The un-melting iceberg consists of 1%ers, crime cartels,
kleptocrats, oligarchs and terrorists and it threatens every ship-of-state and all
passengers, rich and poor. There are no
lifeboats on spaceship earth and no rescue teams. This killer iceberg of corruption and
illicit money has been sinking capitalism, socialism, democracy, and global
development efforts for decades. The
rich and criminal have rigged the global economic system to hide their
wealth. More than enough wealth to fund
the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that much of their illicit
resources were originally destined for good use (education, health care, vital
infrastructure…). The SDGs are the only
comprehensive, globally agreed upon plan to address humankind's most fundamental
needs. Needs which are essential to
prevent the growing number of threats that are now killing millions of people a
year - with the growing possibility of killing hundreds of millions as well as
crippling our global life support systems that we have largely taken for
granted, and the others have taken for profit.
If anyone doubts these assertions or the depth and severity
of their implications, encourage them to use the resources below (a report and
two documentary movies) to challenge whatever cognitive dissidence their minds
may be harboring.
1.
Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2018 www.2030spotlight.org This 160-page
report by civil society experts explores new policy pathways for overcoming
obstacles (and contradictions) in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
The main message of this report (the
most comprehensive independent assessment of the implementation of the 2030
Agenda) is that “The world is off-track in terms of achieving sustainable
development and fundamental policy changes are necessary to unleash the
transformative potential of the SDGs.”
The
report stresses the “need for more coherent fiscal and regulatory policies and
a whole-of-government approach towards sustainability… [and promoting] policies
that are genuinely coherent in the interest of sustainable development, human
rights and gender justice.” The 17 “SDGs
must not be hidden in the niche of environment and development policies but
must be declared a top priority by all heads of government.” “The national strategies for sustainable
development should… constitute the overarching framework for all
policies.”
Seen in
the context of worsening global conditions - humankinds meeting of these goals should
be seen by every person and every nation in the context of sustainable human
and national security.
If an alternative source of
funding for the SDGs is not found it is not a gamble to say the goals will not
be achieved -- and that the consequences to humankind and the environment will
be staggering. We are gambling with our
children’s future if we don’t. Governments
can no longer afford waiting for and then responding to pandemics, climate
change, refugees, extinction of species, loss of our antibiotic arsenal,
cyberthreats to our democracy, growing global economic inequality leading to
instability, MWD proliferation, genocides, terrorism and other human rights
violations (see 1980 Presidential Commission warnings below). New
and adequate investments in human capital and environmental protection are
required for achieving the SDG’s. We can
pay now to prevent problems or pay dearly for the consequences in lives and
dollars later. As responsible citizens
we can no longer accept the burdening of future generations with unsustainable
debts (economic and environmental). We
must come together soon.
The Opportunity: If one piece of federal legislation is
created in the US to fund the SDGs (freezing and seizing illicit offshore
funding and blocking more tax avoidance schemes) it has the potential to bring
most progressive organizations together into an unprecedented ‘Movement of
Movements’ (MoM). Working together,
instead of competing over federal funding for their favorite issue or movement)
it should be possible to create sufficient political will to roll over any
“America First” resistance.
Prevention must be a
priority. April 7, World Health Day is
the perfect day make the case that it is ‘health for all (people, environment,
democracy, economy…) or there will be security consequences for all.
For more in formation on how to
mobilize leaders in your community to begin building a MoM go to: https://mobilized.news/worldhealthday/
*“Health
for all by the year 2000” was coined at the United Nations Alma Ata conference
in 1978. They intended for hunger and
most diseases to be defeated by then. In
1980 a US bipartisan Presidential
Commission on World Hunger warned humanity about the potentially
catastrophic costs to our national security in the form of terrorism,
infectious diseases, refugee flows, environment problems, more wars and
revolutions, if we failed to succeed on this fundamental task. In the Commission’s words:
“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...”
“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 … critical global threats ... Calculable or not, [that] 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.” Presidential Commission on
World Hunger, 1980.
Other UN,
US, think tank, NGO reports and commissions since then have echoed similar
warnings. They can no longer be ignored. Let me know if you would wish see the list of
only the reports that I’ve found and studied over the last 4 decades.
