Gingrich plan for "dramatic shift in American political and Government system"

 Dear Editor, (Not printed in WTimes.  Submitted April 21, 2022)

I look forward to Newt Gingrich’s three additional columns calling “for a dramatic shift in American political and government system” (An American majority, not a Republican majority, April 21, 2022).  He gained my solid support when he publicly apologized six months prior to Sept. 11, 2001, for his Contract for America proposal to “eliminate” our federal government’s “Department of Education.  He went on that day to suggest that we ‘not only pay teachers more, but we should also be paying students to learn.’

As one of the seven Republicans on President Clinton’s three bipartisan reports on “US National Security in the 21^st Century” he and others were unanimously convinced that the top future national security threat to the US homeland was terrorism.  And that ‘Americans should prepare to die in large numbers on American soil’.   And, our second greatest threat was a lack of education in our High Schools and Colleges.  They were not yielding a reliable supply of educated citizens, scientists, and engineers capable of building and operating the weapons systems we would need to give the rapid changes in technology that were coming.  Nor the economic base needed for affording the advanced system essential for defending our nation’s security, or effectively running our government agencies for all other needs.

Unfortunately, the majority of Congress and the American public ignored these clear and uncontested warnings.  Since then, other clear warnings have also been ignored. So much so, that a survey of our nation’s top national security experts two years before Trump’s election, concluded that our own “government dysfunction” was our nation’s second greatest threat.  Terrorism was again first.  China, Russia, Iran, N. Korea and Climate change were lower.  So much for surveys.

But I have no reason to doubt Mr. Gingrich’s surveys.  I sincerely look forward to his proposed solutions to “permanently change” our increasingly dysfunctional system so we can finally form “a more perfect

union” and at least improve on, if not achieve the six intentions stated in the following 25 words of our Constitution’s Preamble. 

No fly zone now! Or forever live with nuclear blackmail.

What is happening in Ukraine is worse than war.  It is our future.  It justifies war crimes and genocide because Russia has nuclear weapons.  This is horrifically wrong.  It must stop immediately by declaring a no-fly zone over Ukraine’s territory.  Any missiles, artillery shells, drones, or bullets coming across its sovereign borders will be met with equal force in retaliation at its source.  

If Putin escalates with a nuclear weapon, Mosco will receive the equivalent megatons.  If his followers are serious about Russia owning Ukraine, they will need to prove it with their collective communist blood.  Allowing this nuclear blackmail will never end well.   Allowing the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people must never be acceptable by any nation.  Ever.

We in the western world must finally decide.   Will we persist in putting the protection of national sovereignty above the protection of fundamental inalienable human rights?  Or end this persistent UN dilemma that was insane from the start.  More wars, genocides, and nuclear blackmail are inevitable.

Rarely in history do we have a chance to stand for what we really believe.  Will it be Liberty and justice for all?  Or no justice.  And only liberty for nations with nuclear weapons - regardless of how many innocent lives they decide to slaughter.

Nuclear blackmail must stop now.  Let’s see if Putin’s comrades are willing to die for his glory.  Or should we go on wasting trillions of dollars and millions more innocent lives in an endless Cold war with all sides losing?   Mutually Assured Decay. 

Why are Populist leaders more popular? And democracies in decline?

If freedom is to win on this planet then freedom-loving people must remain secure.  And we who are still free need to unite like Ukrainians.   Not for peace, but to sustainably maximize human freedom and security (the only legitimate purpose of government according to Thomas Paine in Common Sense) globally.   Peace is just the period when warring sides rearm while ignoring the fundamental causes of war. 

And while trying to understand these causes...freedom lovers will need better weapons to enforce this universal will of ‘we the people’.   This ultimate civilized ideal. 

 

And need to ensure more people every day will join with us in this cause.    Unfortunately, most of the world’s population remains on the fence regarding support for Ukraine or Putin.  That could change overnight.  And that mostly depends on how much truth the majority of people in those other nations receive and the freedom they feel to express it, without fear.  

 

President Putin has unintentionally woken the world to this global dilemma.   Those of us who are free and want to remain so must be more concerned about ensuring with certainty that Ukraine defeats all of its invaders.  This will require the world coming together as one, to provide Zelensky’s freedom defenders with the best and the most weapons the free world can provide.

 

This is not pro-war.  It’s not even pro-democracy.  Elections to choose our leaders are nice.  But not nearly as important as the protection of fundamental human rights and sustainable human security.

 

Trump and Putin were both elected.  And for the last decade, populists are winning more elections.  Often free and fair elections.  Some authoritarian-leaning winners can then rig the next election, repress freedoms, and/or alter the nation’s system of laws to pay off those that helped them achieve power.

 

Over the last 16 years, freedoms within democracies have been slipping and falling in over 60 nations globally.  Freedom House website states that “In every region of the world, democracy is under attack by populist leaders and groups that reject pluralism and demand unchecked power to advance the particular interests of their supporters, usually at the expense of minorities and other perceived foes.”  In it’s newest report Nations in Transit 2021 it “finds that attacks on democratic institutions are spreading faster than ever in Europe and Eurasia, and coalescing into a challenge to democracy itself.”  

 

Ultimately, for sustainable peace and protection of freedoms, so-called democracies must deliver the benefits of free self-government to their people. To restore trust in such democracies all citizens must be presented with tangible results.   Together this could build increasing support for the shared mission of defending civilized ideals of freedom and sustainable security in this increasingly hostile world.

 

The problem.  The Western world has been protecting people.   And democracies have not dealt sufficiently with the concerns of most people in many nation’s populations. Nearly everywhere, the rich have gotten richer and the poor poorer.  Money influences those who are elected, and they quietly rig their nation’s economic systems to primary benefit themselves.  Meanwhile, the misery of the rest is largely increased by a flawed UN system of independent nations that are inability to address globally interdependent problems. 

The pandemic, violent weather patterns, wealth disparities, terrorism, and refugee problems exacerbated by wars and all these problems above cannot be solved with independent agencies within independent governments.   Thus strong authoritarian leaders or governments appear to offer better solutions.    

 

A recent Russian news broadcast advocated for Russia to “help Trump win again” in 2024.  And increasingly the US electorate remains lethally divided.   And unable to effectively deal with our immigration crisis (mostly fueled by past flawed US foreign policy fighting communism, and now current US immigration policy fighting illicit drugs and terrorism.  Both drugs and terrorism are influenced by a sick US culture that values 'feeling good' over 'doing good', and a flawed US foreign policy that prefers 'looking good' (to US voters) over 'being good' (to our southern neighbors and middle east religious majorities).

It's liberty and justice for all.  Or more of the same we are now experiencing.

 

Peace is not what Ukraine or the world needs. "Freedom must have better weapons than Tyranny".

 Dear Editor, (Submitted to Wpost 4-14-22.  No responses as of 4-18-22.  This version has been slightly edited taking it over the Post’s normal word limit).

Gary Abernathy (Can’t we ‘Imagine” a better song for peace? 4-13-22) may not be able to imagine one, but peace shouldn’t be anyone’s highest aspiration.  Russia makes this horrifically clear.  What Ukrainians are really fighting for is freedom.  And what the world needs is to maximize humanity's freedoms and security.   The UN Security Council and its Human Rights structures can’t do that.   Thomas Paine emphasized these two essentials as the only legitimate purpose of government in his pamphlet Common Sense.  Justice is at the root of peace.   Not disarmament or powerful militaries.  And peace isn’t even our greatest threat.

Check the math.  Preventable deaths and infirmities directly related to pandemics and other infectious diseases have killed and debilitated ten times more people than wars, revolutions, genocides, and homicides combined.   Such acts of violence killed approximately 250 million people in the last century with two world wars and multiple genocides.  About the time Lennon wrote “Imagine” Smallpox alone had killed over 300 million people.  Not long after his song hit the top of the charts the world did “come together as one”.  And smallpox was globally eradicated.

Yes, Mr. Abernathy, “freedom” is worth dying for.  And as President Zelensky recently said, “freedom must be better armed than tyranny”.  Freedom lovers now need to “come together as one” and eradicate war from the planet with a planetary justice system.  But this will require engineering a planetary management system using science.  This unique method depends on words meaning something specific globally and agreed to by all.  Politics, religion, and economics each fail this test.   Words from these can mean anything the speaker or writer wants.   Albert Einstein recognized that humanity's faith in science must be combined with religion’s ‘golden rule’. A morality of justice that could lead to world peace.  But more importantly global health and environmental sustainability.  These ideals can only be achieved by human freedom.  Freedoms are only sustained by responsible and virtuous people.  Sadly, we may need more wars to achieve this ideal of freedom for generations that follow.  If they are not first killed by nuclear or biological weapons or undermined by the destruction of nature’s systems that sustain our environment. 

Hopelessness a source. Hunger a lost cause.

"Hope, in reality, is the worse of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."  Friedrich Nietzsche 

Human life appears to have lost its value to humanity at large.  Perhaps all life has.   Our very meaning of human existence appears abandoned.  Humanity’s inhumane response to the butchery in Ukraine and the inevitable consequences of that accelerating insanity will spread to Ethiopia’s 150 million souls currently on the edge of starvation.  Then billions more will suffer as high food prices rise and spread hunger, malnutrition, and related infectious diseases around this abundant planet.  

This is just a shortlist of spirit-numbing proof that stands in stunning contrast to those of us in the US distraught by higher gas prices -- as our home planet slowly cooks.  Most people functionally drone on - largely indifferent or grossly ignorant of the inevitable further consequences to come that will diminish their children’s future.  Everyone’s bloodline will inevitably suffer from more preventable deaths due to extreme weather events, wars, genocides, pandemics, poverty, and hunger - as current US rates of obesity, suicide, addiction, mass shootings, homelessness, infections, and loneliness continue to rise. 

OMFG!  We appear to be unworthy of this precious planet God hath bequeathed us.  How did we decide not to abide by “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”?  This profound set of laws that mama nature and our heavenly father offered.   Oh yes!  She/He gave us freedom.   Then assumed we would develop the wisdom to be responsible and virtuous in using it.    We haven’t.   We chose comfort, ease, selfishness, looking good, and feeling good instead.   And now our species is likely to be aborted due to a simple unintended consequence of our nervous system’s evolution.   Our brain acquired a ‘mind’ within it.  A mind with profound powers of creativity and problem-solving.  But lacking the foresight to use it for our species' survival.    

Instead, the mind took a dead-end turn away from its original purpose of solving problems.  It started to identify as a person.  And then devolved into becoming the master of the body and spirit.   Now the mind primarily uses both its creativity and identity to defend itself and unsustainable concepts like ‘peace through strength’, ‘market forces will solve the problem’, and other political, religious, and economic concepts that will only lead our lives on earth deeper into chaos.    Our problem-solving mind would have to be delusional to believe that things are going to get better without a massive shift in humanity’s thinking and behavior.

Einstein observed this mental pathology when he defined “nationalism” as “the measles of humanity”.    “We the People” of the United States and the UN validate this in both our Constitution and the UN Charter.  In both, we have cemented into these institutions our own flawed laws that put the protection of national sovereignty (International Law) and corporate profits (unregulated capitalism) superior to the protection of inalienable human rights - and our planet’s life support system.

Our mind (that voice in our head) is now ‘who we think we are”.  An identity, instead of being a human with a profoundly powerful tool to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our global life support systems.  And now we are hating and killing each other over our completing concepts.  Mass killing!

Our future?  It will likely be the evolution of weapon systems that our minds cleverly created that will terminate our rapid growth on earth.   This unintended suicidal mindset will inevitably end whatever level of civilization we have left.  A civilization that offered unprecedented human comforts, but only to the greedy and the lucky, right up until it falls.

Most people in all nations of the world and even Ukraine (as brave as they are) are still addicted to this flawed human mindset.  We are more bound to our nationality or our tribal instincts (political, economic, cultural, professional, ethnic...) than to our species' survival here on spaceship earth.   

What Ukrainians do represent and appear to grasp (given their brutal reality) is that this point in time offers humanity what may be our last chance to change - our minds.   Will it be heaven on earth for all?  Or mutually assured destruction followed by our species' likely extinction? 

“Never again” and our pledge of “Liberty and justice for all” may eventually become true.   Planet earth will be free of humans and our mental flaws.  

At this point, it would not be smart to put your money on our survival.  But it would be wise to put one’s mind to work solving this mental illness. 

As Vaclav Havel once suggested, ‘Hope is not the expectation that things will change. It’s knowing what needs to change - and working on it.  Regardless of how it turns out.’ 

GAO newest report. OMG must be read by everyone!!!

The GAO (perhaps the most trusted and respected US federal agency) appears to be far ahead of policymakers, average citizens, and advocacy groups regarding US national security threats and the “urgent” need to address some practical root causes.  The 33 page report...  “Trends Affecting Government and Society” can be downloaded here:  https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-3sp.pdf 

 The Washington Post summary:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/gao-report-trends-government/    Going to this website you may be able to enter your own comments...

 

GAO highlights a dozen urgent trends D.C. should prepare to confront:  From domestic and global extremism to racial and ethnic disparities, the watchdogs urges a proactive approach.  By Joe Davidson  (April 9, 2022 print edition).

 

Gene L. Dodaro’s nearly 49 years with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) gives him an eagle-eye view of a vexing, long-standing problem with the federal sector.

“We've been too reactive to major events,” Dodaro, whose title is comptroller general of the United States, said in an interview. “Once we focus on something, we do a good job. But in many cases, we focus too late.”

Now, GAO, the nonpartisan congressional agency that is the government’s primary watchdog, is looking to the future.

In a new report, “Trends Affecting Government and Society,” it identifies a dozen areas of greatest national concern where “GAO can better be prepared to respond.” That includes, Dodaro said, preparing a federal workforce to meet those challenges.

Certain themes link the trends, demonstrating their interconnectedness. While “racial and ethnic disparities” is its own section, that theme, along with socioeconomic status, is cited in seven of the 12 categories. Mistrust in government, sometimes fueled by misinformation and lies from high places, is found in three.

With colorful, engaging diagrams and layouts that provide more energy than usual for generally dry federal documents, the agency presented these trends, along with warnings and uncertainties:

·         National Security: Global and Domestic Threats: “The U.S. is not sufficiently prepared for threats from events such as pandemics and climate change, or threats from technologies … The war in Ukraine underscores the potential for threats that challenge the international order and jeopardize global security” … “On the domestic front … racial, ethnic, and ideologically motivated domestic violent extremism poses the most lethal and persistent terrorism-related threat to the homeland and must be treated as a national priority.”

·         Fiscal Sustainability and Debt: “The federal government faces numerous fiscal exposures not fully accounted for … such as public health emergencies, global military conflicts, natural disasters, and unexpected economic conditions,” and “key trust funds supporting health care and Social Security programs will be depleted in 15 years or less.”

• Preparing for Catastrophic Biological Incidents: “Progress to enhance trust in government and science and overcome disparities in health care may be uneven and challenging … The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the devastating effects of biological incidents, yet future incidents could be even more catastrophic and disruptive.”
• Racial and Ethnic Disparities: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 56 percent of the population is projected to be a race other than White by 2060 … The effects of these disparities are intertwined and far-reaching … By some estimates, racial and ethnic disparities in the U.S. health care system amount to approximately $93 billion in excess medical care costs due to poorer health for racial and ethnic minorities … Addressing racial and ethnic disparities will be a persistent challenge facing the country and its policymakers.”
• Science, Technology, and the Innovation Economy: “[T]here is a critical need to modernize aspects of the U.S. intellectual property and technology transfer systems … To maintain global leadership and competitiveness, the U.S. must invest in and grow a strong, talented, and diverse STEM workforce, and seek ways to ensure that the benefits of U.S. innovation flow more broadly to the American people.”
• Racial and Ethnic Disparities: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 56 percent of the population is projected to be a race other than White by 2060 … The effects of these disparities are intertwined and far-reaching … By some estimates, racial and ethnic disparities in the U.S. health care system amount to approximately $93 billion in excess medical care costs due to poorer health for racial and ethnic minorities … Addressing racial and ethnic disparities will be a persistent challenge facing the country and its policymakers.”
• Science, Technology, and the Innovation Economy: “[T]here is a critical need to modernize aspects of the U.S. intellectual property and technology transfer systems … To maintain global leadership and competitiveness, the U.S. must invest in and grow a strong, talented, and diverse STEM workforce, and seek ways to ensure that the benefits of U.S. innovation flow more broadly to the American people.”
• Security Implications for an Increasingly Digital World: “Extremist groups have increasingly used social media to promote their ideologies … It is unclear how law enforcement, legislatures, and the courts will balance preserving civil liberties against using monitoring technology to identify and counter illicit activities.”
• Changes to How and Where We Work: “More than half the low-wage workers currently in declining occupations will need to shift to occupations in higher wage brackets that require different skills. Data indicate that automation and the effects of the pandemic disproportionately affect certain groups, including women, Black, Hispanic, low-income, and less educated workers … By 2025, automation could displace 85 million jobs while creating 97 million new ones requiring different skills.”
• Future of Global Supply Chains: “Foreign adversaries attempt to exploit global supply chains to obtain technologies critical to national defense … The uncertainty caused by U.S.-Chinese trade relations may raise products’ costs by forcing firms to maintain higher inventories or seek alternative sourcing to avoid tariffs.”

·         Online Learning and Technology in Education: “Many students lack reliable access to the internet to participate online, especially low-income students and students of color … The extent of pandemic-related learning loss, especially for students with already-unmet academic needs — often students of color and low-income students — is not yet fully known … If these students do not reengage with learning, it could adversely affect the skill levels of the nation’s workforce and exacerbate disparities in access to educational and employment opportunities.”

·         Evolving Health Technologies: “[I]nnovations merge biology and technology to restore and enhance human abilities … advanced prosthetics that may allow users to feel their prosthetic devices … 3D printed organs to potentially reduce the incidence of transplant rejection … smartphone applications that may identify mental health crises … virtual reality that may be used to treat pain.”

·         Sustainable Development: “[R]equires thinking in a new way about the links across sometimes competing social, environmental, and economic priorities … Anxiety over misinformation has increased and trust in institutions has declined, which can affect citizens’ confidence in climate and other science information they receive.”

·         Evolving Space Environment: “The number of active satellites in orbit has more than tripled over the past five years … Current law may create gaps in oversight authority for non-traditional space activities, such as space-tourism passenger safety. … Increased use of space has wide-ranging benefits but may outpace U.S. policies and approaches.”

Dodaro provided two examples showing the importance of being proactive in government. He said GAO identified cybersecurity as a high-risk area across the entire government in 1997, the first time any issue was so designated. It remains a high-risk problem.

“In 2015, we identified the need to develop an airline safety plan for communicable diseases,” he said. “It wasn’t done.” Five years later, the pandemic grounded most air travel.

Those examples and the new trends GAO identified provide lessons for Uncle Sam — if he’s willing to learn.

 

Lessons we must learn! From Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine:

 Nuclear weapons and MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) will not prevent or stop wars and atrocities.

The most powerful military in the world cannot end this tendency without using war.

A coalition of democracies is unable to stop wars without waging one.

Our international system is fundamentally broken and must be reinvented.

And, our dependence on oil must end.

Humanity has only two ways to maximize and sustain human freedoms and security for generations to come.   Risk WW III by waging a non-nuclear war against a nation whose leader choose war over human rights, freedoms, prosperity, security, and sustainability.  Or.  Seek a truce and negotiate a peace that will only embolden other nations’ dreams of forceful border expansion by brutally crushing any human resistance.

We are now faced with a choice between a united world.  One where prioritizing human freedom and security is the only legitimate purpose of government (thank you Thomas Paine!).  Or, a divided world with increasing loss of lives, freedom, security, and precious earthly resources while perpetual completion for world dominance ends everything for everyone.

In short, ‘the rule of law’ or ‘the law of force’. 

Those choosing the ‘rule of law’ have great difficulty in grasping the fact that such 'law' will need force to be enforced. And that force can only be applied justly to protect human freedom and security.

And those choosing the ‘law of force’ know that having maximum force is needed.  Along with the willingness to risk everything for their own dominance.

Backstory:  Anne Applebaum, a very intelligent person emersed in the Potomac mindset expressed her perspective on this existential problem this way in The Week magazine.   “For Ukraine and the West there’s only one viable outcome, said Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. The Ukrainians are fighting not just for sovereignty but for a “set of universal ideas” - democracy, the rule of law, and an international order“ where disputes are resolved by institutions and not warfare.”  The stakes couldn’t be higher. If Putin wins, every former Soviet republic and NATO nations like Poland will be in danger. To deter further NATO involvement, Putin is stoking fears he’ll use chemical weapons and nuclear weapons, but for the West, “there is only one rule: We cannot be afraid.” We must focus only on “a single goal”: making certain Ukraine prevails.

I couldn’t agree more with her summary, but it is incomplete.  It will not be settled with any treaty.

Ms. Applebaum's view reflects a profoundly flawed system inherent in a Potomac/US government (and ‘American’) mindset.  A mindset never questioned by elites.  “National sovereignty is the cat's meow and must be protected using ‘Peace through strength!’ 

For decades Americans have taken pride in our universal ideas of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.  But ‘peace via strength’ was never one of them.  Peace (or rather more correctly understood as ‘human freedom and security’ has always been.   And these can only be sustained as a function of justice for all.   And this requires the universal protection of fundamental inalienable human rights.   These were the ideas offered in our Declaration of Independence.  Ignored in our Constitution until partially upheld by a civil war killing hundreds of thousands of our own.  

And we have yet to make this universal ideal a functional priority in our foreign policy.  Instead, that priority has always been the protection of national sovereignty through strength.  How’s that been working out for us?   When will we wake up and grasp the fact that this human principle of defending national sovereignty is fundamentally flawed?  And only capable of leading to Armageddon.

From the creation of our Constitution, we have worshiped it.  And repeatedly failed to keep our flag pledge of ‘liberty and justice for all’.   We praise democracy as a solution.   But it has never been one.   Thomas Jefferson defined democracy as “Two wolves and a lamb” deciding what to have for lunch.  And a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”   Westerner’s love of democracy continues to ignore the fact that democracies are in decline because strong populists leaders appeal to a majority.  Masses who feel betrayed by weak leaders and indecisive governments.  And policies that protect the rich but have not protected them from losses of freedom, health, prosperity, and safety.   Over the last 7 decades, our elected leaders have protected an ‘international order’ cemented into place by the United Nations Charter.  It has only accelerated disorder and has never been consistent in resolving disputes between nations.  It cannot be relied on to stop wars, genocides, and corruption.  Or make sufficient investments in preventing lethal poverty or environmental destruction, or responding effectively to natural disasters.

Western leaders always champion the “Rule of Law”.  But there is no agreed-upon definition of this three-word phrase.  It allows laws that rarely protect everyone’s human rights, basic freedoms, or humanity's life support system – the environment.  Free and fair elections sound nice and important.  They offer most people hope.   But this system valuing human participation in government formation and power has never actually achieved a consensus on “a set of universal ideas”.   

As Ms. Applebaum states.  ‘We must focus only on “a single goal”.  Ukraine must prevail! But it must be with the single goal of establishing an enforceable consensus on a set of universal ideals.  Ideals that put human freedoms, security, and a sustainable environment above the protection of national sovereignty and the right of any nation to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whomever it wants within its own borders.  And can go beyond its borders if it has nuclear weapons or believes its military is stronger than the will of another nation’s people to live free and prosper for generations to come.

The choice is simple.  It’s also urgent.