I've failed. Progressive Movements remain divided.

The dozens of progressive organizations I've worked in, volunteered with, or tried to inspire to take leadership in creating, or simply endorsing the 'idea' of a Movement of Movements (MoM) have refused to do either.  Less than a dozen did.  

1. Rotary District 7610 Action Group for Environmental Sustainability:  David Feld  mdavidfeld@gmail.com 11-2024
2. Greenbelt Rotary Club:  Greenbelt Maryland, USA  https://greenbeltrotary.org/  12-2024
3. Rockville Rotary Club:  Rockville Maryland, USA  https://www.rockvillerotary.org/  1-1-2025
4. Ojulu Island Saviors Foundation:  Kampala,, Uganda.  https://ojuluislandsavioursfoundation.org/  Odongo Moses Ojulu 1-19-25
5. Mobilized News Network:  NYC, USA  https://mobilizednews.com/about/  Steven Jay  1-26-25
6. Kehosa Africa Foundation:   Kenya https://Facebook.com/KehosaAfricaFoundation  Armstrong Ongera, MD 2-3-25
7. StartUpAfrica:  Kenya https://www.startupafrica.org Armstrong Ongera, MD  2-3-25
8. Maryland United for Peace and Justice:  Baltimore, MD  USA  2-1-25
9. Peacebuilding Connections  https://www.peacebuildingconnections.org   2-10-25
10. Buhknom Development Foundation, Nigeria  https://bdfgivinghope.org.ng  3-3-25
11. Friends of Foreigners in Togo:  Togo, Africa  https://togofriends.org/  3-4-25

Project 250 intended to use the 250th anniversary of the 1776 Declaration to inspire and unite progressives around the "Truths" that we should all hold "to be self-evident, but it never grew legs.  

Below is only partial list of organizations that missed the opportunity to unite the three progressive movements - and the thousands of organizations within each.  There are hundreds more in my database that I've collected over the last few decades.  They represent only a few of the dozens of competing progress issues that still need funding for urgent actions. 

Action Network

Association of World Citizens

Alliance for Peace Building

Bahai

Charter for Compassion.
Citizens for United Earth

Citizens for Global Solutions

Compassionate Citizen Foundation

Coalition for our Children

Deeptime Network

Earth Charter

Generations United

Global Health Council

Global Compassion Coalition

Global Action Plan for the Earth

Human Rights Foundation

I Am Humanity

Indivisible

Institute for World Problems

Medical Society Consortium

Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network 

MoveOn

United for Peace and Justice

One Community

ONE World 

Pachamama Alliance

Planetary Health Alliance 

ProHuman 

RESULTS

Rotary International

SmartSettle

Source of Synergy Foundation 

Sunrise Movement

The Hunger Project

United Earth 

United for Peace

United Nations Association

United Nations Foundation

US Global Leadership Coalition: 

We The World

Wellbeing Economy Alliance

World Citizens

World Beyond War

I had offered up over a dozen prime reasons for any progressive organization to lead -or simply endorse - this bold project (simply as an idea - not an origination - and at zero cost). I'd answered their questions and offered free online supportive documents.  Yet none saw the profound benefit to their own organization's growth in taking the lead.  I took this personally, believing it was the messenger and not the message that was the problem.  In some cases it probably was me.  My passion and persistence can be annoying.  But now I'm convinced it is mainly the progressive mind set.  Potentially their dislike, or disrespect for the Declaration's white slave owners. But the profound wisdom within that document (flawless except for the one brief phrase “merciless Indian Savages”) - simply genius.   

Now, faith in both myself and my fellow progressives has withered.  And with it - any vision of things getting systemically better with over 100 destructive trends potentially cascading into one another -creating a global catastrophe.  At least 1/3rd of these are alone unsustainable. 

I expect a great celebration with the death or removal from office of our current criminal President. And MAGA loses in the midterms, hopefully ending his reign of death and destruction here and globally.  But democracy isn't going to save us.  With our nation politically polarized we cannot solve the delusion of independence long ago engineered into our US Constitution and the UN Charter. Hard times are coming in multiple ways. 

Below is ChatGPT's list of why the hundreds of progressive Peace organizations have failed in achieving peace...and there have been more new conflicts since Sept 11, 2001. More than since the end of World War II. 

Why have Progressive Peace movements always failed?   7-3-26 ChatGPT answered.

This has been studied by historians, political scientists, peace researchers, military strategists, and practitioners for decades. While there is no single answer, there is considerable agreement on why peace movements have often struggled to achieve lasting change.

Here are some of the principal reasons they have fallen short, with examples and perspectives from a range of voices.

1. Peace is defined negatively rather than positively: Many movements define peace simply as the absence of war rather than the presence of conditions that allow people and societies to flourish. Norwegian peace scholar Johan Galtung distinguished between “negative peace” (absence of violence) and “positive peace” (justice, equity, and functioning institutions).  [In this era of Truth decay and the evolution of weapons and war the possibility of redefining it as ‘positive Peace’ given all the different contexts and meanings of this ambiguous would be futile and a waste limited time, energy and resources...that should be invested in preventing conflicts.]

 

2. Root causes receive less attention than immediate crises:  Wars often emerge from combinations of poverty, inequality, corruption, environmental stress, poor governance, discrimination, and fear. Stopping a war without addressing these conditions often leaves the drivers of future conflict intact. [Genocides take even more lives, and sanctions used to achieve a cease fire or end a conflict can kill nearly as much, and often backfires.]

 

3. National interests outweigh global interests:  Most governments are accountable primarily to their own citizens. International institutions have limited authority to enforce peace when major powers disagree.  [World law via a world federation or something similar has been tried for over 100 years.  Now it is needed more than ever.  But those in power will not give it up.]

 

4. Peace movements are often fragmented:  Environmental organizations, public health advocates, human rights groups, anti-poverty campaigns, democracy advocates, and anti-war organizations frequently pursue parallel goals without sustained coordination. [Even various Peace organizations fail to unite...and continue to compete with each other for money, members, media, and sway with policy makers.  For the past few decades I’ve worked with some that united.... but bringing them all together has never happened.]

 

5. Security institutions are designed to respond, not prevent:  Governments devote vastly more resources to military preparedness and crisis response than to conflict prevention, mediation, education, or community resilience. [This reactionary response is insane.  Systemic issues must be prioritized.  The cost savings would resolve the debt issues of most nations.]

 

6. Economic incentives favor conflict:  Defense industries, competition over natural resources, sanctions, illicit arms markets, and geopolitical rivalries create incentives that can work against peaceful resolution.  [Changing this would require political will that few policy makers are open to...and too few voters would rise to the occasion to make it happen.]

 

7. Human psychology evolved for smaller groups:  Humans readily distinguish between “us” and “them.” While this capacity strengthened cooperation within groups, it can also fuel polarization, nationalism, sectarianism, and dehumanization. [This is a mental health issue that even peace experts fail to acknowledge.  And they must - given the evolution of war and WMD.]

 

8. Technology advances faster than ethics and governance:  Nuclear weapons, cyberwarfare, autonomous systems, drones, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence have expanded the means of conflict more rapidly than international norms have adapted. [Failure of governments, peace organizations, and the human mind adapting to this insanity is another mental health problem...not accepting reality]

 

9. Justice is difficult to achieve after violence:  Unresolved grievances, trauma, displacement, and cycles of revenge can persist for generations.  [again, another mental source of conflict that requires humans changing their minds, forgiveness, and ...being involved in politics ...seeking comfort instead of command of their discipline]

 

10. Peace movements often mobilize only during crises: Public attention rises during wars but frequently fades afterward, making sustained institution-building difficult.  [Progressives are lazy, focused on love and are not interested in prevention...just feeling good about what they do regardless of how ineffective they are.]

 

11. Political polarization undermines common purpose:   Many peace initiatives become identified with particular political ideologies, reducing their ability to build broad coalitions. [again, their failure to unite in systemic actions doesn’t fit their chosen identity]

 

12. Success is difficult to measure:  Prevented wars leave little visible evidence, making prevention harder to sustain politically than responding to dramatic crises. [BS!  By prioritizing the 169 sub-goals within the 17 SDGs—measuring would lead to success.

 

Perspectives worth remembering

Dwight D. Eisenhower warned: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched… signifies… a theft from those who hunger.”

Albert Einstein observed: “Problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that created them.”

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:  “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

Dag Hammarskjöld said: “The United Nations was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.”

 From the military perspective,

Carl von Clausewitz famously noted: “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”

 Many contemporary strategists would add that preventing conflict requires shaping the political, economic, and social conditions long before violence erupts.

 Why addressing root causes matters:  The 17 Sustainable Development Goals provide a useful framework because they recognize that peace is interconnected with health, education, clean water, food security, economic opportunity, environmental sustainability, human rights, and effective institutions. Goal 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, is essential, but it is difficult to achieve in isolation. Communities burdened by hunger, disease, extreme inequality, corruption, environmental degradation, or exclusion are generally more vulnerable to instability and conflict. [and nearly ten times the number of people die from hunger, disease, human rights violations...than from conflicts and genocides combined]

 From a systems perspective, durable peace is less a standalone objective than an emergent outcome of societies that meet people’s basic needs, protect rights, resolve disputes fairly, and build trust across communities. Progress on goals such as good health, quality education, reduced inequalities, climate resilience, and accountable governance can reduce many of the conditions that increase the risk of violence. This does not mean the SDGs guarantee peace, nor that every conflict stems from unmet development goals, but it does suggest that prevention is broader than diplomacy or military deterrence alone.

Strengthening the foundations of healthy, resilient communities can make peaceful resolution more likely and violent conflict less likely over time.

 One theme that has emerged in both peace research and public health is that prevention often receives less attention than response. Investments in early warning, resilient institutions, public health, education, and inclusive governance may not attract the visibility of crisis interventions, yet they can reduce the likelihood that crises escalate into violence. This preventive approach is increasingly reflected in research on human security and resilience, even as governments continue to debate how best to balance immediate security needs with long-term investments in the conditions that support lasting peace.

 Key opportunities for action 

If we begin with the premise that the destructive power of humanity has advanced much faster than our political institutions and our capacity for global cooperation, then a peace movement focused primarily on protests against individual wars is unlikely, by itself, to keep pace with modern risks. A systems-oriented movement would likely prioritize building resilience and reducing the conditions under which conflicts become more likely and more destructive.

Here are five areas that many scholars across security studies, public health, governance, and peace research would likely view as foundational:

1. Prevention through human and planetary security:  Shift the primary question from “How do we stop wars?” to “How do we reduce the conditions that make wars, instability, and societal collapse more likely?” This includes health, food and water security, resilient infrastructure, environmental stewardship, education, and disaster preparedness. The concept of human security, introduced by the United Nations Development Programme in 1994, broadened security beyond military threats to include economic, health, environmental, food, personal, community, and political security.

 

2. Governance that matches global interdependence:  Many of today’s greatest risks—pandemics, climate change, cyberattacks, nuclear weapons, AI, financial contagion, and biodiversity loss—cross borders. A serious peace movement might therefore focus less on creating a world government and more on strengthening international cooperation, accountability, and institutions that can address problems no nation can solve alone.

 

3. Transforming education and public understanding:  Technology has evolved rapidly, but civic education, systems thinking, media literacy, and conflict-resolution skills have not kept pace. A long-term peace movement could invest heavily in helping people understand interconnected systems, evaluate information critically, and appreciate both local responsibilities and global interdependence.

 

4. Building resilient communities before crises occur: Communities with trusted institutions, strong social networks, public health capacity, emergency preparedness, and inclusive local leadership are generally better able to withstand shocks without descending into violence or instability. This emphasizes prevention rather than reaction.

 

5. Managing emerging technologies responsibly:  Nuclear weapons remain an existential concern, but they are now joined by cyberwarfare, autonomous weapons, biotechnology, space systems, and artificial intelligence. A forward-looking peace movement would likely devote substantial effort to developing international norms, transparency, and risk-reduction measures for these technologies before crises arise.

Several quotations capture aspects of this broader perspective:

• Albert Einstein: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking.”
• Martin Luther King Jr.: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
• John F. Kennedy: “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future.”

One observation that connects these themes is that many traditional peace movements have been event-centered—organized around ending a particular war or opposing a particular weapon. A movement designed for the twenty-first century might instead be system-centered. Its success would be measured not only by fewer wars, but also by healthier populations, stronger institutions, greater resilience to global shocks, and a reduced likelihood that disputes escalate into violence.

That perspective also aligns with a broader interpretation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Rather than treating Goal 16 (“Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”) as the sole “peace goal,” the goals can be viewed as an interconnected prevention framework. Progress in health, education, water, food, climate resilience, reduced inequality, and effective governance does not eliminate conflict, but it can reduce many of the structural conditions that increase the risk of violence. In that sense, lasting peace may be less a separate destination than an outcome of societies that are healthy, just, resilient, and capable of cooperating across borders.

Priorities and education for peace:  If the objective is to prepare peacebuilders rather than simply peace advocates, the curriculum would need to go well beyond the history of wars or techniques of negotiation. It would help people understand the systems that generate conflict and the capacities needed to prevent it. Here are five core topics.

1. Systems Thinking and Global Interdependence:   Why teach it? 
Nearly every major challenge—pandemics, climate change, financial crises, migration, cyberattacks, resource scarcity, and armed conflict—is interconnected. Understanding feedback loops, unintended consequences, and long-term effects helps people identify root causes rather than treating symptoms.

Students would learn:

• Systems thinking and complexity
• Human dependence on natural systems
• Global supply chains and shared vulnerabilities
• Long-term thinking and resilience

“Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, and everything is vulnerable.” — a phrase used by leaders in critical infrastructure and security that reflects the growing recognition of interconnected risks.

2. Human Security, Public Health, and Prevention:   Why teach it?
Many conflicts are intensified by unmet basic needs, weak institutions, disasters, or health crises. Prevention is often more effective and less costly than responding after violence erupts.

Students would learn:

• Public health principles
• Food, water, and energy security
• Disaster preparedness
• Early warning and risk reduction
• Community resilience

This shifts the question from “How do we stop wars?” to “How do we build societies where wars become less likely?”

 

3. Human Psychology, Identity, and Conflict:   Why teach it?
Conflict often grows from fear, identity, misinformation, trauma, and polarization as much as from material interests.

Students would learn:

• Cognitive biases
• Tribalism and group identity
• Trauma and reconciliation
• Empathy and perspective-taking
• Conflict resolution and negotiation

Understanding how people think is essential to reducing unnecessary conflict.

4. Ethical Governance and Global Cooperation:   Why teach it?
Modern threats routinely cross national borders. Peacebuilders need to understand how local, national, and international institutions function, where they succeed, and where they face limitations.

Students would learn:

• Constitutional principles
• International law
• Human rights
• Democratic accountability
• International cooperation
• Principles of good governance

The emphasis would be on strengthening institutions that can resolve disputes peacefully while respecting human dignity.

5. The Future of Civilization:  Why teach it?
Technology is advancing rapidly while governance and ethical frameworks often lag behind. Peacebuilders should anticipate future risks, not just respond to present ones.

Students would learn:

• Artificial intelligence
• Biotechnology
• Cybersecurity
• Nuclear risk
• Climate resilience
• Emerging technologies
• Foresight and scenario planning

Students would ask not only “What kind of future is likely?” but also “What kind of future should we build?”

An overarching principle:  A twenty-first-century peace curriculum would not treat peace as a standalone subject. It would treat peace as an emergent property of healthy, resilient, just, and well-governed societies.

Rather than asking, “How do we end the next war?” students would be trained to ask:

• What conditions make conflict more or less likely?
• How can communities become more resilient before crises occur?
• What institutions are needed to manage global interdependence?
• How do we align technological progress with ethical responsibility?
• How do we leave future generations with greater security and opportunity than we inherited?

Such an education would prepare people not only to oppose violence but to become architects of societies that reduce the likelihood of violence in the first place. That perspective is consistent with viewing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals not as separate objectives, but as interconnected components of a long-term framework for prevention, resilience, and human flourishing.

[In other words, the SDGs are a comprehensive, holistic, synergistic, achievable, and cost saving plan that could achieve much of what enforcing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could have done.] 

But progressives movements and organizations are to simple minded and identify addicted to change their minds and serve humanity and nature as a collective project.