The Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism (CICJ) has operated Freepress.org since 2000 and ColumbusFreepress.com was started initially as a separate project to highlight the print newspaper and local content.
ColumbusFreepress.com has been operating as a project of the CICJ for many years and so the sites are now being merged so all content on ColumbusFreepress.com now lives on Freepress.org
The Columbus Freepress is a non-profit funded by donations we need your support to help keep local journalism that isn't afraid to speak truth to power alive.
Walking back to my car after a rally calling for peace at the Ohio State
House on Saturday, I walked past a spot where only a few days earlier a
distraught man sat in his van with a gun to his head surrounded by police.
From what I understood of that situation, it sounded like the guy was at
the end of his rope, in need of help and aiming a gun at his head on
election day was the only way he felt anyone might listen to him. The only
way he felt he had left to amplify his voice and be heard. It was his own
private anarchy against a system he felt had wronged him.
Many people spoke on Saturday from a variety of backgrounds, experiences
and emotions, all trying to make the same point- the Bush Administration
must be stopped. With such diversity taking the stage, everyone there
could find a speaker who touched their conscience, their soul, their
heart, their mind. Another voice that echoed their individual thoughts and
feelings on our country's disastrous situation and reenforced "I am not
alone," "I am not crazy," "I am not unpatriotic or un-American to be here."
I believe it's safe to say that as individuals, each person has his or her
own major reason why there should be no war. No war for oil. No war to
kill the innocent. No war to support corporations. No war to take away our
young men and women and return them in body bags. No war against race. No
war because we don't want it on religious grounds. No war on the poor of
the world. No war against children. No war because I've been there and it
does more harm than good. Many reasons, each one significant to the person
who voices them and the persons who agree. And many reasons give rise to a
number of different courses of action. Rallies give each group a platform
to get their message out, to express the why, to communicate to others
that "hey we have an idea, if you agree, join in with us!"
So should we be surprised that when unrelated groups come together to
speak on the same topic, everyone is going to offer a different solution?
Should we condemn the groups whose ideas we consider too mild or too
radical for our personal tastes? Or should we take the message each
speaker serves up for our consideration and compare it to our own ideas?
Are we afraid that someone may say something that would make us think and
perhaps alter our own point of view? Are we afraid of people who may use
language that doesn't appeal to us to make their point? Is it that we
might find ourselves agreeing with someone we know we don't have the heart
to follow? That's a rather scary thought right there.
Some speakers speak to educate. Some to motivate. Some prepare words and
present them, others shout from the heart. Let us listen, consider, and
take the actions that we consider most appropriate individually. Let us
pass on to others the words that touched us and leave the ones that didn't
to the people that voiced them. Consider that there are many roads to get
to the same destination. Consider that every one feels the need to be
heard at some point in life. And consider what you might do if you felt no
one ever heard you try to make your important point.
