ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY POLITICS--WE ARE NAILED TO A CROSS OF IRON

Sen. John Kyl, one of the members of the special congressional committee set up to create a $1.5 trillion budget-reduction plan, said Thursday those cuts should come out of programs like Medicare and Social Security - not defense.   Washington (CNN report) Sept. 9, 2011

Listen to this not so long ago Republican president who’d learned from his close contact with the war industry---

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in arms in not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children….This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.  Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”  [for whole speech, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9743.htm]
--Dwight D. Eisenhower,  1953

 What does our faith teach us---

“The arms race is one of the greatest curses on the human race, an act of aggression against the poor and a folly which does not provide the security it promises.” (The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, No. 81, 1965)
 “The armaments race is to be condemned unreservedly.  It is a n act of aggression which amounts to a crime, for even when they are not used, by their cost alone, armaments kill the poor by causing them to starve” --Vatican statement to the U.N., 1976

By pursuing the arms race we continue to kill the poor, and all hopes and dreams for a better world still hang on a cross of iron.  We are no longer arms racing with our enemies, but only chase our own tails, while stuffing our leaderships’ profits pouches.     Our country spends nearly as much on its military, as do all the rest of the world’s countries combined.  Yet our social safety net is shredded, jobs slashed, and cuts to our children’s education are embraced as a national priority.

ongress is embattled in special budget reduction committees.  People’s needs are being sacrificed on the altar of Wall Street and national security industry.  Those who should represent us are in danger of becoming the Greedy Old Party and the Dust Encrusted Moribunds.  The “class warfare” the Republicans warn of, is already upon us [not the rich], and has been declared by all the predominant politicians with their well-heeled handlers.  This class warfare is against the regular citizen and the common good.  The gated wall between Dives and Lazarus is being built up to a dizzying height [see gospel of Luke 16: 19-31], as it becomes the ever-wide terrible-depth gap between heaven and hell.   Heaven cannot be attained unless super-rich and poor meet hand in hand on the plane of justice.  America, it’s time to tear down this wall.

Dives and Lazarus, by Serrata Pozzo

“Let the little children come to me.  Do not shut them off.  The reign of God belongs to such as these.  Trust me when I tell you that whoever does not accept the kingdom of God as a child will not enter into it.”  Lk 18: 16-17

Jesus Blesses the Children

Dives and Lazarus

John Pilch, biblical scholar, has this to say.  "The gate by which Lazarus posts himself performs two functions.  It keeps Lazarus outside and the rich man inside; but it can also be the rich man's entry into the world where he can give alms or become a patron to needy clients.  This creates a gap between the two, which only grows larger as the story progresses."  The gap between damnation and salvation.

 Illumination by Kathy Brahney