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On a Sunday night in the inner city of Columbus, nearly 300 attendees gathered for a rally to promote jobs and justice. Best-selling author and social activist Barbara Ehrenreich headlined the event and received a standing ovation as she detailed the harsh reality of corporate America’s attack on working people. Her speech drew from her popular book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, a firsthand account of her journey as an underpaid member of America’s notorious “pink collar” ghetto.

Ehrenreich emphasized that while corporate execs in Germany and Japan might make on average 40 times the salary of a worker at their companies, in the U.S. the number is 400 times the salary. She outlined how the democratic movements over the last century wrestled power away from the corporations and how the corporations are now using their size and wealth to destroy democracy and to quite literally require that people work for them for low wages.

Nationally-syndicated radio talk show host Tom Pope moderated the event and welcomed “all people” to the forum. “I don’t care if you’re a communist, a socialist, an atheist, a believer. All are welcome in God’s house,” Pope told the crowd. Pope can be heard daily in Columbus on WVKO 1580 AM from 10am-2pm where he exposes how the wealthy spend their time turning their money into power and their power into more money at the expense of the people’s needs.

Free Press Editor and Near East Area Commissioner Bob Fitrakis spoke about the race and class-based educational apartheid system in Columbus and Columbus School Board member Bill Moss outlined why the Chamber of Commerce is bankrolling four candidates to the tune of $350,000 to defeat him.