When we vigil at a gun shop asking people not to buy guns we are often confronted with the question, What would you do if someone came into your home and threatened to kill your wife and children? Would you do nothing to stop her/him? This question presumes that I should have a gun to maim or kill the intruder. I always say that I will do what Christ did to those who threatened, tormented and eventually killed him. Christ chose to accept suffering rather than to inflict it on others, even on his crucifiers. He did not choose nonviolence as a strategy to overcome violence. He chose nonviolence because he truly loved everyone, even those doing terrible things. He implied that we will never be totally happy (saved) unless we love everyone and do good to all of them. The goal is to love everyone, not just to ensure that we live long lives. Our goal is to enter into everlasting life, to enter into a new life of love. If Christ’s goal was to live a longer life on earth he would have tried to save Himself so He could live a long life. Instead, He chose to love all and attain everlasting life. This is why war is so horrible and contrary to Christ’s teaching. One must not kill others to “save” our own. We choose to love all and teach others to love so we all may enter into eternal life. Please check out Nonviolence Café on your computer. ---Don Timmerman
DON’S JOKES
A bear sees someone lying in a tent in a sleeping bag. He says, “Oooh! A spring roll!
"Mary talking to Little Johnny: I found twenty cents on the sidewalk. Little Johnny: That’s mine. I dropped a twenty-cent coin there this morning. Little Mary: But, what I found was two ten-cent coins! Little Johnny: That’s it. I heard it break when it hit the ground.
A pregnant woman gets into a car accident and falls into a deep coma. Asleep for nearly six months, she wakes up and sees that she is no longer pregnant. Frantically, she asks the doctor about her baby. The doctor replies, “Ma’am, you had twins! A boy and a girl. The babies are fine. Your brother came in and named them.” The woman thinks to herself, “Oh no, not my brother — he’s an idiot!” Expecting the worst, she asks the doctor, “Well, what’s the girl’s name?” “Denise,” the doctor says. The new mother thinks, “Wow, that’s not a bad name! Guess I was wrong about my brother. I like Denise!” Then she asks the doctor, “What’s the boy’s name?” The doctor replies, “DeNephew”.
Interesting Facts
ProPublica investigation from 2022 revealed that the 25 richest Americans paid a true tax rate of roughly 3.4 percent. This means nurses, teachers, firefighters, and other middle class frontline workers paid a larger share of their income in taxes than America’s billionaires. One group that won’t be paying much today: the rich, who have stashed $2 trillion in offshore tax havens. Service (IRS) researchers found that wealthy Americans have stashed nearly $2 trillion in foreign tax havens, with much of that fortune linked to a handful of the country’s richest households. ---Portside
The 2024 budget is: Military spending at 43% or $2.297 billion. Non-military spending is 57% at $3,007 billion –- War Resisters League The U.S. military cannot account for $21 trillion it received over the years. --- Truthdig
Just 3% of tax money given to the military could feed the world. No one should be hungry in the world. We have the means to eradicate it. The U.S. military has 750 bases around the world, and spends billions on these. They have found 58 documented instances of sexual abuse or harassment of students by instructors in all branches of J.R.O.T.C. between 2018 and 2022. ---Tom Dispatch
At least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes in their most recent fiscal year despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the United States. —-Democracy Now
The Second Amendment was intended in the first instance to protect slaveholders from the people they owned.---Portside There have been 146 mass shootings so far this year. More than one a day. Roughly 1,600 American kids were killed by guns last year ---Common Dreams
The U.S. government is supporting a Canadian company to acquire a controversial nickel mine in Guatemala. Nickel is needed for electric cars. After the U.S.-backed military coup ousted Guatemala’s last democratic government in 1954, the Canadian government established diplomatic relations for the first time with Guatemala - with the post-coup, military-backed regime. ----Democracy Now
As many as 1 in 3 U.S. adults have an incarceration, conviction, or arrest record, which limits their access to education, jobs, housing, and financial security.--- CAP California will require half of all heavy trucks sold by 2035 to be electric, as it moves to phase out diesel trucks Last year, California passed a measure requiring all new passenger vehicles sold to be fully electric by 2035. Transportation accounts for some 40% of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. ----Democracy Now
Events:
Monday, May 1st at 11 a.m. March with us from the original Voces office at 1027 S. 5th Street to the Milwaukee downtown DMV. We’ll rally and then end with a celebration at Zeidler Park! We demand licenses for immigrants and no more detentions and taking away children from those seeking security in the U.S.
Sat. May 6 ----BENEFIT FOR CASA MARIA from 5 to 7 p.m. at The Coffee House, 2717E. Hampshire St.. Please bring your instruments and singing voices to have a great time!
Thurs. May 11—Anti-ROTC Vigil, noon to 1 p.m. at M.U. library on Wisconsin Ave. Thurs. May 25—International Day for Disarmament, Anti Gun vigil at Dunham’s 2505 S. 108 St., Milwaukee, starting at Noon
NOTES OF 21ST STREET: May is the month that mothers are celebrated. All women are mothers, mothers of the earth and to all that inhabit the earth. That is why I always go to the wise words written in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe. Her words remain relevant, even today. “Arise, then women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.” From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own it says “Disarm, Disarm!” The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.” May we women listen to her words anew and strive always to bring about a more peaceful, loving world. Peace, Roberta
DON’S JOKES
A bear sees someone lying in a tent in a sleeping bag. He says, “Oooh! A spring roll!
"Mary talking to Little Johnny: I found twenty cents on the sidewalk. Little Johnny: That’s mine. I dropped a twenty-cent coin there this morning. Little Mary: But, what I found was two ten-cent coins! Little Johnny: That’s it. I heard it break when it hit the ground.
A pregnant woman gets into a car accident and falls into a deep coma. Asleep for nearly six months, she wakes up and sees that she is no longer pregnant. Frantically, she asks the doctor about her baby. The doctor replies, “Ma’am, you had twins! A boy and a girl. The babies are fine. Your brother came in and named them.” The woman thinks to herself, “Oh no, not my brother — he’s an idiot!” Expecting the worst, she asks the doctor, “Well, what’s the girl’s name?” “Denise,” the doctor says. The new mother thinks, “Wow, that’s not a bad name! Guess I was wrong about my brother. I like Denise!” Then she asks the doctor, “What’s the boy’s name?” The doctor replies, “DeNephew”.
Interesting Facts
ProPublica investigation from 2022 revealed that the 25 richest Americans paid a true tax rate of roughly 3.4 percent. This means nurses, teachers, firefighters, and other middle class frontline workers paid a larger share of their income in taxes than America’s billionaires. One group that won’t be paying much today: the rich, who have stashed $2 trillion in offshore tax havens. Service (IRS) researchers found that wealthy Americans have stashed nearly $2 trillion in foreign tax havens, with much of that fortune linked to a handful of the country’s richest households. ---Portside
The 2024 budget is: Military spending at 43% or $2.297 billion. Non-military spending is 57% at $3,007 billion –- War Resisters League The U.S. military cannot account for $21 trillion it received over the years. --- Truthdig
Just 3% of tax money given to the military could feed the world. No one should be hungry in the world. We have the means to eradicate it. The U.S. military has 750 bases around the world, and spends billions on these. They have found 58 documented instances of sexual abuse or harassment of students by instructors in all branches of J.R.O.T.C. between 2018 and 2022. ---Tom Dispatch
At least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes in their most recent fiscal year despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the United States. —-Democracy Now
The Second Amendment was intended in the first instance to protect slaveholders from the people they owned.---Portside There have been 146 mass shootings so far this year. More than one a day. Roughly 1,600 American kids were killed by guns last year ---Common Dreams
The U.S. government is supporting a Canadian company to acquire a controversial nickel mine in Guatemala. Nickel is needed for electric cars. After the U.S.-backed military coup ousted Guatemala’s last democratic government in 1954, the Canadian government established diplomatic relations for the first time with Guatemala - with the post-coup, military-backed regime. ----Democracy Now
As many as 1 in 3 U.S. adults have an incarceration, conviction, or arrest record, which limits their access to education, jobs, housing, and financial security.--- CAP California will require half of all heavy trucks sold by 2035 to be electric, as it moves to phase out diesel trucks Last year, California passed a measure requiring all new passenger vehicles sold to be fully electric by 2035. Transportation accounts for some 40% of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. ----Democracy Now
Events:
Monday, May 1st at 11 a.m. March with us from the original Voces office at 1027 S. 5th Street to the Milwaukee downtown DMV. We’ll rally and then end with a celebration at Zeidler Park! We demand licenses for immigrants and no more detentions and taking away children from those seeking security in the U.S.
Sat. May 6 ----BENEFIT FOR CASA MARIA from 5 to 7 p.m. at The Coffee House, 2717E. Hampshire St.. Please bring your instruments and singing voices to have a great time!
Thurs. May 11—Anti-ROTC Vigil, noon to 1 p.m. at M.U. library on Wisconsin Ave. Thurs. May 25—International Day for Disarmament, Anti Gun vigil at Dunham’s 2505 S. 108 St., Milwaukee, starting at Noon
NOTES OF 21ST STREET: May is the month that mothers are celebrated. All women are mothers, mothers of the earth and to all that inhabit the earth. That is why I always go to the wise words written in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe. Her words remain relevant, even today. “Arise, then women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.” From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own it says “Disarm, Disarm!” The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.” May we women listen to her words anew and strive always to bring about a more peaceful, loving world. Peace, Roberta