Editors note: This issue of Rolla Peace News features “Peaceful Warriors:” a poem and essay by local activist Tara Miller. Please send in your work. I think readers would love to see more variety in this newsletter.

There is a common stereotype that portrays peace activists as people who want to sing, dance and smile all the time.

Peace activists are portrayed as people who

Want everyone to get along and love one another

Because they fear conflict.

In reality peace activists are peaceful warriors.

Peaceful warriors only speak the truth and only speak after much thought.

Peaceful warriors seek to understand all the perspectives of a situation even those of their oppressor.

Peaceful warriors understand the merits of compassion.

Peaceful warriors respect themselves and others regardless of financial status, race, gender, *or no gender*, national origin, sexual orientation, religion *or none*, *or species*.

Peaceful warriors know when others are misusing the words, peace, justice, and liberation as propaganda for their own selfish gain.

Peaceful warriors place the lives of the innocent and weak above themselves.

And when the innocent are endangered, peaceful warriors rise up to take action because they do not fear conflict.

They understand when conflict is necessary and when it is not.

When conflict is necessary peaceful warriors will defend but never deliver the first strike.

Peaceful warriors will dance into the fray and use their strength and cunning,

Not to conquer their enemies, but to restrain them and bring about peace.

WE must be the peaceful warriors.

We must be the ones who bring about peace.

(* updated 2020)

What inspired me to write a speech/poem about peaceful warriors
On June 22, 1996, Congressman Bill Emerson died. The day after my twentieth birthday. His funeral was held at the Presbyterian church in Cape Girardeau, Missouri June 27th. The same day I got married to Michael Miller. Mrs. Jo Ann Emerson graciously donated the flowers, which happened to be the same color as our wedding reception. It was a beautiful way to celebrate the end of one life and the start of another shared by a new couple. Even the local television station filmed us driving away to our Ozark honeymoon destination.

Mrs. Emerson won the election to serve the remaining time of her husband’s seat. In, 2002 I joined a peace organization in Cape Girardeau. The United States was getting ready to invade Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. Mrs. Emerson was still our representative. Through her assistant, she claimed to have insider top secret knowledge regarding Islamic Terrorists being based in Iraq, even though the men responsible were citizens of Saudi Arabia and possibly funded by that government. She swore it wasn’t about oil. At a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial breakfast in January 2003, I got to shake her hand and introduce myself. She didn’t remember me. I let her know I was looking forward to the meeting she had scheduled with our group later that week. Her pleasant smile dropped. The day of the meeting only her assistant met us in the office. I pointed out the steaming cup of coffee on Jo Ann’s personal desk and wondered if she had intentionally not met with us. The assistant started in on how rude “You people,” are.

Our group took a large bus of people to Washington, D.C. and marched on February 15, as part of at the time was “the largest protest event in human history”. (Walgrave, Stefaan; Rucht, Dieter (2010). "Introduction". The World Says No to War: Demonstrations against the War on Iraq) Counter protesters screamed at us to support our troops. I found this ironic because we were supporting our troops. We were marching in the freezing temperatures, under the watchful scopes of museum rooftop sharpshooters, to save their lives. My youngest sister was in the Navy at the time. I screamed, “I don’t want my sister to die for oil!” to which our organizer reminded me not to engage them. The police prevented our ride from leaving the bus packed designated lot. We were forced to huddle together in the street for warmth as the sun set. The seasoned protestors told us it was an old tactic to deter us from protesting again. It made me more determined than ever to keep marching.

That spring, I delivered a speech to a peace rally in Cape Girardeau. I spoke, though tired from packing. Michael and I had the station wagon loaded down for our move to California. My speech was inspired by the book Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives by Dan Millman. On July 12, 2007, Emerson was one of only four Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by April 2008. (clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll624.xml) Maybe we influenced her some. When she retired, she became the president and Chief Executive Office of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and that solidified my notion that she was more concerned with profits then counter-terrorism. After all, she was a Republican and in 2008, their slogan was “Drill, baby, drill.”

Each time I think about peace and social justice, I still see those white and thulian wedding and funeral roses. Roses for the homeless veterans who hung out at my desk in the County Veterans Office because there were chairs in the waiting area instead of a cold hard sidewalk. Roses for the children separated at the border and put in cages. Roses for people killed in mass shootings and Emma Gonzalez. Roses for every woman who went public and encouraged the #MeToo movement. Sixteen-year-old Novel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg and all the Youth Climate Strikers. The grieving endangered Orca mother who, with the help of her pod, carried her dead calf for days along the Pacific Coast. Roses for every peaceful warrior. May you be showered with perfumed petals of every color in your parade toward peace.

New cases appear to have peaked on February 4 shortly after China began to mobilize against the virus.

On February 18, recoveries began to outpace new cases, meaning the number of infected people began to decrease.

Don't be fooled by the spike of new cases on Feb. 12. It stems from a change in how new cases were reported.

While new cases outside of China have spiked in the last few days, the transmission rate within China appears to have fallen.

Hindsight is always 2020. It is very easy to look back and say what should or should not have been done. It is much more difficult to make correct policy in real time.

It is still too early to say much about the future course of this epidemic. With the spread of the virus to other lands, only time will show how well others outside of China handle it.

“The threat of climate change is a very clear example of why we all need to pull together, we are in this together. The United States can't do it alone, Europe can't do it alone, China can't do it alone, and no one country can do this alone.” —Bernie Sanders