For those who do not know, I am the son of an Air Force officer and the grandson of an Army officer. I spent most of my pre-college days living on or near Air Force Bases, many of which were prime targets for Soviet missiles (if there was to be a third World War).
A friend of mine who was married to an Air Force officer told me once that she had been briefed that, in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, the western portion of Missouri (where she lived at the time) would be dead within a few moments (because of the Titan II missiles and SAC bomber bases nearby) and the remainder of Missouri would probably be dead from the radioactive fallout within the week.
After a briefing at the beginning of his presidential term, President John Kennedy was told that our response to a Soviet attack would be a full and complete response with all our nuclear weapons, resulting in the deaths of countless millions. As he left the briefing, President Kennedy is supposed to have said to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, “and we call ourselves a civilized nation.”
The only thing that kept the Soviet Union and the United States from going to war during the 60s was the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (appropriately named MAD). Fortunately, for our generation and the ones that followed, this doctrine kept the world at peace, albeit an uneasy one.
Today, while the destruction of the world using nuclear weapons may not be as real as it seemed in the 1960s, it is still a possibility.
We still see violence as the answer to violence. But violence begats violence.
From the beginning of humanity, we have sent our children off to war. If our children are killed on the battlefield, who will be the future? Remember what the Greek philosopher Herodotus once wrote,
Nobody is stupid enough to prefer war to peace. Because in times of peace children bury their parents, whereas, on the contrary, in times of war parents bury their children.
And yet, that is what we do. How can there be a future when there is no one to live in it?
And what of those who come home wounded, sometime physically, sometimes mentally? It seems, based on our budget priorities, that we tell those who return from the battlefield to take care of themselves for we, as a society, often do not.
We have a budget where we spend more on the military-industrial complex than we do on education and development. When you spend more on destruction than construction, there will come a time when we will not be able to rebuild this country.
There is a feeling in this country that the budget for the military-industrial complex cannot be touched or questioned. Funding the military-industrial complex is a way for legislators to tout their patriotism and ensure their own power and position. Are not greed and the seeking of power other ways of destroying the future?
When the Apollo 11 mission was launched, there were those who wanted the money spent on the Apollo program to be spent on other social programs. But this was at a time when the Viet Nam War was stripping our financial and personnel reserves at a much faster rate. And when it came down to dollars, the Apollo program was cut because the war was becoming too expensive.
And this continues today – we fund the military-industrial complex and cut the funding for social programs.
It is not just the countless and seemingly endless wars that continue to destroy our future. A greater threat may be our own ignorance.
We are neglecting this world in which we live, ignoring the damage we have done to the environment, ignoring the sides of change.
We have ignored the health of this planet, this world in which we live, for too long. Despite the claims of some, climate change is real and, if we do not act immediately, it will not be nuclear war that destroys our future, but our own ignorance.
In a world where more is spent on destruction than construction, where will get the individuals who will rebuild our country? Where will the spark of creativity come from when monies for creativity and construction are the first to be cut.
It is my opinion that the rise in pseudo-science, climate change deniers, and anti-vaccination proponents can be attributed to a decrease in the funding for schools.
We are neglecting our youth when it comes to their education. Our schools no longer focus on creativity and free thought, choosing to or being forced to teach the “answers in the back of the book” and not even considering how to solve problems that have not been discovered.
Perhaps because they fear the future, there are those who would prefer that our children and youth not find out who they are but rather conform to a particular set of rules. But each person is unique, and we have seen what happens when we try to make people conform to one single set of rules. Those who push for conformity in society do so to hold onto their power and position.
Conformity to a single set of rules ignores and increases the inequalities of society. For there to be a future, we must be a society of equality, not inequality.
There is a moral factor involved in all of this. The church today seems rather silent on the issue of war, education, and equality; in fact, many churches seem to want war, no education and inequality, again because it would increase their power and position.
The numbers tell us that people are moving away from the church because it tends to support the status quo.
But it must be the church which speaks out if we are to build the future, not destroy the future.
If we are to build our future, we must, individually and collectively, speak out against a society that places the military-industrial complex before the needs of the people.
We must, individually and collectively, speak out against an educational system that does little to prepare our children and youth to solve the problems of the future, the problems that are not in the back of the book.
We must, individually and collectively, speak out against a religious system that moves us further from God’s Kingdom through the encouragement of repression and inequality.
The call to build the future is a call that must come from the church.
Thoughts From The Heart On The Left 