GRIID end of the year in Review: Part II – Monitoring the Far Right in West Michigan
In Part I of the GRIID Year in Review, I wrote about the media watchdog work I do and how the local news reported on critical issues in Grand Rapids for 2024. Today, I want to look at my reporting on the Far Right in West Michigan.
I monitor the Far Right in West Michigan because not only do they spread misinformation and promote hate, they also engage in actual harm. The kind of harm the far right practices disproportionately impacts trans people, immigrants, BIPOC communities and people who are subjected to poverty. Monitoring the Far Right in West Michigan can help us to identify the organizations engaged in harm, which can lead to exposure and resistance.
In February of 2024, I wrote a Part I and Part II story about how Kent County candidates were embracing some of the same ideological commitments as the group Ottawa Impact.
In a March 12 post, I looked at how the Acton Institute trashed Aaron Bushnell for his decision to self-immolate as a protest against US complicity in the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, the GR Chamber’s claim about immigrants and a Doug DeVos podcast interview with former GRPS Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal.
In late. March, I wrote another 2 part story about how politicians used anti-immigrant hysteria after an undocumented immigrant killed his girlfriend in Kent County. The hysteria was brought about because a far right anti-immigrant group claimed that Kent County was a sanctuary county.
The Acton Institute was once again the subject of another GRIID article in April, after one of the Acton writers made anti-Black comments and then equated anti-Zionism with anti-semitism. In late April, I also wrote a piece about the far right group in the Forest Hills area known as Forest Hills for JUST Education.
In May, I wrote about the far right pro-cop group, Voice for the Badge, and Acton Institute podcasters calling for students that are protesting against the Israeli genocide should be expelled. Then in late May, I wrote about the GR Chamber of Commerce, the Acton Institute and the Betsy DeVos created group, the Great Lakes Education Project.
On June 18th, GRIID posted an article about a Press Conference held by the far right, anti-trans coalition that was touring with their message of hate. The group Our Bodies, Our Sports held a Press Conference in front of the Ford Museum and included Betsy DeVos as one of the speakers.
After a tremendous amount of social media content about Project 2025, I wrote a piece in July that made it clear that many of the national groups that had signed off on the project have been funded by the DeVos family.
In August, the Acton Institute was once again the target of a GRIID article, especially since they made the claim that no one, even the unhoused, have a right to housing.
In September, Voice for the Badge reposted a meme from the group NumbersUSA. According to SourceWatch, NumbersUSA is an anti-immigrant organization that was tied to the larger anti-immigrant network that was created by now deceased Michigan physician John Tanton.
In October, I discovered that there were several conservative churches that were participating in Faith & Blue weekend. Some local churches actively participated in a national campaign that was created in response to the massive public protests again the George Floyd murder in 2020.
Lastly, in November, I wrote about how the Acton Institute’s revisionist claims about the First Thanksgiving, along with how the GR Chamber of Commerce was lobbying Michigan legislators to adopt bills that would benefit their members and other people in the Capitalist Class.
Some of the Far Right stories that I wrote in 2024, could easily be categorized as being part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, but there is a great deal of overlap between the far right and the GR Power Structure. Part III in this series will focus on the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
I posted 53 different stories that critiqued the local daily commercial news media in 2024. The four news agencies I monitor regularly are MLive, WOODTV8, WZZM 13 and WXMI 17.
Some of those 53 posts were one-off pieces that looked at things like the Tesla mining project in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where the MLive article failed to provide adequate contextual information or explore the ecological and social implications of the mine.
Other one-off examples would be how WXMI 17 reported on the 50th anniversary of when Gerald R. Ford became President, how WZZM 13 failed to address how many people are struggling with the cost of rent in Kent County, how WOODTV8 only talked to the GR Chamber of Commerce on recent court decisions regarding minimum wages, or the example of how MLive failed to question the State of Michigan giving a $100 million tax exemption to the Chevron Corporation.
However, the bulk of the critique that GRIID provided on local news reporting centered primarily on the themes of the 2024 election, the GRPD and how the local news primarily acted as stenographers to the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
Local Election Coverage for 2024
ArtPrize vs Local Election coverage in the Grand Rapids media market
Local News Coverage on the GRPD for 2024
In an upcoming GRIID report, I documented that in the 673 crime related stories in the 4 local daily commercial media outlets, the GRPD were the primary source in 628 of those stories.
Here are some examples of how relying on the GRPD protects the GRPD from greater public scrutiny.
GRPD Chief Winstrom just lied to a reporter from MLive
GRPD Chief Winstrom engages in a little Copaganda and the local news media never questions it
Corporate Crime vs Street Crime: How Grand Rapids news distorts and racializes crime
Local News acts as stenographers to GR Power Structure
The amount of local news coverage regarding how the Grand Rapids Power Structure functions in this city, once again demonstrates how local news primarily acts as stenographers to those with power. There are too many to list here, so let me just highlight some of the more egregious examples.
Power Dynamics, community engagement and the Grand Action Soccer Stadium proposal
MLive’s Amphitheater coverage is a disgusting display of Neo-Liberal Journalism
Billionaire families announce new development project in GR, wants $544 million in public funding
Stenographers to power: When an Amway Press Release is used as “news”
What the DeVos/Van Andel ownership of the soccer team means for Grand Rapids
In Part II of the GRIID Year in Review, I will look at my reporting on the Far Right in West Michigan.
Doing accompaniment work with the Zapatistas in Mexico led me to do accompaniment work in Grand Rapids
It is now 31 years since the Zapatistas revealed themselves to the world in the southern state of Mexico, known as Chiapas.
The Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN) chose January 1st, 1994, since that was the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) began in Canada, US and Mexico. The Zapatistas condemned this trade agreement, even going so far as to call it a death sentence for campesinos and indigenous people.
I had been through Chiapas numerous times before the uprising in 1994. After the uprising in Chiapas, I did travel through in 1994 on my way to be an election observer in El Salvador, then again in 1995, where I was doing accompaniment work in Guatemala with several human rights groups, along with documenting election violations in the Quiche region of Guatemala.
Version 1.0.0
The first time I did accompaniment work in Chiapas, specifically in the Zapatista communities, was in 1997, in the community of La Realidad. La Realidad is located in the Lacandon forest area, so it took about 4 hours to get there. I had to catch a ride in a cattle truck at 2am, so as to avoid Mexican government authorities, since traveling to Zapatista communities was prohibited at that time.
I was in La Realidid for for several weeks doing accompaniment work, where we mostly documented the daily activity of the Mexican military, which drove through La Realidad every day in order to intimidate them. Those of us would also monitor helicopter activity by the Mexican military, which used US supplied Huey helicopters. The same day that I left La Realidad, paramilitary forces in Mexico murdered 45 campesinos in Acteal, Chiapas, which was less than 30 miles from La Realidid.
I went to Chiapas a second time to do accompaniment work, but this time a whole group of people from Grand Rapids came. I was working at the Institute for Global Education at the time and was teaching a class on the history of US/Mexican relations. Several members of the class decided to make the trip to Chiapas with me.
This trip, which was in 1998, led us to the Zapatista community of Oventic. Again, we were in this community during the annual New Year’s even celebration, to commemorate the EZLN uprising.
My 3rd, and last time doing accompaniment work in Chiapas, was in late 2000, through the first days of 2021. During that short stint of accompaniment, several communities from the area marched to a Mexican military base and occupied the base until they left. Check out the video clip of this action, along with one of the Comandantes reading a statement during the New Years Eve celebration.
I am forever grateful for the opportunity to learn from the Zapatistas and to be able to leverage my privilege by doing accompaniment work in Chiapas. I continue to practice accompaniment work here in Grand Rapids, whether it is with Indigenous people, Black community organizers or the undocumented immigrant movement known as Movimiento Cosecha GR. La Lucha Sigue!!!!
The two lives of Jimmy Carter: Service to humanity and servitude to US Imperialism
The passing of Jimmy Carter on Sunday has been instructive, both in terms of the public reaction and the narratives that have been crafted to accompany his death.
On one hand we have the Jimmy Carter to supported the work of Habitat for Humanity, not just financially, but by wielding a hammer on numerous occasions. Then there is the Jimmy Cater who started The Carter Center, which promoted conflict resolution, provided election observers and promoted human rights.
There was also the Jimmy Carter who wrote the 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Not only did this book name the unjust policy of Israel – Apartheid – it provided a substantive critique of US policy in the Middle East.
This narrative, the Jimmy Carter that embraced humanity and practiced being in service to others should be celebrated and cherished. However, the post-White House Jimmy Carter should in no way be confused with the Jimmy Carter presidency.
As President, Jimmy Carter continued and maintained much of the Cold War policies that his predecessors did, such as:
- Maintaining the US Embargo on Cuba, along with regular efforts to either assassinate Fidel Castro or disrupt Cuban life. See Clara Nieto’s book, Masters of War: Latin America and US Aggression.
- The Carter Administration increased US military aid to Indonesia, which continued its military occupation of East Timor, thus bringing the death toll to an estimated 200,000 by the end of 1979. See Norman Solomon’s book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
- Carter continued supporting the Angolan military dictator Jonas Savimbi, with US weapons and CIA support. See William Blum’s book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since WWII.
- President Carter also supported the brutal Shah of Iran and his death squads forces, known as SAVAK. The Carter Administration then botched an effort to rescue US citizens after the Iranian revolution of 1979, which also involved US troops. See William Blum’s book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since WWII.
- In 1979, there was a revolution in Nicaragua, an uprising begun by the Sandinistas. The uprising brought about the end of the Somoza dictatorship, which the US had supported for decades. The Carter Administration supported the Nicaragua military right through 1979, and laid the ground work for the former Nicaragua soldiers, which eventually became the terrorist group known as the Contras. See Nathan Robinson’s book, The Myth of American Idealism: How US Foreign Policy Endangers the World.
- After the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, the Carter Administration, under the leadership of his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave military aid to the Afghani opposition forces to, in the words of Brzezinski – The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. “We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet Empire. Brzezinski failed to mention that the Afghani’s they were providing over $1 billion in military aid were the Mujahideen, Islamic fundamentalists that included Osama bin Laden, then later morphed into the Taliban.
- In the last few years of the Carter Administration, he continued providing military aid, training and weapons to the Guatemalan military dictatorship and the Salvadoran military dictatorship. In February of 1980, Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero sent Carter a letter demanding that the US government stop sending weapons to El Salvador, but they would welcome humanitarian aid. In Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman’s book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, the co-authors write: “The Carter Administration had been so disturbed by Romero’s opposition to its policies that it had secretly lobbied the pope to curb the archbishop.” Romero was assassinated one month later while saying mass in San Salvador. The assassins were trained at the US Army School of the Americans, located at Fort Benning in Georgia.
- The Carter Administration maintained massive US military aid to Israel, despite the ongoing Israeli occupation and apartheid policies against the Palestinians.
- The Carter Administration also defended and financed the hundreds of US military bases around the world, along with a massive annual US military budget. President Carter also maintain nuclear weapons superiority during his presidency, even introducing a new group of nuclear weapons.
A great deal more could be said about how President Carter perpetuated US Imperialism abroad, which always translated into lack of funds for adequate housing, health care, education and other basic necessities that all people living in the US should benefit from.
For more critical analysis of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, see the following articles:
https://jacobin.com/series/jimmy-carter-obituary
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/30/jimmy-carter-the-false-savoir/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/jimmy-carter-worsened-the-american-malaise-he-decried/
On Friday, MLive posted an article with the headline, Grand Rapids’ first female mayor leaves after 9 years marked by ‘remarkable’ growth.
The article primarily celebrates the outgoing mayor, whom the journalist credits with bringing tremendous growth to Grand Rapids. In addition to celebrating Mayor Bliss, the MLive article only cites three sources, City Manager Mark Washington, Josh Lunger from the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, and Kent County Commissioner Robert Womack. Not surprising, each of these sources praised Bliss, which means there is no critical assessment of what has happened during the two term tenure of the outgoing Mayor.
There was some reflection in the MLive piece, which stated:
Bliss’ tenure as head of the city hasn’t been without its challenges. In 2020, Grand Rapids made national headlines due to social justice riots that destroyed businesses downtown. Police relations hit an all-time low in 2022 after the killing of a Black man by a Grand Rapids cop. Meanwhile, the city continues to struggle with homelessness and housing affordability.
Despite these issues, there is no investigation nor sources that could have challenged the narrative that the City of Grand Rapids has seen “remarkable’ growth.” Don’t get me wrong, I agree that there has been a great deal of growth in Grand Rapids, especially growth that has been beneficial to the business class. What the MLive writer fails to question is……for whom has the City’s growth been remarkable for?
In July, GRIID posted an article talking about the economy and how many people are living paycheck to paycheck. I cited data from ALICE, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. According to an ALICE report for 2023, 41% of Michigan households live paycheck to paycheck, but that number goes up to 47% for Grand Rapids households. This means that nearly half of the households in Grand Rapids are living paycheck to paycheck! This doesn’t sound like remarkable growth to me.
Since MLive, and the local news in general, won’t provide the public with a more honest assessment of Mayor’ legacy, I will provide some concrete examples of how Mayor Bliss has failed to embrace justice, has supported repression, and enabled remarkable growth of the wealth gap in Grand Rapids.
- In early February of 2016, some members of the group Healing Children of Conflict met with Mayor Bliss to see if she would endorse a City effort to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation and Israeli Apartheid. The campaign began in October of 2015. Mayor Bliss refused to support such an effort.
- In March of 2016, GVSU students, who were supporting the bus union campaign for a new contract, were being targeted by the GRPD and Mayor Bliss supported this.
- In late March of 2016, the United Farm Workers sent a letter to Mayor Bliss condemning her participation in the annual Cesar Chavez march, but not supporting bus union workers and allowing the cops to harass GVSU students.
- In April of 2017, GRPD officers pulled guns on several Black youth because they “fit a description.”
- On May 1st, 2017, Movimiento Cosecha held a march on May Day, with clear demands from political leaders. Mayor Bliss did not participate but the GRPD showed up to threaten and harass the 2,000 who marched.
- In May of 2017, 100 Black men came to a Grand Rapids City Commission meeting calling for a state of emergency regarding systemic racism in Grand Rapids. No action was taken by the City.
- In October of 2017, Movimiento Cosecha took part in a solidarity action with the bus driver’s union to demand a new and fair contract during a City Commission meeting. They were ignored by Bliss and the City Commissioners.
- In December of 2017, an 11 year old Black girl was handcuffed and detained by the GRPD.
- In May of 2018, Movimiento Cosecha once again had a large march from Roosevelt Park to downtown Grand Rapids. Again, Mayor Bliss did not participate and the GRPD had a massive show of force that again tried to dictate the direction of the march route.
- In late 2018, a GRPD cop who was off duty, saw a story on TV about a man – Jilmar Romos Gomez, who was suffering PTSD and started a fire at Spectrum Health. The GRPD cop called ICE and said that this man was an undocumented immigrant, when he fact he was a former Marine. Under Mayor Bliss’s leadership Captain VanderKooi was never held accountable for this incident over a two year period.
- In February of 2019, immigrant justice activists disrupted the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting, because Mayor Bliss would not allow the same amount of time to community members that the Chief of Police was given to defend Captain VanderKooi.
- In March of 2019, a coalition of groups held a press conference with a list of demands around the GRPD and the lack of accountability regarding their actions against Black and Latinx communities.
- May 2019 march by Cosecha, was once again not attended by Mayor Bliss, plus the GRPD were now threatening people if they marched in the streets.
- GRIID obtained FOIA documents regarding the GRPD’s monitoring, spying, harassment and intimidation leading up to the 2019 May Day march.
- In May of 2020, Grand Rapids also had a George Floyd protest that erupted with thousands of people in the streets and the response from the GRPD was repressive. Mayor Bliss called for a State of Emergency, brought in the Michigan National Guard and instituted a curfew for downtown Grand Rapids. There was an effort to Defund the GRPD in late June/early July, which the Mayor derailed and numerous other repressive tactics used by the GRPD to target activists. You can check out our visual timeline of all this.
- In July of 2020, Defund the GRPD protested in front of the home of Mayor Bliss. (Pictured here below) She was not there, as she primarilY stays with her partner in Caledonia, which was verified by several of her neighbors who came out to talk with those protesting.
- In November of 2020, the community organized a campaign to defeat the GRPD from obtaining Shot Spotter technology. Mayor Bliss voted for it.
- In late December of 2020, Mayor Bliss gave the GRPD the green light to evict unhoused people who set up an encampment at Heartside Park.
- In April of 2021, the City of Grand Rapids sent out a Press Release saying that anyone protesting the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial would be arrested.
- In May, the group Defund the GRPD was organizing to pressure the City of Grand Rapids to not only reduce funding for the GRPD, but to allow more public input on how public money would be used in the City Budget for 2022. In early May, the City held a one hour virtual town hall meeting on the 2022 Budget, which was an insult to those who have been organizing around how public money would be used. Defund the GRPD had posted their own demands on what they wanted to see happen with the funds, as well as the process for determining the 2022 City Budget. Defund the GRPD also organized people to call in during the City Commission meeting later in May, right before they voted on the 2022 Budget.
- Throughout much of 2021, the group Justice for Black Lives were targeted for demanding Police accountability in Grand Rapids.
- In November, at a protest following a not guilty verdict for Kyle Rittenhouse, several JFBL activists were arrested again, after the protest had finished. Once again, JFBL held a press conference to respond to the arrests and to counter the claims made by the GRPD.
- On April 4, 2022, the GRPD shot and killed Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head, execution style. Mayor Bliss has done nothing to further justice for the family of Patrick Lyoya, but has repeatedly allowed the GRPD to target activists who are demanding justice.
- In late December 2022, the Chamber of Commerce wanted to impose ordinances that would essentially criminalize the unhoused. During the last Grand Rapids City Commission meeting for 2022, Mayo Bliss and the other commissioners refused to denounce the Chamber’s proposal.
- Throughout 2023, Mayor Bliss fully supported the GRPD’s desire to purchase and use drones, plus she fully endorsed the Grand Rapids ordinances that has criminalized the unhoused in this city.
- After the brutal Israeli assault in Gaza, GR residents tried to get the City of Grand Rapids to pass a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and to call on members of Congress from Michigan to not use federal tax money that does to Israel but to use those funds to benefit our community. Mayor Bliss and the other commissioners said calling for a resolution is not what they do.
- Since last year, the GRPD has targeting more dissident groups and calling un-permitted marches illegal. When the Comrades Collective joined Palestine Solidarity Grand Rapids for a march that began at MLK Park, then went to Rep. Scholten’s home, the GRPD showed up in big numbers and ticketed the safety car driver. Safety cars have been used in recent years during marches as a means of protecting those marching from motorists that want to ram into people who are in the streets, just like what happened in Charlottesville in 2017.
- In April of 2024, during a march for Patrick Lyoya, which took places 2 days after the second anniversary of his murder on April 6th, the GRPD arrested the safety car person and then impounded their car. Patrick Lyoya’s parents were present during the march and were shocked at how people were treated by the GRPD.
- A few weeks after the GRPD shut down a non-violent march on the 2nd anniversary of Patrick Lyoya’s death, two BIPOC activists then received calls from the GRPD to turn themselves in, since one was being charged with a misdemeanor and the other a misdemeanor and a felony.
- During the Primary Election of 2024, Mayor Bliss was part of the group that was pushing for the Hotel Tax increase in Kent County, which would direct more money to projects like the Amphitheater and Soccer Stadium. Bliss helped to raise nearly half a million dollars for the Destination Kent Committee, the group that was behind the Hotel Tax increase ballot initiative.
- Over the past few years, Mayor Bliss has also voted for the use of over $1 billion of public money to finance development projects that will expand the wealth of those who are already filthy rich. Here are four projects Mayor Bliss has signed off on: At least $100 million in public money for the Amphitheater; $318 Million for the 2 apartment buildings that will be next to the Amphitheater and the Soccer Stadium; $100 million for Soccer Stadium; and $565 million in tax incentives/subsidies for the DeVos/Van Andel 3 towers project on Fulton and Market.
This is just a partial list of the ways in which Mayor Bliss has opposed efforts to promote justice, especially efforts that were led by BIPOC organizers. The legacy of Mayor Bliss is fundamentally rooted in servitude to the Grand Rapids Power Structure and in opposition to movements demanding social justice amidst systemic racism in Grand Rapids, the ongoing housing crisis and the lack of accountability with the GRPD.
Palestine Solidarity Information, Analysis, Local Actions and Events for the week of December 29th
It has been more than 14 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. We will also provide information on local events and actions that people can get involved in. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
The World Owes Palestine This Much – Please Stop Censoring Palestinian Voices
Three Declarations of Genocide and the U.S. Responses
Palestinians Endure Another Christmas of Genocide and Displacement
As Palestinians Starve and Freeze, Israeli Troops Unwind at Gaza ‘Beachfront Resort’
Israeli Raid Puts Last Hospital in Besieged Northern Gaza Out of Service
Analysis & History
How research at MIT abets Israel’s genocide in Gaza
A Palestinian year in review: Genocide, resistance and unanswered questions
The BDS Movement calls for a Boycott Chevron weekend of Action January 31-February 2
Images used in this post is from the Boycott Chevron Campaign. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SkZIN6DcU-GTLw03aQrfJpe01CWgHIMY?usp=drive_link
On December 19th, Bridge Michigan posted an article with the headline, Michigan House kills hundreds of bills.
The article provided a pretty good summary of all of the proposed bills that never got voted on, in part because state lawmakers either didn’t show up to vote on them or because of partisan bickering.
Screenshot
However, the list of bills that Bridge Michigan cited were primarily mild reformist bills that only tweaked issues that need a more robust response to unjust and oppressive realities. For example, one bill that did pass in the Lame Duck period was legislation that would protect Michigan consumers from price gouging during emergencies. Sure, this is a good thing, but it doesn’t address larger issues of corporate regulation or the fact that most Michiganders don’t make a Living Wage.
What didn’t happen with a Democratic Party trifecta in Michigan
In the 2022 elections, Michigan Democrats won a majority in both the State House and State Senate. Since the Democrats already had control of the Governor’s office, this gave them what is often referred to as a trifecta in party politics.
There was a great deal of excitement when the Democratic trifecta happened two years ago, and along with that excitement came many promises and expectations about what would happen. I wrote a three part piece in November of 2022, entitled, What Kind of Change Do We really want to see in Michigan: Part I, Part II and Part III.
In each of those articles I addressed more structural changes that were needed, changes that could transform lives and get us closer to the kind of world – or at least state – we wanted to live in. What follows is a summary of those three articles and how the Democratic trifecta failed us in so many ways.
Driver’s Licenses for undocumented immigrants – So many Democratic Party lawmakers, including Gov. Whitmer, had promised the immigrant community that they would pass the Drive SAFE bills, which would once again allow undocumented immigrants the ability to obtain a driver’s license. Not only would driver’s licenses improving the quality of life for undocumented immigrants, it would reduce the possibility of ICE detaining or deporting family members. Movimiento Cosecha has been working on this issue for the past 7 years and in the end, the Democrats failed them by not even having a quorum last week to vote on the bills.
Increasing the minimum wage to a Living Wage – The minimum wage in Michigan is a joke, at $10.33 an hour. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, people in Michigan need to make roughly $25 an hour in order to afford the average cost of rent in the state. However, $25 an hour doesn’t cover other expenses like food, transportation, health care, etc. Sure, it was nice to see the Dems repeal the Right to Work law in early 2023, but that should only have been the first step in the fight to improve the economic conditions of working class families and individuals.
Housing Justice – There is a housing crisis all over the US and in Michigan. The cost of housing is out of reach for more than half the population and the cost of rent is ridiculously too high. The Democratic Party did not deliver on most of the bills that the Rent is Too Damn High coalition presented over the past 15 months. Plus the issue of banning the current Michigan law, which doesn’t allow for rent control was never even really considered.
Environmental Justice – Gov. Whitmer made it a promise when she took office in 2018 to shut down the Enbridge oil pipeline, known as Line 5. With the Democrats in control of the State Legislature, they could have made that a priority, but didn’t. In fact, Enbridge is still moving forward with plans to build a tunnel under Lake Michigan for Line 5. In addition, there are new mining projects in the UP, projects that would not only contaminate the water and the soil, these projects are in violation of Indigenous Rights and Indigenous sovereignty.
Transportation Justice – Michigan Democrats decided to take the easy way out and push for electric cars, when they could have given the the billions of taxpayer subsidies that went to EV production and the auto industry, and instead us that money to develop mass transit systems. Electric cars are an improvement over fossil fuel cars, but they don’t address other longterm and structural issues, like parking, traffic congestion and land use.
The Prison Industrial Complex – Policing and mass incarceration have been issues that are front and center, especially for BIPOC communities in recent years. Michigan’s Democrats have not fundamentally altered funding for police departments, in fact they have increased funding. In addition, the Prison Industrial Complex – policing, the courts and the jail/prison infrastructure – has not been addressed, despite the fact that violent crime has been on the decline for several years.
Education Justice – Funding for public education is still deeply inadequate in Michigan. Parents, students and education advocates across the state are left angry and dismayed as Michigan legislators fast-tracked tax breaks for corporations rather than prioritize our families and schools. Critical bills, including teaching accurate and inclusive history, continuing to aid debt relief in Detroit, updating outdated sex education, paid family leave, a supplemental for Bridgeman schools, and closing tax loopholes among many other important issues for Michigan families were derailed by the Governor, Speaker Tate, Senate Leader Brinks and Representative Karen Whitsett.
While these are only some of the issues that the Democratic Party failed us on, we need to think hard about how we can create mass movements that will get us what we want and want we need. We also need to address the fact that when Democrats have a majority in local, state and federal government systems, it doesn’t translate into structural changes that are necessary to improve the lives of communities across Michigan. Another World is indeed possible, but only if we don’t rely on political parties. We have to create the world we want from the ground up.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker determined that the GRPD was justified in shooting an unarmed Black man 7 times
On Friday, all four of the daily news agencies in Grand Rapids ran stories about a Press Conference held by Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker, where Becker announced that the GRPD cops ,who shot a killed a man who was clearly struggling with mental health issues, were justified in using deadly force.
According to MLive, during the Press Conference, Becker stated:
“In reviewing the in-car video of (the first officer on scene), it would appear to any reasonable person that Mr. Wymer had a gun. … The lighter he held closely resembled a gun; it would be virtually impossible for any person to think it was a lighter when viewing it at night, from a distance, and in the way Mr. Wymer was using it. Every police officer, EMS workers, and civilian who saw Mr. Wymer that night clearly believed he had a gun.”
In the WOODTV8 coverage, Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker further explained his decision in finding the GRPD cops justified in what they did, saying:
“People have a right to use deadly force in the defense of others,” Becker said. “It doesn’t matter that the people who actually were maybe in the danger — as the person perceived it — didn’t fire. You still have a right to use immediately deadly force when you perceive that it may be necessary to protect the lives of others, and that’s what these three officers were doing. They thought their fellow officer (was) in danger. …. One of the officers said, ‘He’s pointing the gun at me.’ And so they reacted at that point in time.”
I highlighted some of the rhetoric from Chris Becker in this statements, mostly to point out the absurdity of his claims. He uses terms like “reasonable person” and “virtually impossible” as if they were absolutes, when in fact there was nothing absolutely about this situation. The GRPD was primarily interested in protecting themselves and demonstrated zero concern for the man they shot seven times.
The Kent County Prosecutor was also quoted at the end of the MLive story, making an absurd comment, which was unquestioned by the reporter:
Becker said that events unfolded so quickly that it would have been difficult to de-escalate. Grand Rapids police work with social workers to help those having a mental-health crisis but “social workers aren’t trained to go in harm’s way like a police officer does,” he said.
Chris Becker wants us all to believe that there was no opportunity for de-escalation in this instance, but that is just plain false. The cops could have decided to stand down and allowed time for mental health workers to arrive, especially since the man they shot and killed a a history of with mental health issues. The cops could have stayed behind their cars if they feared for their life, but according to Becker there just wasn’t enough time. This is bullshit, since time was the most important aspect of this situation.
To their credit, both WXMI 17 and WOODTV8 did contact a family member of the man that was killed by the GRPD, allowing them an opportunity to respond. In the WXMI 17 coverage, a sister stated:
“I was very disappointed that it turned out he [Hank Wymer] did not have a gun and that it was a cigarette lighter and for them to say that it looked enough like a handgun to shoot him seven times,” Naomi said. “That just seems crazy to me.
“I think this has left us with a lot more questions, particularly the hospital that he was released from that day. [Hank] told them that he was going to commit suicide by cop, so why was he released?
Naomi would go on to say, “I would like to seek some legal action and fight this because it doesn’t seem right to me.”
“I didn’t expect [the officers who shot Mr. Wymer] would go to jail, but I thought there would be some kind of repercussion for killing a man who didn’t have a weapon.”
In the WOODTV8 story, the same sister said, “I think based on the phone calls of what he was doing, pacing around and waving a gun-like object, made it clear that he was in a mental health crisis.So it is really strange to me that they didn’t send some kind of mental health crisis team, that they didn’t ask him any questions, that they literally said drop it over and over when he said “shoot me.”
It is clear to this writer that the GRPD does not keep people safe, especially BIPOC people and other marginalized communities, along with those that are struggling with mental health issues. The GRPD’s first impulse was to protect themselves and to ignore someone that was clearly in distress.
So what do we do and how can we organize in such a way as to provide community care, especially during a crisis? First, we need to do no harm in these situations and stop calling the cops. The group Interrupting Criminalization has a great list of for Health Care providers in a document titled, Beyond Do No Harm. Principle #5 says, Stop calling police on people with unmet mental health or medical needs.
In addition, Interrupting Criminalization has an excellent document called, A Checklist for Assessing Mental Health Response Models. This checklist provides important and robust questions about what we in community need to think about regarding response for those having a mental health crisis and why it is important to not do this work with the GRPD or any other cops.
To people who have not bought into the copaganda, this situation could clearly have been dealt with differently, especially if mental health workers were involved. However, the Kent County Prosecutor demonstrated his loyalty to the carceral state, by protecting the cops who killed an unarmed man. As long as the City of Grand Rapids continues to provide massive budget amounts to the cops instead of investing in care, this scenario will be repeated over and over again. The system once again demonstrates that blue lives do matter more than Black Lives.
Palestine Solidarity Information, Analysis, Local Actions and Events for the week of December 22nd
It has been more than 14 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. We will also provide information on local events and actions that people can get involved in. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
Report: Israel “Systematically” Uses Palestinian Children as Human Shields
I resigned from CNN over its pro-Israel bias
Netanyahu Moves to Expand Illegal Israeli Settlements in Syrian Golan Heights
U.S. DEFIED SPANISH EMBARGO ON ARMS BOUND OF ISRAEL BY MAKING ENFORCEMENT MORE DIFFICULT
What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Genocide
Palestinian Authority proves loyalty to US, Israel by attacking Jenin
EPA STAFFERS DEMAND BIDEN RELEASE CLIMATE FUNDS WITHHELD OVER GAZA
Anti-Genocide Activists Target Israeli Drone Manufacturer in Brooklyn
Israel To Annex The West Bank – Why Now? And What Are The Likely Scenarios?
Analysis & History
Archiving As Resistance To Genocide Denial In Gaza
Images used in this post is from the Powering Injustice Report.
Michigan Senators Stabenow and Peters also voted for the $895 billion US military budget while millions living in the US are barely surviving
On Wednesday of this week, Michigan Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters voted to approve the largest US military budget in history at $895 billion.
The vote passed in the US Senate with very little resistance, with 85 voting for the National Defense Authorization Act and only 14 voting against.
As I noted earlier this week when the US House passed the proposed $895 billion US military budget, there were two other provisions to the National Defense Authorization Act. One of those provisions, according to a recent article on The Intercepted, “would bar the Pentagon from publicly citing as “authoritative” casualty data from the Gaza Health Ministry, effectively concealing the full extent of the death toll in Gaza in the military’s public communications. The data from Palestinian authorities has been the only consistent and reliable count of the death toll out of Gaza over the last 14 months, with Israel consistently denying human rights workers access to the enclave and preventing foreign media journalists from entering.” This fits with Rep. Scholten’s unconditional support for Israel, especially in the past 14 months while Israel has been committing a genocide against the Palestinians.
A second provision would prohibit transgender children on military health insurance from receiving gender-affirming care. This provision was included by the Republican Party, which would codify explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ policy into federal law for the first time in decades.
The votes from Michigan Senators Stabenow and Peters come as no surprise, since both of them have consistently voted for every US Military budget, regardless of who is in the White House. This vote by Senator Stabenow is likely to be one of her last voted in her long political career. Besides always voting for massive US military budgets, Stabenow has consistently supported US weapons sales abroad, even to countries like Saudi Arabia, which has a horrendous human rights record. According to the website boughtbyzionism.org, both Senator’s Stabenow and Peters have received significant funding from Pro-Israel groups, which has translated to their unconditional support for Israel, even while Israel is committing genocide.
Senator Gary Peters did post something on his website about the $895 billion US military budget, which you can find here. Senator Peters loves to brag about things like making sure that US military facilities in Michigan receiving funds from the National Defense Authorization Act, along with bragging about how Military contractors are being supported, which is really just a form of corporate welfare for weapons manufacturers. What Senator Peters fails to mention in his Press Release are the two provisions cited above, preventing the Pentagon from citing Palestinian deaths or casualties, and prohibiting transgender children on military health insurance from receiving gender-affirming care.
The National Defense Authorization Act is going to President Biden’s desk to be signed and there is no indication that he will veto it. Just one more example of how Michigan Senators Stabenow and Peters have always supported military funding over the meeting the basic needs of millions throughout the country.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 