Panama Papers: The tip of an un-melting Iceberg.

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 you read nothing else in this report please read pages 22-25 (Box 0.1) “The world needs to revamp international tax cooperation”.  https://www.2030spotlight.org/sites/default/files/spot2018/Spotlight_2018_web.pdf

2.      Panama Papers (2018 on Hulu) https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-panama-papers  1hr 40 min.  Producer Alex Winter   

3.      The Panama Papers (2016) available on Amazon Prime Video: http://amzn.eu/3GKFvAE  Rent or buy on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-panama-papers/id1321018151?mt=6&ign-mpt=uo%3D4  .  Or Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/The_Panama_Papers?id=pdOHmbOC_c8 .

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.