 home
archives
last week
feedback
Rolla Peace News February 17, 2015 |
|
Dear Friends: In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2015 2. EIGHT YEARS OF WEEKLY VIGILS FOR PEACE! 3. THE AMERICAN DREAM: 2015 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Great Rivers Wins Victory for Solar Energy in Missouri Supreme Court b) Interview with a Former Jihadist c) “Humanitarian War” an Oxymoron
==================
We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2015, (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 in the 20s. 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. EIGHT YEARS OF WEEKLY VIGILS FOR PEACE! It's hard to believe. We've completed eight years of weekly vigils for peace; and this Thursday begins our ninth year. I think we are having an effect. Those who profit from perpetual war are finding it more and more difficult to find popular support. They have totally destabilized large portions of the globe and created enemies galore where previously there were virtually none. They have squandered out country's wealth chasing after the will-o-the-wisp of global domination. Please join us Thursday as we begin our ninth year of weekly vigils for peace. 3. THE AMERICAN DREAM: 2015 The America we live in doesn't seem to change much from day to day, but to those of us who have been on the earth 50 years or more, it's not the same country we grew up in. The policeman on the corner, who was our friend when we were kids, now brandishes a machine gun and rides an armored tank. We could work our way through college and graduate debt-free. Now, a student without wealthy parents or a scholarship can only get an education by going hugely into debt. Our parents, for the most part, had jobs with pension plans and health insurance. The debt-ridden college graduate today is likely to be working for minimum wage, while millions of jobs are “outsourced” to countries where work is cheap. Unions were able to bargain for wages that kept up with the cost of living. Today, unions are being legislated or intimidated out of existence, and those that remain have little bargaining power, because there are so many people competing for the jobs that remain. Social Security, Medicare and public education are all being attacked by the people we supposedly elected to serve us. The infamous Citizens United decision makes sure that the only candidates that have a chance of election are those approved by the wealthy and the corporations. Abroad, we are waging wars against numerous smaller nations, supposedly in the name of “democracy,” but every country that we have intervened in is many times worse off than they were before we came in. Our President keeps a list of people he wants to kill, and sends drones to assassinate them, killing many innocent bystanders in the process. The NSA, as revealed by Edward Snowden and others, is Big Brother in real life, and very few people seem to care. The recently-published report on government-sponsored torture received even less public response. No one is being held accountable for any of this stuff, and Congress keeps authorizing more funding for it, while cutting funding for programs that help the people. Tom Englehardt spells it out here. So, what are we going to do about this? Oh, and let's not forget climate change and possible near-term extinction! Our grandchildren's futures are at stake. To do nothing is to acquiesce. 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Great Rivers Wins Victory for Solar Energy in Missouri Supreme Court b) Interview with a Former Jihadist c) “Humanitarian War” an Oxymoron GREAT RIVERS WINS VICTORY FOR SOLAR ENERGY IN MISSOURI SUPREME COURT Great Rivers Environmental Law Center attorney Henry Robertson successfully argued before the Missouri State Supreme Court that a statute exempting Empire Electric from the requirement to provide solar rebates to its customers is unconstitutional. Empire must now provide its customers who install solar energy with a rebate of up to $2 per Watt. Henry Robertson also wrote the ballot language for Proposition C which gave Missouri a Renewable Energy Standard in 2008 and also required privately owned utilities such as Empire to give rebates to those who install solar energy. Great Rivers Environmental Law Center is best known in Rolla as the public-interest environmental law center that saved Rolla's Buehler Park. Sadly, in its coverage of last week's victory on solar energy, The Rolla Daily News failed to even mention Great Rivers. INTERVIEW WITH A FORMER JIHADIST This interview with Fahim Ahmad who has been in prison since 2006 and slated to be released in two years is a real eye opener. He says that social alienation, a desire to do good and disgust at events like the invasion of Iraq played the largest part in his radicalization and his desire to do violence. Fahim is a changed man. He remarks: “I also don’t think people should go and take part in other people’s conflicts, because from a distance you can’t really know what’s going on. Things are never so black and white, and if you go there, people are just going to end up using you.” Sage advice. Don't meddle in other people's conflicts, or you end up getting used. Wish Obama could learn that. “HUMANITARIAN WAR” AN OXYMORON The Western intervention in Libya was hailed in 2011 as a “good humanitarian war.” Since then, Libya has descended into chaos and warlordism. This should have been predictable. As the great Gandhi once said: “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” ================== 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: 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 ### |