Media Bites – Coca Cola and the World Cup Games
In this week’s Media Bites we take a look at a new commercial from Coca Cola in preparation for the 2010 World Cup games in South Africa later this month. Coke wants to associate their brand with the celebratory aspects of the game, the players and the fans, but all the branding in the world can’t undo Coke’s record of profiting from Apartheid and the role it plays in water privatization in today’s South Africa.
(This article is re-posted from Electronic Intifada.)
Early this morning under the cover of darkness Israeli soldiers stormed the lead ship of the six-vessel Freedom Flotilla aid convoy in international waters and killed and injured dozens of civilians aboard. All the ships were violently seized by Israeli forces, but hours after the attack fate of the passengers aboard the other ships remained unknown.
The Mavi Marmara was carrying around 600 activists when Israeli warships flanked it from all sides as soldiers descended from helicopters onto the ship’s deck. Reports from people on board the ship backed up by live video feeds broadcast on Turkish TV show that Israeli forces used live ammunition against the civilian passengers, some of whom resisted the attack with sticks and other items.
The Freedom Flotilla was organized by a coalition of groups that sought to break the Israeli-led siege on the Gaza Strip that began in 2007. Together, the flotilla carried 700 civilian activists from around 50 countries and over 10,000 tons of aid including food, medicines, medical equipment, reconstruction materials and equipment, as well as various other necessities arbitrarily banned by Israel.
As of 6:00pm Jerusalem time most media were still reporting that up to 20 people had been killed, and many more injured. However, Israel was still withholding the exact numbers and names of the dead and injured. Passengers aboard the ships who had been posting Twitter updates on the Flotilla’s progress had not been heard from since before the attack and efforts to contact passengers by satellite phone were unsuccessful. The Arabic- and English-language networks of Al-Jazeera lost contact with their half dozen staff traveling with the flotilla.
News of the massacre on board the Freedom Flotilla began to emerge around dawn in the eastern Mediterranean first on the live feed from the ship, social media, Turkish television, and Al-Jazeera. Israeli media were placed under strict military censorship, and reported primarily from foreign sources. However, by the morning the Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli soldiers who boarded the flotilla in international waters were fired upon by passengers. Quoting anonymous military sources, the Jerusalem Post claimed that the flotilla passengers had set-up a “well planned lynch.” (“IDF: Soldiers were met by well-planned lynch in boat raid”)
The Israeli daily Haaretz also reported that the Israeli soldiers were “attacked” when trying to board the flotilla. (“At least 10 activists killed in Israel Navy clashes onboard Gaza aid flotilla”)
This narrative of passengers “attacking” the Israeli soldiers was quickly adopted by the Associated Press and carried across mainstream media sources in the United States, including the Washington Post. (“Israeli army: More than 10 killed on Gaza flotilla”)
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon stated in a Monday morning press conference that the Israeli military was acting in “self-defense.” He claimed that “At least two guns were found” and that the “incident” was still ongoing. Ayalon also claimed that the Flotilla organizers were “well-known” and were supported by and had connections to “international terrorist organizations.”
It is unclear how anyone could credibly adopt an Israeli narrative of “self-defense” when Israel had carried out an unprovoked armed assault on civilian ships in international waters. Surely any right of self-defense would belong to the passengers on the ship. Nevertheless, the Freedom Flotilla organizers had clearly and loudly proclaimed their ships to be unarmed civilian vessels on a humanitarian mission.
The Israeli media strategy appeared to be to maintain censorship of the facts such as the number of dead and injured, the names of the victims and on which ships the injuries occurred, while aggressively putting out its version of events which is based on a dual strategy of implausibly claiming “self-defense” while demonizing the Freedom Flotilla passengers and intimating that they deserved what they got.
As news spread around the world, foreign governments began to react. Greece and Turkey, which had many citizens aboard the Flotilla, immediately recalled their ambassadors from Tel Aviv. Spain strongly condemned the attack. France’s foreign minister Bernard Kouchner expressed “profound shock.” The European Union’s foreign minister Catherine Ashton called for an “enquiry.”
What should be clear is this: no one can claim to be surprised by what the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights correctly termed a “hideous crime.” Israel had been openly threatening a violent attack on the Flotilla for days, but complacency, complicity and inaction, specifically from Western and Arab governments once more sent the message that Israel could act with total impunity.
There is no doubt that Israel’s massacre of 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in Gaza in December 2008/January 2009 was a wake up call for international civil society to begin to adopt boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel similar to those applied to apartheid-era South Africa.
Yet governments largely have remained complacent and complicit in Israel’s ongoing violence and oppression against Palestinians and increasingly international humanitarian workers and solidarity activists, not only in Gaza, but throughout historic Palestine. We can only imagine that had former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni indeed been arrested for war crimes in Gaza when a judge in London issued a warrant for her arrest, had the international community begun to implement the recommendations of the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report, had there been a much firmer response to Israel’s assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai, it would not have dared to act with such brazenness.
As protest and solidarity actions begin in Palestine and across the world, this is the message they must carry: enough impunity, enough complicity, enough Israeli massacres and apartheid. Justice now.
Grassroutes Caravan
The Bloom Collective Potluck & Discussion
6 p.m. Sunday, June 13
4th Street Garden Oasis
Pettibone Ave. & 4th st. NW, Grand Rapids 49504Grassroutes Caravan Variety Show
7 p.m. Monday, June 14
Blandford Nature Center Farm
3143 Milo St. NW, Grand Rapids 49534
On June 13 and 14, The Grassroutes Caravan will stop in Grand Rapids during their bicycle trip to the US Social Forum in Detroit. The 30 cyclists will also stop in Milwaukee, Lansing and White Lake before arriving in Detroit by June 22. In each community where they stop, they will share information via discussions and guerilla theatre as well as volunteer with local community service projects.
“We wanted to create an event prior to the trip that would both raise money and celebrate the upcoming journey to Detroit,” said participant, Kristine Pettersen.
At 6 p.m. Sunday June 13, The 30 cyclists will join The Bloom Collective for a potluck discussion at the 4th Street Garden Oasis, Pettibone and 4th St. NW. Grassroutes Caravan folks will share information about the USSF and demonstrations aboard the Permibus traveling permiculture exhibition.
At 7 p.m. Monday, The Grassroutes Caravan Variety Show will entertain with clowns, a puppet show and live music by Thistle. The Permibus will be on site at Blandford that evening as well. Local cyclists are welcome to join the Caravan when it sets out for Detroit.
“The main idea of the (World) Social Forum, which started as an annual get-together of world communities and organizations in Brazil, is that ‘another world is 
possible,” added Seth Jensen. In Detroit, the imperative that “Another U.S. is Necessary” has been added to the Social Forum’s idea. “We take those ideas very seriously. When you consider all the volunteer stops we have planned, the cultural exchange, the opportunities for relationship building, then we’re really talking about much more than a bicycle ride. I like to call it a mobile village.”
Once in Detroit, the Caravan will set up a bicycle city at the corner of Temple and Woodward, about a half mile from Cobo Hall, where the USSF takes place. The bike city will offer on-going bike maintenance and workshops.
Cross country caravans and marches have been a strategy for social change since 1966, when Dr. Martin Luther King walked in a mobile village from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi in a March Against Fear. Another example, the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament traveled for nine months from California to Washington DC.
Anarchists and anti-authoritarian organizers used the mobile village strategy during the Democracy Uprising March, of 2004, a 28-day march from the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Boston to the Republican National Convention (RNC) in New York. In 2008, activists in Madison, Wisconsin traveled in a mobile village of resistance from the People’s Networking Convention to the RNC in St. Paul. And, The Peoples Freedom Caravan traveled from Albuquerque, New Mexico to the 2007 USSF in Atlanta, Georgia.
“The main thing to remember is that we are striving to be a whole, cohesive village, looking after one another in an atmosphere of care and concern for ourselves and the towns we pass through,” Jensen wrote in the Caravan’s zine. “ If we all do that, our ride is certain to be a blazing success.”
Naomi Klein reports on the BP oil disaster
Journalist Naomi Klein is in Louisiana reporting on the BP oil disaster and provides some useful analysis of what the Obama administration is likely to do based on how they handled the Wall Street Bailout.
Memorial Day Revisited
Memorial Day is a national holiday commemorating U.S. men and women who have died in military service. It was first established after the Civil War, a war in which the vast majority of people who died, soldiers and civilians, were in fact American citizens.
But things have changed. Since the holiday has mainly morphed into a day of cookouts, the opening of summer cottages, and the end of a long weekend at the beach, it seems to time to think about meaningful alternatives to Memorial Day. Let’s reject the narrow official focus. We can change our thinking about whom we should honor as having fallen because of U.S. military policies.
We could choose to honor the Afghan and Iraqi citizens who have been killed since our war of occupation of those countries were begun by war criminal George W. Bush. In Iraq, the estimated number is 96,381 for a minimum number and some sources have the number over 1 million dead Iraqis since the US invasion of 2003. In Afghanistan, tracking from 2001 with the first U.S. air strike, the estimate of civilian deaths is approximately 12,000 to date, and will be rocketing higher soon because of our re-strengthened invasion of that country under the Obama Administration.
Another memorial we could choose for this holiday is the reflection on the number of civilians killed because of interference of the U.S. government via covert military operations, waged by the CIA and other forces in Europe, South America, Asia, and other locations. Let’s take the example of Guatemala. The CIA-engineered military coup in 1954 destabilized the country and over the following four decades led to the deaths of as many as 250,000 civilians.
In another case, the CIA’s operation–likely sanctioned by President Eisenhower himself–to bring the Shah of Iran back to power resulted in U.S. control of Iranian oil at the cost of thousands of civilian arrests and torture or death for those who tried to prevent the takeover of their country. (For details of US interventions since World War II see Bill Blum’s book Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since WWII and Zoltan Grossman’s “A Century of US Interventions.”)
Another population of people victimized by aggressive U.S. policies are immigrants who have been killed in their attempts to enter the United States or who have died because of the denial of basic rights—such as water or food—after being arrested. Deaths from Border Patrol use of force, killings by vigilante groups, and killings by coyotes (immigrant smugglers profiting from repressive U.S. immigration policies) are all on the rise along the border with Mexico.
In the two-year period of 1988 to 1990 alone, the Mexican government accused the U.S. of 117 cases of human rights abuses that led to severe injuries or deaths of people attempting to cross the border. In 2006, in just one example, a Border Patrol officer killed a 20-year-old Mexican named Guillermo Rodriguez because the unarmed Rodriguez was attempting to defend himself by throwing rocks. Groups such as No More Deaths are attempting to build consciousness over the toll of this militarized action on our southern border.
Or, we could take this day to remember the very beginnings of American imperialism: when colonists and later the U.S. government sought to annilhate the Indian nations who possessed the land that they wished to occupy. In his book American Holocaust, historian David Stannard estimates the total number of American Indian deaths at 100,000,000. This includes both those killed during military engagements and those who died from European-imported diseases brought to North America by settlers.
This Memorial Day, let’s think about those who have sacrificed everything in wars waged by the United States. But there are far more of the fallen than our country calls attention to on this national holiday… millions of victims who the U.S. would like us to forget.
Carl Levin and the Military Industrial Complex
We reported earlier this week that Michigan Senator Carl Levin voted against any timetable for US troops to be out of Afghanistan. He, like the majority of those in the Senate voted against a bill put forth by Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold.
Senator Levin also announced this week that the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Levin chairs, completed a final version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2011.
Included in this bill is language that would end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of discriminating against gays in the military, but it also includes further funding for the US military operation in Afghanistan & Pakistan. Levin states, “I am pleased that the Committee provided funding, authorities, and capability to defeat al Qaeda, its affiliates and other violent organizations, with a major focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Levin goes on to say that one of the highlights of the proposed military budget is that it, “Enhances the capability of the armed forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations and applies the lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan.” Of course Senator Levin doesn’t clarify what he means by the counter-insurgency techniques that were used in Iraq and should be applied in Afghanistan. These are two distinctly different countries, with different terrain, histories, insurgencies and ethnic groups. To continue to apply the same counterinsurgency tactics will be as disastrous for the civilians in Afghanistan as it was for the civilians in Iraq.
Military Industrial Complex
The proposed budget for the US military in this bill would be $725.9 billion, with the funding breakdown in three main areas:
- $548.9 billion for the base budget of the DOD
- $159.3 billion for overseas contingency operations (OCO), which funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and
- $17.7 billion for national security programs in the DOE and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
This proposed budget will continue the level of military funding that the nation saw during the 8 years under Bush and it reflects Senator Levin’s commitment to militarism, despite his “progressive” public image.
Levin also made it a point to announce this week that Michigan will “benefit” from the proposed military budget for 2011. The bill includes funding for Michigan based military contractors and universities. Levin states, “By connecting Michigan universities and companies with vital defense needs, we make our troops safer, stronger and better prepared for the threats they face.”
Some of the Department of Defense (DOD) funded projects in Michigan would include production of the Army’s Stryker armored vehicle, Abrams main battle tank, Bradley Fighting vehicles, grenade launchers and the Lightweight 155mm Howitzer.
Michigan Universities, which will receive funding for DOD research projects are: Michigan State University, Western Michigan University, Wayne State University, Oakland University, Henry Ford Community College, Michigan technical University, Eastern Michigan University and Central Michigan University.
What all of this military funding means is that US taxpayers will be subsidizing private industry and public universities to further the US military industrial complex, a structure which Senator Levin seems quite entrenched in.
BP Blocking Media Access to Oil Disaster Sites
(This article is re-posted from the Center for Media & Democracy.)
News photographers are saying that their efforts to document the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials working with BP.
TV crews, news reporters and photographers on the ground in Louisiana are reporting that BP and Coast Guard officials are denying members of the media flights over the oil disaster area, and blocking their access to oil-covered beaches and staging areas for cleanup.
Mother Jones published a reporter’s first-hand account of his repeated attempts to get access to oil-soaked beaches and cleanup operations amid. The most recent report of the press being denied access to affected areas came from a company called Southern Seaplane, Inc. The company was scheduled to take a photojournalist from the New Orleans Times-Picayune for a flyover on May 25, but was denied permission after BP officials found out a member of the press would be on board.
In instances when access is granted it is conducted under tight oversight by BP and Coast Guard officials. BP officials escort reporters and photographers on BP-contracted boats and aircraft, so the company decides what the media sees and when they see it.
What We Are Reading
Below is a list of books that we have read in the past month. The comments are not a review of the books, instead sort of an endorsement of ideas and investigations that can provide solid analysis and even inspiration in the struggle for change. All these books are available at The Bloom Collective, so check them out and stimulate your mind.
Color-Blind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat From Racial Equity, by Tim Wise – In his sequel to Between Barack and a Hard Place, Tim Wise once again provides us with sharp analysis of the current racial politics in the US. While we are witnessing racist dynamics from Arizona’s immigration policy to Tea Party rallies, Wise argues that the bigger problem is what he names as “Post-Racial Liberalism.” Post-Racial Liberalism is the idea that racial inequities are no longer of much concern and that people of color are disproportionately in prison, in poverty and have limited economic opportunities because of “other factors.” Wise does a great job of exposing Post-Racial Liberalism and shows us how institutional racism is still deeply entrenched in the US.
New World of Indigenous Resistance, edited by Lois Meyer and Benjamin Maldanado Alvarado – A wonderful collection of essays by educators and indigenous organizers throughout Latin America. After centuries of colonization, indigenous communities are beginning to reject state educational system, which minimize or deny traditional cultures, language and learning practices. This book provides important voices from Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador and Peru, which articulate the importance of communal autonomy when it comes to pedagogical practices.
Resistance Against Empire, by Derrick Jensen – Resistance Against Empire is a collection of interviews conducted by Derrick Jensen with a variety of activists and organizers that deal with topics that range from war to consumerism. Jensen interviews Juliet Schor, Christian Parenti, Alfred McCoy, Katherine Albrecht, Ramsey Clark, Anuradha, J.W. Smith, Kevin Bales, Stephen Schwartz and Robert McChesney. A great collection of interviews that continues the kind of dialogue that Jensen gave us in How Shall I Live My Life?
The Punishment of Gaza, by Gideon Levy – Gideon Levy is a journalist that writes for the Israeli paper Haaretz. The Punishment of Gaza is a collection of columns that Levy has written that deal specifically with life in Gaza and Israeli policy towards that Palestinian community from 2006 through 2009. Levy provides readers with a first hand account of what is really happening on the ground in Gaza. The journalist humanizes the US-backed Israeli policy of brutalizing Palestinians who have endured for decades.
The Politics of Genocide, by Edward Herman and David Peterson – The authors argue in this book that the use of the term genocide has been overuse and misused in recent decades, particularly by US administrations. Herman and Peterson investigate the differences between a high profile case like Rwanda and a little discussed in the West case like the Democratic Republic of Congo. The authors use the principles of the Genocide Convention of 1948 to assess which cases can actually be called genocide and which cases are not. Their analysis is also a critique of US foreign policy and how the US uses the term genocide when it suits US interests.
(This article is re-posted from Common Dreams.)
The Senate rejected a proposal on Thursday to require President Barack Obama to submit a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, despite unease among some members of his party over the nine-year-old war.
The 80-18 vote nixed a bid by liberal Democrat Russ Feingold for a detailed troop timetable, which he argued would avoid future “emergency” war spending bills such as the $33 billion one now before the Senate.
But most members of the Democratic-majority Senate proved unwilling to dictate to the president, with a buildup of 30,000 additional troops still underway that Obama ordered to Afghanistan and a new military push in the Kandahar area.
Adopting Feingold’s plan would “reinforce the fear … that the United States will abandon the region,” Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, said.
Levin said this was unwise as the Taliban is “doing everything it can” to convince Afghans that U.S., NATO and Afghan forces cannot protect them.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, also voted against Feingold’s proposal. “I’ve felt no impatience about Afghanistan in my caucus,” he said on Wednesday.
But several Democratic senators are increasingly anxious now that U.S. combat deaths have passed the 1,000 mark in Afghanistan and the cost of the war topped $300 billion.
The war in Iraq has cost over $700 billion, with 4,400 U.S. military dead since 2003.
“I’m impatient. Time to start thinking about a different approach, I think,” Senator Tom Harkin said earlier this week.
Senator Jeff Bingaman, another Democrat, said: “I think there’s a high level of impatience, but exactly what should be done legislatively about that issue, I don’t know.” He voted against Feingold’s proposal; Harkin voted for it.
END DATE SOUGHT
Feingold acknowledged Obama had set July 2011 as a starting date for removing U.S. troops, but said there should also be an end date. “The president should convey to the American and Afghan people how long he anticipates it will take to complete his military objectives,” he said.
There were no Republican votes for his plan.
“Thanks to the McChrystal strategy, American forces have already brought pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan. We need to keep that pressure up if this counterinsurgency strategy is to succeed, and it must,” Republican leader Mitch McConnell said. General Stanley McChrystal is in charge of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The Senate also shelved a Republican proposal to find ways to pay for the new war spending with cuts to other programs. Reid scoffed at this idea, saying Republicans “never raised a fuss about paying for the war under President Bush.”
Reid wants the Senate to finish the war spending bill this week. The money must also be approved by the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls it a “heavy lift” among Democrats wary of spending more on the battlefield.
The House Appropriations Committee was expected to vote on its version later on Thursday.
Obama requested $33 billion in February to pay for his Afghan surge, but Congress has been busy with domestic priorities and worried about scarce budget resources. The money comes on top of about $130 billion that Congress already approved for Afghanistan and Iraq through Sept. 30.
The Senate version includes around $4 billion for a “civilian surge” of economic aid for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Corporate Gardens?
In yesterday’s Grand Rapids Press there was a story in the business section headlined, “Why West Michigan firms say corporate gardening is good for business.”
The article features two local businesses that have decided to grow a garden that employees will take care of. One of the businesses is Progressive AE, a company that does design and consulting work for private businesses and government agencies. The idea to do a garden came about at one staff meeting and they hope gardening will be a community building exercise.
The other business is a restaurant in Grand Rapids called The Winchester. The employees will also be doing the garden work and what they harvest will end up in the menu.
At one level it seems like a positive thing when people get together and grow a garden. However, when one reads the rest of the article it raises questions about is behind corporate gardening and why this is news at all.
The Press article cites a New York Times story about larger corporations who have recently begun setting up gardens at their business facilities around the country. The Press even includes a side-bar in the article, which lists the corporations involved in gardening – PepsiCo, Google, Yahoo, Sunset magazine, Kohl’s, Toyota, Aveda and Best Buy.
These are all multi-million or multi-billion dollar corporations which have made huge profits and in some cases exploiting people and the planet. PepsiCo products (soft drinks and snack foods) have contributed negatively to public health and as well as exploitation of natural resources. Google and Yahoo have made billions off the Internet, a system, which was funded by public money during its research and development period.
Best Buy sells high-end electronics, which have not only contributed to making people less engaged in civil society, but has contributed to serious environmental destruction through the production and distribution of such products. Toyota produces cars, which is a major source of carbon emissions and has a history of labor abuses.
This quick look at these companies should lead us to ask what real good is being done by having a few employees grow a garden? Is their decision to have corporate gardens another form of greenwashing, where businesses attempt to distract the public from their inherently destructive practices by adopting something that can be perceived as being green? At one point it is important for journalists (and all of us) to ask why we should salute a company like PepsiCo for starting an employee vegetable garden, when they are trying to get the rest of us to eat unhealthy food products.
These contradictions are further illustrated in the Press article when they cite a study done by the National Gardening Association (NGA), a study funded by Scotts Miracle Grow Co. Miracle Grow is known to be toxic for the soil and for plants that humans will eat, which obviously does not support healthy, organic gardening practices. Not only did Scotts Miracle Grow fund the garden study the article cites, they are one of the NGAs major corporate sponsors.
If the Press really wanted to present information on the real benefits to gardening they could have cited the Rodale Institute, which advocates organic gardening in a truly sustainable model or City Farmer News, which highlights a variety of urban gardening/farming projects across the country.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 