Pax Christi USA’s executive director and Pax Christi International’s former director have shown an interest in the war abolition encyclical.
I plan to send the add-on to them on Thursday at 1 PM CT. I am asking for your thoughts by noon on Thursday.
We shall overcome,
Ed
The Way Forward – a Report for Charlene Howard and Marie Dennis from Ed O’Rourke
Looking for Emotional Engagement
The war abolition movement must engage the public with drama, poetry and song. During the Second World War, there was much effort to maintain and encourage morale with the Why We Fight series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight) and more. There was the Until Then song by the Mills Brothers.
The Mills Brothers “Till Then”
I offer Tommy James and the Shondell’s Crystal Blue Persuasion as inspiration for today’s peace movement.
Tommy James&the Shondell_Crytal Blue persuasion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN38vED24Eg
Look over yonder
What do you see?
The sun is a-rising
Most definitely
A new day is coming (ooh, ooh)
People are changing
Ain’t it beautiful? (Ooh, ooh)
Crystal blue persuasion
Better get ready to see the light
Love, love is the answer (ooh, ooh)
And that’s all right
So don’t you give up now (ooh, ooh)
So easy to find
Just look to your soul (your soul)
And open your mind
Crystal blue persuasion, hmm, hmm
It’s a new vibration
Crystal blue persuasion
Crystal
Blue persuasion
Maybe tomorrow
When he looks down
On every green field (ooh, ooh)
And every town
All of his children
And every nation
There’ll be peace and good brotherhood
Crystal blue persuasion, yeah
Crystal blue persuasion, aah-aah
In the 1952-1953 period, NBC produces the Victory at Sea series. Television critics wondered how many people were going to watch war movies on Sunday afternoon. They found out in two weeks: just about everybody.
Especially powerful was the Guadalcanal episode.
Victory at Sea (1952) | E6 ‘Guadalcanal’
Play the entire 26 minute episode. The especially intense section starts at 19:18.
Through poetry, songs, drama and documentaries, war abolitionists must engage the human spirit to overcome poverty, reverse global warming and replace fear with hope. Humans can get to there from here.
Allied nations worked together to bring military victory over the Axis Powers and bring a better world. Today the challenge is even more complicated and more daunting. May we step up to the plate again, abolish war, eliminate poverty, reverse global warming and let everyone walk in broad sunlit uplands.
Their Finest Hour
Ethics
In business school, there is a compulsory ethics course. Certified public accountants in Texas have to take an ethics course every two years to maintain their license. These courses demand only cash register honesty. Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, demands more. In his book, he wants people to incorporate social
and environmental concerns.
The only people who will understand everything in his book are those with recent experience in the financial world. Since he served as the Bank of England’s governor, he knows it all.
A necessity in the ethics reform is changing the wealth structure in the US. According to the following graph, the bottom 50% own a 2.5% wealth share. Is there any surprise that they look to a demagogue for salvation? I do not understand how they look to a convict sociopathic felon as a liberator rather than Bernie Sanders or AOC.
Wealth Distribution USA 2024
I encourage Pax Christi to find people who will write a follow-up book that the public will easily understand. Design ethics for the people who do not work on Wall Street.
The people on Wall Street and the One Percent have no idea what it is like to be poor. There was no outcry when President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill gave them tax breaks while closing rural hospitals, eliminating food and health care for the non-rich.
What reading material would be in the ethics program? There would be selections from many sources. Some years back I bought David K. Shipler’s The Working Poor but got depressed and only reached page 25.
Threats to Life on Earth
Solar busts, volcanos and asteroids threaten life on our precious planet.
On September 1, 1859, as solar burst fried the telegraph lines. British astronomer Richard Carrington and others investigated what happened. This is known as the Carrington Event which would knock out our power grid today.
On April 5, 1815, Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies exploded with a volcanic eruption that covered the world in ashes. 1815 was the year without a summer.
Asteroids could hit the Earth at any time and we would succumb just like the dinosaurs.
I see no significant effort to prevent these catastrophes. Taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations along with reducing our nuclear arsenal to 1,000 and our overseas military bases to 100 would be a source for preventing these threats from materializing and reversing global warming.
Attachments area
Preview YouTube video The Mills Brothers “Till Then”
Preview YouTube video Tommy James&the Shondell_Crytal Blue persuasionPreview YouTube video Victory at Sea (1952) | E6 ‘Guadalcanal’Preview YouTube video Winston Churchill Speech – Their Finest Hour (1940)