raytheon

[Kali]

TIME FOR PEACE ON EARTH

It's scary to speak freely on a particular topic in Tucson. People who are trying to believe something they are afraid might not be true, will fight like crazy to defend whatever or whomever they are trying to believe. I've lost a good friend, outraged by my "arrogance" and "insensitivity" to his situation -- the situation to which he's trying to blind himself. Facing reality is no fun for most of us and the more we want to believe a lie, the more we want to "kill the messenger". The liar thousands of Tucsonans are trying to believe is a pillar of our community: Raytheon has a mafia-like grip on the ovaries and testicles of our city. Exposing Raytheon would force us to take responsibility for our own behavior.
Charities, churches and secular social causes kiss up to the war machine for its favors. Politicians and even some people in sympathy with the peace community, who have friends and family members working at Raytheon, pretend not to see the "elephant in the living room" and are trying to believe that the fifth largest munitions factory in the world, that exports weapons to seventy other countries, is dedicated to making our country safe from attack.
Our collective unwillingness to see the obvious has led us on a witch hunt for migrant terrorists and to imprison ourselves behind walls, while Raytheon boasts to the world about its Cluster Bombs, ICBM Kill Vehicles and, not satisfied to rule the Earth, its plans to dominate space.
In plain sight on the edge of our city is the number one threat to our safety, a prime target for those who would do us harm. An air strike against Raytheon would render us all collateral damage in an instant. Damage that would be irreparable.
Raytheon's well paid higher level, and not so well paid lower level, employees are servants of a reckless war profiteer, and I believe if they would allow themselves to see what they are doing, they wouldn't do it.
While our country engages in wars if aggression, they blind themselves to the product of their product and pretend they are working for "defense". They don't see the devastation and carnage, hear the terrified cries of suffering children, nor smell the burning flesh. Eleven thousand Tucsonans are just doing their jobs.
Before WWII all over the USA factories were manufacturing refrigerators, cars, roller skates ... and they became war plants overnight. The "home front" sacrificed luxuries and united in the "war effort." Surely Raytheon and the people of Tucson can join forces to do the same thing in reverse.
I understand the limitation of free speech. We don't have the right to yell "fire" and create panic in a crowded theater. But our world IS ON FIRE, headed for disaster, and I am yelling, "Stop!"
I'm shouting, "Face reality and turn around!"
We need to reconcile our motive, our words and our behavior. If Raytheon will give up its pride in its killing machines and clean up its mess, and if the brilliant minds that have been seduced by a war plant will focus on their children's future as inhabitants of this planet, instead of designer jeans for them now, and start manufacturing articles that benefit society, Tucson can become a model of heroic goodwill.
We have never had the collective courage to let go of the past and reach with both hands for Peace On Earth. It's almost, but not quite, too late.

Gretchen Nielsen
December 3, 2006

[Ptah]

1. Thanks for that article, Kali. HEre's a poem by Gretchen Nielson

Poem read as part of sentencing statement of Gretchen Nielsen

HELL'S GETTING READY
to be lit with missiles
built by robots
programmed with misconceptions
(while ridiculed into silence
the wise watch wordless)
bombs are bought and sold
by parents
still not knowing what they're doing
'til the children they have nurtured
scream in fiery beds

Hell's getting ready
to be lit by leaders
proud and vengeful
still not knowing what they're doing
'til they're judged as they've been judging
watch their children's children burn
(while the merciful moan in madness
anguished with compassion)
wealthy preachers mock the truth
the pope parades in a funny hat:
prophecy fulfilled

(wise and ridiculed
merciful and mad)
Where is the leader of the meek?

Gretchen Nielsen (1980)