On this World AIDS day! December 1, 2023 Our Dysfunctional US Government.

 “In a survey of national security professionals in government, Islamic extremism ranks No. 1 among global threats, but the No. 2 choice is a tie between cyber-attacks and U.S. political dysfunction. In fact, political dysfunction ranks ahead of ‘international terrorism,’ ‘a nuclear armed Iran,’ and Russia, China and North Korea, in the minds of these respondents.”  Political Dysfunction Is a Worse Threat Than Putin, Say National Security Workers - Defense One  Nov 14, 2014

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/205797-gates-biggest-threat-to-america-is-government-dysfunction CAMERON JOSEPH 05/11/14

“We have failed! I hope we have found the bottom”  Lisa Merkowski (R-Alaska) C-span radio 2-8-20 

“Washington, D.C. is fundamentally broken and it's past time we look outside the swamp for answers.”  Dr. Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation President, November 2023

Given the dysfunction of our government in addressing irreversibly interdependent global threats...it is self-evident that we urgently and significantly amend our Constitution.  It is highly unlikely it will survive as the dominant government or government system in our rapidly changing reality, mostly linked to the exponential growth of technology. The growing range and accelerating pace of interdependent personal and national security threats (terrorism, pandemics, Cyber/biological weapons, climate change, truth decay, political polarization...) can’t be stopped by independent governments or their stove piped agencies completing over zero sum budgets. Our nation’s debt driven primarily by reactionary policies (instead of investments in prevention) are considered by many to be our greatest national security risk. A well-functioning government would need far fewer police.  And as our founding fathers wisely knew the constitution, they brought into existence was only fit for a “virtuous” people.  

In 2015 US national security experts were asked to rate threats to our nation’s security. “Dysfunctional Government” was rated 2nd. Terrorism being the first. Dysfunctional Government ranked above a nuclear Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and Climate change…. Reported by a Senator in a committee hearing on Cybersecurity. http://www.c-span.org/video/?328309-1/hearing-cybersecurity : 57+ minutes into the hearing covered by C-span: 

During a September 24, 2015, Senate hearing on Intelligence and Cybersecurity issues Senator Angus King (I-ME) questioning of National Security Agency Director (Admiral) Michael Rogers.   Senator King stated “There’s a survey I commend to your attention, and I’ll submit for the record.  [It was] done late last year -- of national security professionals across the government and one of the fascinating results is that US political dysfunction, they ranked as a higher threat to national security than a nuclear armed Iran, Vladimir Putin, China’s military buildup or North Korea. The only thing above political dysfunction was Islamic Extremism. So that is a shocking… Let me move on…Political dysfunction being a national security threat!  You know Pogo. ‘We have met the enemy and he is us.’ ”

The US National Intelligence Council Global Trends 2030 report’s overview in the “Game changer” chart under “Governance gap” asks, “Will governments and institutions be able to adapt fast enough to harness change instead of being overwhelmed by it?  http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/GlobalTrends_2030.pdf

"I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. ... We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected."  -- John C. Danforth (1936- ) US Senator (MO-R)    Source: in an interview in The Arizona Republic on April 22, 1992 

Any person who doesn’t clearly understand that national security and national solvency are mutually dependent, and that permanent maintenance of a crushing weight of military power would eventually create dictatorship, should not be entrusted with any kind of responsibility in our country. – Dwight Eisenhower

"We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves." - Thomas Jefferson 

“What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? …The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”   — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Stephens Smith [1787]

"Whenever a people or an institution forget its hard beginnings, it is beginning to decay."   — Carl Sandburg

"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."  -- Charles Austin Beard   (1874-1948) Professor at Columbia University 1935

“The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people.” Frank Kent

"When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." - Frédéric Bastiat, The Law 

The average age of the world's great civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.  – Alex Fraser Tytler

“Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.” – Robert F. Kennedy (1925 – 1968) U.S. President

"The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. Neither a market economy nor even general abundance constitutes the crowning achievement of human life. If a nation’s spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development.  A tree with a rotten core cannot stand."  -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn  (1918-2008) Russian novelist, Soviet dissident, imprisoned for 8 years for critizing Stalin in a personal letter, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1970   Source: National Review article (Sept. 23, 1991, p.24)

"It has been said that all Government is an evil.   It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune.  This necessity however exists;  and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect."  -- James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President.   Source: to an unidentified correspondent, 1833

Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with this difference, that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without, and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions.  – Thomas Babington Macaulay, Letter to Henry Stephens Randall [1857]

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."  -- Abraham Lincoln   (1809-1865) 16th US President.  Source: January 27, 1838, address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, IL

"The normal cycle in the life and death of great nations has been first a powerful tyranny broken by revolt, the enjoyment of liberty, the abuse of liberty -- and back to tyranny again. As I see it, in this country -- a land of the most persistent idealism and the blandest cynicism -- the race is on between its decadence and its vitality." - Alistair Cooke

"I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter.  -- From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy."  -- Daniel Webster (1782-1852), US Senator   Source: June 1, 1837; Works 1:403

Women, Peace, and Security in Action: US Military Principles

FYI:  Rand Corporation Report [that too few people will hear about or read]

by Joslyn Fleming, Chandra Garber, Karen M. Sudkamp, Elisa Yoshiara, Abigail S. Post, Victoria M. Smith, Khadesia Howell

Including Gender Perspectives in Department of Defense Operations, Activities, and Investments

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1696-1.html?utm_source=AdaptiveMailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7014N000001SniNQAS&utm_term=00v4N00000X3uo9QAB&org=1674&lvl=100&ite=282359&lea=520737&ctr=0&par=1&trk=a0wQK000000On7dYAC 

DOWNLOAD EBOOK FOR FREE on line       PDF file   17.7 MB

Research Questions: 

1. Why do WPS and gender diversity matter for DoD operations, activities, and investments?

2. How have WPS principles been applied to DoD operations, activities, and investments?

3. What lessons can be learned for incorporating WPS principles into future DoD operations, activities, and investments?

In light of the five-year anniversary of the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017, the RAND Corporation sought to understand and portray strategic, operational, and tactical applications of Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) principles in U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) operations and activities. A series of vignettes highlights specific efforts to implement DoD's WPS Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan in the military services and during operations with allies and partners. Although successful efforts to implement WPS principles are directly tied to specific policies and initiatives, this project demonstrates a growing gender-diverse and inclusive culture within DoD that supports grassroots efforts to apply gender perspectives to DoD activities and operations. However, though there are demonstrated successes operationalizing and implementing WPS across DoD, room for improvement exists to ensure the continued implementation of WPS principles to support U.S. military activities and operations that require diverse perspectives and flexibility to confront adversaries in a competitive environment.

[4. Why won't the wise recommendations below be followed?  NFL: Nobody Freakin' Listens/Learns.]

Key Findings:  

Understanding the operational environment from a gender perspective can help DoD identify how it can advance WPS within the conduct of its operations, activities, and investments abroad whether it is cooperating, competing, or in conflict.

Integration of WPS into a multi-national training exercise in Guyana led to elimination of structural barriers impeding a partner nation’s capability to meaningfully employ female soldiers.

A gendered approach to Defense Support of Civil Authorities mission during Operation Allies Welcome enabled protection of vulnerable populations and equitable access to information and services.

The U.S. commitment to WPS can bolster its goal to be a preferred partner of choice with allies and partners by demonstrating a commitment to ensuring human rights and the rule of law. [FYI Dec 10 is the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights] 

Inclusion of men and women in diverse roles facilitates problem-solving required for complex security situations.

Failure to understand women's roles in society can affect security outcomes in situations with partner nations.  [Dah!]

Women can play a critical role in social engineering and cybersecurity. For example, with the proliferation of information technology, which has enabled the use of fabricated online personas, female personas controlled by women operatives tend to be more convincing.  [Dah squared!]

Targeted gender advisory work can have spillover effects. In a different vignette, an officer identified a gap in DoD-provided training surrounding modern slavery and human trafficking, which was important for personnel who have a role in partner countries.

Women-led organizations can act as intermediaries to address security concerns and help understand the importance of women’s perspectives in negotiations and coalition-building.

Recommendations:  [insist businesses support the funding of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals within the context of protecting all human rights as an investment in US and global security!!!!]

Strategic competition against China and Russia is now the national security priority, which provides opportunities to implement WPS principles across military operations to counter those countries’ growing influence.

Considering gender perspectives when interacting with foreign partners and within the U.S. military will provide opportunities to highlight shared values at the expense of adversaries.

Without an effort to integrate both women and men into all roles across DoD, the military will not be able to meet the security situations of today and tomorrow that will require people to unpack complexity and solve problems not as a leader in isolation but cooperatively.   [insist businesses support the funding of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals within the context of protecting all human rights as an investment in US and global security!!!!]

Following the protests over systemic racial injustice in 2020, discussions surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion have highlighted the criticality of intersectionality in WPS implementation. As DoD's implementation of WPS continues, intersectionality should be at the forefront.  [because “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....” Jen Easterly, Director of Cyber & Infrastructure Security Agency, Oct. 29, 2021.] 

In the next five years, efforts to expand the work of gender advisers should continue, along with building a culture within DoD that aligns with WPS principles, the WPS Act, and the Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan.  [Again!  Because “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....” Jen Easterly, Director of Cyber & Infrastructure Security Agency, Oct. 29, 2021.] 

[The trillion-dollar question:  Will anyone in DoD, Congress, or the Whitehouse be listening?  Not without pressure by 'we the people' of the United States of America widely demanding this in all 435 Congressional Districts!  435globaljustice.blogspot.com.   Please email 435campaign@earthlink.net and ask to join on the "Open Letter" to Congress and the media on this December 10th. And again on the 4th of July - because “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....” Jen Easterly, Director of Cyber & Infrastructure Security Agency, Oct. 29, 2021.] 

[I've heard if you repeat something three times people might actually hear your request for action.  In honor of my wife's Birthday today...because I couldn't find any CVS open to buy her a card this morning.  ;-)  cw]

Civic trend not looking good: The perpetuation of polarization probably won’t end well.

 

Americans are increasingly grouping into communities with shared political view.  An additional flaw in an already dysfunctional Constitutional system.  Particularly to the democratic principle we depend on for elections and passing laws that could improve any of the seven intentions in our Constitution’s preamble.

Political party voters are now more geographically grouped within states than at any point since the Civil War.  Nearly 80 percent of Americans now live in a state where a single party controls both the governorship and the legislature. Plus stinging partisan divides within them. According to the Cook Political Report over 80 percent of our nation’s 435 congressional districts will be noncompetitive in 2024.  In 1999 it was 58 percent.  Gerrymandering explains some of this, but it’s mostly because the electorate has become more homogeneous in numerous districts.

It is the growing cognitive repulsion of another person’s partisan views on hot button issues fixed into new state laws like firearms abortion, firearms, Covid restrictions, or LGBTQ rights but not necessarily for political reasons alone.  A Census survey uncovered 84 percent of Americans moved in 2022 for jobs, housing, or family.  Some sorting happens anyway because most pocketbook concerns overlap with political ones. Like moving to low-tax and lower-cost red states.   Plus, some long-term changes within the two parties and their constituencies.

Over recent decades, the urban/rural political party’s divide expanded into a chasm.  In the 2020 election, Biden won 91 percent of the country’s most populous counties.  Trump took more than 2,500 of the remaining 3,000 counties. Increasingly, Democrats are higher-educated city dwellers working in white-collar jobs, whereas more of the rural white working class has trended Republican.

This trend toward our priority of feeling comfortable living among people with similar beliefs and backgrounds is a trouble mental trend that cannot be good for our nation’s political health as like-minded people tend to become more extreme over time.  Such clumping can reinforce the sense that people outside the bubble are the enemy.    In a 2022 Pew survey, majorities of Democrats and Republicans said they viewed members of the other party as more “immoral” and “dishonest.” In 2016 less than half in each party said the same.

This results in fewer voters in the middle offering lawmakers less incentive to reach across the aisle to compromise.  It’s hard to imagine how this trend can be slowed or reversed.  Too many minds now believe their political party is their personal identity...and then feel personally threatened.

Gun sales have been going up while violent crimes are going down.  Our cognitive divisions could become increasingly lethal.  This is not uncharted territory.  Some pundits have feared a second civil war far different than our first.  Meanwhile some extremist groups have been hoping for this while others have been planning for it.  Without effective undoing of this civic trend, things will eventually end very very badly. 

Another World War coming? And an Open Letter for action.

 Looking at trends and the recent meeting between US and China leaders it’s not crazy to think this.

In the 1990s George W. Bush said, “Free trade with China will promote freedom.”  Many policymakers then favored cheaper products for US consumers (for easy votes?) and more profits for US businesses working with China.  Many believed that by integrating China into the global economy it could benefit China and the Western nations - while also advancing economic growth and personal freedoms within China.  Growth happened!  But not more freedom.  Facial recognition of its citizens linked to government privileges or punishments, China’s theft of intellectual property, its wise investment in microprocessors, as well as the production of sustainable energy technology (Solar, wind...) has made advances in US industries in these areas difficult.  And now US national security is dependent on Taiwan.  The real question is not if China will take Taiwan, but when.  Persistently, China’s intention has been to bring Taiwan back under its control.  This was clearly voiced again in the recent meeting. 

 

Since Russia’s invasion and persistent avoidance of defeat in claiming Ukrainian territory, Israel’s relatively unstoppable mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza in reaction to Hamas’s unacceptable brutal slaughter of over 1,200 Jews, mounting economic problems in China, current wars nearly exhausted US military supplies, our nation’s defense contractors capacity to build new and sufficient supplies not being in the best shape to crank them out, and the likelihood of other flair ups at any time  -  it seems like prime time for China to act. 

Don’t forget Iran’s possible possession of nuclear weapons and its hatred of Israel, North Korea’s launching of new test missiles, and other nations increasingly upset with US support for Israel bouncing the rubble in Gaza with US support...many other nations are appearing to take sides.

 

Now throw in the increased polling in the US regarding nearly 50% of our own citizens justifying the use of violence in our own nation to achieve political ends. And populist leaders’ comments about waging a war against democrats, or progressives’ persistent warnings about conservatives destroying our democracy. And some pundits warning of another civil war.  Not between states. But between states of political cognition.

Remember that most people in the prelude to the first World War believed that nations were too civil - to start a war or it wouldn’t last long if it did, history continues to prove that the only thing we learn from war is that we don’t learn much - beyond a short-term memory of where nations are geographically on the map.  

                 

Combine all of this with seemingly irreversible political polarization, the evolution of weaponry (bio, cyber, nano, robotics, drones, IEDs, unprecedented gun ownership, and easy access to almost any soft targets at any time or place), and the increasing affordability, accessibility, anonymity, and ease of use - for most of these means of destruction, a spark is almost inevitable.   

Most of us had so much to be thankful for yesterday.  But we live in a world where many didn’t.  And still don’t.  And most have no hope of anything good happening, or anything changing anytime soon.  We all need to start being thankful for every single moment and day that our world is NOT at war.  And do whatever we can - to invest the unprecedented wealth our world does have in all the solutions that already exist. Those solutions can be found within the 169 measurable and affordable goals within the larger 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved back in 2015 at the United Nations - for the year 2030.   Humanity is only seven years away from that date.  That’s a lot of seconds, minutes, and days that we still have to act.  

This December 10^th is the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was intended after the horrors of the last World War to prevent the very conditions we have today.  Disrupting conditions now (conflict, contagion, climate change, costs, corruption, and flawed constitutions) because the UN was never given the power to enforce human rights.  And most nations and corporations resisted doing it with charities unable to afford it.  Fortunately, humanity can now purchase the most basic human rights (water, sanitation, adequate nutrition, primary health care, education...).  But only if private entries like the oil industry and other businesses with multibillion dollar profits are willing to make a wise investment in the communities that need it.  Instead of just investing to make more profit.   

If you have an entity that agrees with this global endeavor, send an email to 435campaign@earthlink.net so your entity can be listed under your US state.  We will deliver an ‘Open Letter” to the media and all 435 Members of Congress on December 10^th.   Time is not on our side.  Wisdom needs to be.

Below is  text of the letter with entities invited and already confirmed listed under it.

Please join with others on this ‘Open Letter’ to the media and our policy leaders to educate and inspire action in protecting human rights and our environment.  The letter will be released Dec. 10^th - the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.  Resources, solutions, and a plan already exists.  The only missing ingredient is the common will to take care of one another and nature. 

‘Open Letter’ to the media and US policy makers.   (Draft 11-23-23)

With mounting conflicts, superpower tensions, political polarization, environmental damage, refugee flows, health threats, hate, violent extremism¸ supply chain vulnerabilities, and lapses of the rule-of-law globally -- we are compelled to advocate for global unity in protecting the inalienable rights of people and the sustainable health of our planet’s life support systems.

This non-partisan appeal from businesses and other peace, environment, health, education, trade, or religious entities assert that the protection of inalienable human rights are the foundation of humanity’s sustainable freedom, security, and prosperity.  December 10 is the 75^th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  This was unanimously approved by nations after the horrors of World War II.  Their intention was resolving the conditions potentially leading to another world war, genocide, or use of WMD.   Unwisely, many governments never made the protection of human rights or the environment a high priority. Thus, the growing chaos we have now.

Fortunately, in 2015 humanity came together again.  This collaboration involved political and public entities from all 193 UN member nations and they finalized an agreement on a comprehensive global plan to assist governments in protecting their citizens’ health, security, and prosperity, as well as protecting and restoring the environment.  This blueprint, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (https://sdgs.un.org/goals), are to be achieved by 2030.   We’re over halfway there in time- but falling behind on progress.  There are 17 primary SDGs consisting of 169 measurable and affordable goals within them.  Each are interlocking with progress toward one contributing to progress in all others. 

COVID19’s effects reminded us of the fundamental truths that “everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.” That is why, as Jen Easterly, Director of Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency said next, “this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort.”   And our greatest threat is not knowing which of the dozens of unsustainable trends (war, debt, violent weather patterns, the evolution of infectious diseases or weaponry) will first end catastrophically – then almost certainly cascade into other damaging events that will further diminish our hope for a free, secure, and prosperous future.  Urgently reducing any existing harms now will be humanities wisest investment.  Fortunately, there is no shortage of money.  Only a lack of will to invest it wisely in preventing increasingly costly crisis.

Last June, Bank of America Chair & CEO, Brian Moynihan spoke about 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 need to step up and prioritize a balancing of ‘short-term gains’ with ‘long term interests’.  ‘Profits must be good for business and society down to the community level’.  “Capitalism” “requires a greater purpose than making more profit. * Interview hosted by the City Club of Cleveland.  Posted on C-span.  Program ID:  529044-1  https://www.c-span.org/video/?529044-1/bank-america-ceo-remarks-city-club-cleveland      

To join this list, send your affiliation info to 435campaign@earthlink.net

UDHR/SDGs Open letter Supporters:  (as of 11-23-23)

(A more detailed organizational affiliation invite is below this list)

 

To join this list please send your affiliated information to 435campaign@earthlink.net

CALIFORNIA:
Cascade Capital Corporation, President, Fairfax

(Hoover Institute, Palo Alto...?)

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

(United Nations Foundation...?)

(Stimson Center...?)

(World Justice Project...?)

(Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network...?)

(RESULTS....?)

(Friends Committee on National Legislation...?)

(US Global Leadership Coalition....?

(US Institute of Peace....?)

(United Nations Council of Organizations, Chair...?)

(Open Society Institute....?)

(Center for American Progress...?)

FLORIDA:

Mobilized News.com, Creative Director, West Palm Beach

MARYLAND

Rotary Club of Rockville, President & former Presidents.

United Nations Association, Former Chair. Rockville

Maryland United for Peace and Justice, Catonsville, President.

Baltimore Nonviolence Center, Director

Alliance for Child Survival, Director. Rockville

435 Campaign, Editor.  Rockville

American Public Health Association, former Action Board member. Rockville.

(Friends of Redgate, Board.  Rockville...?)

(Rockville Chamber of Commerce...?)

(Progressive Maryland, Largo...?)

 

VIRGINIA: 

Genocide Watch, Founding President.  McLean.

(Presidential Commission on World Hunger (1980) Executive Director. Purcellville...?)

(World Hunger Education Service, Executive Director...?)

 

NEW YORK:

(Bank of America, Chair and CEO...?)

 

Dear organization leader (draft invite 11-22-23)

Most Americans have never heard of the UN “17 Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs). And few remember the wise intent of nations approving of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to prevent some important conditions leading to war.   We can change these laps of knowledge on December 10^th as our nation approaches the 2024 election.

Two global entities recently informed millions of Americans in the news by advocating for their important cause using an ‘Open Letter’ or paid advertisement (both detailed below).

If you are a current or former leader of any US entity (business, NGO, religious establishment, educational institution, civic or service group, city council, or government official) this is an invitation to join on our ‘Open Letter’ regarding the urgency of protecting human rights globally.  Sufficient resources are needed to achieve the SDGs by 2030.  Indebted governments and charities are insufficient and large businesses must step up.  We invite you to join others by adding your entity, title, and the city in which your entity exists - to the ‘Open Letter’ below. It will be given to the media and US policy makers on December 10^th.   We ask for nothing more than your moral support for the protection of human rights and the environment - as the most fundamental means of achieving peace - and sustainably maximizing human freedoms, security, and prosperity.

If you agree, please respond to this invitation by email to 435campaign@earthlink.net with your entity’s name, your position (current or former), and its city/state.   These three elements only will be listed in the ‘Open Letter’.  [Some entities are already listed on Open Letter below].   Your entity will be entered under your US state - in the order it’s received. 

We do require your personal name, phone, email, and the entity website so we can privately verify its approval for being on this ‘Open Letter’.  Your contact information will NOT be shared.  And only used for confirming your entity’s current or former existence if it is challenged.  We may do this again July 4, 2024 to remind Americans of our irreversible global interdependence.

 

TWO RECENT examples of Open List advocacy campaigns.

 

November 10, 2023 the Washington Post news article “Hundreds of journalists sign letter protesting coverage of Israel“  started with the sentence “More than 750 journalists from dozens of news organizations have signed an open letter published Thursday condemning Israel’s killing of reporters in Gaza and criticizing Western media’s coverage of the war.”

 

Monday Nov 13^th, 2023, a Washington Post paid advertisement covered two full pages in fine print over 1,300 businesses and organizations “that together employ millions of Americans across every state.”  All were organized by the state.  And just above the fold in bold letters “IT’S TIME TO SUPPORT AMERICAN JOBS” with “RESTORE PRO-GROWTH TAX PROVISIONS”.   At the bottom of both pages “PAID FOR BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTUREING AND BUISNEES ROUNDTABLE”, NAM.ORG / BRT.ORG”.  The website states it “represents 14,000 member [US] companies, in every industrial sector.”

"The XXI century will be a century either of total all-embracing crisis or of moral and spiritual healing that will reinvigorate humankind. It is my conviction that all of us - all reasonable political leaders, all spiritual and ideological movements, all faiths - must help in this transition to a triumph of humanism and justice, in making the XXI century a century of a new human renaissance."  Mikhail Gorbachev (his website 2016)

 

Blame the Boomers! This Thanksgiving. Gen Z will be next to blame.

 

Cortland Malloy’s “Gen Z ...dialogue about healing world” hurt by “Boomers” [one day before Thanksgiving in the Washington Post] deserves more attention.  

It was my generation’s refusal to do what was needed that has yielded us the chaos we have today. Young people are absorbing phenomenal amounts of information (good and bad), but the source of their loneliness, depression and anxiety is the result of our culture’s mental adoption of the delusion of independence. It exists nowhere in the known universe.  Certainly not in social species.

We have always had the information needed to unite people.  From prebiblical times to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (75 years ago this Dec 10), and again in the summary of the unanimous conclusion of the 1980 bipartisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger.  It specifically warned ...“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…this combination of problems now threatens the national security of all countries just as surely as advancing armies or nuclear arsenals.” ... “Most Americans have been conditioned to equate national security with the strength of strategic military forces. [WE] considers this prevailing belief to be a simplistic illusion...” “Military force is ultimately useless in the absence of the global security that only coordinated international progress toward social justice can bring.” And specifically mentioned increases in “diseases”, “international terrorism”, “war”, “environmental problems” and “other human rights problems”.

In 2016 Mikhail Gorbachev wrote on his website "The XXI century will be a century either of total all-embracing crisis or of moral and spiritual healing that will reinvigorate humankind. It is my conviction that all of us - all reasonable political leaders, all spiritual and ideological movements, all faiths - must help in this transition to a triumph of humanism and justice, in making the XXI century a century of a new human renaissance." 

In October of 2021, CISA director Jen Easterly said “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....”  CISA is the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency.  Our nation’s newest federal agency established by the Trump Administration in 2018. 

Unless the Gen Z generation can convince those in power and with unprecedented wealth to achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, their generation may be the last chance humanity has of putting our species on the path to a more peaceful, livable, and sustainable future.

 

Political Borders violate the Laws of Nature and Nature's God.

 

Dear Editor,

Tom Harmon and Meadow Bryan list the miles of US coastline, land borders and airports, but they underestimate the real-world forces driving illegal entries into our great nation (May 31, 2023).  And they ignore the fundamental flaws of internally enforcing our nation's "immigration policies".  

First, it violates "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" - the very foundation of civilization according to the 'inalienable rights' expressed clearly in the document that our nation was founded on - the Declaration of Independence.    President Lincoln wrote that it is our "Apple of Gold" and our Constitution, that US public servants and soldiers swears an oath to protect, is its "Frame of Silver".    

Second, Harmon and Bryan didn't consider the inevitable consequences of enforcing strict interior policies.  It will come with significant economic consequences and costs, while exacerbating political divisions with increasingly intrusive enforcement methods compromising individual privacy. 

The associated economic costs will further cripple our economy, as have other purely reactionary policies on terrorism, extreme weather conditions, America first foreign policy, and our foreign military entanglements.  

Cost effective immigration control requires urgently addressing the global push factors that drive individuals out of their homelands and toward our great nation.  Haiti's failed state is in an increasingly violent chaos now because of the flow of smuggled US guns and our failed policies in the past. Our nation's internal demand for drugs, cheap oil, or other low cost and environmentally costly consumer products have always fed the growing corrupt, brutality, and dysfunctional governments to our south.     

Our wisest investments would be reducing those push factors by urgently working to achieve the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals before 2030.  Combined interior enforcement with prioritizing prevention of push factors would best safeguard our freedoms, security, and sustainable prosperity while upholding our flag pledge of "liberty and Justice for All'. 

cw

(not published in newspaper)

2016 "Intelligence" Warnings for the next President: Ignored! Some wrong.

 "Intelligence advice for next president: Rocky Road Ahead” 

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-03-13/intelligence-advice-for-next-president-ready-for-rocky-road 

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — To: The next president of the United States.

From: U.S. intelligence officials.

Welcome to the White House. Now read our take on global political landscape and trends for the next five years and beyond. Bottom line: Get ready for a rocky road.

Their forecast calls for a slowing global economy dragged down by sluggish growth in China, and political volatility across the world, spurred by disillusionment with the status quo. Insecurity will deepen rifts among social classes and religious groups. Extremists will consolidate into large-scale networks across Africa, the Arab world and parts of Asia.

Competition among the U.S, China and Russia will heat up, raising the risk of future confrontations. Climate change is a problem now. And technological advances will force governments and their citizens to wrestle with securing data, privacy, intellectual property and jobs lost to high-tech innovations.

The National Intelligence Council, part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, serves as a bridge between intelligence agencies and policymakers. Its global trends report is compiled every four years so it can be handed to an incoming president or the incumbent. A summary of a draft of its latest findings was to be released Monday at a conference in Austin, Texas.

These trends follow 20 years of unprecedented reductions in poverty and increased access to education and information, which have empowered citizens around the world.

Suzanne Fry, director of the council's Strategic Future Group, and about 10 of her colleagues visited 30 countries since September 2014 to talk about the future with an estimated 1,800 people from all walks of life.

"Really for the first time in human history, people as individuals, really, really matter," Fry said in an interview.

She recalled Mohammed Bouazizi, a fruit seller who killed himself in 2010 to protest police actions in Tunisia. His death sparked an uprising that led to the ouster of Tunisia's dictator and inspired Arab Spring protests against authoritarian rule across the region.

In America, public discontent is evidenced by the rise of two presidential candidates — Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders — whose anti-establishment messages appeal to anger among the general electorate, Fry said.

"They're channeling something that we're observing in a lot of countries, not just the United States, which is this real dissatisfaction with the existing social bargains or compacts in societies," Fry said.

The report suggests that this type of populism being seen in industrial nations will percolate in the developing world as those affected by a slow-to-zero rise in wages and a hollowing out of the middle class start questioning the effectiveness of traditional policies.

The council's final report is expected to be released between Election Day, Nov. 1, and the inauguration of the next president, on Jan. 20, 2017. The aim is to provide information about emerging trends to guide decisions that could alter the way the world is expected to evolve during the next 20 years.

A significant trend cited in the report is a slowdown of China's economy, which has reduced demand for commodities, especially in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Also on the economic front, the report highlights a concern about increased concentration of wealth among a small number of people.

"We have seen lots of poverty reduction in recent years and people flowing into the middle class, but how do you keep this movie going? It's not clear that the political and economic reforms can keep it going," Fry said. "We've got brand new entrances to the middle class in the developing world. Their expectations are enormous and they are about to be crushed."

The report predicts increased competition and a "desire for status" by emerging and fading powers. This will play out as transnational terrorism, conducted by groups such as the Islamic State, al-Qaida and Boko Haram, and sectarian violence continue to threaten stability in the Middle East, Asia and parts of Africa.

"Multiple power centers are possible if regional aggression and flouting of international norms go unchecked," the report says.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.