+' Rolla Peace Newsletter, December 13, 2016

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Rolla Peace News

December 13, 2016

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Dear Friends:

          In this newsletter is:

1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2016
2. BUEHLER PARK — YOUR HELP IS STILL NEEDED
3. LOOKING FOR A WAY TO STAY POSITIVE
4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)
          “Prepare Chains For My People”

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1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2016

We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 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 20s. 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. LOOKING FOR A WAY TO STAY POSITIVE

There's a lot of bad news out there. Most of what one can find in the news is focused on how bad things are, and how much worse they're going to be when Trump takes office. Unless you go to the right-leaning or billionnaire-leaning news sites, where everything is rosy, at least if you are a rich white male. Looking for a bit of hope, I came across this article by Betsy Hartmann, who offers some positive things one can do — not to defeat Trump, as she says — he has already won — but to resist the bad things that are coming, and to build an alternative reality that works for everyone, not just rich white men.

Perhaps the most important point Hartmann makes is the necessity to revitalize the peace movement, and to include not just resistance to foreign wars, but to all ways that war is made: Rape of the Earth, the War on Drugs, War on Poverty, which has become war on poor people, police shooting of unarmed citizens, prisons for profit, misogyny, racism — the list goes on. All these things are going to get worse under Trump unless there are large numbers of people willing to stand up and say “Enough!” Dissent is not going to be as easy, or as safe, as it has been in the past. Trump has been heard to admire the Chinese authorities' response to the demonstration in Tiananmen Square.

Hartmann ends with a quote from Howard Zinn, which I think is worth reproducing in its entirety: “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness… If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction… The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

4. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)

“PREPARE CHAINS FOR MY PEOPLE”

Donald Trump surprises me (although maybe I should not be so surprised). One would expect a minority president who lost the popular vote by a good two million to reach out to his former adversaries; one would expect a president to avoid surrounding himself by anti-government advisors; one would expect a president to take threats like Climate Change seriously — but not Mr. Trump.

Ralph Nader gives us brief biographies of Trump's appointees. If you still haven't forgiven Ralph Nader for running for president 16 years ago, you can read a somewhat watered-down version, updated in real-time, at the New York Times. And you haven't forgiven the New York Times ... lots of stuff at the commondreams website.

As I've pointed out before, our nation is on the verge of disintegration — perhaps even civil war. Mr. Trump appears to be making disintegration all the more likely and sooner rather than later. (Does he really think that the Clinton camp will take this lying down? Does he really think that those who voted for him based on a promise of a better life to come, will not come to realize that he is a humbug? Does he really think the poor and the oppressed will not stand against further impoverishment and oppression?)

What can you do? Learn to be prayerfully peaceful like the Standing Rock Sioux, “for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.”

The title and and biblical verse above are from Ezekiel 7:23; but it behooves us to read what follows in verse 25: “Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.”

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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

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