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Rolla Peace News November 29, 2016 |
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================================= Dear Friends:In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2016 2. BUEHLER PARK — YOUR HELP IS STILL NEEDED 3. STILL STANDING 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Mea Culpa b) Recount c) Kill The Messenger
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We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2016, (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 40s. 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. BUEHLER PARK — YOUR HELP IS STILL NEEDED There is nothing new to report this week; but if you have not already done so, Please sign the petition; and ask your friends and family to sign too. Your phone calls and emails have been very helpful. Please keep them coming. Contact the City of Rolla and ask them not to build a dog-park in Buehler Park: (573)426-6948, citycouncil@rollacity.org. For more information click here. Thank you for your help in preserving Buehler Park as the lovely little park that it is for all local residents and visitors to enjoy. 3. STILL STANDING The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has served the water protectors with an eviction notice — as of December 5th, anyone found in the camp after that date will be subject to arrest. Here's the reason they gave: “This decision is necessary to protect the general public from the violent confrontation between protestors and law enforcement officials that have occurred in this area, and to prevent death, illness, or serious injury to inhabitants of encampments due to the harsh North Dakota winter conditions,” What a crock! The general public is nowhere to be seen, except for those standing with the water protectors. And the only violence has come from the “law enforcement personnel.” If they were worried about the harsh winter conditions, why did they condone the forceful spraying of water on people in below-freezing weather? As if that weren't enough, the Governor of North Dakota has cut off emergency services from being available to the camp: i.e., if someone is critically injured by rubber bullets or other weaponry fired by the militarized law enforcement crew, no ambulance will come. Perhaps the Governor isn't aware that emergency services have already been cut off by simply blockading the roads. Take a few minutes to watch the video in the article below — one of the people in the camp set a drone with a camera circling the encampment. This is huge! There are literally thousands of people there standing with the Lakota. Can they really arrest that many people? The real danger will come if any of the water protectors are finally provoked to violence in return for the violence they have endured. Then we may see a massacre a la Tiananmen Square, or Wounded Knee. Some of those cops and mercenaries would like nothing better. Stay strong, brothers and sisters! Many hearts and minds are with you. 4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) a) Mea Culpa b) Recount c) Kill The Messenger MEA CULPA I apologize for errors in recent posts: Registries 1. Dyed-in-the-wool was misspelled. I must have been thinking of a sheep I once knew who died in the wool. (Sorry, that was lame.) 2. Helen reminds me that medical procedures to change one's sex are not simple. 3. At this time, there are no planned registries of ALL Muslims that I am aware of. Under discussion by the Trump team are registries of Muslims born in various countries. This, however, could easily morph into a registry of all Muslims. While on the campaign trail, Trump apparently called for a registry of all Muslims, but backed away saying he was talking about a wall. To date, and to my knowledge, he has refused to rule out a general registry of Muslims. Climate Denial 4. The month that tied for third warmest on record was October 2016, not September 2016. (The link pointed correctly to October.) Sailing Uncharted Waters 5. I quoted a paragraph from an article I wrote almost ten years ago that states, “As the failure of our Middle East policy becomes more and more difficult to deny, I would expect to see a sharp resurgence of anti-Jewish bigotry in the US.” (Three Murderous Myths, p13) This, indeed, seems to be happening; but I neglected to quote the following paragraph that appears way wide of the mark, claiming that without US support, Israel may decide that the best course would be to make peace with its neighbors. To the contrary, Gideon Levy points out that the Israelis and their AIPAC mouth-pieces are perfectly willing to allow anti-Jewish bigotry to flourish in the United States as long as it doesn't interfere with Israel's program to occupy, colonize and brutalize Palestine. Juan Cole discusses a possible 11th hour UN Security Council resolution to recognize Palestine as a state. Obama may be ready to back such a resolution, or at least not veto it. RECOUNT Green party presidential candidate, Jill Stein, has raised money for a hand recount in Wisconsin, with Pennsylvania and Michigan to come. Stein expects us to believe that the Clinton campaign has nothing to do with this; that she just wants people to have confidence in our election results. Confidence in our elections? Ha! That's a good one. George W. Bush stole two elections. In 2000, if all the votes were counted correctly, Al Gore would have won Florida and the presidency. But the biggy was all the dark-skinned voters in Florida who were detained by law enforcement on election day to make sure they didn't vote. In 2004, Bush won Ohio, which used Diebold voting machines with no paper trail. Walden O'Dell, Diebold CEO, said “he was committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president.” Deliver them he did! If Ohio had gone to Kerry, Kerry would have become president in 2004. Meanwhile, Trump claims he would have won the popular vote, if folks hadn't voted illegally for Clinton. In my opinion, if we had anything approaching fair elections in this country, Bernie Sanders would now be president-elect. The elite will vet the candidates, and make sure that an acceptable candidate wins. If you don't believe the elite loves Trump, just look at how the stock-market has shot up since Trump was declared president-elect. KILL THE MESSENGER The latest on the climate front is that the Trump team wants to axe NASA's Earth sciences program. It seems all this data NASA is discovering about the Earth heating up is a bit disconcerting to a climate denier who claims it's all a Chinese hoax. Trump may, indeed, have won the election, but he's unlikely to win the climate war. Mr. Trump, let me remind you: Nature Bats Last. Donald Trump, like Dr. Seuss's Once-ler or Joseph Conrad's Mr. Kurtz, may for a time create an alternate reality, but only for a time. Eventually, like the Once-ler or Mr. Kurtz, he will be left stranded in his alternate reality. “Now all that was left 'neath the bad-smelling sky ================== 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 ### |