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The outside doorway of a Hollywood casino

We’ve heard this story too many times before, but it’s worth repeating in Columbus because the local version of this reality is so surreal and wrong it’s almost as if this community has refused to process it.

The West Side’s golden age was replaced with a casino that hasn’t revitalized the West Side as hoped, and is essentially sucking money out of Central Ohio at an increasing rate.

A few miles past the Hilltop in the years following WWII, two huge manufacturing plants emerged. General Motors built an auto-parts plant at the corner of West Broad and Georgesville, and in walking distance from this plant, White Westinghouse built a plant manufacturing dishwashers.

“The West Side was hopping,” says lifelong Hilltop resident Jim Ogden. “Both those plants were running three shifts a day.”

Head and shoulders image of man with black curly hair with his mouth open next to the words Bob Bites Back

Twenty years ago, the Columbus Free Press came back into print backed by donations from the pro-hemp/medical marijuana movement. Our underground anti-war publication originated on the Ohio State University campus as an as a reaction to the Kent State killings in October 1970, and after 25 years we went strictly online. Through donations from hemp festivals at Rainbow Farm, arranged by legendary local activist Cannabis Kenny Schweickart, the Free Press was resurrected in 1998.

One hundred forty-five years ago on Jan. 1, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, helping to transform this country from a union of states into a nation, from a country stained by slavery into one moving at great cost closer to “liberty and justice for all.”

On Jan. 1, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, the Republican president, issued the proclamation on his own authority as commander-in-chief “in time of actual armed rebellion” against the United States. The emancipation was grounded on his wartime powers, as a “fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion.”

The emancipation did not end slavery in the United States. It applied only to the states still in rebellion, exempting the slave owning border states such as Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky that still had slaves. Lincoln was desperate to keep the border states from joining the South. Some abolitionists ridiculed him for this. “Where he has no power, Mr. Lincoln will set the negroes free, where he retains power we will consider them as slaves,” declared the London Times.

 

Who defeated the Islamic State In Syria?

Before answering that question. What is the ISIS? Can the public overcome its chronic amnesia and think back to the sudden appearance of ISIS dressed in brand new black uniforms, gleaming white NIKE’s and driving Toyota trunks? They seemed to appear out of nowhere in 2014. ISIS looked as if it were a mirage when it appeared, or more likely a CIA staged scene from Hollywood.

No sooner had ISIS appeared than it went on a head chopping binge that repulsed and frightened the US public. Washington officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry rang the alarm that this hoard of Islamic crazies wanted to invade the US and “kill us all”. A well-compliant mainstream media swallowed Washington’s script and regurgitated it to frighten a US public. The public gave its silent consent for more war really aimed at Bashar al-Assad.

Woman with her back to the camera wearing a large winter coat with furry hood holding a big sign that reads CHOOSE PEACE, she is with a group of people at a rally

Wednesday, January 3, 7-8:30pm, Columbus Metropolitan Library [Rm. 1-A], 96 S. Grant Ave.
Jewish Voice for Peace 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. Contact: centralohio@jvp.orgfacebook.com/JVPCentralOhio

, 2018, at the University of Baltimore, Maryland. Endorsers include: Alliance for Global Justice, Black Alliance for Peace, CODEPINK, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, International Action Center, Liberty Tree Foundation, MLK Justice Coalition, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Popular Resistance, United National Antiwar Coalition, U.S. Peace Council, Veterans For Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, World Beyond War and United for Peace and Justice.  Location:  University of Baltimore, Learning Commons Town Hall, Baltimore, Maryland.  Organized by: Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases.

Conference on U.S. Foreign Military Bases
January 12 - 14, 2018
Learning Commons Town Hall, University of Baltimore
1415 Maryland Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland
Organized by: Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases

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