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Rolla Peace News May 2, 2025 |
Dear Friends:Editor's notes:In this newsletter is: 1. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Pope Francis: A Personal Remembrance b) SIPRI: World Military Spending up 9.4% to $1.7 Trillion c) Former US Senator Declares: “The Masters of the Universe are Jews” d) Israel's Popularity in the United States Tanks e) Breathe Our Dust f) Insurance Executive: Climate Change will Destroy Capitalism g) South Asian Heatwave h) Iberian Blackout i) Israeli Fires Pope Francis: A Personal Remembrance The late Pope Francis was, as all spiritual leaders *SHOULD* be, a force for Peace on Earth and a voice for the poor and oppressed, the migrant and the refugee, the wretched of the Earth. One of his last acts on Earth was to meet with US Vice President JD Vance and tell him to meditate on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), in which a priest and a levite refused to help a man in need; but a Samaritan stopped and rendered aid. Now, I wish to say something personal about Pope Francis. I left the Catholic Church in 2002, due to its support for the US War Against Afghanistan. Shortly after the events of 9/11, Joseph Fiorenza, president of the Conference of US Catholic Bishops, presumedly speaking for the Conference as a whole, penned a letter to US President George W. Bush declaring the War Against Afghanistan “regrettable but necessary”. My response was that I must be in the wrong religion. Six months later, I officially left the Catholic Church. Lately, I've been thinking that if Pope Francis had been Pope back then, he might have stood up to the war fever and I might not have left the Catholic Church. I have a number of short quotes from Pope Francis in my compendium. Here is my favorite: “War is always a defeat — always, always.” When I left the Catholic Church, I embraced Islam. I had many reasons, but I think the greatest might have been that I felt it right and proper to embrace the religion of those who suffer most from war and oppression. 20 years later, The United States left Afghanistan in defeat. “War is always a defeat — always, always.” Bishop Fiorenza's letter to former president George W. Bush appears to have been deep-sixed. I can't find it anywhere. However, there are still references to it available on the internet. See, for example: Human Rights and US Foreign Policy, Jan Hancock, 2007, p111. SIPRI: World Military Spending up 9.4% to $2.7 Trillion According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2024, world military expenditures increased by 9.4% to over $2.7 trillion. The US led the pack with military expenditures approached $1 trillion, over three times the military expenditures of second place China. Think of all the wonderful things the world could do with an annual budget of $2.7 trillion, if only it could abolish war. Former US Senator Declares: “The Masters of the Universe are Jews” Opening for Benjamin Netanyahu at the Adelson-funded Jewish News Syndicate summit in Jerusalem, former US senator Norm Coleman declared that, “The masters of the universe are Jews.” Well, I have a conjecture here. Perhaps, Coleman is really a Nazi in disguise. What better way to bring back the hebrophobic pogroms and death camps than to declare to the world that "The masters of the Universe are Jews?" In the United States, hebrophobia is on the rise and views of Israel are becoming increasingly unfavorable. (See following snippet.) Think about it. Israel's Popularity in the United States Tanks Polls in the US increasingly show that Estadounidenses sympathize more with Palestine than with Israel, among some cohorts by huge margins. This is in contrast to both present and past US administrations that continue to support Israel to the hilt with military aid.“Israel should care that an entire generation of youth in the West will forever see Israel as a pariah.” —Trita Parsi Here are some numbers: According to Pew Research, 53% of US adults now have an unfavorable view of israel. This increases to 71% for Democrats and democrat leaning young adults. US government support for Israel is beginning to crack. A major factor in Kamala Harris's loss to Donald Trump last November was Harris's support for Israel's genocide and Trump's (unfulfilled) pledge to end the genocidal War Against Gaza. Some politicians are taking note that Israel has become a liability, and is likely to become more so as the US supported genocide continues. Unsaid is how important Israel is to the Western project to control the Middle East and its vast petroleum resources. Breathe Our Dust Some 100,000 tons of bombs have thus far been dropped on Gaza, an area of approximately 141 mi2, slightly larger than Las Vegas, Nevada, but inhabited by more than two million people, over three times the population of Las Vegas. This is the most intense bombing ever carried out anywhere on Earth. It has resulted in a toxic stew of aerosolized cadmium, lead, arsenic and other heavy metals; dioxins, furans, PCBs, the pulverized remains of human bodies and other organic matter. This toxic stew is carried by the wind to Israel and throughout the Middle East including the numerous US military bases in the area. It precipitates out in the rain and gets into water and food.“In a Couple of Years There Will Be Nothing in Israel, Neither Arab nor Jewish.” —Fouad Agbaria Comparing to known results from the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Towers and Gulf War Illness which resulted from pollution from the 1991 Gulf War, we can expect a future epidemic of respiratory disease, cancers, neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer's, and other severe health problems in Israel and throughout the region. The toxic dust of Gaza does not remain in Gaza but spreads with the wind to Israel and other neighboring countries and through sea spray around the Mediterranean. The entire region, indeed, the entire world, will pay dearly for this atrocity. After reading this excellent article by former US representative and presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich, I still have one question: Is it kosher to eat food containing particles of the pulverized bodies of the victims of one's bombing campaigns? Any rabbis out there care to weigh in on this question? Insurance Executive: Climate Change will Destroy Capitalism Günther Thallinger, board member of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, has opined that the world is fast approaching the point where climate-change losses will be uninsurable. Insurance companies are already pulling out of certain risky locations. With the loss of insurance comes the loss of other financial services like mortgages, loans and investments. Thallinger notes: Thallinger opines that at 3°C of global warming, climate damage cannot be insured against, covered by governments, or adapted to.“This applies not only to housing, but to infrastructure, transportation, agriculture, and industry. The economic value of entire regions – coastal, arid, wildfire-prone – will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice, rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.” But don't worry folks. As President of the United States Donald Trump continues to assure us, climate change is nothing but a “green scam”.“The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.” South Asian Heatwave Summer has come early to South Asia as April temperatures reach 50°C in southern Pakistan. Throughout the subcontinent temperatures in the 40s are now common. Climatologist Gianmarco Mengaldo remarked that: In spite of temperatures approaching the limits at which people can survive, India continues to rely on coal, producing for the first time, one billion metric tons in the 2024-25 fiscal year.“Many of the events predicted for 2050 or 2070 are already happening. We underestimated the speed of change. What we’re seeing now is an acceleration – a failure of our predictive models.” Iberian Blackout On Monday April 28, the electric grid in the Iberian peninsula mysteriously crashed, leaving Spain and Portugal without electricity for hours. While lots of conjectures about the cause have been bandied about: an atmospheric disturbance, too much renewable energy, cyber-terrorism, ...; it seems no one really has a clue why it happened. Our science, with all its mathematical models and artificial intelligence appears inadequate to explain the effects of a warming climate run rampant.“We were really far off, and we don’t know why.” Whatever the causes might have been, I suspect that increased installation of grid-scale battery storage would go a long way toward inhibiting a repeat performance. Israeli Fires Hot, dry, windy weather have conspired to give Israel what may be its worst fires ever. Israel might have been able to better respond to climate-change induced wildfires, if it hadn't been so busy fighting with its neighbors. Rolla Peace News is written occasionally (perhaps once a month) and distributed by email. It is posted on the web at http://tomsager.org (click on Rollaites for Peace: near the top of rightmost column).Wage peace, Tom yushasager (at) yahoo.com |