At this Tuesday morning rally, several people gathered together to “Stand Up for Clean Air.” The rally also focused on the effects that the Bush administration’s irresponsible environmental campaign is having on Ohio communities.

The evidence of Ohio’s degenerating environmental progress is concurrent with Bush’s lapse in ensuring environmental protection and enforcement of environmental laws.

“Bush has the worst environmental record in presidential history” said Trish Lanahan, an activist with the Sierra Club who is working to, “protect the Columbus environment from Bush.”

The “Ohio Communities at Risk” report addresses; increased mercury pollution in water, air pollution’s connection to increased asthma cases, sprawl and the increase of sewage in our rivers.

Speakers featured in the report came to the rally to share their personal experiences connected with these four issues that are affecting the livability of our communities. These true and sometimes heart-breaking testaments pegged the Bush Administration’s for putting “Ohio Communities at Risk.”

Communications Workers of America took a stand against SBC Communications, Friday, April 30.

The gathering began outside the SBC shareholders meeting that was being held at the Hyatt on Capital. The CWA was protesting SBC because they were going to charge retirees with health premiums.

In exchange for the CWA rally not protesting the shareholders meeting, retirees will not have to pay premiums for the duration of the contract.

The boisterous crowd, some five hundred strong, moved from the Hyatt to another hotel ballroom to celebrate its triumph over SBC. However, this was only one victory in a marred and difficult bargaining war that waged following the expiration of the old contract until recently, when tentative agreements were made. Layoffs, employment in growing sections of SBC for union workers, raises, health care, moving overseas factions of SBC back to the U.S., and other CWA concerns were brought to the bargaining table. Jerry Springer, the final speaker at the CWA protest said it best, “Unions are the ones who fought to make jobs what they are today in America.”

To speak honestly and openly about Palestine/Israel, one must recognize that the Israeli military occupation continues a legacy that began in 1947 with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to make room for the State of Israel. The violence suffered by Israelis and Palestinians will continue as long the roots of the conflict remain-colonization, occupation, displacement, apartheid and the denial of the right of Palestinian refugees.

To speak honestly and openly about the war against and occupation of Iraq, one must recognize the ongoing legacy of U.S. involvement in Iraq. The current U.S. occupation of Iraq, the lifting of sanctions under U.S. military rule, and the continued local instability deny the Iraqi citizenry the very self-determination championed by the United States.

When, in future, you find yourself wondering, “What ever happened to the Constitution?” you will want to go back and look at June 8, 2004. That was the day the attorney general of the United States — a.k.a. “the nation’s top law enforcement officer” — refused to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with his department’s memos concerning torture.

In order to justify torture, these memos declare that the president is bound by neither U.S. law nor international treaties. We have put ourselves on the same moral level as Saddam Hussein, the only difference being quantity. Quite literally, the president may as well wear a crown — forget that “no man is above the law” jazz. We used to talk about “the imperial presidency” under Nixon, but this is the real thing.

The Pentagon’s legal staff concurred in this incredible conclusion. In a report printed by The Wall Street Journal, “Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn’t bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn’t be prosecuted by the Justice Department. ...

Peace activist and great dissenter Dave Dellinger died on May 25, 2004 in Montpelier, Vermont. Dellinger is perhaps best known as one of the “Chicago Seven” (originally eight, until they bound and gagged Bobby Seal).

Dellinger described himself as a “moral dissenter” and rejected his affluent background leaving Yale during the Great Depression to live among the poor and homeless. He later revealed in his autobiography, From Yale to Jail (Pantheon Press, 1993) that he wanted to follow the path of Francis of Assisi. On that less-trod path in our culturally Christian society, Dellinger found himself living among the poor in Newark, New Jersey; he spent World War II in Lewisburg maximum-security penitentiary as a pacifist war objector; and he was beaten and bloodied throughout the civil rights and peace movements.