Don’t buy into the GR Chamber of Commerce housing plan, come to the Tenant Assembly to build collective power instead
Recently, the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce hosted a forum to address the issue of the housing shortage.
It’s no surprise that the GR Chamber of commerce only invited developers, business leaders and local politicians to such an event, since their goal is to build more houses in order to attract more talent to the area.
According to the GR Chamber’s website, the purpose of the forum was as follows:
The event focused on challenges and solutions regarding construction costs, regulatory barriers, and zoning reforms for workforce housing. Speakers emphasized collaboration, financial support, and smart zoning changes. The audience was encouraged to engage with planning commissions, stay informed on policy changes, and streamline processes to address housing affordability.
Even more instructive was the solutions they were offering, which I would identify as false solutions or solutions that will primarily benefit developers and other entities that see housing through a profit-making lens. Where you see comments in italics, this is my response to their false solutions.
- Stabilization in Construction Costs: Despite initial pandemic-related increases, there’s now a stabilization and even softening in some areas, particularly in wood products. This stability boosts builder confidence. This only benefits the developers, not those who seek to purchase or rent housing.
- Collaboration for Budget-friendly Designs: Emphasizing collaboration between builders, designers, and buyers can help align designs with budget constraints, potentially lowering costs. Again, they only seek to reduce costs for themselves, but not for the public.
- Financial Support for Workforce Housing: Successful funding strategies involving local community foundations, government grants, and tax increment financing (TIF) were highlighted as crucial for workforce housing projects. A more effective strategy here would be to pay people a living wage. Not only would a living wage be sustainable, it doesn’t provide those with economic power to pat themselves on the back for their so-called philanthropic contributions.
- Regulatory Barriers Highlighted: Regulatory hurdles, including lengthy approval processes and infrastructure costs, were identified as significant barriers to affordable housing development. In other words make it easier for developers and investors to make money from housing.
- Zoning Reforms for Increased Housing: Efforts to overhaul zoning regulations were discussed as a means to facilitate more housing options and address community needs effectively. The zoning reforms that the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce are endorsing is primarily driven by the desire to make more profits. De-regulation is a standard tactic of the rich and powerful, plus it gives them more freedom to take advantage of people.
- Importance of Public Engagement: Encouragement for community members to engage with planning commissions and advocate for supportive policies to streamline the development process. Since the Planning Commission meets during the day, when most working class people are at work, it increases the chance that those in the professional class will show up and control the narrative during public comment.
- Need for Support for Emerging Developers: Recognition of the importance of supporting smaller developers to ensure a diverse range of housing options and address affordability issues. Anything to assist new developers, with no interest in supporting tenants.
- Emphasis on Supply and Demand Dynamics: Highlighting the importance of addressing housing supply shortages to alleviate pressure on housing costs across all income levels. Standard Capitalist mantra!
- Recognition of Inspection Process Challenges: Acknowledgment of challenges in the inspection process and the need to align housing needs with regulatory requirements effectively. More de-regulation rhetoric.
- Call for Consistency in Policies: Frustration expressed over inconsistencies in policies across different communities, emphasizing the need for standardized and supportive regulations. In other words, more standardized and supportive regulations that benefit developers and speeds up the process of profit making from housing.
There are alternatives to these false solutions. On Saturday, April 13th, from 10am to 3pm, the Grand Rapids Area Tenant Union will be hosting a Tenant Assembly at the Linc Up community space.
The Grand Rapids Area Tenant Union has made it clear in their event description, that landlords, property management companies and cops will not be allowed to participate. This will be a safe space for tenants to gather, to learn and to build collective power to fight landlords and property management companies who seek to exploit their tenants and who are motivated by profits.
The Grand Rapids Area Tenant Union promotes housing justice and is working with the statewide The Rent is Too Damn High Coalition, which has four main goals to promote housing justice – Rent Control, Social Housing, Housing First and a Renter’s Bill of Rights. You can find more details at this link.
The Tenant Assembly is free for participants, plus food and child care are included. There will also be Spanish translation for those that want it and there will be actionable steps for people to take before they leave on April 13.
Here is a link to the Facebook event for the Tenant Assembly, in both English and Spanish. https://www.facebook.com/events/408957648170468/?ref=newsfeed
Here is how you can register, in both English and Spanish. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQhYKlT72qcXc6K-QmwXFnnewb3gMW0i-1erBAT32mxu3gWQ/viewform
Once the DeVos family bought the Big Boy property downtown, we should have known then, where the soccer stadium would go
When the most powerful family in West Michigan wants something, they usually get it. On September 1st of 2022, MiBiz – now Crain’s Grand Rapids – first reported that Grand Action 2.0 began their push to get a soccer stadium in Grand Rapids.
In that same article, it was also mentioned that one of the DeVos family entities – DP Fox Ventures LLC – had acquired 407 Pearl St. NW, the site of the Big Boy restaurant on Pearl St. In addition, the article states that the acquisition of the Bog Boy property was on July 28th, a little more than a month before the Grand Action announcement.
The only Grand Action 2.0 person cited in the September 1 article was Kara Wood. Before joining Grand Action 2.0, Kara Wood worked for the City of Grand Rapids. I first found out that Kara Wood worked for the City of Grand Rapids, when she sent me a copy of a contractual agreement between the City and the DeVos-run entity known as Start Garden. Wood was named as the Executive Director of Grand Action 2.0 in May of 2022, just a few months before the DeVos acquisition of the Big Boy property, followed by the announcement of the proposed soccer stadium.
Interestingly enough, in the article from September of 2022, Wood stated, “Grand Action 2.0 has “multiple” sites under consideration for a soccer stadium. “We are in such early stages, it would be extremely premature to assume that would be the location at this point” for a soccer stadium, Wood said. Of course they intended to use the land connected to the Big Boy property acquisition, which is exactly why the DeVos family purchased that land. It is true that I despise everything about the DeVos family, but they are not stupid. Everything that the most powerful family in West Michigan does is strategic, it has a purpose, even if that purpose is to make massive profits at the public’s expense.
I say all of this as context for the most recent Grand Action 2.0 announcement, as reported in Crain’s Grand Rapids, with the headline, Developer files construction plans for Grand Rapids soccer stadium. The Crain’s article states, “Grand Action 2.0 has filed formal construction plans with the city of Grand Rapids for an 8,500-seat soccer stadium, marking at least a $108 million investment on the city’s west side.” Therefore, what I stated in an article GRIID posted on September 8, 2022, is now a fact regarding the location of the soccer stadium.
Other useful pieces from the most recent Crain’s Grand Rapids post about the soccer stadium:
- The Soccer Stadium project is also applying for grants from EGLE for utilities on site. EGLE is a state-run program, which means Grand Action 2.0 will be applying to use public funds for utilities for the soccer stadium.
- The Crain’s article talks about community engagement, which I addressed in a recent post, pointing out that those with all the power don’t really host community engagement sessions, they host meetings where they hold all the power and dictate the agenda.
- Ever since Grand Action 2.0 went public with this proposal, they have consistently stated that the soccer stadium would be 8,500 seats. In the new announcement, they are now saying that the design would allow them to “expand to a total of 11,000 seats in the future.”
- The soccer stadium would allow for a “Tier II professional team,” but fails to mention who would own it. Based on their track record of sports team ownership in Grand Rapids, it is likely that Dan DeVos would own it. Dan DeVos also happens to be the person who bought the Big Boy property, then donated it to the DDA.
- The article mentions that events like ArtPrize could be hosted at the soccer stadium. Anything to bring in tourists who will spend money at the DeVos hotels.
- Once the project is finalized, it would be owned by the Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority (CAA). The CAA Chairman, Richaed Winn, is the President of AHC Hospitality, which is the name of a hotel chain owned by the DeVos family.
- The Crain’s piece states, that the soccer stadium will employ 260 people. However, the number doesn’t say permanent jobs – between construction and staff to run the stadium – nor does it say these jobs will be full time or if they will pay a living wage or not.
- There is also part of the article that addresses how people will get to the stadium, but doesn’t address serious parking issues or the traffic congestion that the soccer stadium is likely to create.
What this issue essentially comes down to is people with economic and political power making decisions that the public has little to no say in. However, these same members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure will work the system to make sure that their pet projects receive as much public funding as possible, while they reap the largest in economic benefits. After all, how do you think rich people got rich – if they didn’t inherit their wealth, they exploited workers, manipulated the system in their favor, or they did both.
Rep. Hillary Scholten can’t claim to honor Dr. King’s legacy, while she supports policies that directly contradict that same legacy
On Saturday, the Grand Rapids Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity organized a silent march in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Grand Rapids, according to MLive.
The silent march was a rescheduled event from January, but organizers said that it was an opportunity to show unity. One of the speakers for the event was 3rd Congressional Representative Hillary Scholten. Scholten posted on her Facebook page the following comments:
As we honor Dr. King’s legacy, we reflect on how far we’ve come & how far we still need to go to create the society he dreamed of. It was an honor to participate in the MLK Silent March alongside so many powerful leaders & advocates.
Like virtually all politicians, Scholten uses words like legacy and Dr. King’s “dream.” These are warm and fuzzy words, but they are meaningless unless they are attached to actions and context, which Rep. Scholten fails to address. Rep Scholten mentions Dr. King’s legacy, but never names what honoring his legacy would look like.
This is a perfect example of what I mean by the bastardization of Dr. King’s message. Scholten makes it seem as if after everything the civil rights leader endured – the persecution, the beatings, the arrests, the constant death threats, government surveillance, jailing and his eventual assassination, that Dr. King was committed to some vague notion of what he dreamed about. Therefore, what I would like to do is a simple comparison to what Dr. King was all about in words and in actions, then compare that to what Rep. Scholten is all about in words and actions, by looking at major themes that both addressed.
Militarism
Dr. King was fundamentally opposed to militarism and violence. In his famous 1967 speech at Riverside Church, he came out against the US war in Vietnam, stating: “As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems… But they asked, and rightly so, ‘what about Vietnam?’ They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”
Rep. Scholten is deeply committed to militarism. Since she was elected to office in 2022, she has voted for Department of Defense Budget, with the last budget being the largest in US history at $886 Billion. Rep. Scholten has unconditionally supported the US sending billions to Ukraine since the Russia invasion, and has unconditionally supported the US role in perpetuating the Israeli occupation of Palestine, along with the current genocidal campaign against Gaza and the West Bank. On the issue of Rep. Scholten’s unconditional support for Israel, which GRIID has documented throughly with over a dozen article since last July, she has repeatedly noted that “as a Christian” she is obligated to support Israel, which mean supporting Israel diplomatically, with $3.8 Billion in US Military Aid annually and her support for the additional $14.1 Billion the Biden Administration wants to send now!
Capitalism
Dr. King’s view of Capitalism evolved during his lifetime, especially after he shifted his emphasis from the South to the North, moving to Chicago. While working on a housing campaign in Chicago, Dr. King stated:
“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.”
In addition, it is important to note that Dr. King always discussed economic priorities and structural poverty. In his Beyond Vietnam Speech, Dr. King stated the following two points:
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
“On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
Rep. Hillary Scholten is fundamentally committed to defending the system of Capitalism, by supporting the massive tax breaks for the billionaire class, by supporting corporate welfare/subsidies, and by not fighting to pass a livable wage law in the US. Sure, Rep. Scholten has provided moderate support to some of the more mainstream unions, but that support has been primarily rhetorical and she has no problem accepting campaign contributions from rich people and private corporations that exploit the working class.
Policing in the US
Dr. King was often the subject of arrests, based on the number of marches, sit-ins and other protests he engaged in over the years, from the Montgomery Bus boycotts of the late the 1950s through his support of the Memphis Sanitation workers strike. Dr. King was arrested dozens of time for deliberately violating laws that protected and propped up systems of oppression. During his 1963 March on Washington Speech, King said, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” While sitting in a jail in Alabama, Dr. King also made an astute observation about the function of policing, stating, “ It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather “nonviolently” in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation.”
Rep. Scholten, while only being in Congress for a little more than a year, has been a defender of policing in the US, even after the massive national uprising against policing in the summer of 2020. Rep. Scholten, as a candidate and as a member of Congress has not supported any defunding of policing in the US and has consistently supported the need for policing.
According to the site Mapping Police Violence, in 2023, the police in the US killed 1,352 people, with a disproportionately high number of African Americans. Rep. Scholten has been silent on the matter of cops killing US civilians, with a disproportionately high number of African Americans who have been killed by police.
How to work for change?
From the Montgomery bus boycotts right up to his assassination, Dr. King put most of his emphasis on how to make change by active participation in social movements. Dr. King historically centered his work within what is often called the Civil Rights Movement or the Black Freedom Struggle, but he also was part of the economic justice and the anti-war movements as well. Dr. King engaged in marches, sit-ins, boycotts, worker strikes, civil disobedience and numerous ways of disrupting business as usual, even shutting down highways.
For Rep. Scholten, as a politician, she has primarily focused on encouraging people to vote and to make campaign contributions. (See data from Rep. Scholten’s 2022 campaign contributions.)
As you can see, just from the examples I have provided here, there are virtually no similarities between Rep. Hillary Scholten and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We should put all politicians to the test and make comparisons to what they say and do, with what Dr. King did and said, especially since politicians like Rep. Scholten like to talk about honoring the legacy of Dr. King, but their actions are actually an insult to that legacy.
Palestine Solidarity Information, Analysis, Local Actions and Events for the week of February 25
It has become clear that the Israeli government will continue their assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated, 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
US blocks Gaza ceasefire demand at Security Council for third time
Israel Is Assaulting Hospitals in Gaza With Full U.S. Support
After Gaza Cease-Fire Veto, Biden to Attend Fundraiser at Home of Pro-Israel Billionaire
‘Horrific’: Israeli Escalation Would Kill Another 85,000 Gazans in 6 Months, Study Shows
‘Two-State Solution’ as a Distraction – The Problem is Zionism
AIPAC ALLY SLAMS “UNCOMMITTED” VOTERS WARNING BIDEN TO CHANGE COURSE ON GAZA
Analysis & History
The Crimes Driven By The Ideology of Jewish Supremacy
Local Events and Actions
Webinar with Elias Chacour – Saturday, March 2nd at 12 noon. Register here.
For upcoming events/action also check the FB page for Palestine Solidarity Grand Rapids https://www.facebook.com/PalestineSolidarityGR
Protesters wanted to confront Vice President over her complicity in genocide, but were prevented from getting anywhere near Kamala Harris
Roughly 25 people were able to show up at the last minute to confront Kamala Harris over the Biden Administration’s complicity in genocide, along with enabling Israeli war crimes through US military aid and weapons.
I say last minute, because despite the fact that it was a week ago that the Vice President’s visit was announced, some details of the visit were only revealed on Thursday morning. WZZM 13 ran a short story, stating that Harris would be at Fountain St. Church and speaking at 12:30pm.
The Democratic Party continues to limit the amount of people who have access to these kinds of events, and Thursday’s event was no different. The event at Fountain St. Church was by invitation only, which meant it was only available for members of the Democratic Party establishment, which is often Democratic Party politicians and members with money.
You can see from the photo here below, where the GRPD SWAT vehicle was used as a barricade, along with metal barricades and a tent that was set up to provide event more cover for those invited and those doing so-called security.
Those who were invited had to enter at the corner of Fountain Street and Ransom Avenue NE. There were several GRPD cops and cruisers, along with barricades and police tape at the intersection, with someone involved with the event who had list of names of people who could enter.
Some of those who were invited that I saw go in were Grand Rapids City Commissioner Ysasi, State Representatives Rachel Hood and Phil Skaggs.
If you have any doubts about what the real function of policing is in the US, you just had to show up today to the protest in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
In addition to the intersections that were barricaded off from the public, their were GRPD cruisers parked all around the perimeter of Fountain St. Church, cops with police dogs walking around and a group of cops on bicycles, which you can see here in the photo below.
The bike cops rode into one of the GRCC parking garages, only to re-appear about 30 minutes later, when they forced those protesting in solidarity with the Palestinians further south on Ransom. No doubt the Secret Service or Democratic Party invitees who didn’t appreciate being confronted, prompted the GRPD bike cops to aggressively move people away from the area where invitees were entering. One witness said the GRPD and the Secret Service did physically abuse some of the protesters, and put another protester up against a tree before telling them to move. Ten minutes after protesters were moved by bike cops, the VP’s Black SUV came through the Fountain St/Ransom Ave intersection, with dozens of Michigan State Police cruisers following the Vice President’s car.
Interestingly enough, there were anti-abortion protesters on the east side of the Fountain St/Ransom Ave intersection, but they were not push further down the road, nor did the GRPD question their use of a sound amplification device, which has often led to arrests of left dissidents.
In the end, the Democratic Party made sure to insulate VP Harris from any dissenters who would challenge the administration’s unconditional support for Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. The administration’s unconditional support for Israel’s war crimes could result in Biden losing the November election. And while Democratic Party loyalists will blame people for not voting for the Biden/Harris ticket, the Dems only have themselves to blame because they have endorsed genocide.
Editor’s note: Jack Prince provided information for this article.
Is Kent County going to have its own Ottawa Impact moment? Part II
On Tuesday, GRIID posted Part I on the Kent Contract Coalition. I pointed out the basics of this contract, along with which GOP candidates and incumbents had signed on to the document that is following the model adopted by the GOP in Ottawa County in 2022.
At the end of that post, I mentioned that for Part II, I wanted to present some ideas on how to combat the ideology and the electoral strategy of the Kent Contract Coalition.
Combating the Kent Contract Coalition
Now, the obvious and simplest answer is for people to not vote for the 19 GOP candidates and incumbents that have signed on to the Kent Contract. However, if you look at the 19 GOP candidates and incumbents that have signed the Kent Contract, you can see that the bulk of them are running for Kent County Commission Districts that are primarily rural, as you can see in the map here.
The rural and less populated districts in Kent County have been won by GOP candidates for a long time. On top of that, the Kent County Democratic Party often runs candidates for those rural districts to merely have someone on the ballot, but don’t run serious campaigns with strong platforms. Therefore, it seems that the Kent Dems often concede these districts as not winnable.
Of course part of the problem of finding good candidates is finding someone who can connect with people, who are dynamic and who don’t just follow the partyline. People need to understand the concerns of those who live in rural parts of Kent County, they need to develop a robust vision that could counter the ideological stance of those in the Kent Contract Coalition, and they need to run on issues that directly impact individuals and families.
Now, countering the Kent Contract Coalition should not just involve reaching those in rural areas, but appealing to all residents in Kent County. This is more difficult, since if you include the urban districts you are now involving a more racially diverse population, a population that is more supportive of the LGBTQ community and other critical issues like housing, immigration and climate justice. This is often where the Democratic Party in Kent County fails, since they rarely take a strong stance on critical issues, partly because they too often run on a campaign slogan that say, “Vote for me, since the other candidate/political party is so far to the right.”
You can’t run an effective political campaign and just say, “I’m not as bad as my opponent”, nor can you run an effective campaign by making vague promises that include words like freedom, pro-family or “I’ll put more money in your pocket.” What would get people excited would be running on a platform that would do some of the following:
- Make $25 an hour the minimum wage.
- Adopt the Rent is Too Damn High Coalition demands.
- Immigration Justice policies – support the Drive Safe legislation, oppose ICE raids on undocumented immigrants or make Kent County a sanctuary county.
- Reduce the Sheriff Department’s budget, which would include a reduction in funding for the Kent County Jail and divert that money towards alternative safety programs or funding towards housing of food justice projects.
- Promote community garden projects, tree planting, and other sustainable projects that would promote more food justice and ecological sustainability.
- Begin a County Budget process that would be participatory, not then kind the City of Grand Rapids does, where they give out a very small percentage of the budget, but a participatory budget process where people would have input on the entire budget.
Of course, it is rare to find individuals who would run for County Commission on such a platform. However, you could do what I suggested in a recent post about Social Movements and Elections, where community-based groups would have a collective vision, with a list of demands that candidates would have to adopt if they want those involved in social movements to vote for them.
Lastly, we could just by pass the electoral process and build strong social justice movements that would have the power to force policymakers to adopt such platforms. Or better yet, we could create a new system of governance that would not be based on representative democracy, but more locally based municipal politics, which would involve a whole lot more people, be participatory and follow an assembly model for decision making on a regular basis, as opposed to showing up to vote for the lesser of evils every two years.
On Monday, for President’s Day, WXMI 17 ran a story with the headline, “Gerald Ford is the only president from Michigan. Here’s why he has a unique place in US history.”
The channel 17 story ran a disclaimer early on in the story saying that the all of the information cited in their story was from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. Therefore, it is no surprise that the content that WXMI 17 used in their story was 100% positive about the Gerald R. Ford.
In addition, Rep. Hillary Scholten posted on her Facebook page for February 19, “Today has extra special meaning here in West Michigan as we get ready to celebrate the 50th anniversary of President Ford. Looking forward to celebrating together this summer!”
The “celebration” that Rep. Scholten is referring to will be on August 8, 2024, which will be the 50th anniversary of when Ford was sworn in as President of the United States. I think it is reasonable to ask, what exactly are we celebrating? Is it a celebration just because Ford became President 50 years ago, only as a result of the Watergate scandal that forced Nixon to resign? Is it because one month after Ford became President that he pardoned Nixon for the crimes he committed? Maybe we should ask the people of Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, Cuba, Argentina or East Timor whether or not they will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Ford becoming President.
What follows is what I wrote about Gerald R. Ford in my book, A People’s History of Grand Rapids. You could also watch a shortened version of this history in the following video we produced about Gerald R. Ford’s legacy in 2011.
When Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 9, 1974 due to his involvement in the Watergate break-in and the ensuing impeachment hearings, Grand Rapids’ very own Vice President Gerald R. Ford moved into the White House as President of the United States. Ford died in 2006 and the Grand Rapids Based media reported on his passing with nothing but platitudes about Ford.
Probably the biggest reference being made about Ford at his death and ever since he occupied the oval office was that he “healed the nation.” Not surprisingly, this is the title of Ford’s memoirs. But what exactly does that mean when pundits and politicians say he healed the nation? It means that Ford pardoned Nixon, which is to say that he did not seek an indictment of Nixon for illegal activities during what is now known as the Watergate scandal. The Ford Museum literature says that by pardoning Nixon, Ford helped restore confidence in the office of the presidency. Is this the reality or was it a way to sidestep any serious investigation of the illegal practices of the Nixon administration, which ultimately would lead people to see the very nature of the US Imperial Project?
When Nixon’s crimes are mentioned, what most people think of was the wiretapping of the Democrats before the election. What is usually omitted from the official record are Nixon’s war crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. This is what “official historians” mean when they say Ford healed the nation, that the American public was protected from the ugly realities of US foreign policy. Well, what are we being protected from? Looking at the brief history of the Ford administration might help us to answer that question.
Ford became Nixon’s Vice President in October of 1973 and was sworn in as President in August of 1974. He served as President until Carter took the oval office in January of 1977. Ford supported the repressive government in the Philippines in its counterinsurgency war against rebels. During the coup in Argentina in 1976, Ford supported the generals who took power and slaughtered thousands of dissidents. Under Ford the US provided millions of dollars in military aid to the right-wing movement in Angola known as UNITA. He negotiated military bases in Spain with the fascist dictator Franco. Ford maintained the illegal terror war and embargo against Cuba and was President during the final days of the US occupation of South Vietnam. But probably the foreign policy that best defines Ford was his support of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.
Much has been written about what took place in the meeting between Ford, Henry Kissinger, and Indonesian President Suharto on December 5th and 6th in 1975, but it wasn’t until December of 2001 when the National Security Archives finally obtained declassified documentation of what took place. What we now know is that Ford and Kissinger not only knew of the Indonesian plans to invade East Timor, but that they offered diplomatic and military support for the invasion, which became a multi-year and bloody genocidal campaign.
This is the history that is omitted from much of the media and the academic elite in this country. Ford himself did much to limit government transparency during his presidency. With revelations of US abuses abroad through the CIA, Ford attempted to pre-empt any serious investigation by creating his own committee headed up by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. This did not set well with some members of Congress and an official investigation was headed up by Senator Frank Church. The Church Committee, as it became known, discovered that the US had been engaged in illegal activities such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign heads of state. In his book Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, National Security Archives staffer John Prados reveals that Ford tried to block the Church Committee hearings and then attempted to get members of Congress to not support the findings. 7 In 1974, Congress amended the Freedom of Information Act over Ford’s veto. “The new provisions took effect February 19, 1975 and obliged the Executive branch to disclose information of importance to public debate on national security issues,” according to Graeme Mount, author of the book 895 Days That Changed the World: The Presidency of Gerald Ford.
So, it seems that despite the efforts of some to investigate and challenge US foreign policy practices before and during Ford’s administration, Grand Rapids’ “First Son” tried to prevent the public from knowing what the US government was doing in its name. Not only is this important information on the role that Ford played as President, it continues to be crucial since most US Presidents since, have engaged in illegal wars abroad.
Is Kent County going to have its own Ottawa Impact moment – Part I
In January of 2023, people first became aware of the group known as Ottawa Impact. Ottawa Impact, was formed in early 2022, by Republicans in Ottawa County to shift the politics in that county further to the right.
GRIID ran two articles in one week – January 4 and January 11 – which not only pointed out how the commercial news media had completed failed to report on the group Ottawa Impact, but we also provided some analysis of the contract that all political candidates signed with Ottawa Impact.
In 2024, there is a possibility that what happened in Ottawa County might be repeated here in Kent County. There is a group of Republicans in Kent County known as the Kent Contract Coalition. Their website is pretty clear cut, although lacking in content. Like the group Ottawa Impact, the Kent Contract Coalition has a list of candidates that have signed the contract agreement, which you can find here.
The contract consists of the some of the following policy commitments:
- Defending the 2nd Amendment and adopting a Constitutional Carry resolution.
- Anti-Public Education, Anti-Trans and Anti-CRT.
- Removing Kent County from the Government Alliance on Race and Equity, the Michigan Public Health Institute membership, and end the promotion of Planned Parenthood.
There are a few other contract talking points, but they are vague or promote notions of government transparency and accountability. This seems rather odd, since the Ottawa Impact made the same commitment, but have not really practiced accountability and transparency.
The Kent Contract has been signed by 14 GOP candidates for Kent County Commission seats, some are incumbents and some are hoping to become elected. The page has hyperlinks to their websites and/or FB pages, which I provide below. However, many of the pages didn’t work, had already been gobbled up by another entity or were questionable to open – at least that is what by MacBook told me.
Mark Jordan District #1
- votemarkjordan.com
- Site doesn’t work
Tom Antor District #2
- CommissionerAntor
- Content not available
Mark Laws District #3
- https://www.votemarklaws.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083727080640
- Both links work
Katie DeBoer District #4
- https://katie4kent.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/katie4kent
- Both links work
Stefanie Boone District #5
- booneforkent5.com
- https://www.facebook.com/xeus.boone
- Campaign page warns that connection isn’t secure
Stan Ponstein District 7
- https://www.stanponstein.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063712706170
- Both links work
Matt Kallman District #9
- http://www.mattkallman.com/
- Link works, but has very little content – also not secure
Bill Hirsch District #10
- electbillhirsch.com
- Expired site
AJ Hoff District #11
- ajhoff4kent.com
- Expired link
Nick Prill District #13
- nick4kent.com
- https://www.facebook.com/nick.prill
- Failed to open
Jerri Schmidt District #14
- jerrischmidtforkentcounty.com
- Site Not Found
Josie Kornev District #18
- josieforkent.com
- https://www.facebook.com/josie.kornev
- Website can’t be reached
Jeremiah Bannister District #19
- https://www.facebook.com/jeremiah.bannister
- Doesn’t have a campaign site
Wally Bujak District #21
- votewalterbujak.com
- Campaign page doesn’t work
So, you can see that this group doesn’t appear to be terribly organized, since many of their campaign sites don’t exist or are not secure. However, this shouldn’t be the only criteria we use to assess what this group is and what they are up to.
In Part II, I want to present some ideas on how to combat the ideology and the electoral strategy of the Kent Contract Coalition.
President’s Day should be renamed War Criminal’s Day
President’s Day is one of the officially recognized holidays in the US. Most local, state and the federal government have the day off, as do mail carriers. I’m glad that mail carries get another paid day off.
Companies love President’s Day, since they get to run sales and demonstrate how patriotic they are, even if they do sell sweatshop clothing made in Vietnam. However, the larger problem with President’s Day is that it prevents us from having any serious examination of those who have sat in the White House, especially the policies they enacted.
Some people might think that the titled of this post is a bit over the top. I get it, we were all subjected to the US education system, where critical thinking, even at the university level is not really a priority. However, I believe there is plenty of evidence to show that every US President has committed War Crimes, in some for or another.
First, look at the history of Indigenous Nations in the US, where the US stole their land, murdered many of their people, forcibly relocated Native communities, violated virtually every treaty they signed and forcibly removed thousands of Indigenous children and put them in what are euphemistically called Boarding Schools.
Second, think of all the US Presidents that been complicit in chattel slavery, Jim Crow policies, the so-called Drug War and Mass Incarceration. See Margaret Kimberly’s book, Prejudential: Black Americans and the Presidents.
Third, look at how many times the US military, the CIA and other US agencies have directly intervened in countries abroad – always in the name of democracy – but ended up occupying those countries, building US Military bases, providing military weaponry, military training or propped up dictatorships. See Zoltan Grossman’s excellent chronological history of US Interventions from 1890 to the present. https://sites.evergreen.edu/zoltan/interventions/
Just investigating each of these points should make any reasonable person question the very idea of celebrating President’s Day.
Lastly, it is important that we do our own investigations of this history. I think reading Howard Zinn’s book, A Preople’s History of the United States, is important, along with books by James Loewen such as:
Lies My Teacher Told Me
Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong
MLive article doesn’t challenge the unelected, anti-democratic DDA Board, who also makes decisions on how millions in tax dollars are spent
Last week Wednesday, MLive posted an article with the following headline, Riverfront amphitheater gets $20.5M commitment from Grand Rapids board.
The Grand Rapids board the headline was referring to is the Downtown Development Authority, the DDA. The MLive article states:
On Wednesday, the DDA approved a resolution to cover annual debt payments over a 20-year period on $20.5 million the city of Grand Rapids wants to borrow to help finance the venue at 201 Market Ave. SW.
The majority of the MLive story follows the usual pro-development line of thinking, with no critical assessment of what all of this means. The article does acknowledge that at least $45 million in public funding has been made available for the amphitheater project, but fails to mention that the public had no say in such matters.
If you look at the DDA agenda for the February 14th meeting (which you can find here), you can read for yourself what was included in the agenda packet for that meeting.
Before discussing more of the details from the February 14th meeting, it is worth noting that the DDA Board is made up of mostly corporate representatives, 2 government representatives and a representative from the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, although that person operates within the framework of the Grand Rapids Power Structure. Two of the corporate DDA Board members are DeVos family operatives – Richard Winn and Greg McNeilly.
In addition, the DDA Board is by appointment so they are not an elected body, thus they are only answerable to Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. and Grand Rapids City officials.
In looking at the DDA Agenda for February 14th, one can see on page 7, that their current assets are roughly $32.5 million, money that is mostly generated from taxing entities within the official DDA boundaries. And speaking of the DDA boundary, there was a very useful map in the agenda packet (page 43), which shows the ever expanding boundaries of the DDA, which began in 1980 in the area shown on the map as area A, to 2024, with 18 areas, from A through R. It’s too bad that the MLive article didn’t include this map, as it is extremely useful for the public, since it provides a good visual of how much land/property the DDA controls. Again, it cannot be said too often, that the taxes generated from the DDA-controlled area are spent by an unelected body that primarily represents the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
Also included in the DDA agenda packet for February 14th (from pages 86 – 95) is a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the DDA’s plan to pay off the bond that the City of Grand Rapids will incur for the Amphitheater.
It’s too bad that MLive does not provide more details on these so-called private/public partnership projects. Not only do they not provide more details, they don’t even provide the necessary hyperlinks to make it easy for people to do their own investigations. More importantly, as part of the local commercially controlled media landscape, MLive fails the public by not questioning or challenging the undemocratic nature of the DDA and how this unelected body gets to decide how public tax dollars are spent.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 