Wiping the War Paint Off the Lens
Beverly Singer PhD, Santa Clara Pueblo, Tewa/Dine’
We had good lives. We fed ourselves. We built our homes. We had worship. And, we celebrated family and community. What have you brought us?
Beverly Singer PhD
When Beverly Singer was 11 years old, she looked on as a Hollywood film crew set to work on the Indian reservation she called home. That experience inspired her to become a filmmaker; her film work has explored the lives of native women, native children and health issues facing Native Americans. Also an author, her book Wiping the War Paint Off the Lens: Native American Film and Video, was the backdrop for her Nov. 8 presentation as part of the Grand Valley State University American Indian Heritage Month series.
Singer began by talking about the importance of community, of belonging to each other and how 21st century technology impacts the experience of community. “We are now moving towards a different idea of ourselves as human beings as a result of what technology brings.”
In illustration, she recalled the Disney promotion of its animated feature Pocahontas in New York’s Central Park. She was living in New York City at the time. Singer was struck that the Disney film repeated the same fixated themes propagated by media about Native Americans throughout American history: 1) the romanticized, free spirited people of the land who have a special connection with some energy force that allows them to adapt to anything that comes along; 2) the embattled savages who are just waiting to be enlightened and changed; and 3) the revolutionary activists who spend all their time figuring out how to counter-balance all the changed that have been forced on our indigenous peoples.
“The bias of the narrative is that we’re constantly at juxtaposition; we don’t really belong. We lost the war. We are angry. We need to make a stand,” Singer said. “Yes, we are very revolutionary but not in the ways you would think. We have held on and not forgotten where we come from. We have connection to community.”
By making their own films, Singer and other Native American filmmakers have been able to step outside those conventional representations—and outside of the boundaries set for native arts by a White America that sees native peoples as mysterious, decorative and nostalgic.
“In the market place, you see the totem pole, the Navajo woman figure, the mythological figure. Somehow native people cannot be understood because we are still mysterious, still hiding something. This (representation) turns back in on ourselves. Much of this art is non-political and non-creative—safe and decorative. What does that do to a people? We are not allowed to move, to change, to feel and experiment.”
As TV has become for native children “their parent, grandparent, teacher, babysitter and best friend,” children grow up with this twisted idea of what it means to be native. They are hounded with images that reiterate the notion that Native Americans can’t fit into society and are potentially volatile.
Following Singer’s talk, five panelists were asked to respond. Glenn Zaring, Tribal Public Affairs Director, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Manistee, MI, said, “We are tired of being referred to as the Indian problem. Too often, we’re viewed as an anomaly that now happens to have a casino and money. The Native Americans offers solutions. Apply our principles to . . . to the issues we are all having to face. We are not the problem. We are the Solution. We would like to offer that assistance.”
Lisa LaPlante, News Reporter, FOX-17, Grand Rapids, responded, “There is a corporation. What I do makes money. The (editors) are gonna cut, gonna cut, gonna cut. On a national news level, people take shortcuts and regurgitate whatever was fed to them. On a local level were getting better.”
Matthew Wesaw, Tribal Chair, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, Dowagiac, said, “For too many years, we have let other people talk about who we are, what we need and what we want. That’s why we are still a mystery. Now is the time for us to tell our story . . . Without us telling, it will never be told properly . . . Warriors like the doctor (Singer) get the message out.”
David Murray, Reporter, The Grand Rapids Press, responded, “American Indians today are still considered mysterious or hiding something? It wasn’t mysterious to me and it wasn’t hidden. … In my community (growing up) there were people who spoke native languages. They were regular folks like you and me.” Murray also denied the existence of institutional racism having an effect on media based on his practice of not using race as a basis for choosing interview subjects on his assignments.
Jeff Smith, Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy, presented figures from GRIID studies analyzing representations of Native Americans in local news. The studies exemplify how news agencies do indeed engage in systemic racism. “Native Americans are racially profiled, meaning they only appear in stories that are race specific—like Pow Wows or casinos. When there are news stories about the economy, public health issues, the environmental or politics, Native voices are virtually non-existent,” he said. “In the 50 popular films we studied this past year, only one has a native character—Twilight. In that context, the native is seen as savage, succumbing to emotions and economically depressed. The white vampires are cool, calm, economically privileged and don’t give into their emotions. How do we think about this stuff that all of us are consuming and how do we relate to that?”
As corporate media isn’t going to set the record straight anytime soon, Singer’s is the most logical response: she and other Native American filmmakers are making their own media. As she said when concluding her talk, “l create media that connects American Indian people with each other, to reduce the noise, to get back to inherent values and practices that keep people belonging to a community, locally and globally, as full partners in what is the creative economy at this moment in history.”
(This article is re-posted from PR Watch.)
In response to growing public pressure about promoting unhealthy food to kids and contributing to the obesity epidemic, the fast food industry did what every industry that produces a harmful product does: it pledged to voluntarily end the harmful practices that started drawing scrutiny to the industry. Accordingly, in 2006 the Council of Better Business Bureaus launched its Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), a voluntary code under which fast food purveyors pledged to promote healthier food choices in their advertising, and use messages hat encourage good nutrition in ads aimed at kids.
As with other voluntary corporate codes, the CFBAI has proven more effective at staving off regulation of the fast food industry than protecting kids from predatory advertising and marketing practices. Since signing onto the Initiative, the fast food industry has found many ways to evade it, and promote unhealthy foods to kids more than ever.
On November 8, 2010 Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity released a study that shows fast food companies have ramped up advertising aimed at kids in recent years, and often employ tricky, point-of-sale marketing practices that undermine good nutrition for kids. Researchers looked at the marketing practices of 12 national fast food chains and nutritional data, like sugar, saturated fat and total calories, for over 3,000 children’s meal combos and 2,781 total menu items. Out of 3,039 possible meal combinations, only 12 met the nutritional standards set by the Institute of Medicine for preschoolers, and only 15 met the criteria for older children.
Targeting Kids More Than Ever
Children as young as two years old are seeing more fast food ads than ever before. Researchers found that in 2009, preschoolers saw 56 percent more ads for Subway, 21 percent more ads for McDonalds and 9 percent more ads for Burger King than they did in 2007. Older kids saw even more fast food ads, and African-American youth were exposed to at least 50 percent more fast food ads than white youth. Fast food companies have also moved beyond television ads in their advertising practices, and now use social media to reach kids. For example, McDonalds has 13 Web sites that get 365,000 unique child visitors between the ages of 2 and 11, and 294,000 unique visits from teens ages 12 to 18 every month. McDonalds starts targeting kids as young as age two with websites like Ronald.com. McDonalds and Burger King have even created sophisticated “advergames” and online “virtual worlds” that engage children, like HappyMeal.com, McWorld.com and ClubBK.com.
Youth Marketing is Effective
Fast food ads work well at getting kids into the restaurants. According to online surveys, 40 percent of kids between the ages of 2 and 11 beg their parents to take them to McDonalds at least once a week. 84 percent of parents report that they give in to their kids’ request at least once a week. While some argue that it is the parent’s job to refuse kids’ pleas for fast food, researchers concluded that it is a poor practice to promote unhealthy products directly to children, and constantly put parents in the position of having to say “no” to their kids. Ideally, restaurants would support parental efforts to encourage kids to eat healthy foods, not undermine those efforts by marketing directly to children.
Tricky Point of Sale Practices
Even though companies like Burger King and McDonalds signed onto the BBB’s voluntary pledge to limit advertising to kids, these companies engage in tricky point-of-sale practices that undermine healthy nutritional practices. For example, even though most fast food restaurants list at least one healthful side dish and beverage on their menus, and even though their ads show healthful food options as side dishes, restaurants’ default practice is to serve French fries as a side dish 86 percent of the time, and sugary drinks at least 55 percent of the time. And instead of eliminating their biggest side dishes and drinks, companies merely rename them. Burger King’s former 42-ounce “King” sized drink is now called a “Large,” their former 32-ounce “Large” size is now called a “medium,” and their former 21-ounce medium-sized drink is now called “small.”
The Yale study confirms, yet again, that when an industry imposes a voluntary code of conduct on itself, it is time for real and effective regulation of harmful corporate behavior. Voluntary codes are smokescreens. They are not designed to protect the public from harmful corporate behavior. They are devised for one reason only: to protect an embattled industry from truly effective regulation of known harmful practices.
Bloom Collective to host Zine making workshop this Saturday
Zines have been around since the 1970s, as an effective way to protest the idea that information can be “owned” or copyrighted.
In the 1980s and 90s zine making became popular within the DIY and punk scene as a way of self-expression and a form of resistance against commercial culture and even official left magazines, which tend to rely on a small sector of experts who can tell us all what to think.
In order to promote more independent media and highlight their zine collection, the Bloom Collective is hosting a “How to” zine making workshop.
Saturday, November 13
Zine making workshop
2 – 4pm
671 Davis NW – in the Steepletown Center building
The Bloom Collective will have supplies needed for the workshop, but if you have markers, scissors, glue and old magazines that you can bring it would be welcomed.
There are lots of good online resources on how to make a zine, such as the Pony Boy Press Blog and this E-how site. Here is a nice video How To by a woman who makes zines and edits other Indy Media.
Conference of the Americas: Climate Justice
On Saturday, John Kroondyk and Jeff Smith presented a session entitled Climate Justice as part of the 11th Annual Conference on the Americas sponsored by Grand Valley State University. While terms like global warming, 
climate change and climate crisis are familiar to most, the concept of climate justice rarely makes it into the mainstream. However, in Latin America the issues of climate crisis and social justice collide with very real, drastic and horrific results for the continent’s indigenous peoples. “We’re not here to talk about the science of climate change. We agree it is a real, human-caused climate crisis,” Kroondyk said. “We won’t be talking about how many degrees warmer the earth is but about the broader social, political and cultural factors.”
Raining death on the rain forest
Kroondyk went on to address some of the major contributors to the climate crisis in Latin America. Deforestation of the Amazon River Basin is commonly recognized as one of these. Conservative estimates state that 150 acres of Amazon rainforest are destroyed per minute to accommodate the goals of corporate agri-businesses, cattle ranching (think McDonalds) and dam projects—which produce power and landscapes to meet the needs of capitalist business ventures, not to feed or provide electricity for the people living there. While these dam projects tout themselves as “green” projects, they submerge vast forests under water, where they rot and outgas huge amounts of methane and carbon dioxide. Dam projects also drive indigenous people from their ancestral homes, farms and livelihoods while generating food crops for export, soy for bio-fuels and electricity used to operate industries, such as mining, which further degrade the environment. “The sad part for me is that indigenous communities, poor folks, and farmers, are driven into the forest and given no choice but to slash and burn in order to grow crops for their families,” Kroondyk said. “Then, they are judged as the bad guys.”
The UN-REDD Program, which portends to remedy deforestation, is a false solution that exacerbates climate crisis. By defining “forest” as any land with 10% ground cover, REDD allows corporate profiteers to destroy forests and replace them with mono-culture tree plantations and non-native cash crops. 
“It’s really disgusting what their definition of a forest is,” Kroondyk said. “The presence of native species, biodiversity or ecological health are not requirements.”
As mentioned, agri-business is one of the main beneficiaries of deforestation. The market demand for agri-fuels has motivated companies like BP, Shell, DuPont, Cargill and Monsanto to grab Latin American lands away from indigenous peoples in order to grow toxic soy for bio-fuels. One example of the scope of this industry, 85% of the soy grown in Paraguay is for bio-fuel—and is toxic, unsuitable for human consumption. This land grab for bio-fuel production led to the 2008 global food crisis and threatens another 60 million people with hunger and starvation.”Agri-fuels emit just as much CO2 as diesel or petroleum,” Kroondyk pointed out. “They also use water and chemicals for growing. Thinking of bio-fuels as a solution to the climate crisis is ludicrous.”
The carbon boot-print of war
Another cause of global climate crisis as well as climate injustice in Latin America, militarization is rarely cited by environmentalists. Barry Sanders, 
in his book, The Green Zone, shares that the US Military alone consumes 14 million gallons of oil a day—that’s more than is consumed by 85% of the countries of the world.
US military aid to Latin America fuels even more massive military consumption of oil. In addition, specific programs, such as the War on Drugs, cause drastic environmental damage as aerial chemical and manual deforestation is used to destroy coca production. “These efforts haven’t made a dent in coca production but they have contributed to human deaths, impacted human health, destroyed water and killed other trees and plants that produce oxygen,” Jeff Smith said. “The US has spent $1.5 billion on aerial spraying in Columbia alone.”
The US is also in the process of building many new military bases. These not only expand militarization but also displace people and create social instability within communities.
Resource extraction
While America cheered its ingenuity in rescuing the Chilean coal miners, the media wasn’t telling us about the ongoing horrors caused by resource extraction throughout Latin American by US and multinational firms. Oil, coal, gold and other mineral extraction projects continue to devastate ecosystems, displace people and contaminate soil and water. “These projects also result in significant state repression. Not one country in Latin America is untouched by those dynamics,” Kroondyk said. “And, the actual mining of resources also provides fuel for other industrial production that further contributes to the climate crisis.”
One example, a giant wind farm in Colombia has been described as a “green” project. However, the indigenous people living there were kicked off their land and the power generated is being used to power an open pit coal mine. People living in the area are not receiving any of the electricity.
“There is a great deal we can learn from their movements.”
Unlike their counterparts in the US, the people of Latin America have consistently challenged deforestation, militarization and resource extraction causing crisis in their lands. Last summer, 20, 000 people from 70 countries and UN agencies as well as indigenous peoples gathered for the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia. In response to the failures of the 2009 Copenhagen UN Conference on Climate Change, Cochabamba came up with proposals calling for 50% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2017; indentifying the rights of mother earth; respecting indigenous people and climate migrants; lifting the barriers of intellectual property; prohibiting the commodification of forests; forming an international climate justice tribune; and more.
- In 2000, the people of Bolivia took to the streets, demanding that their water rights be returned to them. Bechtel Corporation had bought the rights from Bolivia’s government. They raised prices on water, making it unaffordable—and even preventing people from gathering rain water. Though their peaceful protests were met with military violence and murder, they kept protesting until they won their water rights back.
- In Brazil, one million members of the Landless People’s Movement (MST) have reclaimed lands for homes, schools and health clinics. Since 1985, they have won land titles for 350,000 families; 180,000 more families are awaiting titles.
- The Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America (ALBA) is challenging US trade policy, including FTAA, CAFTA and NAFTA. This is encouraging localized trade and agriculture, i.e. growing food for local consumption and reducing emissions tremendously. Bolivia has also refused US requests to renew a new military base there.”Ecuador did the same thing,” Smith said. “They told the US ‘you can but only if we can put an Ecuadorian base in Miami.”
- Ecuador has taken steps to prevent extraction of oil under Yasuni National Park UNESCO Biosphere.
- In Peru, people are challenging oil extraction with blockades, dismantling pipelines and a variety of tactics.
- In Columbia, the U’wa indigenous peoples fought against Occidental Petroleum through legal action, non-violent direct action such as blockades and dismantling pipelines. FARQ also blew up pipelines. After 17 years, Occidental left.
- Via Campesina a worldwide peasant movement, fights for peasant and family-based farm production, food sovereignty and local food production. This combats climate crisis, emissions from agricultural production and transportation.
- The Zapatistas (EZLN) have specific struggles in Chiapas, an area historically exploited by Mexico’s elite… Currently, they are fighting against a huge agri-business bio-fuel onslaught.
“The Zapatista political ideology goes hand in hand with the climate justice movement. They say no to false solutions, market control and market logic that recreates the same mess we are already in. They say yes to a pluralistic view, respect for biodiversity, indigenous cultures, negotiation of environmental space and social equity between the global north and south,” Smith said. “We need to be looking at ways we can change US policy and asking ourselves what kind of solidarity can we engage in to support the people in these countries. We can be agents of creative change in this process. And, there is a great deal we can learn from their movements.”
Kroondyk ended the presentation with this clip of Bolivian hip-hop artists challenging the system for climate justice.
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GVSU conference features speaker from Argentina: Women’s Movements and Democratization in Argentina
The 11th Annual Conference of the Americas wrapped up on Saturday with numerous session, workshops and documentary screenings all that dealt with the theme of “Creative Agents of Change.”
People had the change to hear from local educators and organizers who presented on topics such as immigration, cultural autonomy, youth based media, resource extraction and Latin America literature. There were also Latin Americans who presented on subjects such as the realities of being an immigrant in the US, reclaiming literary history and current popular movements throughout the continent.
The keynote speaker for Saturday was Graciela Di Marco, a professor at the university of San Martin in Argentina and long time participant in popular movements in her country. Professor Di Marco talked about the role that the women’s movement has had on all other popular movements in Argentina.
Prof. Di Marco talked about the evolution of popular movements in Argentina, where there has been a broadening of the scope of citizenship, the promotion of women’s rights, the cultural impact of feminism and joint articulation of these changes amongst academics and activists.
The speaker said, “Radical democracy is the construction of counter hegemonies resulting from the articulation of popular struggles.” She went on to say that this processes is grounded in the “denaturalization and criticism of inequality.” For Di Marco, the democratization process should put its emphasis on the equalization of relations and relationships.
During the military junta years, when 30,000 Argentines were disappeared, the human rights movement created the conditions for “elaborating a critique of all discretionary forms of the exercise of political authority.” This critique was not just of the military dictatorship, but a critique of power relations in the home and in popular movements themselves.
It was in this context that women started to see themselves in significantly different ways. Professor Di Marco said that women continued to see themselves as mothers, but they began to articulate the idea of “social motherhood,” which involves the demands of political power.
The advent of popular feminism at this time was made up of women in unemployed workers movements. Women’s participation in marches for instance, often ended up being festivals for the women who participate, since many of them rarely had the chance to visit the capital or enjoy the interaction with women from all over the country. Popular movement marches provided a forum for women to have those kinds of experiences.
Professor Di Marco then spoke about the picket movement, which has been the strongest movement over the last decade. Roughly 70% of the picket movement is made up of women, who in addition to marching, management community projects and occupy public spaces.
After the economic crash of December 2001 (a topic which is explored in the documentary The Take) the picket movement grew and began to express itself in different ways. Worker occupations and collectives led to greater cooperation between men and women and women were often in leadership positions in the worker co-ops and collectives.
These co-operative groups began creating new cultural models, such as transforming old warehouse spaces into a space for those wanting to learn how to be trapeze artists, day care centers and arts collectives.
Professor Di Marco said that women’s participation showed women that they did not need to be isolated and that tactics such as roadblocks and factory occupations gave them the idea that rights can be obtained through struggle.
However, while it is clear that this movement in Argentina is anti-capitalist, the movement still needs to work on anti-patriarchal dynamics that exist. Women were happy with the push for dignity in work and better education for their children, but they still struggled with domestic abuse and the inherent machismo that permeates institutes.
Professor Di Marco said that patriarchy was manifest in many of the social institutions because of the historical influence of the Catholic Church. She said that one could see this in the government, hospitals, the courts and other social institutions. The speaker also said that Catholic fundamentalism is a key player in the counter attack on women’s rights and the popular movements.
For more information on the worker occupations, worker-run factories, co-ops and collectives that number in the thousands in Argentina, good sources are the book, Sin Patron: Stories from Argentina’s worker-run factories, and Indy Media in Argentina.
MiBiz spreads myth about toilet paper company’s “green” practices
The regional business publication MiBiz recently sent out their sustainability E-newsletter, which is always worth critiquing. Like most business entities they love to highlight so-called “green” corporate practices as a way of taping into the growing green consumer market.
The article in the MiBiz newsletter that caught my attention was a blurb about the toilet paper giant Kimberly-Clark, which has announced they will be putting on the market tubeless toilet paper.
The MiBiz blurb was based on a USA Today article that acts essentially as a PR piece for the Kimberly-Clark. Not only does the article cited a company spokesperson who makes eco-friendly claims, the story also cites someone with the Natural Resources Defense Council who claims this is a positive example of what corporations can do to promote conservation. However, such a business-friendly article from the McJournalism of newspapers (USA Today) should not confuse us with what is fundamentally wrong with equating Kimberley-Clark’s new marketing strategy with concern for eco-systems.
First, citing a spokesperson from the Natural Resources Defense Council makes complete sense once you know that this so-called environmental group is part of what some call the Big Green groups or Gang Green. Big Green groups are those who have abandoned any real grassroots environmental work and have shifted to lobbying in Washington and partnering with Corporate America.
Second, calling Kimberly-Clark’s tubeless toilet paper rolls green is a perfect example of green-washing. The company is the second largest toilet paper company in the world and has contributed to deforestation and soil erosion on a massive scale. Kimberly-Clark owns or controlled hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the US, Spain, Thailand, Mexico, China and 20 other countries.
In addition to the amount of land the company owns it is important to understand that most toilet paper is currently made from trees, which means the industry does not use much in the way of recycled paper. In fact, in the US today, tissue from 100% recycled fibers make up less than 2% of sales for at home use. This is an astounding number and it means that companies like Kimberly-Clark need to cut down more forests for their products.
Third, since Kimberly-Clark is committed to increasing its profits they will do whatever is necessary to make that happen. For instance, the company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars annually lobbying the US Congress. Another tactic the company uses is having representative from other large corporations sit on their board of directors, which gives them greater influence on policy and greater access to natural resources. Some of the board members of Kimberly-Clark also sit on the boards of General Electric, Home Depot and Waste Management.
Lastly, the biggest flaw with corporations claiming to be green is that they don’t have a limit to their growth. Kimberly-Clark, like any other business, wants to expand and develop more markets for their products. Just because they make a minor adjustment to how they manufacture their product doesn’t mean they will end up cutting down fewer trees.
Therefore, just because news agencies like USA Today and MiBiz are fooled by this kind of corporate green-washing, doesn’t mean we have to be.
Adbusters and the Israeli Apartheid Wall
(This article, from Adbusters founder Kalle Lasn, is re-posted from The National Post.)
Why is Shoppers Drug Mart pulling 3,500 copies of Adbusters, my magazine, off its shelves?
A week ago, in the National Post, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) accused Adbusters of anti-Semitism for publishing side-by-side photographs of the Gaza and Warsaw ghettos ( “Anti-Semitism on your magazine rack — courtesy of Adbusters,” Oct. 23). The CJC has since successfully lobbied senior management at Shoppers Drug Mart into pulling our magazine off the Canadian newsstands.
Here is the story from the Adbusters viewpoint.
In October 1939, the German Wehrmacht reached the city of Warsaw, and over the following months, the Jewish population was forced into a small section of the city called “the Jewish quarter.” The situation inside the ghetto was unbearable: Nazis controlled the movement of goods, basic utilities and even food. Each person was allotted a starvation diet of 250 calories per day.
Acts of rebellion were brutally suppressed. When two German soldiers were killed in a local restaurant, 106 men in the ghetto were shot in reprisal. Arrests and random executions were common. In April 1940, the ghetto was walled off on all sides.
Services such as hospitals and schools were derelict, relying on an ever-decreasing stream of supplies allotted by the Nazis. For a while, the supplies were supplemented by goods smuggled in through tunnels, but such services were eventually forced to close.
A resistance movement was organized during the Soviet advance, but it was brutally defeated and the Warsaw ghetto was razed to the ground.
In September 2005, Israel dismantled its settlements in Gaza and withdrew its troops after 38 years of military occupation. For Israel, this marked an end to their occupation. For Palestinians confined in Gaza, however, the occupation had simply progressed into a new phase: the ghetto. The year 2005 marked the establishment of Gaza as an open air prison.
Israel controls the movement of all goods, including food and basic necessities, in and out of the Gaza strip. A study done by Johns Hopkins University in 2002 found that 17% of children aged 6-59 months suffer from chronic malnutrition, and almost half of women and children are anemic. Thirteen percent of children under five are stunted.
Israel controls all of Gaza’s borders and airspace. The long ocean border, once a viable source of income for Gazans through trade and fishing, is now strictly controlled. Humanitarian missions are turned away with lethal force.
Israel responds to every Palestinian provocation with disproportionate force. The Israeli response to the murder of three civilians by Palestinian rockets in 2008 was the wide-scale destruction of Gaza, the use of white-phosphorus munitions in the area of a UN school and the killing of over 1,000 civilians.
Comparing events today with events in Nazi-occupied Europe must never be done lightly. When events are so serious as to lend themselves to such comparisons, however, there is a moral imperative to speak up.
Though the stated goal of Israel has never been the complete destruction of the Palestinian people, many of the tactics and policies supported by the state of Israel are deeply troubling and worthy of an open public discussion.
Last week, in a move to silence criticism of Israeli policies, the Canadian Jewish Congress labelled Adbusters — and anyone who makes the above historical analogy — anti-Semitic. The CJC has lobbied Shoppers Drug Mart not to carry Adbusters. Three-thousand-five-hundred copies of Adbusters will no longer be sold at Shoppers Drug Mart’s 515 Canadian stores.
The Canadian Jewish Congress is not a representative voice of the full spectrum of Jewish perspectives. Last year, prominent Jewish Canadians including Naomi Klein, Ursula Franklin and Anton Kuerti signed an open letter criticizing the CJC’s use of “fear tactics” and condemning the “false charges of anti-Semitism against … groups and people exercising their democratic right to freedom of speech and association regarding legitimate criticism of the State of Israel.”
If you think that publishing side-by-side images of the Gaza and Warsaw ghettos is a valid expression of free speech, email the Canadian Jewish Congress and tell them to back off. And next time you walk by a Shoppers Drug Mart, go in and ask the manager to put Adbusters back on its shelves. In Canada, we should be free to choose from a diversity of viewpoints and decide for ourselves what is anti-Semitic and what is a legitimate critique of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Yesterday, we posted the findings of our 56-day study that looked at the Grand Rapids Press election coverage from the day after Labor Day through November 1st.
In that study we also did a comparison to see how much coverage the Press was giving to ArtPrize, since it was taking place in relatively the same time frame as the 2010 Election.
We found that there were almost twice as many ArtPrize articles in the print version of the Grand Rapids Press as there were of election articles, 153 to 87. We also found that comparatively there were 35 ArtPrize stories on the front page of the Press and only 18 election stories.
Big deal. So what’s the point? The point is that this should tell us something about the Grand Rapids Press and news coverage in an age of hyper-capitalism.
First, the most obvious thing about the newspaper’s decision to run more stories about ArtPrize than they did about electoral politics is that it makes clear what their priorities are. And the number one priority of the Grand Rapids Press is not to inform the public, it is to sell newspapers.
Of course this is their number one priority, since they are owned by a for profit company – Advance Publications. But it should be stated that the selling of newspapers is not just about news but about advertising. Indeed, the bulk of the revenue made by the Press is from advertising, not subscriptions and ArtPrize articles, particularly on the front page, helps to create a more positive consumer climate.
As media scholars like Erik Barnouw, Robert McChesney and Lesley Savan have demonstrated in numerous books over the years – newspapers, TV and radio stations always think about the content of their news and its relationship to the advertising. This means that for profit news agencies have to be careful not to provide news that makes us either feel too bad or makes us think in great detail about substantive issues. To do so could limit the public’s ability to be consumers.
Second, despite the fact that news agencies are driven by profits does not necessarily mean they can’t do good journalism. Often journalists and editors will say that they are just giving people what they want. And while it may be true that the public is demanding all ArtPrize all the time, that justification is not part of the widely accepted Principles of Journalism.
Lastly, the data begs the question that if the Press treated election coverage the same way they did ArtPrize coverage would that have an impact of the number and sophistication of voters on November 2nd?
For instance, if there were as many articles about candidate races as there were about ArtPrize, would that make a difference? If there were equally as many front-page stories about the election as there was about ArtPrize would there be more participation in elections? If the Press invited the public to design a front-page cover for the elections like they did for ArtPrize would that have made a difference? If the Press engaged the public in their election coverage the same way it engaged the public who came out to see ArtPrize entries would that encourage people to participate in the electoral process even more?
We may never know the answers to these questions, but it would be worth posing these questions to the Press editor Paul Keep. Send him an E-mail (pkeep@grpress.com) and ask him about the difference in the amount and quality of ArtPrize coverage versus Election coverage. If you get a response let us know and we could add your comments to this posting.
Holy Shit! Amway is a Pyramid Scheme?
Yesterday, it was reported on MLive that Amway has agreed to pay out $56 million to plaintiffs in a “class-action suit alleging the company and some of its top-level distributors operate an illegal pyramid scheme.”
The article goes on to say that the lawsuit, “alleged the company used unfair and illegal business practices that mislead distributors about their ability to make money and how much it would cost to be part of the business.”
However, despite the claims made in the lawsuit, Amway President Doug DeVos still does not want to admit to the allegations in the lawsuit. In an interesting display of journalism, the Grand Rapids Press included a letter that the Amway executives sent to the “Amway Community.”
The letter states that while the company has agreed to pay out $56 million and “the company and its IBO leaders take responsibility for all past issues,” it still denies any real wrong doing.
While one could argue that it shows that the Press is not afraid of exposing the wrong doings of the most powerful company in West Michigan, the way the Press presents the story suggests otherwise.
First, this story is archived in the Business section of MLive and not in general news where other crime stories are found. Make no mistake this is a crime story. It might be a “white collar” crime, but it is definitely crime. And to be realistic, which is worse, the guy who steals a few hundred bucks from the local party store or business practices which steal millions?
Second, the Press does not bother to seek out other sources for this story, but relies on Amway executives to tell us what we should believe. MLive did run a follow up article today, which cited two of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, but they still don’t go far enough to seek out local or national sources that could speak to the allegations in the lawsuit.
Lastly, the Press fails to question the very nature of Amway’s business practices. So while this lawsuit identifies specific claims from specific plaintiffs about pyramid scheme practices, the Press misses the opportunity to ask the question, “Isn’t Amway fundamentally based on a pyramid scheme system?”
This is exactly what numerous former Independent Business Operators (IBOs) of Amway have been claiming for years. One of those former IMOs is Steve Butterfield who wrote the book Amway: The Cult of Free Enterprise. That the Press chose not to include voices like Steve Butterfield’s and not question how Amway has operated from the very beginning is a clear indicator that the Press is unwilling to challenge the power of the Ada-based company.
Today, GRIID has posted a 20-page report that looks at the Grand Rapids Press coverage of the most recent election.
The study covers the period from Labor Day 2010 through the day before the election. (Sept. 7 – November 1) We tracked all the articles that appeared in the print version of the Grand Rapids Press dealing with candidates and ballot issues specific to West Michigan and would be on the ballot for those voting in this part of the state.
As we have done with numerous other news studies around election coverage we ask the question that if the Grand Rapids Press was the only source that voters relied on, could they make an informed vote? Our conclusion is that for most candidates and ballot proposals the answer would be no. The only issue that the Press did a good job on during the 56-day study period was the statewide ballot proposal to hold another Constitutional Convention. Other than Proposal One, most of the stories were based on polling, attack ads, and horserace coverage, all of which most often did not provide voters with even basic issues on where candidates stood on key issues.
Here is a summary of our findings:
- There were a total of 87 Election articles during the 56-day study period.
- The races that received the most article were: 3rd Congressional (21), Governor’s race (19) and Proposal to have a Constitutional Convention (9)
- Area State races received limited coverage: 29th District Senate race (4 articles), 75th District House race (3) and no articles about the 28th and 30th Senate races or the 72nd, 73rd, 76th, 77th or 86th District House races.
- There was only 1 article about Proposal 2, 1 article about the Michigan Supreme Court candidates, 1 article about Secretary of State candidates and 1 article about the Attorney General candidates.
- Most of the stories about candidates focused on polling, political ads, debate schedules, public appearances, endorsements and personal attacks.
- Consequently, most of the stories had very little information on candidate platforms, issues or voting records for those running as incumbents or a higher office.
- Comparatively, there were 153 articles about ArtPrize during the same 56-day study period and 87 election articles.
- Election stories appeared on the front page of the Press 18 times during the study period, whereas ArtPrize stories were on the front page 35 times.
The entire report can be found on the GRIID site in the Reports section.
