!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> Rolla Peace Newsletter, April 14, 2015

home archives last week feedback

Rolla Peace News

April 14, 2015

*** NOTE: DATE OF VIGIL CHANGED TO FRIDAY THIS WEEK ***

Dear Friends:

          In this newsletter is:

1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2015
2. EARTH DAY
3. BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME
4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)
          a) Middle-East Chaos
          b) What's Wrong With Capitalism
          c) Accountability?

*** NOTE: DATE OF VIGIL CHANGED TO FRIDAY THIS WEEK ***

1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2015

We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 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 70s. 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. EARTH DAY

Earth Day in Rolla this year will be celebrated on Thursday, April 16 (which is why the vigil has been changed to Friday this week) in the open space behind Havener Center at MST. This event is geared mainly to appeal to children, though adults will find much of interest also. Tom and I will be there representing Great Rivers Environmental Law Center. A much larger Earth Day celebration occurs on Sunday, April 19, (weather permitting — rain day is April 26), in Columbia at and around the Peace Park in the center of town. Both events are free to the public.

The Earth has fed humanity for many thousands of years, but these days, humanity is in danger of destroying its own sustenance. Acts of war are being committed continuously on the Earth itself, and one of the most harmful, which doesn't seem to get a lot of attention, is the farming practices of large agricultural corporations, which not only use a large amount of fossil fuels, but assault the Earth with poisons and exhaust her capacity to renew herself, using methods which are profitable in the short run because they are largely automated, but never put anything back into the soil from which they take their “products.” These practices are helping to accelerate climate change, making farming less predictable and productive. We need to be more aware of what is happening to our food supply; famines, which are inevitable if the current trend continues, will produce more wars, which will further damage the Earth and render her less capable of feeding us. This article has some good information on the connection between climate change and agriculture, and offers some positive ideas for change.

3. BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME

Ray McGovern shows how the wars of aggression that our country has been perpetrating on the rest of the world have affected us here at home, especially as noted in the increase of police shootings of unarmed civilians. There is so much propaganda out there telling us that anyone labeled “enemy,” no matter for what reason or by whom, is fair game, and if innocent people are harmed as well, that's just “collateral damage,” regrettable but unavoidable. McGovern doesn't mention this, but it seems clear that the ultra-violent video games that nearly all young men are playing these days have a part in desensitizing people to violence. It's no accident that these products are promoted heavily as the “in thing” for our youth to participate in. Here's McGovern's article.

There are several good articles on police killings of mostly unarmed, young black men; here are a couple:

http://commondreams.org/views/2015/04/13/walter-scott-how-many-isolated-incidents-can-we-tolerate

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/10/white-guilt-america-walter-scott-us

There doesn't seem to be a lot of organization to stand against these killings, especially since Ferguson has all but disappeared from the mainstream media — but appearances can be deceiving. There are actually a multitude of organizations, composed mainly of young folks, that are using social media and other non-mainstream means to collaborate with each other. This movement, obviously, gets no publicity in the MSM, which is why they don't bother to include it in their toolbox. We certainly need a new civil rights movement in this country; maybe this is the start of one.

4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)
          a) Middle-East Chaos
          b) What's Wrong With Capitalism
          c) Accountability?

MIDDLE-EAST CHAOS

This article by Peter Van Buren (and the introduction by Tom Englehardt) are well worth reading. To distill the essence of this article on the Middle-East chaos into a few sentences: The United States has been reduced to the role of the “big dumb guy” who others call on to beat-up their enemies, but laugh at behind his back. For example: the US provided air power to dislodge Daesh from Tikret, while Iranian-backed militias moved in and took the city. Meanwhile, Iran has taken advantage of every dumb mistake the US has made.

Well, what would you expect of a country with a bloated military budget and a grossly underfunded and mis-managed system of education?

The US elite came up with a real dumb idea after Vietnam: They would dumb-down the population to the point that they would never object to the next war. What the elite was too dumb to recognize is that a dumbed-down populace elects dumb leaders; and dumb leaders make dumb mistakes: again and again and again. Fortunately, the dumbing-down was only partially successful. The populace is wising-up. Sadly, I can't say the same for the leaders.

So there you have it!

WHAT'S WRONG WITH CAPITALISM

In one word — EVERYTHING. While there is nothing really new in this article by John Atcheson, I have never seen it laid out so succinctly and clearly as Atcheson does.

ACCOUNTABILITY?

Four Blackwater security thugs were given stiff sentences for their part in the 2007 massacre in Baghdad's Nisour Square in which 17 died including a nine-year-old boy. My question: What about Erik Prince, Tommy Franks, Paul Bremer, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush ...? When will they be sentenced for their crimes? Just like Abu Ghraib, its the low-level operatives who are punished while the big criminals go free to murder again?

==================

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

###