Why did Osama bin Ladin attack the US? Have we still don't value of prevention.

Why did Osama bin Ladin attack us?  Targeting the Pentagon, plus political, and economic structures packed with civilians.  Few average Americans understand or care about his reasoning.  So now, we are still paying the price in blood, oil, and treasure in the Middle East-  and at home.  OBL's logic and rational wasn't a creation of his imagination.  It was a failure of our own according the official 9-11 Commission.  A failure of our imagination. And our terrorized emotions were predicable living in a security bubble that never really existed.  Security has never been a function of military or economic power. Where there is a will to do damage, there is a will to use any technology as a weapon.  A hammer can build a home for the homeless or crush a dozen skulls.  A fuel ladened passenger plane can be use to bring people home, or bring the strongest buildings to the ground.  

Maximizing one's security requires at least three things. And none of these are weapons.  But these three are all connected, just as we all are on our gifted Goldilocks planet.   1.Making more friends and no enemies. 2. This is done by following the golden rule.  3. Being virtuous not vengeful.  

From a global systems level Einstein suggested we have to ways of solving our problems.  Talk it out or fight it out. He and other wise souls have long offered the "rule of law" instead of the "law of war". Einstein also defined "independence" is a "delusion" that exists nowhere in the known universe. And 1776 (months before "the unanimous declaration of thirteen united States of America" was signed with zero mention of independence in its title or text).  Thomas Paine wrote that the only purpose of government (given our need to live with others without violence) was to protect people's freedom and security.  And those who signed the Declaration and the US Constitution were clear that their Constitution was not fit for a non-virtuous people.  It had failed abide by the declaration's foundation of  "Truths" we should all "hold to be "self-evident"-- "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God".  My personal translation of this after working 4.5 decades as a professional Issues Director for several globally focused organization can be summarized in 10 easy to understand unambiguous words.  "Keep people and nature healthy."  "Don't believe everything you think".  

This makes our mental health the most important element of decision making for our species. Without a healthy mind, we cannot have a healthy a body, spirit, family, community, environment, government, economy... And prevention is the key to health.  Had we as a nation had kept our flag pledge of "Liberty and Justice for All" 9-11 would have never happened. 

The greatest US foreign war blunder since Vietnam would not have been our military reaction to the horrendous attacks on Sept, 11, 2001 - by waging a Global Warm Against Terrorism (GWAT).  This only validated the attacker’s self-image as warriors. Instead we could have identifying them as mass murdering criminals and rallied the world in bring them to justice.  We chose the law of force instead of the greater force of the rule of law -- a government established by and for the people, with a justice system that effectively protects their freedoms and their security.  

But, what we have now are more wars, many more mass murdering violent extremists, and damage to nature both here in the US and globally.   Enemies willing to sacrifice their own lives to try and kill US troops and civilians - of the government responsible for killing theirs.  And daily these violent extremists are gaining numbers plus more powerful, affordable, invisible, ubiquitous, and even anonymous technologies that are capable of killing millions.  Or just disrupting ever aspect of our comfortable lives.

It's tragic, that after 9-11 most Americans and US policy makers were truly shocked by the 9-11 ‘surprise attack’.   Most were either unaware or didn’t care of the horrendous death tolls of other innocent souls in post-World War II caused by US wars, conflicts, and murderous covert ‘activities’ globally.  . 

When I first came to Washington to work on global hunger issues in 1988 I had become well aware of our public ignorance of the consequences of many US policies.  Global actions that had terrorized and killed innocent people for decades. Events justified for our national security that left others beyond our shores terrified and angry.  Because of this I was fearful being in Washington DC.  My first job I worked directly across the street from the Hart Senate office building.  My desk was on the second floor of the American Friends Service Committee building looking out a window at that building on a daily basis - and remembering the 1983 Beirut bombing of the US Marine Barracks that killed 241 soldiers.  I occasionally practiced ducking below my desk to avoid any flying glass and debris from a truck bomb that was easy to imagine knowing US history.  Later when Timothy McVeigh killed 168 federal employees including some children in the day care facility on the first floor of that Federal building...I first suspected it was American Indians taking revenge for our nation's murderous crimes against their tribes and theft of their lands. 

But it was in 1980 when approximately 42,000 children were dying every day globally from easily preventable malnutrition and infectious diseases that Jimmy Carter’s bipartisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger changed my world view.  It concluded that if humanity failed to end the worst aspects of this hidden holocaust by the year 2000, its commissioners specifically warned Americans 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.”

In my view, the only legitimate use of the word “Terrorism” is the emotion a parent feels if their child’s life is in danger.  And when a child dies, this is the worst of all human experiences.  There has been a decline in child deaths over the last 4 decades but still 11,000 to 13,000 die daily.  And avoiding that horror would be easy now if there were the political will.  But instead it has gotten easier to ignore and been allow to continue, by ignoring the cuts that are now being made to proven measures to reduce maternal and child mortality rates.  Its a crime these are now climbing again.   

Carter’s 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.”

We had been warned...and thus, today’s world is experiencing the consequences of ignoring this commission’s warnings of increases in “diseases”, “international terrorism”, “war”, “environmental problems” and “other human rights problems” (refugees, genocide, human trafficking…). 

And today's Washington Post opinion pieces and remembrances of 911 25 years later, it appears we have learned nothing. Douglas J. Feith, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute who served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2001 to 2005 made mostly excuses for GWAT with zero mentioned of the persistent warnings before 9-11.    Shockingly in 2001, seven months before the attacks, the 3^rd and final annual report of President Clinton’s bipartisan Commission on National Security in the 21^st Century (also known as the ‘Hart-Rudman’ Commission) was released.  It clearly warned that terrorism was our nation’s greatest threat.  We and US leaders were warned that ‘Americans should prepare to die in large numbers on American soil’.   

It wasn't by luck that on September 10, 2001—the day before the attacks—Senator Joe Biden, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee spoke at the National Press Club about the growing terrorist threat to the United States. And the following morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists turned four commercial airliners into weapons, killing nearly 3,000 people.

With all the earlier warnings this combination is historically shameful.   After multiple senior national-security warnings existed before the attack, the country had failed to take seriously or enacted any of their recommendations to patch up the obvious gaps in our security.   Factually, our government’s 'independent' agencies simply couldn’t imagine our nation’s inevitable vulnerabilities to the inevitable interdependent forces of technology empowered by understandable human passions.  Powerful feelings due to decades of murderous US foreign policy that termed the mass killings of millions of innocent people in other nations as “collateral damage”. 

Combined with our nations new leaders after the year 2000 unwilling to sustain support the global creation of the International Criminal Court - due to fears that a few US policy makers, military leaders, or US troops would be held accountable by a foreign institution for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.  As a Pope once said “No justice. No peace”

Before 9-11 US law forbid the CIA and the FBI to work together to protect US National security.  This still makes our US Constitution’s 4^th Amendment a national suicide clause.  Economic privacy is a freedom that comes with growing security costs.   Laws or beliefs that Americans are ‘independent’ from our government’s freedoms of action are insane.  And “We the people” largely accept that our comforts, carelessness, lack of compassion, and cluelessness are freedoms without consequences -- when they impact the health and lives of billions of people and nature beyond our shores.  This will not end well.

Worse yet, our government already knew that information-sharing was a serious problem before 9/11. The 9/11 Commission later found that separate reviews in 1999, 2000 and 2001 had concluded that information sharing wasn’t occurring adequately. 

October 26, 2001 — USA PATRIOT Act - was one of the first major post-9/11 legislative responses. It substantially broke down the legal barriers that had become known as “the wall” between intelligence and law-enforcement investigations. The 9/11 Commission later concluded that the wall had seriously impeded the investigation of Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Zacarias Moussaoui. 

Then, about 45 days after 9/11, a major part of the information-sharing problem was addressed legislatively.  November 25, 2002 — Homeland Security Act.

Roughly 14½ months after 9/11, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This was substantially along the lines of Hart-Rudman’s recommendation for a centralized homeland-security organization.  The Hart-Rudman idea had already been introduced in Congress before 9/11 but had stalled. 

In 2004 came the 9/11 Commission recommendations.   It concluded that the US needed to go much further. It recommended:

• a National Counterterrorism Center
• a Director of National Intelligence
• a government-wide information-sharing network
• stronger congressional oversight
• better organization of homeland defenses. 

December 17, 2004 — Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act

Congress finally enacted the legislation creating the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and substantially restructuring the intelligence community.

But there is a difference between recognizing a problem and actually changing the system.  In early 2001 Hart-Rudman essentially said ‘The homeland is vulnerable, the government is poorly organized, and we need a fundamentally different national-security structure’ but  was largely ignored or stalled before 9/11. The Washington Post reported just 10 days after the attacks that Hart and Rudman had briefed senior officials and Congress, but their recommendations had received little momentum; the proposed legislation had received only one hearing and then stalled.   Who is to blame.  Who will be held accountable.  Ignorant and comfortable Americans are to blame.  And we are now still avoiding accountability by ignoring why OBL decide to attack us.   

His grievances were not invented out of thin air.  From his point of view and experiences witnessing the abuse of US military power and the impact on the lives of Arabs he made his decision to justify the murder civilians, as the US has done too many times – and continues to this day as justifiable.

In bin Laden’s October 29, 2004 videotaped message, he explicitly connected his decision to attack the US with what he had witnessed during the 1982 Israeli invasion and siege of Lebanon. He said that when he saw the destruction of the towers in Beirut, he thought about destroying towers in America so that Americans would “taste some of what we are tasting.” 

More specifically, he said that the events that affected him directly began in 1982, when America permitted the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and supported it with the U.S. Sixth Fleet. He described seeing destroyed buildings, people killed and injured, and children and women suffering. He then said that the experience produced a determination to “punish the unjust” and that the destruction of the Lebanese towers led him to think about destroying towers in America. 

There’s a connection here that’s easy for many Americans who ignore the news to miss.

1982: Israel invades Lebanon; Beirut is heavily bombarded.

1983: A suicide truck bomber destroys the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans.

1996: Bin Laden explicitly referred to the Beirut attack as an example of American military defeat.

1998: He told an interviewer that the Nairobi embassy bombing was significant because Americans had not experienced such a blow since the bombing of the Marines in Lebanon. 

Then there’s an especially revealing statement from his 1998 interview with ABC’s John Miller, preserved by PBS. When asked whether his jihad applied to American civilians as well as soldiers, bin Laden said he did not distinguish between military and civilian Americans and explicitly defended retaliation against civilians. 

Current US military actions don’t often make that moral mistake.  But sanctions can be more deadly than war. And they are directly targeted to force a population to pressure their leaders.  Including sanctions and even some unintended by deadly military actions on Iraq during the fist Gulf War in 1991.

OBL’s three most commonly cited grievances were:

1. U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia  After the 1991 Gulf War, thousands of U.S. troops remained in Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina.  He considered this an occupation of Islamic holy land and made withdrawal of U.S. forces a central demand.  The U.S. military presence was real and politically controversial in Saudi Arabia, including among some Saudis.  But using it to justify mass murder was an extremist interpretation. The Saudi government itself had invited U.S. forces.

2.      U.S. support for Israel and the treatment of Palestinians. Bin Laden repeatedly condemned American political, military and financial support for Israel, particularly regarding Palestinians and Israeli control of territories.  The 9/11 Commission explicitly identified U.S. Middle East policies, including support for Israel, as grievances that bin Laden exploited.  It’s true that Palestinians genuinely experienced displacement, occupation, violence, murder, and denial of political rights, and U.S. policy strongly supported Israel.  For him it was a legitimate justification for attacking Americans randomly given his lack of sophisticate military hardware.  While Americans believe they have no control over US policies, what other options would OBL have? 

3.      U.S. policy toward Iraq:  Bin Laden condemned the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War and repeatedly cited the suffering of Iraqi civilians.  The sanctions did cause enormous hardship and a serious humanitarian crisis. The United States was a principal participant in maintaining them.  And there was a substantial humanitarian problem. This was not something bin Laden fabricated.  His logic, “U.S. policy is causing deaths and suffering” thus, “Americans may be murdered”.

Bin Laden’s grievances were real, his diagnosis was distorted, and his prescription was monstrous.  But from his perspective, what else could he do to.  Nuclear states hold a bit of terror over everyone.  And the most powerful states rationalize this terror as a solution to their fears. 

The 9/11 Commission concluded that bin Laden deliberately exploited grievances that were widely shared in parts of the Muslim world, while combining them with an extremist ideological project aimed at restoring a radically conceived Islamic order.  Our war response to his crimes against humanity was a gift…that keeps on giving his warriors a rational for mass murder and disruption. 

His ideology included the belief that violence could drive the United States out of the Muslim world and demonstrate that a superpower could be defeated, as he did with the Soviets in Afghanistan.  That’s logical…and useful for recruiting and motivating suicide bombers.  

For us to prevent terrorism, we need to understand legitimate grievances and underlying drivers without confusing understanding a perpetrator with agreeing with what a perpetrator does…and apply it to our own policies.

The striking historical lesson here: the 9/11 Commission itself acknowledged that U.S. policies in the Middle East provided grievances that bin Laden exploited.  Is American policy responsible for 9/11?  That depends on which side of the bombs you are on.  Effective prevention requires looking honestly at both the perpetrator and the environment in which his ideology gained traction. 

There ae half a dozen underlying psychological, political, religious and biological/social drivers that can turn grievances into terrorism.  These fit very well with the mental-health prevention session the world needs now.

Grievance does not have to become a cause, and a cause does not have to become a justification. Millions of people can experience the same grievance without becoming violent.  Consider the Vietnam war and the death toll of a few million that our nation caused there.   The prevention question is what turns grievance into a willingness to harm others?  And what can overcome that desire for vengeance?  

Seven interacting drivers of terrorism

1.      Grievance and real or perceived injustice:  Political repression, occupation, discrimination, civilian casualties, humiliation, poverty or exclusion can provide the emotional fuel.  Importantly, the grievance can be real, exaggerated, selectively remembered, or deliberately manufactured.

2.      Identity and belonging: People who feel alienated or powerless may find a powerful identity in a movement that tells them: You belong to us; your suffering has meaning; you have a purpose.  The individual identity becomes fused with the group’s identity.

3. A compelling ideological narrative:  Extremist movements simplify a complicated world into “us versus them.” They provide a villain, an explanation for suffering and a supposedly heroic solution.  This is where bin Laden transformed political grievances into a global religious war.
4. Dehumanization of the perceived enemy:  Violence becomes easier when opponents are no longer viewed as individual human beings but as members of an evil collective. The psychological progression can be roughly:
   “They are hurting us” → “They are our enemies” → “They are evil” → “They deserve what happens to them.”
5. Social reinforcement and group dynamics:  Radicalization rarely occurs entirely inside someone’s head.  Friends, charismatic leaders, online communities and tightly bonded organizations can reinforce increasingly extreme beliefs.  The group can reward sacrifice and punish doubt.
6. Personal vulnerability and a search for significance:  Not every terrorist is mentally ill—and mental illness by itself is not a good predictor of terrorism.  But loneliness, humiliation, trauma, failure, identity crisis, desire for status, anger and a need for meaning can make an extremist narrative particularly attractive.  The organization can turn a person’s private pain into a perceived heroic mission.
7. Opportunity, capability and permission:   Anger alone doesn’t produce terrorism.  There must eventually be some combination of access, skills, recruitment, resources, leadership and opportunity.  The critical psychological threshold is when violence becomes not merely imaginable but morally permissible.

A prevention model?   GRIEVANCE → ANGER → IDENTITY → NARRATIVE → GROUP REINFORCEMENT → DEHUMANIZATION → MORAL PERMISSION → CAPABILITY → VIOLENCE

With many off-ramps along the way.  And ‘prevention’ is particularly powerful:  Don’t wait for the perpetrator. Prevent the pathway to perpetration.

Important: there is no single “terrorist personality.” Most people who experience trauma, injustice, humiliation, ideological exposure or alienation never become violent. Terrorism generally emerges from an interaction among individual vulnerabilities, social relationships, ideology, political circumstances and opportunity.

This makes prevention much broader than simply trying to identify “dangerous people.” It means reducing the conditions that make extremist explanations attractive while simultaneously protecting people from those who choose violence.

Within the SDG framework, this creates connections to education, decent work, reduced inequalities, strong institutions, health, social inclusion and peaceful communities aren’t merely humanitarian goals. These can also reduce some of the conditions that extremist organizations exploit. SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) and SDG 17 (partnerships) are especially relevant—but prevention work spans most of the 17 goals starting with child survival and mental health education - the twin engines of development.

The humanity has more than enough money, solutions, and resources to make heaven on earth.  We only lack the unity of political will…and will to beat truth decay.  

 

Building a Just World Order: Alfred de Zayas, author. A book review.

 

What comes first?  Massive institutional change required to create a just world order, or the massive popular support required to make that institutional change possible - and then stick?

From my work over the last 4.5 decades on human rights, global health, the UN Charter, then 4 years (1998 – 2002) as Issues Director for the World Federalist Association in WDC – it appears little has changed to achieve a global democratic solution.  I am certain that solving this problem will require a reversal of the order our movement has always taken.  I urged WFA’s leadership on this with the release of each of three reports from President Bill Clinton’s bi-partisan Presidential Commission on National Security in the 21^st Century.  His commission started in 1999 and its third and final report was released March 2001.    Unfortunately, both WFA’s leadership and the Bush administration ignored its findings and clear warnings.  WFA understandably continued to advocate for the ICC - because President Bush removed the US from it his first day in office.   WFA ignored the warnings, while the Bush Administration also ignored it, then started planning for the invasion of Iraq using the fear of its possession of nuclear, bio, and chem WMD.  Strategically, his Administration was committed to positioning US military power in the heart of Middle-East oil.  To Al Qaida, that was a gift that keeps on giving.

After 9-11, 2001 WFA had the perfect excuse to advocate for ‘world law’ instead of a ‘world war’ against terrorism, a tactic that could never be defeated.  Oddly, WFA’s new leadership decided that would not be a good path and instead prioritized the environment.  Later, around 2002 WFA went broke  -having made virtually no progress in advancing global governance, nuclear disarmament, or US military cuts.  A few years later WFA was rebirthed as Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS) thanks to the economic blessings from many highly intellectual minds and progressive pocketbooks. 

My experience with WFA decades ago convinced me that it had two fundamental weaknesses. One was not walking its talk of changing the international system and creating stronger world institutions. Instead the focus was on controlling nuclear weapons, achieving disarmament, and attempting to build some legal structures necessary to prevent war.  Important objectives...but entirely inconsistent with the direction that the world, American minds, and dual-use technologies were heading. 

Now, with hyper political polarization in the US - largely driven by Truth decay and social media, while over 20 other democracies back slid into populists’ movements to seek strong leaders - us globalists push the cart from behind with the horse.   

Important question!  Why do you believe people in democracies clamor for strong leaders?  A simple partial answer exists, yet I’ve not heard any pundit make it.  Here it is - powerful and ignorant minds persist in believing globally interdependent disruptive forces can be stopped or reduced by nations based on independent national and department decisions.  “Delusion” is the word Albert Eintein calls this fantasy if independence.  Simply because everything in the known universe is connected, interdependent, and vulnerable. And only a global effort can remedy this. Not walls, powerful militaries, prosperous economies, strong leaders, or prayers. 

What’s needed first, is a vast majority of the world's population generating the political will needed to prevent these disruptive forces from leaving their place of origin- then ignoring map lines.  The solution must first begin in every local community globally.  Starting with primary health, basic education, clean water, safe sanitation, and other basics – simply so people have the energy and will to unite.  Then take coordinated actions in transforming our existing failed UN global architecture.  A system and structures that have always put the protection of national sovereignty and wealth  - above the protection of human rights and nature.

It is difficult to persuade people to support fundamental changes in international institutions when their immediate concerns are child survival and family protection. With community security next.  Certainly, anyone can see that it is particularly difficult to persuade nations to surrender or substantially reduce military capabilities when they do not trust one another - and believe their own security may depend upon maintaining them.

If we are serious about transforming the existing system – we must reverse the sequence.

Rather than asking people to reform the UN first -  so it can solve the world’s problems, we must first demonstrate that international cooperation can help solve the life and death problems most people experience every day.  Even when there are no wars.

This means beginning with the fundamentals of human well-being: health and education.  And by health, it means health in its broadest sense.  Health of the mind, body, and spirit; family; community; environment; government; and economy. These systems are not independent. They irreversibly interconnected.  And a weakness in one increasingly produces weakness in the others.

Those who engineer the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights understood this wisdom. But the powers then rejected any need for power to enforce them.  Thus, we have the insanity of the world we see today.  And we must admit that the 30 basic rights within the UDHR will never be enforced by laws.  But most of these basic rights can be purchased!   And the must be urgently- to avert catastrophic global consequences within all nations.  Failing Covid supply chains and closing the strait of Hormuz were minor disruptions to what’s possible if current wars expand or AI gets out of control.

In June 2023, Bank of America Chair & CEO, Brian Moynihan spoke on the state of the economy, the U.S. financial system, and capitalism. 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 must step up and prioritize a balancing of ‘short-term gains’ with ‘long term interests’. ‘Profits must be good for business and society all the way down to the community level’. “Capitalism” “requires a greater purpose than making more profit.” Neither capitalism or profit making is sustainable without these SDG goals being achieved.'  C-span covered this interview hosted by the City Club of Cleveland. Program ID: 529044-1 https://www.c-span.org/video/?529044-1/bank-america-ceo-remarks-city-club-cleveland

Never before has humanity had so much wealth.  Cost is not the issue.  The issue is the sanity of the three progressive movements (Peace, Environment, and social/economic Justice), and the thousands of organizations within each, not forming a Movement of Movements (a MoM).  For at least 5 decades they have been competing with each other for money, active members, media attention, and time with key policy makers.  While conservatives have united while teasing us with distractions - weakening us further.

The UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals provide an extraordinary framework for achievement of purpose.  The health of people, nature, government, and the global economy.  They translate the broad aspirations of human rights and sustainable development into concrete areas of human need. The SDGs themselves were designed as a comprehensive, integrated, holistic, and syncretistic agenda in which economic, social and environmental objectives are indivisible, not individually prioritized.

Consider a different theory of change: Meet basic human needs → improve the health and security of communities → build trust in cooperation → create public enthusiasm for solving shared problems → generate the political will for institutional reform → strengthen the international system.

That sequence is fundamentally different.  Beginning with institutional reform and hoping that improved institutions will eventually produce healthier societies is pie in the sky- and you all know it.  There’s a term the defines doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.  This means I’m insane believing progressives will ever unite.  Over the last few years, I repeatedly invited major globally focused organizations and institutions to take up this challenge.  Rotary International, Bahais, Citizens for Global Solutions, Charter for Compassion, I AM Humanity, United Nations Association...(over a hundred others) but each progressive organization’s mission bubble of was impenetrable. Each had a vital and important mission with a global vision, but none picked up the MoM flag.  

Time is running out.  The evolution of technology (now with exponential growth on top of exponential growth), accelerating far beyond our mind’s linear capacity for thinking (now with the decline of rational thinking), plus our former flatlined capacity for government change – now going backwards – the evolution of war, weapon systems, government debt, environmental extremes, and the capacity of new, cheap, and unprecedented ease of developing bioweapons using AI... nuclear disarmament should be the least of our worries.

The moral and practical case for eliminating nuclear weapons is overwhelming. But expecting nations to disarm while international tensions are rising—and while powerful nations continue to distrust one another – develop new weapon systems – during a time of enormous political challenges... OMG.

I became a world federalist after reading Emery Reves’ 1945 book ‘Anatomy of Peace’.  As a biologist I trust fundamental principles. Rarely the human principles that ignore them.

“Once the mechanics and the fundamental causes of wars – of all wars – are realized, the futility and childishness of the passionate debates about armament and disarmament must be apparent to all.  If human society were organized so that relations between groups and units in contact were regulated by democratically controlled law and legal institutions, then modern science could go ahead, devise and produce the most devastating weapons, and there would be no war.  But if we allow sovereign rights to reside in the separate units and groups without regulating their relations by law, then we can prohibit every weapon, even a penknife, and people will beat out each other’s brains with clubs.”  Emery Reves, The Anatomy of Peace, 1945

“The main focus of international attention must move beyond the symptoms of weapons proliferation to its causes.  It may seem easier to control supply, yet it is demand that raises the tide of proliferation.”   Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists for Jan-Feb 1999, p. 76, "Book Note" on Kosta Tsipis and Philip Morrison's book, "Reason Enough for Hope."

Disarmament requires trust. Trust requires security. Security requires confidence that one’s basic needs and interests will not be abandoned. And confidence is difficult to create among populations experiencing poverty, poor health, inadequate education, environmental degradation and political instability.  In any civilization the prioritization of maternal and child health and survival must be a foundational priority.

This is particularly important in an era of truth decay, declining trust, indebted budgets, and rising tensions among powerful nations. Information itself has become a battleground. Populations are increasingly exposed to competing narratives, misinformation and political polarization. Under those circumstances, asking nations to make historically unprecedented concessions in their security policies becomes extraordinarily difficult.  Therefore, we must make the case for international cooperation in a different way.

A united world once eradicated smallpox.  A simple virus that killed more people in the last century than all the wars, revolutions, and genocides combined.   Today any virus can be weaponization to make smallpox seem the common cold.

Health for all, nature, and the global economy will make stronger families and sustainable communities.  This would make institutions trustworthy instead of an abstract global ideal.  It’s an inspiring vision that is possible through international cooperation, coordination, and the human caring that is in the very DNA of our global social species.

Something the ideology of politics, national sovereignty, and the extremely wealthy have resisted in solving human problems first.  This is what’s been missing in UN reform.

De Zayas was right regarding the international system needing substantial reform. But the reform movement needs to change its starting point. We must not waste our energy trying to persuade people to reform an institution in the hopes of eventually producing humankind’s well-being.

We must invest first in humanity and nature – to demonstrate the value of cooperation to best make the political demand for institutional reform.  This is the foot bridge to a just world order.  The most realistic path toward achieving it.  The ultimate objective remains the same: a world in which nations can resolve their differences without war, where forms of WMD no longer threaten humanity, where international law has genuine authority, and where global institutions are capable of addressing other problems that no nation can solve alone. This is the foundation upon which just and sustainable institutions can stand.   And the foundation for making effective reform politically possible.

By first building healthier people, families, communities, and economies, we will build a healthy and sustainable environment.  Then build institutions capable of protecting and extending that health.

Building human well-being first will provide the public enthusiasm, trust, and political legitimacy needed to accomplish the much larger transformation that de Zayas envisions.

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.” - Neil deGrasse Tyson (another wrestler).

“The future depends on us--on our ideas, our votes, and the decisions of those we put in power.   Mario Vargas Llosa, Liberalism in the New Millennium [2000]

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." -  Thomas Paine

Americans are better off being rich and guilty, than poor and innocent.

This is not sustainable.  And a transformation of the US government is urgently needed. 

“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”   Thomas Jefferson  

Words matter! When it comes to true justice in our courts or dealing with other countries, principles are useful. But our principles are rarely fundamental principles (FPs).  These are vastly more functional and urgently needed. They are the “self-evident” “Truths” that we should all hold!  They are found in the 1776 Declaration that inspired the creation or our “thirteen united States of America” 250 years ago.  

"All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience."  -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  (1749-1832) German writer, statesman. 

A principle is simply a rule or guideline our human minds construct to achieve a goal; a fundamental principle is a much deeper.  They abide by the laws of nature and in the DNA of most social species.  They are a foundation on which every mentally constructed rule or guideline should be judged.

“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.”  Abraham Lincoln

 The Justice Department itself describes “equal justice under law” as a founding principle.  And its mission includes fair and impartial administration of justice, but it’s a legal system that too often fails. 

Real justice aligns with the Golden Rule - the foundation of every legitimate religion and human culture.  Yet too often human principles fail to be applied equally in every jurisdiction.  FPs are Truths that all living systems depend on. 

This distinction is vital.  The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is a highly developed legal system of laws, regulations, courts, prosecutors, procedures and rules. But a legal system is not necessarily a justice system.  Law is a mechanism; justice is a purpose.  And our U.S system is supposed to have “equal justice under law”. These very words are carved above the entrance to the Supreme Court.  They are more than a legal procedure. They represent a fundamental promise of American government.  And that promise is increasingly threatened when the administration of law becomes dependent upon partisan political power, unprecedented wealth, special influence, or financial access to superior legal representation.  This increasingly threatens our legal system’s legitimacy.  One American saying captures this problem, “You are better off being wealthy and guilty than innocent and poor.”  In the US and other nations wealth purchases experienced attorneys, investigators, experts, time and access to a legal system that is extraordinarily expensive to navigate. No justice system should depend upon one’s ability to purchase it.  Popes have said, “No Justice. No Peace”, and this vibe beats in the heart of anyone mistreated by any legal system.  Not everyone turns to violence, but violence should not be shocking when it comes.  And it will come.

Our DOJ therefore has a fundamental responsibility far greater than simply enforcing laws. It must ensure our laws deliver justice—and justice is available to everyone.

Our government is simply unsustainable in preserving the letter of the law while losing the fundamental principle of “liberty and justice for all”.  Every American has pledged allegiance to this, under our stars and stripes.  Have those brave men and women who sacrificed their lives been in vain?

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."  -- John Quincy Adams   (1767-1848) 6th US President

"That no free government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." –- George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights [1776]

“If you get the basics right, everything else falls into place.”  Lewis Pugh  

“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”  Jim Rohn  

“Most of us forget the basics and wonder why the specifics don’t work.”  Garrison Wynn  

“The minute you get away from fundamentals whether it’s proper technique, work ethic, or mental preparation, the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing.”  Michael Jordan  

Achieving Peace is Rotary maximizing health

Achieving Peace requires a broader vision of human security:  Rotary must view mental health as the foundation of Peace and Peacebuilding..   Aug 2026

Ultimately, the purpose of civilization is not simply the absence of war. It’s protecting life, the reduction of suffering, and the creation of conditions in which every person has the opportunity to survive, thrive and flourish.

Wars and genocide rightly capture our attention because of their immense human tragedy. Yet, even in years without major wars, millions of children and adults die from causes that humanity already knows how to prevent. And even more needlessly suffer.  Yet annually, preventable infectious diseases, malnutrition, unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, maternal and infant mortality, poor mental health, environmental degradation, and extreme poverty continue to claim lives on a scale that often dwarfing those lost in armed conflict.

Most people do not simply want to avoid war—they want to prevent unnecessary suffering wherever it occurs.  All parents share the same hope: their children will grow up healthy, safe, educated, and able to realize their potential.  Far more people die from the violence of poverty, lack of access to the basics of a basic education, primary health care, clean water, and a healthy environment. This is why prevention must become humanity’s and Rotary's guiding principle. Rotary can lead the way with a focus on mindful solutions to address root causes instead of its seven unsustainable reactionary pillars of action. 

In early 2026 Buddhist monks marched barefoot in winter from TX to DC.  The Washington Post printed my 'letter to the editor' below acknowledging their purpose and its wisdom.  Not coincidently, two of Rotary's 26 action groups, Rotary Action Group for Peace (RAGFP) linked up with Rotary Action Group for Mental Health Initiatives (RAGMHI).

Dear Editor,

    Mindfulness, stripped of mysticism, is disciplined awareness of how we think. Whether one approaches mindfulness spiritually or scientifically, the proposition that healthier minds contribute to healthier societies is not fringe; it is foundational.

    At a time when violence — international and domestic — seems increasingly normalized, the psychological roots of conflict deserve serious attention. Wars begin long before the first shot is fired. They begin in the mind: in distorted concepts, in ambiguous language, in narratives that frame domination as security and dehumanization as necessity.

    Descartes wrote, “I think, therefore I am.” The human mind’s creativity is remarkable, including its ability to rationalize mass violence with chilling sophistication. That dual capacity may be our greatest vulnerability. Descartes might now say, “I think, therefore I am ... probably wrong. Where can I get a fact check?”

    At minimum, the Buddhist monks’ winter walk for peace invites a conversation about whether the prevention of violence begins not only in treaties and arsenals but also in the architecture of thought itself.

The United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide the closest thing the world has to a comprehensive blueprint for preventive action.  Although organized into 17 goals, they function as a comprehensive, interconnected, holistic, and synergistic system needed to address root issue.  These have the same intention as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   These 30 basic human rights will never be enforced but they can affordably be purchased with the SDG's.  Progress in health supports education. Education strengthens economic opportunities. Economic opportunities improve social stability. Environmental protection safeguards food and water. Strong institutions foster trust and justice.  Each reinforces the others – leading to fewer conflicts.

This holistic approach reflects a vital truth: civilization itself is sustained not by solving one problem at a time, but by recognizing that our greatest challenges are deeply interconnected. And all life is interdependent and vulnerable.

Rotary is uniquely positioned to help communities embrace and empower this systems perspective. Through more than 42,000 clubs across over 200 countries and geographic areas, Rotary already possesses the relationships, credibility, and volunteer leadership needed to help communities identify their greatest needs, strengthen local partnerships, and wisely prioritize prevention over crisis response.

Mental well-being plays a foundational role in this work. Communities that cultivate empathy, resilience, trust, cooperation, and critical systemic thinking are better equipped to improve health, reduce poverty, protect the environment, strengthen education, and prevent violence before it begins.

In that sense, investing in mental well-being is not simply another humanitarian priority. It is an investment in the foundation of long-term sustainability of civilization itself.

If our shared goal is to save the greatest number of lives while reducing the greatest amount of human suffering, then prevention must become our highest priority. Peacebuilding remains an essential part of that mission, but it flourishes most effectively when communities are healthy, resilient, and committed to meeting the basic human needs that unite us all.

Within this context, mental health in the form of systemic thinking is the wisest foundation of Rotary’s Peacebuilding mission and leadership.

For more than a century, Rotary has demonstrated that lasting change begins at the community level. From eradicating polio to expanding access to clean water, sanitation, education, and economic opportunity, Rotary has consistently addressed the root causes of human suffering. Today, however, the world faces an interconnected web of challenges unlike any in history: growing armed conflicts, political polarization, social isolation, misinformation, environmental degradation, economic inequality, forced migration, and growing distrust of people and institutions among most nations.

These crises often appear unrelated, yet they share a common characteristic—their origin is in the way human beings think, perceive, relate to one another, and organize society.  This largely unexamined assumption presents an extraordinary opportunity for Rotary and all of its 26+ Rotary Action Groups for peace.

Rather than viewing the Rotary Action Group for Peace (RAGFP) and the Rotary Action Group for Mental Health Initiatives (RAGMHI) as separate efforts, we should recognize that they are addressing different dimensions of the same challenge. Peace may be one of humanity’s highest aspirations, but health, particularly mental well-being is one of its essential foundations.

This is not to suggest that war or violence is simply the result of mental illness. That’s both inaccurate and unfair. Most wars are not started by individuals suffering from psychiatric disorders. Instead, they emerge from a far more complex interaction of collective beliefs, institutional incentives, historical grievances, fear, trauma, competition for resources, and the mental models through which societies interpret the world.

Conflict exists on many levels.  When I first joined Rotary six years ago when Polio returned to the US with Covid.  With my background in all national security issues, a year later I became a RAGFP member and participated in our RAGFP District 7620 youth conference in Maryland.  We chose to define “Peace” from at least three levels: personal, community, global.  It turns out there are others.   At the individual level, unresolved trauma, chronic stress, addiction, and emotional dysregulation can contribute to violence.  At the interpersonal level, poor communication, mistrust, and lack of empathy fuel conflict between families, neighbors, and communities.  At the societal level, political polarization, prejudice, misinformation, and competing identities divide populations. While at the institutional level, governments, laws, economic systems, and international structures sometimes create incentives that unintentionally reward competition rather than cooperation.   And finally, at the global level, nations frequently operate from mental models that emphasize separation, sovereignty, and zero-sum competition, even though humanity has become increasingly interconnected.

Each level influences every other level. The remarkable insight both RAGFP and RAGMHI came to early in 2026 was that strengthening mental well-being also strengthens our capacity for cooperation, resilience, empathy, problem-solving, and constructive dialogue at every level. Communities with stronger social connections, healthier relationships, and greater emotional resilience are naturally more capable of preventing conflict before it escalates.   This principle of wise benefits extends far beyond peacebuilding.

Consider Rotary’s Areas of Focus. Disease prevention depends upon trust in science and public health. Water and sanitation projects require community cooperation. Maternal and child health depends upon education, stable families, and supportive communities. Economic development benefits from collaboration, resilience, and hope. Environmental stewardship requires people to think beyond short-term interests toward shared responsibility for future generations.

Healthy minds help create healthy communities, and healthy communities create more peaceful societies.

Researchers often distinguish between the immediate causes of conflict and its underlying causes. A disputed election, an act of violence, or competition over resources may ignite conflict, but deeper conditions—fear, mistrust, social fragmentation, inequality, and unresolved trauma—often determine whether disagreements become violence or opportunities for cooperation.  With the accelerating growth of weapon systems, pathogens, environmental problems, with nation’s debt problems, this is why prevention matters.

Rotary has already shown the world that prevention is both more humane and more cost-effective than crisis response. The global effort to eradicate polio stands as one of history’s greatest examples of prevention. Vaccinating a child before illness occurs is far better than treating paralysis afterward. 

The same philosophy can guide peacebuilding.

Instead of waiting until communities experience violence, polarization, or social breakdown, Rotary can help cultivate the emotional resilience, trust, critical thinking, compassion, and collaborative leadership that make conflict less likely in the first place.

This suggests an exciting possibility. What if every Rotary club became not only a service organization but also a catalyst for community well-being?  Rotary’s Community Corps concept already exists.

Imagine clubs partnering with schools, health professionals, businesses, faith communities, local governments, and nonprofit organizations to strengthen the mental, social, environmental, economic, and civic health within their communities.   Such initiatives could reduce isolation, improve resilience, encourage respectful dialogue, support youth, promote evidence-based decision-making, and foster stronger relationships across political, cultural, and economic differences.

The effects would ripple outward into every Rotary Area of Focus and every Rotary Action Group instead of these competing with each other for money, active members, media attention, and time with key policy makers.  Peace would ultimately benefit.   Disease and conflict prevention could benefit most, with education and economic development benefits.  Then community development and environmental stewardship would follow.

Indeed, nearly every humanitarian objective becomes easier to achieve when communities possess greater trust, empathy, resilience, and psychological well-being.

Then RAGFP and RAGMHI and all other RAGs need not compete for attention or resources. Together they can become partners in advancing a broader vision of human flourishing.

Mental well-being is not an alternative to peace. It is one of the conditions that allows peace to emerge and endure.

With more than 42,000 Rotary clubs serving communities in over 200 countries and geographic areas, Rotary possesses one of the world’s largest grassroots networks for preventive action. Few organizations are better positioned to help communities strengthen not only their physical infrastructure but also their social and psychological resilience.  And there are many large and increasingly powerful organizations already focus on specific issues knowing UN global ‘health for all’ campaigns go back decades – but were never prioritized or united. RI could fix that. 

The growing challenges facing humanity now are increasingly interconnected. Thus, our solutions must become equally interconnected.

By recognizing mental well-being as a foundational element of peacebuilding, Rotary has the opportunity to lead a new generation of preventive service—one that addresses the underlying conditions from which conflict, suffering, division, and environmental destruction arise.

If we aspire not merely to end wars but to build communities where health and peace can flourish naturally, then investing in prioritizing mental well-being may be one of the most important service opportunities of the twenty-first century.

Health of mind, body, spirit, family, community, environment, government, and economy is about prevention of problems...to best address most other root causes.

War. The greatest sin.

 "If there is a sin superior to every other it is that of willful and offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow limits, that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very general extension, and many kind of sins have only a mental existence from which no infection arises; but he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of Hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death." – Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis V” [March 21, 1778]

“Americans are harder on football coaches who lose games that are generals who lose wars… The US military has possessed the most fearsome weapons ever created, and has often looked unbeatable on paper. However, somehow it has experienced great loss in every war in which it has fought in since 1945.”  Tim Bakken.  In his book ”The Cost of Loyalty.”   Printed in the Washington Post 7–20-26 

"...all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.” 1776 Declaration.

I'm going away for ten days ...to Colorado...visiting CSU where Laura and I first met 51 years ago.  Only a little suffering...;-)  But I'm guessing US will still be bombing Iran when we get back.   

Democracy Fails because we failed to adapt to reality.

 Below is mostly an edit Steven Jay created from an op-ed I had written for the Washington Post.  Thank you Steven! So much better than what I submitted....;-)

The big picture: Public trust in democratic governments, institutions and our economic system has been declining for globally for two decades . Voters are understandably angry because democratic systems are increasingly unable to protect people, solve shared problems or prepare for what comes next.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria is partly right: technological change is moving faster than democratic institutions can adapt. Artificial intelligence, cyberweapons, biotechnology, global finance, and instant communication are rapidly reshaping the world with a poisonous mix of Truth decay.  But technology only accelerates a deeper problem. Our national and global political democratic systems were designed around an outdated assumption: that people, states and nations can operate independently.  They cannot.

Interdependence changes everything: 

Everything in the known universe is connected, interdependent and vulnerable.  

National borders and powerful militaries cannot fully protect us from:

• Pandemics and emerging pathogens
• Cyberattacks and biological weapons
• Climate disruption and extreme weather
• Financial instability
• Terrorism and political violence
• Artificial intelligence used irresponsibly

Military power might deter another government. But it cannot independently stop most transnational threats.  Thus, voters everywhere are frustrated and elect populist leaders. They have been promised security by institutions incapable without amendments to resolve today’s costly disruptions.

The structural problem: 

The U.S. Constitution was created by representatives of states that considered themselves independent. The result was an useful agreement but a deeply imperfect system that eventually a civil war that addressed its most serious contradiction. Amendments were made. Even more later.  More were needed later, but never made due to democratic choices.

The United Nations Charter was established in 1945 through a democratic agreement among sovereign nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) followed in 1948, offering a shared framework intended to reduce war, genocide, uses of Weapons of Mass Destruction, oppression and preventable human suffering.  Again, amendments were possible, yet nations continue to this day to treat global cooperation as optional.

Achieving the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should not be optional.  Adopted by every UN member state in 2015, these 17 goals address many of the conditions that drive global instability now: poverty, hunger, poor health, inequality, weak institutions, environmental destruction conflicts, violent extremism....

The SDGs are not simply development goals. They are a global security strategy like the 30 human rights the UDHR numerated.  Yet powerful nations, the three progressive movements, and thousands of organizations within each - continue to approach them as separate projects rather than as the comprehensive, holistic, and synergistic plan intended for prevention.

The mental problem: 

The second obstacle is not constitutional. It is psychological. Human beings evolved in small groups where survival often depended on quickly identifying allies and reacting to threats. That instinct helped our ancestors survive. Unfortunately today, it still encourages us to divide the world into “us” and “them.” And majority rule amplifies this instinct.  Elections reward immediate concerns, emotional reactions, yielding promises with short-term policies. National leaders focus on inflation, immigration, crime, and cultural conflict while paying less attention to the deeper global forces producing those pressures.

Democracy has been reactive rather than preventive.  The problem is not that citizens are incapable of wisdom. The problem is that democratic systems rarely encourage the deeper thinking, long-term planning, and shared responsibility that an interdependent world requires.

Technology has outpaced politics: 

After Hiroshima, it became clear that humanity’s technological power had exceeded the capacity of existing political institutions to control it.  That gap has now only widened with every new technology.

Jen Easterly, then director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, summarized the challenge in 2021:  “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.”  Her conclusion was equally important: protecting interconnected systems requires "more than a whole-of-government" or "whole-of-nation response". It requires "global" cooperation.

Artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, and biotechnology now make that cooperation even more urgent. A dangerous technology developed or released in one place can create consequences everywhere.  No country can be truly secure in an interconnected world by acting alone.

Cooperation does not require world government: 

Improving global security does not require abolishing national sovereignty or creating a single world government.  Governments already cooperate in aviation, communications, science, health, finance and transportation. States within federal systems share responsibilities without surrendering their local identities. The global eradication of smallpox offers the clearest example.

Countries with opposing ideologies, political systems and national interests worked together for 10 years during the Cold war to eliminate a disease that had killed more people than wars and genocides combined over the last century. National sovereignty survived. Humanity became safer.  The same principle can be applied to climate disruption, pandemics, cyber threats, financial instability and violent extremism.

Security begins with human well-beings at the community level.

Real security starts in communities by addressing poverty, corruption, inequality, and failing public systems.  These are not just moral or economic problems. They create conditions that contribute to conflict, forced migration, political instability, and violence.  

Preventing these conditions is always less expensive than responding after systems collapse.

Achieving the SDGs—and fulfilling the rights recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—would strengthen health, education, food security, public trust, economic opportunity, prosperity, human security, and political stability.  

In practical terms, this means investing in the conditions that allow people to live with dignity.

It means protecting human rights, thus keeping people and nature healthy- as essential and sustainable infrastructure.

What democracy must include: 

The choice is not between nationalism and globalism.  The real choice is between institutions that recognize interdependence, human rights, liberty and justice for all - or institutions that continue pretending independence is possible.  Democratic systems must become better at:

• Preventing crises instead of merely reacting to them
• Planning beyond election cycles
• Protecting minority rights alongside majority rule
• Coordinating across borders
• Connecting local action with global responsibility
• Measuring security through human and environmental well-being
• Updating institutions as technology and risks change
• Applying justice 

Call it Democracy Plus: democracy strengthened by cooperation, systems thinking, human rights, long-term planning, justice - as the 'rule of law'.

National identity does not have to disappear. Sovereignty does not have to be abolished. Yet Liberty (justice for all) can not be surrendered.  Collective action is possible.

The bottom line:  

Interdependence is not an ideology. It is reality.  The question is no longer whether nations will become more connected. They already are.  The question is whether humanity will consciously build institutions capable of managing those connections —or wait until repeated crises force cooperation upon us.

Doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different outcome is not resilience. It's insanity. 

Democracy must adapt to reality.  Our liberty, security, and prosperity depend on it.

Other Suggested titles:  Let us know what you think. 

chuck@igc.org

1. Democracy Plus: Governing an Interdependent World
2. The Democracy Problem No Election Can Solve
3. Our Institutions Were Built for a World That No Longer Exists
4. Interdependence Is Reality. Democracy Must Catch Up
5. Why Majority Rule Is No Longer Enough
6. Democracy’s Deeper Crisis
7. The Illusion of Independence
8. No Nation Can be Secure an Interdependent World Alone
9. From Reactive Democracy to Collective Securit
10. Adapt Democracy—or Be Governed by Crisis

Strongest overall title: Democracy Is Failing Because It Has Failed to Evolve

Strongest provocative title: The Democracy Problem No Election Can Solve

Strongest solutions-focused title: Democracy Plus: Governing an Interdependent World

Steven Jay, Executive Producer and Co-Founder, www.mobilizednews.com

 

July is Rotary International 'Maternal and Child Health' Month!

July is Rotary International 'Maternal and Child Health' Month!

Maternal Wellbeing, infant and child mental health, family Support, schools & communities, compassion & connection, and reliable protection.   All 26 Rotary Action Groups work on these because it takes far more than a community to raise a healthy child.

Yet, giving birth may be the most dangerous part of a woman’s life.  Her heroism is often overlooked due to the human expectation that this is expected of her.  But no female should never have to experience that risk alone.  Or miss the most basic needs for a healthy and safe delivery of new life into this troubled, hyper complex, complected, connected, interdependent, and disruptive era.
As a young male, I’d always created my purpose in life, modeled after people (including women) I admired.  But witnessing my wife’s birthing of our first child, my grounded purpose came naturally.

When I started working to end world hunger in 1979 approximately 42,000 infants were dying daily, from easily preventable malnutrition and infectious disease.  A death rate nearly 10 times that of those in Hitler’s Concentration Camps.  As a biology teacher in the late 70s I had never heard this hidden infant holocaust.  In HS and college courses I'd learned that hunger was a result of an overcrowded world. I had been unintentionally disinformed by smart people that the earth was overpopulated and there was not enough food.  Then I taught this to my biology classes until I was told the Truth. And that was confirmed in 1980 by a bi-partisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger and other studies. Yet for years I've attempted to 'school' others, who have persistently refused to change their very intelligent minds. Since 2017 after reading the middle chapter in the book 'Warnings' by Richard Clark I started focusing on why we don't listen to experts. A few years later I learned of the "Intelligence Trap" (and more than a dozen other cognitive reasons not to change our mind).

Humankind has always had the capacity to feed the world sustainably - and a mind that can believe anything...  But hunger was never an issue of money,  resources, or lack of solutions.  It was simply a lack of “Political Will”.  In the early 70s I’d swore to my mother I’d never get involved with politics. That changed overnight.  Then, after doing a deep dive into hunger issues I quickly learned it was directly connected to other important issues (national security, health, environment, economic systems, and politics).  That took me, my wife, and two children from the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, California to Washington DC to focus on using the media to create non-partisan political will.  Doing that for quickly educated me on the wisdom needed to address women’s health and other root causes of high infant mortality, public and environmental health, education, female empowerment, plus other fundamental human rights - like a need for economic security, global health security, for people and nature - each inseparable from national security issues and our dysfunctional government systems (both national and global).  They have been in need to be unrigged and transformed for decades.  Protecting nature and human rights required a global justice system.  Not a useless system of international laws that remain a good idea, but inherently unenforceable. 

All of this culminated in a focus on the final frontier - human cognition. How we think, what we think about, and the multitude of challenge in getting people to change their stubborn minds to meet this increasingly urgent global need.  

In the last half of the second paragraph within the 1776 Declaration there is profound observation of this insanity. It is not a new mental problem.  “...all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”  Having just watched the movie "The Odyssey" and its final closing line, this same insanity has existed at least 700 years before Christ, within the Laws of Zeus.  Our species has always known that a healthy mind leads to healthy bodies, families, social spirit, communities, environment, government, and economic systems.  Food scarcity was never the issue.  Only poverty, male greed for money and power, and our collective mindless waste of resources and lacking the wisdom of indigenous cultures. 

Over the past 4.5 decades many things have improved.  But still, approximately 11,000 to 13.,000 infants still die daily - even without any wars, genocides (that kill more people than wars), or natural disasters. 

We are afraid of many things.  What should be obvious is the immense natural fear of losing a child being the greatest terror in the world. With the greatest horror actually losing one...or the mother. Both  largely due to a lack of “political will”.  Together, these two natural emotions (terror and horror) have a greater impact on humanity, than any war, genocide, revolution, pandemic, or natural disaster.

Maternal and child health should remind us that the health of every family is connected to the health of every community globally. Thus, a global health approach begins where people live—by ensuring that every community and village globally has access to a well-equipped community health clinic, adequately financed and focused first on prevention, early detection, education, and rapid response.

This should become Rotary International's greatest priority, that would ensure success of its other Rotary inspired feat, the global eradication of Polio.  

Such clinics globally could protect mothers and newborns, improve nutrition and immunization, detect outbreaks before they spread, strengthen mental health, family well-being, community unity, and connect local needs to regional and global support that is urgently needed.  Investing in community health is one of the most practical and cost-effective ways to build healthier, safer, and more peaceful, secure, resilient, and sustainable societies.

Every child deserves the opportunity for a healthy start with every mother receiving timely care close to home.  The benefits extend far beyond one family to all life everywhere on earth. They strengthen communities, nations, and ultimately our sustainable future by making it easier to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. A global plan already approved to address the root causes of almost every threat we face. 

Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary International in 1905 offered humankind a solution that clearly fits our meta-poly crisis era - "If Rotary is to realize its proper destiny, it must be evolutionary at all times, REVOLUTIONARY on occasion."-----Paul Harris

"Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it. A new public opinion must be created privately and unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the press, by propaganda, by organization, and by financial influences which are at its disposal. The unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of thoughts and the hearer’s receptiveness of new truth."  – Albert Schweitzer

"It is as if we are trapped in a death spiral with a map that only takes us in circles.  We persistently ignore the exit signs because we insist on believing in the map we have in hand. You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”  ~Buckminster Fuller

“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called.” ~ Buckminster Fuller

Unfortunately, evidence suggests most people are NOT ready for change!  They are...

●   Comfortable and don't feel the need for change. Why change?

●   Not educated about the state of the world.  No need to change.

●   Simply don't care. Apathy and no empathy.

●   Confident in our modern worldview and that we are heading in the right direction. Technology solves all.

●   Insufficiently capable of mentally understanding reality.

●   Too busy to be concerned about issues that they believe don't effect them.

●   Distracted and mesmerized by entertainment and consumer media.

●   Unenergized by the food or drugs they are putting into their bodies.

●   In deep denial about the future. Refuse to face it.

●   Religious belief that God has it all under control. Our involvement isn't needed.

Look for change makers and make things happen.

"Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity. But silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act. Let who you are ring out & resonate in every word & every deed. Yes, become who you are. There's no sidestepping your own being or your own responsibility. What you do is who you are. You are your own comeuppance. You become your own message. You are the message. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse "   Leonard Peletier

 “We do not need to change human nature. We need to reveal it.”.  George Monbiot, Becoming Unstoppable   Nov. 2017