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
men
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
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 --
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.
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