Category: Emperor’s New Clothes

ENC: When the irony exceeds workable good sense….

ENC: Poor excuse

ENC: And water & oil don’t mix….

ENC: Stuff happens when it gets crowded…

ENC: Pope says weapons manufacturers can’t call themselves Christian

People who manufacture weapons or invest in weapons industries are hypocrites if they call themselves Christian, Pope Francis said on Sunday.

Francis issued his toughest condemnation to date of the weapons industry at a rally of thousands of young people at the end of the first day of his trip to the Italian city of Turin.

“If you trust only men you have lost,” he told the young people in a long, rambling talk about war, trust and politics after putting aside his prepared address.

“It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?” he said to applause.

He also criticized those who invest in weapons industries, saying “duplicity is the currency of today … they say one thing and do another.”

Francis also built on comments he has made in the past about events during the first and second world wars.

He spoke of the “tragedy of the Shoah,” using the Hebrew term for the Holocaust.

“The great powers had the pictures of the railway lines that brought the trains to the concentration camps like Auschwitz to kill Jews, Christians, homosexuals, everybody. Why didn’t they bomb (the railway lines)?”

Discussing World War One, he spoke of “the great tragedy of Armenia” but did not use the word “genocide”.

Francis sparked a diplomatic row in April calling the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians 100 years ago “the first genocide of the 20th century,” prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador to the Vatican.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Rosalind Russell)
Thanks to our friends at Reuters for reporting this story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/21/us-pope-turin-arms-idUSKBN0P10U220150621

ENC: How does it profit a man….

In the Emperor’s New Clothes part of this blog, we offer discourses and stories about the connections that matter, but are often left out (or distorted) in the storytelling of the day. Our purpose: To get you to think, and get you to feel.

It’s hard to change your ways when a) you make a living off something and b) it’s not your kids that are getting blown up. The pope addresses this in a straightforward address…to children. Thanks to the Huffington Post for this article:

Pope Francis Explains To Children How War Profiteers Never Want Peace
The Huffington Post  |  By Antonia Blumberg

Pope Francis did not mince words when he told a group of children gathered at the Vatican that some people will never want peace because they profit off of war.

“Some powerful people earn their living off making weapons,” the pope said, in a translation provided by Rome Reports. “For this reason, many people do not want peace.”

He also called the weapons business an “industry of death,” according to Catholic Herald.

The pontiff spoke in front of roughly 7,000 children at the Vatican on Monday, in a visit sponsored by the Fabbrica della pace (“Peace Factory”), a non-governmental organization that operates educational programming in primary schools with the purpose of promoting cross-cultural understanding.

Pope Francis ended the session by imploring those present to make a small change in attitude or behavior, Vatican Radio reports.

“Whenever we do something together, something good, something beautiful, everyone changes,” he said. “All of us change in some way, and this does us good.”

The pope’s strong words against the weapons industry echo the pontiff’s earlier anti-war statements. On December 7, 2014 Pope Francis sent a letter to the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, stating, “Nuclear weapons are a global problem, affecting all nations, and impacting future generations and the planet that is our home.”

“Spending on nuclear weapons squanders the wealth of nations,” he continued. “To prioritize such spending is a mistake and a misallocation of resources which would be far better invested in the areas of integral human development, education, health and the fight against extreme poverty.”

TIME Magazine reports that many expect the pope to address the topic of nuclear weapons in his United Nations speech in September, as the event coincides with the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s famous U.N. speech calling for “never again war, never again war.”

ENC: The new world order….

In this part of the blog (the Emperor’s New Clothes), we offer a moment of telling the stories of people who resist the mainstream view of things.

This past week, the people who started and pushed the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 are universally saying….it was a mistake. Here’s the story about that, from the Canadian Press (note that this is, for some reason, not a big story in the States.)

Meanwhile, with Memorial Day this week, and everyone talking about sacrifice, remember what was gained by that sacrifice. Here’s a moment with Doonesbury, by GB Trudeau:

ENC: The richer you are, the less you have…

The conventional wisdom: The more money you have, the better your life is.

Wisdom gained by experience suggests otherwise.

In the Ten Things to Teach & Know, one of the bits is that the more you have, the poorer you are. It looks like Alex, in the story below, might agree, as he labels winning $18 million in the lottery in 2000 as not a blessing, but a curse.

Here’s the story from CBS News:

ENC: Let’s find a place for everyone….

In this section of Brother Ian, we take a peek at the things that people don’t seem to want to examine. Sometimes we take a long look; sometimes, it doesn’t take that long.

But it’s there.

ENC: Keeping the Earth safe from humans…starts here, a tree at a time.

In this section, called “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” we join with those who cry out/whisper/proclaim – “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

When we see things with new eyes, and act, we have a chance.