Yes, the killing of Jamal Kashoggi by Saudi Arabia is evil, but so is the killing of innocent people at 9/11, the killing of civilians in Yemen and Syria, the beheading of prisoners, etc. which is all done with the approval and assistance of the U.S. government’s military industrial complex. This is seldom ever mentioned by the major media. The Saudi government has a horrendous human rights record, but the U.S. ignores this when it comes to getting money from them. The U.S. sells the Saudi government weapons and refuels their killer jets in midair. The U.S. does not do this for creating peace, but for the sake of helping the military corporations make more money. The U.S. gave shelter and protected the Saudis during the 9/11 event, despite the fact that 15 of the 19 involved in the attacks were from Saudi Arabia. This is hardly ever considered big news by the major media. To kill is always wrong. It is wrong to kill for profit, freedom, protection, retaliation or whatever. We continue to do it or help others do it and then expect to have peace and harmony in the world. So sad! ------Don Timmerman
“We make this demonstration not only to voice our opposition to war, not only to refuse to participate in psychological warfare, which this air drill is, but also as an act of public penance for having been the first people to drop the atom bomb, to make the hydrogen bomb.” “Without poverty we are powerless. By living voluntary poverty we are resisting the war industry..” ----Dorothy Day
JOKES
Did you hear that the energizer bunny was arrested and charged with battery? A woman walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch. She said, “I couldn’t help but notice how happy you look. What’s your secret for a long and happy life?” The old man answered, “I smoke 3 packs of cigarettes s a day. I also drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty food and never exercise.” “That’s amazing,” she said, “Just how old are you?” He said, “Twenty six!”
Atheism is a non-prophet organization. Why do you think only bread and wine were taken at the Last Supper? Because only men were invited. The drought is so bad this year that the cows gave powdered milk. A boy swallowed some coins and was taken to the hospital. His mother phoned to ask how he was. The nurse said, “No change yet.” If at first you don’t succeed, don’t try skydiving. Don’t join dangerous cults…. Practice safe sects Boy: “Could I have a turkey for my grandma? “ Salesperson, “No. We do not do exchanges here.” Q: Can February march? A: No, but April may. Why do pilgrims pants fall down? Because their belts are on their hats. Why couldn't Dracula’s wife get to sleep? A: Because of his coffin.
INTERESTING FACTS
It is unconstitutional for any President of the U.S. to enter into war with another country without the approval of Congress. Yet is has been done by many US presidents since President Polk when he took it upon himself to instigate a war with Mexico in order to gain more territory for the U.S in what is now the western part of the U.S. It killed and displaced many Mexicans with an armed invasion. Now when the Mexicans try to enter the country they are persecuted, separated from their families and often spend years in detention for simply trying to get into territory that was taken from them. ----NPR
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli bulldozers have entered the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar ahead of its planned demolition. In September, Israel’s Supreme Court approved a plan to raze the village to make way for an expansion of two nearby Jewish-only settlements. ---Democracy Now, 10/17/18
In just 3 years, the Korean War claimed over 4 million lives. The US dropped 635,000 ton of bombs on Korea, more than it did in the rest of the Asia-Pacific in WWII combined, and it used 33,000 tons of napalm in Korea — more than in Vietnam. Curtis LeMay, a US Air Force general in the Korean War, testified, “We burned down just about every city in North Korea and South Korea … we killed off over a million civilian Koreans and drove several million more from their homes.” The US’s indiscriminate bombing campaign leveled 80 percent of North Korean cities, killing 1 out of every 4 family members. The bombing of homes was so devastating that the regime urged its citizens to build shelter underground ----Portside, 10/15/18
American spending on pets is more than the combined GDP of the 39 poorest countries in the world. ---AlterNet, 10/18/18
The United Arab Emirates hired U.S. mercenaries to kill politicians in Yemen. The UAE hired the U.S. mercenary company Spear Operations Group, founded by Abraham Golan, a Hungarian Israeli living near Pittsburgh. ----Buzz Feed
President Donald Trump summarily rejected calls for the US to cut off its massive arms shipments to Riyadh because he fears that the Saudi government might cancel the billion dollar sales of weapons from U.S. military contractors.
In Nigeria, the militant group Boko Haram has killed 24-year-old Hauwa Liman, a nurse for the International Committee of the Red Cross, who was kidnapped in March along with two other aid workers. Boko Haram has killed over 20,000 people and kidnapped thousands, including many children. Fighting between this group and government forces has displaced some 2 million people since 2009. Some 700,000 people were affected in what the United Nations has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”---New York Timers
The United States military has a staggering 883 military bases in 183 countries, Russia has 8, China 1. There is no country with a military footprint that replicates that of the United States. The bases create instability rather than peace. It still cannot account for $21 trillion it already received from your taxes.----AlterNet, 10/2/18
Percentage of Americans with incomes over $1 million whose tax returns were audited in 2012 : 12.1 Whose returns were audited last year : 4.4
Percentage increase from 2016 to 2017 in incidents of piracy in the Caribbean : 163
Chance that a migrant crossing the Mediterranean this year would be killed in transit : 1 in 42.
Estimated number of voters purged from Georgia’s voter rolls from 2008 to 2012 : 750,000. From 2012 to 2016 : 1,500,000
Percentage of California wildfires that are started by people : 95 That are deliberately started by people : 7 -----Harper’s Index
As many as 240,000 people could be fed for a year with the food Americans waste in one day.. ---The Other Side
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Thurs., Nov. 6 ----Birthday of Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. Join us at a VIGIL AT ICE, Broadway & Knapp Sts. starting at Noon. No more separating families. No more detaining migrants.
Thurs. Nov. 15 ----VIGIL TO CLOSE ROTC at Marquette U , 15th & Wisconsin, starting at Noon. No Christian institution should be supporting war and violence.
Thurs., Nov. 29 ----VIGIL OPPOSINNG SELLING OF GUNS at 43rd & Lincoln, staring at Noon. Those who sell guns are accomplices of crimes committed with them. The purpose of a gun is to do violence to another.
NOTES FROM 21ST STREET: Don and I were lucky enough to be invited to take a road trip with a dear friend and Catholic Worker, Tom Sitter. We traveled down the Great River Road along the Mississippi from Bay City to Prairie de Chien, WI. The trees and river bluffs were beautiful . We were in awe of the beauty we were traveling through. Our last stop was at Wyalusing State Park. We stopped at a monument upon a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River that was dedicated to the last passenger pigeon found in Wisconsin. It was shot in Babcock WI in Sept., 1899. The following words were said by Aldo Leopold in 1947 at the commemoration: “We meet here to commemorate the death of a species. This monument symbolizes our sorrow. We grieve because no living being will see again the onrushing phalanx of victorious birds, sweeping a path for spring across the March skies, chasing the defeated winter from all the woods and prairies of Wisconsin. People still live who, in their youth, remember pigeons. Trees still live who, in their youth, were shaken by the living wind. But a few decades hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know.” (changed only by inclusive language} His words could be spoken today about so many areas in this beautiful world in which we live. On the plaque itself is a warning we all need to heed. “This species became extinct through the avarice and thoughtlessness of man.” May we listen to their voices and work tirelessly to save all creation. Peace, Roberta
“We make this demonstration not only to voice our opposition to war, not only to refuse to participate in psychological warfare, which this air drill is, but also as an act of public penance for having been the first people to drop the atom bomb, to make the hydrogen bomb.” “Without poverty we are powerless. By living voluntary poverty we are resisting the war industry..” ----Dorothy Day
JOKES
Did you hear that the energizer bunny was arrested and charged with battery? A woman walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch. She said, “I couldn’t help but notice how happy you look. What’s your secret for a long and happy life?” The old man answered, “I smoke 3 packs of cigarettes s a day. I also drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty food and never exercise.” “That’s amazing,” she said, “Just how old are you?” He said, “Twenty six!”
Atheism is a non-prophet organization. Why do you think only bread and wine were taken at the Last Supper? Because only men were invited. The drought is so bad this year that the cows gave powdered milk. A boy swallowed some coins and was taken to the hospital. His mother phoned to ask how he was. The nurse said, “No change yet.” If at first you don’t succeed, don’t try skydiving. Don’t join dangerous cults…. Practice safe sects Boy: “Could I have a turkey for my grandma? “ Salesperson, “No. We do not do exchanges here.” Q: Can February march? A: No, but April may. Why do pilgrims pants fall down? Because their belts are on their hats. Why couldn't Dracula’s wife get to sleep? A: Because of his coffin.
INTERESTING FACTS
It is unconstitutional for any President of the U.S. to enter into war with another country without the approval of Congress. Yet is has been done by many US presidents since President Polk when he took it upon himself to instigate a war with Mexico in order to gain more territory for the U.S in what is now the western part of the U.S. It killed and displaced many Mexicans with an armed invasion. Now when the Mexicans try to enter the country they are persecuted, separated from their families and often spend years in detention for simply trying to get into territory that was taken from them. ----NPR
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli bulldozers have entered the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar ahead of its planned demolition. In September, Israel’s Supreme Court approved a plan to raze the village to make way for an expansion of two nearby Jewish-only settlements. ---Democracy Now, 10/17/18
In just 3 years, the Korean War claimed over 4 million lives. The US dropped 635,000 ton of bombs on Korea, more than it did in the rest of the Asia-Pacific in WWII combined, and it used 33,000 tons of napalm in Korea — more than in Vietnam. Curtis LeMay, a US Air Force general in the Korean War, testified, “We burned down just about every city in North Korea and South Korea … we killed off over a million civilian Koreans and drove several million more from their homes.” The US’s indiscriminate bombing campaign leveled 80 percent of North Korean cities, killing 1 out of every 4 family members. The bombing of homes was so devastating that the regime urged its citizens to build shelter underground ----Portside, 10/15/18
American spending on pets is more than the combined GDP of the 39 poorest countries in the world. ---AlterNet, 10/18/18
The United Arab Emirates hired U.S. mercenaries to kill politicians in Yemen. The UAE hired the U.S. mercenary company Spear Operations Group, founded by Abraham Golan, a Hungarian Israeli living near Pittsburgh. ----Buzz Feed
President Donald Trump summarily rejected calls for the US to cut off its massive arms shipments to Riyadh because he fears that the Saudi government might cancel the billion dollar sales of weapons from U.S. military contractors.
In Nigeria, the militant group Boko Haram has killed 24-year-old Hauwa Liman, a nurse for the International Committee of the Red Cross, who was kidnapped in March along with two other aid workers. Boko Haram has killed over 20,000 people and kidnapped thousands, including many children. Fighting between this group and government forces has displaced some 2 million people since 2009. Some 700,000 people were affected in what the United Nations has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”---New York Timers
The United States military has a staggering 883 military bases in 183 countries, Russia has 8, China 1. There is no country with a military footprint that replicates that of the United States. The bases create instability rather than peace. It still cannot account for $21 trillion it already received from your taxes.----AlterNet, 10/2/18
Percentage of Americans with incomes over $1 million whose tax returns were audited in 2012 : 12.1 Whose returns were audited last year : 4.4
Percentage increase from 2016 to 2017 in incidents of piracy in the Caribbean : 163
Chance that a migrant crossing the Mediterranean this year would be killed in transit : 1 in 42.
Estimated number of voters purged from Georgia’s voter rolls from 2008 to 2012 : 750,000. From 2012 to 2016 : 1,500,000
Percentage of California wildfires that are started by people : 95 That are deliberately started by people : 7 -----Harper’s Index
As many as 240,000 people could be fed for a year with the food Americans waste in one day.. ---The Other Side
+++++++++
Thurs., Nov. 6 ----Birthday of Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. Join us at a VIGIL AT ICE, Broadway & Knapp Sts. starting at Noon. No more separating families. No more detaining migrants.
Thurs. Nov. 15 ----VIGIL TO CLOSE ROTC at Marquette U , 15th & Wisconsin, starting at Noon. No Christian institution should be supporting war and violence.
Thurs., Nov. 29 ----VIGIL OPPOSINNG SELLING OF GUNS at 43rd & Lincoln, staring at Noon. Those who sell guns are accomplices of crimes committed with them. The purpose of a gun is to do violence to another.
NOTES FROM 21ST STREET: Don and I were lucky enough to be invited to take a road trip with a dear friend and Catholic Worker, Tom Sitter. We traveled down the Great River Road along the Mississippi from Bay City to Prairie de Chien, WI. The trees and river bluffs were beautiful . We were in awe of the beauty we were traveling through. Our last stop was at Wyalusing State Park. We stopped at a monument upon a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River that was dedicated to the last passenger pigeon found in Wisconsin. It was shot in Babcock WI in Sept., 1899. The following words were said by Aldo Leopold in 1947 at the commemoration: “We meet here to commemorate the death of a species. This monument symbolizes our sorrow. We grieve because no living being will see again the onrushing phalanx of victorious birds, sweeping a path for spring across the March skies, chasing the defeated winter from all the woods and prairies of Wisconsin. People still live who, in their youth, remember pigeons. Trees still live who, in their youth, were shaken by the living wind. But a few decades hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know.” (changed only by inclusive language} His words could be spoken today about so many areas in this beautiful world in which we live. On the plaque itself is a warning we all need to heed. “This species became extinct through the avarice and thoughtlessness of man.” May we listen to their voices and work tirelessly to save all creation. Peace, Roberta