Mission Statement

Our mission is to bring together people who believe in using nonviolent methods to build and sustain a peaceful world.

Goals & Intentions

To create environments for study, action, and reconciliation
To generate effective ways of making our voices heard
To support all victims of war, both military and civilian
To hold leaders accountable for advancing peaceful solutions to conflicts

Actions

COFP is an active and visible presence in Central Ohio and elsewhere. With the help of the Columbus Unitarian-Universalist and Mennonite Churches, COFP sent 383 School Kits to Iraq. Relief Kits were also sent. In addition, COFP contributed to a Heifer International Project, and sent a response letter to a Green Peace group in Dresden, Germany.

COFP also cooperates with other local and national groups, including the National Network to End the War against Iraq and the Central Ohio Peace Network.

Robert Greenwald, who produced "Outfoxed" about Fox News, is making a new film, "WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price," which is scheduled to be released this November.

"WAL-MART" promises to expose the mega-retailer in the same way that Greenwald's "Outfoxed" and "Uncovered" shed new light on Fox News and the Iraq War. Wal-Mart's practices are hurting U.S. women and our families, and the National Organization for Women believes it is critical to our future that a vigorous debate on these issues take center stage in this nation. That's why NOW is partnering with Greenwald's Brave New Films and other progressive groups to help make and promote this movie. This movie is a perfect fit with NOW's 3-year campaign to expose Wal-Mart as a "Merchant of Shame" and as a retailer whose greed for profits comes at the expense of women and people of color.

The Ohio State University (OSU) is hosting a course that many physicians consider a pointless exercise in cruelty. Nicknamed "Cruelty 101," the course attempts to instruct students in spinal cord injury research methods. Unfortunately, students will not be focusing on the newest in vitro cell biology, neural cell imaging, and clinical research techniques. Instead, OSU neurologists are teaching the students how to systematically injure the spinal cords of rats and mice using a weight dropped on the animal's exposed spinal cord and then to put the animals through behavioral tests and surgical manipulations.

Over the course of the three-week class, the 269 injured mice and rats are subjected to additional surgeries, invasive laboratory procedures, and physically demanding behavioral exercises before they are killed. The course is funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The university states that the class teaches a "standardized" methodology for inflicting spinal cord damage.

The US House of Representatives Wednesday turned back a measure that would have barred the use of federal funds to go after sick people using pot. The vote came just a week after the US Supreme Court gave federal drug law enforcers the okay to resume arresting and prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers in states where it is legal. The Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, named after cosponsors Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), would have amended the Justice Department appropriations bill for the next fiscal year. But when the smoke cleared after a half-hour of debate Wednesday morning, the measure was defeated by a margin of 161-264.

Although not entirely a party-line vote, the measure fared much better among Democrats, with 146 of 205 voting in favor. On the Republican side of the aisle, only 15 of 229 members voted for Hinchey-Rohrabacher.

While a defeat, Wednesday's vote showed a slow but steady increase in support for medical marijuana on Capitol Hill. The vote count is up by 13 votes over an identical proposal last year.

Rethinking the "unthinkable": An updated view of communism from Ike to Mao and beyond by Bob Avakian. 449 pp. 2005

How does a good California boy of the 50's, an elementary school "Traffic Boy" who loved Smilin' Ed's "Froggy the Gremlin," a high school quarterback ("a little guy, brimming with confidence"), a serious fan of basketball and music, and the son of a prominent judge go from a nine-year-old supporter of Eisenhower to a supporter of Mao Tsetung and the Chairman of today's Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP)?

Bob Avakian lays it out in his memoir From Ike to Mao and Beyond.

Most of us don't really know much about Communism. Growing up, we have all been taught to fear and disparage it. Like Avakian, many Americans practiced hiding under their first grade desks in case of nuclear attack by "godless Communists." Like Avakian, many of us lived through the McCarthy witch hunts that found communists under every bush darkly working for the destruction of America.