President Bush just told reporters that he has no intention of setting any timetable for withdrawal. "Our troops will come home when Iraq is capable of defending herself," he said. Powerful pundits keep telling us that a swift pullout of U.S. troops would be irresponsible. And plenty of people have bought into that idea -- including quite a few progressives. Such acceptance is part of what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the madness of militarism."

Sometimes, an unspoken assumption among progressive activists is that the occupation of Iraq must be tolerated for tactical reasons -- while other issues, notably domestic ones, are more winnable on Capitol Hill. But this acceptance means going along with many of the devastating effects of a militarized society: from ravaged budgets for social programs to more authoritarian attitudes and violence in communities across the country.

"The bombs in Vietnam," King said in 1967, "explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America." He rejected the insistent claims that it would be more prudent to avoid clear opposition to

The bewitching hour of midnight is historically viewed as a time of bad luck, and that certainly proved true for David Kibble on June 19, 2004. Because of an unfortunate intersection of unrelated events just after midnight that evening, Kibble was shot and seriously wounded by a Columbus police officer and ended up in prison for a crime the physical evidence and witness statements suggest he didn’t commit.

Kibble’s bad luck went beyond getting shot when he was charged on June 24 with felonious assault of Officer Adam Hicks even though every statement taken by police until then indicated that Kibble was chased by one or two men into the alley in which Hicks him shot him at approximately 12:06 a.m. With gun drawn, Hicks was looking for an armed suspect in a car-jacking who reportedly was wearing a red shirt when Kibble, who also was wearing a red shirt, ran into the alley while pulling a knife out of his pocket in case he had to defend himself from the men chasing him, one of whom he believed had a gun. Doctors said later that two of the bullets went right through Hicks. A third lodged in his upper gastric area and was removed during surgery.

ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE
Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro

Ohio Attorney General James Petro has had a longstanding reputation as a political enforcer for the dirty practices of the Ohio Republican Party. Prior to becoming Attorney General, Petro served as the state’s auditor. In that position, Petro established his credentials as a politician willing to punish whistle-blowers while covering up organized crime and corruption. Petro is now attempting to sanction the election protection attorneys who uncovered the fraud and irregularities during the 2004 Ohio election. Petro’s using state funds and assistant attorney generals as enforcers. Some, like the late Franklin County Sheriff Earl Smith, allege that Petro has longstanding ties to organized crime and that the Attorney General’s office in Ohio has been corrupted for decades. Smith ought to know. He served on the Governor’s Organized Crime Commission under Rhodes.

Bill Barndt

 On Tuesday, February 15, Governor Taft signed the “Choose Life” license plate bill into law, ignoring the nearly 1,000 letters and phone calls from NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio activists urging him to veto the measure. When this law goes into effect in 90 days, the state of Ohio will begin raising money for fake clinics, commonly known as Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs). In 1993, Ohio Attorney General Lee Fisher found that five crisis pregnancy centers in the state “violate the law by advertising themselves as clinics when they are not medical facilities, provide no medical services and have no doctors on staff.” Many CPCs refuse to provide abortion referrals and discourage women from using birth control. Currently, there are more than 175 CPCs operating in Ohio.

What does this have to do with animal rights, you wonder? Ironically, while humans are promoting Right to Life license plates, trying to have more homo sapien babies born into this world, animal rights activists are promoting their own license plates in Ohio promoting prevention of too many cat and dog births.

On February 14, United States Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and 17 U.S. Representatives including Dennis Kucinich of Ohio joined U.S. Representative John Conyers in filing an amicus curiae brief opposing sanctions against the public interest attorneys. Cliff ARnebeck, Susan Truitt, Bob Fitrakis and Pete Peckarsky were primarily responsible for uncovering massive election irregularities in their challenge of the 2004 Ohio election. Ohio Attorney General James Petro asked the Ohio Supreme Court to sanction the election protection attorneys claiming the election challenge was “meritless” and “frivolous.” In Conyers memorandum to the court, he stated, “For over 200 years, one of the strengths of our democracy has been that citizens may question the results of an election. …under Ohio law, sanctions should be awarded against Ohio election contesters only in extreme circumstances, if ever, and are plainly inappropriate in this case.” Conyers asserts that contesters “protect the broader public interest.”