Swords Into Ploughshares

Dear Mr. President,

While real criminals like the Banksters at Goldman Sachs and corrupt bureaucrats who misuse power and taxpayer money go untouched, American heroes like Bradley Manning, Thomas Drake, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou, Shamai Leibowitz, et al, are prosecuted, their lives destroyed by the full force and fury of the Department of InJustice. And the latest, three gray-haired antinuclear activists—Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Gregory Boertje-Obed—who penetrated a billion dollar security system and broke into the most inner of inner sanctums at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons factory with no more than a flashlight, hammer and bolt cutters, “…little more challenging than a romp in the Tennessee woods” according to The New York Times. A picture of the building shows an enormous high-walled windowless fortress with guard towers on each corner, motion sensors, cameras, alarms—and none of it worked; there they were inside, right next to 100 tons of highly enriched uranium, armed with candles and a Bible holding a prayer vigil for peace, spray-painting slogans and hanging banners, a huge embarrassment for you and your “campaign to lock down or eliminate nuclear materials as a way to fight atomic terrorism." A U.S. attorneys is quoted as saying, “This is a matter of national security…It is a significant case.” So here’s my advice, Mr. President: dump those incompetent clowns running the NSA, Homeland Security and Energy Department security and put these three in charge. Better yet, dump Biden and put Sister Megan Rice on the ticket. An antidote to Paul Ryan! Think of it, Ryan and his obsession to “drain the swamp,” end Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and any government program that benefits the notrich versus Sister Rice who wants to drain the swamp of nuclear weapons and use the money on education, healthcare, transportation and disaster relief. Let Ryan and Rice debate on national TV and see which one the American people choose. I bet it’s the Bible’s Swords into Ploughshares over Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. Of course, the top of the ticket is still a problem, Your fantasy of American Empire, you Emperor-in-Chief dealing death and destruction at will; Mitt with visions of—well, whatever his vision is today—a feudal society, serfs and masters, Lord of all he surveys, maybe the old Mormon dream of the White House in Missouri… How to choose between two evils when neither one is the lesser? Nah. I’m still voting for Jill Stein and the Green Party.