Ash Wednesday 1981 — 2021

     Today is the 40th anniversary of the most significant Ash Wednesday event of my life.  It was a statement of nonviolent resistance to the preparation for nuclear war.  In the Christian tradition, Ash Wednesday is the beginning of 40 days of lent (prayer and fasting) before Easter. It’s considered a day of repentance where ashes in the form of a cross are put on people’s foreheads as a reminder that we are dust and to dust you shall return.  Traditionally, the ashes come from burnt palm fronds. 

     40 years ago, at the height of the cold war, 8 other friends and myself participated in a non-sanctioned Ash Wednesday ceremony in the “Nuclear War Policy and Plans” office at Camp H.M. Smith, the military Pacific Command center based on Oahu above Aloha Stadium in Aiea Heights.   It was a bit of a miracle that 9 of us were able to enter this high-security base let alone this high-security Nuclear war room.  The group was an interesting mix of people: 3 priests, including a Monsignor who was the superintendent of all Catholic schools in the state of Hawaii, several of us lay activists and a mother (a former nun) with her 3-month-old daughter.  As we entered the Nuclear War room, filled with Nuclear War office workers, one of the priests began reading aloud from “the Sermon on the Mount” Matthew Chapter 5 of the New Testament.  Some of us went to the right, some to the left, and we began placing crosses of ashes on the walls of the Nuclear war room.  Our ashes were made from traditional palm fronds with a mixture of burnt IRS tax forms since roughly 60 cents of every federal tax dollar is spent on militarism.  After placing a significant number of ash crosses on the walls, the nine of us came together, joined hands in the center of the nuclear war room, and prayed.  Within a short time armed military troops arrived and took all of us into custody where we were ID, questioned, and kept for a couple hours, then photographed, and surprisingly released.  We expected to be prosecuted but never were.  We later learned that several of the high-ranking generals and admirals had children in the Catholic school system and wondered how could they prosecute the group that included several priests and the superintendent of the Catholic Schools with their kids in Catholic Schools?

     Today, in 2021 the danger of nuclear war is even greater than in 1981.  The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist famous “Doomsday Clock” is now set at 100 seconds to midnight — the closest the hands of the symbolic clock have ever been to the doomsday hour.  Nuclear war and climate disaster are the 2 greatest threats to the future of life on planet earth.  May we have the wisdom and courage to turn away from this self-destruction and redirect the wasteful military spending to meet human needs, especially in this time of an unprecedented global Covid pandemic.

     This Ash Wednesday, let us rededicate our lives to justice, peace, and a living planet, with a commitment to nonviolence, kapu aloha, that respects the dignity of every human being and the sacredness of the earth that we all share.

Jim Albertini

Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021

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Prepping the taro patch until we get Pu’uhonua as alternative to prison

Don’t Blame the Poor!

Cut the War Budget &

Tax the Rich!

      We live in a time of unprecedented human need amid a global pandemic. As of Feb. 9, 2021 the total number of lives lost to COVID-19 surged past 459,000 in the U.S. alone, more than all Americans killed in World War II.  And we face an unprecedented economic crisis tied to the pandemic. Those with money and power are good at blaming others for being at the root of the problem. Hence, jobless benefits and help for people at the bottom are blamed for the deficit, while the rich, and multi-billion dollar corporations, are given tax cuts. Economic inequality has continued to grow in the U.S. over the past half-century.

      Instead of the ongoing redistribution of income and wealth upward, funds need to be redirected downward: to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, provide medicare for all, education, increase the minimum wage, and address the climate crisis that threatens all life on this planet.

      Why is there little mention of needed cuts to the bloated U.S. military budget – the largest military budget in the world by far? Case in point: The U.S. is Boosting Production of Nuclear Bomb Cores (For More Nuclear Weapons) at a time when the world has made the use, threatened use, or mere possession of nuclear weapons illegal under international law. The U.S. and the 8 other nuclear-armed countries are now officially outlaw states – rogue nations.

https://thebulletin.org/2021/02/why-is-america-getting-a-new-100-billion-nuclear-weapon/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter022021&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NewWeapon_02082021

Can you tell your Representatives in Congress it is TIME to cut the Pentagon budget?

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject violence & war as solutions. 3. Defend civil liberties.
4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, etc.
5. Seek peace through peaceful means and work for justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown), Hawaii 96760
Phone (808) 966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org to receive our posts. For more information www.malu-aina.org

Feb. 12. 2021 Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet – week 1011 – Fridays 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

The Militarization of Everything

2021 Superbowl Flyover