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From Amnesty International, USA
The military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay is a glaring, longstanding stain on the human rights record of the United States. Today, it continues to hold 35 Muslim men, most without facing charges or a trial. Many, like Toffiq al-Bihani, were tortured by the U.S. government. And Toffiq, along with 19 other detainees, has been cleared for transfer to other countries, yet he remains behind bars without charge or trial.
President Biden has a critical window of opportunity to end these ongoing abuses by closing the detention center before the end of his term.
Help us close Guantánamo and ensure the transfer of all cleared detainees to countries where their human rights will be respected.
Act Now to tell President Biden to shut down the Guantánamo Bay detention facility!
I love music and, like I think anyone raised in America, loves a good celebration. It’s important, though, to keep in mind that many of the celebrations we hold come from having overcome extreme adversity. It’s also important to note the complexities of the people we celebrate.
The first official Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday was celebrated on Monday, January 20, 1986. I was five years old. The national push had hit its peak starting in late September of ‘80, when one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time, Mr. Stevie Wonder, ended his album Hotter Than July with a track that includes the lyric:
“Because it should never be
Just because some cannot see
The dream as clear as he
That they should make it become an illusion.”
The January 2023 Free Press Salon was held over Zoom on January 14th. This is what happened.
Mark Stansbery, Free Press Board member, started out the November salon by introducing Pat Marida of the Ohio Nuclear Free Nework. She updated us on Ohio's ongoing contamination from the nuclear industrial complex and new discoveries of civilian housing contamination. The slideshow can be seen here. The surrounding area of the nuclear plants in southern Ohio have caused the Pike County cancer mortality to go from 12 percent below the U.S. to 32.8 percent above. The overall Pike County death rate ages 0-74 is nearly double that of the U.S. Videos about the issue here.
Both cause and consequence of Columbus as the “plague city” is City government’s—Council and paid staff including Columbus Police Department—rudeness. In ways that once surprised me, the City’s disrespect, dismissal, and incivility mirror the literal crudeness of the failing physical city, from filth to lack of sanitation, and endless broken streets and sidewalks. (See my “The plague city: Daily life in Columbus, Ohio,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Dec. 17, 2022.)
It is stunning how little attention mayor, city council, Zoning and Neighborhoods, and the Department of Public (aka Private) Services pay to “their” city. Instead, they cannot restrain the overflow of grants without accountability, tax abatements, and other incentives to developers which directly undercut the actual city’s well-being contradicting its charter-mandated services to its publics. The contradictions are incalculable.
Police Officers for Equal Rights event
Monday, January 16
First AME Zion Church, 873 Bryden Rd.
Free Carryout Breakfast - 9am-11am
In-person and live stream program 12noon
Keynote speaker: Dr. Shondrika Moss-Boldin
Maska required.
MLK March in Linden
Monday, January 16, 12-2pm
Meet at Good Shepherd Baptist Church, 11am
1555 E. Hudson St.
March ends at Point of Pride Corner at Cleveland Ave. and 11th
Guest speaker Don Sellars
WeAreLinden614.org
614-402-6875
In this video recording of a webinar from January 14, 2023, David Swanson discussed his forthcoming book The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace it With. See the 26:24 point in the video.
The Monroe Doctrine was and is a justification for actions, some good, some indifferent, but the overwhelming bulk reprehensible. The Monroe Doctrine remains in place, both explicitly and dressed up in novel language. Additional doctrines have been built on its foundations. This book looks at the creation, evolution, and use of the Monroe Doctrine over the years since 1823, and proposes a radically different approach for the U.S. government to take with Latin America and the world.
David is available to speak about this or other topics, as are other World BEYOND War speakers.
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VICTORY! Congratulations and thanks to everyone who helped oppose this bill.
HB 434 passed the Ohio House 75-18 on March 3, 2022, but was not voted out of the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee at the end of December.
Under the Radar Bill: Ohio House Bill 434 would have created a secretive new Ohio Authority that could dip into the public treasury for unspecified amounts of money to support research and development of what the bill termed an “advanced” nuclear reactor. But the entities behind the bill were promoting old and failed nuclear power technology. All this when the cost of new nuclear power to consumers is 4 to 5 times higher than wind or solar.
The Ohio Nuclear Free Network led the charge against this bill, with help from the Ohio Green Party, the Cuyahoga County Green Party, Our Revolution Ohio, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Grassroot Ohio, WGRN-LP FM Columbus, the Columbus Free Press, Midwest Energy News, other groups whose members worked on this issue, and individuals.
Surely Walter F. White, the superlative black investigative journalist, civil rights leader, author, and member of the Harlem Renaissance, is one of the most neglected figures in the twentieth century freedom movement. Perhaps it is, in part, because he was a black man who looked white. He once wrote of himself , “My skin is white, my eyes are blue, my hair is blond. The traits of my race are nowhere visible upon me.” An essay in the Winter 1998 issue of the magazine American Legacy, says “The Ethical Culture Society leader Algernon Black was called upon to introduce him before an address. Mr. Black was introducing Mr. White, but Mr. Black was white and Mr. White was black, while of a whiter complexion than Mr. Black.”
Saturday, January 14, 7-8pm
Join progressive friends on Zoom to celebrate the new year and optimistic hope for the future.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83906590837
Meeting ID: 839 06
We'll hear from peace activist and journalist David Swanson of RootsAction about his new book, on the subject of the Monroe Doctrine, that forbid European powers from colonizing the Western hemisphere -- and what to replace it with.
Q & A included.
Join through your phone:
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Meeting ID: 839 0659 0837
Remarks on RootsAction.org’s Defuse Nuclear War livestream on January 12, 2023. Video here.
Thank you for all for being here and for including me.
We know the risks. They’re no secret. The Doomsday clock has almost nowhere to go but oblivion.
We know what’s needed. We’ve made a national holiday of a man who said he would oppose all nukes and all wars without any regard to whether it was popular, who said the choice was between nonviolence and nonexistence.