Do these quotes ring true for you?

"An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy - or worse." - -Bill Moyers

"If those who support aggressive war had seen a fraction of what I've seen, if they'd watched children fry to death from Napalm and bleed to death from a cluster bomb, they might not utter the claptrap they do". -John Pilger(13/11/2005)

"The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food." John Pilger (05/11/2009)

"This is the fundamental debate in our society: Are we a nation of citizens or a nation of consumers? Are we a democracy run by citizens, or are we a corporatocracy that holds consumers locked in dependency by virtue of their consumption?"  Thom Hartmann

WWW. WTF???

The World Wide Web, a communication’s system connecting all of humanity with all the information they could ever use!  What could go wrong?  

Few consider the fact that we already had a world wide web of environmental, health, economic, trade and travel connections.  And virtually no means of regulating or responding to the harms that come from each of these irreversible global web of life connections.

Then about 30 years ago the technology genius Sir Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web.  He optimistically intended it to be an open platform allowing “everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries”.  Now, nearly 3 decades later he’s increasingly concerned about three ‘new’ trends that we need to be address if the web is ever “to fulfill its true potential as a tool that serves all of humanity.”

His first concern was our loss of control over our personal data.  It turns out that ‘free content’ isn’t free.  Who could have guessed the cost would be our security?  Anyone.  Anyone who understands that EVERY technology comes with the same price.  Every technology has multiple uses and depending on the intent of the user (and sometimes irrelevant to the user’s intent) every technology can be used for good or evil.   Human freedom is a given.  We are free to do anything our heart or mind desires.  But reality dictates we are never free of the consequences of what we do.  If someone wants to abuse it, they will find a way.  This is a fundamental universal dilemma with no exceptions. The grand flaw in human thinking is our minds ability to create concepts that have no relation to reality.  Such is the concept of ‘independence’.   Then, we have the audacity to create government systems and structures based on that flawed concept.  What could go wrong?  Everything.  Literally.  There is not a single nation that is not at multiple risks from climate change, pandemics, WMD proliferation, international crime cartels, or global economic instability.  And, it just so happens, that the WWW has been exacerbating each of these threats.  Why?  Because there are so many hearts and minds that have been exposed to the down sides of unregulated globalization. 

Our greatest problem now is thinking we can diminish the painful forces of globalization by building walls, emphasizing nationalism, and beefing up our militaries.  Instead, we must accept our irreversible global interdependence and acting accordingly to diminish those forces at their origin.  The human systems and structures that we humans have created that allow the persistence of poverty, preventable infectious diseases, war, genocide, human trafficking and other obvious injustices.  This means finally codifying the fundamental principle used to create the United States originally.  The undebatable fact ‘all people are created equal and endowed with natural and God given rights’.  The most important being the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  This may come as a shock to many but ‘happiness’ does not translate into comfort.  That was not the definition of the word when it was written 240 years ago.  Equating the two today is a recipe for disaster.

People rightfully have different opinions on the wisdom of Betsy DeVos, our nation’s Secretary of Education.  But she recently said something profound; ‘our nation and technology has provided for us with unprecedented comforts’.  “But that’s not what we were made for.  We were made for greatness!”  I have no idea what she was thinking when she said it but I know I’ve never known any Olympic champion, Nobel Prize winner, billionaire, successful singer/actor or parent who achieved success by being comfortable. 

His second concern was that the web made it too easy for misinformation.  When he was creating the web did he really think the human mind would succumb to logic and fundamental principles instead of persistently defending old beliefs regardless of the millions of lives they have destroyed? 

The greatest flaw of the human mind was identified for me by my mentor when in 2005, a year after I went into a prolonged depression after the result of the 2004 elections.  My mind could not grasp how a majority of American voters had re-elected President Bush after the invasion of Iraq.   My mentor, a NASA engineer enlightened me with the fact that the human mind has the capacity to believe anything!  Literally!  ANYTHING!   There at least 9 other existential flaws of the human mind, anyone of which could lead to our extinction but this one…was the first, and I maintain the worst of a growing list I’ve created files for.  If anyone doubts their existence, I can easily share their web links, thanks to Sir Berners-Lee’s creation.  But I assure you, it won’t make a difference.  Minds are just too damn resistant to change.   Thus, our species is extremely susceptible to extinction.

Our minds originally evolved to solve important problems around us.   We essentially solved many of the most direct threats.  It’s the systemic threats our minds struggle to comprehend. So, most minds habitually protect their long-established beliefs.  And the smarter the mind…usually, the more resistant it is to change.  The spread of misinformation should have been anticipated, but optimism, another mental flaw, quashed that level of thought.

His third concern was that online political advertising wasn’t transparent.  Unfortunately, an engineer’s mind doesn’t work like a politician’s.  Engineers design things using fundamental principles inherent in the Laws of nature. Politicians create policy based on alternative principles they invented out of arrogance after being elected by a majority of citizens with little understanding why our government’s systems and structures are fundamentally dysfunctional.  Example:  Liberals think the problem is with guns and the Second Amendment.  Conservatives think the problem is with immigration and lack of border protection.  George Lakoff labels this ‘direct causation’ thinking instead of the deeper thinking essential to understand the root causes.  He labels this deeper thinking as ‘systemic causation’.   There is something profoundly wrong with our culture and our foreign policy that drives these (and other) lethal and often destabilizing elements.  Targeting these specific problems without systemic change is doomed to fail.

Some people and organizations are trying to create measures to ensure that politicians are truthful in their advertising.  Unfortunately, our freedom of speech and deficiency of citizen understanding of fundamental principles prevents such measures from being effective.  Our mind’s defense of flawed concepts at any cost, combined with the accelerating volume, variety, and velocity of misinformation makes their mission impossible.  And ‘Deep Fakes’ technology will soon even make it harder.  

These problems are only complex if we insist on viewing them as being independent from one another and only have independent government policies to address them.  Independent solutions do not exist for real-world interdependent problems.  Solutions become relatively simple and obvious if we recognize the value of fundamental principles and the flaws of the human mind in abiding by them.   The solutions won’t always be popular.  Some may even spark violent rebellion by those with simple minds unable to grasp reality.  But failing to accept our global interdependence is a sure path to human extinction. 

Woody Allen once said, “Humanity stands at a cross roads. One road leads to utter hopelessness and despair.  The other…to complete annihilation. I hope we have the wisdom to choose the right path”.    Fortunately, there is actually a third road we could take. It’s been offered at multiple times before.  Several times by spiritual leaders over the last 5000 years -- each acknowledging the fundamental principle of the Golden rule (or justice for all).  And twice in the last century.  Both after catastrophic World Wars.  And each time, human minds resisted the obvious solution.   They simply could not abandon the flawed concepts of ‘independence’, unbridled capitalism, and ‘peace through strength (or disarmament)’.  Abandoning them would mean putting the protection of human rights and the environment above the rights of nation states and corporations.  

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has now created The Web Foundation.  It is “at the forefront of the fight to advance and protect the web for everyone.” He needs to know that it will only succeed if the bigger fight to protect fundamental human rights and a sustainable environment proceeds first over the power of national governments and corporations.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/11/tim-berners-lee-web-inventor-save-internet

contact@webfoundation.org

Word of the Year? Justice.

This is in response to two Washington Post articles yesterday (web link to op-ed at bottom).

Dear Editor, 

 I like the Saturday Washington Post best.  It’s thin and the op-ed page rarely has insightful or engaging columns allowing me to get to my weekend ‘to-do” list faster.   This Saturday not so.  Two columns (“Peace on Earth? Not in D.C.” by Colbert I. King and “Why justice was our word of the year” by Peter Sokolowski) combined the two primary missions of my life’s work for the last 50 years:  Preventing needless death and suffering and advocating for an effective system to achieve it. It will take a movement of movements (peace movement, environmental movement, and the social/economic justice movement) to create sufficient political will to make it happen.

King’s exposure of the four needless deaths of young people represents the most horrific of all human experiences.  Not gun deaths.  But the parental experiencing their child’s death.  Just the fear of losing a child drives multiple costly and emotionally draining behaviors.   

Sokoslowski’s explanation of the process used for choosing the “word of the year” as well as the word selected for this year -- validated the one word that I’ve come to see as the only effective means of preventing such profound loss of human life, joy and hope for the future.

As a biologist I’ve hypothesized that we (and most other life forms) have a gene for justice.  If we didn’t, we would exist.  Any life form with no effective reaction to another living entity exploiting it would probably fail to pass on its pacifist genes.   But, clearly the opposite of pacifism, war and the grave injustices tolerated by our current ‘system’ of international law is also unworkable.  Together, pacifism and war now undermined the very survival of our species.

Sokoslowski’s explanation of a functional definition of justice, “We say ‘Rule of law’ to emphasis enforcement, but “justice system” to emphasize individual rights.  It’s also aspirational: We seek justice” frames our existential dilemma perfectly.   No justice means no sustainable freedom or security.  Our nation’s Constitution intended this, unfortunately, our so-called ‘Justice system’ is profoundly unjust  Our laws treat too many US citizens and especially non-citizens unjustly.  Our ‘legal system’ treats the rich who are guilty better than those who are innocent and poor.   And US citizens are treated infinitely better than suspected terrorists or refugees fleeing the lethal consequences of hostile conditions that our nation’s economic and military systems helped exacerbate.  

Unless we (as a species) turn the aspirational words of the US Declaration of Independence “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” and the final words of the American ‘flag’ pledge “liberty and justice for all”  into a global reality with an enforceable global justice system, our existence on this planet will not end well and will likely end sooner than celestial events would dictate. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/justice-is-on-our-minds-thats-why-its-merriam-websters-word-of-the-year/2018/12/19/704f1ccc-03be-11e9-b6a9-0aa5c2fcc9e4_story.html?utm_term=.8c2e14fdffa2    Justice is on our minds. That’s why it’s Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.   By Peter Sokolowski , editor at large for Merriam-Webster.

Dec 21 Humanities Greatest Achievements day?

Fifty years ago today three human beings left earth and traveled three days to the moon, circled it and returned safely back to earth.   Centuries of human study and application of science and technology merged in one nation with the resources, fear*, and vision blended together to achieve the first truly monumental human goal -- space travel.

It wasn’t the only great human goal achieved, but it was the first.  And if a person understands the profoundly extraordinary courage, exactness, genius, and inherent risk involved in this human effort, tears of joy and pride might be the appropriate response.  Especially for those three who saw Earth for the first time for what it really is, our home planet, alone in the vast cold darkness of space.

Few people consider the fact that Earth has an expiration date.  It is so distant (we hope) that we don’t waste time thinking about it.  But we should.  As several NASA directors and astronauts have stated ‘in the long run, no single plant species will survive.”

In the short term (the next 20-50 years), we should devote our planets best scientists and engineers to preserving earth’s natural systems and structures that we all depend on for our immediate health, security (clean air, clean water, adequate food and shelter….) and prosperity.  This would include the climate systems and even the human made systems and structures of governments that are growing in power but lacking the same values that were used to reach the moon and return safely.

Unfortunately, today, too many governments have devoted the rigorous application of the same science and technology and vast amounts of money to maximize the destruction of other governments and the deaths of human beings within them.   Humanity hasn’t lost its vision of a sustainable world at peace where all people have equal opportunity to be healthy, wealthy and wise.  But we have lost touch with, or never understood, the power we do have in influencing our government’s priorities.

Most Americans today see the United States as a place of American blood and soil to be protected by a powerful military.   Some think a wall will help.  But John McCain’s farewell letter this summer offered the true genius of our nation. He called the US “a nation of ideals, not blood and soil”.   And those ideals are universal.  The most profound being the primary mission of any legitimate government -- to protect the inalienable human rights of “liberty and justice for all”.

I assert that the second greatest human achievement in all of history was achieved a decade after the moon shot.   It was the confirmed global eradication of Smallpox in 1980.    This viral disease killed humans for thousands of years and killed more people in just 80 years of the last century (over 300 million) than all the wars, revolutions, and genocides combined (about 250 million) in that full century.  But it would never have happened unless every nation and village in the world had participated.  

It was the first disease ever eradicated.  And so far, the only one.  Polio eradication was targeted for the year 2000 but failed because of wars and a lack of political will to reduce the worst aspects of global poverty.  It remains with us today…and could mutate as all pathogens do and return with a vengeance.  Every aspect of humanities bio security requires a comprehensive global effort. 

Arguably the next great human achievement (and perhaps the most urgent and important) will be meeting each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals on or before 2030.  World governments have already agreed they are a priority but lack the political will to insure enough funding will be invested in time.   These goals are affordable and achievable with existing technology and financial resources even if governments offered zero existing government financing.  But they would need to ensure that sufficient money comes from other sources.  There are four potential sources.  Millions of voluntary private donations, generous global corporations, a Robinhood tax on global financial transactions, or freezing and then seizing some of the illegitimate earnings in offshore accounts stashed there by kleptocrats, criminal syndicates, tax avoiding capitalists.  This estimated stash of $32 trillion seems like the most likely target for success.  

But it would require a ‘Movement of Movements’ (MoM) acting together to pass legislation in the US and other powerful developed nations to make it happen.  The biggest barrier in the US to mobilizing such a MoM here is the resistance within the leadership of organizations that remain focused on their own movement (environmental, peace, or social/economic justice) instead of the comprehensive approach that the 17 SDGs offer.   The silo effect between (and even within) each of these movements prevents the collective action essential to comprehensively achieving the 17 goals.  Each movement (and organizations within each movement) remain focused on their individual missions (continuing to compete with one another for limited private, corporate and government funding) instead of the united effort needed to acquire adequate funding for all.

The environmental movement certainly has the most momentum and the best motivational point with even the US military agreeing that global warming is a national security issue.  The peace movement refuses to admit they continue to push the weakest motivation - ‘world peace’.  With the world facing more threats of nation state violence and aggression combined with the unprecedented proliferation of WMD and increases in weapon sales and nationalism, there is little chance governments will stop spending ‘defense funds’ to fund humanitarian goals.   Many within the peace movement believe this is the only way to fund humanitarian goals and resist the reality that funding the human humanitarian goals is the best way for all the world’s governments to improve their national security.   The so called “peace and justice” community puts more attention to disarmament and cutting defense budgets expecting it to achieve peace (and fund humanitarian goals) instead of recognizing that peace and security is NOT a function of disarmament or armaments.  Peace and most forms of security are a function of justice.

The so called ‘social/economic justice movement’ correctly believes that their individual, national and global goals are essential to protecting the environment and the root of peace and security, but largely remain hesitant in using the context of national security to push their humanitarian agenda.  Even the Peace movement shies away from this accurate perception of reality claiming that the US government entities (DOD, CIA, AID and State Dept) use a ‘humanitarian’ mission to hide its true goal of world domination.

What each of these movements fail to grasp is the value of a comprehensive approach needed to achieve anyone of their primary missions.   What would happen to the global effort to reduced carbon emissions if a ‘Spanish flu’ like pandemic or weaponized small pox attack were suddenly killing millions, even billions of people worldwide in a very short time.  Or an EMP event (solar or human caused) brought the US to it’s knees by crippling our electrical grid for months or even years…resulting in tens of millions of dead Americans and the end of our society as we know it, in the chaos that follows?

“Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.”   President Kennedy’s inaugural address.    

We continue to look at the past to predict the future.  This is a very bad idea for two reasons.  First, it appears the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.  If we did, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would have been made enforceable or fully funded by now given the horrors of World War II with the creation and first use of nuclear weapons.  Second, the future will not be like the past given the evolution of weapons and war since then, primarily driven by the advances in science and technology that now yield unprecedented killing capacity to clever individuals, extremist groups, and rogue nations alike at affordable costs.  Imagine drone delivery of bioweapons or cyber intrusions or attacks on a nation’s critical infrastructures.  

What ‘we the people’ lack, is an understanding of the growing variety, velocity and volume of threats we face and the actual power we have to influence our elected government policy makers.   Yes, democracy rarely yields ‘liberty and justice for all’, but it can.   Our U.S. Constitution’s first amendment gave us the enormous power to petition our government 365 days a year.   Not just the extremely anemic civic power to vote once every 2, 4 or 6 years. 

In the 1960s our nation’s leaders made reaching the moon a top government priority.  Fear of the Soviets reaching the moon first was a legitimate national security concern motivating them.  Achieving the 17 SDGs before the year 2030 should be motivated as much by our own national security concerns as our national spirit and flag pledge of “liberty and justice for all”.

* https://www.space.com/11772-president-kennedy-historic-speech-moon-space.html 

Dec 15: Bill of Rights Day

The first two things to acknowledge on this profound day is 1) the single purpose of any legitimate government is to protect the inalienable human rights of all its subjects.

People who freely enter into any arrangement (political, economic, religious, educational, matrimonial, engineering…) must put the protection of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ as the top priority for all adults.  If not, their prospects for maximizing their own freedom, security and prosperity will be increasingly difficult.

Second, we must recognize that our nation exists today because our founding fathers amended our Constitution with a Bill of Rights.  Unfortunately, the Amendments didn’t abide by the fundamental principles our founders listed in their Declaration of Independence.   The unamended Constitution made a serious attempt to limit the power of government and the addition of a Bill of Rights did more.  But not enough.  

Our entire government blueprint was based on a western human concept from those times referred to as ‘independence’.  Unclear to most western minds at that time was the fact that all systems and structures in the world were totally and irreversibly interdependent.  Even today with massive advances in technology making the world more connected and interdependent the concept of independence still survives and thrives without pause.   

Creation of the US Constitution required compromise.  The great compromise that counted slaves as 3/5ths of a person violated the fundamental principle that the founders highlighted in the Declaration of Independence but without it the Constitution may not have been ratified.  But that error eventually confirmed Thomas Jefferson’s “fear for America that there is a just God” when our nation was divided by a war that killed more Americans than all the wars that our nation has fought in since then, combined!!!

Compromise remains essential as human perceptions evolved alongside of advances in technology that brings people and goods together from further away, faster, and cheaper than ever before.   But what never changes is fundamental principles.  Our founding fathers labeled them “self-evident” “Truths” in the Declaration of Independence. 

According the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” all people are endowed with certain inalienable rights.  Yet today, our Bill of Rights is seen by most Americans as given to us by our government, so they do not apply to others.  This compromise of fundamental principles will continue to cost us dearly in blood and treasure.  It will also chip away at our freedoms.

Today, most Americans would agree that compromise between our two estranged political parties is essential for any amount of progress.  The possibility creating a more perfect union remains impossible with each party demonizing the other.   Making important progress on vitally important and increasingly urgent issues that threaten our health, wealth and sustainability won’t happen unless venous rhetoric is replace with serious, open, and rational debate.   

Threats like the debt, global warming, the evolution of weaponry and war are comingling with growing income inequality, globally unregulated advancements in technology, and what’s left of the worst aspects of global poverty that still kills over 11,000 children every day from easily preventable malnutrition and infectious diseases.  While more children suffer ill health today from obesity than hunger, malnutrition and infectious diseases remain the most lethal human rights injustice which exacerbates wars and the spawning refuges, revolutions, and pandemics with irreversible connections to terrorism, international crime, WMD proliferation, and corruption.  

And, all of these destructive forces are irreversibly connected and interdependent with each other thwarting any attempt by governments to deal with them using independent agencies or independent governments even if they could find it in their budgets to compromise with each other.  The “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God’ do not compromise.     

What is needed is wholistic/comprehensive solutions.  And the only practical approach fitting that need today is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.    If they are not met by 2030 it will be because of a lack of funding.  Or, the human principle we call “international law.  The lawlessness that it allows establishes security threats between nations.  And this spurs the evolution of weaponry and war motivating governments to acquire unlimited military power to ensure their own preservation.  

Investments in human capital or our vital environment are rarely made with comparable commitment.  That’s a monstrous national security risk.  Pandemics, global warming and terrorism mixed with WMD proliferation are immune to military power.  In fact, when used to violate human rights it exacerbates these threats. 

This evolution of war and weaponry will inevitably end.  It will either be with our willful abolition of the supremacy of national sovereignty over human rights, or, it will end civilization or the possible extinction of our species in the months or years to come.  

“Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are always equal to his power. There is no power on earth so worthy of honor in itself, or clothed with rights so sacred, that I would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a republic, I say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under other laws.”   – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America [1835]

Our Bill of Rights is profound in that it is enforceable.  Additional amendments have made life, liberty and pursuit of happiness somewhat better for almost all men and women within our borders.   But additional Amendments are needed.   Until ‘we the people’ (who are ultimately responsible for our government’s actions) demand that our Constitution abides by the fundamental principles delineated in our Declaration of Independence (protecting all inalienable human rights equally and globally), we will continue to see both our freedoms and our security diminished domestically.

President Bush was right.  Al Qaeda did attack us on 9-11 because they hated our freedoms.  But it wasn’t our movies, wasteful consumption, and democracy that they hated.  What most Americans still continue to ignore is the history of our nation’s freedom in using our military and economic power to support abusive and murderous regimes.  Most of us here didn’t see what was happening over there.   And too many lives over there did.  They felt it and millions were killed and crippled by it.    

Unprecedented advances in increasingly powerful dual-use technology combined with our increasing interdependence with the rest of the world should wake us up to the need to be more protective of all human rights.  And, only support nations that do the same. 

We will always remain free to do as we please as Americans.  But we will never be free of the consequences in this increasingly interconnected world where we are the most dependent on technology.  Vulnerable technology.  Technology can be used to protect human rights or abuse them.  It is up to the spirit and the laws of ‘we the people’ that will determine how we will use our freedoms, and how well our own freedoms will be protected.

We have always cherished our freedom, our security and our independence.  The fact is we can only have two of the three.  It’s time we chose wisely. 

Dec 10 Human Rights Day.

December 10th should be the most important day of the year - worldwide.  

Yet you’d be lucky if you hear anything about it anywhere.  Both of the days major Washington DC newspapers (the moderate Washington Post and the conservative Washington Times) and the prime government media outlet (C-Span) failed to acknowledge this profound day as the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).   

Exactly seventy years (shortly after World War II ended) various legal scholars and philosophers from Canada, India, China, France, and Lebanon formed a drafting committee under the chair America’s First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, and watched together as every nation in the world ratified this profound document.  They had completed their work of researching the most basic drivers of war and developed a list of what they (and most of the world would agree) are fundamental inalienable human rights.  Rights that all people have simply because they are born.  Not because of their skin color, sex, wealth, ethnicity, religion or nationality. 

This very concept was reflected in our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence which Abraham Lincoln described as our nation’s “Apple of Gold”.  In the Declaration of Independence, they recognized certain ‘self -evident truths’ established by “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.  These included the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.  Tragically, they ignored this profound reflection when creating the U.S. Constitution (which Lincoln saw as our Apple of Gold’s “Frame of Silver”).  Ignoring this fundamental principle of human rights would eventually cost more American lives in our Civil War than all the wars that our nation has fought in since then, combined.  

But even after amending our Constitution with the 13^th Amendment back then, lethal and potentially catastrophic flaws remain today that will require additional Amendments.  Our Bill of Rights is officially honored every Dec. 15^th.   Check this blog after that date for amendment suggestions that could potentially save the lives of millions of Americans and maximize the protection of both our freedoms and our security from a variety of global threats.  

The UDHR is like our Bill of Rights, but far more comprehensive in protecting what Eleanor’s husband called the four basic freedoms (freedom of speech and beliefs -- and freedom from fear and want).  Unfortunately, unlike our Bill of Rights the UDHR has no means of enforcement.  This comprehensive list remains nothing more than a profoundly useful set of ideals capable of maximizing humanities freedoms and security in our irreversibly interconnected and interdependent world.

A lack of human rights enforcement by the UN was intentional. The top priority of the nations creating the new system of international law was to protect the rights of nations, a centuries old model referred to as ‘national sovereignty’.  Functionally defined - “national sovereignty” is the right of any nation to do whatever it wants, whenever it likes, to whom ever it can, whenever it can, if it believes it has the military power, the foreign alliances, the will of God, and/or the capacity for anonymous action.

The protection of human rights was never really a priority of the governments engaged in creating the UN.  Because of the war they were obviously far more interested in ensuring their own immediate security and didn’t agree that the fundamental purpose of government is for the protection of human rights.

So the flaws within the UN Charter remain a significant danger to us and the world along with the flaws that remain within our U.S. Constitution.  Together, they ensure that war will always be with us.  At least until we obliterate ourselves with nuclear or biological weapons; or Artificial Intelligence gains the wisdom and physical capacity to hold all individuals accountable for intentionally violating anyone’s fundamental human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It’s common knowledge that if one person kills another person, we call them a murderer.  If he kills a dozen innocent people, we call them by their name.  But if one person kills tens of thousands of innocent people, we call them President (can we hope that AI fixes that?).

Another weakness our nation has today beyond the flaws in our Constitution is our nation’s largely deluded view of patriotism.  So called ‘patriots’ worship national sovereignty without question.  They hold it superior to the God given rights that they pledge allegiance too every time they put their hand over their heart while taking to our nation’s flag.   

Sovereignty was originally conceived and defined as a gift from God to all people.  Essentially, it was human freedom, self-ownership and autonomy. Or, a fundamental natural right to be one's own person, to be the exclusive controller of one’s own body, thoughts, actions, and direction in life.   We yield some of it when we enter into social or economic contract with a spouse, bank, college, city, county, state, country, military branch, religion, or limited environment.   Somehow this limited and precious resource got full transferred to the nation state government that can declare war or enrich corporations that can impact every aspect of your life without your approval.

Now, our greatest external threats are from terrorism combined with WMD proliferation, pandemics, new and re-emerging infectious diseases, failed states, re-emerging superpower tensions, global warming, global poverty, and global economic instability.  Each of these are fueled by each of the other threats -- and the growing number of refugees that they each continue to produce.  None of these growing threats (some existential) will be stopped at the border by the most sophisticated walls, advanced military power, or well-funded independent government agency.

There isn’t enough money in the world to stop these threats once they reach our lungs, our nation’s infrastructure, or our nation’s borders.  Our only rational investment is in global prevention efforts.  As you might have observed, ‘prevention’ is an un-American word.   It can best be defined as “deep thinking and wise action that stops the need for wasteful spending of blood and treasure.’  The thing that Eleanor Roosevelt (and crew) were attempting with the UDHR after surviving the most horrific war humanity had ever experienced.

Is there really any question why our world today is a growing cauldron of instability, unprecedented weapons capacity, increasing populism, national tensions, and seemingly unresolvable problems?   Look no further than the insane sanctity of national sovereignty.

Over the years I’ve made multiple attempts to enlist liberal colleagues and institutions into a campaign to redefine the phrase ‘national security’.  There are organizations, umbrella campaigns and reputable studies that encourage this but most liberal organizations remain siloed and focused on their own singular priority.  And, because federal and private funding is limited, each organization competes with all the others in a zero-sum game over limited tax dollars, national media attention, and public support.  

Bringing all organizations together to work on a comprehensive solution like funding the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is like herding cats.   They all agree that a ‘movement of movements’ (MoM) is needed but none have taken it seriously with a willingness to lower their movement’s status equal to the importance of the others. 

There are three basic progressive movements.  The peace movement, the environmental movement, and the economic/social justice movement.  Each is fundamentally aligned on maximizing human freedom, security and sustainability. 

The majority in the peace movement won’t move beyond their historic focus on nuclear disarmament, cutting military spending, closing foreign bases, or internal squabbling over their ideological/historical different views of past or current wars. They believe ‘peace’ is the ultimate goal of all humanity, even though human freedoms are too often sacrificed in the push for peace.  

Many in the environmental movement rightfully frame global warming as a threat to civilization or all life on earth.  But, just like the peace movement does with nuclear weapons.   They don’t acknowledge that there are other urgent and catastrophic threats that could, overnight, steal their attention and political thunder.  Plus, environmentalists too often fail to calculate the damage to human freedom and immediate human security from poverty.  They are accurate in accusing a largely unbridled capitalist system of impoverishing people and trashing the environment.  But even the Economist magazine credited global trade with 2/3rds of the reduction in poverty related deaths, and aid with the other third.  And, its usually the wealthier nations that make the most progress on environmental protections.  Still today approximately 11,000 children die every day from easily preventable malnutrition and infectious diseases that would be happening even if the planet wasn’t warming and the environment wasn’t at risk.  Too many environmentalist and peace activists fail to consider the real-life consequences of nearly 2 billion people attempting to live on $2 a day.  People who are largely illiterate, malnourished, sick and with no access to health care or credit.    Hundreds of millions of these individuals are driven by despair and multiple injustices toward violence. Or, motivated to murder others because of political, ethnic, religious or economic differences or for a job.  Mix this with unprecedented volumes and varieties of weaponry and WMD relatively easily made from dual-use technologies and peace, sustainability and human development becomes very, very difficult.

Then there is the tens of thousands of organizations working to provide nutrition, clean water, sanitation, micro credit, living wage jobs, health care, education, and other human rights protections.  They know that political stability and a clean environment are essential to the delivery of their life saving/transformative services.  Yet they don’t have enough money to achieve their goals either.

The one thing all of these progressive organizations and movements have in common is a lack of resources to effectively achieve their mission.  Yet, each of their specific goals is included within at least one of 168 smaller goals contained within the larger comprehensive 17 SDGs.

The great news is that all of these goals are achievable, achieving them will be far cheaper than the catastrophic consequences of failing, and there is no shortage of money in the world to achieve them all by the year 2030.  And, while most of the governments are in debt and unable (or unwilling) to commit to adequately funding for the SDGs, there is at least $32 trillion stashed in off shore accounts.  Ill-gotten money that was originally in the hands of governments for public goods, or owed to them in taxes, or diverted from them through illegal sales of drugs, weapons, human slaves, or endangered species.  

One piece of legislation that could tap this wealth has the potential to bring all of these progressive efforts together into a MoM capable of passing a bill that could effectively freeze and then work with other nations to seize some or most of these ill-gotten gains.  

The Global Fund could work as a model for establishing a system and structure for fair distribution of newly acquired resources to the most effective organizations in each of the essential issue areas and regions.   What’s missing is the political will.

And the political will could be mobilized if US policy makers were clearly informed on the catastrophic risks and costs to our freedoms, national security, and prosperity if human rights are not placed first on our national security agenda.   As General Mattis once said, if we don’t do this, we need to buy his guys more bullets.

The idea of redefining national security isn’t new.  It was expressed 38 years ago by no less than Presidential Commission on World Hunger.  A word search of that old document revealed fourteen references to nontraditional national security threats that the commissioners believed Americans would face in the future if their recommendations were ignored. 

“In the final analysis, unless Americans -- as citizens of an increasingly interdependent world -- place far higher priority on overcoming world hunger, its effects will no longer remain remote or unfamiliar.  Nor can we wait until we reach the brink of the precipice; the major actions required do not lend themselves to crisis planning, patchwork management, or emergency financing... The hour is late.  Age-old forces of poverty, disease, inequity, and hunger continue to challenge the world.  Our humanity demands that we act upon these challenges now...”  Presidential Commission on World Hunger, 1980.

Today we are seeing the consequences the Commission warned about “international terrorism”, “war”, “environmental problems”, “diseases” and “other human rights problems” (refugees, genocide, human trafficking…)..  This chaos is costing Americans dearly in blood and treasure as well as driving isolationist populist movements that will only make matters worse unless adequate resources are urgently invested in the prevention of these destructive forces before they reach our shores.

The commission specifically warned about the future consequences if we ignored the global injustice hunger - stating “The most potentially explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living. The anger, despair and often hatred that result represent real and persistent threats to international order…  Neither the cost to national security of allowing malnutrition to spread nor the gain to be derived by a genuine effort to resolve the problem can be predicted or measured in any precise, mathematical way. Nor can monetary value be placed on avoiding the chaos that will ensue unless the United States and the rest of the world begin to develop a common institutional framework for meeting such other critical global threats as the growing scarcity of fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources, environmental hazards, pollution of the seas, and international terrorism. Calculable or not, however, this combination of problems now threatens the national security of all countries just as surely as advancing armies or nuclear arsenals.”

The commission also stated “that promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to the U.S. national security than most policymakers acknowledge or even believe. Since the advent of nuclear weapons most Americans have been conditioned to equate national security with the strength of strategic military forces. The Commission considers this prevailing belief to be a simplistic illusion. Armed might represents merely the physical aspect of national security. Military force is ultimately useless in the absence of the global security that only coordinated international progress toward social justice can bring.”

Many other studies and reports have followed this commission. 

Winning the Peace:  Hunger and Instability

https://www.wfpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/wfp_food_security_final-web-1.pdf

https://www.wfpusa.org/winningthepeace/

Each clearly documents the direct and indirect links between protecting human rights global and US national security.    They have offered many affordable and achievable recommendations calling for urgent and comprehensive action, but it is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that offers the most comprehensive agenda.   Humanity cannot afford failing this fundamental challenge if we are to sustainably maximize freedom and security for all, on this increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. 

Are you aware of any other solutions? 

Dec 9 International Anti-Corruption Day

“Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.”   ― Henry Kissinger

There are few things more corrosive to the trust of citizens, voters, and civilization itself than corruption.   

The Corruption Perceptions Index is an index published annually by Transparency International.  It ranks countries "by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys." The CPI generally defines corruption as "the misuse of public power for private benefit".  But corruption also exists where ever you find people -- who can be corrupted. 

And corruption ensures far more than corroded trust.   It drains enormous financial and environmental resources that are essential for ensuring human security, protecting human rights, and sustained prosperity for all.   Kleptocrats stealing from public coffers can be measured in hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars.  And when essential human needs are not met, or reasonable expectations thwarted, people do desperate things.  (See Syria, Iraq, Venezuela, Central America, Haiti, South Sudan, 2016 US elections…).  Routinely, there is no political consensus on practical steps to address it on a global level.  Could it be because much of the ill-gotten gains are sitting in offshore accounts or invested in properties owned by anonymous owners? 

When governments fail, for any reason, to invest in basic human needs or human capital a society stops maturing and can easily backslide into political divisions, chaos and ultimately mass violence.  History is replete with this destructive scenario. And it continues to prove the maxim that the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.

"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive."  ~Albert Einstein 

Politicians are addicted to money because it helps them get re-elected.

Corporations are addicted to profit because it helps them get access to politicians, so their business can benefit and increase their profits.

People are addicted to money to feed their children, cloth them, shelter them, and educate them in hopes they will eventually earn enough money to take care of themselves, their families, and their aging parents.

When addiction to money (greed) gets more important than our addiction to liberty and justice for all, we might have an existential problem.

 “A man who has never gone to school may steal a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”   ― Theodore Roosevelt

There is no doubt that corruption also hurts businesses.  In 2013, bribery, corruption and facilitation payments were the most commonly reported issues recorded by the Institute of Business Ethics' media monitoring. They accounted for 13% of all the stories on business ethics. The sectors most frequently mentioned were extracted resources (70%), defense and security (63%), pharmaceuticals (47%) and broadcast/media (33%).  

In May 2016, UK Prime Minister David Cameron hosted an anti-corruption summit. Associated with it was an analysis of the relationship between corruption and per capita GDP, a rough living standard indicator.   Combined with a 2016 Global CEO Survey examining business leaders’ views on corruption across countries and sectors - it proved there should be a strong motivation to businesses for stamping out corruption. The analysis showed that a one notch-increase in perceived corruption levels is associated with a $380 decrease in per capita GDP.  Conversely, persistently lower levels of perceived corruption are associated with higher levels of per capita GDP.

While correlation may not imply causation (there could be other factors driving income levels) there are decent reasons to believe that reducing corruption should also boost overall economic prosperity within a country, and the world. 

Looking at China’s model of development, investment in human capital, and capitalism under government control, an exceptional increase in economic prosperity appears possible, even if not environmentally sustainable.  Just 35 years ago 3/4s of China’s population lived in extreme poverty by world standards. Today it’s down to 1 percent.

China’s investment of trillions of dollars on its global ‘One belt, One road’ policy while minimizing in state corruption, may be a wise investment.  For now, loan recipient nations and their people appear to be more favorable to China’s long term economic and national security goals. And less favorable of ours.

US leadership in funding the 17 global Sustainable Development Goals could be a way to short circuit China’s global economic outreach and dampen its environmental shortcomings at the same time.  Unfortunately our leader is taking the US in the opposite direction.

Amazingly, there is an abundance of economic resources that could be used for this wise investment.  And it not need come out of US taxpayers’ pockets.  It could be funded by the money stashed by corrupt foreign leaders who skimmed billions from aid money originally targeted for improving the lives of their own people.  And the super-rich capitalists, business owners, and crime cartels that use the same offshore accounts to stash their ill-gotten assets. 

In a January 2017 Washington Post article “Five myths about Kleptocracy”, By Natalie Duffy and Nate Sibley (both researchers at Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative) highlighted a 2012 report estimating there was at least $32 trillion available in private offshore accounts from these sources. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-kleptocracy/2017/01/04/42b30d72-c78f-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html 

Another article ( February 2017) by Martin Kenney “Put our own Tax Havens in Order, America”  stated that  “The U.S. holds 20 percent of the global market for financial services for non-residents with foreign assets of $16.75 trillion (2013), and foreign direct investment of $3 trillion (2014). http://www.fcpablog.com/blog/2017/4/5/martin-kenney-put-your-own-tax-havens-in-order-america.html#sthash.IiaU0HjG.dpufhttp://www.fcpablog.com/blog/2017/4/5/martin-kenney-put-your-own-tax-havens-in-order-america.html

Freezing and seizing some or most of these ill-gotten gains could fund the 17 SDGs and put humanity on a path of increased security, human freedom and sustainable prosperity - for generations to come.

An arguably bias view of corruption from the top within the US government go to:  https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/news/2018/01/16/444997/cost-corruption-waste-abuse-president-trumps-cabinet/

We will not be able to make America great, secure, free or prosperous without first ending the worst aspects of corruption as well as the worst aspects of global poverty, injustices, and environmental destruction.

The US government won’t do this unless ‘we the people’ demand it.   If we don’t do it soon, we may not be able to do it at all.  Some things that are broken, don’t get fixed. 

George H.W. Bush’s recent funeral brought back memories of the collapse of the Soviet Union.  He was praised today in the Washington Post for a speech he never gave.  When the Berlin Wall fell he never touted that ‘we won’ the Cold war as many had expected. It’s rumored he didn’t want to instigate an overreaction to such a taunt.   Back then there were a few others who believed the USSR was only the first superpower to fall.   Today it appears they had some reasons for their assertion.