobs in Michigan, and support up to an additional 2,500 jobs in Michigan.”
Levin goes on to say that this new contract will be a boost to the economy in that part of Michigan and then ends that paragraph by saying, “It’s a win not just for our own workers, but for national security and the taxpayers.” Such claims are worth looking at.
First, no where in Levin’s announcement or the website of the company does it say what kind of wages the workers will make in these jobs, nor whether they are full time or part time jobs. However, the parent company of Marinette Marine, the Italian corporation Fincantieri, announced in a Press Release that the US government contract was worth $4 billion dollars. The Press Release also states that the contract involves the largest defense contractor in the US, Lockheed Martin and includes a quote from Lockheed’s CEO in the body of the media release.
What would be useful for taxpayers to know is how much of that $4 billion is for wages and how much will the corporation end up pocketing after expenses for the project, which involves the construction of 10 Littoral Combat Ships. It would also be a bit more transparent for the Senator to mention that the company based in Wisconsin in a subsidiary of an Italian corporation.
Second, Levin states that this contract is a win for taxpayers, but he fails to articulate how it is a benefit to taxpayers. There are numerous jobs that are paid for by taxpayers besides government jobs, but this still doesn’t explain how giving $4 billion of taxpayer’s money to a private company is a win for the taxpayers. It should also be noted that Marinette Marine also received $500,000 in state money to train current and new employees because of the contract to build the 10 naval ships, according to a Greenbay newspaper.
Lastly, Senator Levin makes the claim that these new Navy ships will be good for national security. Here Levin does provide some information when he states, “The ships are designed to operate close to the shore, with greater speed, stealth and maneuverability than vessels now in the fleet. They will have the capability to support troops ashore, to combat enemy surface vessels and submarines, and counter enemy mines.”
However, the question should be asked if the US military is currently in need of such naval capacity. Is the US military currently fighting wars that require such vessels? In the two major current US military campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan there is no evidence provided by the Senator that such ships would be used in the current wars. More importantly, even if the ships were to be used in such a capacity it does not explain how that is a benefit to national security. How is the US safer because of the occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan? This burden of proof lies with the US government to provide evidence that supports such a claim.
It seems that the real winners in the contract are the companies within the defense industry, an industry that spends millions every year lobbying Congress in order to get multi-billion dollar contracts. The same industry has also contributed to Senator Levin over the years, with Lockheed Martin being in the top 20 of contributors.
New Memo Shows Fox News’ Unacceptable Level of Bias
(This news brief is re-posted from PRWatch.)
Media Matters uncovered another internal email sent out by Fox News‘ Washington, D.C. Managing Editor Bill Sammon which ordered Fox Network journalists to slant coverage of the climate change issue by “refrain[ing] from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.”
The memo is inflammatory because the increase in global annual average temperatures over the last 50 years is a well-established fact. The National Climatic Data Center (part of the U.S. Department of Commerce) says “The warming trend that is apparent in all of the independent methods of calculating global temperature change is also confirmed by other independent observations, such as the melting of mountain glaciers on every continent, reductions in the extent of snow cover, earlier blooming of plants in spring, a shorter ice season on lakes and rivers, ocean heat content, reduced arctic sea ice, and rising sea levels.”
Media Matters also recently revealed an internal Fox News email in which Sammon ordered network journalists to stop using the phrase “public option” in favor of a term cooked up by prominent Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who was helping Republicans turn public opinion against health care reform.
Exposure of the two emails has led the Los Angeles Times to print a rare rebuke of another mainstream news organization in an editorial saying that Fox News needs to either “come clean” about the partisanship within its newsrooms, or “stop pretending to be an objective news source.”
What We Are Reading
Below is a list of books that we have read in recent weeks. The comments are not a review of the books, instead sort of an endorsement of ideas and investigations that can provide solid analysis and even inspiration in the struggle for change. All these books are available at The Bloom Collective, so check them out and stimulate your mind.
Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, by Jordan Flaherty – Floodlines is a firsthand account of community, culture, and resistance in New Orleans. The book weaves together the stories of gay rappers, Mardi Gras Indians, Arab and Latino immigrants, public housing residents, and grassroots activists in the years before and after Katrina. From post-Katrina evacuee camps to torture testimony at Angola Prison to organizing with the family members of the Jena Six, Floodlines tells the stories behind the headlines from an unforgettable time and place in history. An excellent book that raises up racial justice work and community organizing.
What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth, by Wendell Berry – Over the years, Wendell Berry has sought to understand and confront the financial structure of modern society and the impact of developing late capitalism on American culture. There is perhaps no more demanding or important critique available to contemporary citizens than Berry’s writings — just as there is no vocabulary more given to obfuscation than that of economics as practiced by professionals and academics. Berry has called upon us to return to the basics. He has traced how the clarity of our economic approach has eroded over time, as the financial asylum was overtaken by the inmates, and citizens were turned from consumers — entertained and distracted — to victims, threatened by a future of despair and disillusion. This collection of essays is an important contribution to creating a new economic model.
Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance and Renewal, by Fred Magdoff ad Brian Tokar – The failures of “free-market” capitalism are perhaps nowhere more evident than in the production and distribution of food. Although modern human societies have attained unprecedented levels of wealth, a significant amount of the world’s population continues to suffer from hunger or food insecurity on a daily basis. In Agriculture and Food in Crisis, Fred Magdoff and Brian Tokar have assembled an exceptional collection of scholars from around the world to explore this frightening long-term trend in food production. While approaching the issue from many angles, the contributors to this volume share a focus on investigating how agricultural production is shaped by a system that is oriented around the creation of profit above all else, with food as nothing but an afterthought.
The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold US Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad, by Robert Elias – From the Civil War to George W. Bush and the Iraq War, we see baseball’s role in developing the American empire, first at home and then beyond our shores. And from Albert Spalding and baseball’s first World Tour to Bud Selig and the World Baseball Classic, we witness the globalization of America’s national pastime and baseball’s role in spreading the American dream. Besides describing baseball’s frequent and often surprising connections to America’s presence around the world, Elias assesses the effects of this relationship both on our foreign policies and on the sport itself and asks whether baseball can play a positive role or rather only reinforce America’s dominance around the globe. Like Franklin Foer in How Soccer Explains the World, Elias is driven by compelling stories, unusual events, and unique individuals. His seamless integration of original research and compelling analysis makes this a baseball book that’s about more than just sports.
Pete Hoekstra, the CIA and Torture
(This article by James Bovard is re-posted from CounterPunch.)
On December 21, the Central Intelligence Agency gave its Agency Seal Medal to Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Hoekstra has labored almost ceaselessly to assure that the CIA can break federal laws with impunity.
CIA Director Leon Panetta announced at the ceremony for Hoekstra at CIA headquarters: “To honor your service, I want to present you with the agency Seal Medallion. You have been a strong voice for protecting the nation and we pay tribute to your service.” The official citation declared: “He worked to provide the Agency with the resources and support it needs to accomplish its mission.” Hoekstra responded: “I am honored and humbled to receive such recognition from the CIA.”
Hoekstra has been one of the most vigilant defenders of federal agencies that have ravaged Americans’ rights. As former CIA agent Ray McGovern reported, it was Hoekstra who “blocked any attempt to hold [National Security Agency chief Keith] Alexander accountable for his lie” in 2005 congressional testimony regarding the Bush administration’s massive illegal wiretaps of Americans. Hoekstra’s shining moment on the Intelligence Committee occurred when he proudly announced in 2006 that the U.S. military really did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The main achievement of his press conference was to make Hoekstra a laughingstock.
When he was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from 2004 to 2006, Hoekstra occasionally bemoaned the CIA’s misleading Congress. But when push came to shove, Hoekstra has worked to protect CIA torturers from prosecution.
In April 2009, Hoekstra warned that torture investigations could have a “chilling effect” on interrogators.
In May 2009, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of lying to Congress regarding torture, Hoekstra denounced her for becoming a “wrecking ball” for CIA morale. In August 2009, Hoekstra talked as if any consideration of Bush-era torture abuses would leave the nation vulnerable to another Al Qaeda attack: “Attorney General Holder should know that as he increases the focus on America’s past counterterrorism efforts, he is distracting from the CIA’s current counterterrorism efforts.”
In September 2009, after Holder signaled that he was going to pretend to seriously consider prosecuting CIA interrogation crimes, Hoekstra declaimed: “The political witch hunt and endless investigations against the CIA being conducted by partisan ideologues need to stop.”
This past February, Hoekstra led efforts to successfully defeat the proposed “Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Interrogations Prohibition Act of 2010.” The bill would have made clear that CIA employees can be prosecuted if they use beatings, electric shocks, or attack dogs to interrogate detainees. Hoekstra denounced as “shameful” the effort by some Democrats’ effort to “target those we ask to serve in harm’s way.”
On October 31, when the Republicans were poised to recapture control of the House in midterm elections, Hoekstra announced that the House Intelligence Committee would conduct “vigorous oversight” over the Justice Department’s “review of potential prosecutions of CIA folks involved in interrogation programs.” Hoekstra didn’t care what CIA agents had done. Instead, the only issue was whether the outside chance of being indicted caused the nation’s premier interrogators to lose sleep.
When WikiLeaks began releasing U.S. State Department cables last month, Hoekstra raced in front of the TV cameras to denounce the “breakdown of trust.” Hoekstra fretted that American allies would ask: “Can the United States be trusted … to keep a secret?” Apparently, as long as federal crimes are kept secret, then the U.S. government remains trustworthy. Or at least that’s what people like Hoekstra want Americans to think.
I interviewed Hoekstra in 1999 for an article I wrote on AmeriCorps. Hoekstra was good on that issue — even though he insisted that his most incisive criticisms were “off the record.” But as time went on, Hoekstra became increasingly Washingtonized. In 2002, he announced that he would scorn his term-limit pledge to voters and seek more terms in Congress. Hoekstra justified betraying voters in part because he had been “selected for more senior leadership posts in Congress, including the Intelligence Committee.” Hoekstra did not seek another term this year so that he could pursue the governorship of Michigan. (He failed to win the Republican primary this past August.)
Hoekstra is not the first Intelligence Committee member to receive the CIA Agency Seal Award. Previous recipients include Rep. Jane Harman (D-California), Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia), and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) — all reliable stooges for the agency. The Founding Fathers would spin in their graves at the notion of federal agencies giving awards to the congressmen who were supposed to be holding the leash on the agency. This is akin to a judge bragging about receiving a Public Service Award from some mobster who he made sure was found “not guilty.”
Perhaps the official oath of office for congressmen should be revised. Instead of representatives swearing to uphold the Constitution, they should instead openly pledge fealty to the CIA and other federal agencies. Can American democracy fall any lower than congressmen sending out press releases bragging about Lap Dog awards from agencies whose crimes they helped cover up?
Wal-Mart Strikes Again
(This article is re-posted from CounterPunch and further illustrates the point we made about Wal-Mart policies in light of their PR campaign to win public opinion through its so-called anti-hunger project.)
It didn’t get much media attention, but on December 8, Wal-Mart announced that beginning January 1, 2011, it would discontinue its $1 dollar per hour bonus pay for Sunday work. Maybe the media figured there had already been enough recession-angle stories, and that compared to lay-offs, home foreclosures, and double-digit unemployment, the loss of a buck an hour wasn’t worth reporting.
But considered from a different angle, Wal-Mart’s announcement is quite sobering. Overturning the long-standing policy of paying people premium-time (even as little as $1 per hour more) for Sunday work is definitely a step backwards. After all, premium pay for Sunday work has been an American institution of sorts for more than 100 years.
Sunday was always special. It was the Sabbath, the day people attended church, the traditional day of rest in America (even many 19th century laborers, wretched as they were, worked only half a day on Sundays). For that reason, Sunday was chosen as the day on which certain holidays—Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter—were observed.
Sunday was also recognized as America’s unofficial family day, a day when the kids were out of school, a day when relatives got together; and, until well after World War II, it was a day on which most retail businesses in America were shuttered. Thus to work on a Sunday was to serve above and beyond the call of duty, hence the premium pay.
So why is the most successful merchandiser in the history of the world (and the largest private employer in the United States, Canada and Mexico) squeezing its future full-time workers out of $8 pay on Sundays? Surely, it’s not a question of being unable to afford it, because Wal-Mart is rolling in dough. Actually, the answer is fairly obvious: They did it because they could.
With no labor union or government agency to stop them, with the country too distracted by its own economic worries and woes to empathize with retail clerks, and with the job market in the sorry shape it’s in, what are these Wal-Mart folks supposed to do—quit their jobs and look for work elsewhere? Taking all of this into account, Wal-Mart saw the move as eminently doable….and did it.
What makes this phenomenon—i.e., management’s boot placed firmly on labor’s neck—so spooky is that no one knows where it will ultimately lead. Many fear that the continued attack on the American worker will result in the dissolution of the middle-class and turn the U.S. into a glorified Third World nation, where we have a tiny upper class and a huge, sprawling lower class. It’s not as farfetched as it sounds.
Consider: Besides sending jobs overseas and replacing people with automated services and robots, corporations are laying off blue and white collar workers, shifting to part-time employees, eliminating pensions, rolling back holiday, vacation and sick pay, raising premiums on health care, and forcing employees to sign loyalty oaths. Workers are treated like disposable commodities. Had labor relations experts predicted such a thing in 1957, they would’ve been laughed out of the profession.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich argues that the 30-year erosion of the middle-class and the onset of the Great Recession are inextricably connected. Because the success of the economy is dependent on the health (“buying power”) of the middle-class, when the middle can’t afford to purchase goods and services, the economy tanks. Simple as that. Therefore, maintaining a healthy middle isn’t a form of generosity; it’s a form of self-preservation.
The rich can’t do it by themselves. In 1970, the top 1-percent earned 9-percent of all income. By the time the 2008 recession rolled around, the top 1-percent were earning nearly 24-percent. But even though Wall Street is flourishing and the rich are getting richer, they can’t be relied upon to fuel the economy. According to Reich, the very rich simply don’t spend enough money. That’s where the American middle comes in.
Historically, the middle-class has been extraordinarily dependable shoppers. They buy everything. The middle-class buys huge amounts of regular, everyday goods and services, and because these everyday goods and services are what keep the economy lubricated, society prospers. Buying a yacht doesn’t help that much. Also, the rich tend to invest much of their money, which, while sweetening their bank accounts and propping up the stock market, does little to sustain the “real” economy.
Assaulting American labor is analogous to chopping down an apple orchard. Although cutting down the trees makes picking the apples infinitely easier (and, if you’re a fruit vendor, more profitable), it also deprives the orchard of a future. But, come to think of it, no one ever accused Wall Street of caring that much about the future.
Protest Against Gentrification Dismissed as Prank
On Christmas Day, merchants and restaurateurs in the Wealthy and Cherry Street neighborhoods received messages. They were not Yuletide greetings, but declarations of class warfare. Painted on storefront windows, a garage at an ICCF townhouse, and on bricks thrown through windows, the protest was clearly about gentrification and a group of people being pushed out of their own neighborhood by business development.
The Green Well Gastro Pub, the Richard App Gallery, The Sparrows, The Meanwhile Bar, and The Winchester Restaurant were all targets of the protesters.
According to a report filed with The Rapidian, messages on bricks and painted on windows included the Anarchist symbol (an A in a circle); “Fuck You!”; “Yuppie Scum Yer Time Has Come,” a drawing of a capitalist pig, “Get Out,” “Urban Renewal = Classist + Racist,” “Gentrify This!” and “This is Not Your Neighborhood.” One brick was decorated with dollar signs.
The Rapidian commentary produced speculation that the damage had been done by kids, echoing the fact that in the site’s article, Winchester owner Paul Lee stated flatly, “I don’t feel that this is obviously anyone that is really from the neighborhood.”
Lee amplified his statement in the second of two articles published by The Grand Rapids Press on the MLive site December 25 and in the paper on December 26. In that article, Lee is quoted as stating: “This is the mark of probably a suburban kid who had too much time and who doesn’t understand what’s really going on in this neighborhood.”
Several other business owners, such as co-owner Tami VandenBerg from The Meanwhile Bar, started reiterating Lee’s statements. VandenBerg told the Press that she thought it was “disgruntled kids” or “college kids” who had painted the graffiti and thrown the bricks.
But by December 27, Lee’s story about the culprits had changed again. Interviewed by WOOD-TV, he did not mention his “suburban kids” theory. Lee called some of the statements painted on his business (especially “This is not your neighborhood”) “ignorant” because he and his wife live above their restaurant. After the WOOD-TV reporter summarized that neighbors and business owners worked hand-in-hand and “have reclaimed this neighborhood,” the reporter quoted Lee as saying that he knew the protesters were not people from the neighborhood “because most drug dealers don’t use words like ‘gentrification.’”
None of these speculations about the motive of the protesters appeared in the first article by the Press, published on MLive on Christmas Day. That article was shorter and seemed more to the point, reporting that the attacks were “vandalism warning the businesses that were seen as intruders in their respective neighborhoods.”
Although the business owners’ feelings about vandalism to their property is understandable, it should be noted that the story is evolving to frame the event as a kind of high school prank instead of considering it as a possible response to the gentrification of the neighborhoods in question.
GRIID has reported on various aspects of gentrification, including a report about a community forum last spring to discuss the problem in the Heartside area and a story in the Press about the “revitalization” of Wealthy Street.
The Press articles and the WOOD-TV report ignored what can be considered the inevitable downside of business development:
• Longtime residents and even some business owners have been forced out of the area by higher rents.
•As property taxes in the neighborhoods go up, some residents will lose their homes.
•Minorities who have been in the neighborhood for years are feeling pressured by the predominantly White influx of new business owners and residents.
When one looks at the messages left on Christmas Day, it appears that they point to this feeling of alienation. They also speak to the idea that gentrification inevitably brings about changes that are detrimental to the poor. They present the concept that urban renewal can carry a racist element with it. They underscore that some people in these neighborhoods might feel their lives are being dismantled for the profits of a few business owners.
Paul Lee’s statements, along with some of those posted at The Rapidian, seem to be a denial that this element to the changes in the neighborhood even exists. Conferences such as the one held by the Grand Rapids Community Foundation and meetings for further development, such as the year-round “farmers’ market” complex, are not as inclusive as they could be in giving long-time residents a venue to voice their concerns and assert their rights in this changing environment,
People left out of any dialogue will find a way to make themselves heard. It’s an unsettling thought to those who are putting their money and development interests into Cherry and Wealthy Streets. But rather than dismissing it or denying it, addressing it in constructive ways could lead to a better dialogue than bricks.
The Right to the City movement based in New York City has tackled issues around urban development and gentrification for several years now. They have numerous resources on their webpage with links to other resources being used around the country that may be useful for any discussion that might take place in Grand Rapids.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 