Local

CHANGE IN LOCATION!
Tuesday, January 31, 6:30 PM - 8 PM
Columbus Mennonite Church
35 Oakland Park Ave, Columbus, Ohio 43214

Donald Trump is ushering in the most anti-immigrant administration in modern history.

**UPDATE: Disastrous Executive Orders on immigration enforcement released this week. Will include these in our discussion.**

January 21st 2017 was a great day for the Ohio Green Party. Greens, DemExiters, and progressive independents from all over the state came together for the first full statewide meeting of the year. Attendees from Bowling Green all the way down to Cincinnati met in Columbus to discuss the growth of the party and a slate of candidates for the 2017-2018 elections.

More than forty people were packed into the private residence at any one time with the party’s diversity being clearly represented. The diversity wasn’t only present in demographics; various politics and philosophies abounded. Individuals identifying as socialists, eco-anarchists, liberals, left libertarians, and more had their voices heard. There was no shutting down of anyone. No-one was deemed too extreme or too moderate to be a part of any discussion, and all policy and campaign ideas were welcomed. The high level of inclusivity ensured that friends were made and regional networks created. Another high point was the very few criticisms of Donald Trump and the total absence of ad hominem attacks. The building was rife with positivity.

Friday, January 27, 4pm, OSU Oval [near the Thompson statue]
Refugees are welcome here! No human being is illegal!
On Friday, January 27, we will be rallying near the Thompson Statue on the OSU Oval (at 4pm) in response to Trump’s explicit targeting of refugee and immigrant communities.
In the seven days since Trump has taken power, he has pushed forward a slate of reactionary executive orders:

• Authorizing the expansion of the US-Mexico border wall
• Stripping federal grant money to sanctuary cities
• Hiring 5000 border patrol agents
• Reviving Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline
• Banning federal funds to international groups that perform abortions or lobby to legalize or promote abortion
• Gutting healthcare
• And he is expected to temporarily ban immigration from Muslim countries such as Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia

People on the radical left have criticized the 3 million Americans who protested the Donald Trump inauguration for not being radical enough, not being black or brown enough, not being working-class enough. There is some validity to these critiques; a thriving movement against Donald Trump must be centered on the struggles of women of color, working class people, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. But there has been an attitude of shaming people — many of whom are becoming politically active for the first time — for not being “woke” enough.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has rightly pointed out that this attitude is politically immature and counterproductive. “The movement to resist Trump will have to be a mass movement, and mass movements aren’t homogeneous — they are, pretty much by definition, politically heterogeneous,” she writes in The Guardian. “And there is not a single radical or revolutionary on Earth who did not begin their political journey holding liberal ideas.”

Helping Hands Health and Wellness Center announces a major gift of $50,000 per year for three years from the Northland Columbus Deanery of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus under the leadership of Father Charles Klinger of St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Westerville and Father Thomas Petry of St. Anthony in Columbus. The Northland Deanery has been a huge supporter of the clinic for 6 years which has enabled the clinic to expand hours and provide life-saving treatment and medication to patients. Outgoing Helping Hands Board President Connie Sauter from St. Paul’s Catholic Church has been a long-term champion for Helping Hands’ free clinic. The clinic serves individuals within 200% of the poverty level and is mostly staffed by volunteer doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and students. The support fills an essential need in the neighborhood and surrounding area including a history of servicing 38 zip codes. The members of the Northland Columbus Deanery of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus include:  St Anthony, Columbus, St. Elizabeth, Columbus, St. James the Less, Columbus, St. John Neumann, Sunbury, St.

January 20 was marked by protests across the U.S. against the inauguration of Donald Trump. One of several actions in Columbus was a march to the downtown police station and City Hall to call on Mayor Ginther to demilitarize the police force.

“Trump ran on a platform of ‘law and order,’ which we know is nothing but a dog whistle for violent racist policing  — something he made abundantly clear throughout his campaign,” said Pearl Morgan, an organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a group that organizes white people to fight against racism. “He openly encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies, seeming to view it as entertainment,” she said.

“We fear that Trump will fulfill his campaign promises to financially support and empower local police departments in their crackdown on our communities,” Morgan added. “That is why we demand that Columbus reject Trump’s plans for our police department, just as the voters of Franklin County rejected Trump on election day.”

Thursday, January 26, 12noon, Chase Bank [Broad St. Downtown], 100 E. Broad St.

Divest your money from the Dakota Access Pipeline!

With Trump as president, the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline [DAPL] is not over. There will be a rally in front of Chase Bank, 100 E. Broad St., asking their patrons to divest their money from the institutions that stand to profit from the pipeline.

If you bank with Chase, divest now!

Since the decision by the U.S. Army to suspend the DAPL river crossing easement to conduct a limited Environmental Impact Statement, the resistance camps at Standing Rock are asking people not to travel to the camps but to “instead take bold action in your local communities to force investors to divest from the project.”

The financial backers of the Dakota Access Pipeline include: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, ING Bank, Citizens Bank, U.S. Bank, PNC Bank, Barclays, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.

I constantly remind the students in my African American history classes that if you are poor and white in America, especially if you are rural or southern, the only difference is that you are not black. We have long known that poor whites and blacks live very similar lives, and the socioeconomic indicators we use to measure well-being–level of education, family life, employment, home ownership, involvement in the criminal justice system–are also remarkably similar.

The resistance started January 20. Six citizen activists with Democracy Spring, AllofUs, and Americans Take Action disrupted Trump while he took the oath of office, standing on their chairs and revealing a single word spread across their clothing: R-E-S-I-S-T. 

https://www.facebook.com/democracyspring/videos/618592765007396/