I propose asking elected officials, news organizations and everybody else to end war. Since Pope Leo made his announcement, it is a good time to take him up on his request. I attached my draft encyclical as a model. I anticipate that Fox News, the National Review and the Wall Street Journal will offer a final product far different than what I have here.
I contacted my congressman and two senators. Here is an excerpt:
I wrote a detailed proposal on ending war written as an encyclical. I ask you to make a request to the Pentagon and the State Department asking how they propose ending war everywhere. This is not a normal request. Since there are some 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world and a war between India and Pakistan will induce nuclear winter, it is time to do things differently.
I am asking you to take my draft encyclical, leave out what is less important, emphasize and expand what you like and send it out to elected officials, news organization, chambers of commerce, friends and relatives. Make yourself an author.
Earlier in history, human sacrifice, slavery, gladiator sports, wife beating, child abuse and animal cruelty were all perfectly normal. Now they are barbaric in every civilized country. War belongs in this club.
Many establishment people advocated war abolition: Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Pope Paul VI, Henry Stimson, Albert Speer and Douglas MacArthur and now Pope Leo XIV. Only Woodrow Wilson offered specific steps on getting there.
Humans can start the path to lasting peace by:
1) starting a world-wide anti-poverty program,
2) taxing international arms sales,
3) beginning a moratorium on weapons research,
4) reducing the bloating US military budget by 90%,
5) training our armed forces for disaster relief,
6) establishing a cabinet level War Abolition Department,
7) reducing nuclear weapons to zero, and,
8) negotiating for all the world’s nuclear weapons to go off hair trigger alert.
During the Second World War there was a widespread feeling in the Allied nations that they were seeking more than military victory. They were looking for a better world. There was some success with Bretton Woods, the United Nations, the World Bank along with many agreements on trade and currency. We are all in this together. There is no Planet B. Poverty abolition and a Green New Deal are fundamental to survival on this planet.
When the British were facing Nazi invasion, Winston Churchill looked forward to a better world hoping that everyone everywhere would walk in broad sunlit uplands. President George W. Bush wanted to leave no child behind. Working together we will leave no human being behind. Everyone will walk in broad sunlit uplands.
Sincerely,
Ed
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