The militarization of police forces in the U.S. has come under increasing scrutiny, including the effect it has on the psychology of police. Equipped with military-grade weapons and body armor, police have been conditioned to view citizens as enemies, instead of human beings whom they are bound to protect and serve.

Wearing face shields or gas masks has the psychological effect of deindividuation: a feeling of anonymity that curbs police officers’ sense of personal responsibility for their actions.

These effects played out in downtown Columbus on the evening of January 30 as a demonstration against President Trump was winding down. About 3,000 protesters were marching from the Franklin Country Courthouse back to the Ohio Statehouse, as police attempted to keep them off High Street by forcing them onto the sidewalk.

Approximately 30 activtists staged a demonstration Wednesday, February 22 outside Senator Rob Portman's office in downtown Columbus. Debbie Silverstein, Single Payer Action Network Ohio State Director, illustrated the devastation an illness without access to medical care can bring, told of breaking her leg* years ago -- she then just lay on the floor and cried and cried, desolate because she knew that she could not afford the needed medical treatment.  Advocating militancy, Silverstein said that we have learned our lesson -- compromising in the struggle over the legislation that resulted in the Affordable Health Care Act did not serve the movement well.  "Instead of retreating in the face of Administration threats to abolish the Affordable Care Act," she declared, "now we are demanding more -- Medicare for All!"

Liberals are supposed to be antiwar, right? I went to college in the 1960s, when students nationwide were rising up in opposition to the Vietnam War. I was a Young Republican back then and supported the war through sheer ignorance and dislike of the sanctimoniousness of the protesters, some of whom were surely making their way to Canada to live in exile on daddy’s money while I was on a bus going to Fort Leonard Wood for basic combat training. I can’t even claim that I had some grudging respect for the antiwar crowd because I didn’t, but I did believe that at least some of them who were not being motivated by being personally afraid of getting hurt were actually sincere in their opposition to the awful things that were happening in Southeast Asia.

enator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would do well to embrace our early American hero Pocahontas. She might even thank Donald Trump for making the link.

With his signature sneering, leering sexism and racism, Trump refers to the Massachusetts senator with the name of this real-life historic figure as if it were a put-down.

But Pocahontas is a true American icon. Unlike Trump, she was greatly loved by her people, and her character was impeccable. She was deeply admired in England, where she travelled with her husband and young son and then tragically passed away, having barely turned twenty.

February 23 at 4:00pm - Hope City House of Prayer
3330 El Paso Drive, Columbus, Ohio 43204
Facebook Event Page

Join the People's Justice Project in a One Mile Prayer March to May Ginther's 2017 "State of the City" address which will be held at the Police Training Academy. Mayor Ginther and has decided to extend the "Summer Safety Initiative" that killed 23-year-old Henry Green in June to a year-round program - the exact opposite of what community members have been demanding since his death. The more recent deaths of T'yre King and Jaron Thomas by the hands of Columbus Police have not resulted in any justice for their families.