Health to Rotary International. With out it...it will rest in Peace.
Rotary should package its "Service above Self" in the context of HEALTH, not PEACE.
At the end of this rant is the ChatGPT definition of Shalom.
THE FOUR WAY TEST
Of everything we think, say, or do?
Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL & BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICAL to all concerned?
Know that the word Everything is an autological word...meaning exactly ‘everything’.
Consider your personal Rotarian support regarding these two statements below regarding our commitment to best serve humanity - and actually achieve our commitment for engineering a more just and sustainable world we all hope for, know is possible, and most consistent with Rotary’s current 7 pillars of service.
1. The global PEACE Movement will finally work
if Rotary can redefine the word Peace and have all peace efforts within each
Peace organization within every nation, agreeing to the 8 pillars Rotary has now
chosen.
Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL & BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICAL to all concerned?
Consider these current world dilemmas regarding violence.
·
In 1948 the UN Charter
put into ‘international law’ its highest priority of protecting the national sovereignty
of nation states - and that nations would not take land from others by force. And with that, it non-democratically created
the Security Council and established its veto power to the winners of that war.
·
More wars occurred
over the last 20 years than occurred in 60 years after the end of World War II.
·
Ukraine/Russia permanent
peace agreement. And Russia keeping it?
·
Ukraine/Russia cease
fire agreement. And Russia keeping it?
·
Israel/Gaza permanent
peace agreement. And Israel keeping it
without taking more Palestinian land in the West Bank.
·
Two state
solution regarding Isreal and Palestinians.
·
Gang control in
Haiti killing, kidnapping, and raping civilians, policeman, and Peacekeepers in
Haiti.
·
An end to the global
war on terrorism (a tactic of the less powerful).
·
An end to drone,
cyber, bio, chemical, autonomous weapons, or use of conventional weapons like
car/truck bombs, or used for ramming crowds...
·
11,000 to 13,000
children under the age of 5 dying every day from easily preventable poverty
related malnutrition and infectious diseases even when there is no war, genocide,
or natural disaster.
·
War in Sudan
·
Evolution of
weapon systems
·
Genocides
·
Elimination of
all nuclear weapons.
·
Holding war
criminals accountable.
·
Peace is an ambiguous
word that means vastly different things to people.
·
There are
different levels of peace (personal, community, homeland, global...
·
Most people and
most nations strongly believe in Peace through strength.
·
Others believe
peace is possible through disarmament, non-violence, or just getting enough
people to take one -of the four -Peace education courses linked to Rotary
International (The Peace Game, Rotary’s Positive Peace course, Peace Education,
· In the 2024 (18th addition) of the “Global Peace
Index which ranks 163 independent states and territories covering 99.7% of the
world‘s population” “uses 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators from
highly respected sources and measures the state of peace across three domains:
the level of societal safety insecurity, the extent of ongoing to domestic
international conflicts, and the degree of militarization.”
It is produced by “the Institute
for Economics and Peace (IEP)...the world’s leading measure of global
peacefulness”.
The 2024 “report finds that many
of the conditions that precede major conflicts are higher than they have been
since the end of the Second World War. There are currently 56 active conflicts,
the most since the end of Second World War, and with fewer conflicts being
resolved, either military or through peace agreements. The number of conflicts that ended in a
decisive victory fell from 49% in the 1970s to 9% in the 2010s, while conflicts
that ended through peace agreements fell from 23% to 4% over the same period.”
“Conflicts are also becoming
more internationalized, with 92 countries now engaged in a conflict beyond
their borders, the most since the inception of the GPI in 2008, complicating
negotiation processes for a lasting peace and prolonging conflicts. The internationalization
of conflict is driven by increased great power competition and the rise of
mid-level powers, who are becoming more active in their regions. Although the
measures of militarization had been improving for the first 16 years of the
GPI, the trend has now reversed and in 2024 militarization deteriorated in 108
countries.”
“The combination of these
factors means that the likelihood of another major conflict is higher than any
time since the inception of GPI.” Since
the Peace education day that I studied for and attended every session in
Calgary in June 2025, Rotary is no longer working with IEP. The reason why has yet been given.
·
2. A global HEALTH Movement can best prevent the greatest number of human deaths, the most human suffering, and protection of environmental systems.
Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL & BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICAL to all concerned?
Consider these current global health problems, threats, and costs in human lives, productivity, and environmental sustainability.
Smallpox that
took the lives of over 300 million people in just 70 years of the last century,
until a global campaign succeeded in its global eradication in only 10 years.
Polio
eradication (initially launched by a Rotary Club in the Philippines eventually
went global and is now 99% complete after missing its original year 2000 deadline.
Since then, there have been six major “global
deadlines” set (2000, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2018, 2020) but not achieved. The next is 2026 but some Rotary leaders believe
this will not be achieved unless the world achieves most of the UN 17
Sustainable Development Goals with their target date being 2030. So far under 20% of those goals established
in 2015 have been met.
Measles: Returning
because of distrust in science and vital governing institutions.
Covid: Always changing and evolving...but we do not.
And our governance systems don’t either.
Bird Flu: Likely
our next pandemic.
Bioweapons development and capacity to target specific genetic differences.
Cyber vulnerability to hospitals, water treatment,
food transportation, electricity for ________ (related to food production, health
prevention and treatments).
Mental health:
We can believe anything...and everything we think. With little change.
Truth decay:
Our personal and political truths are lethal
without objective Truths.
Drug Addiction:
Our mind’s aversion to the discomforts we need to grow resilience to survive
and thrive.
Obesity: Filling our stomach with feel good foods that
sicken and kill us while busting our nation’s budget with a medical care system
that does not do prevention.
Micro Plastics:
Forever Chemicals: Evolved from Teflon...trying to make life easier.
Processed foods: Our addiction to sugar and salt, and feeling good while we eat, but feeling bad later as body systems are poisoned.
ROOT CAUSES!
What are the “root causes” of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? President
Trump avoided the question during press overage of the negotiation... to stop
the killing of tens of thousands of innocent people in Ukraine and hundreds of thousands
of Russian soldiers conscripted for Russia’s illegal war to enlarge its nation.
Root causes are what one looks for - if they are
serious about prevention. Or looking for what went wrong to prevent another crisis. Doing this may be the most cost effective
investment known to life on this precious planet. A root cause is a mental
concept that can be applied to any problematic issue. Be it health, wars, genocide, environmental
destruction, or broken relationships.
But President Trump is interested in looking good
regardless of the cost to others, or consequences down the road. And even if he admitted it was Putin’s
decision to invade Ukraine, that would not be a root cause. You might suggest it was Putin’s desire to
rebuild a Soviet Union but that is only one step closer. Still nowhere near the original cause.
Some logically say it was Biden‘s fault for not going ‘all in’ and demanding Russian leave Ukraine or sufficiently arm Ukrainians to do it on their own. Putin’s threat of nuclear war blunted that possibility. Yet we are nowhere near the root cause.
Deeper thinking minds have asserted that war is human
nature - and wars will never stop. Truth is, primates will always fight, but it
is only Homo sapiens that create mental identities of nationalism, religion, or
economic systems - and then decide to kill and die in mass numbers - trying to protect their minds cherished beliefs.
And ignoring the Truth of humankind is one family, now with the global means of
mass destruction that can end civilization as we know it - if not our own
species.
So human nature is not the root cause. But our mental defect is.
Over the last 5000 to 7000 years our creative minds
invented concepts as a way of enlarging and bonding our tribe together.
And it is our mental resistance to creating a global governance
system where the rule of law replaces the law of force.
The system we have now puts the protection of nation
states (the concept of national sovereignty) which allows governments to do
anything they want, anytime they want, to whomever they want, within their own
borders. And if they have nuclear
weapons are powerful military’s they can do whatever they want beyond their own
borders to anyone they want, if they think they can get away with it.
This is what both Putin and the Israeli government are
doing.
It’s the same the United States has done many
times. In 2003 invasion of Iraq or its
recent bombing of Iran’s nuclear power facilities.
This ‘system’ ‘originated about 400 years ago with the
treaty of Westphalia. And in 1948 it was cemented into “International law” within
the United Nations by the nations who won World War II. The United Nations
charter is a defective global governance system like what the United States created
with its constitution 11 years after the Declaration of Independence. The
Constitution gave States power over the protection of human rights. This led to the US Civil War that killed
about 700,000 Americans. That’s more deaths than the US lost in all the wars we
have fought in since then combined.
But this is not a mental health issue we think about. And our collective lack of understanding that
‘we the people’ on this amazing planet do have the agency and capacity to
insist that our leaders and our nations put the protection of human rights and
the environment above the protection of national sovereignty.
This would likely end wars between nations. But there would still more people dying each
year from infectious disease related to poverty and malnutrition - than from
all the wars, revolutions, genocide, pandemics, violent extremist, weather
conditions combined.
To stop this hidden holocaust and end our insanity we
must look the root cause of our own unexamined assumptions - that this dysfunctional
system cannot be changed.
Trying to explain this to highly intelligent people is
like trying to tell someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s that their mind isn’t
working right. Most simply cannot be convinced they are out of touch with
reality. There’s a medical and mental health term specifically
for this blindness to reality. Anosognosia.
For over 70 years, Albert Einstein and other wise
individuals wanted to create a world, Federation. But people rightfully feared a global
government for religious or rational reasons.
Because governments have killed more of their own people by genocide than
their own people killed in wars, they have fought in.
Over the last century, approximately 100 million
people were killed in wars. But over 160
million were killed in genocides by their own governments.
Consider Smallpox alone took over 300 million lives in
just 70 years of the last century. That possibly
existed for two centuries. But it was a
global effort that eradicated it saving millions of lives and billions of dollars
still, annually.
Humanity is not going to create a world, Federation or
any government that is going to put the protection of human rights and the
environment above the protection of each nation’s government.
So, the next best thing is to fund the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals that were globally approved in 2015 to be achieved by 2030. This is affordable and achievable and would
best protect most human rights. Clean
water, safe sanitation, adequate nutrition, basic education, and primary healthcare
can be purchased if businesses want to keep capitalism, profit making, and
their own communities sustainable.
Given the costs economically and of lives lost by wars
nations have been fighting, and the pandemic, environmental destruction, genocides
and the evolution of terrorism, it would be incredibly wise to address these
root causes by funding a 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
We must make the health of people and the environment a
priority. Not Peace, for which there is
no definition everyone can agree on. But
everyone wants Health for the things we all need.
SHALOM: After writing all of the above, I asked ChatGPT for a literal definition of the Jewish word Shalom. Its answer:
The Hebrew word “shalom” (שָׁלוֹם) comes from the root
sh-l-m (ש-ל-ם), which means to be whole, complete, or sound. So, the literal definition of shalom is:
- Wholeness
- Completeness
- Well-being
- Peace (as the state that comes from wholeness, not just the absence of conflict)
That’s why shalom is used both as a greeting (“hello/goodbye”) and as a blessing — it’s wishing someone wholeness, harmony, and health in all aspects of life.
[next I asked ChatGPT “So it looks like the word health is the most comprehensive meaning” Its response]
Exactly — you’ve put your finger on something
important. If we trace shalom back to
its root meaning (“wholeness, intactness”), the closest single English word is
health.
- In older English,
health didn’t just mean “not sick.” It meant whole, sound, complete — the
same sense as shalom.
- From that wholeness, you naturally get the sense of peace, harmony, prosperity, safety, and well-being.
So yes — while peace is the common translation, health
(wholeness of body, mind, community, and spirit) may actually be the most
comprehensive meaning.
Would you like me to map out a little diagram showing how shalom → health → peace/prosperity/safety are all connected?
[YES! That would be interesting. Please do.]
Here’s a simple text diagram you can copy and paste anywhere. It shows how the root meaning of “shalom” branches out into related ideas:
SHALOM (שָׁלוֹם)
"Wholeness / Completeness"
│
▼
HEALTH
(soundness of body, mind, and spirit)
┌─────────────┬──────────────┬───────────────┐
▼ ▼
▼ ▼
PEACE PROSPERITY SAFETY
WELL-BEING
(harmony, no (flourishing, (security,
(inner calm,
conflict) fullness of life) freedom from harm) contentment,
harmony)
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