Protesters set a sphere representing Earth on fire during a demonstration. (Photo: Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
When Will We Give Peace the Budget it Deserves?
The planet is bleeding to death. Not to worry, though. We still have nukes.
Two dogs walking. One of them says to the other: "I bark and I bark, but I never feel like I effect real change."
Advocating that humanity's collective consciousness must transcend militarism and an us-vs.-them attitude toward the planet means lying on a bed of nails.
This is the caption of a New Yorker cartoon by Christopher Weyant from several years ago. It keeps popping up in my head--I mean, every day. Like everyone else, I want what I do to matter, to "effect real change." What I do is write. Specifically, I swim in the infinity of possibility. Humanity can kill itself or it can learn to survive. Most people (I believe) prefer the latter, which is all about discovering how we are connected to one another and to the rest of the universe. This is what I try to write about.
Then Congress passes another military budget. And once again, there's the New Yorker cartoon.
"An emerging compromise on annual defense policy legislation will endorse a $45 billion increase to President Joe Biden's defense spending plans," Politico reports. ". . . The deal would set the budget topline of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act at $847 billion for national defense."
You know, more than the world's next nine defense budgets combined. We have more than 750 military bases around the world. We're sending billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Ukraine to keep the war going, in the wake of our two decades of war in the Middle East to rid the world of terrorism . . . excuse me, evil. As a result, the planet is bleeding to death. Not to worry, though. We still have nukes.
How safe and secure can we get?
And here's Northrop Grumman, presenting to the world the B-21 Raider, an updated nuclear bomber, a.k.a., the future of Armageddon. No need to worry. When Armageddon is ready to happen, it will happen smoothly, at the bargain cost of $750 million per aircraft.
Northrop Grumman itself puts it this way: "When it comes to delivering America's resolve, the B-21 Raider will be standing by, silent and ready. We are providing America's warfighters with an advanced aircraft offering a combination of range, payload, and survivability. The B-21 Raider will be capable of penetrating the toughest defenses to deliver precision strikes anywhere in the world. The B-21 is the future of deterrence."
We're dancing on the edge of hell.
Is it possible for humanity to evolve beyond this? Prior to Armageddon? Advocating that humanity's collective consciousness must transcend militarism and an us-vs.-them attitude toward the planet means lying on a bed of nails. Consider the weird and mysterious act of violence that took place recently in Moore County, North Carolina, which may--or may not--have been triggered by a drag show.
Somebody opened gunfire at two electric substations in the central North Carolina county over the weekend, causing multi-million-dollar damage to the power grid and leaving some 40,000 households without power for half a week. While the perpetrator and motive remain a mystery to law enforcement officials, one person wrote on Facebook: "The power is out in Moore County and I know why." She then posted a photo of the Sunrise Theater, in downtown Southern Pines, along with the words "God will not be mocked."
The theater had a drag show scheduled that night, which, prior to the power grid attack, had been vehemently opposed by many right-wingers.
The Facebook claim that the power outage was meant to stop the drag show may have been totally bogus (and also a failure, by the way, with spectators lighting the show with their cell phones so it could go on). Maybe we'll never know for sure. But even if the poster, furious about the scheduled show, had simply co-opted a motive for the criminal act, essentially ascribing it to God, it's still indicative that there's a lot of poison in the air. If you hate something, don't try to understand it. Go to war. There was, after all, a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs several weeks ago--indeed, mass shootings directed at multiple targets are, good God, commonplace.
I fear that war remains the logical terminus of collective human consciousness. Indeed, war is sacred, or so surmises Kelly Denton-Borhaug, citing as an example a speech delivered by George W. Bush on Easter weekend in 2008. She noted that W "milked" the Easter story to glorify the hell the country was in the process of wreaking in Iraq and Afghanistan, throwing a bit of Gospel into his war on evil: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
She writes: "The abusive exploitation of religion to bless violence covered the reality of war's hideous destructiveness with a sacred sheen."
But perhaps even worse than war's pseudo-sacredness is its normalcy, a la that never-questioned trillion-dollar budget that Congress tosses at the Pentagon every year without fail. And the total pushes up, up, up every year, bequeathing us, for instance, that Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, ready to deliver Armageddon on command.
Short of Armageddon, we simply have armed hate-spewers, ready and ever so willing to kill an enemy at the grocery store or a school classroom or a nightclub.
Understand, love, heal . . . these are not simple words. Will we ever learn what they mean? Will we ever give them a budget?
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just three days to go in our Spring Campaign, we're falling short of our make-or-break goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Two dogs walking. One of them says to the other: "I bark and I bark, but I never feel like I effect real change."
Advocating that humanity's collective consciousness must transcend militarism and an us-vs.-them attitude toward the planet means lying on a bed of nails.
This is the caption of a New Yorker cartoon by Christopher Weyant from several years ago. It keeps popping up in my head--I mean, every day. Like everyone else, I want what I do to matter, to "effect real change." What I do is write. Specifically, I swim in the infinity of possibility. Humanity can kill itself or it can learn to survive. Most people (I believe) prefer the latter, which is all about discovering how we are connected to one another and to the rest of the universe. This is what I try to write about.
Then Congress passes another military budget. And once again, there's the New Yorker cartoon.
"An emerging compromise on annual defense policy legislation will endorse a $45 billion increase to President Joe Biden's defense spending plans," Politico reports. ". . . The deal would set the budget topline of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act at $847 billion for national defense."
You know, more than the world's next nine defense budgets combined. We have more than 750 military bases around the world. We're sending billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Ukraine to keep the war going, in the wake of our two decades of war in the Middle East to rid the world of terrorism . . . excuse me, evil. As a result, the planet is bleeding to death. Not to worry, though. We still have nukes.
How safe and secure can we get?
And here's Northrop Grumman, presenting to the world the B-21 Raider, an updated nuclear bomber, a.k.a., the future of Armageddon. No need to worry. When Armageddon is ready to happen, it will happen smoothly, at the bargain cost of $750 million per aircraft.
Northrop Grumman itself puts it this way: "When it comes to delivering America's resolve, the B-21 Raider will be standing by, silent and ready. We are providing America's warfighters with an advanced aircraft offering a combination of range, payload, and survivability. The B-21 Raider will be capable of penetrating the toughest defenses to deliver precision strikes anywhere in the world. The B-21 is the future of deterrence."
We're dancing on the edge of hell.
Is it possible for humanity to evolve beyond this? Prior to Armageddon? Advocating that humanity's collective consciousness must transcend militarism and an us-vs.-them attitude toward the planet means lying on a bed of nails. Consider the weird and mysterious act of violence that took place recently in Moore County, North Carolina, which may--or may not--have been triggered by a drag show.
Somebody opened gunfire at two electric substations in the central North Carolina county over the weekend, causing multi-million-dollar damage to the power grid and leaving some 40,000 households without power for half a week. While the perpetrator and motive remain a mystery to law enforcement officials, one person wrote on Facebook: "The power is out in Moore County and I know why." She then posted a photo of the Sunrise Theater, in downtown Southern Pines, along with the words "God will not be mocked."
The theater had a drag show scheduled that night, which, prior to the power grid attack, had been vehemently opposed by many right-wingers.
The Facebook claim that the power outage was meant to stop the drag show may have been totally bogus (and also a failure, by the way, with spectators lighting the show with their cell phones so it could go on). Maybe we'll never know for sure. But even if the poster, furious about the scheduled show, had simply co-opted a motive for the criminal act, essentially ascribing it to God, it's still indicative that there's a lot of poison in the air. If you hate something, don't try to understand it. Go to war. There was, after all, a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs several weeks ago--indeed, mass shootings directed at multiple targets are, good God, commonplace.
I fear that war remains the logical terminus of collective human consciousness. Indeed, war is sacred, or so surmises Kelly Denton-Borhaug, citing as an example a speech delivered by George W. Bush on Easter weekend in 2008. She noted that W "milked" the Easter story to glorify the hell the country was in the process of wreaking in Iraq and Afghanistan, throwing a bit of Gospel into his war on evil: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
She writes: "The abusive exploitation of religion to bless violence covered the reality of war's hideous destructiveness with a sacred sheen."
But perhaps even worse than war's pseudo-sacredness is its normalcy, a la that never-questioned trillion-dollar budget that Congress tosses at the Pentagon every year without fail. And the total pushes up, up, up every year, bequeathing us, for instance, that Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, ready to deliver Armageddon on command.
Short of Armageddon, we simply have armed hate-spewers, ready and ever so willing to kill an enemy at the grocery store or a school classroom or a nightclub.
Understand, love, heal . . . these are not simple words. Will we ever learn what they mean? Will we ever give them a budget?
Two dogs walking. One of them says to the other: "I bark and I bark, but I never feel like I effect real change."
Advocating that humanity's collective consciousness must transcend militarism and an us-vs.-them attitude toward the planet means lying on a bed of nails.
This is the caption of a New Yorker cartoon by Christopher Weyant from several years ago. It keeps popping up in my head--I mean, every day. Like everyone else, I want what I do to matter, to "effect real change." What I do is write. Specifically, I swim in the infinity of possibility. Humanity can kill itself or it can learn to survive. Most people (I believe) prefer the latter, which is all about discovering how we are connected to one another and to the rest of the universe. This is what I try to write about.
Then Congress passes another military budget. And once again, there's the New Yorker cartoon.
"An emerging compromise on annual defense policy legislation will endorse a $45 billion increase to President Joe Biden's defense spending plans," Politico reports. ". . . The deal would set the budget topline of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act at $847 billion for national defense."
You know, more than the world's next nine defense budgets combined. We have more than 750 military bases around the world. We're sending billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Ukraine to keep the war going, in the wake of our two decades of war in the Middle East to rid the world of terrorism . . . excuse me, evil. As a result, the planet is bleeding to death. Not to worry, though. We still have nukes.
How safe and secure can we get?
And here's Northrop Grumman, presenting to the world the B-21 Raider, an updated nuclear bomber, a.k.a., the future of Armageddon. No need to worry. When Armageddon is ready to happen, it will happen smoothly, at the bargain cost of $750 million per aircraft.
Northrop Grumman itself puts it this way: "When it comes to delivering America's resolve, the B-21 Raider will be standing by, silent and ready. We are providing America's warfighters with an advanced aircraft offering a combination of range, payload, and survivability. The B-21 Raider will be capable of penetrating the toughest defenses to deliver precision strikes anywhere in the world. The B-21 is the future of deterrence."
We're dancing on the edge of hell.
Is it possible for humanity to evolve beyond this? Prior to Armageddon? Advocating that humanity's collective consciousness must transcend militarism and an us-vs.-them attitude toward the planet means lying on a bed of nails. Consider the weird and mysterious act of violence that took place recently in Moore County, North Carolina, which may--or may not--have been triggered by a drag show.
Somebody opened gunfire at two electric substations in the central North Carolina county over the weekend, causing multi-million-dollar damage to the power grid and leaving some 40,000 households without power for half a week. While the perpetrator and motive remain a mystery to law enforcement officials, one person wrote on Facebook: "The power is out in Moore County and I know why." She then posted a photo of the Sunrise Theater, in downtown Southern Pines, along with the words "God will not be mocked."
The theater had a drag show scheduled that night, which, prior to the power grid attack, had been vehemently opposed by many right-wingers.
The Facebook claim that the power outage was meant to stop the drag show may have been totally bogus (and also a failure, by the way, with spectators lighting the show with their cell phones so it could go on). Maybe we'll never know for sure. But even if the poster, furious about the scheduled show, had simply co-opted a motive for the criminal act, essentially ascribing it to God, it's still indicative that there's a lot of poison in the air. If you hate something, don't try to understand it. Go to war. There was, after all, a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs several weeks ago--indeed, mass shootings directed at multiple targets are, good God, commonplace.
I fear that war remains the logical terminus of collective human consciousness. Indeed, war is sacred, or so surmises Kelly Denton-Borhaug, citing as an example a speech delivered by George W. Bush on Easter weekend in 2008. She noted that W "milked" the Easter story to glorify the hell the country was in the process of wreaking in Iraq and Afghanistan, throwing a bit of Gospel into his war on evil: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
She writes: "The abusive exploitation of religion to bless violence covered the reality of war's hideous destructiveness with a sacred sheen."
But perhaps even worse than war's pseudo-sacredness is its normalcy, a la that never-questioned trillion-dollar budget that Congress tosses at the Pentagon every year without fail. And the total pushes up, up, up every year, bequeathing us, for instance, that Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, ready to deliver Armageddon on command.
Short of Armageddon, we simply have armed hate-spewers, ready and ever so willing to kill an enemy at the grocery store or a school classroom or a nightclub.
Understand, love, heal . . . these are not simple words. Will we ever learn what they mean? Will we ever give them a budget?