Editorial

The Ohio Student Association expresses its disgust and outrage at the heinous actions of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Sandusky and Salem, Ohio, this month. We as students, workers, activists, and Ohioans have made it our goal to fight against the racist system of mass incarceration in our communities. Therefore, we demand the defunding and abolition of ICE, which has become an unaccountable paramilitary force whose main goal seems to be executing violent attacks upon the most vulnerable members of our society. We demand the immediate release of the nearly 250 people arrested by ICE in raids at Corso’s and Fresh Mark, and the payment of restitution to those families for the trauma experienced.

Gay, lesbian, trans, queer people including drag queens shut down a major street downtown, disrupt traffic in the middle of the day on Friday, June 15 to protest Vice President Mike Pence – and what do the Columbus Police do? Let them.

Scores of protestors went inside the Renaissance Hotel during Pence’s speech, not to discuss tax policy, but to heckle him, not allowing him to speak for the first four minutes of his event. What do the Columbus Police do? Quietly escort them out one by one without arrests.

A handful of black, gay, lesbian, trans, queer people stand for a moment of silence for 40 seconds in the road at the end of last year’s Pride Parade, without disrupting the flow of the floats and marchers, to protest murders of trans people nationwide and police brutality against black people. What do the Columbus Police do? Viciously attack them with bikes, throw them on the ground, mace them, brutally arrest them, and charge them with multiple misdemeanors and one with a felony.

What’s the difference?

While crossing High Street at Graceland Boulevard in Clintonville the other day, I noticed a bumper sticker stuck to one of the light poles. It read “Fluoride: There is poison in the tap water” with a link to the ultra-conservative, white supremacist site InfoWars.

Though I know it’s nearly impossible to have political ubiquity in a neighborhood as large as Clintonville, one doesn’t expect to see InfoWars stickers peppering a neighborhood that probably went overwhelmingly to Hillary in the last presidential election. It’s much more common to see yard signs with slogans like “hate has no home here” and “no matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor” in six different languages. While the anti-fluoride sticker is among the more benign of InfoWars’ stances, it’s still jarring to see.

I thought about what a thing like that said about my neighborhood and how someone who’s perhaps not versed in media literacy might see it and decide to check out the website. And how the internet is full of rabbit holes for one to fall down.

A recent visit to Las Vegas demonstrated the wisdom and far-sightedness of the Nevada city's leaders compared to the "thinkers" of Columbus regarding NHL hockey and casinos.

Two decades ago, Columbus landed an NHL expansion team, the Blue Jackets. The team was housed downtown in Nationwide Arena.

It was Columbus' first "big four" major league sports franchise. Fans hoped the Jackets would be competitive from the start, make the playoffs and eventually win the Stanley Cup.

What ensued was an epic fail. The Jackets have made the playoffs only three times and have never gotten beyond the first round.

Industrialist John H. McConnell plunked down an $80 million franchise fee and the team began play in 2000. After he died, his son John P. McConnell took over. Nationwide Insurance now owns 30 percent of the club.

It is well-known that for professional teams in medium-sized metropolitan areas to compete for championships, the owners must be wealthy enough to subsidize the team to the tune of millions a year. This does not appear to be happening in Columbus.

The saying “ignorance is bliss” means that it is better to not know about a thing, situation or event. It means it's better for someone to not know what a person really thinks about you or your circumstances. Some people feel that it’s better to be unaware, and thus ignorant of unpleasant situations that cause them stress or would in some way hold them accountable for what they have now become aware of in their safe, blissful world. If we don’t know about a thing, we can’t help, support or change a thing. If we don’t know about it, we can’t care about it. 

Currently there is a “Me Too” campaign going on across the nation. It seems that now is the time for people, especially women, who have been sexually harassed to have their voices heard. If women have been raped in the past they are now speaking out about it in the present. Men are going to jail, they are being fired from their jobs, they are being made to step down from high political offices, a few women have also been accused of sexual harassment. Now is the time for people to speak out and demand justice for the sexual crimes committed against them. 

In building an organization for social change it is clear to everyone that the group should be nonprofit, but what does that really mean?  Talking to other people there seems to be an automatic assumption that nonprofit means the same as tax exempt.  Asking for advice from colleagues and lawyers, there is often a kneejerk presumption that if the organization is going to be nonprofit then by definition it should become a tax exempt under the rules of the Internal Revenue Service.

What is the real deal?  Is this an automatic and default option or is this something that an emerging group of leaders and organizers really needs to spend time thinking about when they begin building this new organization? 

Structure matters!  Every minute spent on the front end of these decisions may determine the long-term future of the organization, so the time to debate these questions and make the hard decisions is at the very beginning before it prejudices the ends.

Now that Donald Trump has punked out on peace in Korea, it’s time to give that Nobel Prize to the guy who really deserves it: Dennis Rodman.
 

Please sign the moveon.org petition urging the Nobel Committee to give him the award.  

https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/give-dennis-rodman-the?source=c.tw&r_by=1398470
 

Rodman, of course, is the flamboyant former pro basketball star who’s made repeated trips to North Korea to visit with that country’s enigmatic young dictator, Kim Jun Un.  
 

So, you have an idea for a way to make your neighborhood better, create social change, or join the resistance. You and others have hit the streets a couple of times, gone to public and community meetings, and want to reach out to others and take the next step to make things happen. A friend says his cousin is a lawyer who could give you advice. You have been online and learned a little something. It must be time to incorporate your idea so that you can build a “real” organization.

Whoa, Nelly, not so fast! Before your knee jerks and you incorporate, you have to figure out the “what” and “when” that would lead you down that path and answer the threshold question of “to incorporate or not to incorporate?”

Thanks to State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, the Columbus Dispatch stepped up its coverage of the ECOT scandal on April 24.

"Schiavoni wants criminal probe of ECOT attendance claims" the online headline screamed atop dispatch.com. It did not make the front page of the early print edition, but was relegated to the first page of the second section.

It turns out that a whistleblower contacted both the state auditor and the Ohio Department of

Education nearly a year ago with evidence that ECOT apparently was falsifying attendance figures in order to collect millions of dollars of state subsidies.

Schiavoni, the longest-running Democratic candidate for governor, is locked in a three-way race for the nomination with Richard Cordray and Dennis Kucinich. He is making the case the he is best qualified to clean up the Republican corruption being revealed on an almost daily basis.

By the way, the state auditor who was informed in May 2017 about the whistleblower's complaint is none other than Dave Yost, the erstwhile Republican candidate for attorney general and poster child for Dispatch favoritism. Keep reading.

Two years after a 14-year-old boy brought a gun and shot two of his classmates in their district, the Ohio Madison Local School District board has voted “unanimously” that their school employees are now able to “defend and protect students” with the use of a weapon. Any staff member who wants to carry a firearm to work can do so if they have a concealed carry permit, take active shooter training, get re-certified each year and get written permission from the school superintendent. Parents are divided regarding this decision. 

This is the same school district that punished students for participating in the nationwide school walkouts protesting gun violence in schools, including, punishing a student, Cooper Caffrey, who is a victim of a school shooting. The board hasn’t said when they will start training and arming their teachers, but, they do plan to carry out this mission of defending and protecting their students from gun violence. Apparently, they feel that arming their teachers to be ready to “shoot to kill” is more effective than having students peacefully protest gun violence in their schools.