Happy with the New Year 2026? It’s more of the same insane.

Ensuring security in any nation where the Rule of Law is actually the Law of Anything Goes - if your nation has nuclear weapons and the leader want to use them - like the U.S. Russia and Israel - is simply delusional.  

When will the majority of “We the People” on earth accept the objective Truth exposed by the Director of the newest US Federal agency President Trump created in 2018?  October 29, 2021, CISA Director Jen Easterly said “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable”... “this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation. It really has to be a global effort”.  CISA is the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.  https://www.csis.org/events/next-steps-critical-infrastructure-protection-challenges-cisa-and-congress   FYI: in early 2025 CISA was hacked.

As Americans await Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on January 4, attempting to justify his criminal act of kinetic violence against another nation in our Hemisphere, plus the kidnapping of another ‘democratically’ elected President, consider this question.  When will we and the world wake up to the illusion that democracies might work.  They don’t, never have and never will - unless the majority of legal voters favor “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”. These ‘laws’ were clearly offered within the 1776 “self-evident” “Truths” expressed in the American Declaration of Independence.  Laws no nations have yet globally adopted.  And even if just one nation doesn’t...everyone in the world would still at risk of losing their freedom and/or security.  Why?  Simply because the word “everything” means just what it says.  It is an autological word.  Thus, for the world to work as President Lincon asserted, “for everyone everywhere for all time’ we need precise language for developing and enforcing the ‘just’ laws under which everyone has their God given “inalienable Rights” to “Life Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”.

Warning! Around 1776 the word ‘happiness’ had a different definition.  It meant finding one’s bliss in using one’s talents to best serve their community.  A community where virtue was prioritized.  Not looking good, feeling good, and/or prioritizing profit over people.  In our era where most people acknowledge our irreversible environmental linkages to our own health, plus our collective vital need to keep nature healthy, protecting our environment would be another virtue. 

Don’t bet on this from most MAGA voters. Especially those claiming to be Christians.  In Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” pamphlet published months before the signing of the Declaration, he must have realized our global interdependence then.  He asserted that the only purpose for government is to protect people’s “freedom and security”.  Likely because during his time and before it, the diversity of people living within the 13 colonies was as mixed as it is today.  And everyone then was 99.9% genetically human. Regardless of the different nations, religions, or indigenous tribes they originally belonged to.  

In biological terms...strength is not in powerful muscles or weapons; it is in the ability to adapt to the real world in which every species finds itself.  At point in our mind’s evolution, it invented concepts that bonded, greatly benefited the grow of its own tribe. Concepts that usually were at the expense of other tribes.  

Around 1945 with the mind’s invention of nuclear weapons humankind should have adapted a new and better way of sharing this goldilocks planet.  Instead, the winners of WWII created an unenforceable global governance system known as “international Law”.  Done with the majority vote of powerful nations that enabled them to dictate to over a hundred other nations, that the protection of human rights is about three steps down from protecting ‘national sovereignty’, corporate power, unlimited accumulation of wealth, and military power.

The collateral damage of using US military force over the last few months experienced by the Venezuelans’ was not about saving Americans deaths from our nation’s addiction to drugs.  The killing of innocent people in the here or there was the consequence of American demand.  Not drug supply.  In fact, most preventable deaths over the last 5 decades related to conflicts are linked to the US addiction to oil. And ten times that number for lack sensible investments in preventing deaths by infectious diseases and fouled environments. All a product of US voter’s minds and policy makers addiction to protecting the US Constitution.  A document they could change but still lacks justice for all, the protecting human rights.  All a product of our mind’s addiction to believing almost everything it thinks.  The wisdom in our heart and the true American spirit in 1776 knew the “self-evident” “Truths”.

Today America’s flawed truths are ‘peace through strength’, our mind’s belief that military power will best protect our freedom and security, - ‘Democracy if we can just get it right -can protect these.  And the illusion that ‘we can keep our freedom, security, and our ‘independence’ without losing anything.  This is delusional. The insanity of our humanity.  Simply because in reality, “Everything” needs a global effort.

Yet many Americans believe in America First.  And continue to ignore their flag pledge “One nation under God with Liberty and Justice for All”.     Lord help us!  Our mind’s certainty on so much that isn’t true is going to keep killing people killed and the unsustainable destruction to the environmental life support systems all life depends on.

‘Prevention’ appears to be an un-American word.  Yet it is the foundation of all health.  Health of mind, body, spirit, family, tribe, community, government, nation, economy, and environmental systems.  I hope the prayer “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do”, reaches God. If not, prepare for the predictable and catastrophic consequences.  Simply because we humans keep doing the same thing over, and over, and over again...expecting a different result.  

Some wise soul once said prayer is a prelude to action.  If you favor action with or without prayer.  Actions consistent with the laws of nature and of nature’s God, and you are willing to work like hell to sufficiently fund the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals ASAP.  Humankind may yet stand a chance. Especially by uniting on around self-evident Truths - like a child should not die before their parents. 

The good news?  Humankind already has a global Health plan.  A comprehensive and holistic plan globally agreed to in 2015.  The UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  And if progressive movements (Peace, Environment, and economic/social Justice) unite within thousands of local communities - to measurable advance a few of the 169 subgoals within the 17 SDG’s in 2026, miracles can happen.   Achieving the SDGs comprehensive by 2030  would be the near equivalent of buying the 30 Rights listed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its purpose was to prevent another world war, another genocide, and the use of WMD.   

Failing this, it won’t matter how AI complicates our future.  Fact is AI could actually help us create heaven on earth, if that’s the goal of humankind’s collective will.  Otherwise, don’t plan on any more Happy new years.  You can try to survive these years but there won’t be much thriving.  You might find some time to regret that our species once had the possibility of flourishing.  Once imaged as a garden matched by Eden.  One in which we used our mind’s to engineer our world using the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God – the Golden rule.  Instead of using it to defend outdated and deadly concepts like nationalism, different religions, unregulated capitalism, freedom without virtue with no consequences.   

If ready for action in your US local community email Project250@earthlink.net.  If outside the US bless yourself and email MoM2026@earthlink.net

Why Don’t We Do What We Know We Should Do?

"Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark"… If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?"  -- John Adams  (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President   Source: the Novanglus, 1775

This question sits right at the intersection of neuroscience, philosophy, and lived human occurrences — Here’s layers: reasons, clichés, and then some human Truths.

1. The Brain Is Not a Single Decision-Maker:  Your “knowing mind” (prefrontal cortex) and your “doing mind” (limbic system) often disagree.

• The prefrontal cortex plans.
• The limbic system wants comfort, certainty, or dopamine now.

Knowing is cheap. Self-control is metabolically expensive.

 2. Present Bias (The Tyranny of Now):  We systematically overvalue immediate rewards and undervalue future consequences.

• Cake today beats health next year.
• Silence now beats conflict later.

Evolution favored survival, not long-term optimization.

 3. Cognitive Dissonance Avoidance: Acting against what we know creates psychological pain.  So instead of changing behavior, we: 

• Rationalize
• Minimize
• Redefine the problem

It’s easier to adjust beliefs than habits.

 4. Fear of Social Cost: Often we know what’s right but fear:

• Rejection
• Ridicule
• Loss of status
• Being “the only one”

Humans evolved in tribes; isolation once meant death.

 5. Habit Beats Intellect: Behaviors are established and faster neural circuits.  Logic interrupts these — but arrives late.  That’s why insight rarely equals transformation.

 6. Learned Helplessness:  Repeated failure teaches the brain: “Why bother trying?”  This isn’t laziness — it’s protective shutdown.

 7. Moral Licensing:  After doing one good thing, we subconsciously “spend” the credit.

• “I exercised today… dessert is earned.”
• “I vote… so I don’t need to stay informed.”

Well-Worn Clichés Persist for a Reason:

• “Knowing is half the battle.”  (The other half is doing — which is the hard half.)
• “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
• “I know better, but…”
• “Easier said than done.”
• “Old habits die hard.”
• “Do as I say, not as I do.”
• “Tomorrow is another day.”  (Which mysteriously never arrives.)

Deeper takeaways of these predicaments:

Democracy fails for the same reason individuals do:

• Knowledge without restraint          Power overrides accountability
• Desire outruns virtue                       Comfort beats discipline
• Intelligence disregards wisdom      Safety ignores courage.

Our human problem is not ignorance.  It’s acting against what we already know.

Why Don’t We Do What We Know Is Right:  George Washington understood something modern societies prefer to forget- free government depends less on intelligence than on character. Knowledge alone does not produce good behavior—either in individuals or in nations. The same weakness that causes a person to act against their better judgment is the weakness that causes democracies to unravel.

Washington warned that the greatest danger to republican government would not come from foreign armies, but from internal decay—specifically the loss of civic virtue and the rise of factional passion. He understood that human beings often know what they should do, yet fail to do it because of desire, fear, and habit overpower restraint.

This is not a flaw of education; it is a flaw of human nature.

In individuals, we see it when immediate comfort overrides long-term well-being. In democracies, we see it when short-term political gain overrides constitutional limits. In both cases, the mind knows—but the will yields.

Washington’s concept of virtue was not moral perfection. It was self-restraint: the capacity to limit one’s own power, appetite, or passion for the sake of the common good. He believed no constitution, no law, and no election could compensate for its absence. That insight explains modern democratic backsliding.

Today, democracies rarely collapse through coups. They erode through legalized impatience:

• Laws bent for convenience
• Norms abandoned for advantage
• Truth sacrificed to tribal loyalty
• Rights treated as conditional or negotiable

Just as individuals rationalize behavior they know is wrong, societies rationalize actions they know are dangerous—until the damage is irreversible.

The parallel: What habit is to the individual, faction is to the republic.  Both are easier to excuse than to discipline.  Washington’s farewell was ultimately a warning about self-deception. A people convinced they are virtuous no longer practice virtue. A democracy convinced it is stable stops protecting its foundations. The lesson is neither cynical nor nostalgic. It is preemptive.  Free government requires what human nature resists most: restraint exercised willingly, before forces make it unavoidable.   Stated plainly for our time: Democracy does not fail because people don’t know better.  It fails because knowing better is not the same as doing better. 

 The core argument anchored over historic across 2,500+ years.  

Why We Don’t Do What’s Right:  George Washington understood what many modern societies resist: knowledge alone does not produce good behavior. Free government survives only when citizens and leaders exercise virtues like restraint over impulse with harmony between factions and over self-interest. The problem is not ignorance—it is human nature.  This is ancient.

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”  — Aristotle, Politics   He warned that democratic systems fail when passion overwhelms proportion and justice.

 Majorities, like individuals, often confuse desire with what’s right.  Washington echoed this concern in his Farewell Address, warning that faction would become a “frightful despotism,” not because people were uninformed, but because they would surrender judgment to passion.

“The spirit of party… serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration.” - George Washington, 1796  This mirrors the individual moral struggle: we know the better course, but choose the easier one. Societies do the same—rationalizing short-term advantage at the expense of long-term stability.  

 “Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.”  — Edmund Burke    Burke’s insight explains modern democratic backsliding. When citizens reject self-restraint, they invite external restraint. Laws expand when virtues contract.  This pattern is consistent across centuries: “The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.” -Montesquieu

Today, democracies rarely collapse through force. They erode through legality.  The bending of laws, weaponizing norms, and excusing behavior that would once have been unacceptable.  This is nothing new.  “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.”  — Cicero   The treason Cicero described was not always criminal—it was moral: the abandonment of duty for convenience.

Washington believed that constitutional mechanisms could slow decay, but never eliminate it. Without virtue, the republic becomes procedural but hollow.   

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”  — James Madison, Federalist No. 51.   Madison’s insight cuts both ways: because men are not angels, power must be restrained—but because citizens are not angels either, democracy itself must be restrained.

Democracy doesn’t fail because people don’t know better.  It fails because knowing better is not the same as doing better.  And history keeps reminding us:  Freedom survives only where self-restraint arrives before force.

 

Why don't we see the obvious? We are too smart. And it's killing us.

Why are there so many well-worn clichés/idioms for missing what’s right in front of us.  Most of us are not idiots so why didn’t we see it coming?  Biases! They blind us.  Especially when ‘When we think we are so Freaking smart!!!!’ ;-)  And that is going to get us all killed.  We need wisdom. Not more intelligence. 

1) Vision & Blindness: 

“Blind as a bat” (often unfair to bats, but the point stands)

“Turning a blind eye”

“Can’t see the forest for the trees”

“Blind to the obvious”

“Sight unseen” (when used ironically)

2) Proximity & Nearness:  

“Right under your nose”

“Staring you in the face”

“Hiding in plain sight”

“Missed it by a mile” (even when it was inches away)

3) Objects & Metaphors: 

“Elephant in the room”

“Low-hanging fruit” (when ignored)

“The writing on the wall”

“The obvious answer” (usually said after it’s pointed out)

4) Mental & Cognitive:  

“Too close to see it”

“Can’t connect the dots”

“Missing the big picture”

“Overthinking it”

“Lost in the weeds”

5) Mildly Humorous / Colloquial

“Couldn’t see it if it bit them”

“Walking past the solution”

“Face-palm obvious” (modern, but already cliché-adjacent)

THEN sometimes the hardest thing to see is the thing we’ve decided not to look for. Why do we decide not to look for it?  Here’s 12 Biases that might explain this.   

1. “Can’t see the forest for the trees”   Bias: Attentional bias / Narrow framing:  What’s happening? We over-focus on details and lose sight of system-level patterns. Common in policy, engineering, and committee work.  Related research: Systems thinking failures; bounded rationality (Herbert Simon).

2. “Hiding in plain sight” Bias: Inattentional blindness What’s happening?  If we’re not expecting something, we literally don’t perceive it—even when it’s visible.  Classic example: The “invisible gorilla” experiment (Simons & Chabris).

3. “The elephant in the room”  Bias: Pluralistic ignorance / Social conformity bias  What’s happening?  Everyone sees the problem, assumes others accept it, so no one speaks.  Why it persists: Fear of social cost > fear of being wrong.

4. “Turning a blind eye”   Bias: Motivated reasoning  What’s happening: We ignore information that threatens our identity, beliefs, or interests.   Key insight: This is not stupidity—it’s emotional self-defense.

5. “Right under your nose”   Bias: Familiarity bias    What’s happening:  The closer or more familiar something is, the less we consciously evaluate it.   Irony: Repetition breeds invisibility, not clarity.

6. “The writing on the wall”  Bias: Normalcy bias    What’s happening: We underestimate change and assume tomorrow will resemble yesterday.  Seen in: Financial bubbles, climate response delays, institutional decline.

7. “Missing the big picture”  Bias: Reductionism / Analysis paralysis  What’s happening:  Breaking problems into parts without re-integrating them into a whole.  Result: Elegant answers to the wrong question.

8. “Overthinking it”  Bias: Cognitive load overload   What’s happening:  Too much analysis crowds out insight; simple signals get buried. Related law: Hick’s Law—more options = slower decisions.

9. “Couldn’t see it if it bit them”  Bias: Confirmation bias  What’s happening:  We actively screen out evidence that contradicts what we already “know.”   Key danger: Intelligence often makes this worse, not better.

10. “Low-hanging fruit (ignored)”  Bias: Effort justification bias    What’s happening: We distrust easy solutions because we equate difficulty with value.  Cultural note: Especially strong in expert and academic circles.

11. “Lost in the weeds”  Bias: Tunnel vision   What’s happening:  Immediate tasks crowd out strategic thinking.   Seen in: Bureaucracies, crisis management, long meetings with short agendas.

12. “Face-palm obvious” (after the fact):  Bias: Hindsight bias  What’s happening:  Once we know the answer, we believe we “should have known it all along.”  Danger: Leads to unfair blame and poor learning.

Summary:  Most failures to see the obvious are not failures of intelligence, but failures of attention, incentives, and social courage.   The obvious, it turns out, is often obscured by perfectly human thinking.

Well, 2025 is over. Looks like keeping our sanity in 2026 will be harder.

Three YouTube videos to maintain your sanity:

Required listening for souls committed to humankind and nature’s sustainability. 

Below are three 'must watch and LISTEN to' YouTube videos.  Seriously!  If you don’t like reading or hearing the surge of important daily news events, these two people condense the accumulated knowledge you would have - if you closely followed the last few thousand days of key news events. 

And now, how your personal experience of ‘why our civilization’s decline in caring' and our cognitive understanding of the cumulative disruptive consequences -- due to our species lack of collective inaction, is mostly explained by two people. 

Humankind’s future now depends on treating our desensitization of empathy and Truth decay. Disinformation, misinformation, and lack of wisdom is causing increasing Moral Injury in most people. Moral Injury is different than fear-based PTSD. This injury is that discomforting feeling we get when vital governance systems that we have always depended upon - are failing- and literally killing people. 

This discomfort even harms the immune system.  Neil deGrasse Tyson’s ‘three types of truth” (personal and political truths in our mind, and cognitive Truths based on reality) offers us a powerful means of addressing this injury.  Any species failing to adapt - will have increasingly lethal consequences.  In biology, species that fail to adapt to change are called extinct.

 

#1. TEDx Duke, "We’re all being lied to: here’s why no one cares anymore." Skylor Hughes. 15 minutes, 30,000 views., 13 days ago  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9b7ZQh28GY&t=21s

What happens when lying no longer shocks us and dishonesty becomes normal? In this mind-opening talk, Skylar Hughes, a journalist and psychological researcher, explores why our outrage at fake news has faded and what this means for democracy. Hughes reveals how repeated exposure to lies changes our brains, shifts our social norms, and threatens our moral compass. She is a Robertson Scholar at Duke University, combining psychological research with frontline experience in combating misinformation. As part of CNN's fact-checking unit, she verified over 100 articles, broadcast packages, and scripts, serving on the Republican National Convention live fact-checking team. Her expertise extends to the Poynter Institute, where her content reached over 150,000 people.

A Kenan Ethics Fellow, Hughes has explored the moral dimensions of misinformation and digital communication. At Duke’s Marsh Memory Lab, she secured grant funding to lead experimental research on misinformation correction. Her interdisciplinary work provides critical insight into how misinformation shapes society.

Skylar believes accurate information is a right, not a privilege. Upon graduation, she aims to merge her experience in journalism and psychological research to study misinformation’s impact in the 21st century. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

#2 Yuval Harari:  True wisdom only comes away from the clamor of society “Why the Wisest Minds are Quietly withdrawing" – YouTube  ‘Future of Being’, two weeks ago.  21 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=tTzMiC3Abik 

He covers why most thoughtful minds no longer speak, no longer debate, no longer try to be heard?   In this powerful reflection his ideas explore the quiet fading of true wisdom from public life — and the unsettling forces driving it.

It reveals why many highly conscious thinkers are stepping away from society, choosing solitude over noise, and depth over digital chaos. From Seneca to the modern world, history echoes the same pattern — and this time, the silence may be lasting.

 

#3 Yuval Harari.  In 2026, Most Will Break Psychologically — For Not Understanding This 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-fQRQcusmY

24 minutes 52 seconds YouTube video

A silent psychological collapse is coming—and if you don’t understand this one truth, you’ll feel lost, anxious, and mentally overwhelmed in 2026. This video exposes Harari’s most disturbing insight about the human mind, AI pressure, and emotional survival.  Watch now before confusion becomes your new normal.

What You’ll Learn: how AI reshapes identity, why most minds crack under uncertainty, and how to stay mentally strong when reality shifts fast. Timestamps:

 00:00 😨 The unseen mental crisis—why awareness is urgent 

05:42 🧠 Identity under attack—why minds feel unstable

12:18 🤖 AI vs meaning—why confusion grows

18:07 🔥 Emotional survival tools—why this saves you

24:52 🌍 The choice point—why understanding changes everything

Why Watch This Video?

✅ Feel clarity instead of fear

✅ Turn anxiety into awareness

✅ Prepare your mind for 2026

 Consider hosting a face-to-face viewing/discussion with friends or colleagues committed to adapting to this evolving reality.  Our need to adapt, if we intend to survive, thrive, and perhaps flourish in the unimaginable times ahead, is vital to understand that our existing systems are outdate and have been for decades.

 

Below is a C-span program on the media and our need for Truth.   

Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in TV Political Journalism   https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/walter-cronkite-awards-for-excellence-in-tv-political-journalism/670381  

Recipients of the 2025 Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in TV Political Journalism participated in an award ceremony in Washington, DC. Winners included comedian and The Daily Show Host Jon Stewart, former CBS Evening News Anchor John Dickerson, NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander, "60 Minutes" Correspondent Scott Pelley, MS Now host Rachel Maddow, Telemundo news anchor Julio Vaqueiro, and other journalists from PBS Newshour and local stations.

GET quote Regarding 1st Amendment and the role of the Media. !:  Martin Kaplan is an American professor and former studio executive and writer. He teaches at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and is the founding director of the Norman Lear Center for the study of the impact of entertainment on society.

 

Democratization not Democracy! Words matter!!! If you're seeking humanities' sustainable progress on our gifted planet?

 

Everyone but dictators love democracy.  But throughout history, democracy as a noun has never worked.  It has some potential as a verb.  Over the last 30 decades I’ve a gathered over 140 quotes (none from ChatGPT) going back the last 3000 years (email MoM2026@earthlink.net for the entire list).  Each offers one or more reasons why democracy has not worked.  From my grounding as a biologist delving deep in to cognitive issues it is clear that this noun is not a fundamental principle, a “self-evident” Truth, or a “Law of Nature and of Nature’s God” as an “inalienable Right’.  Historically it’s a relatively recent invention of the human mind.  A logical idea for making rules that people must live under, or up to.  Because without human input into such laws people can get very unhappy when the laws do not protect them.  Especially laws that are not applied to everyone equally (our biological sense of injustice).  Add to this any laws that don’t protect the fundamental need of human “freedom and security” which according to Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” is the only legitimate purpose of government.  And without all three of these basic elements (democratization, justice, and protection of inalienable Rights), no government can be sustainable.  Together, these represent another phase we use, and you read about all the time.  The Rule of law.  It was expressed but not specially named as humankind’s foundation - yet backed by the wisdom in the 1776 Declaration of Independence - within the simple but profound phrase “the Laws of Nature end of Nature’s God.”  In a 10-word summary using common language, ‘keep people and nature healthy’ - ‘don’t believe everything you think’.

So please replace the word ‘Democracy’ with ‘Democratization’ of ‘just’ and ‘essential’ laws for humankind’s desire to survive and thrive on this gifted planet.  Maybe we can finally flourish with the global ‘rule of law’.

What follows is the life and death consequences of US democracy and in the lack of the Rule of Law in the United Nations 'international law' with its lack of protection of inalienable rights and nature. 

UN Foundation newsletter 12-18-25

“The humanitarian system’s tank is running on empty – with millions of lives hanging in the balance.”  Twenty years after the UN’s Central Emergency Relief Fund started, the UN Secretary-General’s words strike a chord. The world’s lifeline in humanity’s darkest moments is faltering. 

UN leaders rally the international community to step up support for the Central Emergency Fund at its 2026 pledging event.

As the international community rallied last week to mark the Fund's 20th anniversary and commit to saving lives in a time of critical need, one message was clear:  This is not the moment for apathy or indifference — but for solidarity, compassion, and action.

CERF has delivered nearly $10 billion in life-saving assistance across more than 100 countries — reflecting a central promise of the UN’s Charter, “to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character."

That mission remains more critical than ever. 

//// What's the word used to describe an expectation of something different - after doing the same thing over and over again without making any changes.? 

Below are the comments made in today's Washington Post letter to the editor regarding the current violence going on all around us.

“Our hearts are durable, made to be filled with love as they are made to be broken, but resilience is the key to our survival in the face of loss and horror. Our capacity to feel, and to grieve is our strength as human beings… Stripped of everything – even of hope during the darkest of times – we could still choose our attitude in facing pain; this is one of Victor Frankel‘s great moral Insights from surviving Auschwitz and losing his parents and brother to the Nazis.

Frankel also taught that we are compelled to act when it is possible to improve an outcome. Ahmed al A Hamed who stopped one of the killers of Jews at Bondi Beach, manifested that moral principle Christianity teaches that if we act as if we have faith, faith will be granted us, having faith does not imply the certainty of any particular outcome – but do not act diminishes our own humanity. We must act because without action, our world is eclipse by indifference and cruelty.  Eric Rafael, Santa Fe.

FYI: The word 'perdurable' means enduring, constantly, unperishable

For action you can take in your local community that can have a global impact...email MoM2026@earthlink.net.

1998 UN Chronicle: We have failed!

 

The following is from the 1998 UN Chronicle,  No. 1.  (Pgs 36 and 37)

 

Carnegie Commission Says                              ‘Mass Violence Is Not Inevitable’

 

In December 1997, after a comprehensive three-year study of violent conflict, costing some $9.5 million and involving a large number of international scholars and policymakers, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict released a 257-page final report. Taking a long term, global view of violent conflicts, and utilizing a functional health policy model for disease prevention, the report examines the principle causes of deadly ethnic, nationalist and religious conflicts, both between and within States, and seeks to determine the requirements of an effective system for preventing mass violence. It also looks at ways in which international organizations, and the United Nations in particular, can contribute to developing a coherent international system of non-violent conflict prevention. The three major conclusions offer a cautiously hopeful view on the possibilities of preventing deadly conflict: mass violence is not inevitable; there is an urgent need to prevent deadly conflict; and successful prevention action is possible.

The report emphasizes three preventive imperatives, the first two under the principle of operational prevention: preventing the emergence of violence through early warning and effective reaction to signs of an immediate crisis; and preventing the spread of violence through extended efforts to resolve underlying root causes of violence. The third strategy, under the principle of structural prevention, aims to prevent the reoccurrence of violence through international and regional arrangements and through social development that establish long term conditions of security, well-being and justice.

The Carnegie Corporation will spend the next two years promoting the Commission’s findings in an effort to effect internationally a large-scale shift in the political will of Governments toward preventing violent conflict.

The Commission, set up in May 1994, was co-chaired by Cyrus R. Vance, former United States Secretary of State, and David A. Hamburg, President Emeritus of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Among its members were 16 eminent international leaders and scholars with long experience in conflict prevention and resolution. They were supported by a distinguished 42-member advisory Council.

 

(There was one box with text on each page with related information.  Box on page 36)

 

A ‘Culture of prevention’ Urged by Secretary – General

 

Creation of a “culture of prevention“ was a “challenge the world can and must meet”, Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared on 5 February in his address to a forum on “The Centrality of United Nations to Prevention and the Centrality of Prevention to the United Nations” convened at Headquarters in connection with the final report of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict.

For the United Nations, there was “no higher goal, no deeper commitment and no greater ambition than preventing armed conflict”, he stated. “The prevention of conflict begins and ends with the protection of human life and the promotion of human development. Ensuring human security is, in the broadest sense, the United Nations cardinal mission. Genuine and lasting prevention is the means to achieve that mission”, the Secretary General said.

However, “only when it is too late do we value prevention”, he observed, adding that there were three main reasons for the failure of prevention: the reluctance of one or more parties to a conflict to accept external intervention of any kind; the lack of political well at the highest levels of the international community; and a lack of integrated conflict – prevention strategies within the United Nations system at the international community.

“Of all these, the wheel to act is the most important”, Mr. Annan noted. “Without the political will to act when action is needed, without the will to answer the call that must be heeded, no amount of improved coordination or early morning will translate awareness into action”, he stressed.

The politics of prevention – early warning, preventive diplomacy, preventive deployment and preventive disarmament – would succeed “only if root causes of conflict are addressed with the same will and wisdom”, Mr. Annan stated.

“Poverty, endemic underdevelopment and weak or non-existent institutions inhibit dialogue and invite the resort to violence.  A long, quiet process of sustainable economic development, based on respect for human rights and legitimate government, is essential to preventing conflict”, he said.

“Indeed, we have no excuses anymore. We have no excuses for inaction and no alibis for ignorance. Often, we know even before the very victims of conflict that they will be victimized. We know because our world now is one – in pain and in prosperity. No longer must the promise of prevention be a promise deferred. Too much does a state, too much as possible, too much is needed.

“The founders of the United Nations drew up our charter with a sober view of human nature. They had witnessed the ability of humanity to wage war of unparalleled brutality and unprecedented cruelty. They had witnessed, above all, the failure of prevention, when prevention was still possible and every signal pointed to war.

“The achievement of human security in all its aspects – economic, political, and social – will be the achievement of effective prevention.

“It will be the testament to succeeding generations that ours had the will to save them from the scourge of war.”

(Box on page 37  -  15 bullet points)

 

Understanding the problem                           Some illustrations by the Commission

 

1.      Since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, over 4 million people have been killed in violent conflicts.

2.      An estimated 90% of those killed for civilians, mostly women and children.

3.      During the 1994 Rwanda genocide some 800,000 people were killed in three months. Is it been estimated that 5000 troops could have diverted to slaughter.

4.      International relief and reconstruction efforts over the three years following the Rwanda slaughter have cost over $2 billion. The estimated cost of a preventative intervention would have been 1/3 of this amount.

5.      Today, 1 in 200 people is a refugee or a displaced person. Refugee population of 10,000 or more can be found in 70 countries in the world.

6.      In 1990, nearly 75% of the worlds refugees were Muslims.

7.      In Uganda, and AK-47 can be obtained for the price of a chicken. In Swaziland, the same weapon is sold for $6.

8.      Civil War is blamed for the abandonment of an estimated 80% of Angola’s agricultural land.

9.      In 1960, the income ratio of the richest 20% and the poorest 20% of the world’s population was 30:1. In 1991, It had doubled Two over 60:1.

10.   Less than one third of development assistance goes to the 10 most populous countries – home to two thirds of the world’s poor.

11.   Some 1.1 billion people, about 30% of the developing world’s population, live on $1 a day or less.

12.  Poverty has a woman’s face: 70% of the 1.3 billion people who live in poverty are female.

13.   In 1994, the world supply of water per cabinet was only 1/3 of what it was in 1970.

14.   By the year 2000, nearly half of the world population will live in urban areas.

15.   The 50 poorest countries -- home to 20% of the world’s population – now account for less than 2% of global income, and their share continues to decrease.

 

Pointing fingers. The insanity of humanity persists.

 

The Supreme Court is assumed to scrap a 1935 Supreme Court ruling in Humphrey’s Executor vs United States.  And in doing so impact the fate of our nation and the world.  Something nearly every decision our so called 'independent' government has made in our irreversible interdependent reality.

Is this case Trump's loyalist assert that the President can fire an agency chief for any whim.  In oral arguments this week, the court’s conservative tribe gerrymandered a response to squash that decision.  The courts’ three liberal justices strongly disagreed. Justice Sonja Sotomayer asserted that overturning Humphries would “destroy the structure of government“.  Something this nation’s wannabe King has been chiseling away at for almost a decade.

The outcome of this Court decision would put all federal agencies under direct Presidential control with a gerrymandered construct known as “unitary executive theory“.  This is actually a partisan hypothesis that appears logical to the six conservative justices.  Except, maybe one exception for the Federal Reserve which determines markets.  An agency that should be divorced from partisan politics.

History suggests this problem should be left to Congress, not the courts. Only Congress has the power to eliminate the removal of the leaders of the agencies that it created.  But given the conservative stacked court, the outcome appears inevitable.  And the consequences will be ominous.

Congress had been given agencies significant separation from the president since earliest days the republic. Specifically shielding them from political partisan pressure. The conservative crazies believe that Trump can fire anyone he wants without due cause.   Consider him staffing the Federal Communications Commission with his grovelers.  It could then punish the media for criticizing him.   Or, he could load the Securities and Exchange Commission with officials who will look the other way when Trump’s and his friends are deep into corruption!

While these agencies are part of the executive branch, they should remain outside of executive control. Their survival should be impervious to majority elections, and a minority of fickle voters.  This flawed unitary executive theory suggests even the Fed should be under the President control. Only President Trump wants this.

Whatever happens next summer, this ruling will likely overturn Humphrey. And with it - the concept that the federal agencies should remain separation from partisan politics.   Simply because everything is globally interdependent and a politicized fed would jeopardize the global economy. Just as every other US foreign and domestic policy already does, with global consequences (bad or good) for every living thing.

So while many will be pointing a finger at Trump and his minions, and the Republicans for stacking the Supreme Court years ago, they should look at their hand and note that their three other fingers are pointing back at them.

And then note the two things “We the People” have never corrected since the creation of the US Constitution 11 years after the Declaration of Independence. First is a constitution itself.  It was erected on a faulty foundation of quicksand, with the delusional the word independence.  A concept that exists nowhere in the universe.

The one thing the constitution got right was its first three words.  “We the people” and the need for separation of powers.  This uniqueness of the American system did give power to the people. But that power has yet resulted in achieving any of the seven intentions mentioned in its preamble.  Some progress is made, much of that progress is now heading backwards with a president wielding near King capacity.

This power exposes the second mental law of our system, prioritizing democracy, without ensuring justice for all and the protection of some of the most basic inalienable rights.  Without these...no democracy can work. So says Thomas Jefferson (and others) knowing democracy is basically the tyranny of the majority.  With the majority getting what it wants, but not what humankind and nature needs to be healthy and sustainable.

Democracy requires these two other elements.  “Liberty and justice for all”, which every American has pledged before our flag. And maximum security.  The vital concept that Thomas Payne offered in his profound document “Common Sense” months before the Declaration of Independence as patriots were being killed by an all-powerful King. Payne asserted the only legitimate purpose of a government is to protect the “freedom and security” of people.

During the making of both the Declaration and our Constitution, it was horrifically clear what’s the freedom was worth dying for!  And just as important ‘Security’ can only be assured by virtuous people.

Today’s shortsighted selfishness that too many Americans demonstrates with contentment with a lack of virtue in our behaviors, US foreign policy, military policy, economic policies, and too many leaders we have elected- then reelected.

The most obvious evidence of this truism is the election of President Trump, twice!

This is the populist insanity of humanity that exists globally, since the failure of the United Nations to protect us from the global forces of poverty, pandemics, violent extremism, extreme weather conditions, and now multiple forms of WMD in our era where our mind as enabled the weaponization of everything.

Note that the UN was never given the power to stop these global disrupters.  It as a democratic decision by those powerful nations that won World War II.  The wisdom of the ages (the Golden Rule) was ignored.

Watch the great 10-hour documentary now available for free on PBS, the American Revolution. In it the inspiration of our founders by indigenous tribes in the northeast colonies was referenced.   Unfortunately, the founders ignored two vital elements of the indigenous governing system. We still ignore it today. 

The first is the power that women were given in making decisions with their wisdom of looking back and ahead seven generations.  

Second is there collective tribe’s knowledge and respect for all the things that their lives depend on.  This gave them all the same ‘mind’   They did not pledge to protect a piece of paper.  They acknowledge their thankfulness of all the blessings humankind has been given by nature, and the importance of everyone being united in the mind as well as their bodies in being human.

Unfortunately, the human mind now has the capacity to believe anything!  Then make weapons of mass destruction for killing in mass!  With a willingness to die in masses --  in defence of other mental constructs that once served a uniting purpose but now unite us narrowly into lethal mental divisions - starting with the delusional concept we are independent from nature.  And other divisive constructs like politics, nationalism, religion, and capitalist worship.

Thus, over the last few thousand years, individuals with the most money and power have reinforced the establishment of these once-bonding, but now divisive systems.  And “we the people” repeatedly fail to grasp this reality and change it.  And create a system or follow a plan to ensure the health and well-being of everyone and nature.

After World War II, this should’ve been a self-evident truth - given the genocides, wars, and the evolution of weaponry and pathogens that came after.

Americans, especially should have woken up to the roots of our silence - given the civil war Lincoln did.  A war that cost more American lies that all the wars and revolutions we have fought in since then combined.

Thus, the ideal of America remains great and supreme. But as a place and a people our nation remains an insane-asylum – doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.  Instead of the asylum of freedom the founders first envisioned. That even they didn’t practice it at the time.