ASH WEDNESDAY? … HAVE WE REPENTED?
ASH WEDNESDAY? … HAVE WE REPENTED?
Lorin Peters Feb 27, 2023
In 1983 the US Catholic Bishops said nuclear weapons are allowed temporarily, on one condition - that we are making progress in negotiating their abolition.
Forty years later, nuclear weapons have become the cornerstone of our empire. Vladimir Putin feels threatened enough to talk about using them. The US says, “We will fight to the last Ukrainian” (this is what empires do – using others to protect their domination). A chief (retired) of the CIA’s Soviet section fears that Russia will probably over-run Ukraine and, in desperation, the US may well be first to use a nuclear weapon.[1]
“Continuing possession of nuclear weapons makes nuclear war inevitable.”[2] When hundreds of cities are burning, the smoke rises into the stratosphere and hangs there for a decade, blocking sunlight. This is called ‘nuclear winter,’ and causes most agricultural crops to fail, resulting in global famine. The latest computer models predict a 99% death rate for the US, 81% globally.[3]
For the few who survive, there will be some empty buildings left. But little else – no gasoline refineries, no commerce, no food, no jobs, no government, no schools, no natural gas, little electricity, no pharmacies, very few doctors, if you can find one. Trade and barter will be limited to how far you can walk. Daniel Ellsberg predicts that it will take more than 1,000 years to rebuild civilization.
It has become clear that the US, like all empires, worships money, power and domination. So Pope Francis and the Vatican have changed their position. They have given up believing that the nuclear weapon states have any intention of negotiating the abolition of nuclear weapons. They have made it clear that nuclear weapons are no longer legally acceptable, not even temporarily. Pope Francis, speaking in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2019, “condemned the use and possession of nuclear weapons as ‘immoral.”[4]
“For all who take the sword will perish by the sword” … Have we repented?
Pace e bene
Lorin Peters
[1] Ray McGovern, “Strategic Discussion to Avert War and Establish Development as Basis of Peace,” Zoom, 2023 Feb 14, 12:00 noon EST
[2] Martin Hellman, Senior Fellow for Nuclear Risk Analysis, Federation of American Scientists, “Rethinking National Security,” 2019 May
[3] “Nuclear Famine,” International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 2022 Aug 15, p 15