Bread Not Stones

A tired bus and tired bodies - doing more than human bodies should do - every day working, every day driving - every day working to drive home the point that we are in an arms race with ourselves, depleting our national resources to feed the insatiable dragon. The dragon, the Pentagon, demands more and more, taking its food out of the mouths of our babes. It consumed $271 billion in 1998 and will eat up $310 billion in fiscal year 2001.

Faster, faster, if only we drove fast enough we might have missed the realities of our nation, at war with itself. A nation eating itself from the inside out - like a heaving ulcer - so that when it gets to the edges, nothing is left inside.

How does this war play out? What are the realities that our too-often fast-paced life causes us to miss? How does the appetite of the dragon affect the most vulnerable of our country?

The answers were evident from the very beginning. After Los Angeles, our travels took us past the military bases and armories that we were to pass all across the nation. If we had traveled just a bit further along Interstate 15 we would have reached the Nevada Desert where nuclear testing still haunts the sands and Joshua trees. In contrast to this plethora of military installations, evidence of US spending priorities, we saw very real human need. Along Interstate 40 our next stop was Gallup, New Mexico, where many children live in poverty. A teacher from Gallup Middle school told me, "It's like a Third World country here." In New Mexico more than 26% of the kids live in poverty.

We continued to Albuquerque, where Interstate 40 meets Interstate 25. If we would have headed north, we would soon have come to Los Alamos Laboratories where the sins of nuclearism continue. Or, if we had chosen to take Interstate 25 south we would have come to El Paso where Mexicans try to gain access to the United States because they have no hope at home. What would it take for people from such countries to have hope? The United Nations Development Program estimates that the basic health and nutrition needs of the world's poorest people could be met for an additional $13 billion per year--close to 4% of this year's Pentagon budget.

Faster, faster, if only we drove fast enough we could have missed the fact our nation invests more than $35 billion on nuclearism while our own children - not to mention those of other countries - are starving and going without health care, while 35 million people live in poverty in the United States. We almost could have missed the roadside reminders of Pentagon overspending and the children crying out for enough.

We continued travelling in the Southwest, coming to Amarillo, Texas. In Amarillo we stayed at the Peace Farm across from the Pantex plant. We still heard the echoes of the trains -- loaded with nuclear weapons -- that once originated from here. In Amarillo Bishop Matthiessen joined us. He had questioned whether or not workers at the Pantex plant can work at the plant and still follow their Christian ideals.

We continued through Texas, looking for Christian ideals in a state with Air Force base after Air Force base and where 1,453,000 kids have no health insurance. We passed Goodfellow Air Force base and Dyess Air Force Base, musing why we have between eleven and fourteen million kids in the US without health insurance and why close to 1.5 million of those kids live in Texas. Why do more than 25% of the children in Texas live in poverty?

If only we had stayed on the expressway, if only we had driven fast enough, we might have missed the fact that the federal budget neglects the needs of our children in every city and state. Two-thirds of all the kids in the US who are eligible for HeadStart are cut out of the program because Congress does not allocate enough funding. About one-fifth of all children in the United States live below the federal poverty line.

Upon our arrival in St. Louis -- the headquarters of military contractors McDonald Douglass - we discovered another robbery: the pockets of the executives of such companies have been well-lined by the Pentagon and its desire for more and more weapons. From St. Louis we headed north, passing Strategic Air Command. After several breakdowns we traveled through the Dakotas, knowing that we were passing nuclear silos. We reached northern Minnesota, well aware of the armories and army bases in the area. Unbelievably 43% of all renters in Minnesota cannot even afford the fair market rent.

The numbers don't change much, city after city, state after state. We came to Chicago, to an audience of 1400 people who were surprised to learn that so much of our national resources go to the Pentagon. We stopped in five cities in Michigan, a state where nearly 37,000 people drink polluted water. During the past two decades, the federal funds addressing such domestic needs and problems have been cut in Michigan; Michigan receives $1.6 billion less in federal funds than it did in 1980.

If only we drove fast enough we could have ignored that every state in the United States receives less federal money than it did in 1980. Money that once went for social programs, domestic needs and the environment has been diverted.

After Michigan, we arrived in Cleveland. A week before our arrival the gymnasium of Cleveland's East High School collapsed. Between 80% and 85% of our nation's public schools need significant repair. When we arrived in Boston, we found that more than 92% of Massachusetts's public schools need significant repair. Yet the Clinton administration approved a $112 billion increase over the next six years to the Dragon (the Pentagon) while the US General Accounting Office (GAO) notes that more than $112 billion is needed to repair the nation's schools. It would cost $127 billion to repair and modernize these public grade schools and high schools needing significant repair.

In the 35 cities we visited in this 60 day tour, we did a show with giant inflatable balloons, driving home the point that if we cut Pentagon spending we can radically impact the lives of our kids in the US. Our crowds ranged from 10 people to 1400 people. It is not enough, but it is a start.

Faster. Faster, if only we drove faster our tired bodies could rest from spreading this message: that excessive Pentagon spending must cease. The dragon must stop consuming the resources our children need. Does attempting to satiate the dragon's ravenous appetite make us safer, improve our future, or safeguard our children? After seeing the needs of the children, the answer is obviously no. Like the woman giving birth in the face of the dragon (Revelation), we must continue spreading this message that we must cut Pentagon spending. As the Joint Chiefs and the political establishment call for more to be fed to the insatiable dragon, we will stand on the side of the lives of our children.

We will act at nuclear weapons installations and we will educate others on this message until we can take the resources from the dragon and give them to our kids. The needs are so urgent that it cannot happen fast enough, but we have hope that our message can change our national priorities. The lives of our children - and all of us - depend on it.