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Nonviolent action is extremely powerful.

Unfortunately, however, activists do not always understand why nonviolence is so powerful and they design 'direct actions' that are virtually powerless.

I would like to start by posing two questions. Why is nonviolent action so powerful? And why is using it strategically so transformative?

Here we are on Day 5 of the Donald Trump presidency, and he's got "special" forces of the U.S. military in two-thirds of the world's nations. He's engaged in serious occupation and/or bombing campaigns in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. He just sent malicious robot airplanes armed with missiles to blow to pieces a bunch of vaguely-identified but never indicted "criminals" in Yemen. Their body parts were widely scattered and their loved ones devastated. The injured writhed in agony.

We made it through a presidential campaign in which a debate moderator asked if a candidate would be willing to kill thousands of innocent children, and in which Donald Trump promised to "kill their families" and "steal their oil." And here we are on Trump's very first Terror Tuesday, and he's already in possession of the most expensive and extensive military machine ever seen on earth. His speed is remarkable. Already he has troops in 175 nations (and announcers are thanking them for watching sporting events as if it were all just normal).

January 20 was marked by protests across the U.S. against the inauguration of Donald Trump. One of several actions in Columbus was a march to the downtown police station and City Hall to call on Mayor Ginther to demilitarize the police force.

“Trump ran on a platform of ‘law and order,’ which we know is nothing but a dog whistle for violent racist policing  — something he made abundantly clear throughout his campaign,” said Pearl Morgan, an organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a group that organizes white people to fight against racism. “He openly encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies, seeming to view it as entertainment,” she said.

“We fear that Trump will fulfill his campaign promises to financially support and empower local police departments in their crackdown on our communities,” Morgan added. “That is why we demand that Columbus reject Trump’s plans for our police department, just as the voters of Franklin County rejected Trump on election day.”

A sign saying #NoDAPL
 

Thursday, January 26, 12noon, Chase Bank [Broad St. Downtown], 100 E. Broad St.

Divest your money from the Dakota Access Pipeline!

With Trump as president, the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline [DAPL] is not over. There will be a rally in front of Chase Bank, 100 E. Broad St., asking their patrons to divest their money from the institutions that stand to profit from the pipeline.

If you bank with Chase, divest now!

Since the decision by the U.S. Army to suspend the DAPL river crossing easement to conduct a limited Environmental Impact Statement, the resistance camps at Standing Rock are asking people not to travel to the camps but to “instead take bold action in your local communities to force investors to divest from the project.”

The financial backers of the Dakota Access Pipeline include: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, ING Bank, Citizens Bank, U.S. Bank, PNC Bank, Barclays, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.

Book cover

I constantly remind the students in my African American history classes that if you are poor and white in America, especially if you are rural or southern, the only difference is that you are not black. We have long known that poor whites and blacks live very similar lives, and the socioeconomic indicators we use to measure well-being–level of education, family life, employment, home ownership, involvement in the criminal justice system–are also remarkably similar.

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