2023 allows all to decide the future. We defeated Covid, inflation, and attempts at inducing fascism from inflation.

I'm still amazed at the year Columbus, Ohio ended up with, while turbulence existed after our nation decided a higher existence should come from evolving past these things.

2022 Columbus reminded itself of importance as an incubator of things everyone loves…

For example:

2022 year ended with the biggest concert I’ve ever witnessed in Columbus, Ohio.

Joe Walsh’s 6th Annual Vets Aide Concert sold-out Nationwide Arena November 13, 2022. Vets Aide featured an All-Ohio Line-Up.

I saw Walsh reunite the James Gang with special guest Dave Grohl, Nine Inch Nails, The Black Keys, The Breeders and the OSU Marching Band - “The Best Damn Band in the Land.”

After visiting flat atolls of the Tuamotus and then a day out at sea, the appearance on the horizon of the Gambier group, with its high islands, emerges as a sharp vertical contract to the previous days’ horizontal vistas. This remote chain of mostly volcanic isles, located 1,000 miles southeast of Tahiti, is one of French Polynesia’s five archipelagoes that comprise a sprawling watery realm the size of Western Europe, and I’ve never been here before.

What is democracy but platitudes and dog whistles? The national direction is quietly predetermined — it’s not up for debate. The president’s role is to sell it to the public; you might say he’s the public-relations director in chief:

“. . . my Administration will seize this decisive decade to advance America’s vital interests, position the United States to outmaneuver our geopolitical competitors, tackle shared challenges, and set our world firmly on a path toward a brighter and more hopeful tomorrow. . . . We will not leave our future vulnerable to the whims of those who do not share our vision for a world that is free, open, prosperous, and secure.”

These are the words of President Biden, in his introduction to the National Security Strategy, which lays out America’s geopolitical plans for the coming decade. Sounds almost plausible, until you ponder the stuff that isn’t up for public discussion, such as, for instance:

Another critical year for Palestine has folded. While 2022 has wrought much of the same in terms of Israeli military occupation and increasing violence, it also introduced new variables to the Palestinian struggle - nationally, regionally and internationally. 

 Palestine, the War and the Arabs

 The Russia-Ukraine war starting in February pressured many political entities, including Palestinians, to take sides or, at least, to declare a position. Though the Palestinian Authority (PA) and various Palestinian political parties insisted on their neutrality, Russia’s deviation from the US-led political paradigm in the Middle East opened up new margins for Palestinians to explore. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2022, 8:00 – 9:00 PM
Israeli settler violence against Palestinians escalated in 2022, with West Bank settlers on the rampage, defiling mosques, vandalizing shops and assaulting Palestinians in Hebron and other Palestinian cities. Instead of stopping the settlers, the Israeli military turned on Palestinians, adding to the year’s death toll: 150 Palestinians killed, 33 of them children. Meanwhile, the most racist Israeli government returns to power with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – under criminal indictment – set to serve his sixth term.

This new ultra-nationalist government stands in explicit – no longer implicit – opposition to a Palestinian state and threatens to strip the courts of their power. US Secretary of State Blinken insists the US commitment to apartheid Israel is ironclad, despite whispers last month the Biden administration might refuse to meet with some of the most reactionary members of the new Israeli government.  Join us as we detail the situation on the ground in Palestine and examine US congressional and grassroots efforts to end US complicity in Israeli crimes.