Working People's Day of Action - Columbus

Silhouette drawings of blue and red and gray people in the fore ground with fists in the air and words People's Day and Columbus Feb 24 #unrigthesystem

Saturday, February 24, 10:30am-1pm
Ohio Statehouse
ON FEBRUARY 24, join us for a national Day of Action in Columbus and cities across the country to show support for strong unions. We will join thousands of working people and our allies to stand up for our right to organize and to show how strong unions benefit all of us. Strong unions play a vital role in the fight for equitable pay, affordable health care, quality public schools, and making sure the future is secure for everyone. It’s time to end a system that’s rigged against working people.

Now wealthy special interests and ideological extremists want to rig the system further through a Supreme Court case called Janus v. AFSCME Council 31. This case is another attempt to limit the power of working people by weakening unions that give workers a powerful voice in advocating for themselves, and in OEA’s case, the students that we serve, their families and their communities.

Just as we proved in overturning Senate Bill 5, when we join forces and stick together, WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE! 

Cooking Party for Street Medic Trainees

Big paper mache face hanging on the front of a table outside next to a blue sign with white hand drawn letters that say Food Not Bombs and a lot of pots and pans and condiments on the table and a brick wall in the background

Friday, February 23, 5pm
The Midden, 379 Chittenden Ave.
Lets cook and drink and party!
Central Ohio Street Medic Collective (COSMC) provides first aid at protests and in the community. They’re holding a 20 hour training for new medics which Food Not Bombs has agreed to provide lunch for on the 24th and 25th. We’re expecting to feed 40-50 people. Come out and help us make something tasty (or just to hang out if you want)!

Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?

Is Earth the largest garbage dump in the Universe? I don’t know. But it’s a safe bet that Earth would be a contender were such a competition to be held. Let me explain why.

 

To start, just listing the types of rubbish generated by humans or the locations into which each of these is dumped is a staggering task beyond the scope of one article. Nevertheless, I will give you a reasonably comprehensive summary of the types of garbage being generated (focusing particularly on those that are less well known), the locations into which the garbage is being dumped and some indication of what is being done about it and what you can do too.

 

But before doing so, it is worth highlighting just why this is such a problem, prompting the United Nations Environment Programme to publish this recent report: ‘Towards a pollution-free planet’.

 

The Real Cause of Mass Shootings

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies - in a sense - a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the threatening cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

 

This quote was from one of our countries most Distinguished Generals and Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Unfortunately, there are great profits in guns, warships, and rockets, and little profit in feeding our hungry children, clothing our cold children, and most importantly providing the educational, medical, mental, and social-net services that will give our children (yes, "our" children) a chance to succeed in our ever-more disconnected world. Our bloated military - industrial complex, with its huge profits, has taken over our lives and taken over our money, leaving little of our tax money for providing a safety-net for our children.

 

Protest Challenges New Fracking Leases Threatening Ohio’s Only National Forest

Lots of young people wearing coats outside near a forest at a fence with protest signs reading Up for Auction Our Wayne to the Highest Bidder

— Seven conservation groups have filed an administrative protest challenging a Bureau of Land Management plan to auction off 345 acres of Ohio’s Wayne National Forest for oil and gas fracking leases in March.

The protest, filed late Tuesday, notes that the leases would lock in dangerous fracking in the Wayne. Despite known threats from hydraulic fracturing, the BLM planned the auction using only a cursory review that avoids site-specific analysis of potential harm from fracking operations.

That means the public will have no information about pollution risks to streams, eradication of endangered species habitat and harm to nearby communities, which is required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

53 Years After Selma: Voting Rights in Columbus Questioned

Black and white photo of police wearing helmets with their backs to the camera, looking like the are beating people with sticks among a lot of gas in the air obscuring the people in the picture

Thursday, February 22, 2018, 6-7:30pm
905 Mt. Vernon Ave.
Join Leah Aden, Senior Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who has come to Columbus on a fact-finding/investigatory trip to address the LDF's "substantial concerns" the Columbus City Council's at-large elections may violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Learn about "minority vote dilution" and at-large elections, from a top attorney at the nation's leading civil rights law firm. Engage in a panel discussion and town hall meeting with Ms. Aden, Jonathan Beard (Everyday People for Positive Change), Bob Fitrakis (professor of political science and attorney), and Al Warner (community activist and former Columbus NAACP chapter president) to discuss the extent to which Black community interests are addressed under the current system where every council member is elected with a majority White votes -- unlike in every other diverse big city in America -- each of which has changed to include at least on majority-minority electoral district under pressure from the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 53 years after Selma.

Rally In Support of Stricter Gun Laws

Someone holding up a sign with a picture of a young boy dressed like Uncle Sam and the words I WANT YOU to prevent gun violence

“Columbus residents hold rally in support of stricter gun regulation and safety in schools, in solidarity with the Florida students at Parkland High School”

 

A peaceful, youth-organized rally will be held at  the Ohio State House to protest against gun violence and our disagreement with unrestricted gun ownership policies.
 

What: Rally In Support of Stricter Gun Laws

Where: Ohio State House

When: 3:30 pm- 4:45 pm , Thursday February 22nd, 2018

Who: Led by the Amnesty International Columbus Alternative High School Chapter
 

Russiagate Suddenly Becomes Bigger

It’s hard to know where to begin. Last Friday’s indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was detailed in a 37 page document that provided a great deal of specific evidence claiming that a company based in St. Petersburg, starting in 2014, was using social media to assess American attitudes. Using that assessment, the company inter alia allegedly later ran a clandestine operation seeking to influence opinion in the United States regarding the candidates in the 2016 election in which it favored Donald Trump and denigrated Hillary Clinton. The Russians identified by name are all back in Russia and cannot be extradited to the U.S., so the indictment is, to a certain extent, political theater as the accused’s defense will never be heard.

The Cheapening of Human Life

The cries of terror and disbelief continue. Teenagers lie down in front of the White House to protest the nation’s tepid, stalled gun-control legislation. Parents grieve for their children and stare at the wound carved into the American soul. Assault rifles have more rights than schoolchildren.

A movement simmers, or so it seems, a week after the latest deadly school shooting: seventeen people killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, many more injured. A disturbed loner — yet another one — is arrested.

It’s not simply violence, but wildly profound violation, yet again, yet again, of the deepest of human values: Life is sacred.

Isn’t it?

How can this keep happening?

Broken Child

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