Tag: War

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One Minute For Peace…..

RJ Walters

It has been a while since I have visited this site (click on the picture to go there). Of course if you have spent any time on this blog you know that I frequently say that we just spend too much money on our military. Forty times more than any other country on earth and more than the rest of the world combined!  That comes to a whopping $1,200,000.00 per minute 24/7. My friends at AFSC are being very meager in their wishes of only one minute for peace. If we really are serious about deficit reduction, and I think … Continue reading One Minute For Peace…..

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Peace Talks…

RJ Walters

What would happen if we spent as much money on seeking peace as we did going to war?  I suspect the cartoon would be much different. It would be a fleet of Maseratis on the Autobahn instead of what you see above. I don’t know if peace would actually happen even with this reversal but wouldn’t it be interesting to find out? Maybe we could say “if you don’t kill any of your neighbors outside your borders this year we will give you $80 billion” Even with that we would come out ahead….. Continue reading Peace Talks…

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Starry Eyed…

RJ Walters

I know many think of me as one of those starry eyed liberals who doesn’t have any sense of reality. With this post I will probably cement that vision with many of my more conservative friends. But what would happen if we just refused to be enemies with those our leaders dictated us to hate.  What would happen? Let’s look at maybe the worst leader in that regard in the twentieth century. What would have happened it the German people had refused to invade their neighbor in 1938? Would Hitler’s power have been erased? What would have happened if people … Continue reading Starry Eyed…

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Early Christians and War….

RJ Walters

While Tertullian emphasized the negative aspects of the military to Christian discipleship, Origen pointed out the positive vision of a life of Christian peacemaking. He criticized the army as a society of “professional violence,” pointing out that Jesus forbids any kind of violence or vengeance against another. “We will not raise arms against any other nation, we will not practice the art of war,” he wrote, “because through Jesus Christ we have become the children of peace.” To him the spiritual life means rejecting all forms of violence, and “absolute pacifism.” A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of … Continue reading Early Christians and War….

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The War To End All Wars….

RJ Walters

“[War] won’t stop till there is as much brains and scientific study put to aid peace as there is to promote war.” – Will Rogers, 1 June 1929 Of course these words were spoken not long after World War I which was inaptly titled the “war to end all wars”. Of course it didn’t accomplish that noble task. President Wilson tried his best to put together the United Nations to insure no more world wars but like these times there was just too much Republican bravado going on to prevent that from happening. I wonder what the world would be like … Continue reading The War To End All Wars….

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About The Debt…

RJ Walters

We are three billion in the hole and will be three billion more next year, and not a Congressman has got the nerve to ask voters to pay part of it.  —  January 29, 1933    Will Rogers Obviously this quote was said long before even Grover Norquist’s parents were born but it is equally true today as it was in Will’s time. The fact of the matter is up until President Bush, taxes have always gone up to help pay for our wars. But when so many  from the GOP crawled up to the altar of Mr. Norquist with … Continue reading About The Debt…

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Amber Lights…

RJ Walters

  But every one of us write our own history. If it sounds better the way we want it than the way it might have been why that don’t stop us any more than an amber light. – September17, 1933  Will Rogers Will’s quote here is still pretty much true today except to maybe change the word amber to red. The number one cause of accidents now are people running red lights. Being a senior citizen I have lived in historical times. I personally saw the Civil Rights marches not in person but on TV.  I was a naive teen … Continue reading Amber Lights…

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I am War Weary…….

RJ Walters

I saw a statistic  somewhere that said that 68% of U.S. citizens are war weary.  I am certainly one of them.  Neither party seems to shy away from sending our kids and/or our dollars to fight in this or that conflict. After twelve years of constant war costing us thousands of our kids and $trillions I am war weary. Do we really need to be the policemen of the world even if it bankrupts us? Our war machine has cost us enough! Continue reading “I am War Weary…….”

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RJ’s Doctrine….

RJ Walters

Tonight is, thank heavens, the last debate for this presidential season. It will be on foreign policy. I can tell you in advance what will happen. Each side will tear into the other saying their opponents foreign policy will assure the total destruction of the United States. There will be little of anything but put-down and counter-put-downs.

If I were running for president I would give you very clearly what I would proudly call RJ’s Doctrine: Continue reading “RJ’s Doctrine….”

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How About Some Changes….

RJ Walters

I guess I am still fixated on the post from yesterday about how so many very sparsely populated States in the U.S. now have so much power. It seems that our country is quite out of balance right now as a result of past decisions.  Maybe it is time to revisit some of that stuff.  Being that I am the fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread I will take a stab at this. If you want to call this the Walters’ Doctrine go ahead. I will take the blame for all of it. Here is my list … Continue reading How About Some Changes….

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Do Members of Congress and candidates know what you think???

RJ Walters

Source: Recent email from FCNL (Friends Conference on National Legislation – Quaker) Do your members of Congress and candidates know what you think about Pentagon spending cuts? What they hear from you now could influence their decisions this December and into next year. Urge them to support Pentagon cuts of $1 trillion over the next 10 years, as recommended by experts from across the political spectrum.1 39 cents out of every one of your federal income tax dollars is going to feed the Pentagon and its contractors, and the Pentagon budget has nearly doubled in the past decade. This is a bad investment for our … Continue reading Do Members of Congress and candidates know what you think???

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Historic battleship USS Iowa to become museum in Los Angeles

RJ Walters

Source: U.S. News – Historic battleship USS Iowa to become museum in Los Angeles. “There’s no more ships like this in existence in the active navies anywhere in the world,” said Robert Kent, president of the Pacific Battleship Center. Thank the Lord there are no more ships like this in existence.  When you take a massive explosive shell and launch it from up to twenty miles away there was little chance that it will hit exactly where you intended. It could just as easily hit a small town of 800 as it would a military complex. Anyone who has read much … Continue reading Historic battleship USS Iowa to become museum in Los Angeles

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Military Expenditures by Country…

RJ Walters

Here is a rather straight forward graph showing military spending by country. Are you like me and see a very basic problem here? If we look at is per citizen it is even more skewed. No wonder our budgets are in so much trouble. No wonder the world always comes to us to solve their problems. We are taking on massive debt to be the policemen of the world. When will it end???? Continue reading Military Expenditures by Country…

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War and Peace….

RJ Walters

‎[War] won’t stop till there is as much brains and scientific study put to aid peace as there is to promote war. – May 31, 1928  Will Rogers Here we are one world war and dozens of other wars later and still we can’t understand what Will was saying almost one hundred years ago.  Except for a brief period during the Clinton years we have been in constant wars throughout my sixty-some years on this earth. Our soldiers are getting way beyond weary as evidenced by the recent massacre in Afghanistan by a four tour American soldier. Our national debt … Continue reading War and Peace….

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The Uncounted Deaths of War…..

RJ Walters

Source:  NYT: Risks of Afghan war shift to contractors – World news – The New York Times – msnbc.com. This is a war where traditional military jobs, from mess hall cooks to base guards and convoy drivers, have increasingly been shifted to the private sector. Many American generals and diplomats have private contractors for their personal bodyguards. And along with the risks have come the consequences: More civilian contractors working for American companies than American soldiers died in Afghanistan last year for the first time during the war. American employers here are under no obligation to publicly report the deaths … Continue reading The Uncounted Deaths of War…..

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Early Christians and War….

RJ Walters

During my extensive three-year study of Christianity one of the things I learned was that during the early years of Christianity when a Roman soldier wanted to be a Christian the first thing he had to do was to find a new occupation. Early Christians believed that the collected words of Jesus, their founder, and being a warrior were not compatible. There are many places in the Bible where Jesus commented about soldiers. The most prevalent one was “Those who live by the sword die by the sword”. Jesus just did not condone violence in those around him. I know there are … Continue reading Early Christians and War….

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Stopping wars….

RJ Walters

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this – no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one. Will Rogers This goes in line with a previous post about paying for wars. We seem to always be ready to point out other countries problems to them and part of our solution is to teach them how to do it right. Bullets seem to be our most frequent teaching aid. It is widely acknowledged that we have spent over $1 trillion on our latest wars.  The way Mr. Bush funded them was to … Continue reading Stopping wars….

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If we are a nation devoted to peace, why are so many of our resources devoted to war and militarism?

RJ Walters

We spend 40 time more per citizen on our military than any other nation and hundreds of times more than most other nations.  How can we say we are devoted to peace with this gross disparity?? Something just doesn’t seem right here? Where are all the peacemakers? Title quote from American Friends Service Committee http://www.afsc.org Continue reading If we are a nation devoted to peace, why are so many of our resources devoted to war and militarism?

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One Minute for Peace…..

RJ Walters

If Only we in the U.S. spent even a minuscule amount of  what we spend for our wars to promote peace… I want to direct you to a website promoting peace instead of war.  OneMinuteForPeace.org from the American Friends Service Committee. As the site states in the previous year the United States has spent over $1 trillion of military spending. That comes out to almost $2,000,000 every minute! It is sad to say but we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined and many many times more to fund our wars than we do to promote peace.   The … Continue reading One Minute for Peace…..

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War is not the answer for ANY question….

RJ Walters

  I recently read an article that proudly made the point that the U.S. military is the largest minority employer in the country. It went on to argue that if our military complex were proportioned like the rest of the world there would be many more people without jobs. The United States which makes up four percent of the world’s population maintains over 60% of the worlds military complex! Another way of saying this is that each U.S. taxpayer pays more taxes for military expenses than thirty people in just about any other country in the world. Is it any … Continue reading War is not the answer for ANY question….

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Nonviolence

RJ Walters

I was eight years old when I gave my best friend a black eye over some dispute that I can’t even remember. Immediately after that incident I was totally devastated over the violence I had done. I promised myself that I would never strike or injure another person in that manner. I have lived up to that promise in the fifty odd years since then. Along these same lines I have always felt that the various wars we have been involved in were totally against God’s will. The Quaker belief that God is in each of us and therefore if … Continue reading Nonviolence