Advertisement

Fractivist Bill Baker ponders progress and looks ahead

Baker said he and others working with Frack-Free Ohio have made inroads particularly with Muskingum County Conservancy District.

“We’ve managed to get them to halt the sales of water until an impact study can be done. The impact study will be finished towards the end of the year. So that’s an issue that’s coming up as far as water sales go.”

But he said private subcontracted haulers are taking water from easily accessible sources.

“They may be public or they may be just available and no one’s watching them. At this time, it’s not fully determined what the legalities are, which puts us in a really bad position at the grassroots level as far as pushing for some new laws and pushing for some oversight.”

He said laws and regulations are only as good as the persons willing to uphold them.

“We have plenty of laws. It just seems like we’re not always protected. Muskingum Watershed has a meeting this Friday at Pleasant Hill. We’ll be attending that, making our thoughts known there, inside and outside. We’re trying to cater to all folks with a rally and also testimony inside the board meeting.”

Love is the key ingredient for successful social movements, not religion, per se.

Some folk, such as Nathan Schneider, suggest there will be No Revolution Without Religion, but I humbly suggest success does not require religion, per se, whether organized or not. Instead it may be a matter of basing social movements on love. Who was it that said justice is the public face of love ?

But first some acknowledgement of how it's understandable folk think religion itself is required. Yes, religion can involve love and its manifestations: justice, fairness and compassion.

During Occupy DC, activist Bruce Wright reminded me the Bible says a lot more about social justice than it does about the roles of women or homosexuality or other issues that religious conservatives focus on. He is currently camping out in 'Romneyville' with the People's Economic Human Rights Campaign in Tampa as that city hosts the Republican National Convention.

And of course, social movements could no doubt use a type of Christianity more in tune with Liberation Theology and the type of faith found in the Abolition and Black Civil Rights movements.

August is National Sandwich Month

Teach our children well

It doesn’t take a high school graduate to realize there aren’t enough jobs in the United States. But it does take a high school graduate to do most of what jobs there are.

The stalemates that exist between the political right and center – vouchers vs. public education; teacher unions vs. you’re fired; evolution science vs. snakes and apples; etc – create a unique opening for progressives to offer some real ideas that might actually gain traction in a national dialogue currently mired in politicalculus.

To this end I offer three progressive proposals – seeking thoughtful response from both progressives and the political community at large. What do you think about…

TEACHER ASSISTANT CORPS

My first plan for reforming public education is a national teacher assistant corps. This would be federally-funded but supplemented with state, local, private and corporate contributions as well.

Beginning with the most at-risk districts and eventually fanning out to every public school in America, I propose placing a teacher’s assistant in every class, every classroom, every day.

Why?

Help the farmers

Imagine a Washington where fresh food goes straight from a local farmer’s field to a student’s lunch table. Healthier options for our children, more money in our local economies, and less oil and gas burned transporting food from out of state.

It should be a slam dunk. I recently introduced legislation to promote the use of local foods in school lunches, and it passed the Senate with bipartisan support. But obstructionist Republicans are holding up the bill in the House, and might gut this program before it ever gets out of Congress.

At a time of record drought, we simply can’t wait to pass the Farm Bill -- we need to make clear that politics shouldn’t trump common sense. Will you help me send that message?

Tell the House: Pass the Senate’s bipartisan Farm Bill to help Washington children, farmers, and communities!

Environmentalists bolster case against 20-Year extension at Davis-Besse atomic reactor: NRC documents obtained through FOIA reveal severe safety significance of cracking

Oak Harbor, OH—An environmental coalition opposing the 20-year license extension at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor on Ohio’s Lake Erie shore has cited scores of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents, obtained by Beyond Nuclear through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), to show how dangerous cracking of the concrete shield building containment actually is, despite FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) denial and downplaying.

The filing is posted online, as are the NRC documents revealed through FOIA.

In one document (FOIA Document B/9), NRC’s Pete Hernandez states: “I think the greater concern is will the SB [Shield Building] stay standing, and not whether or not the decorative concrete will fall off. Because the licensee has not performed core bores to see if there is cracking in the credited concrete, do they have a basis to say that the structural concrete will maintain a Seismic II/I condition?”

1,500 fake "Bomb Detectors" fail to stop explosions in Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's military, narcotics bureau, airports and other security forces bought 1,576 fake "bomb detectors" for $30 million, investigators said, which the army currently uses against Islamist guerrillas despite a U.S. Embassy alert that the devices are "like a toy."

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) --Thailand's equivalent to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation -- announced on July 18 that the manufacturers and distributors of the useless devices fraudulently sold them to Thailand's security forces and other agencies.

The DSI then sent the case to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which set up 13 panels on July 24 to investigate the purchases.

About a dozen government agencies spent a total of $30 million on the similar hand-held units -- named GT200 and Alpha 6 -- despite a lack of proof that the items could function.

Thailand's top generals endorse the devices.

Rally to restory weekend voting in Ohio

Voting rights advocates continue to call for weekend voting hours in light of the recent directive from the Secretary of State that closes down weekend voting across the state.

While the Secretary of State's new directive creates uniformity, it is not fair in its impact on voting populations. Get a copy of the report here

Early Voting article.

Join us at the corner of Broad and 4th on August 20th at 2pm for a Rally to Restore Weekend Voting in Ohio!

We will start the the Ohio Secretary of State's office (at the corner of Broad and 4th St) then we will march to the Franklin County Board of Election's Meeting to have our voices heard.

Contact Camille Wimbish for more information!

SPECIAL REPORT -- EXPOSING U.S. AGENTS OF LOW-INTENSITY WARFARE IN AFRICA: The

The original website for this special report includes three unpublished video clips of interviewees from the Politics of Genocide documentary film project: Ugandan dignitary Remigius Kintu, former Rwandan prime minister Fautisn Twagiramungu, and Nobel peace prize nominee Juan Carrero Saralegui.

Gubernatorial Recall Ballots Saved from Destruction in Waukesha County, WI - For Now...

State and local officials confirm the public records have been moved to off-site storage, though they remain in the custody of County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus...
The ballots cast in Waukesha County during the June 5th Gubernatorial recall in Wisconsin appear to be safe from destruction at the hands of one of the nation's most notorious election officials.
For now.

In our exclusive exposé earlier today, we detailed the threat made by the infamous Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus to "destroy" the county's ballots from the historic recall election between Gov. Scott Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, as early as noon today, in apparent contravention of state law. The threat to destroy the ballots was made even as they (and the rest of the ballots cast in the election across the state) are still subjects of public records requests by a number of citizen groups attempting to verify the otherwise completely unverified results of the race by examining the ballots by hand for the first time.

Pages

Subscribe to ColumbusFreePress.com RSS