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Rolla Peace News

June 29, 2022
Dear Friends:
Editor's notes:

As promised: Rolla Peace News will continue to publish on an occasional basis.

The date for a July Vigil for Peace has not been set yet. It will be posted at http://tomsager.org/ when available.

Webperson's note:

If you are having trouble reading this, it is posted at
http://tomsager.org/Peaceletters/peaceletter062922.html
In this newsletter is:

1. ROLLA MARCH FOR OUR LIVES ATTRACTS AROUND 50 PARTICIPANTS
2. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)
          a) Who is *REALLY* Responsible for Global Hunger?
          b) May Update to Climate Catastrophe Posted
          c) BRICS Nations May Develop Reserve Currency to Challenge Dollar
          d) Roy Jones Jr.: Runner-up to The Greatest
          e) 66 States Have Joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
          f) Chris Hedges on the Progressive Bloc
          g) Europe Returns to Burning Coal and Other Environmental Disasters
          h) Boris Johnson Mocks Vladimir Putin — Threatens to Go Topless

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1. ROLLA MARCH FOR OUR LIVES ATTRACTS AROUND 50 PARTICIPANTS

In the wake of last month's school shooting that claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, over 450 cities in the United States including Rolla hosted a March for our Lives against Gun Violence on June 11. Around 50 people joined the Rolla march. 40,000 came to Washington DC to say end gun violence in our schools.

School shootings can happen anywhere. Uvalde is, like Rolla, a regional center in a rural area. Uvalde is somewhat smaller than Rolla.

2. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)
          a) Who is *REALLY* Responsible for Global Hunger?
          b) May Update to Climate Catastrophe Posted
          c) BRICS Nations May Develop Reserve Currency to Challenge Dollar
          d) Roy Jones Jr.: Runner-up to The Greatest
          e) 66 States Have Joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
          f) Chris Hedges on the Progressive Bloc
          g) Europe Returns to Burning Coal and Other Environmental Disasters
          h) Boris Johnson Mocks Vladimir Putin — Threatens to Go Topless

Who is *REALLY* Responsible for Global Hunger?

If you only read the Western press you might be excused for thinking that global hunger is all Russia's fault; but let's dig a little deeper, as Ralph Nader does in this article.

Why doesn't each country and each region produce locally what is necessary for its people to survive?

Answer: Global Capitalism. Corporations make a killing (Literally!) on leaving people dependent on so-called free trade. So, people in Africa are dependent on grain from Russia and the Ukraine for survival. And what happens when the supply chain is disrupted? People starve.

And why are supply chains disrupted? Many reasons: Pandemic disease, Climate change, Wars, Sanctions, or the people are just too darn poor to be bothered with and have nothing of interest to global markets. But these are proximate causes. The root cause is that global capitalism is interested only in profits. People be damned!

Obviously, a resilient system that cares about people would ensure survivability regardless of global disruptions; but resilience eats into profits; and global capitalism runs on profit.

After reading Ralph Nader's article, think about how we had four chances to elect Ralph Nader, President of the United States, and instead opted for vastly inferior candidates: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

May Update to Climate Catastrophe Posted

Among the Catastrophic May highlights: Agricultural production throughout much of the world has been hit hard by heat, drought and floods, compounding food shortages, also caused by war, theft, greed and inequality, and causing humanitarian disasters from Africa to Afghanistan. Follow link for details.

BRICS Nations May Develop Reserve Currency to Challenge Dollar
Look, sir. Look, sir.
Falling stocks, sir.
Let's turn tricks with
BRICS and blocs, sir.
—adapted from Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss, p9

The BRICS Bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is working on developing a reserve currency based on the combined currencies of the BRICS nations. Besides challenging the dominance of the dollar, a BRICS reserve currency would be a boon for all nations that suffer under Western sanctions — not only Russia, but also Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua, Syria, North Korea and others. The loss of dominance of the dollar could spell extreme economic difficulties for the United States and other economies whose currency is tied to the dollar.

Argentina and Iran have applied to join the BRICS bloc. Others may follow.

Note: I have never understood economics, and still don't. When I think of currencies, I always think of this famous line from Karl Marx:
“Bring paper money into a country where this use of paper is unknown, and everyone will laugh at your subjective imagination.”
How much more so for our modern electronic-based currencies!

I also think of this Bob Dylan routine about money, chess and East Orange, New Jersey.

Maybe, someone out in readerland can explain currency, so I can understand it.

Roy Jones Jr.: Runner-up to The Greatest

Former world champion heavyweight boxer, Roy Jones Jr., who has dual citizenship in the United States and Russia, responded to an attack from another former world champion heavyweight, Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko, who questioned Jones's “moral compass.”
“So, Roy, whose side are you on? On the side of the aggressor, or on the side of the defender of his right to live? I respect you as a fighter but I really question your moral compass.”
Jones responded: “If it was up to me, we wouldn't even have a war.”
“I have people on both sides of the fence. I don't wanna see nobody die. Nobody fight like that because people die of war. I don't wanna see nobody on either side die. I have loved ones on both sides of the fence. You understand me? I got kids on this side, people on that side. I love both sides. I don't want to see nobody die.”
Jones added:
“If you think you can whoop me, that's a whole different thing. ... If you want to do something about it, then me and you can fight anytime.”
Jones is working on freeing basketball star Brittney Griner who faces trial in Russia on drug charges. He remarks, “if [Brittney] was my daughter, I would want somebody to do the same thing for me.”

I've heard talk of a prisoner exchange. I like the idea. I suggest a one-on-one prisoner swap: Julian Assange for Brittney Griner. Everybody wins.

Jones is a great boxer. Perhaps, second only to the late Muhammad Ali, who famously quipped about another brutal devastating war fifty five years ago, “I ain't got no quarrel with the VietCong. No VietCong ever called me nigger.” Muhammad Ali is still THE GREATEST. But, Roy Jones Jr. is a close second. (my opinion)

Note: I saw this story first on Russia Today. Had they not run this important story, I probably would have missed it. I don't follow sports and entertainment; and, outside the sports section, US news outlets apparently didn't consider it “newsworthy.”

66 States Have Joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Seven States ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in the first six months of 2022 (through June 29), bringing the total to 66. They are: Cabo Verde, Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Grenada, Guatemala, Malawi and Timor Leste.

There is still no interest in this treaty among the nine pariah states that maintain nuclear arsenals. They are: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, The United Kingdom and The United States.

State Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons undertake (among other things) to “never under any circumstances develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”

Chris Hedges on the Progressive Bloc

Chris Hedges notes that every single so-called progressive in Congress voted to pour $40 Billion of oil on the fires of war in the Ukraine. Meanwhile, It was left to Marjorie Taylor Greene to state the obvious, “$40 billion [for Ukraine] but there's no baby formula for American mothers and babies.”

Europe Returns to Burning Coal and Other Environmental Disasters

As gas imports from Russia diminish, Germany and other European nations turn to coal, the dirtiest of the dirty and the most carbon intensive of the carbon intensives.

And the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, plus the European Union) “with a view to accelerating the phase-out of our dependency on Russian energy, [stresses] the important role increased deliveries of LNG can play, and acknowledge that investment in this sector is necessary in response to the current crisis.”

And in the USA, Biden breaks campaign promises and restarts selling new drilling leases.

And across the great divide, Russia is postponing green energy projects, citing US/EU sanctions which make importing necessary technology difficult.

Seems like hurting Russia has become more important than helping planet Earth recover from centuries of unbridled human exploitation and greenhouse gas emissions.

What happened to conservation and non-polluting renewables which should be replacing disruptions in global fossil-fuels?

Boris Johnson Mocks Vladimir Putin — Threatens to Go Topless

Boris Johnson and other G7 leaders joked about competing with Vladimir Putin by taking their shirts off.

I'm not sure what their plan is here. Maybe they think Putin will die laughing, looking at Johnson's naked chest.

I know I've told you this before, Boris, but here it is again: Don't mock warriors with nuclear weapons.

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Rolla Peace News is distributed by email once a week on Tuesdays (except on rare occasions) and is posted on the web at http://tomsager.org (click on Rollaites for Peace: near the top of rightmost column).

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Wage peace,
Tom
yushasager (at) yahoo.com 


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