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Rolla Peace News January 16, 2018 |
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Dear Friends: I'm sending the newsletter out in .html instead of plain text. If this doesn't work for you, I'll go back to plain text next week. Let me know. If you are having trouble reading this, it is posted at http://tomsager.org/Peaceletters/peaceletter011618.html In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018 2. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Waist Deep In The Big Muddy (And The Big Fool Says To Push On) b) Trust Not In Early Warnings Or Violent Solutions 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018 We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018, (and all subsequent Thursdays until peace is established) from Noon to 1:00 PM. Please try to join us. The temperature is predicted to be around 40. If you do not feel comfortable standing with us in front of the Post Office, please consider driving by and showing your support for our message by honking your horn and flashing a peace sign. 2.THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Waist Deep In The Big Muddy (And The Big Fool Says To Push On) b) Trust Not In Early Warnings Or Violent Solutions WAIST DEEP IN THE BIG MUDDY (AND THE BIG FOOL SAYS TO PUSH ON) “Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” —Richard P. FeynmanNature is on the rampage in 2018, following over $300 billion of weather-related damages in the United States in 2017. First week of January: a “bomb cyclone” hit the east coast of North America; Second week: torrential rains in southern California, falling on bare ground left charred by last year's drought and wildfire, caused mudslides that killed at least 20 people and caused tremendous damage . Southern California is literally, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” and the “Big Fool” in Washington DC (and all the little fools that surround him) say we “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming”. The little fools include all the “fake news” media, that report on weather-related disasters with barely a mention of global warming or climate change . “Good Old Global Warming!” “Push On!” More oil, more fossil fuels, more meat in our diets, more wars, more growth, more development, more progress.... Pete Seeger really nailed it when he wrote Waist Deep In The Big Muddy. The troops are being led to their death by a captain, ignorant of the danger and unwilling to listen. They are saved only when the captain drowns and the sergeant leads them back to shore. Listening to this powerful story in song, one can understand why 50 years ago, the “fake news” media tried to censor Pete. “Every time I read the paper, them old feelings come on ... waist deep, neck deep, soon even a tall man will be over his head....” Where is the sergeant to lead us back to dry land? How much time do we have left? Perhaps it is already too late.... This article from Wired on how New York's JFK Airport was paralyzed for four days on account of the recent storm might give you an idea of how thin is the thread that holds together our society. Journalist, Alex Davies, notes, “Perfect-storm weekend disasters like the one at JFK could become more common in the future. The changing climate will produce more, fiercer, weirder weather events.” TRUST NOT IN EARLY WARNINGS OR VIOLENT SOLUTIONS “To long for lasting, transcendent peace — to imagine that it’s possible — is to marginalize yourself.” —Robert C. KoehlerOf all the columnists I read, I like Robert Koehler the best. Koehler can see the big picture without getting lost in the details. He writes about terrible things, yet always manages to maintain his equilibrium. So here is an article by Robert Koehler on “swatting.” “Swatting” is turning in a false alarm, with the intention of bringing down a militarized response on some unsuspecting person or household. Swatting can be a practical joke, sometimes a deadly one, as in the case of Andrew Finch, who was shot dead in front of his home in Wichita by a SWAT team responding to a false alarm. Swatting can also be a way of purposely attacking a victim for whatever reason or no reason at all. A variation on swatting is common in occupied lands like Afghanistan where the military relies on paid informants for information on partisan militias (often referred to as terrorists). In fact, the less connected military and law enforcement are to the territory and its inhabitants, the more likely they are to be victimized by a swatter. “There’s a reason why swatting is such an effective tactic. It’s because police departments across the country have largely, in the dark, militarized to the extent that they are really hair-trigger ready to be deployed by a malicious actor like this in a prank.” says Kade Crockford of the ACLU. Koehler adds, “Unavoidably, it calls attention to the essential flaw of our trust in armed social order.” Of course the swatter hopes to avoid recognition. In the Wichita case cited above, a man has been arrested and charged with manslaughter. In other cases no suspect has been identified. Sadly, the more hi-tech our 911 emergency warning system gets, the more prone it may become to anonymous false alarms. False alarms can be very dangerous, particularly within our nuclear early-warning system. Here is a list of some close calls. Many are false alarms generated within the nuclear early warning system, any one of which could have caused millions of people to be vaporized in nuclear holocaust. To this list, must now be added this week's false alarm in Hawaii, where millions of Hawaians received the emergency alert: SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” It took 45 minutes for Hawaii’s office of Emergency Management to send another message saying the previous alert was a false alarm. What happened? The governor says “an employee pushed the wrong button.” Really? The world can be plunged into nuclear war because an employee pushes the wrong button???? I suppose it might have happened that way; but I find these other three scenarios far more likely: 1. A practical joker hacked into the early warning system.We may have to wait a looooooooooooooooooong time to find out what really happened. 54 years and running, and we still haven't seen the John F. Kennedy papers. What can we do about this? The solution is simple: demilitarize, decrease the level of violence in our society, increase openness and trust. There will always be bad actors in society; but let's cease letting them define who we are. Norway can show us how this can be done. In 2011 Norway was the victim of a horrific terrorist attack that killed 77. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg vowed that the attack would not hurt Norwegian democracy, and said the proper answer to the violence was “more democracy, more openness, but not naivety.” Stoltenberg also said, “No one has said it better than the AUF girl who was interviewed by CNN: ‘If one man can show so much hate, think how much love we could show, standing together.’” Norway did not allow this incident to lead to militarism and secrecy; or attacks on democracy and openness. Mr. Trump: Good luck in enticing Norwegians to immigrate to the United States. I think we could learn a lot from Norway; but It might be a hard sell. Norwegians are the happiest people in the world and number one in democracy, maternal health, freedom of the press and many other important categories. I think we could also learn a lot from Haitians, Salvadorans and Africans, if we would only learn to listen. Rolla Peace News is distributed by email once a week on Tuesday evenings (except on rare occasions) and is posted on the web at http://tomsager.org (click on Grassroots Rolla: near the top of rightmost column). If you don't wish to get notices of peace events in the Rolla area, let me know and I'll take you off this list. If you want to be added to this list, let me know. Wage peace, Helen helenm (at) fidnet.com |