STOP WAR!
Posted on 05 June 2018
According to the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock we are 2 minutes from midnight. Two minutes from global nuclear disaster. The last time we were that close to disaster was 1953.
Thousands of mental health professionals have petitioned that Donald Trump be removed from office because he has serious mental pathologies. It is completely within his power to set off nuclear war on a whim. He has been isolating the US. He has been vilifying and dehumanising whole swathes of humanity. Now he is starting a global trade war.
How far do things have to go before he feels a global military conflagration would be convenient?
Trump has had approved a $61 billion increase in the US military budget which boosts its overall budget to $700 billion this year. the Pentagon is already on course to spend $6 trillion to $7 trillion of US taxes over the next decade. This money is largely going toward weapons that are being sold to countries around the world. Australia has recently decided to get into the weapons racket and has invested 3.8 billion tax dollars to boost foreign sales of locally manufactured arms. Why would Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull take such a dark turn?
We are all told that this is being done in the name of jobs. Is it really worth taking jobs that are going to ensure the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people? I suppose that means more job openings, but honestly, you or your children are the ones who could end up dead or in a world of suffering.
Look at the numbers. War-making is big money. It keeps people terrified and in line. You can get people to do all sorts of things in the name of protecting their country, including carting neighbors off to detention centers and gas chambers. Don’t believe the lies, none of us needs war to live a secure life…quite the opposite.
We have been forced to work longer hours or more jobs for less money. When we are forced to rely on government help, we are treated like criminals to whom citizen and human rights are seen as no longer applying. We are made to feel desperate…and therefore too frightened to do anything. “As long as I’m safe, I will avert my eyes. I will keep from doing anything that will make my life harder.” This is a disastrous strategy.
Given how this is all tangled up with both human and planetary well-being, right now we stand to lose everything: the mountains, the trees, the streams, the otters and platypuses that play in them, the plains, the deer, the oceans, the dolphins, the festivals in places like Rio de Janeiro, the sweet faced children in Tibet, the beautiful saris in India, the people who help you find your way when travelling through Japan, the rousing dance music of Mexico, the yummy soups of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, on and on and on… Look outside. This is a beautiful world. Look at the faces of your best friends. Remember the friends you loved but who are now gone. So many incredible people. We stand to lose everything.
Can you feel that in your heart? Is it worth losing the world out of petty stubbornness? Is it worth looking away? Do you feel the need to do something? Then act out of love! Anything less will put us in a cycle of violence that will mean the extinction of all humanity. We cannot find a hole to meditate in or to wail prayers for redemption. We must do something. We must join one another. We must rediscover empathy as a bridge to becoming a compassionate collective. We must take back our power from the wealthy few and reinvest in a more equitable world of kindness. This will mean rallies, this will mean voting, this will mean boycotts, this will mean speaking out so we can find one another and understand the issues.
The situation is urgent! Take a stand now! Demand love!
In lovingkindness,
Katherine
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