 home
archives
last week
feedback
Rolla Peace News May 12, 2015 |
|
================================= Dear Friends:In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015 2. BALTIMORE 3. A BIT OF GOOD NEWS 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Dr. Shakil Afridi, I Apologize b) Exoneration c) Omar Khadr is Free on Bail ================================ 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, MAY 14, 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 60-70s. 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. BALTIMORE It took a riot, with burning and window-smashing, to draw some media attention to the miserable conditions that inner-city Baltimore residents endure. Unfortunately, drawing establishment attention is not likely to help these people; more likely there will be more repressive action on the part of the police, more fear-mongering and finger-pointing. Ralph Nader does an excellent job of detailing the roots of unrest in our inner cities. Here's the core of the matter, in Nader's words: “If the plutocrats of America do not wake up to the daily, acidic results of excessive greed coupled with excessive concentration of power over the people, they will be fomenting what they abhor the most—cascading instability and disruption. In their parlance—that’s bad for business.” Here's a short video by Jeremy Scahill that's relevant to this discussion: It's a little over a minute long, and clearly illustrates the desperation that leads to events such as what is happening in Baltimore now. One thing Scahill says in the video is something we all need to think about — and that is the subtle racist programming that we all carry with us, even the least prejudiced of us. That is the categorizing of black people as “other.” Separateness has been drilled into us all our lives, but it is especially harmful when it isolates a whole population and blames them for what this separatism has done to them. This kind of programming is also why Americans have acquiesced in the killing of so many Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians, Libyans, Yemenis, etc. They aren't “us.” But they are. Christians may relate to this saying of Jesus: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” We are all one humanity, and the sooner we realize it, the sooner the killing will stop. 3. A BIT OF GOOD NEWS The “Fast-Track” legislation intended to enable the Trans-Pacific Partnership scheme to be railroaded through Congress has been voted down in the Senate. This doesn't by any means imply that the TPP is dead in the water, but it's a step in the right direction. The TPP is a horrible idea, benefitting only corporations who want cheaper labor and products, and stealing jobs from American workers. Let's not be too complacent, though. Corporations don't give up easily. 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Dr. Shakil Afridi, I Apologize b) Exoneration c) Omar Khadr is Free on Bail DR. SHAKIL AFRIDI, I APOLOGIZE The big news this week is Seymour Hersh's expose on the killing of Osama bin Laden four years ago. According to Hersh, it didn't happen at all the way Obama and the military tell it; and remember that Seymour Hersh was the investigative journalist who exposed the My Lai Massacre. Hersh's narrative holds together fairly well. The official narrative is completely unbelievable from the get-go. On May 10, 2011, I wrote: “The report that bin Laden was unarmed, summarily executed and his body dumped at sea, suggests that there is far more to the story then we are being told. In fact, it puts the whole affair in doubt. The militarists must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel if they have to resort to a stunt like this to garner support for their wars.”And two years later on June 4, 2013: “After a ten-year-long manhunt, the most-wanted man in history is found unarmed and undefended, summarily executed and his body dumped in the ocean. If you believe that, I got a bridge I'll sell you cheap — it goes over the Skagit River in Washington on Interstate 5.”One government lie I fell for hook, line and sinker concerned the Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, and his vaccination campaign (Tom's Blog, May 29, 2012). According to Hersh, the vaccination campaign was legitimate, although Dr. Afridi was, indeed, a CIA asset. Afridi was the patsy, the fall guy set up to take the blame for the botched raid on the Abbottabad compound. And now, thanks to the CIA, health workers, the world over, who are attempting to save lives through vaccination campaigns are looked upon with suspicion. This was likely the most damaging part of the government's false narrative. My apologies, Dr. Afridi. EXONERATIONS This week I was introduced to a new website: The National Registry on Exonerations. According to the University of Michigan Law School, since 1989, 1,597 people have been exonerated after being convicted of crimes they did not commit. If you thought most of the exonerations were because of DNA evidence, you thought wrong. The vast majority were related to perjury, false accusation, and official misconduct. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Of the 2.2 million prisoners in the United States, likely tens of thousands languish in prison for crimes they did not commit. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, it is time “to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;” OMAR KHADR IS FREE ON BAIL Omar Khadr is a Canadian who was brought to Afghanistan as a child to fight with the Mujahideen. He was captured in 2002 at the age of 15, and shipped off to Guantanamo where he was tortured. Khadr has been released on bail by a Canadian judge, although the US is attempting to keep him in prison. Under international law, as a child soldier, Khadr should never have been imprisoned; but here in the USA, we remain above international law. ================== 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 ### |