LEAP AHEAD IN WARMAKING POWER, WHILE EVERYTHING ELSE GOES TO POT

Russian Television {English language} gives us the news about our own CRS study documenting surge in arms sales

 

“U.S. Arms Sales Make Up Most of Global Market” announces the NYT 8-24-12 article.  Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high…  … weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.

We are more than ever, Number One!  In Weapons and War [and Obesity].  We have always been in first place since WWII.  Now this Superpower has pulled far ahead of cold and hot war competition.  We now export more than 12 times the firepower of old Cold War competitor Russia.  Left them in the dust.   Job One is the gun.  Yet you get what you pay for, and produce.  Invest in war and the general impoverishment it effects in the world, and we will surely remain a nation at war, weighted down by a self-inflicted bad economy and morality.  For U.S. Christians who are taught to love the enemy, pray for the persecutors, and trust in God’s mercy, this is a fundamental problem.  Every weapon built leads us closer to a godless Armageddon.

War is not the answer.  Or, war is the answer to the question, “What is the most dangerous behavior, occasion of sin, risking loss of our collective soul—that of all nation states, the world’s tribes and factions, international corporations?

 

et us beware of conventional wisdoms that propel us in war’s direction: only good “injun” is a dead “injun”; better dead than red; must kill the village to save it; shoot first ask questions later=preemptive strike; deficits don’t matter; have cake and eat it too.  These noxious half-truths come whispered by the serpent in the Garden, paradise lost.  The Deceiver promises intricate knowledge of good and evil, and leaves us with a forest devoid of trees—a weapons of mass destruction wasteland.

Our Catholic Church effort at a “new evangelization” desperately needs the old regular full Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Son of God needs to be once again acknowledged Our Nonviolent Lord and Savior—the Way, Truth, and Life.  God is Love.  There is no violence in God.  Jesus has conquered death.  What was His weapon?  Forgiveness. 

Further study and action: Friends Committee on National Legislation

Conventional Arms, Nuclear Disarmament, and Peaceful Resolution of Conflict sections.

 

 

 

From U.S. Center for Disease Control, more than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7%) are obese [eg. -- 5’4” and >174 lb.]  [Read data brief [PDF-528Kb]]

 

This Sunday’s scripture--peace is a pure fruit, war perdition.

Jas 3:16-4:3

 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure,
then peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
for those who cultivate peace.

Where do the wars
and where do the conflicts among you come from?
Is it not from your passions;
that make war within your members?
You covet but do not possess.
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war.
You do not possess because you do not ask.
You ask but do not receive,
because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.