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Rolla Peace News February 20, 2018 |
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Dear Friends: http://tomsager.org/Peaceletters/peaceletter022018.html In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2018 2. 11 YEARS OF PEACE VIGILS 3. WAR AND POVERTY 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) School Violence b) A Letter From The Taliban Addressed To The American People c) Boycott, Divestment And Sanctions Movement Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize d) Stories For Children And Grown-Ups 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2018 We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, February 22, 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 in the low 40s. 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. 11 YEARS OF PEACE VIGILS We have completed 11 years of weekly vigils for Peace at the Rolla Post Office. Has it done any good? The World is still at war; but I think awareness of the need for Peace has increased. In any case, things could be a lot worse than they are now. Let's work for a kinder, gentler World at Peace. We continue our vigils for Peace into the 12th year. 3. WAR AND POVERTY This article by Robert Koehler illustrates some of the ways that our country's obsession with war has contributed to the growing number of US citizens living in poverty. It's not just an obsession with war, but obsession with being first, strongest, best, and imposing our “values” on the rest of the world. There are some fields of endeavor in which we have achieved these goals: We spend more on our military than China, Russia, and several others combined. We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. And we have the highest health care costs per capita in the world. Meanwhile, 40 million Americans live in poverty. If you find this hard to believe, read Philip Alston's report to the United Nations. Alston spent 10 days in December 2017 traveling around the country assessing the well-being of people living in poor areas. The conditions he found are inexcusable in a nation that prides itself on freedom, democracy, and support for human rights. Here's a link to his report. Stephen Miles, of Win Without War, says, “When our nation can’t manage to turn the lights on for the people of Puerto Rico, when we can’t help those suffering from opioid addiction get treatment, and when we can’t ensure education and healthcare to all of our citizens, how is it possible we can justify spending billions more on weapons that don’t work to fight enemies that don’t exist?”Maybe we should be asking this question to the politicians who just voted for the biggest-yet military budget. Dwight Eisenhower warned of this situation back in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”His words are just as relevant today — in fact, this is where we are at. 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) School Violence b) A Letter From The Taliban Addressed To The American People c) Boycott, Divestment And Sanctions Movement Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize d) Stories For Children And Grown-Ups SCHOOL VIOLENCE I think Parkland might have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. 17 dead and 15 wounded in a school shooting where the confessed perpetrator apparently had a history of racism and mental illness. Many are clamoring for gun control legislation, which I favor. Decreasing the availability of semi-automatic firearms could not but decrease the probability of mass shootings of which we have experienced 46 in the United States, so far in 2018 — 46 mass shootings; 90 dead; 163 wounded. Our children have a right to feel safe in their schools. I agree. Other people's children have a right to feel safe in their schools too. So what about Puerto Rico, where in the wake of Hurricane Maria the school system is about to be sold off to Wall Street for a song. What about Palestine, where school children are likely to wake up to find their schools occupied by armed Israeli settlers. What about Iraq and Afghanistan which used to have excellent school systems until we turned the land into a war zone. What about North Korea, where 60,000 children are at risk of starvation due to sanctions. Is it not arrogant to demand safety for our children, while we perpetrate mayhem on the children of other lands? What we do to children in far off lands will almost certainly come 'round 180 degrees to our children — in fact, it already has. Prevalence of firearms, I think is a symptom. The disease is a culture of violence and greed. I suspect whatever legislation will be forthcoming, will likely treat the symptom, leaving the disease to spread further. When I ran for US Congress in 2000, the second most common question I received concerned my position on gun control. (The most common had to do with abortion.) My answer was we certainly need gun-control and we need to start with the most dangerous weapons of all — nuclear weapons. I proposed negotiating a complete and verifiable nuclear arms ban with all other current and would-be nuclear powers. Sadly, I finished last with less than 1% of the vote. Today such a treaty is on the horizon; but the nuclear powers all balk at signing it. Bottom line: If you are concerned about school shootings, work to decrease the violence in society. Begin with the most violent entity in the world: The US Military. Begin with the most violent weapons in the world: nuclear weapons. A LETTER FROM THE TALIBAN ADDRESSED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE Here's a link to the letter; since you are unlikely to see it in the main-stream US media. They say many of the same things I've been saying for over 16 years. Maybe they read my columns — I don't know. They suggest peace talks and diplomacy to end the 16-year-old war. I think this would be an excellent idea. Read the letter carefully. It's addressed to you. BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS MOVEMENT NOMINATED FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE Norway again leads the way as Norwegian member of Parliament, Bjørnar Moxnes, nominates the movement to Boycott, Divest from and Sanction Israel for the Nobel Peace Prize. Moxnes describes the BDS movement as a “peaceful, global human rights movement that urges the use of economic and cultural boycotts to end Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights and international law.” STORIES FOR CHILDREN AND GROWN-UPS Here's a video of my reading of Howie Schneider's “Wilky the White House Cockroach” to my grandchildren. The President who lived in the White House at the time was a much kinder, gentler president than lives there now. The president learns that even with cockroaches, diplomacy is better than war. 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 |