Cigarette Makers Aggressively Recruit Smokers in Foreign Countries
Michigan residents are enjoying the health benefits of its now 8-month old smoke-free free policy, one of 27 states in the country with such a policy and the number is likely to increase in the coming years.
This type of aggressive policy changes in the US has resulted in Big Tobacco looking more and more over seas for new markets, particularly in developing countries that don’t have strong public health rules, particularly when it comes to regulation of tobacco sales.
PRWatch states the following:
Global cigarette makers like Philip Morris (PM) and British American Tobacco (BAT) are getting more aggressive in their efforts to recruit new smokers in developing countries to replace those who are either quitting, dying or failing to take up the addiction in the U.S. and other developed nations.
Tobacco companies use marketing tactics in foreign countries that they could never get away with using in the U.S. In Indonesia, for example, cigarette ads still appear on television and billboards, companies target kids by putting cartoon characters on cigarette packs, and stores still sell cigarettes to children.
As governments try to crack down on these objectionable marketing behaviors, cigarette makers fight back using lawsuits and time-worn, but effective PR techniques. Philip Morris International has been especially aggressive in fighting marketing restrictions overseas. The company has deployed a $5 million campaign in Australia to fight a government plan that would require cigarettes be marketed in plain brown or white packages. PM designed the campaign to make it look like it was coming from small store owners, and got help financing it from competitors like BAT and Imperial Tobacco.
The companies also argue that higher cigarette taxes will stimulate smuggling, but tobacco industry documents reveal that global tobacco companies are not only complicit in cigarette smuggling, but that they oversee it, and even depend on it to gain access to closed markets.
The Center for Public Integrity has also just released a new report on tobacco company efforts abroad, entitled Smoke Screen: Big Tobacco’s Global Lobbying Campaign. The report looks at global trends with detailed sections on what is happening in Russia, Mexico and Uruguay.
Editorializing on the War on Drugs
The “war on drugs” is probably one of the most understood US policies ever since the Nixon administration gave it that name. Statistically, despite the billions of dollars for interdiction programs overseas and at the US border, illegal drug trafficking has increased in recent decades.
Today’s Grand Rapids Press editorial addresses one aspect of this issue, specifically the status of the investigation into the local missionaries whose plane was shot down in 2001.
The Press editorial is right to express concerns that justice has not been done in this case, since the 16 CIA officers who were reprimanded did not really face any serious consequences for the death of Veronica Bowers and her daughter.
The editorial mentions the 2008 inspector general report, which lays out the details of the incident that led to CIA contractors shooting down the missionary family’s plane. Included in that report was an acknowledgement that the CIA initially lied about the circumstances as a means of attempting to cover up the story.
The editorial also mentions that the Brower family received $8 million in a legal settlement with the government, but that “That may be politically expedience. It’s hardly justice.” The Press editorial ends by stating that halting drug trafficking is a laudable goal, but that there needs to be more checks and balances.
While we would agree that there needs to be more accountability when US government agents act maliciously, but the failure of the editorial misses a major point here, which is that the US Drug War is at best a farce.
Numerous political analysts and former US DEA agents who have been on the front lines of the US war on drugs have testified and documented the massive failure of this policy. Michael Levine, who worked with the DEA for 20 plus years in Latin America wrote the book Deep Cover: The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War. Another noted former DEA agent is Celerino Castillo who wrote the book Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War. What both Levine and Castillo argue is that not only is the US war on drugs a failure, but that it was never intended to actually go after the primary drug traffickers in Latin America, because they were often CIA assets.
The idea that the CIA collaborates with major drug traffickers is the topic of one of the best investigations into the US war on drugs, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. This book by Alfred McCoy documents over four decades of US involvement in the global drug trade. The author argues that the US was often directly involved in the drug trade as a means to generate funds for covert wars, whether those wars were in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia or Latin America.
This notion that the CIA has been directly involved in the global drug trade would help in our understanding of the death of local missionary Veronica Bower and her daughter.
The US has been telling the American public that they are committed to winning the war on drugs in Latin America, yet there has been no evidence that the amount of cocaine has diminished in recent decades.
You will remember in 2000 when then President Clinton allocated $1.3 billion to fight the drug war in Latin American with a policy knows as Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia has not only failed to reduce drug production in Colombia, it has led to the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. The Washington Office on Latin America published a report this past summer, which documents what a monumental failure Plan Colombia has been, particularly since it has resulted in countless deaths and has further militarized the region.
So while it is appropriate for the Press to editorialize on the lack of justice in the case of local victims of the war on drugs they should be equally outraged about US drug war policies that are in no way laudable. Indeed, the Press might want to have their reporters investigate the local connections and consequences to the so-called War on Drugs.
West Michigan Company sends more jobs to Mexico
Yesterday the Grand Rapids Press reported that the Grand Haven-based company Haldex Brake Products will shut down its factory and move the rest of its production to Monterrey, Mexico.
The Press reports that the “company stated the decision to consolidate activities at its facility in Mexico was based on the significant manufacturing infrastructure and increasing amount of automotive and commercial vehicle activity in the region.” The article also said that the company will offer “severance pay, benefits continuation and out-placement services,” although it did not provide any comments from the 41 workers which just lost their jobs.
The Press reporter did not offer up any independent reasons for the company sending more jobs to Mexico, they just accepted the rationale offered by Haldex. The reporter could have provided some historical context so that readers would know exactly when Haldex first set up operations in Monterrey, Mexico and how many jobs have left West Michigan.
There is also no discussion about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and how that trade policy provided incentives for a company like Haldex to move its operation from the US to Mexico, such as tax breaks and weaker labor and environmental standards.
According to Public Citizen, “Michigan lost over 342,325 manufacturing jobs (or 42.4 percent) during the NAFTA-WTO period (1993-2009).” This would be useful information for readers of the Press, so that they understand that this recent decision by Haldex is not an isolated one, but part of a 16-year process of job loss in Michigan.
Providing this kind of context could also be useful for the public in determining future trade agreements as well as contributing to any possible reforms or repeals of existing trade agreements. The Obama administration took office with the claim of revisiting and reforming existing trade agreements, but has yet to do anything concretely in that arena.
A November 9 poll showed that a majority of voters oppose free trade or NAFTA-like policies and believe it is a major factor in US job loss. The poll showed that both Democratic and Republican voters are opposed to such Free Trade Agreements (FTA), so there doesn’t seem to be any reason why future FTA can’t be defeated or negotiated in such a way that will actually be a benefit to workers and protecting the environment at the same time.
Lastly, it would be beneficial for the Press to provide the public with more information and more resources to further investigate trade policies, especially since so many working families are impacted by these decisions in West Michigan. There are a couple of good reports that have come out in the past year that we would recommend. The first is a report from Boston University entitled, The Future of North American trade Policy: Lessons from NAFTA. The other report, produced by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is entitled Rethinking Trade Policy for Development: Lesson from NAFTA under Mexico.
US Military bases in the Middle East under Obama
(This article by Nick Turse is re-posted from Tom Dispatch.)
The construction projects are sprouting like mushrooms: walled complexes, high-strength weapons vaults, and underground bunkers with command and control capacities — and they’re being planned and funded by a military force intent on embedding itself ever more deeply in the Middle East.
If Iran were building these facilities, it would be front-page news and American hawks would be talking war, but that country’s Revolutionary Guards aren’t behind this building boom, nor are the Syrians, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, or some set of al-Qaeda affiliates. It’s the U.S. military that’s digging in, hardening, improving, and expanding its garrisons in and around the Persian Gulf at the very moment when it is officially in a draw-down phase in Iraq.
On August 31st, President Obama took to the airwaves to announce “the end of our combat mission in Iraq.” This may, however, prove yet another “mission accomplished” moment. After all, from the lack of a real Iraqi air force (other than the U.S. Air Force) to the fact that there are more American troops in that country today than were projected to be there in September 2003, many signs point in another direction.
In fact, within days of the president’s announcement it was reported that the U.S. military was pouring money into improving bases in Iraq and that advance elements of a combat-hardened armored cavalry regiment were being sent there in what was politely dubbed an “advise and assist” (rather than combat) role. On September 13th, the New York Times described the type of operations that U.S. forces were actually involved in:
“During two days of combat in Diyala Province, American troops were armed with mortars, machine guns, and sniper rifles. Apache and Kiowa helicopters attacked insurgents with cannon and machine-gun fire, and F-16’s dropped 500-pound bombs.”
According to the report, U.S. troops were within range of enemy hand grenades and one American soldier was wounded in the battle.
Adhering to an agreement inked during George W. Bush’s final year in office, the Obama administration has pledged to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. U.S. military commanders have, however, repeatedly spoken of the possibility of extending the U.S. military’s stay well into the future. Just recently, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates let the Iraqi government know that the U.S. was open to such a prospect. “We’re ready to have that discussion if and when they want to raise it with us,” he said. As the British Guardian’s Martin Chulov wrote last month, “[T]he U.S. is widely believed to be hoping to retain at least one military base in Iraq that it could use as a strategic asset in the region.”
Recent events, however, have cast U.S. basing plans into turmoil. Notably unnerving for the Obama administration was a deal reportedly brokered by Iran in which Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr — whose forces had repeatedly clashed with U.S. troops only a few short years ago — threw his support behind Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, currently vying for a second term in office. This was allegedly part of a regional agreement involving Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah that could leave the U.S. military out in the cold. A source informed the Guardian that “Maliki told [his new regional partners that] he will never extend, or renew [any bases] or give any facilities to the Americans or British after the end of next year.”
Even if the U.S. was forced to withdraw all its troops from Iraq, however, its military “footprint” in the Middle East would still be substantial enough to rankle opponents of an armed American presence in the region and be a drain on U.S. taxpayers who continue to fund America’s “empire of bases.” As has been true in recent years, the latest U.S. military documents indicate that base expansion and upgrades are the order of the day for America’s little-mentioned garrisons in the nations around Iraq.
One thing is, by now, clear: whatever transpires in Iraq, the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf and surrounding environs will be formidable well into the future.
Middle Eastern Mega-Bases
As the “last” U.S. combat troops withdrew from Iraq under the glare of TV lights in the dead of night and rolled toward Kuwait, there was plenty of commentary about where they had been, but almost none about where they were going.
In the Gulf War of 1991, the U.S. military helped push Saddam Hussein’s invading Iraqi army out of Kuwait only to find that the country’s leader, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, refused to return home “until crystal chandeliers and gold-plated bathroom fixtures could be reinstalled in Kuwait City’s Bayan Palace.” Today, the U.S. military’s Camp Arifjan, which grew exponentially as the Iraq War ramped up, sits 30 miles south of the refurbished royal complex and houses about 15,000 U.S. troops. They have access to all the amenities of strip-mall America, including Pizza Hut, Pizza Inn, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Hardees, Subway, and Burger King. The military talks little about its presence at Arifjan, but Army contracting documents offer clues about its intentions there. A recent bid solicitation, for example, indicated that, in the near future, construction would begin there on additional high strength armory vaults to house “weapons and sensitive items.”
In addition to Camp Arifjan, U.S. military facilities in Kuwait include Camps Buehring and Virginia, Kuwait Naval Base, Ali Al Salem Air Base, and Udairi Range, a training facility near the Iraqi border. The U.S. military’s work is also supported by a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) distribution center in Kuwait, located not on a U.S. base but in the Mina Abdulla industrial zone about 30 miles south of Kuwait City.
Unlike other DLA hubs, which supply U.S. garrisons around the world, the Kuwaiti facility is contractor owned and operated. Made up of a walled compound spanning 104 acres, the complex contains eight climate-controlled warehouses, each covering about four acres, one 250,000-square-foot covered area for cargo, and six uncovered plots of similar size for storage and processing needs.
Typical of base upgrades in Kuwait — some massive, some modest — now on the drawing boards, recent contracting documents reveal that the Army Corps of Engineers intends to upgrade equipment at Kuwait Naval Base for the maintenance and repair of ships. In fact, the Department of Defense has already issued more than $18 million in construction contracts for Kuwait in 2010.
The U.S. military also operates and utilizes bases and other facilities in the nearby Persian Gulf nations of Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman.
During the 1930s, the British Royal Air Force operated an airfield on Oman’s Masirah Island. Today, the U.S. Air Force and members of other service branches have settled in there, operating from the island as well as other facilities by special agreement with the sultanate. The Air Force is also supported in Oman by “War Reserve Materiel” storage and maintenance facilities, operated by defense contractor Dyncorp, in Seeb, Thumrait, and Salalah Port.
From 2001 to 2010, the U.S. military spent about $32 million on construction projects in Oman. In September, the Army upped the ante by awarding an $8.6 million contract to refurbish the Royal Air Force of Oman’s air field at Thumrait Air Base.
U.S. efforts in Bahrain are on a grander scale. This year, the U.S. Navy broke ground on a mega-construction project to develop 70 acres of waterfront at the port at Mina Salman. Scheduled for completion in 2015, the complex is slated to include new port facilities, barracks for troops, administrative buildings, a dining facility, and a recreation center, among other amenities, with a price tag of $580 million.
There are similar expenditures in neighboring Qatar. In 1996, lacking an air force of its own, Qatar still built Al Udeid Air Base at a cost of more than $1 billion with the goal of attracting the U.S. military. It succeeded. In September 2001, U.S. aircraft began to operate out of the facility. By 2002, the U.S. had tanks, armored vehicles, dozens of warehouses, communications and computing equipment, and thousands of troops at and around Al Udeid. In 2003, the U.S. moved its major regional combat air operations center out of Saudi Arabia and into neighboring Qatar where the government was ready to spend almost $400 million on that high-tech command complex.
From then on, Al Udeid Air Base has served as a major command and logistics hub for U.S. regional operations including its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year, the Pentagon awarded a $52 million contract to further upgrade its airfield capabilities, a $44 million deal to upgrade other facilities there, and a $6 million contract for expanded warehousing capacity. Nor does the building boom there show any signs of abating. A report by the Congressional Research Service issued earlier this year noted:
“The Obama administration requested $60 million in FY2010 military construction funds for further upgrades to U.S. military facilities in Qatar as part of an ongoing expansion and modernization program that has been underway since 2003 at a cost of over $200 million. The administration’s FY2011 military construction request for Qatar is $64.3 million.”
Jordan’s Bunker Mentality
The Pentagon has also invested heavily in Jordanian military infrastructure. One major beneficiary of these projects has been the international construction firm Archirodon which, between 2006-2008, worked on the construction of the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC). It is a state-of-the-art military and counterterrorism training facility owned and operated by the Jordanian government, but built in part under a $70 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contract.
In 2009, when that 1,235-acre $200 million Jordanian training center was unveiled, King Abdullah II gave the inaugural address, praising the facility as a world-class hub for special forces training. General David Petraeus, then-head of the U.S. Central Command overseeing the Greater Middle East, was also on hand to laud the facility as “a center of excellence not only for doctrinal development and refinement of TTPs [technology, tactics and procedures], but for strengthening the regional security network emerging in this area.”
Between 2001 and 2009, the Army awarded $89 million in contracts for Jordanian construction projects. This year, it inked deals for another $3.3 million (much of it for improvements to KASOTC). Recently, the Army also issued a call for bids for the construction of subterranean complexes at three locations in Jordan, the largest of them approximately 13,000 square feet. Each of these underground bunkers will reportedly boast a command-and-control operations center, offices, sleeping quarters, cafeterias, and storage facilities. The project is set to cost up to $25 million.
1,001 Arabian Contracts
According to a 2009 Congressional Research Service report, from 1950 to 2006 Saudi Arabia purchased almost $63 billion in weapons, military equipment, and related services through the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Just last month, the U.S. announced that it would conclude new arms deals with the Saudis which would equal that sum — not in another half century but in the next 15 to 20 years. Labeled a move to counter Iranian power in the region, the deal for advanced tactical fighter aircraft and state-of-the-art helicopters garnered headlines. What didn’t were the longstanding, ongoing U.S. military construction efforts in that country.
Between 1950 and 2006, Saudi Arabia experienced $17.1 billion in construction activity courtesy of the Pentagon. In the years since, according to government data, the Department of Defense has issued more than $400 million in construction contracts for the kingdom, including $33 million in 2010 for projects ranging from a dining hall ($6 million) to weapons storage warehouses and ammunition supply facilities (nearly $1 million).
Bases and “the Base”
In his 1996 “Declaration of War Against the Americans Who Occupy the Land of the Two Holy Mosques,” Osama bin Laden wrote:
“The presence of the USA Crusader military forces on land, sea and air of the states of the Islamic Gulf is the greatest danger threatening the largest oil reserve in the world. The existence of these forces in the area will provoke the people of the country and induces aggression on their religion, feelings, and prides and pushes them to take up armed struggle against the invaders occupying the land.”
Since then, the U.S. and bin Laden’s rag-tag guerrilla force, al Qaeda (“the Base”), have been locked in a struggle that has led to further massive U.S. base expansions in the greater Middle East and South Asia. At the height of its occupation, the U.S. had hundreds of bases throughout Iraq. Today, hundreds more have been built inAfghanistan where, in the 1980s, bin Laden and other jihadists, backed and financed by the CIA, the Saudis, and the Pakistanis, fought to expel the Soviet occupiers of that country.
As early as 2005, the U.S. military was floating the possibility of retaining some of its Afghan bases permanently. In Iraq, plans for similar permanent garrisons have recently been thrown into doubt by the very government the U.S. helped install in power. Whatever happens in either war zone, however, one thing is clear: the U.S. military will still be deeply dug into the Middle East.
While American infrastructure crumbles at home, new construction continues in oil-rich kingdoms, sultanates, and emirates there, courtesy of the Pentagon. It’s a building program guaranteed to further inflame anti-American sentiment in the region. History may not repeat itself, but ominously — just as in 1996 when bin Laden issued his declaration — most Americans have not the slightest idea what their military is doing with their tax dollars in the Persian Gulf and beyond, or what twenty-first century blowback might result from such activities.
Ending Male Violence Against Women, a workshop with Jackson Katz
Yesterday, the West Michigan based Center for Women in Transition hosted a workshop at the GVSU campus in Allendale with long-time anti-sexist activist Jackson Katz. The workshop brought together students, social workers and people who work in sexual assault and rape prevention work.
Katz began the workshop by framing the issue of gender violence as problematic because it usually gets referred to as an issue of particular concern for women. The problem with this is that it means that men and masculinity will often be ignored.
This is what is called the absent referent, where the dominant group continues to go unacknowledged and unexamined. When we think about race, we tend to ignore White people. When we think of sexual orientation, we usually ignore heterosexuals. Katz believes that until gender issues become issues of primary concern for men, the levels of sexual assault and domestic violence will not change in this country.
Katz next addresses the issue of rape and to further illustrate the idea of how rape is framed as a women’s issue, he asks everyone what percentage of rape are committed by women. Of course, that number is less than 1%, which means the overwhelming percentage of rape committed in the US is done by men. Therefore, Katz said rape should primarily be a men’s issue.
Katz continues with this line of thinking by talking about how women and girls are taught what to do to reduce the risks of rape. Again, the culture doesn’t talk about the perpetrators and what we need to do to prevent men from committing rape.
The issue is further complicated when one thinks about how personal the issue of sexual assault and rape is. Katz said since rape and sexual assault is so prevalent that virtually everyone is affected at a personal level. We all have family members who have been victims, friends, neighbors and co-workers who have been directly impacted by sexual assault. Therefore, it is important for all of us to confront these issues on a personal level as well as a systemic level.
Next Katz talked about language and sexual assault and has the group do an exercise by reading a short article called Violence Against Women. The issue that Katz wanted to raise here is that when we talk about rape and sexual assault the language for perpetrators is usually de-gendered, such as truck drivers, businessmen or co-worker. When news coverage reports on this issue we never read, “Male students rapes woman on campus.” What we usually see is “female student raped on campus.” Therefore, male behavior is minimized or ignored and women are made the focus. This idea of how women become the focus after a sexual assault is committed by looking at how we culturally scrutinize female behavior. What kind of clothing was she wearing, why did she go there alone, what did she do to provoke this guy, etc.? So, we put our focus on the female victims of sexual assault instead of putting the focus on male perpetrators and their behavior.
Bystanders
After the first break Katz then shifted the discussion to what are role is as bystanders, which he refers to as friends, co-workers, neighbors, relatives, etc. The reason he thinks that looking a bystanders is an important focus for preventing male violence is that if we can get bystanders to take action, where men can hold other men accountable, then there will be a reduction of male perpetrated sexual violence.
In the Bystander approach to preventing male violence against women, Katz then talked about the work he has done in developing and using what he calls Mentoring for Violence Prevention or the MVP program.
Katz then leads the group through a couple of scenarios. The first deals with a situation in a typical high school hall way where a guy pushes his girlfriend into the lockers and how bystanders respond. The group talks first about what are the reasons why people might not respond or challenge the behavior. We also talk about what kinds of messages are sent to the girlfriend when we don’t act or intervene and what kinds of messages are being sent to the guy who is hurting his girlfriend when we don’t act?
A second scenario is where a guy is showing male friends pictures on his cell phone of his ex-girlfriend, explicit photos. If you are one of the guys what do you do? People discussed how this is an increasingly common reality where particularly young people are using social media sources to use and abuse women and girls by posting words and pictures that demean them.
What Katz tries to impress upon those in the workshop is the importance of having these kinds of discussions about what we can do and what our options are when we encounter these dynamics. Katz believes that when we discuss these issues people will not only come up with concrete ideas for action, but they will realize that there are more people who also object to these kinds of abusive male behaviors and therefore do not feel as isolated.
Media and Masculinity
The last session of the workshop dealt with a topic that most people know Katz for – how media portrays men and masculinity. Katz shows examples from some of his own work, particularly the documentary film Tough Guise. One point that Katz makes about how media portrays men and boys was to rephrase the idea that the violence men and boys engage in is “learned behavior.” He says that this phrase is somewhat misleading in that it removes our focus from who is teaching this behavior, meaning the media. The media, which produce these images and messages about male behavior, are the entities that teach destructive male behavior.
The next clip he shows is from the documentary Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, which looks at misogyny, masculinity, and homophobia in rap & Hip Hop music. The first part was with the producer of the film who talked about his own journey with the normalization of female objectification in music videos. The second clip dealt with the hyper-sexual representation of women in music videos and how women at Spellman College confronted the rapper Nellie about his music video Tip Drill.
A third clip that Katz showed was from Jeanne Kilbourne’s film Killing Us Softly 4. In this clip Kilbourne takes to task how advertising perpetuates male stereotypes particularly how violent male behavior is normalized in ads. Kilbourne also makes the point that even though increasingly advertising is objectifying men and men’s bodies as well, the social cost of this media objectification is not the same for men as it is for women. Objectification of men in media does not contribute to or normalize violence against men like it does with the objectification of and male violence towards women.
The last clip that Katz shows is from the documentary Mickey Mouse Monopoly, a clip that looks at how girls are represented in Disney films. These images show how Disney has for decades been representing women and girls as highly sexualized and seductive characters that often need to be rescued. There is a particularly interesting critique of the film Beauty and the Beast.
Katz finished the workshop by offering up a variety of resources that people could use if they wanted to explore these issues in more details. Many of these resources can be accessed from both the websites of Jackson Katz and Jeanne Kilbourne, but if people are looking for books and documentary films they could find these resources locally at the Bloom Collective.
Students blast the SOA
A group of about 30 Grand Valley State University Students and a few professors met on the Allendale campus Nov. 15 to watch the film Hidden in Plain Sight. The feature-length documentary looks at U.S. policy in Latin America as furthered by the US Army’s School of the Americas (SOA), which trains Latin American soldiers in Fort Benning, Georgia. Continuing public pressure resulted in Congress closing the school in 2001—only to reopen it under a new name, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
The film documented the atrocities that graduates of the school have inflicted on the poor populations of many Latin American countries through graphic photographs and video coverage as well as interviews with torture survivors and family members of people who were raped, killed and disappeared. In addition, experts on US foreign policy, Latin American human rights organizers, former and current US military and members of congress all substantiated that the school is responsible for training Latin American militaries how to torture, assassinate, murder and use all violent means available to repress poor people in their own countries when they dare speak up for their rights.
Following the film, students and faculty expressed their shock and anger over the US role in funding, training and providing direct support for the violent repression of our Latin American neighbors.
Zulema Moret, head of the GVSU Latin American Studies department, started the conversation by recalling her own experiences as a college student in Argentina. “We need to show this movie all over campus, many times,” she said. “I suffered personally with my people, with my friends at the university when I was a student. All the training the military were receiving for torture of our people was coming from the SOA. We need to be fighting it, without violence, but fighting it.”
Student reactions included anger over an American system that funds violence so that a small percentage of corporate shareholders can reap profits and shock that protests of the SOA in Fort Benning were also met with 
repressive military response. Hundreds of nonviolent protestors have received federal prison sentences.
“My reaction is anger,” one student said. “This is not what I want my country doing. It’s not in our interest but for the few, one or two percent. It’s the system that we have that is the problem. They are doing this in our name with our tax dollars on US soil. People who stood up (against it) got shut down. There is a whole system of oppression in our country. If anyone is under attack for freedom of speech, we are all under attack.”
“It seems incredibly blind and unjust to take a country’s resources, get their own people to kill anyone who objects and then tell them to stay in their countries,” another student said. “Corporations can go across borders freely and not get groped in the groin. We allow goods and trade but we stop people.”
“The SOA is an outrage but blame has to be put over the whole system, the interconnect with Wall Street, WalMart, Target—all the things we take part in,” said another. “We get new iPods, new phones and don’t realize the interconnectedness. The whole reason is to exploit this labor for consumer goods. We’re so consumed by our consumerism that we don’t even realize.”
The group agreed that taking individual action such as boycotting stores that make profits on the backs of workers in sweat-shops was a portal to systemic change but that a more organized movement was needed.
“Even if we as individuals make these choices, they (SOA) are still there,” a student said. “These are good starting points but action needs to continue beyond that.”
Ideas put forth included creating independent media, building parallel community systems and direct action. “Small changes within the system are band-aids. Band-aids are good but we really need to change the whole system,” one said. “We can start by educating people in our student organizations. If students in our community don’t know what’s going on out there, how can people in other places know?”
“Every social movement in this country–women’s suffrage, civil rights–were not something voted on,” said another. “A small group of people got motivated, organized and said ‘We care about this. How can we organize and have this policy adopted by our nation? How can we mobilize people and make change?’ That’s how change has come about throughout history. How can we make it so it’s not a just a conversation? Change has to come from below.”
Two students present shared that they are taking direct action by traveling to Georgia this upcoming weekend to join the “Convergence of Hope,” an annual protest at the gates of Fort Benning sponsored by SOA Watch.
At the conclusion of the discussion, a group of students took action by marching through the GVSU campus to raise awareness about the SOA and US military sponsored repression in Latin America.
The discussion will continue at 6:30 p.m. Thursday Nov. 18 with a public screening of Guns and Greed at The Bloom Collective, 671 Davis NW. The suggested donation $3 to $5 includes a light supper with vegan options.
Continuing Negotiations on Korea Trade Deal Are a Good Sign
(This article is re-posted from Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. Potential job loss from the Korea Trade Deal would have a devastating impact on Michigan jobs. According to Public Citizen Michigan has lost 342,325 manufacturing jobs (or 42.4 percent) during the NAFTA-WTO period (1993-2009), according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
That the administration would not move forward with the same NAFTA-style Korea trade agreement that former President George W. Bush signed in 2007 is understandable, especially given that the recent election showed that perhaps the one issue that unites Americans across diverse demographics is opposition to more-of-the-same trade policy. More reasons include a recent study showing that export growth under past U.S. FTAs was less than half of that to non-FTA U.S. trade partners, and Bush-era reviews of this pact show it will increase the U.S. trade deficit.
Hopefully, the reason the administration is not yet ready to present a final trade agreement is that it has gotten the message that more than “cars and cows” need fixing in Bush’s 2007 trade pact text. By not locking into the current text today, the Obama administration has the opportunity to make the fundamental reforms that President Barack Obama promised during his election campaign, including to remove the investment rules that promote offshoring.
Among consumer groups, unions and Democrats in Congress, there is disbelief that the Obama administration could make the severe political and policy error of pushing a Bush NAFTA-style trade agreement with some side letters on various commercial disputes instead of making good on Obama’s campaign promises to remove the worst job-killing aspects of Bush’s trade deal. They dread that the administration might still do so, with the foreseeable political disaster ensuing. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, GOP congressional leaders and others seeking more-of-the-same trade pacts want the administration to take ownership of another Bush trade pact that would simultaneously favor their offshoring agenda and put Obama’s re-election in peril.
Given the depth of the opposition to the NAFTA model in Congress and among the voting public, the political liability of an Obama flip-flop on his election trade reform commitments by pushing Bush’s NAFTA-style Korea deal without delivering the significant changes he promised, including to the job-offshoring investment rules, cannot be overstated. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana are key to the party’s 2012 electoral prospects. Democrats won these states in 2008, largely lost them in 2010 and risk losing them again in 2012 if Obama takes ownership of a trade agreement the public views as a jobs-killer.
Background:
During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama pledged to chart a new course for American trade policy that could create jobs. In speeches, town hall meetings, answers to questionnaires, mailings and paid advertisements in key swing states, Obama said that he would exclude the damaging foreign investor rights and their private enforcement that threaten public interest safeguards and promote the offshoring of jobs. He said that he would include strong, enforceable labor and environmental protections. Here is a comparison of Obama’s campaign commitments on trade and Bush’s Korea FTA text.
The midterm elections featured an unprecedented 205 candidates campaigning on fair trade themes and against the export of U.S. jobs. (See a report on this, tables of candidates’ use of trade, and links to the 240 campaign television ads against unfair trade.) A recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal Poll found that a record number of Americans across stunningly diverse demographics think current U.S. trade policy has hurt them economically. Here’s our backgrounder on the economic implications of the Korea FTA. And here’s our memo on Obama and the Korea FTA that includes the polling data and political context.
The Korea FTA provides an excellent opportunity to implement Obama’s promised trade policy reforms to remove the worst job-killing aspects of Bush’s NAFTA-style deals. The current text includes the extraordinary investor rights that promote offshoring and expose domestic financial, environmental and health laws to attack in foreign tribunals. Signed before the financial crisis, the pact calls for financial services deregulation that is at odds with the lessons we’ve learned from the economic crisis and that may conflict with recent reforms made by both the U.S. and Korea. The pact also explicitly forbids reference to the International Labor Organization’s conventions that establish internationally recognized core labor standards. It remains unclear if any of these issues have been raised in the recent discussions between the U.S. and Korea.
Press Publisher says they are a “highly successful marketing services producer” during Econ Club luncheon
The Economic Club of Grand Rapids held one of their monthly luncheon gatherings in downtown Grand Rapids today. Their guest speaker was the publisher of the Grand Rapids Press, Dan Gaydou.
Gaydou’s talk was entitled, Adapting to the Changing Media Landscape, which some might have interpreted how the only daily newspaper in Grand Rapids has made adjustments in how in reports the news, but the head of the Press made it clear early on that news had little to do with what he wanted to impress upon the audience.
Gaydou began with a powerpoint slide with the headline Dealing with disruption in the marketplace, which right away set the tone for what he wanted to address. He then showed everyone a list of the media entities that the Press is part of, namely the Booth News chain. However, Gaydou failed to mention that Booth News is really part of the media conglomerate Advance Publications.
“The lingering economic crisis,” Gaydou said, “means that when people don’t buy goods, advertisers don’t by ad space, which negatively impacts revenue for the Press.” This business reality makes it clear why the Press also does so called news stories that essentially promote area businesses and a consumerist culture. The most recent evidence was the front page article on the front page of Saturday’s Press where the Press reporter told readers about local retailers who aren’t waiting til Black Friday to offer holiday sales. (Shoppers Feast Early)
Gaydou then said that the Press has been changed because of the digital revolution, which he thinks has been good for consumers. The Press’ Publisher spent time then hyping new technology, which he thinks with radically change our lives. Gaydou held up an iPad he says has revolutionized the way he accesses media. This notion of media technology is something that Gaydou felt the Press needed to “take hold of and make it theirs.”
The Press Publisher then told the audience, “Incremental change is over, we need to make drastic change or become irrelevant.” It seemed to this writer that what this meant is that newspapers have to become more than newspapers. Gaydou held up a copy of West MI Business Review, which he publishes and can be find on MLive.com. According to Gaydou this publication demonstrates their ability to be innovative.
Gaydou also talked about what he called “Adjustment Strategies,” where because of less revenue from traditional advertising they have needed to rethink how they operate. The Press’ Publisher says they have been quite successful and referred to a recent Editor and Publisher Magazine article which stated that of all the media markets in the US the Grand Rapids Press ranks seventh is sustainability and readership because they have made their online presence more than just a digital archive of what appears in print.
Gaydou also claimed that the Press has “Core Competencies.” One of those core competencies is that “the Press acts as an independent & credible source for local content.” Gaydou even referred to the Press as a Community Watchdog, but did not cite any examples of how they fulfill this function.
More importantly for those in attendance, Gaydou stressed the economic role his newspaper plays by saying, “We are a highly successful marketing services producer. Our marketing strength has never been better. Your business is a success because of the partnerships you have with us. We offer targeted direct marketing opportunities, search engine marketing, display ads, shopping data bases, text and video to help your businesses grow.” This was certainly the core of his talk and it went over well with the audience who was made up of the management class.
However, Gaydou did believe journalism should rise above that so as to look out for the interest of the community. “We care about the poor, the down and out, the person who is powerless to ask important questions.” Again, the Press’ Publisher offered up no evidence that they care about the poor and the powerless.
Gaydou concluded his talk by re-affirming the business and marketing aspect of what they do. “We are aiming at tomorrow, while mining today’s revenue. We are mastering the underlying analytics, strategizing around transition economics and doing more than repurposing, we are adding more content.” If you asked people what this had to do with journalism, what do you suppose they might say?
The Econ Club moderator only allowed time for one question from the audience. Someone asked Gaydou what the future was for investigative reporting? Gaydou said it is a core of what they do and cited the Hangar 42 Studios scandals that the Press reported on. Unlike other Econ Club events I have attended, no other media was present to do a story on Gaydou’s talk, which should tell us something about the supposed competition that exists between news entities in West Michigan.
This Thursday (November 18), the Grand Rapids Chapter of the IWW will host a screening of the award winning film, The Take.
In the wake of Argentina’s dramatic economic collapse in 2001, Latin America’s most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. The Forja auto plant lies dormant until its former employees take action. They’re part of a daring new movement of workers who are occupying bankrupt businesses and creating jobs in the ruins of the failed system.
The Take demonstrates to all of us that despite the current economic crisis or any economic crisis working people do not have to accept what the system tells them. Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis shows us how thousands of Argentine people responded to the economic crash of 2001. Simply put, people said the system doesn’t work, so let’s occupy factories and take the over.
The film is free and open to the public. It will be screened at the:
IATSE HALL
Thursday, November 18
7pm
931 Bridge st nw
Grand Rapids, MI
The Press and Wyoming’s Medical Marijuana decision
(This article was submitted by Joe Spaulding.)
When Jack Poll, the current Mayor of Wyoming, was running for election in 2009, the Grand Rapids Press editorial board gave him their endorsement, sighting, among other things, his opposal to the city’s notorious “crash tax.” The fees dispensed to anyone who was unfortunate enough to get in an accident within the city limits, regardless of who was at fault, were massively unpopular, nationally ridiculed, and laughingly unprofitable.
The fees were repealed within a year-and-a-half of being passed. Getting rid of them was a no-brainer, and the Press wasn’t sticking its neck out too far in supporting Poll for mayor. Unfortunately, Poll and the Wyoming city council have not learned from the mistakes of the recent past, and due to the Press’ cozy relationship with Poll, they have failed to take him to task for this.
On November 1, the GR Press published two articles discussing the state of Michigan’s recently passed medical marijuana law in terms of the City of Wyoming. The first described a Wyoming man, licensed by the state to be a medical marijuana patient and caregiver, who had his house broken into and plants and other property stolen in October. Due to the city’s ambiguous stance on the state’s law, he was reluctant to call the Wyoming Police to report the incident. Perhaps he was right to have his doubts. In an extravagant display of blaming the victim, as well as a hopelessly distorted view of public safety, Wyoming Police Chief James Carmody has stated that these types of robberies are a reason for the city to adopt a ban on medical marijuana.
The second Press article came a little later on in the evening, and was posted to mlive.com. It announced the city council’s decision to ban medical cannabis use, growing, and distribution in Wyoming city limits. The Press quoted Poll as saying “There’s a right way to do it. The state of Michigan did this the wrong way.” The article also mentions that the City Attorney stated fears that the city would be sued for being out of compliance with state law. Here is where the newspaper drops the ball. Instead of using tools available to anyone on the Internet (especially in Chile) to examine the validity of the City Attorney’s claims, the Press let his statement hang in the air as if the city’s ban has a 50/50 chance of surviving a court challenge. Within ten days, a Wyoming resident stepped up to sue the city over the obviously illegal ban.
The law, passed by the majority of Michigan voter’s (and 27 out of 28 districts in Wyoming), allows for any patient or caregiver charged with marijuana related legal violations to have those charges dismissed once his or her medical marijuana license is presented in court. Now that the city has banned medical cannabis, Poll is in a double bind – either he doesn’t encourage the arrest and prosecution of medical pot growers and patients, and the only effect the council has is discouraging otherwise law abiding citizens from assisting the already cash-strapped and over-burdened police, or the law faces challenge after challenge in court until it is innevitably overturned, costing the citizens of Wyoming thousands of dollars they do not have.
The other thing the Press failed to do was to hold Poll accountable for his evident disdain for Michigan’s initiative process (and by extension the voters and possibly the democratic process), as well as his doubts about the ability of the citizens of Wyoming (and probably all of Michigan) to determine what is best for their future. Poll talks about the medical cannabis law like it was passed by the Michigan legislature, and the Press never reminds its readers that the law is the will of the people of Michigan. Maybe the Press was afraid of looking like they were flip-flopping within a year of endorsing Poll for mayor. The end result being the will of 17,888 voters getting temporarily overturned by six city council members, and the cash-strapped, job-starved citizens of Wyoming being left paying for court costs of trials with forgone conclusions.
