Everybody Knows with Dr. Bob and Dan-o
On May 1st, (May Day - International Workers' Day), we will be celebrating the collective strength of workers and voicing the call to "Rai$e ColumbU$" by respecting the dignity of workers here in the city.
For the past several years, a coalition of labor unions, community organizations, immigrant justice groups, students, and people of faith have come together to celebrate May Day. May Day, also known as "International Workers' Day"), Mayday is celebrated marking the victory of the 8 hour work day; a long struggle in the labor movement. Labor has since made great strides and continues to intersect the issues we all face as a community.
Join the event here and watch for more details: https://www.facebook.com/events/442420695912606/
STOP THE CARBON-NUKE BAILOUTS!!!
Mini Conference on the PUCO’s Upcoming Energy Decisions
Win a Carbon/Nuke Free Ohio
Move to Renewables and Efficiency
SUNDAY APRIL 12, 2015; 1pm to 5:45 pm
Columbus State Community College
Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation
339 Cleveland Avenue at the southwest corner of Grove Street Parking is in the lot by the building.
1:00 pm: Welcome by Emcees Harvey Wasserman, author/activist Bob Fitrakis, Prof. Political Science, Columbus State Community College
SPEAKERS
1:10 pm: Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Beyond Nuclear, Takoma Park, MD.
Davis-Besse nuclear reactor, a threat to Ohio and the Great Lakes.
1:50 pm: Carolyn Harding, Organizer, Radioactive Waste Alert & the Columbus Community Bill of Rights.
Challenging fracking in Columbus and Ohio – from injection wells to
2: 30 pm: Break
community rights.
2:45 pm: Ned Ford, Veteran Ohio energy activist and consultant.
EPA’s Clean Power Plan; Ohio’s Senate Bill 310; the big picture on Clean
The Ohio legislature knows that you're concerned about the algae blooms that threaten our state's drinking water sources, so they're rushing to pass legislation to address solutions. But until they recognize a major culprit to our water pollution — factory farms — and that drinking water all over the state is impacted, the Clean Dirty Lake Erie Bill will never achieve its supposed goals. Tell your state legislators that they must protect our drinking water by reining in factory farm pollution.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked you to take action on the Ohio Senate Bill that they're calling the "Clean Lake Erie Bill," meant to address the hazardous algae blooms that left half a million Toledoans without water last summer. The senate has since passed the bill without any significant improvements. Indeed, the bill got worse. And now the Ohio House has introduced their own legislation — but this bill is just as bad, so we're calling it the "Dirty Lake Erie Bill."
We're delighted that you have begun the long-awaited process of normalizing relations with Cuba, and we're anxious to see a US embassy open in Havana, but there is an action that you alone can take to further improve relations: take Cuba off the terrorist list!
Most people around the world would find it very strange that Cuba would be on a “terrorist list" with Sudan, Syria and Iran. Cuba is most known worldwide for exporting doctors, musicians, teachers, artists, and dancers–– not terrorists.
Cuban diplomats says they cannot conceive of re-establishing diplomatic relations with the United States while Cuba continues to be considered a sponsor of international terrorism. President Obama, your next executive action should include removing Cuba from the list!
Signed, Your Name Click here to sign the petition
When the news arrived from the White House yesterday that Barack Obama would veto the proposed Keystone pipeline bill, I thought back to a poll that the National Journal conducted of its “energy insiders” in the fall of 2011, just when then issue was heating up. Nearly 92% of those insiders thought Obama’s administration would approve the pipeline, and almost 71% said it would happen by the end of that year.
Keystone’s not dead yet -- feckless Democrats in the Congress could make some kind of deal, and the president could still yield down the road to the endlessly corrupt State Department bureaucracy that continues to push the pipeline -- but the President's veto threat shows what happens when people organize.
By pledging to veto the Keystone XL bill, President Obama took an important step towards backing up his climate talk yesterday, and we should applaud that. He showed the kind of courage that will be needed to stop this pipeline and begin to turn the tide against the fossil fuel industry.
Climate scientists warn that continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels will lead to catastrophic climate change. A report released in September by Food & Water Watch, The Urgent Case for a Ban on Fracking, shows how huge amounts of methane are released during the fracking process, which traps 87 times more heat pound for pound than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
Participants in Global Frackdown will organize events in their communities united around a common mission statement that calls for a ban on fracking and investment in renewable energy.
The mission statement reads:
Thousands of Ohioans will join the Peoples' Climate March in New York City on September 21. Ohio will send at least eight buses to Peoples' Climate March. The march demands global leadership for creating new energy policies, enforcing corporate investment in green industry, reducing corporate waste and fraud, and ending political intransigence and gridlock to advance Global Climate Justice.
On September 20, 2014, buses will leave Columbus, Cleveland, Athens, Toledo, and Yellow Springs, Ohio. Send-off events include:
1) Send-off Celebration
September 20, 2014, 8:00 a.m.
496 S. High Street (43215) in front of the First Watch Restaurant
A bus from Wichita, KS and Oklahoma will be passing through.
Speakers: Samantha Allen (Sierra Club), Harvey Wasserman (Greenpeace), and Paula Brooks (Franklin County Commissioner), and a Wichita, KS organizer/bus rider.
2) September 20, 2014, 10:00 p.m.*
4140 E. Broad Street (43213), in front of the CWA Local 4320
Two buses leaving from Columbus, Ohio and another from Yellow Springs will pass through.
Above all, the worldwide People’s Climate March on Sept. 21 must bury King C.O.N.G.: Coal, Oil, Nukes and Gas.
Which also means abolishing corporate personhood and saving the internet.
The fossil/nuclear corporations have been given human rights but no human responsibilities. They’re about to gut our most crucial means of communication.
They’re programmed to do just one thing: make money. If they can profit from killing us all, they will.
Ironically, we now have the technological power to get to Solartopia—a socially just, green-powered planet.
But our political, economic and industrial institutions answer to Big Money, not to us or the Earth.
The internet is the lifeblood of what’s left of global democracy.
It’s under attack as never before. We must act.
It’s time for the hactivists to mobilize.
When the British slaughtered eight Americans at Lexington and Concord, farmers grabbed their guns and picked off 250 Redcoats as they marched back to Boston.
With guerrilla tactics learned from the Indians, the farmers shot from behind rocks and trees and then flowed back into the woods to fight again further down the road.
They began a Revolution in both modern warfare and the demands of a people determined to be free.
Today the corporations are marching again---this time to choke off the last gasp of a free media.
The prime culprits are “internet providers” like Comcast, Time-Warner, PacBell, etc. They did not invent or develop the internet. That was done with public money and communal institutions.
They have simply, as always, used their ill-gotten billions to warp, buy and steal a public trust. Now they want it all. They need to be stopped.
President Obama has authorized surveillance drones over Syria, and is threatening to begin airstrikes in Syria, along with the ongoing strikes in Iraq. All without Congressional approval. The Syrian government has said that airstrikes in its airspace would constitute an act of aggression. Tell President Obama: Don’t bomb Syria or Iraq!
We’ve seen the pictures and read the news. ISIS is certainly frightening, and we’re deeply concerned about the people of Syria and Iraq. US military intervention in the region has historically been counterproductive. We've seen this from the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. What’s needed is a political and humanitarian solution to the crisis, not more violence.