NO Washington Post mention of Dec. 10th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the Sustainable Development Goals so far.

 

Dear Editor,  (you’ve had 3 days to alert me of any interest printing this letter.  I’m assuming you have none. And your paper has had zero mention of either UDHR or SDGs in all of December.)

 

George Will must get tired of always being right. In his “Two parties. Two spending solutions that won’t work” he offered phenomenal math evidence proving his point.  But he overlooked the fundamental principle of cost prevention.

Our persistent budget deficit and tsunami of US debt reflects a lack of will in our election sensitive reactionary government, because voters persist in electing who ever reacts the best to their party’s pet issue.   Meanwhile any wise investments in prevention are rarely seen. 

Will’s article was printed on Dec. 10^th, 2023, the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was created after the horrors of World War II because those surviving clearly felt the need of preventing another war, genocide, or the use of WMD.  They believed the protect human rights was vital to this end.  But the UN was never given such power. And nations to this day fallen short of doing.  And humanity is now suffering the consequences with new national security threats like pandemics, environmental destruction, refugee flows, violent extremism, and populist leaders incapable of dealing effectively with any of these mounting pressures.  

Meanwhile, Mr. Will and the Washington Post failed to spotlight the one alternative we now have.  Buying them - by achieving the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. 

Last June, Bank of America Chair & CEO, Brian Moynihan spoke about the state of the economy, the U.S. financial system, and capitalism on C-span.   He said, ‘the SDGs will cost approximately’ “$6 trillion annually”. “Governments are too debt burdened” and “charity is insufficient”.  “Business leaders” “like the oil companies” and others need to step up and prioritize a balancing of ‘short-term gains’ with ‘long term interests’.  ‘Profits must be good for business and society down to the community level’.  “Capitalism” “requires a greater purpose than making more profit.’

* Interview hosted by the City Club of Cleveland.  Posted on C-span.  Program ID:  529044-1  https://www.c-span.org/video/?529044-1/bank-america-ceo-remarks-city-club-cleveland

The cost savings in blood and treasure from taking care of nature and people should be self-evident.   The costs of preparing for the consequences, or even building resilience in preparation for the preventable, is going to be deadly expensive.