Marxist Classics: Origins of Family, Private Property, & State

Orange book cover that says Private Property and The State by Frederick Engels and a black and white photo of something at the bottom

Thursday, January 25, 2018, 7-9pm
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church and University Center, 30 W Woodruff Ave, Columbus, Ohio 43210
Join us for the fourth and final installment of our Marxist Classics Study Series, as we read and discuss Friedrich Engels' "The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State." Engels' work is foundational for Marxist theories of state as well as women's oppression.

The full work is available for free on the Marxist Internet Archive: 

Sex, Porn and his Very Hot Daughter

Nine Vermont Cops Execute Non-Threatening Addict Holding BB Gun

reen Mountain homeboy Nathan Giffin was 32, white, and holding a BB pistol at his side when multiple police shot him multiple times outside the Montpelier High School he had once attended. Reportedly, Giffin had admitted addictions to cocaine and heroin, and maybe he even had an intent to die from suicide by cop. If so, he succeeded. Nine Vermont police officers pumped him full of bullets, dropping him on the spot as he stood passively at the far end of a football field after almost an hour standoff.

How is this not an extrajudicial execution that never should have happened?

The video of the shooting is clear. Giffin appears distracted, uncertain, he takes three slow steps forward, one backwards, then four to his left. Then he drops. This is a full-on shooting of a wandering young man by a disorderly firing squad that continues shooting for about three seconds after Giffin is down, mortally wounded.

Governing by Scapegoat

Got a problem? Simplify and project.

When you have a country to govern and you have no idea what to do — and, even more to the core of the matter, you also have a crony-agenda you want to push quietly past the populace — there’s a time-proven technique that generally works. Govern by scapegoat!

This usually means go to war, but sometimes that’s not enough. Here in the USA, there’s been so much antiwar sentiment since the disastrous quagmires of the last half century — Vietnam, the War (To Promote) Terror — we’ve had to make war simply part of the background noise. The military cash bleed continues, but the public lacks an international enemy to rally against and blame for its insecurity.

A Cure For What We Have All Been Taught Was Incurable:

“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.” -- Arnold Seymour Relman (1923-2014), Harvard Professor of Medicine and Former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine

 

“Big Pharma is engaged in the deliberate seduction of the medical profession, country by country, worldwide. It is spending a fortune on influencing, hiring and purchasing academic judgment to a point where, in a few years’ time, if Big Pharma continues unchecked on its present happy path, unbought medical opinion will be hard to find.”– John LeClarre, author of The Constant Gardener, that focused on the corrupt nature of the pharmaceutical industry.

 

Way Outside the Choir

Having spent years going to events organized by peace groups, at which people tell each other they should stop “preaching to the choir,” I’ve started doing another kind of event. I debate war supporters in front of mixed crowds that include lots of war supporters, as well as people who haven’t really formed an opinion yet on the question of whether war is ever justifiable.

Why Fear and Self-hatred Destroy Human Sharing and Solidarity

As our world spirals deeper into an abyss from which it is becoming increasingly difficult to extricate ourselves, some very prominent activists have lamented the lack of human solidarity in the face of the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya. See ‘The Rohingya tragedy shows human solidarity is a lie’ and ‘Wrongs of rights activism around Rohingyas’.

 

While I share the genuine concern of the Yemeni Nobel peace laureate Tawakkol Karman and Burmese dissident and scholar Dr Maung Zarni, and have offered my own way forward for responding powerfully to the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya – see ‘A Nonviolent Strategy to Defeat Genocide’ – in my view the lack of solidarity they mention is utterly pervasive and readily evident in our lacklustre official and personal responses to the many ongoing crises in which humanity finds itself.

 

Join us for the annual Sierra Club New Year Social!

Gray background with white letters is cursive writing New Year Social

Wednesday, January 24, 2018, 6:00 – 8:30 PM.
Social hour: Meet & greet fellow Sierra Club members, activists, staff, and volunteer leaders. Beverages (soft drinks & some wine) and light appetizers included. Green goody baskets will be available for raffle chances. Review Sierra Club Central Ohio Group's 2018 accomplishments and discuss the challenges, plans, and volunteer needs for 2018. Please bring your questions and suggestions. Location: OSU Northwood-High Building, 2231 N. High St., Columbus. First Floor, Room 100.   Free parking available in the rear of the building off of Northwood Ave. Please park in spaces labeled "R" to avoid parking violations; or use metered spaces along High St. or take COTA bus #2 or #31.  RSVP if you can via FaceBook.  Northwood Building, 2231 N. High St., Columbus 43201. 

Dr. Brett Joseph, a northeast Ohio-based attorney, educator and sustainability professional, announces that he will run for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio in 2018

Middle aged white man with short brown hair, a grayish beard and mustache wearing a blue suit standing in front of a tree

Brett R. Joseph, LL.M., Ph.D.today announced his decision to run in the Ohio 2018 mid-term election as the Green Party's candidate for Lieutenant Governor, joining on the ticket with Columbus attorney and social justice activist Constance Gadell-Newton, who announced her candidacy for Governor of Ohio in late May, 2017.  

Dr. Joseph (or Brett as he prefers to be called) is an organizational systems design consultant, attorney, community action researcher, and environmental educator.  He serves his native northeast Ohio as a sustainable agriculture program coordinator and permaculture instructor at the Lorain County Community College.

7 days in … Anticipation

Blue background white letters saying Government Shutdown and the edge of the capitol building in DC

This week was the first of the year where we all knew what was going to happen. We sat waiting for the inevitable shutdown to begin. We were on tenterhooks over who would be the next to leave or be fired from the government. We soiled ourselves as the results of the president’s medical were released. It all sounds like enthusiastic anticipation, and it was. All of us living in Central Ohio do what we can to create a modicum of excitement.

The shutdown of the federal government overshadowed everything else this week. Otherwise noteworthy stories barely received any attention, and nothing else happened at the national level to generate news. That is no complaint; the reasons for the shutdown and the effects it will have over, at least, the next few days deserve to have the huge spotlight on them.

Pages

Subscribe to Freepress.org RSS