 home
archives
last week
feedback
Rolla Peace News September 5, 2017 |
|
================================= Dear Friends:In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 2. “A SAD DAY FOR WARMONGERS” 3. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) From Our Readers: Hurricanes b) Correction: Sanity c) Tony de Brum: Standing Up To Nuclear Bullies d) Dick Gregory: An Icon Passes e) It's The Pollution, Everyone f) Laughter
================================
We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2017, (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 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. “A SAD DAY FOR WARMONGERS” The UN has announced that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear agreement made in 2015, and that they are not willing to send inspectors to Iran to look for infractions. Nikki Haley, the hawkish US ambassador to the UN, has also gone to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to try to get them to send inspectors to Iranian military sites, but has presented no evidence that Iran is not compliant with the agreement. the IAEA stated, “If they [the US] want to bring down the deal, they will. We just don't want to give them an excuse to.” Apparently, the Iranians are true to their word, unlike the US and the other nuclear powers that signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970. The National Iranian American Council also claims that Trump himself is in violation of the agreement by refusing to sign the certification of compliance. Trump, of course, is looking for any excuse to start another war, to distract people from what he is doing to them. After all, it worked for George W. Bush. We lost many of our civil rights in the aftermath of 9/11, and Trump has the rest of them in his sights. 3. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH If war with Iran doesn't work out for them, Trump and his stooges have North Korea to fall back on. Nikki Haley stated yesterday that “enough is enough” when it comes to diplomatic efforts with North Korea—indicating that both military strikes and sanctions against Pyongyang's trading partners could be next. Perhaps she equates “diplomatic efforts” with bombastic threats. In any event, sanctions against North Korea's trading partners has its drawbacks, China being one of them. Imagine Walmart's reaction to a ban on trade with China! Even Putin is concerned enough to advocate diplomacy. He may be Trump's equal in the bully department, but he's not crazy, and he is able to put his ego aside when necessary. Putin argues that the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya have convinced Kim Jong-Un that he needs nuclear weapons to be safe from attack. He may be right. 3. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) From Our Readers: Hurricanes b) Correction: Sanity c) Tony de Brum: Standing Up To Nuclear Bullies d) Dick Gregory: An Icon Passes e) It's The Pollution, Everyone f) Laughter FROM OUR READERS: HURRICANES A reader writes in recommending Al Roker's “The Storm of the Century” about the 1900 hurricane (long before they started giving hurricanes cutsie names like Sandy, Katrina and Harvey) that flooded Galveston killing upwards of 8,000 people. My response: Looks like an excellent book and I've ordered a copy. Good reminder that “Nature bats last:” always has and always will. In return, I recommend Bob Gibson's song “Mighty Day” about the same hurricane and flooding. (Somewhat shorter than the book, 2 minutes) CORRECTION: SANITY The link I provided last week with the line from Hamza Yusuf: “We are living in a time that's so extreme that if it doesn't drive you mad, you are not sane.” should have gone to “Game of Wars.” Some to you may have received this link to “End of Days” instead . Both Hamza Yusuf videos are relatively short, quite interesting and worthwhile. A note on End of Days: These are signs of the End. They do not mean that the world will necessarily be destroyed in a matter of days, years, or even centuries. In fact, Yusuf warns elsewhere that it is dangerous to assume that the destruction of the world is imminent. TONY DE BRUM: STANDING UP TO NUCLEAR BULLIES The Marshall Islands lie about midway between New Guinea and Hawaii. From 1946 to 1958 these islands and the Marshallese people who inhabit them were a sacrifice zone for the nuclear weapons industry. The Marshall Islands were the site of 67 US nuclear bomb tests and the Marshallese were treated as lab rats to test human reactions to nuclear radiation. Marshallese Foreign Minister Tony de Brum, who died last week of cancer, was the driving force behind a law suit against all nine nuclear-weapon states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferatrion Treaty (NPT). The courts dismissed the law suit opining that the nuclear-armed nations “had their fingers crossed” when they agreed almost 50 years ago to negotiate nuclear disarmament. Perhaps, more than anyone else, de Brum is responsible for the understanding that is beginning to take hold that the primary contradiction among nations is no longer between this military power and that military power, but between the nine nuclear-armed bully-nations and the non-nuclear-armed rest of the world that is under constant threat from these nine. Nowhere was this more evident than at the recent UN conference on the prohibition of nuclear weapons that was boycotted by all nine nuclear-weapon states and many of their allies. 122 non-nuclear-weapon states hammered out a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that reads in part: “Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to: (a) Develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” The treaty will open for signatures on September 20. Please consider asking President Trump to sign. The nine nuclear-weapon states are: The United States, Russia, China, The United Kingdom, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. Article VI of the NPT reads: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” In case you missed it: It appears likely that North Korea has the hydrogen bomb now. Who's next? Tony de Brum: Requiescat in pace. DICK GREGORY: AN ICON PASSES Comedian, Civil Rights leader, activist for many wonderful causes, presidential candidate: Dick Gregory passed away last month at age 84. Here's an obituary. And here's a story that brings back some old memories. I am proud to say that in 1968, along with over 40,000 others, I rejected lesser presidential candidates: Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, Eldridge Cleaver, Eugene McCarthy, Pat Paulsen etc., and cast my ballot for a truly great man: Dick Gregory. But, you might say: “He had no chance of winning.” To which I would respond with the words of Eugene Debs: “It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don’t want and get it.” Dick Gregory: Requiescat in pace. IT'S THE POLLUTION, EVERYONE The dead will be grieved; structures will be rebuilt; but like the Fukushima meltdown, the pollution caused by Hurricane Harvey will linger on for many generations. Click here and here. LAUGHTER “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” —Mark TwainDesiree Fairooz will stand trial for a second time for laughing when Senator Richard Shelby argued at Jeffrey Sessions' confirmation hearing that Sessions' record of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.” Had I been there, I don't think I could have contained my laughter either. I think laughter is one of our greatest weapons. Just keep laughing at these jerks. 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 ### |