Audio by artist tom_over

Recordings of speeches made at a Sept, 2008 rally of the Blue [collar] - Green [environmentalism] Alliance at the Ohio Statehouse.

Related links  veal crates ,   battery cages for laying hens  gestation crates  

 Ohio voters will decide on Issue 2 in the Nov 3 elections. If passed, the ballot initiative will amend the Ohio constitution so as to establish a 13 member “Livestock Care Standards Board.”

Proponents say Issue 2 will promote safe, affordable, and local food, while also promoting the care of Ohio’s farm animals.

Opponents say the ballot initiative is a corporate power grab that will, in reality, impede improvements to farm animal welfare, while also promoting the interests of factory farms over those of small to medium sized farms.

The Yes- on- Issue 2 signs you might see around Columbus include the words ‘safe, local, food.’ But both its proponents and opponents say the ballot initiative is an attempt to prevent the Human Society of the United States from facilitating changes to Ohio’s laws pertaining to confinement practices for farm animals, as the organization has done in seven states.

The confinement practices in question are those that prevent farm animals from having enough room to stand up, lie down, turn around or extend their limbs.

Eriyah Flynn is an animal rights activist working with Mercy For Animals in Columbus, Ohio.

 Use the following links for videos to match the audio content.

   Stephanie Pistellohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7uIHBH-ZgU 

Kui Huan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YipJLhceqQI    

Julian Martinhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY6JOUbr0QU  

Bill Price http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6by2veKZpw 

Judy Bonds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzk1MMQg6tY  

Use the following link for photos http://civicallyengaged-gallery.blogspot.com/

 To offer input about this program email :thomasover@gmail.com  Regarding the treatment of farm animals we hear from in this program Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States. He leads their factory farming campaign.

Columbus commemorated Earth Day 2009 with many work-site events around greater Columbus on Saturday April 18, and with a celebration at Goodale Park on the following day.

The music you are hearing is from System Theory, recorded at Dick’s Den on High Street. Just a Frisbee throw south of the Blue Danube, the jazz bar is , in my opinion, one of Columbus’ cultural and historical sites.

On keyboards is Scott Steeleman . On bass guitar Jim Tussing. On drums and moog synthesizer Adam Smith, not to be confused with the economist. On flute is Michael Cox.

Some might call the Earth Day event a celebration. Some might call it an observance of Earth Day, not wanting to use the term ‘celebration,’ due to thinking that humanity has many tough ecological challenges before us. Some might say its premature to celebrate any sort of achievement in terms of dealing with our eco-challenges.

But another way of thinking of the Earth Day event is think that there are things to celebrate, such as the fact that many people are working together to address our eco-challenges and not giving in to cynicism and hopelessness.

Some people might also say that environmentalism has at its roots a celebration of life-or perhaps a celebration of, and appreciation for, the physical and mental health of human beings, and other sentient beings, and an appreciation for the Earth’s services

upon which, not only life, but quality of life depends.

So, with that line of reasoning, Earth Day can involve celebrating life and appreciating the quality of life we have.

But how much of that celebration is based on our sense of what we have accomplished in terms of making our lives and our communities more ecologically and socially sustainable? You tell me. Go to Civically Engaged DOT NET to give your input. It would be great to hear from you.

http://civicallyengaged.net 

A group of citizens from Union County who oppose the proposed installation of a large-scale egg-farm in their community met with Adam Ward, who is legislative liaison of the Ohio Department of Agriculture and Kevin Elder, who is Executive Director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture's Livestock Environmental Permitting Program.

The company, Hi-Q Egg Products wants to build a facility near Mansfield that would involve 6 million chickens. Citizens formed the group called No More Chickens because they are concerned about , as their website says “the further negative impact that this facility will bring to our health, ground water, streams, air, soil, property values and roads.”

The meeting between community members and Adam Ward and Kevin Elder of the Ohio Department of Agriculture was part of the Ohio Environmental Council’s Environmental Lobby Day. It’s an event via which members of the community, along with members of environmental groups meet with Ohio legislators.

The conversation you will hear took place in the State House atrium. It was noisy. About 12 or 13 people sat around a banquet table in the echo y atrium, struggling to hear one another. I huddled closely with the people at the table in an attempt to hear what was being said.

The meeting between community member and Adam Ward and Kevin Elder of the Ohio Dept of Agriculture interested me because the concerns that were being voiced is a specific case which reflects the broader issue of problems associated with some aspects of industrialized agriculture.

When I spoke with some of the people working with the community group NO MORE Chickens , some of them said that promoting local and organic food is part of the solution

Music by Jake Wildwood

You are able to hear my voice right now because of electricity. Electricity that powered my computer and the voice recorder. As you hear this, electricity powers the computer in our studio that operates our radio programming. Most of that electricity comes from burning coal, especially in this part of the country. Some of that coal comes from a mining practice leads to people in Appalachia breathing silica dust into their lungs and ingesting selenium and arsenic as they drink the water in their communities.

It is my hope that this program is at least a small part of more people getting involved with finding better ways to get our electricity.

Welcome to the Feb 12, 2010 edition of Conscious Voices. I am Tom Over. This program has been made possible with funding help from the Puffin Foundation and from you.

To comment on this show go to WCRSFM.org or columbusfreepressforum.org

If you search the internet for information about mountain top removal mining, you'll find that people too numerous to count have, during the past few years, sat in jail cells, chained themselves to mining machinery, staged tree-sits, marched, rallied, and otherwise have worked to put an end to this form of strip of mining that is not only contaminating the air, land , and water in Appalachia, but also deforming its landscapes.

To get more involved with this issue, look for a link to this program on the message board of columbusunderground.com

Before the march, at a rally in Lafayette Park, which is located directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, one protestor, Paul D. Morosky from Uncasville, Connecticut carried a sign that read: “ End These Racist Wars.”

“The wars probably were assisted in their creation because of the use of racial issues. It goes far deeper than that. The wars themselves are being fought against people who we are referring to as 'haji's', 'towel-heads,' and 'sand niggers.' These are all racial slurs that help to demean the 'other side' and allow our troops and Americans in general to look down upon people of the Middle East. This also is seen right here in America.

“Not only that but when you think about the poverty draft that we have going on in this country, because basically there are no jobs, you see this too as a level of racism. These kids are getting out of school and they got nothing else to do with no ability to obtain higher education. So they sign up for the military as it looks like a great way to move ahead, and get an education. They are not truly made aware of the intended use of them as killing machines. They're being used as cannon fodder for these wars.”

In the months leading up to the most recent protest in Washington, D.C. against the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, activists and writers such as Cindy Sheehan and David Swanson have called for shutting down business-as-usual in the capital city.

But on March 20, instead of a hundred thousand or even tens of thousands of protesters, it was evident from first-hand observation that the event drew, at most, a few thousand people.

Far from disrupting business-as-usual, the anti-war protest---which took place on a Saturday--seemed to blend in with the flow of tourists and locals enjoying the warm, sunny weather in our nation's capital. On that weekend, far more prominent in mainstream news was the health-care reform showdown in Congress and the immigration reform rally which drew more than 200,000 people to the National Mall.

But some of the ordinary protesters who did show up advocate revolution or other ways of intensifying resistance against what they regard as imperialism and militarism.

“On a larger scale we need to do away with the whole capitalist system,” said Rich Mareeney who came to Washington, D.C. from New York City. He tilted his head toward a fellow activist standing a few feet away from him and said, “some people like Bob over here—he's going to argue we need a revolution to overthrow it.”

Mareeney works with the anti-war activist group, The World Can't Wait. He was dressed in an orange jump suit—-like those worn by Guantanamo Bay detainees--to call for an end to occupations and torture for empire.

At points throughout the anti-war rally the crowd chanted “shut it down.” It's not clear whether that call for shutting down the empire was heard by anyone in the White House across the street.