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Rolla Peace News July 10, 2018 |
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Dear Friends: http://tomsager.org/Peaceletters/peaceletter071018.html In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2018 2. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Nuclear Weapons Roundup i) Costa Rica Ratifies Treaty On The Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons ii) The People In Four NATO Nations Want To Join The Treaty iii) Nuclear Detente With North Korea May Be Short Lived b) The War On Children (Update) c) Manchester Moor Fires 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2018 We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, JULY 12, FROM NOON TO 1:00 PM (and most subsequent Thursdays until peace is established). Please try to join us. The temperature is predicted to be in the 90s. 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. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Nuclear Weapons Roundup i) Costa Rica Ratifies Treaty On The Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons ii) The People In Four NATO Nations Want To Join The Treaty iii) Nuclear Detente With North Korea May Be Short Lived b) The War On Children (Update) c) Manchester Moor Fires NUCLEAR WEAPONS ROUNDUP Costa Rica Ratifies Treaty On The Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons Viva Costa Rica! On July 5, Costa Rica joined the select few socially responsible nations that have ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The other ten are: Austria, Cuba, Guyana, The Holy See (Vatican), Mexico, Palau, Palestine, Thailand, Venezuela, and Vietnam. 39 more and the treaty goes into effect. The People In Four NATO Nations Want To Join The Treaty In a poll taken in Germany, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands, all NATO counties that host US nuclear weapons, YouGov found that the majority of the people, and in many cases an overwhelming majority, want US nuclear weapons out of their country and want their government to sign The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons This is a clear case where the government in these so-called democracies represents the will of the elite and not the will of the people. Nuclear Detente With North Korea May Be Short Lived Less than two weeks after the Singapore summit where Trump assured us that “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” Trump declared that North Korea posed an “extraordinary threat” and renewed sanctions on North Korea. After a meeting last week between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea's Kim Yong-chol, North Korea claimed that Pompeo made “gangster-like” demands. (par for a former director of the CIA) Get over it. North Korea has nuclear weapons, although far fewer and smaller than the United States. It would be nice if both countries would sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and get rid of their nuclear weapons. I seriously doubt either country will agree unilaterally to nuclear disarmament. I am hopeful that this is just a temporary setback. People are demanding Peace so strongly that, I think, governments will no longer be able to ignore them. THE WAR ON CHILDREN (UPDATE) Today is the court-imposed deadline for the Trump administration to return all children under five years of age that were illegally separated from their parents at our southern border. Not surprisingly, the Trump administrations will probably reunite far less than half of those mandated by the court. Some of the problems seem to be that some of the parents have already been deported without their children. In other cases there is apparently no record of which child belong with which adult. The Trump administration seems to be trying to solve this problem with DNA testing (which misses cases where there is little or no blood relationship). So I'm wondering: Is anyone going to prison for child abuse? for contempt of court? Why is it so easy to put children in prison with no due process, but so difficult to put the adults who abuse these children behind bars? And if you think that this is just a Trumpian aberration, guess again. Chilean-American writer, Ariel Dorfman, gives us a glimpse into human zoos, past and present, from the placing of Laplanders on public display in 19th Century Germany to the modern refugee camps for those displaced by war and other forms of violence. Sadly, Dorfman misses today's most egregious example: the open air prison called Gaza which now holds close to two million people, half of whom are children, in conditions of severe depredation which you are not likely to find in any of our modern zoos. MANCHESTER MOOR FIRES Mother Nature is on the rampage again: heat, drought, flood and wildfires everywhere. Here's a page from the Guardian where you can link to articles about the latest climate-related disasters around the world.“There were three jovial huntsmen, This one about England's moor fires really caught my eye: Seems they turned the moor into a tinderbox raising grouse for Britain's elite to shoot. Now the weather has turned hot and dry. Dry peat is almost pure carbon and burns so hot it's almost impossible, short of a good soaking rain, to put these moor fires out completely. Hope you gentlemen all enjoyed your driven grouse shoot. Most of these so-called “natural” disasters are either caused directly or aggravated by human-induced climate change. But don't worry friends; it's only a Chinese hoax. 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: near the 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 |