My generation's failure. How we got to this chaotic point in our nation's history.

 My generation's failure to do what was needed got us to this chaotic point in our nation's history.

 

At sports events, we pledged before our flag “liberty and justice for all” thousands of times without voting for it.

On Thanksgiving, we thanked the Lord for all we have...and then ignored the story of the Good Samaritan.

We won the cold war... then turned inward...instead of out.

We asked God to Bless America and then ignored “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”

And now nearly half of us can’t grasp the simple concept of ‘Truths we hold to be self-evident”.

 

Almost a year ago to this day, those who stormed the Capitol did so believing lies of someone ordained by the laws of our Constitution and pledged on a Bible to protect it.   Abraham Lincoln may have endorsed a radical change in the Constitution.  But he would be appalled at this unpatriotic logic.   He wrote that our Declaration of Independence was our “Apple of Gold”.  And our Constitution it’s “frame of silver”.  Many have sworn to protect it...instead of the freedom and security God intended for all human beings.

 

The single greatest factor motivating last year’s insurrectionists (mostly white, gainfully employed, middle-aged males) was fear.  Fear they were going to be replaced by others if our nation actually lived up to its founding ideal of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” via “justice for all”. 

Today many fear we are on the precipice of another civil war. We all know things are going to get worse before they get better... 

 

My generation was warned 42 years ago by a bipartisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger.  We failed and are now reaping the consequences.   Sadly, the only thing we remember about the US President who initiated that profound and prophetic commission is ‘inflation’.

 

“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.

 

The Commission details warned about “diseases”, “international terrorism”, “war”, “environmental problems” and “other human rights problems” (refugees, genocide, human trafficking…).  Each threatens our lives, our freedoms, and our prosperity.   Today these consequences fuel fear and generate populist movements.  Movements that make it impossible to peacefully change the course. 

 

The commission specifically warned that “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… 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.”

 

It 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.”

 

Our failure to focus on the protection of human rights in combatting terrorism after 9-11 has cost the US twice as many lives since then.  And over six trillion in US tax dollars.  These costs will keep climbing.   The US economic cost of Covid-19 alone cost six trillion in just 4 months.  And approximately six times the number of American lives lost during 19 years fighting terrorism. 

 

It should be a self-evident truth that Covid-19 and most other threats we face today are largely the result of ignoring this report's recommendations.   Dozens of other prestigious, bipartisan studies and academic reports have followed since then.   Each report clearly documented the direct and indirect links between world hunger, conflicts, human rights violations, environmental degradation, refugees, and increasing global instability.   Accelerating threats to our nation’s security, economy, and political stability.   

 

Addressing these threats requires a comprehensive global action plan.   The good news -an affordable and achievable plan exists today.  It is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals most nations agreed upon in 2015.    Unfortunately, most Americans are unaware of this action agenda.  An agenda intended to tackle the root causes of the growing chaos we are now witnessing.  Interdependent problems, by definition, cannot be solved with independent agencies or countries.  What is missing is the political will.  The will to do what’s right  -- and make adequate investments in sustainable local, national, and planetary health for all.   Working together humanity has the potential for maximining human freedom and security globally while protecting nature.  And this can be achieved for dozens of generations to come.

 

Time is not on our side.  The evolution of pathogens, weapons, and war is outpacing our will to voluntarily change.   This by definition is literally…unsustainable.   Things change.  Can we?