PANDEMIC PERFIDY – MIGRANT CHILDREN ABUSED BY OUR SYSTEM

 Border Patrol agents detaining immigrants near Mission, Texas, on 12-11-19 - The government has put a halt to most immigration since the pandemic began. PHOTO: JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES

Veterans for Peace, Northwest Michigan Chapter 50 publicly honors fallen Michigan service men and women with flags and crosses on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
Photo Special to the Insider – Photo credit: VFP

Do we remember this Memorial Day the values that so many died in war for?  Will the spirit of welcome, liberty and justice for all, die with an ever-increasing tendency to shutter our borders to those who seek our shelter?  Are we becoming Fortress America?  Walls do a prison make, on both sides of the wall.

From LIfeZette

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-changes-rules-for-migrant-children-during-pandemic-11590141601?mod=hp_lead_pos6&mod=djemCapitalJournalDaybreak

“The Trump administration is reversing longstanding policies on the treatment of children and families who come into the U.S. illegally, citing laws and court rulings related to the coronavirus pandemic as reasons for changes it has long sought.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-trump-administration-is-rushing-deportations-of-migrant-children-during-coronavirus

“As the nation remains focused on COVID-19, the U.S. government has aggressively begun to rush the deportations of some of the most vulnerable migrant children in its care to countries where they have been raped, beaten or had a parent killed, according to attorneys, court filings and congressional staff.”(ProPublica and Texas Tribune) Read this full article for a better personal understanding of this governmental attack on family values.

ave faith.  There is hope to bring our country to a new appreciation of welcoming the alien, since we are almost all historically immigrants.  For a deeper understanding of what we face as we come to grips with the continued violent results of our past wars in Central America and the Middle East, please visit the site Interfaith Immigration Coalition -  “People of Faith to Trump Administration- Stop Abuse of Migrant Children” http://www.interfaithimmigration.org/2020/05/20/people-of-faith-to-trump-administration-stop-abuse-of-migrant-children/.  They have resources for continued prayer, study, action.

May we be part of a solution to these refugee families’ struggle to build a renewed life, despite the double jeopardy of pandemic and political stumbling blocks.

More personal stories from the New York Times, 10 Years Old, Tearful and Confused After a Sudden Deportation .

"When Jesus saw this, he became angry and said, "Let the children come to me! Don't try to stop them. People who are like these little children belong to the kingdom of God." Mark 10:14

 Illumination by Kathy Brahney

Click on images to enlarge, links to access complete articles

INTERNATIONAL CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR DAY MAY 15 - UNNOTICED

Songsheet cover

Jesus at Gethsemane - "Put away the sword"

This past Friday the world celebrated, with little fanfare, International Conscientious Objector Day.  I’ve been a C. O. since 1969 and had never heard of the event.   This day of recognition was first declared in 1985, by a group named the International Conscientious Objector Meeting, and had members from 20 countries.  They met yearly from 1981 till 1997, and not since, but International War Resistors and the Peace Pledge Union, strongest in the U.K., maintain support for the Day that promotes peace—nonparticipation in war.  Pax Christi USA, Hallelujah, sent me an email last week announcing the Day, and in the U.S., War Resisters League, Fellowship of Reconciliation, and other peace organizations have been part of some efforts. 

International CO Day in Columbia - no pictures found for USA {except for Berkeley, CA}

In the U.S. it’s difficult to get people to pay attention to something that many think unpatriotic, against the national interest.  Even the churches in the main consider conscientious objection a stumbling block.   War is hell, yet no nation’s church, and certainly no nation, has ever directly declared a war unjust—so all war sides justified?  It is then up to a person, and all of us people in all countries, to claim war itself unjust, immoral, and stop preparing for it, as best we can, with the grace of God.  For those of the Christian faith, who follow Jesus, “put away the sword” “love your enemy” -- the way towards peace should be clear, though the details bedeviled and politics most unpopular.

one of this is easy.  We have many examples of saintly objectors/peacemakers to help guide us [see below].  To be a loving local citizen, yet engaged with worldwide problems, committed not to kill, is very difficult, especially in the day to day present moment decisions.  Lord teach us to pray and live your Sermon on the Mount, your Good News.  Help us to be C.O.s transcending all national boundaries.

Convert to the love of Jesus, and therefore each other--family, friend, and enemy.

From the War Resistors International website--History of International Conscientious Objector Meeting

https://wri-irg.org/en/co/icodhist.htm

National gatherings “held in the Netherlands, Spain, France, Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Colombia, and Chad, among others.”  These meetings not held since 1997.

 Focus areas: “Greece (1986), Yugoslavia (1987), Poland (1988), South Africa (1989), Spain (1990), Turkey (1992), former Yugoslavia (1993), Colombia (1995). There were thematic focuses too: forced service for women (1991), and asylum for women and men who refused military service or deserted from the army (1993). In 2001, the War Resisters' International Council Meeting decided to focus on the situation of conscientious objectors and deserters in Angola. The focus for 2002 will be the Balkans region.” 

 For a video of the most recent International Conscientious Objector Day celebration - with Covid 19 restrictions. https://www.ppu.org.uk/international-conscientious-objectors-day  Video U.K. celebration

A very short list of those who've lead lives of conscientious objection 

Martin Luther King
Muhammad Ali
Las Madres de Los Desaparecidos
Rachel Corrie
Otto Schimek
Sophie Scholl
Desmond Doss  +  https://www.npr.org/2016/11/04/500548745/the-real-hacksaw-ridge-soldier-saved-75-souls-without-ever-carrying-a-gun
Franz Jagerstatter + Most recent film on Franz Jaggerstatter – A Hidden Life - recommended

         https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5827916/ + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA9XUTuGjlE

And from earlier times --

St. Maximillian, d. 295  https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-maximilian/

St. Martin of Tours, d. 397  https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-martin-of-tours/

Saints Nerius & Achillus, d. ? Roman soldiers  https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saints-nereus-and-achilleus/

St. Enda of Ireland, d. 530  https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-enda-700

St. Telemachus, d. 404?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Telemachus

During the battle, Doss (a Seventh Day Adventist) (seen here at the top of Hacksaw Ridge) dragged severely injured men to the edge of the ridge and lowered them down to other medics below.

Courtesy of the Desmond Doss Council 

Illumination by Kathy Brahney
Some references
https://rachelcorriefoundation.org/
https://detroitcatholic.com/news/guest-writer/the-seldom-told-story-of-otto-schimek-a-faithful-witness-to-peace-for-poland

My service during the Vietnam War was alternative service at a Catholic parish Cristo Rey Community Center in Lansing, MI, which was also a social service center for the Mexican American community and welcome center for immigrants & migrant workers.  Part of my job was to organize for Cesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers union.  Much more still needs to be done, and I try to keep working on these justice issues.

"Conscientious Objector"    Poem from 1929

I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay
This was written after the Spanish influenza of 1918-19 killed millions riding in on the hoofs of WWI.  Today we live in a more well-fed, healthcare-modernized world.  But we’ve courted needless death in throwing piles of our national treasure at the feet of our massive military killing machinery, leaving us defenseless against microbes we could otherwise master. 

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/reopening-coronavirus-needless-deaths/  - current problem.

Even the arts sometimes conspire against unpopular vision.  poets.org does not list this poem in it’s extensive list of Millay's works.

Albrecht Durer_king_death_on_horseback

We believe death is not the end.

Ande's poppy - my photo

THE NUKE MADNESS YET AMONGST US

A flip chart [1980 ]from same organization as the exhibit - also part of our activism -

the single dot of WWII in center square

In moving away from our house of 25 years I brought the Nuclear Freeze movement out of my upstairs office room—the set of 16 exhibit sized, plywood-mounted posters that describe the devastation that nuclear weapons can bring to humanity.  We’ve had them since the early 80’s, and displayed them a couple of times back then, but their warning cries out to us in the present moment.  They’ve been donated to the Peace Center in Lansing, MI with the hope that they can be more prominently seen again.

n these times of pandemic, of an unseen virus, we have to remember that our country still prepares a more devastating means for worldwide destruction.  We are investing as a country $100 billion to totally renovate our nuclear arsenal, already the most powerful on earth.  We want to modernize our own megadeath potential because we still fear the mega enemy, even though the only real external threats we can manufacture are bands of mini-terrorists in faraway lands.

The Lord God promised Noah after the Flood that He would never again destroy the world by water.  This time it would be by fire thermonuclear and by our own hand.  It would take only 100 of our thousands of nukes at the ready, if actually exploded, to create the “nuclear winter” postulated by scientist Carl Sagan, to end human life on our planet.

Yet we the most powerful continue to tinker with these massively destructive machines in the interests of our own purported safety.  We dedicate the first financial fruits of our government to this crazy quest for security, while outside our borders the the world suffers from many ongoing wars—mostly maintained in search of this illusion of our “Homeland Security.” 

This monstrous golden fatted calf can never deliver.  It is a shameless idol that robs us and the rest of the nations of the resources and creativity that could bring us solution to the poverty, injustice, and disease that plague all countries.  These weapons are a terrible backdrop of institutionalized mass suicide that are a constant factor in our political inability to be truly pro-life.

 Nuke failure of submarine launch - From Netflix movie "The Bomb."

Their continued existence looms over all our discussions, though they are rarely spoken or thought about now.  We’d rather fuss over North Korea’s possible half-dozen, or Iran’s potential to make it’s first nuke.  But our mass destruction monsters are a real presence, tall somber metal guardian watchers, jailors of our better intentions.

We must put away this nuclear sword, before we self immolate, and take most of God’s creation with us.  “It is a Sin to Build a Nuclear Weapon” wrote Jesuit Fr. Richard McSorley in the1980's.  It persists as a mega-mortal sin with preposterous immorality inherent in its design.  Their use would be an anti-Christ disaster, a pro-bad choice of radical evil.

Yet we still build them, perfect them.  They surround and hem in our search for a good, healthy life.  Their existence with our reliance on them, is a fundamental disrespect for life.  I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deut 30:19   It’s time before it’s too late to completely dismantle our nuclear weapons leading the rest of the world in this effort, as we are the originators and have made the most of them.  There should be no more government funds for constructing these amoral giants, only for their full retirement and disassembly. May they rest in peace buried in history’s graveyard, so that they never become the tombstone over human existence. 

men

Hope from Pax Christi USA - visit site

References
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-carl-sagan-warned-world-about-nuclear-winter-180967198/
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/222/4630/128
https://paxchristiusa.org/backfromthebrink/

https://sojo.net/magazine/february-1977/its-sin-build-nuclear-weapon

The Reverend Richard McSorley, S.J. (1914 - 2002), was professor of peace studies at Georgetown University and writer of eight books on pacifism and social justice. As a Jesuit priest ordained in 1946, he completed his studies for his Ph.D. at Ottawa University. In 1970, he co-founded St. Francis Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C. He served as a board member of the National Interreligious Board for Conscientious Objectors for 15 years and was a National Council member of Pax Christi, U.S.A. from 1983 to 1989. He has written five other books and is a nationally recognized newspaper columnist.

Illuminations by Kathy Brahney

Addendum to our pandemic problem --

200505-WSJ – U of Wash. Covid death numbers double

The reopening plans came as projections show deaths in the U.S. could nearly double in the coming months. Deaths in the U.S. could approach 135,000 by early August, according to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which produces a forecast sometimes cited by the White House. The model is one of several that researchers have developed to chart the potential path of the disease, with some predicting more dire scenarios than others.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-05-05-2020-11588669450?mod=djemHL_t&tesla=y

THREATENED DEATH OF OPINION PAGE

Have you noticed the death of the opinion page in many newspapers nationwide?  Our local Port Huron area Times Herald let go a couple of good editors, and dropped the page with its editorial, letters to the editor, op-eds, and award winning “Talkback” column over a year ago.  This restructuring, after our paper years ago being subsumed by Gannett News, is part of a further downsizing at behest of new giant owners “New Media Investment Group.“

nd now with the pandemic upon us, its foreseen that with this blow to the economy, many local newspapers across the land will fold or be further diminished.  They were already under pressure from personal device delivered media.  What is lost in this demise?  The freedom of the press to express our opinions in the press, distributed to a wide circulation of people of divergent views.  Our newspapers have contained one of the last public forums designed to invite diverse discussions, respectfully refereed by hopefully impartial editors.

The new newspaper business model has no place for citizens to make public response to the problems and politics of our society. What the powerful willingly or unwittingly want is no talkback from the common folk—just let their thoughts diffuse impatiently among Facebook friends, without impact on those with whom you disagree, impotent to make change. No dialogue, no editor to keep the issues balanced and the discussion civil.  No compromise—more stupidity.  The threatened death of the newspaper opinion page, and local papers themselves, is warning sign that our system of democracy, dependent on a vibrant public forum, faces extinction as well.

Reference 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/business/media/gannett-acquired-gatehouse-media.html

Illumination by Kathy Brahney

Update on refugees & Covid 19 [last week's subject]
"Based on the 995 tests it has conducted, ICE has confirmed 449 Covid cases among detainees. As of April 25, the agency had 29,675 detainees nationwide, most of whom are waiting for asylum cases to be resolved or for deportation proceedings to conclude. There have also been 36 positive tests of detention workers."  For full article https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-largest-coronavirus-outbreak-in-immigration-detention-11588239002?mod=djemwhatsnews
And then there are tens of thousands denied entry, awaiting review of their cases in Mexican border city encampments.