The Kateri Peace Conference, which has been held in upstate New York for 22 years, will be held online this year, allowing anyone in the world who can get online to attend and hear from and speak with such wonderful U.S. peace activists — (Hey, World, did you know the U.S. had peace activists?) — as Steve Breyman, John Amidon, Maureen Beillargeon Aumand, Medea Benjamin, Kristin Christman, Lawrence Davidson, Stephen Downs, James Jennings, Kathy Kelly, Jim Merkel, Ed Kinane, Nick Mottern, Rev. Felicia Parazaider, Bill Quigley, David Swanson, Ann Wright, and Chris Antal.

Yes, my name is in that list. No, I am not suggesting that I am wonderful. But I have had the privilege to speak at the Kateri Peace Conference in-person in 2012 and 2014, and was scheduled to be there again in 2020 until the Trumpandemic changed everyone’s routines.

On the night of July 2nd after protesters placed scores of balloons into a downtown street, Columbus Police on their public radio scanner talked about needing to arrest specific protesters, such as a young lady who has used a bullhorn to read from the book The End of Policing in front of police headquarters.

Here is the audio recording from that night.

The recording was posted by LGBQT and BLM activist Drew Michael Wunder, who is well-known by his “Bubble the Drag Queen” persona. The 26-year-old Wunder documents many protests on Facebook Live.

Activists have been reporting how Columbus police appear to be targeting specific protesters over the previous several weeks, utilizing unconstitutional tactics to ID, arrest and charge protesters. The police often fraudulently charge them with felony rioting, in some cases, when they are simply protesting peacefully.

But the scanner recording from the balloon protest offers actual smoking-gun proof.

This fall the citizens of Franklin County should vote in Nationwide Arena.

As we saw in the spring primaries, there is huge confusion about where our citizens can vote.  The shabby, little-known, woefully inadequate voting center on Morse Road is a  shameful disgrace to our democracy.  With the Pandemic we will not have the ability to staff and maintain the usual wide range of neighborhood voting facilities that have been traditionally spread around the county.  

Instead, as will be done in Atlanta, our largest indoor sports arena offers an ideal alternative.  Should we opt for two locations, the Schottenstein Center on campus might also be used.  

Nationwide Arena is owned by the public.  The decision to use it for the fall election can be made by city council, in concert with the county election board.

Nationwide is secure, safe and centrally located.  It has plenty of parking.  Everybody knows where it is. 

In response to sustained pressure from students, parents, alumni, teachers, employees, and community members, the Columbus City School Board opted to let their contract with the Columbus Police Department expire without the usual renewal. That contract expired on June 30, which has led to the recent announcement that CPD is “abolishing” 22 officers from Columbus Public Schools.

The visceral reaction to the murder of George Floyd unleashed deep personal reflection about racism, social justice, and fairness, and launched a powerful, broad based social movement.

The pursuit of justice, fairness, and the shape of our common futures encompasses but also transcends the questions of racism and raises questions about the nature of our civilization.

In this way, the Covid-19 pandemic is understood to fall disproportionally upon people of color, on the poor, on the millions imprisoned in the American gulag, upon undocumented migrants and their families, on residents of nursing homes and longterm care facilities. A substantial portion of our population is placed at risk by their everyday lives.

There is a clear convergence in our minds and in our politics that failures of justice and fairness are driven by root inequalities and inequities created and maintained by our social, economic and political system that are experienced and understood in terms of failures of social and ecological justice.