A gun at the back of my head
Friends in isolation across the world, I wish you a Happy Easter. May we find a re-ordering from the disorder, which is what the Christian resurrection is all about. Finding a life-giving way forward after the death of our current way of life. Surely this pandemic is the death of things the way they have always been.
On Good Friday I had an incite I’d like to share with you. Jesus died in solidarity with the 99% of the world. He didn’t die for our sins, a transaction to get God’s attention on our behalf. God (Jesus) died with us in our fight against the MIC. God reached out then and reaches out today on Easter in solidarity to show us how huge this love is for us. We can love and trust our Cretor to care that much for us. I believe even the 1%, the leaders of the MIC, are redemed by Jesus’ death.
Ben and Jerry, that friendly stuff soothing millions, has thoughtful people at the helm. They, the company’s founders, have started a new twitter, face book, instagram feed about the MIC and bringing it down. [that would be the Military Industrial Complex.]
Here’s the post I just read which made me rush to my computer to post a new blog on my OpenBorderswithLove site.
Dear friends,
Why didn’t we stockpile ventilators and PPE? Because our government spent our money stockpiling bombs instead.
How many bombs? Enough to destroy every city on earth and still have 1,500 bombs left over. Literally. Researchers at Popular Mechanics did the math. No exaggeration.
And just this year, they decided to spend another $50 Billion on building a whole new generation of nuclear weapons.
That’s despite the fact that the US could cut its defense budget in half and still spend more money on war-making than Russia and China combined.
And that’s despite the fact that the “global war on terror” is creating terrorists faster than we can kill them.
As Michael Franti wrote, “you can bomb the world to pieces but you can’t bomb it into peace.”
The fact is that for 3% of this year’s Pentagon budget we could have had all the 880,000 ventilators and PPE we needed at the ready. And their not cheap machines.
And for 4% of the annual Pentagon budget, we could replace every lead pipe in America — which currently afflicts 22 million people. Many of them children who will be impacted for the rest of their lives.
Enough is enough. Do your bit to put an end to it.
Join me in Drop the MIC, a new social media campaign to expose the corruption of the Military-Industrial Complex, and the financial, human, and environmental costs of spending over half of the entire US discretionary budget on preparing for war.
Please like our new page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram and invite your friends
It’s time to make it clear that we’re not willing to put up with endless wars and war machines. Not in our name, not with our money.
In solidarity,
Ben Cohen (Co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s)
Perhaps our Resurrection, our Re-order, will be a new way of relating to each other that doesn’t put people on a gun-totting defensive from the top down. Join me in leaning into a Love-centered re-ordering of the world economy from the bottom up.
He is risen. He is risen, indeed.
Betsy
Betsy Bell Author
4455 51st Ave. SW, Seattle, WA 98116 betsy@betsybellauthor.com