Jazz Reflections on Peace

This event in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was held on January 16, 2022. We heard videos of seven Jazz pieces on the theme of peace by prominent composers. Most of the pieces were performed by their composers. Time for meditation and sharing was provided at the end of each piece. The program was curated by Dan Fitzmartin and David Doms at peace@fmcquaker.org.

“The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone. Our home that must be defended like a holy relic.” —Alexei Leonov, Soviet Cosmonaut.

Care of the earth, economic justice, peace, the abolition of nuclear weapons…
You can’t have one without the others…

Peace and the Planet: War, the Environment, and Your Taxes

Video by Ghanda Difiglia and Daniel Fitzmartin, sponsored by the FMC Peace and Social Concerns Committee.

Go here to download the video…

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower

Since President Eisenhower uttered those words, with their allusion to the Gospel of Matthew (25:31-45), the US military budget, funded by our tax dollars, has grown to the point of consuming more than half the discretionary budget; i.e., the part of the federal budget, unlike social security and Medicare, not mandated by law. We spend more on the military than the next seven heavily armed nations combined-including Russia and China. For instance, we fund:

  • 800 military bases throughout the world
  • More than 3 times the number of aircraft than Russia
  • More than 4½ times the number of aircraft than China

By 2017, wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan cost over 4 trillion dollars (for perspective: one trillion seconds is equal to 31,688 years).

As the military budget increases, tax money is taken away from such things as the Head Start program, medical research, repairing the 58,000 defective bridges in the US, or cleaning up the 1,300 Superfund sites scattered throughout the country. Tax money goes largely to global weapons manufacturers, with their CEOs receiving $20,000,000 or more in total compensation per year.

War and preparations for war contribute to environmental destruction-including climate change-and drain the treasury of money for the common good.

According to environmentalist Paul Hawken, there are over a million organizations worldwide dedicated to environmental sustainability, peace, nuclear abolition, and economic justice. Whether focused on such issues as rainforest protection, conflict resolution, nuclear disarmament, or action for a living wage, all these organizations have values in common. They all want a healthy natural environment for themselves and for future generations, they all want equal opportunity, and they respect all life. In their vision of a better world, they are all connected.

“The fate of the climate movement and the fate of the peace movement are intimately bound together.”

—Paul Shannon, American Friends Service Committee

“”Our house is literally burning, and it is only logical that environmentalists expect the social justice movement to get on the environmental bus. But it is the other way around; the only way we are going to put out the fire is to get on the social justice bus and heal our wounds, because in the end, there is only one bus.”

—Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest

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