Rolla Peace News
June 23, 2009

Dear Friends:

          In this newsletter is:

1. THURSDAY NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE
2. JULY 4 PEACE VIGIL 6:30 LIONS CLUB PARK ENTRANCE
3. "INCREDIBLE MISCHIEF CAN RESULT FROM ACTIONS IN A STATE OF AGITATED IGNORANCE."
4. ROBBERY, BUTCHERY, RAPE THEY MISNAME DEMOCRACY

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1. THURSDAY NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE

Our weekly noon vigils are now on Thursdays. We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, June 25, (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 around 90 under mostly sunny skies (bring water and a sun hat). 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. JULY 4 PEACE VIGIL 6:30 LIONS CLUB PARK ENTRANCE

We will hold our 3rd annual Fourth of July vigil for peace on the public right-of-way at the main entrance to Lions Club Park at 6:30 PM on Saturday, July 4. Please come if you can.

3. "INCREDIBLE MISCHIEF CAN RESULT FROM ACTIONS IN A STATE OF AGITATED IGNORANCE."

Anyone who is familiar with Stephen Kinzer's books, "All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror" or "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change" will certainly see the hand of the CIA in the chaos unfolding in Iran. Kinzer details the use of economic strangulation; hiring thugs and other criminal elements, as well as minorities and dissidents, to create chaos; and buying newspapers, military officers and politicians in order to bring down the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, replacing it with the repressive Western-oriented dictatorship of Shah Pahlavi. Perhaps, Iranians are attempting to ensure that 2009 will not be a repeat of 1953.

Last week I recommended: "The Iranian People Speak", by Ken Ballen & Patrick Doherty, on the Iranian election.

Here are four more recommendations:

A. "Let's Talk", United for Peace of Pierce County (Washington), , - a short statement advocating talk and finding common ground over hostility.

B. "Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away", Chris Hedges. Hedges notes that our hypocrisy is bringing about our imperial and economic collapse.

C. "Message to US Peace Groups: A Little Humility Please", Michael J. Veiluva, - a short letter of warning to US peace groups on Iran which I have taken the liberty to post on my website. The Incredible Mischief quote above is from this letter.

D. "Dashing Fabricated Hopes: The Meaning of Ahmadinejad's Victory", Pierre Tristram. In case you might think that Mir Hossein Mousavi is Iran's great democrat, read this. Tristam writes, "[T]here never was a significant ideological difference between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi. Only a tonal one."

Two years ago, I wrote a rather lengthy article: "Three Murderous Myths: An exploration of War and Empire", mostly about the "crisis" then brewing between Iran and the West. Reading it over, I see very little that I would change.

4. ROBBERY, BUTCHERY, RAPE THEY MISNAME DEMOCRACY

Barack Obama, who many had hoped would bring some measure of peace to the world, seems bent to prove that he is more militaristic than his predecessor. Thousands are left homeless in Pakistan as Obama expands Bush's War and makes it his own, (click here). The Robbery title above is adapted from the Roman historian, Tacitus. Here is the entire paragraph:

"Plunderers of the world, after they, laying everything waste, run out of land, they probe even the sea: if their enemy has wealth, they have greed; if he be poor, they are ambitious; neither East nor West has sated them; alone of mankind they covet poverty with the same passion as wealth. Robbery, butchery, rape they misname empire: they make a wasteland and call it peace."

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Rolla Peace News is distributed by email once a week on Tuesday evenings (except on rare occasions).

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Wage peace,

Yusha
tom (at) tomsager.org

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