As 2023 draws to a close, farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are celebrating the organization’s 30th anniversary. In the last 30 years, the CIW — which began as a loose gathering of farmworkers meeting weekly in a borrowed church hall in the small, crossroads town of Immokalee — has grown in size and success to become the founder of the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program, the leading social responsibility program in the US agricultural industry today, and of the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model, the new paradigm for human rights protection in global supply chains to which the FFP gave rise.

Global challenges are grounded in local places. The health and vitality of every single community, every single child, every single acre of land, every single tree is important to creating a livable future. Every single local effort to do so is significant.

This is why I personally intervene to protect communities and people’s quality of life. Here, in Cleveland, I’m working with local homeowners to save a grove of mature, legacy trees from being destroyed by the local school board, even though a deed restriction protects the trees and the parkland on which they stand.

Today, as we prepare for a new, more hopeful, peaceful, New Year, I appeal to you on behalf of the Cudell community residents in Cleveland, Ohio, for public help in funding the court case to save the trees.  

My wife, Elizabeth, and I paid the bond to halt the cutting down of 50 trees in the Cudell neighborhood park. We have attended each several court hearings in support of the people. The people trying to save their park and the trees have one lawyer. The school board has six!

November 22, 2023 marked the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy. As a serious student of the JFK assassination for 30 plus years, I have long been certain that the case has been solved. There is no confusion or room for doubt. Yet because the assassination was orchestrated by the National Security State/ CIA, there has been a massive and continuing disinformation campaign designed to keep the public in a state of confusion and uncertainty. The efforts to conceal the truth at the 50th anniversary were ubiquitous, but ten years later the effort has been muted, allowing dissenting voices to be heard in way Americans have never experienced.

This article first appeared in the Buckeye Flame

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Friday vetoed HB 68, a bill that would have banned gender-affirming care in the state of Ohio and prevented trans female athletes from participating on women’s sports team in K-12 and college athletics. 

“I cannot sign this bill as it is currently written,” DeWine said, repeatedly asserting that the “government does not know better than parents.” 

The Ohio legislature passed HB 68 on December 13, sending it on to DeWine for his signature. The governor had 10 days after receiving the bill to make his decision. The Republican-led state legislature needs a 3/5s vote to override the veto. 

In the briefing, DeWine explained that he used those 10 days to have conversations with those affected including: bill sponsor Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), physicians and counselors who provide gender-affirming care, detransitioners and medical personnel he met during visits to children’s hospitals in Akron, Columbus and Cincinnati. 

Our organization Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists has been suspended from OSU following our December 7th teach-in titled “Intifada, Revolution, and the Path to a Free Palestine.”

We’ve now released our full statement which you can read here.

We’re also asking our supporters to sign our Petition of Reinstatement which can be found here.