100 Years ago Today. We chose a path we must now leave..

Today is the 100^th Anniversary of the US entry into the first World War.  No one really knows why that war was fought but most agree that the way it ended set the stage for the World War II and nearly twice as many casualties.  There should be no dispute that the horrors of World War II set the stage for the Cold War and dozens of genocides, revolutions, and famines that followed that killed more people than both World Wars combined.

There should be no doubt that current global war against terrorism, now called violent extremism, is a direct result of the consequences of the global injustices perpetrated during the Cold War.

The most important question now, is how do we end war before it ends us?   Given the evolution of weaponry and the dozens of new factors that make a continuation of war by any means (bio, cyber, nano, space, robotics or AI) a form of insanity what are we to do?   Our freedom, security and prosperity will increasingly be lost.

The urgency of our era can be seen from multiple perspectives.  The evolution of weaponry. The evolution of pathogens.  And the failure of our political systems to evolve in response to these threats.

There is only one viable pathway to an alternative future where freedom, security and prosperity can be maximized for all the world’s people.   We the people must demand that our governments put the protection of human rights (see the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) above the rights of nation states to do as they please, without being held accountable.

After the horrors of WW II most people agreed we needed to prevent future war. From that view emerged the UN system and the most important document in human history -the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Then world leaders failed to make human rights a priority.

We now have what may be our last chance to end the trajectory of world war.  Replace it with world law.  We all know that’s not going to happen anytime soon, so the next best option is meeting the Sustainable Development Goals which is a close equivalent of enforcing the UDHR.

There is no shortage of money to achieve these goals.  It can be found in off shore accounts and even many US states where banks are now holding approximately $14 trillion in money that should have been put into the service of human survival instead of enriching less than one tenth of one percent of humanity.

Time is not on our side.  Our survival will depend on our capacity for adaptation to these changing times.  More military spending is not going to help.  More treaties and weapons bans will not help.   More hopefulness will not help.   

Only a movement of movements generating sufficient political will for our leaders to move away from war and toward world law will work.  Demand that our elected officials take this path.   There really is no other way.