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Home > Archive > General Discussion > January 2003 > Off topic - Rice for Peace *this is a loooong one*
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Off topic - Rice for Peace *this is a loooong one*
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| gr33nd4yg1rl 2003-01-22, 4:03 pm |
| ----- Original Message -----
From: ****
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 8:01 PM
Subject: Rice for Peace
Dear Friends, This came from the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center; I checked their website (in this letter) and it is for real; and it doesn't appear as an urban legend on about.com, and it sounds like a great idea! Ellen
We are starting a campaign to influence President Bush not to start a war
on Iraq. This is a campaign that takes only a small amount of time per
person, but we must have mass participation in order to be effective. We
must also act quickly. People often write letters to politicians to try
to have some influence on them. This ups the ante. Instead of sending
letters, we will send rice. The idea comes from a campaign that was held
in the 1950s: There was famine in China and tens of thousands of people
sent small bags of rice to President Eisenhower convincing him not to
attack China. We want to send th! e same message to President Bush
regarding Iraq.
Here is how it works. Each person sends a small bag of uncooked rice (a
half cup) to Mr. Bush and includes a note: RICE FOR PEACE - NO WAR ON
IRAQ. When Bush receives hundreds of thousands of packages of rice he may
not acknowledge it, but he will take notice. Eventually the mainstream
press will as well. The White house can easily toss letters, but bags of
rice will take up space, time and effort, forcing them to notice.
Mail the rice to:
President George Bush
Rice for Peace - No War On Iraq
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20500
We are launching this campaign now and we have to start quickly. We want
the first wave of rice to be mailed around Martin Luther King Day, January
20. We need Bush to start hearing from us before the Hans Blix gives his
report on January 27 and before Bush's State of the Union Address on the
28th. After that, we need the momentum to build through continuous
outreach. The campaign will continue as long as necessary. We will have
updates on the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center Website at
www.rmpjc.org.
What are we asking you to do? Please send the e-mail attachments to your
e-mail lists. Please post on your web pages. At any rallies or gatherings
that you have please announce the campaign and hand out flyers about it.
Please send to news media in your area. A sample press release is
attached. We are including posters if you have places that you can post
them.
Other ways to get the campaign going:
Pre-package rice in mailers and sell at cost, include flyer on what to do
with it and where to send it (or have it pre-labeled and/or pre-stamped) -
these could be sold at rallies and also at places such as co-ops, natural
food stores and progressive stores in order to reach people who care Bring
a large container of rice to a rally and distribute and package there Hand
out flyers on college campuses ! and other high traffic areas with info on
the campaign.
Please let us know what you are doing with the campaign by emailing us at
riceforpeace@earthlink.net. Also, if you have questions or concerns, you
can reach us at that address.
Finally, I have to say it again: in order for this campaign to be
successful, we have to move quickly. Participation by all the peace
groups around the country is vital.
Thanks for your help.
For Peace,
Stirling Cousins The Rice for Peace Campaign Coordinator A project of the
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center Boulder, Colorado
Some history on the 1950's campaign:
"Attempts at nonviolent persuasion can have useful though unintended
consequences of great significance which go unrecognized by activists
themselves, who may see their work as essentially failed. In the mid
1950s,the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in th! e
Chinese mainland, launched a "Feed Thine Enemy" campaign. Members and
friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice to the Whitehouse with a
tag quoting the Bible, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him." As far as
anyone knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure.
The President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly; certainly
no rice was ever sent to China.
"What nonviolent activists only learned a decade later was that the
campaign played a significant, perhaps even determining role in preventing
nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was on, President Eisenhower met
with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider US options in the conflict with
China over two islands, Quemoy and Matsu. The generals twice recommended
the use of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower each time turned to his
aide and asked how many little bags of rice had come in. When tol! d they
numbered in the tens of thousands, Eisenhower told the generals that as
long as so many Americans were expressing active interest in having the US
feed the Chinese, he certainly wasn't going to consider using nuclear
weapons against them." | |
| gr33nd4yg1rl 2003-01-22, 5:16 pm |
| he's already got all those troops over there. he's not going to call them back cause rice comes. | |
| chodan 2003-01-22, 7:01 pm |
| A better use for rice would be to send it to a country where there are starving people.
Not waste it.
It will be thrown away at the white house as they can't very well keep it.
I doubt Mr Bush will even see the first bag. | |
| ChrisDfer 2003-01-22, 7:22 pm |
| Maybe we should drop bags of rice on Bagdad and see how much damage we can cause. That sounds like a much better use. | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2003-01-23, 5:26 am |
| Who somes up with these ideas? Since when has rice ever influenced presdiential decisions? Come to that, when has anything other than reelection ever influenced presidential decisions. Besides, it's pretty hard to meail a bag of rice. | |
| ccieToBe 2003-01-23, 12:01 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by chodan
A better use for rice would be to send it to a country where there are starving people.
Not waste it.
It will be thrown away at the white house as they can't very well keep it.
I doubt Mr Bush will even see the first bag.
Agreed. | |
| JohnDeere 2003-01-23, 5:15 pm |
| LOL | |
| theshewolf 2003-01-23, 7:07 pm |
| I thouht this was an IT Certification Portal, not a dumping ground for personal political opinion. At least put "politics" or something in your title so I don't read it accidentally, please. | |
| chodan 2003-01-23, 8:04 pm |
| Wel it is in "general topics" area
and the title did say "Off topic rice for peace"
I'm not sure how you got something technical out of that.
A clue might be in order. | |
| jojogun 2003-01-24, 7:45 am |
| silly obsure thing do change history
in 1971 a train was sent to crush the russin revolution before it could get any bigger, a man in a signal box sent the train the wrong way, no oe knows who he was, but it did change history. | |
| ccieToBe 2003-01-24, 1:43 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by jojogun
silly obsure thing do change history
in 1971 a train was sent to crush the russin revolution before it could get any bigger, a man in a signal box sent the train the wrong way, no oe knows who he was, but it did change history.
Huh? | |
| drdirt 2003-01-24, 4:49 pm |
| Ah! GreenDay!
Think how the mail handlers will look at the packages post Anthrax Scare 2002.
If the mail campaign really gained numbers the handlers would be faced with a mammoth problem. While all or nearly all of the bags would be legitimate rice in protest, any one of them could be sent with horrible contents to get publicity.
All those 'lil interns would have to open and test the contents before disposal - so that anthrax-or-smallpox-or-pathogen-of-the-week doesn't get into our landfills.
So sending rice would provide cover for another terrorist act that kills innocent Whitehouse interns!
Then the SS would have to interview and build a file on everyone who sent rice! We would be causing fallen arches and failed marriages in those heroes who sacrifice so much to protect the priviledged (oops, I meant president!).
Why not start a campaign to send bricks instead of rice? We aren't taking any food from starving peoples, and then who knows what a terrorist could substitute in one of the packages...
If you don't want Bush to launch a military campaign on Iraq (lets quit kidding ourselves with the term "war"), then vote, and don't vote for people who are priviledged idiots with a family history of unleashing warfare to rally public opinion.
The evidence was there in 1999. The man's integrity was obvious from his partying days, his means of entering Yale, his long support by Ken Lay, his use (and loss) of other peoples money in business, his politically opportunistic war on immigrants (Texas, 1996), and then his lying and coining the phrase "friend of the hispanic."
Want to talk about his family? Iran Contra? Noriega? Defying congressional law on espionage while heading CIA?
That 48% or so of voters chose Bush, the US asked for some really big problems. Did we think that the world would begin liking the US if we elected people like him?
Did we expect him to suddenly start doing what is "right-even-if-difficult" just because he was overwhelmed with appreciation for voting for him? He didn't even get good grades at Yale after getting in as a legacy!
He is not one of those who understands service or responsibility. Haven't we uderstood that yet? |
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