Local

Wednesday, September 5, 2018, 7:00 – 8:30 PM JVP members are inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, equality, human rights, respect for international law, and a U.S. foreign policy based on these ideals.  All are welcome.   Note new location:  Columbus Public Library, Main Library, Meeting room 3A, 96 S. Grant Ave., Columbus 43215.  Parking available in the library garage.  For more information please contact,  centralohio@jvp.org. 

Columbus citizens voted five times not to spend public taxes on private sports arenas like Nationwide. So why is the Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) trying to extort taxpayer dollars under the guise of supporting “arts and culture” to bail out the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Nationwide Arena boondoggle?

The first open forum on GCAC’s proposed 7 percent ticket tax faced stiff opposition Wednesday night, August 22 at the Vanderelli Room art gallery and event space with standing room only. The ticket proposal would place a 7 percent increase to all Columbus cultural and sports events except for high school and college sport events.

The tax is estimated to generate $14 million a year. GCAC is straightforward in their fronting for the Arena’s needs. Point Four of their handout entitled “The Proposed Ticket Fee Helps All of Columbus and Franklin County” specifically states that the tax will “…fund up to $4 million annually in efficient, essential renovations to Nationwide Arena, to maintain the facility and attract major concert shows, and sporting events that add so much to our economy and quality of life.”

Tuesday, September 4, 6-8pm, Franklin County Municipal Court, 373 S. High St.

Come out to the Pig Roast Against Prison Slavery, a solidarity event with the #August21 National Prison Strike!

This event will be a community gathering outside of the Franklin County Municipal Court where there will be:

• Food and drinks available for all in the area

• Information, scripts, phone numbers, and other materials provided by the Central Ohio Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee [IWOC] for you to participate in phone zaps and letter-writing campaigns at the event to support prison strikers

• Short speak-outs from people about the importance of the 2018 Prison Strike

• A papier-mâché pig in a police hat that we will “roast” after you drop a note inside about why you want to set flames to prison slavery

Hosted by Central Ohio Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee [IWOC] and Black Queer and Intersectional Columbus [BQIC].

During my life I have met and interacted with four women who have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. There is one common thread between all these four women. They all have lost their only child to accident, disease, terrorist attacks, between their ages of 7 and 10. Another trend I noticed, when I was volunteering at a drug rehabilitation center in India, is that apart from dealing with addiction, about 6 to 7 families out of 10 were also dealing with a loved one's cancer diagnosis.

In this scenario two things were noticed consistently. The person who was diagnosed with cancer was always the one who shared an extremely close bond with the person who was an addict. And second the diagnosis of cancer always came about 4 to 6 years after their loved one was suffering from full blown addiction. I have always wondered if there is a connection here between sense of loss, helplessness or any other negative feelings and dis-ease.

Saturday, September 1, 11am, Studio 35 Cinema & Draft House, 3055 Indianola Ave.

The Official Animal Rights March is an annual march founded by the U.K. animal rights organisation Surge. The march began in London in 2016 with 2,500 vegans; in 2017, the march doubled to 5,000 vegans marching for animal liberation through London. In 2018, we’re bringing The Official Animal Rights March to Columbus, Ohio to spread the message of animal liberation across the globe.

In order to make this march succeed, we need your help. Invite your friends, tell every vegan you meet, this is the day where we unite, where we stand up, rise up and say, “no more, not in our name.”

The future is vegan, but we must continue to speak out on behalf of the animals until the day that their suffering ends.

Save the date, spread the word, and let’s make history for the animals.

Note: this march will begin and end at Studio 35 Cinema & Draft House and will follow a circular route through the nearby neighborhood.

Free tickets for the After-March Speech, featuring Joshua Entis, are available at the following URL:

Thursday, August 30, 6-7:15pm
Columbus Collegiate Academy, 300  Dana Ave., front of buildingCOMMUNITY JUSTICE RALLY - (PEACEFUL) 

* Kid Friendly - Community Gathering *

SHOWING THE WESTSIDE SOME LOVE ❤ SUPPORTING Donna's family & Columbus families that lost loved ones to violence... 

#Justice4Donna
Donna G. Castleberry 
("Donna Dalton") 
 

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the many things that occurred in America’s most horrible year in the most tumultuous decade of the twentieth century. In some ways it’s an anniversary for me, too, because it marks when I became aware of and interested in American politics and history. I remember 1968 as a bubbling cauldron of assassinations, demonstrations, and confrontations near and far. By the time my sixth grade school year was over, there had been Tet – a former neighbor and two of my older sister’s classmates died in Vietnam – President Lyndon Johnson’s declaration that he would not seek reelection; the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; the televised execution of a Vietcong officer by the South Vietnam chief of police; and numerous urban rebellions in cities across America. My mother had subscriptions to the weekly magazines Life, Look, and Newsweek, and I looked at them again and again. Nineteen sixty-eight was indeed, as the Temptations sang several years later, a ball of confusion.

Thursday, August 30, 7-8:30pm
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 30 West Woodruff
War, poverty, exploitation and oppression are all products of the capitalist system, a system in which a minority ruling class profits from the labor of the majority. How do we fight capitalism, and what's our alternative? This week, we'll be discussing Where We Stand, a pamphlet that outlines the ISO's politics of revolutionary socialism and a positive vision for a socialist future. 

You can access the document here: https://www.internationalsocialist.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Where_We_Stand.pdf

We will also be voting on our schedule for the month of September.