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Part Three (of Four)

Residents’ lack of basic rights (cont’d.)

Adequate city services

I can call attention to only a selection of the principal lost or stolen rights. These include the right to maintain on a legal and customary basis well-established, recognized, and historic neighborhoods. This right embraces the maintenance of the legal residential status of each property as well as the compacts that govern property transfers and illegal amassing of collections of hundreds of rental properties in an area that is zoned as residential. It also includes upkeep and repair of the properties. This includes contracts, public health, and public safety.

NorthSteppe’s, HomeTeam’s, and others’ houses all too often feature broken front doors, windows, and doorbells; insufficient trash containers irregularly put out or returned according to code; and broken sidewalks. Broken water and gas pipes are common, as well as appliances. Many yards are strewn with trash; upholstered furniture; drinking game paraphernalia; portable toilets, tents, shelters, and other structures; open fires; and large quantities of alcohol provided free—all without required permits.

Imprisoned American Indian Movement (AIM) elder Leonard Peltier is 77 years old, suffering from severe diabetes, hypertension, an aortic aneurysm, and is blind in one eye. He has been imprisoned for more than 46 years, unjustly convicted of aiding and abetting in the murder of two FBI agents.

Many members of Congress have joined Amnesty International, Nobel Peace Prize laureates including the Dalai Lama, and Pope Francis to call for his immediate release on humanitarian grounds. Former US attorney James Reynolds, whose office prosecuted Leonard in 1977, recently appealed to President Biden for clemency for Leonard, “We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier personally committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation,” on June 26, 1975. 

Sunday, June 26, 2pm, Franklin Park [near the Franklin Park Adventure Center], 1755 E. Broad St.

SURJCO exists to organize white people in Central Ohio to take anti-racist action. Interested in getting more involved?? Come meet new people and learn about SURJCO at our summer kick-off meetup on Sunday, June 26. This event is open to the public and is kid friendly. If you plan to attend, please fill out this form so we have an idea of how many people to expect [forms.gle/PPSKcCHKPAm6c2jv6]. Please share widely!

When: Sunday, June 26; 2pm

Where: Franklin Park; meet by the Franklin Park Adventure Center; 1755 E. Broad St.

What to bring: Bring your own snack and drink and a blanket or chair to sit on!

RSVP for this event by using this link.

The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) and its partners invite you to experience the diversity of agriculture this summer during the 2022 Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series.

This annual series of public tours and workshops features nearly 20 organic and ecological farms and businesses in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, providing unique opportunities for farmers, educators, and conscientious eaters to learn about sustainable agriculture, local foods, and those who make it possible.

Tour guests can walk through urban farm fields, livestock pastures, and more during these OEFFA farm tours: 

 Ignorance might be bliss, arguably in some situations, but not in this case. Here, ignorance can be catastrophic as western audiences are denied access to information about a critical situation that is affecting them in profound ways and will most certainly impact the world’s geopolitics for generations to come. 

We have chosen the Goodale Park Parimeter for the Walk for Health Care Justice this year. It will take place during ComFest, occurring in the Park, making our presence visible to hundreds of people as we walk.  We hope to have announcements about our action from one or more of the ComFest Stages, asking for other people to join us.

We invite you, family and friends to participate in this 1 mile walk for Health Care Justice. It will take less than 1 hour.

We will meet before 4 PM on the North-East corner of Goodale Park, at the intersection of Park Street and Buttles Avenue, begin will a few words and walk clockwise around the Park. If you have a SPAN Ohio T-shirt and sign, please bring them. We will have some signs available.  Bring a noisemaker.

Friday, June 24, 6:00pm
The Ohio State House. 1 Capitol Square Columbus OH 43215
From Michael Moore:
The choices we make in the next few hours will determine the fate of our democracy

Minutes ago the Supreme Court ruled, once again, that women are indeed second-class citizens — stripped of their rights to control their own bodies, and forced to give birth should they become pregnant.

This is one of the worst abominations ever committed by this country. And if we don’t act, RIGHT NOW, they will get away with it.

So, on this day of infamy, I ask, I beg, I IMPLORE you — 

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD! 

FLOOD THE STREETS!

Join me and the other millions in the majority and PLEDGE TO FIGHT BACK — today, tonight, and EVERY DAY until full rights are restored to women.

Remove all Republicans in November. 

Part Two (of Four)

In the shadows of democracy (cont’d.)

City Council appointments and elections

The process of filling public offices, especially City Council, is a key element in the reproduction of undemocracy from one iteration of office-holders to their successors. The city boosters in the media never comment on this.

Until the election of Elizabeth Brown in 2015 (reelected in 2019), no Council member had been elected without first being appointed to office since Mary Ellen O’Shaunassey in 1995. In 2019, Brown did not even complete nonpartisan Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey.

More recently, Shayla Favor and Rob Dorans gained their seats by submitting 500-word essays and resumes. They were not elected to office

These appointees, including mayors, typically rise from their “holding pens” (to quote one long-time civic activist) or school practice yards in the Franklin County Board of Elections, Columbus Board of Education, or minor City positions. They do not join the ranks of the rulers first by popular election.

After a two-year virtual-only hiatus, ComFest is in many ways rising from the pandemic’s ashes and returning to its full glory at Goodale Park.

What should never be undervalued is the energy and creative power of the volunteers who have run ComFest, which many know is coolest party in town, if not the only party in town that truly matters, for the previous half century.

But what also shouldn’t be forgotten is how they kept ComFest going in the face of a pandemic. There were two virtual ComFests, and they required a great deal of technical expertise and logistical planning that was entirely new to the volunteers, says ComFest volunteer Marty Stutz.

“Really, it was a lot of the same folks who put together the regular ComFest, and they just decided, ‘Hey, this is really important, and what can possible be done to keep ComFest going even though there’s not going to be a live festival in the park?’,” said Stutz. “There was a whole lot of people who came together with not a lot of time to put the virtual together.”

Friday, June 24 to Sunday, June 26, this on-line event requires advance registration

We’re a coalition of organizations and individuals working together to host A Radical Gathering — a virtual space for cultivating the world we all deserve.

A Radical Gathering will happen online the weekend of June 24-26 and will include a series of teach-ins, workshops, trainings, presentations, and panels, covering a myriad of revolutionary and visionary topics.

When we say the gathering is “radical,” we mean that it is for

• Getting at the roots of problems

• Thinking outside the realm of what we’ve been taught to believe is possible

• Exploring big questions and unsettling truths

The gathering is a chance to learn and teach each other, to meet other people doing their part of the work, and to practice some skills we’ll surely need. As we continue to move further into climate collapse and through other violent impacts of global capitalism and colonialism, those of us who have vision should gather, share, and practice together.

Will you join us and see where this goes from here?