Hello friends,

This week we depart from our usual Updates format. We will be sending an event update with Nook News in a day or two. We do want to remind you that our Annual Dinner is this Saturday, Nov. 15. Details are at http://www.midmopeaceworks.org/events.php#258

This post, however, offers our perspective on the current moment, examining the implications of Obama's election and what it bodes for those of us working for peace, sustainability and social justice. We hope you will take a few minutes to read it through and consider our our perspective. We, of course, invite and welcome your feedback. Note that we have not tried to be comprehensive in addressing the issues that will need to be addressed in the months ahead. Rather, we have attempted to put together a framework for understanding our current situation and used a few examples to illustrate our situation.

Thanks for your interest and your work to move us forward in our shared efforts to promote a peaceful, just and sustainable future.

Your friends at Peaceworks

The country is now preparing to elect a new President and as all our citizens consider their choices, they are confronted with the numbing denial by both Obama and McCain that the Iraq war is Illegal. “Why are Obama and McCain discussing the terrifying idea of a draft” Americans are asking, when “it is your sworn constitutional duty to call for an end to this and future Illegal Wars,” and then, a draft is clearly un-necessary?

Barack Obama dropped a bomb on his young enthusiasts at Columbia University on September 11. The heavily Democratic crowd booed McCain when he called for the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) to be brought back to campus (it was driven out in 1969 by protests against the Vietnam war). Liberal students expected a different answer from Columbia alum Obama, but the forum was a symphony of agreement as both candidates campaigned for expanding the military and pledged their enthusiastic support to U.S. imperialism. That should have been the tip-off for anyone who hadn't figured it out by then: Obama is no "peace candidate" but like McCain he is a certified imperialist war candidate.

first, a quote from the bible. hope this doesn't stop you from continuing reading.
matthew 6 34
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Obama doesn’t deserve to win unless he steps up to the real change that it is time for, which is the actual future. What was the one thing people actually spoke out for against the Bush regime? The one thing people saw some kind of funky hope in peeking out of their subconsciouses in the murk of the drear-clear sunny morning talk show drives to and from work that is their lives?

STEM CELLS.

We noticed last week that it was awfully peculiar that Colorado’s U.S. Attorney, Troy Eid, had so airily dismissed conspiracy charges against the three white-supremacist tweakers who were caught planning to assassinate Barack Obama at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Meanwhile, protesters who were completely gun-free get charged with felony terrorism in Minneapolis.