EDITORIAL Quaint Plowshares disturb business as usual
In a post-Cold War age when protesting against nuclear weapons may
seem archaic, indeed mad, the six Prince of Peace Plowshares defendants
awaiting sentencing in Portland, Maine, are entitled to more than the usual
rumination and head-scratching.
We could step back from the case itself and consider the nuclear
weapons situation and arguments for military preparedness and the awesome sums
demanded for such preparedness.
Nuclear weaponry has not gone away; it has been refined. The
United States is doing most of the refining. The Aegis class destroyer USS The
Sullivans has missiles as prepared to carry nuclear-tipped darts that can kill
millions as they are to carry conventional warheads that can kill hundreds and
thousands.
Under what circumstances in the world today has the United States
need for a growing fleet of new ships with launchers that in one single burst
of firepower can kill hundreds and thousands? And keep on killing hundreds and
thousands with each succeeding burst?
Is there a little madness here?
It is almost embarrassing to pose the question of the need to kill
millions. It is almost, well, crazy to consider the question.
The Department of Defense wants to be able to fight two regional
wars simultaneously. That's its idea of preparedness. To this end, Congress --
our elected officials, that is -- gives the Pentagon $9,000 a second. Is that
crazy or what? That is $700 million dollars a day.
Enter six people from that sometimes roving, sometimes rooted band
of Christians with a combined monetary worth probably somewhere between zero
and nothing. We've lived with, known, grown up with, loved, been dismayed by,
had our conscience pricked by these people. Lay mendicants -- and a handful of
priests, too -- who live on behalf of the poor. Who proclaim and protest for
peace. Like mad.
That makes them charmingly eccentric and wildly Christian in an
austere, single-minded way. In protesting for peace, they knock destroyers and
airplanes on their nuclear noggins with household hammers. And that makes the
Plowshares dangerous, too. Dangerous to whom? The state says they are dangerous
enough to be put away.
Without them, the U.S. government does not have to defend its case
for nuclear weapons refinement to anyone. The military power buildup barrels
ahead, sucking up dollars for dead products -- that is, with no beneficial
economic multiplier effect. These military dollars are paid to artificially
supported industries -- the military-industrial complex is still with us and
closer to the government than ever in its downsized, merged-up modern
manifestation. These are dollars that might otherwise be spent on education,
health and housing: $9,000 a second, $700 million a day.
So the federal government took the Portland, Maine, case away from
the state and tried it as a federal offense on federal "conspiracy"
charges.
"Go away, Plowshares," say those inside the columned buildings in
Washington. "You're mad for doing this," echo the voices from the
military-industrial corporate suites.
In the final analysis, in this crazy world, we are left to choose
our madness.
Trappist Fr. Thomas Merton wrote that, should the nuclear trigger
ever get pulled, it would be as an act of sanity, of a state well-ordered,
performed by an obedient citizen, not a madman.
Nuclear protesters are always upsetting, but especially so now
when their antics are supposed to be unnecessary and outdated. They are, sadly,
relevant as ever, as maddening and relentless and culturally topsy-turvy as the
gospel itself.
National Catholic Reporter, May 23,
1997
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