Souvenirs

Lucerne's bustling train station.

Travel prompts so many questions. Sadly, most go unanswered. Still, they linger. More than a week after our return from short stays in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic I’m still pondering several.

Is Switzerland so wealthy because it is neutral? And how much of that has to do with its landlocked, mountainous geography? The US House Armed Services Committee recently approved $638.4 billion in defense spending for next year. Imagine how that money could be used here if we weren’t militarily engaged around the globe? (Syria is just our most recent adventure) What if we were small, land-locked and barricaded by mountains? I like the old bumper sticker that asks us to imagine what it would be like to adequately fund our schools and to be forced to have bake sales to pay for missiles (and tanks, guns, spooks and aircraft carriers etc.) I think they’ve answered that question in Switzerland.


After visiting more Catholic cathedrals than I can count, some dating back six or more centuries, I wonder how these astonishing, soaring structures have contributed to the survival of the hide-bound institutional church. How do they shape the spiritual life of the Catholic faithful? The energy that went into building these colossal structures is palpable. (For the moment, put aside the cost and the over-the-top glorification of revered, but none-the-less human religious leaders) These landmarks inspire outer faith and devotion, but do they invite unity with the inner spirit?

American pop culture is prominent and much celebrated in the countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain. Today’s commerce still pays tribute to Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Charlie Chaplin  There’s a retrospective of Marilyn Monroe photographs in Prague. Wynton Marsalis and Bobbie “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” McFerrin will perform this summer. What role did American pop stars play in the underground culture in Communist Hungary and Czechoslovakia? Why are these icons still being celebrated today?

It is hard to fathom the changes the Czechs have seen in the past 100 years. They began

Memorial to 1969 Czech martyrs.

the last century as part of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1918, after World War I, the Republic of Czechoslovakia was created but survived as a democracy a mere 20 years. Hitler and the Nazis overran and occupied the young nation. At the end of World War II Czechoslovakia became a restless Soviet satellite state. It was invaded by the Warsaw Pact in 1968. Finally, in 1989, when the Soviet bloc collapsed, it re-emerged as a democracy, and in 1993 the Czech Republic came into being, separate from the Slovak Republic. Whew! How might those changes influence the way the Czechs see the world today? Do they live for the moment? How do they see their futures? 

Finally, because I still have a lingering fascination with cars, I took photos of a few on this trip. Two vintage Jaguar sedans, a customized VW bug, a tricked out Morris Mini and what I think is a Soviet Lada. One of the Jaguars was being used to chauffeur a wedding couple. It was parked outside Prague’s Cathedral where it became a backdrop for the photographed smooching couple. I admired the Mini while Diane looked at scarves in a nearby store. The wondrous and pampered VW was parked near the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague. The drab little Lada was not far from one of Prague's baroque concert halls. Drab and forgotten — the boxy conveyance seemed abandoned by history.

Reversing our Spiral of Fear and Destruction

This country is caught up in a downward spiral of fear. Fear of itself, fear of other nations, fear of the unknown, fear of "the other," and increasingly, fear of humanity itself.

The more consumed we are with fear, the more we do to “protect” ourselves. And the more we do to protect ourselves, the more we have to fear.

The most recent, and by no means the only, examples are the NRA and the gun lobby (manufacturers and, curiously, the video game industry). They are feeding fear by causing it. The result is that we are in arms race amongst ourselves. Citizens are buying automatic weapons so that they have fire power equal to that of our own government.

The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The fearful are afraid they will lose their freedom (their “free state”). Among those threatened freedoms is the right to arm themselves like a Militia. The government, sensing the danger, might rightly better arm itself against insurrection. And so we spiral downward.

Some have even suggested that an armed militia might acquire tactical nuclear weapons. That obviously raises the ante of fear.

Whole swaths of the media feed on fear. Everything from the “if it bleeds it leads” prominence given to crime news to  blood-drenched films and video games.

We live in a culture of fear that is spiraling to its own destruction as more and more frightened citizens, inured to violence, arm themselves, mistakenly assuming that their arms will protect them from real or fabricated dangers.

And the more arms there are, the greater the likelihood they will be used.

America is also feared by others. We spend nearly as much on “defense” as all the other nations of the world. Those truly concerned about balancing our budget need to look no farther than our “defense” spending.

Ironically, many of those arming themselves consider themselves Christians.

It seems obvious to ask whether a belief in the teachings of Jesus might pull us out of our spiral. What if we nurtured the very heart of Jesus’ message? Ask the question “What weapon would Jesus choose?”

The answer is clear: Love.

The problem for the media and much of our economy is that it’s hard to make money from the kind of love Jesus taught. Jesus clearly wasn’t in it for the money. He dwelt among, comforted and preached among the poor. He chastised the rich.
 
But Love of your neighbor (to say nothing of your enemy) is tough to market and, as they say, "monetize."

Nor are we able to “sell” love of our planet and the environment because manifesting that love would mean radically changing our own lives and values during our own lifetimes. The devastated communities along the New Jersey shore are too busy cleaning up and struggling to “return to normal” to consider addressing global warming, the cause of their demise.

But at some point we will all be affected by the destruction that our way of life (way of death?) is causing.

The spiral upward may only begin once we have hit absolute bottom. And by then, it may be too late.

William Penn said it well to his fellow Quakers 320 years ago. “Let us then try what love will do.”

Today, we have nothing to lose but everything.

Memo to 'Planet Panetta' from Planet Earth

While Defense Secretary Leon Panetta moans about possible cuts in defense spending, I find myself cheering.

Are we living in the same country? On the same planet?

Here is Panetta as reported in today’s Oregonian (which didn’t report the view from my “planet”)

Panetta “warned” the deeper defense cuts being considered by the Congressional "Super Committee" would:

• Leave the military with the smallest ground force since 1940. (Last time I checked, World War II was over. Likewise the Cold War.)

• Force the military to rethink its strategy. (How are you liking the current one?)

• "Affect" the military’s ability to “support” the war in Afghanistan. (Exactly!)

• Lead to a fleet of fewer than 230 ships. (Who’s complaining except the Navy and the defense contractors?)

• Cut back, delay or end weapons programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter, the "next-generation" Ballistic missile submarine, new Army helicopters and missile defense. (The military-industrial complex at the trough. Orwellian alert: Note the inevitability inherent in the term "next-generation.").

Panetta’s comments in a letter to two senior Republican senators (John McCain and Lindsey Graham) were larded with references to the cuts’ resulting in “substantial risks.” (Ask wounded veterans and the families of the dead — civilian and military alike — about the risks of our present “strategy.”)

Unfortunately, the story didn’t list some other facts which can be found HERE on the Friends Committee for National Legislation web site. They describe a world far different from Panetta’s.

Here are just four (FCNL's annotated and sourced site cites ten).

• The U.S. military budget accounts for 46.5 percent of global military spending.

• U.S. presence in the world includes hundreds of military bases in Europe – particularly in Germany. (See reference to the end of World War II and the Cold War above)

• Military contracts are not job-creation engines. Military dollars spent in a state yield the least number of jobs, compared to investments in health, education, transportation, and even tax cuts.

• The unaudited Pentagon budget has a history of cost overruns -- $300 billion above what Congress authorized for various weapons systems in the last five years.

Which world do YOU live in?

P.S. To put this in a political context, the last time I checked, Leon Panetta took his orders from one Barack Obama. And which planet does HE live on?