Thursday, January 6, 6:30pm, Ohio Statehouse

January 6 was a violent and deadly attack against all Americans — against our country, our democracy, and our freedom as voters to choose the leaders that represent us so that we have a government of, by, and for the people.

One year later, the same faction that attacked our country on January 6 is hard at work silencing our voices by restricting our freedom to vote, attacking fair voting districts, and quietly preparing future attempts to sabotage free and fair elections and with it our democracy.

So this January 6, exactly one year later, Americans across race, place, party, and background are holding candlelight vigils to say, “In America, the voters decide the outcome of elections.”

The promise of democracy is not a partisan issue but a calling that unites us as Americans. To prevent this kind of attack from happening again, our elected leaders must pass urgent legislation that will protect this country from anti-democratic forces who are continuing their efforts to destroy it.

An article by Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times last July is a prime example of western intelligentsia’s limited understanding of China’s unhindered rise as a superpower. “Becoming a superpower is a complicated business. It poses a series of connected questions about capabilities, intentions and will,” Rachman wrote.

To help us understand what this claim precisely means, the FT writer uses an analogy. “To use a sporting analogy, you can be an extremely gifted tennis player and genuinely want to be world champion, but still be unwilling to make the sacrifices to turn the dream into reality.”

At least, in Rachman’s thinking, China is capable of being a political actor, though it remains incapable of vying for the superpower status, as it supposedly lacks ‘the will’ to make the required ‘sacrifices’.

Sundance, Executive Director of Cleveland American Indian Movement (AIM), will present a brief history of the Native experience in Ohio since contact with white colonizers, and a brief description of the Land Back Rights of Nature and the Land Back Movement: where do they interconnect, where do they diverge? Sundance, Executive Director of Cleveland American Indian Movement (AIM), will present a brief history of the Native experience in Ohio since contact with white colonizers, and a brief description of the Land Back Movement. Did you know the Cuyahoga River was never ceded by indigenous people; the east bank was taken in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, while the west bank was taken in the Treaties of Fort Industry in 1805.  Watch the Ohio Community Rights Network Video here. 

Tuesday, January 4, 2022, 10:00 AM
With new nuclear arms races, confrontations over Taiwan, Ukraine, the South China Sea and Kashmir, the stakes for this Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference and the world couldn’t be higher. Yet, the bar that diplomats have set for a successful NPT RevConf couldn’t be much lower. To send a powerful message to the UN and to build our national and international abolition and peace movements, the Peace and Planet network has organized an online conference in which movement leaders and analysts will share their expectations for the Review Conference and spell out what our governments must do to ensure full implementation of the Treaty.  More information and registration for the online conference here.

At the outset, the Israeli military decision to revise its open-fire policies in the occupied West Bank seems puzzling. What would be the logic of giving Israeli soldiers the space to shoot more Palestinians when existing army manuals had already granted them near-total immunity and little legal accountability? 

 The military’s new rules now allow Isreali soldiers to shoot, even kill, fleeing Palestinian youngsters with live ammunition for allegedly throwing rocks at Israeli ‘civilian’ cars. This also applies to situations where the alleged Palestinian ‘attackers’ are not holding rocks at the time of the shooting.