We really need to pay more attention to what the local, state and federal governments give priority too when it comes to budgeting issues.
According to the National Priorities Project, the US spends more on militarism than the next 9 countries with the largest military budgets combined. In 2020, the combined amount of money spent by Presidential candidates in the US was $3,977,400,000.00, according to OpenSecrets. (most of that money is spent on those shitty political ads)
We should always remember, it is not a question of having enough money, rather it is a question of priorities.
The City of Grand Rapids is now planning on borrowing up to $30.5 million to build a multistory parking deck on site at 201 Market Ave. SE near US-131. The city commission approved a resolution Tuesday afternoon, signaling its intent to go forward with the proposal, according to a WOODTV8 story.
The channel 8 story also said, “the parking deck will only have 340 parking spots, mainly aimed at making the amphitheater accessible for all. The goal is to draw most people to and from downtown.” Just 340 parking spots for a 12,000 seat Amphitheater. This is an absurdly low amount of parking, which has been a concern and a concrete issue for many people during this whole process.
The Deputy City Manager Kate Berens explains the low number of parking space by saying, “We also want to maintain that idea of, ‘You’re coming downtown, you’re staying a little bit longer. We’d like to capture you in our downtown and ensure you visit some of our other opportunities as well. That’s why you don’t see 12,000 parking spots right there at that facility. We want to rely on everything that’s downtown and invite users in and make it a gracious place to walk to on a nice summer night.” This will not really address the parking issue, on top of the fact that the City just increased parking rates and they are extending the time til 7pm for parking meters. It’s as if they want to cater to a certain class of people.
There are two other interesting points made in the WOODTV8 story. First, that the Amphitheater will owned, operated and maintained by the Grand Rapids Kent County Arena Authority, which is exclusively represented by the Grand Rapids Power Structure. Second, the Deputy City Manager says the Amphitheater and the Soccer Stadium will, “support the local economy.” This is not only a claim that is unsubstantiated, the money (meaning profits) that will be spent downtown, whether its Hotels, parking, restaurants and bars will disproportionately go to the owners of this city and not the people who wait on tables, those who clean the hotel rooms or the parking attendants. When people say these things support the local economy, they mean it will further enrich the Capitalist Class that runs this damn city.
Getting back to priorities. Ask yourself, if the City of Grand Rapids is willing to borrow $30.5 million for a parking garage, why don’t they borrow that same amount to address the housing crisis? I crunched the numbers and found that 1,694 renters who pay an average of $1500 a month for rent, could be subsidized for 1 whole year, which is the equivalent to the $30.5 million that the City of Grand Rapids is borrowing for a parking garage that will be for the Amphitheater attendees. Again, it is never about not having enough money, rather it is a matter of priorities.
The GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department will be spending a great deal of time and taxpayer money to protect the neo-fascist, White Supremacist Donald Trump this Saturday.
While the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department are protecting Trump, they have a long history of suppressing social movement activists for demanding accountability and justice for numerous issues in recent years.
This same type of repressive and threatening posture from the GRPD was directed at Movimiento Cosecha GR and allies in the immigration justice movement even before the COVID pandemic began, specifically in 2019, when the GRPD threatened to arrest people on May Day of 2019 if they marched in the streets. To be clear, Movimiento Cosecha GR had marched in the streets on May Day in 2017 and 2018, but the GRPD decided they would no longer tolerate disruption of traffic and commerce. Cosecha and their allies obtained FOIA documents that verified that the GRPD was prepared to use force against people marching in the streets. Here is the Dispersal Announcement the GRPD made:
I am (Rank and Name) of the Grand Rapids Police Department. I am now issuing a Public Safety Order to disperse and I command all those assembled at (specific location) to immediately disperse, which means leave the area. If you do not do so, you may be arrested (cite ordinance or law) or be subject to other police action. Other police action could include the use of Chemical Agents or less-lethal munitions, which may inflict significant pain or result in serious injury. If you remain in the area just described, regardless of your purpose, you will be in violation of city and/or state law. The following routes of dispersal are available: (provide escape route details). You have (provide a reasonable amount of time) minutes to disperse.
The targeting of primarily BIPOC organizers and activists began with actions organized by Defund the GRPD and Justice for Black Lives in the fall of 2020 and throughout 2021. The City of Grand Rapids then hired Eric Winstrom to be the acting Chief of Police for Grand Rapids. Winstrom came from Chicago, a city which has a long and brutal history of repression by the police. (See the book, Chicago’s Reckoning: Racism, Politics, and the Deep History of Policing in an American City.)
Shortly after Winstrom began his tenure as the head of the GRPD, a cop murdered Patrick Lyoya on April 4th of 2022. The very next day, Chief Winstrom, along with other City leaders, held a Press Conference. What was instructive about that Press Conference is how polished Winstrom was as a PR man.
Two months after Patrick Lyoya was murdered, there was another “officer involved shooting, so Chief Winstrom once again held a Press Conference where he started to use the phrase, “the Ferguson Effect.” Winstrom was using that term to make the claim that whenever there is an “officer involved shooting,” that crime usually goes up, especially crime in the Black community. Of course, Winstrom offered to verification of this claim because when people in positions of power make such claims they must be true, according to the dominant narrative used by the commercial news media.
The phrase “Ferguson Effect”, was coined by Heather MacDonald, which Chief Wonstrom named during the Press Conference. What Winstrom didn’t mention is the fact that Heather MacDonald is a senior fellow at the right-wing Manhattan Institute. The use of the phrase, the “Ferguson Effect” was looked at in an article by the media watchdog group, Fairness in Accuracy & Reporting in June of 2015. The article states:
The point of the “Ferguson effect,” though, is not to be accurate. It is instead to distract us from the growing evidence about the magnitude and extent of police use of lethal violence in the United States—as powerfully documented just this week by the Guardian and the Washington Post—and to besmirch the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
It’s a strategy that Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater inaugurated in his campaign in 1964, almost single-handedly turning crime into a political weapon against the civil rights movement.
This is exactly what Chief Winstrom was doing, which the local media seemed to be eating up. WOODTV8 repeated the Ferguson Effect claim in their coverage on Friday.
Since last year, the GRPD is targeting more dissident groups and calling un-permitted marches illegal. When the Comrades Collective joined Palestine Solidarity Grand Rapids for a march that began at MLK Park, then went to Rep. Scholten’s home, the GRPD showed up in big numbers and arrested the safety car driver. Safety cars have been used in recent years during marches as a means of protecting those marching from motorists that want to ram into people who are in the streets, just like what happened in Charlottesville in 2017.
The same thing happened during the march for Patrick Lyoya, which took places 2 days after the second anniversary of his murder on April 6th. The GRPD arrested the safety car person and then impounded their car.
However, a few weeks after that happened, two BIPOC activists then received calls from the GRPD to turn themselves in, since one was being charged with a misdemeanor and the other a misdemeanor and a felony.
In May, during a protest organized by Palestine Solidarity Grand Rapids, the GRPD once again showed up and arrested 4 people, specifically those that were acting as crowd safety. Here is what the GRCC students newspaper reported:
After protesters marched around the downtown area and disrupted traffic, around 35 Grand Rapids police trailed behind the group stating that they could be subjects of arrest if they didn’t comply with the law. Protestors moved over to the sidewalk while going down Monroe Avenue but marched down the middle of Monroe Center Street.
After Protesters made it back to Monument Park on the corner of Fulton Street and Division Avenue, Police detained four individuals after they were blocking roads according to GRPD Police Chief Eric Winstrom.
“This group has had probably 20 marches since Oct. 6 when Israel was invaded by a group of terrorists,” said Winstrom when referencing when the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas killed around 1,200 Israeli citizens on Oct. 7. “They (protesters) have not had a permit at any point in time. They continually block streets, creating traffic hazards for individuals. We have been extremely tolerant in accommodating them in their activities, even though they have been illegal…”
It is instructive to note that Winstrom clearly has a Zionist view of what happened in early October, failing miserably to understand the historical context of the actions of Hamas. Winstrom’s lack of clarity on US foreign policy regarding Israel and Palestine aside, what is most important is what he said that is in bold in the previous paragraph. What is at issue here is that Winstrom will not tolerate people engaging in un-permitted marches, especially if those marches are disruptive in nature.
In Kristian Williams’ book, Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency, (a book which discusses the history use of counterinsurgency by police departments – something they learned from the US Military), the author states that one of the primary tactics of counterinsurgency is to engage in “preserving order” and “social management.”
Alex Vitale, in his book, The End of Policing, confirm’s this function of social control, when he writes:
The reality is that the police exist primarily as a system for managing and even producing inequality by suppressing social movements and tightly managing the behaviors of poor and nonwhite people: those on the losing end of economic and political arrangements.
We should all expect the repression of social movements and organized dissent to increase in Grand Rapids. We need to expect the worst and plan accordingly when we engage in public acts of disruption. Disruption is a long-held tactic of social movements. Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement used disruption, which he wrote about:
“We do not need allies more devoted to order than to justice,” Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in the spring of 1964, refusing calls from moderate Black and White leaders to condemn a planned highway “stall-in” to highlight systemic racism in New York City. “I hear a lot of talk these days about our direct action talk alienating former friends,” he added. “I would rather feel they are bringing to the surface latent prejudices that are already there. If our direct action programs alienate our friends … they never were really our friends.”
It would be understandable, in light of the increased GRPD repression, for people to pull back on direct action. However, we also know that if we are committed to systemic change and collective liberation, we cannot afford to lessen our resistance. We do need to take care of each other and protect those that are the primary targets of this repression, but we must not diminish our resistance, no matter the cost.
I’ll just end with this observation from Kristian Williams’ book, Gang Politics: Revolution, Repression, and Crime, he writes:
“The challenge for liberatory movements, then, is not merely to launch an insurgency capable of overturning the existing power structure but to create new ways of relating, of organizing, of exercising and sharing power, that do not themselves reproduce the logic of a protection racket, like the police.”
In Part I of this series I began an updated version of a Grand Rapids Power Analysis, which lays out the ground work for what the Grand Rapids Power Structure looks like and what it means for this community.
When I use the phrase, the Grand Rapids Power Structure and who has power, it is important to note that I mean power over. A local power analysis is designed to investigate who has power over – who oppresses, exploits and engages in policy that benefits them to the exclusion of everyone else – the majority of people living in Grand Rapids.
In Part II of this series on the Grand Rapids Power Structure, I looked at the DeVos family, which I argue is the most powerful family in this city, in terms of economics, politics, social and cultural dynamics.
In Part III of this series I looked at some of the other families and individuals that also wield tremendous power in this city, economically, politically and socially. In today’s post I will focus on the private sector organizations that also have tremendous power and influence on daily life in Grand Rapids.
In Part III, I used a graphic showing how the Grand Rapids Power structure people are connected to private sector organizations, what I named as Interlocking Systems of Power. Many of the groups that were included in the graphic I used in Part III, are the groups that wield tremendous power and influence on daily life in Grand Rapids.
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce likes to present themselves as promoting economic policies that benefit everyone in this city. The Chamber uses this claim in their promotional material, but they consistently act in such a way that results in the majority of Grand Rapidians to experience economic hardship.
As GRIID has documented over the years the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce they have opposed any substantial increase to the minimum wage in Michigan, they opposed organized labor and worker efforts to democratize the work place. In addition, the GR Chamber doesn’t shy away from supporting projects that are or will be owned by the private sector, yet they lobby for public dollars to make these projects happen.
Since I wrote the 2018 Grand Rapids Power Structure analysis, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce has continued to promote economic projects that rely heavily on public funding, but will be owned and controlled by private sector entities, such as the outdoor Amphitheater, the Soccer Stadium and the yet to be formalized Aquarium. The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce also created the group Housing Next, which takes a market-based approach to the current housing crisis.
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce also uses their Political Action Committee, known as Friends of West Michigan Business, to channel thousands of dollars to candidates run for Grand Rapids City positions, Kent County positions and those running for the State Legislature. Here are some examples from 2022 and so far in 2024.
Lastly, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce pushed for the City of Grand Rapids to adopt ordinances that would criminalize the unhoused, which they proposed in 2022, and were later adopted by the City in 2023.
The West Michigan Policy Forum
The West Michigan Policy Forum was actually a creation of the GR Chamber of Commerce back in 2008, with the intention of creating an organization that would influence state policy in ways that would primarily benefit the Capitalist Class in the Grand Rapids area.
In recent years GRIID has documented how the West Michigan Policy Forum has supported policies which hurt working class families, such as:
Opposing any regulation of rental property units in Michigan
Oppose Stay at Home orders during the Covid pandemic, putting public health at risk.
Ongoing efforts to undermine public education in Michigan
Opposing paid family and medical leave
In addition, the West Michigan Policy Forum holds major policy conferences every two years. GRIID used to cover those conferences, but in recent years they would not allow GRIID to attend as media, especially since we have been critical of their role in state policy since 2008. They have told me repeatedly that I can attend if I pay the registration fee, which is cost prohibitive for working class people like myself.
Grand Action 2.0
Grand Action 2.0 was formed in the mid-1990s as a way for the Grand Rapids Power Structure to get the public to pay for projects that would expand their wealth. The first such project was the promotion of the Van Andel Arena.
Since then Grand Action 2.0 has promoted the Downtown Market, the creation of the convention center, and more recently the Amphitheater, the Soccer Stadium and the Aquarium. Dick DeVos has always been the primary chairperson of Grand Action 2.0, which makes tremendous sense, considering how many downtown GR hotels they own and other places of business that benefits from people coming downtown to events or tourists visiting GR. Grand Action 2.0 was also instrumental in getting the City of Grand Rapids to approve $318 million subsidy for the expensive apartment buildings that will be erected next to the Amphitheater and the Soccer Stadium.
In 2021, I wrote an article that asked the question, How is it that we allow groups like Grand Action 2.0 to get away with the shit they do? What I was attempting to do is to point out how groups like Grand Action 2.0 manipulate the system for their own benefit, while too many of us either buy into what they are selling or are oblivious to what they are up to, especially when it comes to how they use public money for private interests.
The Right Place Inc.
The function of the Right Place Inc. is to recruit businesses to West Michigan, businesses that will then lobby to get tax breaks for moving here and making profits.
There are some recent examples of The Right Place Inc working to bring companies to the Grand Rapids area, such as 1) their attempt to bring Amazon to the area, which included massive public subsidies , and 2) The Right Place Inc’s role in attracting Israeli military companies to the area, using taxpayer subsidies. On top of that, The Right Place Inc is also a member of the Michigan/Israeli Business Bridge, an entity which develops and encourages trade and business interaction between Michigan-based companies and Israeli companies.
The Board of Directors at the Right Place Inc. is also a who’s who of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, both tier 1 and tier 2. Not surprising, many of these people signed on the letter that supported the GR Chamber of Commerce proposed ordinance that would criminalize the unhoused, a list you can read here.
There are some additional private sector organizations that play a significant role around economic, political, social and cultural dynamics in Grand Rapids, but on a slightly lesser degree than the four groups named above. These group include:
Downtown Grand Rapids Inc., which essentially manages downtown GR and is zealously in support of increasing tourism, which is why they also endorsed the city ordinances that criminalized the unhoused.
The Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority, which operates many of the entertainment venues in downtown GR and has mostly business people on its Board of Directors that are either part of or connected to the GR Power Structure.
The Econ Club of Grand Rapids, which is primarily an organization that provides opportunities for the local power structure to meet and discuss ways to carve up more of the city for themselves and host speakers that affirm their goals to expand wealth and maintain power in Grand Rapids.
The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, which hosts events and influences public policy through discourse, speakers and conferences. Of all these groups they have less of a direct impact on Grand Rapids, but they shouldn’t be ignored since they have national and international connections that make them very dangerous for BIPOC and working class communities. GRIID has written extensively about them for more than 2 decades.
In Part V, I will write about the Grand Rapids City Government and the role they play in working with the private sector members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
Yesterday, MLive posted a story with the following headline, Catholic counselors sue over Michigan’s ban on conversion therapy.
The article states that the Catholic counselors have hired Becket Law (formerly known as Becket Fund for Religious Liberty), which claims, “the law banning conversion therapy – a widely discredited practice of trying to change an LGBTQ person’s sexual orientation or gender identity – violates a right to free speech and free exercise of religion.”
According to Mlive, Becket Law is based in DC is dedicated to “defending the freedom of religion.” The only other information that MLive provides readers on Becket Law is the following:
Becket has successfully argued several religious liberty cases before the U.S. Supreme Court including one over Philadelphia refusing a contract because Catholic Social Services rejected same-sex couples as foster parents. The group also won a case over Hobby Lobby not offering its employees birth control.
Most of the rest of the MLive article focuses on the background of the State of Michigan’s ban on conversation therapy, which happened in 2023.
So what didn’t the MLive article tell us about Becket Law?
- Becket Law has ties to the far right groups known as the State Policy Network.
- Roger Severino, who was chief operations officer and legal counsel for Becket, was appointed by Donald Trump to head the department’s Office of Civil Rights in 2018.
- Becket Law has ties to the Koch Family Foundation.
- Becket Law defends families against school system that providing reading material or curriculum that informs about LGBTQ issues and particularly anything that promotes being trans.
- Becket Law defends Jewish students at the university level because they claim that the Pro-Palestine movement on US campuses is antisemitic.
- Becket Law fights cases where groups are seeking to remove certain statues or memorials that center war. Becket Law believes that many of these memorials are also religious in nature.
- The Southern Poverty Law Center says – “Though it was originally nonpartisan and took on a variety of “religious liberty” cases, under the current leadership of President William Mumma it has become more conservative and is seen as the intellectual leader of right-wing religious liberty campaigns. In 2012, it won the landmark Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. EEOC, a ruling that allows religious organizations to hire and fire clergy without regard to employment discrimination law.”
- Becket Law also works with Catholic and other Right to Life groups defending their religious grounds to NOT support abortion or any kind of reproductive freedom.
I found out all of this information about Becket Law within one hour, but apparently the journalist with MLive didn’t think it was necessary to provide more background of the group that is trying to undermine Michigan’s ban on conversion therapy.
Sources used:
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Becket
https://www.splcenter.org/20160211/religious-liberty-and-anti-lgbt-right#becket-fund
MLive coverage of the Grand Rapids 3rd Ward Candidates gives the public vague answers to vague questions
Last week, I posted a critique of the MLive coverage for the Grand Rapids City Commission 1st Ward candidates, and today I will do the same regarding the six 3rd Ward Candidates.
The MLive story on the six 3rd Ward candidates follows the same format, a brief introduction of each of the candidates and then responses to the same 4 questions that was asked of the 1st Ward candidates. Those four questions are:
- What in your experience makes you the most qualified candidate for this position?
- What are your goals should you be elected and how will you work to accomplish them with currently limited resources?
- What are the most important challenges facing our community, and how do you propose to address them?
- What will you do to support a vibrant economy in our community?
As I stated previously, these are not compelling questions, nor do they address some of the most pressing issues in the city and specifically in the 3rd Ward. According to the MLive article, one of the six candidates, Al Willis, did not respond to the candidate questionnaire.
In the post I did about the 1st Ward Candidates I wrote an overview of responses bases on each of the question asked. Today I want to focus on the responses from each candidate in the order they are listed in the MLive article.
Joyce Priscilla Gipson – Regarding what goals she has, Gipson wants to end Proposal 3, since she is against abortion, plus she has questions about making the “new stadium or aquarium” priorities, when children’s lives are “in the balance.” Regarding the challenges facing the Grand Rapids community, Gipson said that she would monitor sex education and then give those students that meet the requirements should each get $2000. First, Gipson doesn’t seem to be aware that as a City Commissioner they have little say in state policy (Proposal 3) or GRPS policy (sex education). Gipson offers no concrete solutions on how to address pressing issues facing Grand Rapids and doesn’t even respond to the question about the economy.
Bing Goei – He says he wants to reduce poverty, but offers no concrete solutions on how to do that. Goei acknowledges a disinvestment in the 3rd Ward, but also doesn’t offer what real investment would look like, except to say he would prioritize “strengthening and growing the existing small businesses economy in the Third Ward and the City by prioritizing Black Owned and Hispanic Owned businesses” How exactly will that reduce poverty in the 3rd Ward. Prioritizing Black and Latino/a business might benefit the families of those businesses, but it would unlikely benefit others unless those businesses plan on paying a living wage with good benefits. On the most important challenges the city faces Goei thinks the city should “retain diverse, International talent.” On building a vibrant economy, and Goei suggests supporting small businesses.
Reggie Howard – He wants to keep widows in their homes, get services to Veterans, go gun storage, help people become home owners and help people open more businesses. Howard says all of this without any concrete plans. Regarding most pressing issues in the city, he says gun control and building trust between Commissioners, the GRPD and the community. Again, no concrete solutions. On the matter of a vibrant economy Howard does say people should be paid “good wages”, but wages are only good if they meet the needs of those earning the wages.
Marshall Kilgore – This candidate says they are a human rights advocate and that he wants inclusive policies for the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. This sounds like a positive things, but there are no concrete solutions offer that would benefit BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. In response to the questions about goals Kilgore says increase the 3rd Ward Equity Fund, support solar initiatives and make affordable housing a priority. However, Kilgore offers little in concrete solutions and only talks about getting state and federal funds for housing. Responding to challenges faced in the 3rd Ward, Kilgore simply restates the need for expanded investment and more affordable housing options. On the matter of creating a vibrant economy Kilgore again talks about investment and fair wages, both of which come with no actual numbers. Why is it that candidates can’t say a living wage or wages no lower than $25 an hour?
John Krajewski – This candidates wants more commercial districts and more staffing for the GRFD and the GRPD. If MLive wanted to do journalism instead of simply providing candidates with an open forum to say whatever they want without their comments being questioned, then MLive would have told readers that Krajewski wants to add more cops because he received $12,500 from the Grand Rapids Police Officer’s Association PAC in campaign contributions. Regarding the biggest challenges facing the city, Krajewski says housing, with no solutions, then talks more on policing and building community trust. On the matter of creating a vibrant economy Krajewski says more safety for businesses to thrive in and more business districts. Again, no real solutions are offered and he says nothing about working class people or poverty in the 3rd Ward.
The Grand Rapids 3rd Ward is already the most policed area in the city. The 3rd Ward has the highest percentage of African Americans living in that ward, which also translates into the fact that there are more Black people in the Kent County jail than any other group of people, because the GRPD targets the Black community. None of the 3rd War candidates really talk about racism, specifically structural racism. If MLive would chose to ask more probing questions and follow up questions to the candidate responses, the public would be better served regarding where the candidates stand on critical issues. Instead, the public is left with vague questions and relatively vague answers from the candidates. Commentators often wonder why there is low voter turnout or the lack of enthusiasm for candidates, but rarely do they talk about the low quality of candidates themselves.
Do politicians really believe that violence has no place in America: A short history of violence in so-called America
After Saturday’s shooting during a Trump rally, numerous politicians responded by saying that violence was unacceptable.
When President Biden heard about the shooting, he said, “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence.” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer responded to the news of the shooting by saying, “There is no place for political violence in this country, period.”
My initial reaction to these comments from Biden and Whitmer is simply that what they are saying is bullshit! I say this for two reasons. First, Biden and Whitmer, along with lots of white liberals were hoping that Trump would have been killed, they just don’t want to admit that they feel this way. Believe me, I understand that sentiment. I was thinking that before I even sat down to write this piece I was reflecting on the plot to assassinate German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, a plot that included the great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I would encourage people to watch the Martin Doblmeier 2003 produced documentary, Bonhoeffer.
Second, the notion that there is no place for violence in America is to ignore the very core of what this country was founded on and what it continues to practice……..violence. Now, it is not a question of whether or not Whitmer or Biden are unaware of the history of violence in the US, it is more about the fact that they can’t acknowledge this historical fact or even admit it. For most politicians it would be political suicide. However, imagine for a second if there were political leaders who would say things like, the US was founded on structural violence, both with the genocide of Native Nations and the enslavement of Africans. Of course that will not happen, since both Republicans and Democrats don’t want to admit that the US was founded on genocide, the theft of Indigenous land and the enslavement of people from Africa.
Genocide and slavery were the two foundational aspects of the founding of the US, but they are not the only forms of violence that are at the core of US history. What follows is an overview of the systemic or structural violence that is woven into the very fabric of this country, along with sources to support these claims.
- Genocide of Native Nations – see An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.
- Chattel Slavery – see The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, Edward E Baptist.
- Only white men who owned land could vote for nearly the first 75 years of this country – see Toward an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution and Other Illusions, by Jerry Fresia.
- The racist, xenophobic, white nationalist history of US immigration policy – see American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants, by Robert Bartholomew & Anja Reumschussel and The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, by Greg Grandin.
- The violent history of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their communities and placing them into so-called boarding schools – see Kill the Indian, Save the Man, by Ward Churchill.
- The history of US wars, whether they have been for the expansion of what is now the 50 states to the countless wars and other forms of imperialism around the globe – see Stephen Kinzer’s book, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, William Blum’s book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, and the excellent online source from Zoltan Grossman FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO YEMEN
- The violent history of US worker suppression by the Capitalist Class – one great example is found in David Correia’s book, Earth on Fire: The Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 and the Birth of the Police, plus the 10 volumes of the History of the Labor Movement in the United States, by Philip Foner.
- The violent history of patriarchy and misogyny in the US – see Phyllis Chesler’s book, Patriarchy: Notes of an Expert Witness.
- The suppression of political dissent in the US – see Jules Boykoff’s book, Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States.
- See the three volume history of the US by Mumia Abu-Jamal and Stephen Vittoria, Murder Incorporated: Empire, Genocide and Manifest Destiny
- Mass Incarceration in the US – see Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and Naomi Murakawa’s book, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America.
- The US Drug War – see Clarence Lusane’s book, Pipe Dream Blues: Racism and the War on Drugs, plus the global side of the US drug war, which is documented well in Alfred McCoy’s book, The Politics of Heroin: CiA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
- Police murder of civilians in the US – see the online source https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
- The long history of violence against nature and eco-systems in the US, the climate crisis and environmental racism.
- We also need to add all of the systemic violence perpetrated against people with disabilities, queer & the LGBTQ community, all BIPOC people, class violence against working class people, immigrants and religious people who are not Christians.
This is just a short list of the violence that has been part of the US since it was founded and is woven into every aspect of society. To the degree that we have any civil liberties, civil rights or human rights, has been because regular, everyday people organized, fought, resisted and often died to win any sense of justice. The US political system never gave us anything, it was never a gift. So for President Biden to say there is no place for violence in America is to deny the very history of this country, especially the history of systems of political and economic power & oppression.
Palestine Solidarity Information, Analysis, Local Actions and Events for the week of July 14th
It has been 9 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. We will also provide information on local events and actions that people can get involved in. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
‘Horrific Massacre’: Israel Bombs Gaza School Used as Refugee Camp, Killing Dozens
Despite Gaza War Crimes Accusations, Biden Sends Israel More 500-Pound Bombs
Israeli Newspaper Confirms IDF Employed ‘Hannibal Directive’ on October 7
Israeli Campaign against Gaza may have Killed 186,000 or More — 8% of Population: The Lancet
THE COMPANIES MAKING IT EASY TO BUY IN A WEST BANK SETTLEMENT
Gaza facing “most dangerous days” of the genocide
Their Goal Is Total Ethnic Cleansing: Mustafa Barghouti on Israel’s Expulsion Order for Gaza City
Analysis & History
We Must Understand Israel as a Settler-Colonial State
Israeli Historian: This Is Exactly What Genocide Looks Like
Local Events and Actions
Sign this Action Alert demanding that the City of Grand Rapids Divest from companies profiting from the Israeli Occupation, Israeli Apartheid and the Israeli genocide.
Power to Palestine: Weekly Rally in Grand Rapids
Wednesday, July 17, 12pm – 1pm, Monument Park
Graphic used in this post is from https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/citi-banking-on-genocide/
There is a tremendous amount of social media chatter about Project 2025, a project that was hatched by the longtime conservative groups know as the Heritage Foundation.
Most of the social media posts about Project 2025 uses the all too often fear tactic, painting a picture that democracy will end. Granted, a great deal of what Project 2025 is advocating would be horrible, but we need to look at Project 2025 through a historical lens.
The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973, with a large injection of funding coming from beer magnate Joseph Coors. Coors and other Capitalists who embraced far right thinking were getting better organized in the 1970s, which included the Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel. (See Russ Bellant’s book, The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism.)
In 1980, when Ronald Reagan was seeking to defeat sitting President Jimmy Carter, the Heritage Foundation had crafted a similar platform for Reagan, known as the Mandate for Leadership. The 1980 version of the Mandate for Leadership was 1,100 pages long and “was described by United Press International back then as “a blueprint for grabbing the government by its frayed New Deal lapels and shaking out 48 years of liberal policy.”
The Reagan Administration not only pushed national politics to the right, it forced the Democrats to do the same. Under the leadership of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the Democrats also began to abandon traditional New Deal policies and embrace Reagan era policies, such as the Clinton Administration adopting the end of welfare known as The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Around the same time, The Clinton Administration adopted the Crime Bill, which was crafted by then Senator Joe Biden, known as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, along with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which ended Federal Communications Commissions regulations and resulted in media consolidation so complete that only six corporations control most of what we watch and hear. The point being that all politics shifted to the right with the Reagan Administration and that brings us to the present with what is referred to as Project 2025. These policies that were adopted under Clinton were part of the Reagan era Mandate for Change policies that the Heritage Foundation wanted to see implemented.
The Trump Administration utilized the Mandate for Leadership platform crafted by the Heritage Foundation during his Administration, which is what Project 2025 is also known as. Therefore, it is important that we understand that Project 2025 is the natural outcome of a policy platform that has shifted to the right for the past 40 plus years, just as all electoral politics has shifted to the right. As Black Agenda Report editor Margaret Kimberley has said, “Project 2025 is just the latest in a series of conservative think pieces which outlines how republicans should wield presidential power. The outrage surrounding it ignores democrats’ collusion with republican policies when they are in office and is a cynical effort to scare especially Black voters into continuing support for the Biden/Harris ticket.”
The DeVos connection to the Heritage Foundation and the Project 2025 Advisory Board
Another major omission in the fear-driven cries for people to look at Project 2025 is the lack of any conversation about the long standing relationship between the DeVos family and the Heritage Foundation. One would think that this would draw the ire of liberals and Democrats, but I have yet to see any discussion about the relationships between the Heritage Foundation and the most powerful family in West Michigan, the DeVos family.
The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation were major contributors to the Heritage Foundation for decades, providing millions to the far right think tank. When Rich DeVos died in 2018, the Heritage Foundation wrote a tribute to the the far right/Christian Right billionaire.
However, Rich DeVos was not the only contributor to the Heritage Foundation, since many of his sons would also provide money and ideological support for the think tank. In 2002, Dick DeVos gave a speech to the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. In that speech DeVos lays out a strategy for attacking and undermining public education. Here is a video of that speech:
Ten years later Dick DeVos was being interviewed by the Heritage Foundation after Michigan became a Right to Work state, where the Mackinac Center for Public Policy led the charge, with substantial funding from the DeVos family. Here is that interview:
Then there is the issue of the more than 100 Advisory Board organizations listed as supporting Project 2025, which you can find here. What is instructive about this list are the dozens of groups that the DeVos family has had a direct connection to, whether it has been funding, sitting on their board of directors, policy work or collaborating with them. Here are just a few examples of the direct connection of the DeVos family to the organizations that endorse Project 2025
Alliance Defending Freedom – Funding, policy work and collaboration
American Center for Law and Justice – Funding
American Family Association – Policy Work
American Legislative Exchange Council – Policy Work and collaboration
Center for Immigration Studies – Policy Work
Claremont Institute – Funding
Coalition for a Prosperous America – Policy Work
Eagle Forum – Policy Work and collaboration
Family Policy Alliance – Policy Work
Family Research Council – Funding, Policy Work and Board of Directors
The Heartland Institute – Funding and Policy Work
Hillsdale College – Policy Work and collaboration
Independent Women’s Forum – Policy Work and collaboration
Dr. James Dobson Family Institute – Policy Work and collaboration
Mackinac Center for Public Policy – Board of Directors, Funding, Policy Work and collaboration
Texas Public Policy Foundation – Policy Work
Turning Point USA – Policy Work and collaboration
Young Americans Foundation – Funding, Policy Work and collaboration
In this moment in history it is vitally important that we take a long view of the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. The proliferation of memes and other sound bite reactions to Project 2025 does do anything other than to promote fear-based reactions. If we are to defeat such policy platforms, then we need to develop movements and structures that promote collective liberation and the dismantling of systems of power and oppression. Simply voting Blue won’t do that, since all electoral politics has shifted to the right.
Yesterday, MLive posted a story about the four candidates running for a seat in the 1st Ward, a seat that will be vacated by John O’Conner at the end of 2024.
The article provides some introductory information about each of the four candidates, with links to their campaign websites. However, the bulk of the article includes candidate responses to 4 questions that were compiled by the League of Women Voters. The four questions are:
- What in your experience makes you the most qualified candidate for this position?
- What are your goals should you be elected and how will you work to accomplish them with currently limited resources?
- What are the most important challenges facing our community, and how do you propose to address them?
- What will you do to support a vibrant economy in our community?
In many ways, these question are the typical types of questions that are asked by groups like the League of Women Voters, often vague or so broad that it doesn’t often address the most pressing issues that communities are dealing with. I will respond to each question and discuss some of the responses, along with what was not said and why all of these candidates are promoting variations of business as usual.
Question #1 – Asking people why they are the most qualified was already answer to some degree when MLive provided a summary of each candidate’s resume. None of their answers are compelling, in that they all say things like “listening to the community,” being a long-time or life-long resident of the 1st Ward and being “a voice for the people.” These are all vaguely meaningless, since none of them have every been elected previously.
Question #2 – Again, the answers are broad, without any real qualifiers, except for a few examples. People can say they want safe neighborhoods and more housing, but no one is really offering any new ideas or ideas that are outside of the mainstream. For instance, when it comes to housing the candidates say they want more affordable housing, but only within the current housing market framework. No one was talking about ending massive subsidies to developers or the so-called transformational project and use those millions for affordable housing. In addition, none of the candidates talked about the need for rent control of a renters bill of rights to deal with the outrages cost of rent in this city. Dean Pacific said he wants more cops for the GRPD, but the MLive article fails to inform readers and potential voters that Pacific had already received $12,500 from the Grand Rapids Police Officer’s Association PAC in April.
Question #3 – Responses to this question varied, but they all still stuck to acceptable responses that don’t really challenge or change how to address major issues in Grand Rapids, like housing, economic disparities and policing issues. One candidate said more community policing, which is just code for more of the same and doesn’t address the root causes of issues, like more resources going to the community. Again, the responses to housing are the standard market-based solutions, such as “additional housing units at all price points.” This is a false solution that not only avoids talking about the massive wealth gap in this city, plus there is no acknowledgement of social housing, which is one of the many demands coming from the statewide coalition known as The Rent is Too Damn High.
Question #4 – Here the responses are frustratingly framed within the Capitalist system, such as the city needs more entrepreneurs, find money for start up businesses, or expand neighborhood business districts. Again, this is business as usual thinking that will not address the massive wealth gap that exists in Grand Rapids. Not one candidate talked about paying people a living wage, which would be like $35 as hour. The National Low Income Housing Coalition says that Grand Rapidians need to make $25.50 an hour in order to afford the average rent costs in this city. All the candidate talks about job creation, but never mention wages or the increased cost of living. Lastly, no candidate addresses the so called Public/Private partnerships in this city which really means the private sector gets richer, but uses public money for their pet projects.
After reading the responses from candidates I was not only frustrated but disappointed that none of them engaged in radical imagination, nor did they center the thousands of families who are struggling to just survive, especially in a city that elevates business people and rarely acknowledges the working class people who do all the work. I still believe in the social movement phrase that came out of the Global South that another world is possible, but it won’t happen through electoral politics, especially with candidates that don’t have the courage to challenge systems of power and oppression.
Understanding the GR Power Structure – Part III: Families and people who have tremendous influence in Grand Rapids
In Part I of this series I began an updated version of a Grand Rapids Power Analysis, which lays out the ground work for what the Grand Rapids Power Structure looks like and what it means for this community.
When I use the phrase, the Grand Rapids Power Structure and who has power, it is important to note that I mean power over. A local power analysis is designed to investigate who has power over – who oppresses, exploits and engages in policy that benefits them to the exclusion of everyone else – the majority of people living in Grand Rapids.
In Part II of this series on the Grand Rapids Power Structure, I looked at the DeVos family, which I argue is the most powerful family in this city, in terms of economics, politics, social and cultural dynamics.
In Part III of the series I want to look at some other families and individuals that also wield tremendous power in this city, economically, politically and socially.
As with my first series on the GR Power Structure, which was done in 2018, several people of influence have died. Besides Rich DeVos, Peter Secchia also died in recent years, so the families and people I include in the 2024 version of the Grand Rapids Power Structure will be somewhat different.
The families that have tremendous influence in Grand Rapids besides the DeVos family, would certainly be the Meijer and the Van Andel families. Hank, Doug and Mark Meijer are each worth $5.5 billion, which makes their collective worth $16.5 billion. Not far behind are Steven and David Van Andel, in terms of wealth and influence.
Other people who have significant influence in Grand Rapids, both in terms of their economic and political influence are Michael Jandernoa (42 North Partners) , John Kennedy (CEO of Autocam), Mike VanGessel (CEO of Rockford Construction), J.C. Huizenga (CEO of National Heritage Academies), Jeff Connolly (Blue Cross Blue Shield of MI), Doug Small (President & CEO of Experience Grand Rapids), Michael Verhulst (Verhulst Ventures and Pure Architects), Birgit Klohs (New Community Transformation Fund), Randy Thelen (President of The Right Place Inc.) and Rick Baker (CEO of Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce). This is not an exhaustive list, but as you will see in the graphic above these people are also tied into numerous institutions in Grand Rapids, providing them with tremendous access and influence.
Interlocking Systems of Power
Besides the wealth that many of the people I have named have, they also have significant influence because of position they hold with an organization or the businesses that they own or their role as a leader in those businesses.
In the graphic above, you can see some of these people and their involvement with organizations that also have tremendous influence in Grand Rapids, a topic I will explore in Part IV. These members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure are part of an interlocking system of power, with organizations that provide them with access and influence over the Grand Rapids economy, politics, plus social and cultural dynamics.
In addition to their involvement with these interlocking systems of power, most of the members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure also influence local and state politics with their deep pockets in the form of campaign contributions. Just from 2022, look at these previous GRIID posts and you can see which members of the local power structure were buying political influence.
Grand Rapids 2022 First Ward GR City Commission
Grand Rapids 2022 Third Ward GR City Commission
Grand Rapids 2022 Second Ward GR City Commission
Kent County 2022 Commission races
One last area of influence for some of the members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure has to do with the fact that they use their foundations to both influence outcomes and silence potential critics from the social services sector. Here are some of the foundations that members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure own and operate.
The David and Carol Van Andel Foundation
The Steve and Amy Van Andel Foundation
While these members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure don’t have the kind of influence that the DeVos family does, they still use their money and their positions to influence political, economic, social and cultural outcomes in Grand Rapids that not only helps them to maintain power, but to prevent organized movements from challenging their power. In Part IV, I will look at the organizations that the members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure have a role in, specifically the Board of Directors, with a focus on what these organizations do.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 