President Carter's greatest contribution ignored.

 Dear Editor, (Submitted 2-27-28.  Below is their edited version printed the next day).

Tom Basile’s praise in “Jimmy Carter’s lessons for leaders” (WTimes 2-27-23) missed one profoundly important focus of his Administration.  His commitment to humanity.  President Reagan removed the solar panels Carter installed on the White House.  And then most elected officials since then have ignored the clear warnings detailed in Carter’s 1980 bipartisan “Presidential Commission on World Hunger.”  Hunger is mentioned more times in the bible than any other earthly issue.

The commission concluded “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 [but] this combination of problems now threatens the national security of all countries just as surely as advancing armies or nuclear arsenals.”

Commissioners also agreed “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... Military force is ultimately useless in the absence of the global security that only coordinated international progress toward social justice can bring.”

Since 1980 US policymakers have ignored this wisdom. And today we are experiencing the consequences of increases in “diseases”, “international terrorism”, “war”, “environmental problems” and “other human rights problems” (refugees, genocide, human trafficking…). These global pressures now fuel anti-democratic populist movements everywhere.  

Other prestigious reports have since 1980 offered similar warnings.  The failure of my baby boomer generation in creating sufficient political will is primarily to blame.  The highest priority of today’s generation should be urgently prioritizing the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).   The evolution of pathogens, weapons, war, corruption, environmental distresses, misinformation, failing democracies, growing economic disparities, and debt burden are outpacing our political will to change. This is literally and globally unsustainable. 

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Below is the Washington Times letter they actually printed...edited down. 

Printed in today’s Washington Times (2-28-23): 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/feb/27/letter-editor-hunger-poverty-heart-problems/

Hunger, poverty at heart of our problems

Tom Basile’s praise for the 39th U.S. president in “Jimmy Carter’s lessons for leaders” (Web, Feb. 24) misses one profoundly important focus of the Carter administration: Mr. Carter’s commitment to our future.

Most elected officials since have ignored the clear warnings detailed in Mr. Carter’s 1980 bipartisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger, which concluded that the “most potentially explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living.” Commissioners agreed 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 1980, U.S. policymakers have ignored this wisdom. And today, we are experiencing the consequences of increases in disease, international terrorism, war, environmental problems and other human rights problems (refugees, genocide, human trafficking). These global pressures now fuel anti-democratic populist movements everywhere.  

The failure of my baby boomer generation in creating sufficient political will is primarily to blame. The highest priority of today’s generation should be the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. The evolution of pathogens, weapons, war, corruption, environmental distresses, misinformation, failing democracies, growing economic disparities and debt burden are outpacing our political will to change. This is literally and globally unsustainable. 

 

CHUCK WOOLERY

Rockville MD

 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- George Santayana  [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás] (1863-1952) Spanish-born philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist   Source: "Reason from Common Sense", 1905