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Busting Myths: Columbus searches for its Downtown with historical, urbanist, and developers’ blinders

Harvey J Graff

Quietly, as usual, the undemocratic apparatuses of the City of Columbus make their moves.

On Friday, Dec. 10, the Columbus Dispatch briefly reported “Massive hanging sculpture proposed for Downtown.”

The next day, Dispatch reporter Jim Welker wrote, “City seeks input on reviving Downtown” (print edition). In this case, the City and the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation, a “nonprofit public development corporation,” a contradiction in terms, “are launching a series of [unscheduled] public meetings to help shape a new Downtown Strategic Plan.

At Long Last, Ban Weaponized Drones

Former President Barack Obama recently tweeted that the day of a school shooting was the worst day of his presidency. Well, it certainly shouldn’t have been a good day, but, seriously, what the filibuster? Was it a bad day because children were killed and he didn’t order their killing?

It’s bad enough having a drone murder program, but do we also have to go along with the pretense that it doesn’t exist, or the pretense that it’s been stopped? Until this week, the U.S. government was hiding this data for much of 2020 and 2021 on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, leading some to imagine that drone strikes had stopped. Now that the data is available, we see a decrease but still massive bombings.

#77 Grassroots Election Protection Dec. 20, 2021

We cover a huge swath of the election protection universe in today’s GREEP #77 zoom gathering, with more than 90 people joining us.
 
We start with PETE PECKARSKY and STEVE ROSENFELD reporting on the fascist assault on voting rights in Wisconsin.
 
With JODIE EVANS and TATONKA BRICCA we deal with the government’s attempt to murder JULIAN ASSANGE and LEONARD PELTIER.
 
JOEL SEGAL introduces the magnificent concept of a VOTING RIGHTS SUMMER in which millions of young people would convene to save our electoral system from the fascist Trump/Bannon blitzkrieg.
 
We also hear from JULIE LEVINE about the horrifying dangers of 5G and what we need to stop it.
 
We hear from Europe about major mass mobilizations against the killing of a young boy in Greece.
 
And we CELEBRATE the victory of a millennial progressive in Chile.  NO MORE PINOCHET!!!

Sign to stop militarized drone killings

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Some in the U.S.

Major Ohio CEOs made 322 times pay of typical employee in 2020, per report by Policy Matters Ohio

Pig businessman

Fifty-four of Ohio’s largest employers paid their CEOs a median of 322 times what they paid the typical employee in 2020, according to a new report

Memorial Service 2021

Details about event

Tuesday, December 21, 2021, 6:00 - 7:00 PM 
Remembering friends and family who passed away while homeless this year.  Sponsored by Columbus Coalition for the Homeless With support from the ADAMH Board of Franklin County This year’s theme: Preventing overdose deaths For more information, please contact the Coalition at 614-228-1342.  Location:  Trinity Episcopal Church 125 E. Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215.  Also streaming live on Facebook during the event at https://www.facebook.com/columbuscoalitionforthehomeless. 

The Pentagon’s 20-Year Killing Spree Has Always Treated Civilians as Expendable

Top U.S. officials want us to believe that the Pentagon carefully spares civilian lives while making war overseas. The notion is pleasant. And with high-tech killing far from home, the physical and psychological distances have made it even easier to believe recent claimsthat American warfare has become “humane.”

Palestinian Human Rights Update - December 2021

Man standing outside a wall of fences

The biggest news story over the past few weeks has been the continued exposing of the Israeli military’s use of dirty tech to surveil Palestinians, and the extent to which Israeli-made spyware is used globally by oppressive governments. As JVP Executive Director Stefanie Fox points out in her latest newsletter Every Single Phone Call: What Israeli Spyware Reveals about the US-Israel Alliance: “Right after the Israeli Defense Ministry criminalized six of the leading Palestinian human rights and civil groups by designating them “terrorist organizations,” news broke that the phones of multiple Palestinian human rights defenders were infected with Pegasus, the military-grade spyware created by the Israeli company NSO Group.

On the very same day, another investigation revealed the Blue Wolf and White Wolf Initiatives, an extensive network of technology used by both Israeli soldiers and settlers to collect and record photos of Palestinians that are fed into a massive facial recognition database.

Busting Myths: The triumph of the new “fake news” in the legitimate press

Harvey J Graff

Former president Donald Trump popularized the phrase “fake news” as one of his terms of universal condemnation for any reporting—or stated facts—with which he disagreed, regardless of their accuracy. It became one of his rhetorical trademarks to the delight of his followers and the disgust of the legitimate press and all others.

As it scrambles to fill their pages in the absence of Trump’s daily outrageous statements or behavior, the press fears that it lacks the kinds of attention-grabbing breaking news that attracts readers, and is repeated across the multiple outlets of the social media sphere. In repeated exaggerations and repetition of dishonest messages from right-wing provocateurs and media, the legitimate press recreates the phenomenon of “fake news” that they so loudly condemned.

Several dynamics intersect in this startling development. First is the decline financially and journalistically of the daily local and national newspapers. As more and more go out of business, reduce their staffs and reporting, become parts of large for-profit networks, and face intense pressure to survive, both reporters and reporting decline.

Redbird Books to Prisoners

Redbird

Sunday, December 19, 2021, 5:00 - 7:00 PM
We collect, pack, and send books to Ohio prisoners every 1st and 3rd Sunday.  Location: Thirdhand Bike Coop, 979 East 5th Ave, Columbus. Please wear a mask, and please don't park in front of the building.

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