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Saturday, January 8, 7-8:30pm, this event will be occurring via Zoom

Since we aren’t getting together in person, we can gather for a couple of hours on the second Saturday night of each month, 7-8pm, on Zoom.

This event will feature the following.

• Jessica Stein of Women’s March will update on upcoming actions to defend the right to health care access

• Lynn Tramonte and Maryam Sy of Ohio Immigrant Alliance on Biden's promises about family reunification, and more!

A question-and-answer period will be included.

If you have any announcements for the progressive community, contact us at 614-253-2571 or at colsfreepress@gmail.com.

Please use this Zoom link to join this event.

Hosted by The Columbus Free Press.

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Gang stalking sign

This is “Fatimah,” not her real name (pictured above, her face not shown). She’s a young single mother with toddler children. She is quick-witted, charismatic, gracious and sober. But Fatimah and her kids reside just off Sullivant Avenue in a massive westside apartment community, which is a long-time hive for gang activity, addiction and violence.

Bags of “fenty” go for $10 here, but several addicts have told the Free Press they need four bags to get through the day to stave off becoming “dope sick.” Panhandling is their best means, they say.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of an assault by pro-Trump forces on the U.S. Capitol. Many questions linger about what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, but perhaps the overriding question is this: How could a segment of the Republican Party, once known by words like "prudence" and "probity," become so radicalized that such a violent, deadly event could happen?

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Thursday, January 6, 6:30pm, Ohio Statehouse

January 6 was a violent and deadly attack against all Americans — against our country, our democracy, and our freedom as voters to choose the leaders that represent us so that we have a government of, by, and for the people.

One year later, the same faction that attacked our country on January 6 is hard at work silencing our voices by restricting our freedom to vote, attacking fair voting districts, and quietly preparing future attempts to sabotage free and fair elections and with it our democracy.

So this January 6, exactly one year later, Americans across race, place, party, and background are holding candlelight vigils to say, “In America, the voters decide the outcome of elections.”

The promise of democracy is not a partisan issue but a calling that unites us as Americans. To prevent this kind of attack from happening again, our elected leaders must pass urgent legislation that will protect this country from anti-democratic forces who are continuing their efforts to destroy it.

Love thy enemy? I get a chance to do so on a regular basis, thanks to the email (or nasty-mail) I sometimes get in response to my column, e.g.:

“Must be a dearth of anyone with anything intelligent to say for the News to put your drivel out for us to chew on. Not going to go over ridiculous points you made . . .  not worth my time. Next time offer a cure. Otherwise it’s just reportage that we already know.”

I have an advantage here. When I get a communique like this, I know the writer read my column in a regular newspaper, not a progressive site on the Internet — and that’s a good thing for multiple reasons. One: The mainstream media is often fearful of a viewpoint like mine, which is critical of war and nukes and nationalism and border cages and such, so I always feel delight on learning I’ve made it into mainstream print. Two: Hearing from someone who hates what I’ve written is the essence of across-the-aisle communication. So what if the letter hits me like a verbal bullet? The writer exposed himself to a counter-viewpoint, expanding his awareness of the world. Let me do the same.

An article by Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times last July is a prime example of western intelligentsia’s limited understanding of China’s unhindered rise as a superpower. “Becoming a superpower is a complicated business. It poses a series of connected questions about capabilities, intentions and will,” Rachman wrote.

 

To help us understand what this claim precisely means, the FT writer uses an analogy. “To use a sporting analogy, you can be an extremely gifted tennis player and genuinely want to be world champion, but still be unwilling to make the sacrifices to turn the dream into reality.”

 

At least, in Rachman’s thinking, China is capable of being a political actor, though it remains incapable of vying for the superpower status, as it supposedly lacks ‘the will’ to make the required ‘sacrifices’.

Propaganda is most impactful when people don’t think it’s propaganda, and most decisive when it’s censorship you never knew happened. When we imagine that the U.S. military only occasionally and slightly influences U.S. movies, we are extremely badly deceived. The actual impact is on thousands of movies made, and thousands of others never made. And television shows of every variety. The military guests and celebrations of the U.S. military on game shows and cooking shows are no more spontaneous or civilian in origin than the ceremonies glorifying members of the U.S. military at professional sports games — ceremonies that have been paid for and choreographed by U.S. tax dollars and the U.S. military. The “entertainment” content carefully shaped by the “entertainment” offices of the Pentagon and the CIA doesn’t just insidiously prepare people to react differently to news about war and peace in the world.

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