An Indian (and global) Dilemma

On April 2, 1956, I entered India on a World Passport, No. 00001, at Bombay. It was my first trip to India at the invitation of Nataraja Guru of Travancore whom I had met in 1950 in mid-Atlantic on the SS America on my way back from Europe.

On June 8, 1956, after spending a month with the guru in the Nilgiris, I presented an "honorary" World Passport to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his posh New Delhi office. He accepted it with delight. I then asked him for his blessing "for our humanitarian work." He hesitated. I waited patiently. We stared at each other. The hum of the air conditioner was the only sound. Finally, with a sigh, he said, "Yes, of course, you have my blessing."

I have been to India three times since traveling each time with the World Passport. Twice was at the invitation of the City Montessori School at Lucknow, UP (a "mondialized" city) to attend its yearly Global Symposium, its 30,000 students advocating "enforceable world law for world peace."

In order to attend the 7th Global Symposium at the City Montessori School as an invited principal speaker, on November 30th last I embarked for India with an upgraded World Passport which already had two Indian visas on it, which had now expired.

In the past I always walked into the visa section of Indian Consulate with my world passport in the morning, and returned in the afternoon to receive back my passport -- stamped with a new Indian visa. However, this time the visa process had been "outsourced" to Travisa, an independent travel agency distinct from the consulate. They had never seen the World Passport and had to contact the Consul, who escalated it up the ladder to India for instructions. All this caused long delays, so when I left to India I had not yet received my passport back.

What to do? The conference was beginning December 7th, my non-refundable one-way Air India ticket bought and paid for. The organizers were counting on me to be a principle speaker at the conference at which, ironically, 84 national Supreme Court judges would also be participating together with over 800 peace workers from around the world. Besides, producer Arthur Kanegis and associate producer Melanie Bennett-were to accompany me on the trip.

I was told that if I showed the consular authorities at the airport in Delhi copies of my expired visas, the local authorities could issue me new temporary two-week visa on the spot. So the WSA issued me a duplicate passport and I proceeded on my trip.

Arriving at the New Delhi airport December 1st, after the duplicate World Passport had passed five security checks at JFK, Arthur, Melanie and I descended the steps leading to the Immigration desks in great glee that we had come this far. At first the local officials looked at my world passport, and said it would be no problem to issue a two week visa. However, they said, they did have to call a higher official for authorization. It was 3:30 Sunday morning, and whomever they called must have been abruptly awakened out of the wrong side of the bed because he mumbled something about the World Passport being fraudulent and when it was pointed out to him that it had been visaed in the past, he came back with the claim that India no longer recognized the world passport. This was blatantly false, because another attendee to the same conference had their world passport stamped the very same week.

Nevertheless, I was returned to JFK on the next plane! This just goes to show how arbitrary the whole visa process is.

Arthur and Melanie continued on to Lucknow to attend the conference. Fortunately, I had prepared a 97 page PowerPoint highlighting major developments of the World Government of World Citizens which I asked Arthur to present to the conference in my place. He did so, jointly with one of the students. He was also interviewed by numerous media outlets and spoke at the conference about my being rejected at the frontier.

Despite subsequent correspondence with the Indian Consulate in DC, with copies to Prime Minister Dr. Manhuman Singh and Ambassador Ronen Sen, the original World Passport, as of this writing, has not been returned to me.

This passport is mandated by article 13[2] of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, once issued, it becomes the personal property of its bearer thereby conforming to article 17 of the Declaration. "(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property." As of this date, the Government of India, which historically was the first to honor the UDHR by recognizing the World Passport, in now in violation of the said United Nations Declaration.

Here the Government of India, the heir to Mahatma Gandhi, who considered himself a world citizen, is capriciously rejecting a passport based on a human right to which the Indian government is itself legally bound both constitutionally and through its United Nations membership. At the same time, this government is embracing THE NUCLEAR BOMB thus imposing on each and every Indian citizen a state of humiliation and shame. Not only the sages of yore extolling wisdom through sacred texts like the Bhagavad Gita but today's gurus, swamis, bodisattvas and sadhus are demeaned and damned by this obscene and monstrous engine of total destruction in the hands of politicians whose behavior would certainly sadden Mahatma Gandhi if he were alive today. The innocent children of India exemplified by the CMS student body are being betrayed by their elders who are thrusting them into a world where a holocaust has become a psychotic component of national policy.

If the practice and tools of fundamental human rights are deemed "fraudulent," who then is the culprit, the accuser or the accused?

Arthur Kanegis taped an interview with the honorable Benjamin J. Odoki, Chief Justice of Uganda who was attending the Judicial summit. "When I heard that India had sent Garry Davis packing his bags back to the United States without attending the conference," the judge told the film producer, "I was saddened and disappointed because I was looking forward to his speech. When I heard him speak at previous judicial summits, I was amazed. Even though he is not a lawyer, he is a man with a new idea, a vision and a dream to change the world and make it one world, one citizenry."He added that "The judges attending the conference need to learn about this idea so they can persuade their governments to accept this World Passport so we can move freely throughout the world of brothers and sisters."

Raj Chandola, one of the organizers of the Judicial summit asked, "What possible threat to India could an 86-year-old World Citizen represent? Why did the Indian government spend its limited resources paying for a return ticket to force a man who came only to speak of peace in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi? This is not only a loss to our conference, but also to India and to the world."

Some time prior to the conference, I had "googled" a few of the speeches of India's new president, Madame Pratibha Devisingh Patil with the intention of presenting her also with an Honorary World Passport as I had with the first Prime Minister.

Some relevant quotes:

"In a globalized and inter-dependent world, the good of all becomes a common global endeavor. Our planet belongs to all of us and to sustain it as well as to preserve it for future generations requires action by all of us."

"I am reminded of the words of Swami Vivekananda, who said, and I quote, 'go from village to village, do good to humanity and to the world at large.' Similarly, cultural activities help youth to appreciate the richness and diversity of our culture and imbibe our age-old values of truth, tolerance and respect for all."

"Speaking about India's decision to join the Commonwealth, Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister, said in 1949 and I quote, 'it is necessary that we touch upon the world's problems, not with passion and prejudice. but in a friendly way and with a touch of healing.'"

Spoken like a true World Citizen. Spoken like a true World Citizen. Madame President met with the delegation of Supreme Court justices and lauded their efforts to promote a world in which global disputes are resolved in the courtroom, not on the battlefield But alas, I was not there. She was deprived of this important document and honor by the capricious actions of her own government.

So what to do with Madame President's honorary World Passport? Do I send it to her with a covering letter explaining why I am not there to deliver it in person? Do I skip over the thorny scanned visas question? Tell her that the document has been deemed "fraudulent" by her own officials despite its acceptance by the first Prime Minister? Laud her own global sentiments while deploring the nuclear policy of her government? Or simply throw it in the wastebasket?

In a larger framework, the history illustrates the dichotomy exposing the entire nation state world in which the content of a problem such as frontier constructs (borderlines) represent "degrees of difference...trapped along a scale closed by polar opposites at each end." (Meta Comment by cybernetician Stafford Beer). In other words, President Patil's one world philosophy and outlook are metalinguistic despite her sworn allegiance to the political and administrative content of an exclusive nation state which arbitrarily rejects a citizen totally dedicated to the wellbeing of humanity she herself promotes. This also serves to explains the contradiction between India's temporal allusion to democracy allied with the illusory nuclear security and its perennial, holistic wisdom heritage.

I’m constantly amazed at how things always seem to work out as if according to some divine plan. In perfect synchronicity, however, Dr. Evelin G. Lindner, Coordinator of the Tenth Annual Human DHS 2007 Workshop on "Humiliation and Violent Conflict" held at Teachers College of Columbia University on December 13-14th, had extended an invitation to me to participate prior to my Indian misadventure.

Upon my return from India-that is, from the "international territory" of New Delhi Airport-I emailed the author of Humiliation in a Globalizing World that I would be honored and delighted to attend such an unusual event since the Indian government had recently "humiliated" me--or was it my friends and fellow World Citizens at CMS not to mention the 84 Supreme Court justices? I penned some thoughts on this intriguing and utterly relevant subject to world citizenship and human rights and sent it along to Evelin who had also written that "In order to understand a globalizing world, we need 'global' research, as well as the participation of researchers who have a global outlook and global experience."

So although I was unable to present a World Passport to president Patel, I was able to present an honorary World Passport personally to this exemplary "global citizen" who created this extraordinary and timely workshop on the universal subject of humiliation as a precursor to conflict will be the subject of my next blog.

Open Letter to Senator Patrick Leahy

Chairman: Senate Judiciary Committee

New York Times-Friday November 2,2002
"BUSH, DEFENDING JUSTICE NOMINEE, SEES UNFAIRNESS"

Your problem, Senator, is not with Judge Makasey whether he thinks waterboarding is torture or not; your problem is dealing with a defective and outdated constitution.

I quoted Thoreau in my first blog with reference to the Constitution's relative importance: "Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this American government are in many respects, very admirable and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?"

You, Bush, Cheney, the Democratic and Republican candidates, everybody in D.C. keeps referring to "The Constitution," an 18th century horse-and-buggy, musket and cannonball document, as if it were the Holy Grail, immutable, absolute and eternal. (It took three months for President Washington to get a letter to his Ambassador in France, Ben Franklin, a period when England, France and Spain were eager to take on the states one-by-one with their man-à-wars.)

Your problem, Senator, is Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution which Patrick Henry declared treasonous and huffed out of the continental congress complaining that it bestowed on the president "discretionary powers" in time of war when wearing his Commander-in-Chief hat which put him in command of the army and navy "in the actual service of the United States."

In brief, that article contradicted the original premise of popular sovereignty.

Yesterday, Bush stated that "on too many issues, Congress is behaving as if America is not at war." And that's the clue to your present dilemma, Senator, for you and the whole Democratic caucus, and, indeed, for the entire United States constituency. Since September 11, 2001 he (and proxy Cheney) is wearing his Commander-in-Chief war bonnet. And does he love it! All manic-depressives do. But his power "umbilical" cord is attached firmly to "father" Cheney's suspenders.

James Madison, bless his immortal soul, knew that Article II, Section II was a deadly compromise to the democratic principle or popular sovereignty, the Achilles heel of the document. But hey, in 1787, someone had to speak for the new-born nation vis-à-vis those ancient fictions with their armed might, England, France and Spain, not to mention all the other smaller if established political nations beyond the shores.,

So what did this Greek-speaking political genius (4th U.S. president) do to offset the new president's unilateral, absolute war powers. I know you know but I also know you can't use it as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee or even as a U.S. senator and that is at the bottom of your frustration with Mukasey's testimony. It is, of course, the 9th amendment to the Constitution, that almost unknown and neglected reference to "unenumerated rights retained by the people." (See my blog #1, "The Hidden 9th Amendment").

You are already "inside" the Constitution's mandates whereas Madison, still "outside" as a Virginia citizen but not yet a United States citizen in a sort of political vacuum about to be filled, proved to be a veritable "citizen of the world" in that the 9th Amendment, in referring inalienable rights BACK TO THE PEOPLE, was acknowledging that THAT'S WHERE THEY CAME FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE!

In other words, he made sure that the US Constitution derived its sovereignty from the sovereign people and not ever from the president as "Commander-in-Chief" even in time of war when he (or she) was speaking and defending the state AND NOT THE PEOPLE. The people, however, had to RECLAIM that sovereignty whenever the central government denied it. How? By exercising the prime right of political choice as did the Founders!

And this is your dilemma as well as every single United States' government official, including, ironically, Supreme Court judges. So, from the outset, the US Constitution contained and enshrined this basic contradiction of sovereign power. Why indeed did Bush (and his clan) "declare" a "war on terrorism" when clearly there was no real enemy "out there" beyond the shoreline? Both he and Cheney, especially Cheney, had to try on that war shroud. "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Hence Bush's talk about World War III using Ahmadinejad as the patsy. (See my last blog). Bush's fingers rigidly fixed directly above 3,000 hair-triggered nuclear missiles are itching to give them a final push before he (and the rest of humanity) "leaves office."

Go back, Senator, to that day when you took your oath of allegiance as US Senator. Remember "I swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic so help me God"? It was the same one George Washington swore to and 220 years later all would-be US citizens swear to today, including Supreme Court and all other judges. In this 21st century when a Space Station, communication satellites, the internet, etc., etc. have totally collapsed time and distance BETWEEN US HUMANS, this 18th century political con game continues to threaten humanity in the name of "national security."

Whether Mukasey becomes Attorney-General or not doesn't change the ultimate game of war or peace given the condition of anarchy between nation-states. Only world law, as Einstein, among others. stated, can do that.

Tom Paine spelled it out over 200 years ago: "Every age and every generation must be free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insulting of tyrannies. The circumstances of the world are continually changing and the opinions of men also change. And as government is for the living and not the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another."

Sincerely,
Garry Davis
World Citizen

Bush Threatens Humanity to "Save" Israel

Where's the outrage? Where is the screaming NYT's headline, "Madman Bush Ready to Launch World War III if Ahmadinejad Possesses Nuclear Arms"? Where are the TV commentators blasting this latest evidence of maddening provocation? Where are the bloggers , the pacifists, the nuclear scientists denouncing this obscene pretense of leadership?

In his Wednesday, Oct. 16 press conference, George Bush looked at the astonished journalists and with his smirking smile--televised on CNN--said "We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel." He even seemed happy while he was saying it. He then followed that he had "told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." This from a man with 3,000+ hair-triggered nuclear weapons at his fingertips who already claimed the "right" to use them preemptively at any nation which in his opinion threatened the "security" of the United States.

And what was his rationale for threatening the human race with annihilation? "The whole strategy is that, you know, at some point in time leaders or responsible folks inside of Iran may get tired of isolation and say, 'This isn't worth it,' and to me it's worth the effort to keep the pressure on this government."

In other words, if the Iranian public doesn't throw out President Ahmadinejad, the "Decider" might just push The Button and destroy the human race.

This is The Ultimate Threat! And Bush alone has the power to carry it through. Moreover as a closet fundamentalist, he is OK with the prophesies of Revelations of "wars and rumors of wars."

Forget the United Nations. Forget the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Forget the International Criminal Court. Forget the women of the world who are rising in wrath at the patriarchal nature of national politics. Forget the rest of the national leaders of big and small states who are equally committed to "observe and respect fundamental human rights." (Art. 56, UDHR). Forget the Noble Peace Laureates who till now have been utterly silent on the subject of world law and government. Forget even the American public who Bush is legally pledged to protect and which would itself be destroyed in WWIII, not to mention, ironically, Bush's own family and kin (unless, of course, they end up in a cave somewhere under a Virginia mountain). And forget the past religious leaders and sages, the philosophers and artists and entertainers, all who have recognized the world's and humanity's oneness from time immemorial.

And forget the millions of declared World Citizens now spread throughout the world community under the aegis of the World Government of World Citizens.

But even more important, forget planet earth which in a third world war would be the prime target given the radioactivity of nuclear weaponry. Environmentalists, be warned.

The brazen audacity of this man who claims to listen to "God's voice" when planning his earthly moves but thinks like a high school bully, must be exposed as clear evidence of deep paranoia. The human species is not George Bush's private gang willfully obedient to his every petty and/or destructive whim.

In legal terms, pointing a nuclear "gun" at humanity is a "global felony."

Under the Nuremberg Principles, Bush is an "enemy of humanity" formally indictable at the International Criminal Court.

Indeed, eight other heads of nuclear states are thereby also "enemies of humanity" and equally indictable.

Who then can submit this class-action suit in the name of humanity and argue it at this court before it's too late?

I ask as a father, a veteran of World War II and a registered World Citizen

Stay Tuned.

Marcel Marceau

A Citizen of the World

Marcel Marceau was only 84 when he passed on but he lives brightly in the memories of all who had the joy to see him perform on the world's stages. Poor words are unable to express our loss when he, above all, "spoke" to us in silent Truth.

Like the Munis of India, Marcel Marceau taught in the transcendent discipline and spiritual power of action-in-silence. He was the perenniel Renaissance Man revealing to us, in the darkened theatre, our own unity and universality. We watched him in fascination as he mimed human foibles, tragedies and comedies. He was us, all of us, in his masterly movements, expressions and motives. '
Alone on a bare stage bereft of sets and other actors, using the audience's imagination, he created a silent world of events, both mundane and catastrophic, to which each audience member could relate personally. By revealing in pantomime a fellow human, with wry, gentle humor, he magically erased our vaunted differences. That is genius. Remember that "wall" where he first appeared as a giant, then reappeared as a midget!. Michael Jackson borrowed his famous "moonwalk" from his sketch, "Walking Against the Wind." I recall especially the "Immigrant" when, boxed in, his hands desperately "felt" the enclosed cage, then discovered a tiny opening through which he squeezed in ecstatic freedom only to find himself again imprisoned in a larger cage, his bitter disappointment and anguish mirrored in that wonderful plastic face. In one of his most poignant and philosophical acts, "Youth, Maturity, Old Age, Death," he wordlessly showed the passing of an entire life in just minutes.

His presence on stage alone transformed it into a cherished place of reverence, self-revelation and love. One left the theatre somehow fulfilled, feeling better. Indeed, what else does a World Teacher do but reveal the truth? His biggest inspiration, he claimed, was another world citizen, Charlie Chaplin.

The French Government had conferred upon Marceau its highest honor, making him an "Officier de la Legion d'Honneur", and in 1978 he received the Medaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. In November of 1998, former President Chirac named him a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit; and he was an elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, the Academie des beaux-arts France and the Institut de France. He held honorary doctorates from Ohio State University, Linfield College, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan, America's way of honoring his creation of a new art form, inherited from an old tradition. In 1999, the city of New York declared March 18 Marcel Marceau Day.

He accepted the honor and responsibilities of serving as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Second World Assembly on Aging, which took place in Madrid, Spain, in April 2002.

Following the death in 1999 of Sir Yehudi Menuhin, who served our world government for many years as Coordinator of its World Cultural Commission, I had the honor and pleasure of appointing Marcel as the new Coordinator of this Commission. He expressed his delight and acceptance at a dinner we shared together during his last tour of the US.

Talking about his universal and lasting appeal, Marceau once said: "Mime, like music, knows neither borders nor nationalities."

I for one am extraordinarily grateful and blessed for having known this inimitable cosmopolitan artist personally since my own Paris days in 1948.

A true lover of humanity has departed our current scene, May his ennobling inspiration continue to guide us.

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Another Anniversary & Another 9/11!

Fifty-four years ago this month, on September 4th, a new government was declared: a world government no less. Read all about it at www.worldgovernment.org/ells.html.

But that's not where it really started.

On September 11th, 1948, this writer, having renounced his U.S. nationality on May 25th, was being threatened with imprisonment by the French Government if he did not leave French territory. Once becoming stateless, I had exercised my inalienable right of political choice that very day by claiming world citizenship publicly.

Was this declaration "legitimate"?

Citizenship, by definition, must be grounded somewhere. Nations are mere fictional creations imposed on parts of the world's surface, granted, with historical backgrounds, to encompass their particular humans as "citizens." Legitimate? Their very constitutions all claim that their authority derives from the sovereign people.

Before they became "legitimate" citizens.

Was not my sovereign right to claim a citizenship grounded in world territory undeniable in legal terms as I owed no allegiance to any nation-state?

If a nation-state, however, could "legitimately" claim part of the world territory, why could not a publicly declared world citizen claim the whole parcel? Indeed, world citizenship and world territory are political and environmental corollaries.

Enter a historical anomaly.

The United Nations Charter is not a world constitution in recognition of the sovereignty of either humankind or each human as a "legitimate" member of the race despite its allusion to human rights 17 times.

It is a mere membership organization of separate and equally sovereign nation-states, indeed, the very antithesis of human rights.

But contradictorily the UN claims its own territory! Over which it then presides and even policing. This so-called "territory" is separate and distinct from that claimed by its very individual members.

It's designated as "international territory."

But what is the law "governing" this "international territory"?

It doesn't exist. Why?

Because it has no sovereign citizenship from which derives all positive law.

Now world citizenship is an ancient concept. Google the phrase and you will be amazed at how many illustrious humans in the past going back to Socrates and further to the ancient Greeks and Stoics have claimed it.

On September 11th, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations "expropriated" a tiny section of Paris, Place de Trocadero and Palais de Chaillot, for its exclusive use during that Fall 3 month session.

The front page of the Paris Herald Tribune revealed the French Foreign Minister, Robert Shumann publicly presenting a large key to UN Secretary-General Trygvie Lie signifying France's acquiescence to this "legitimate" relinquishment of part of France-for 3 months.

Faced with jail by French authorities if I did not leave its territory by September 11th, after declaring my intentions to the world press on the evening of September 10th, at around 8 a.m. the next morning I "exited" from France and "entered" the "international territory" of the United Nations at the Place De Trocadero, Paris.

A legitimate World Citizen now had a legitimate place to stay and survive in freedom unfettered by national laws!

I had also become a true world peacemaker as I had no "enemies." Nor further territorial claims!

This is what I wrote at 9 A.M.sitting alone at a table in the deserted restaurant opposite the Palais de Chaillot on that fateful day:

"I am in the restaurant of the U.N. headquarters. Guards have been passing back and forth giving me covert glances. Two helmeted police are standing about ten feet away, probably debating whether they should ask me for pepers...I am sure that the uniform and the official-looking typewriter have scared them off...Another man is approaching but he has turned away as have the two policemen. I seem to want to put off this meeting with the world or rather with this tiny world here until the very last minute. I realize that at ten o'clock there will be photographers and reporters here, but now I feel quite alone. Alone with a great avalanche about to break over my head...This void I am standing in is quite exciting. I sincerely feel that I can be a force toward achieving some measure of world peace..." (The World Is My Country, G.P. Putnam, 1961).

Following an impromptu press conference of several hundreds journalists plus newsreel camera trucks recording the hectic proceedings, I returned to my Olivetti typewriter:

"I have just been through the mill with photographers and now they are taking pictures of my typing here. I am now in a goldfish bowl. Everything I do will be recorded by word and picture. If I thought that the renunciation was an act drawing attention, it was merely a ripple to what I feel will happen now. I must prepare carefully. Much is at stake. Many people are watching. I perhaps symbolize a great deal to many people without hope. I must not in any way destroy that principle. But on the other hand, I must not presume too much. This is perhaps a greater danger than the other...The photographers have just left. I am being made more and more aware of the power of the press and the...Life is now taking pictures. Oh brother, history is being made today. Keep your equilibrium, Garry. Great things can happen today. And tomorrow..."

Thus a human "worldgovernment-in-microcosm" was immaculately born, as it were, that other September 11th "midwifed" by the world press! When questioned by journalists as to my new "status," assistant UN Secretary-General Konstantin E. Zinchenko of the USSR was quoted as having said, "Davis is a world baby. The U.N. Charter did not foresee being a nursemaid. States may join; diapered citizens, niet!"

In brief, the world's public was exposed virtually overnight to the self-evident fact that the space above the entire nation-state system could be (and is) already populated!

By humanity...and each one of us...at birth.

Legitimately.

On that historic September 11th, 1948, from that tiny human seed in the middle of cosmopolitan Paris, the World Citizen population literally exploded on the world scene.

And continues to this day.

Thus, fifty-four years later, the World Government of World Citizens is daily operating through its administrative agency, the World Service Authority (www.worldservice.org) providing vital global public service to one and all.

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But Are They Relevant To World Peace?

Sixty two years ago today, "Big Boy" exploded over Hiroshima instantly
pulverizing 70,000 humans going about their daily tasks.

In my first letter to World Citizens (circa 1956) written from
Bangalore, India, I claimed that The Bomb was "our" bomb, that "We,
the People" at whom it was pointed "deserved" it. Why? Because we
remained mentally, socially and politically attached to our latter-day
tribes: the nation-states. Between them was anarchy. World anarchy.

The Bomb was an omnipresent and omnipotent reminder of our failure to
recognize our fundamental unity.

Einstein, who wrote President Roosevelt that from the equation e=mc2,
a new weapon could be constructed, "the ultimate weapon." He was
right. But when it was finally demonstrated, he told the world that
"Everything had changed except our ways of thinking politically. It's
presence in the world," he added, "rendered war obsolete. Because it
was 'indiscriminate' in its violence, thereby a socially genocidal
threat to the human race."

To consider its use therefore was madness. To eliminate it from the
human scene was evidence of sanity.

Last Saturday evening ABC-TV's ten o'clock show was called, "Masters
of Science-Fiction." As a Scifi fan, I watched it. An elderly man was
being "interviewed" by a woman psychiatrist in a posh office. He
didn't know why he was there, he exclaimed. He had an appointment in 2
hours to pick up his wife and two daughters. Gradually, it was
revealed to him by the clever interrogator finally showing him the
burnt remains of his wife-the clue was the ring on her finger-that he
was actually the former president of the United States who had given
the order to launch a new-type bomb which resulted in the elimination
of most of the human race. He broke down sobbing, devastated. "What do
you remember now, Mr. President?" she demanded harshly, "I have to
know." (Her two children had died in the holocaust) "Do you remember
where it would strike?" she asked harshly. Down on his knees, head
between his legs, between sobs, he wailed, horrified "..to protect the
democracy..I believed in what I was doing,..I considered the
options...I thought things through.. of course, there would be
consequences. I didn't back down." "Democracy?" she replied coldly.
"The nation you protected? It prevailed. It's 871 strong. Mission
accomplished, Mr. President. And we are all here in an underground
fortress in Virginia."

Only a world government, Einstein claimed, would be able to outlaw,
not only the nuclear "option," but war itself. "Either we eliminate
war," he warned, "or war will eliminate us."

Only a world government, Einstein claimed, would be able to outlaw,
not only the nuclear "option," but war itself. "Either we eliminate
war," he warned, "or war will eliminate us."

Barack Obama, responding to a journalist's question, after claiming
that as president he would never order its use backtracked immediately
by adding "against civilians" as if the indiscriminate violence
distinguished between "civilians" and soldiers. This mindset indicates
a blatant denial of the deadly reality threatening the human race
itself by nuclear "weapons." (To use the word "weapons" incidentally
for nuclear violence is misleading because it connotes a legitimate
instrument of war, an option as opposed to "conventional" weapons. In
short, it is not a "weapon" of war being genocidal or total in
character. Hence Einstein's original claim of the need for a
revolution in thinking).

Hillary Clinton, feeling upstaged, replied that even to mention the
nuclear option in a campaign was "naive." Apparently, eight years in
the White House have not yet penetrated to her that the president has
his/her fingers poised directly above upwards of 3,000 hair-triggered
nuclear missiles all directed at Russia. And vice versa.

Talk above naivete!

But you may ask, so why is The Bomb ours? It's obvious. We paid for
it!

Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Dodd, Biden, Ron Paul, Kuchinich, Gravel,
Giuliana, Huckabee, McCain, Romney, Brownback, Tancredo and Thompson
(if he runs) are obviously on the wrong level to execute world laws
outlawing The Bomb and war itself. First of all, there is no world
parliament or congress yet to make such laws. For instance, we talk
glibly about "global warming." But where is the world constitution
incorporating nature within its legislative framework? And also, is a
war fought with nuclear "weapons" winnable? Do you not see the
contradiction? "Winning" and nuclear "weapons" just don't compute. No
one "wins" total destruction. So how can these so-called intelligent
national candidates seek a political office which not only can not
protect the citizenry but has the potential of destroying it? With
their fingers on The Button! Are they not mad?

Emery Reves wrote "Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely
within the institution never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They
speak of moving society, but have no resting place without it."

As a stateless World Citizen, I offered my candidacy for world
president back in 1983. I am now calling upon World Citizens
registered with the World Service Authority, our own world
government's administrative agency, either to vote for me via my web
site, www.garrydavis.org or solicit other politically active World
Citizens to declare themselves legislative candidates for world public
office. (The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of
government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine
elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be
held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures." Art.
21[3), Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

A web site is presently under construction (www.worldcandidates.org)
through which World Citizen candidates for world public office will be
able to present their credentials, platform, experience, etc. for
world citizen voters throughout the world to mandate their
representation. Already established programs such as "mondialization"
and the World Syntegrity Project are valid tools to supplement a
global voting protocol. The World Citizen Referendum operating from
our main web site has a database of hundreds of thousands of world
citizen who have voted on major global issues (www.worldservice.org/
wref.html).

If indeed we, the world's people "own" The Bomb, then we have the
grave responsibility to decide what to do with it.

Otherwise, we will surely find out to our infinite sorrow that The
Bomb "owned" us.

Views From My Space: Open Letter to General David Petraeus

Views From My Space: Open Letter to General David Petraeus

Open Letter to General David Petraeus

Headquarters
Multinational Force-Iraq
Baghdad, Iraq
APOAE09342-1400
Baghdad
Iraq

Dear General Petraeus,

So wily old George Bush has got you smack in the middle, eh! You're damned if you say things are going well in September and damned if you say they aren't. But what does it really matter? Bush is using you as the patsy. He couldn't care less what your September report reports. The decision about Iraq's future is not a warrior's concern. I mean, is it a sovereign state or not? Apropos, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki himself shrugged off your alleged report by saying that American troops can "leave any time they want" while adviser Shiite lawmaker Hassan al-Suneid claimed that "the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory." Anway, what does that have to do with you as the general of a foreign army caught in the middle of a civil war? And don't think either the US Congress or the US people can help you out. Neither has a clue about what the real problem is.

You doubtless know how Bush thinks by this time. Or doesn't think but "believes." "I believe we can succeed in Iraq, and I know we must," he told the press on July 12th. Now believing is not knowing in my lexicon. The sentence is either meant to confuse the listener-how can he "know" a "belief"?-or his mind just isn't synchronized to put it kindly. "I don't think Congress ought to be running this war" he also said at his press conference followed by "I think they ought to be funding the troops."

First off, General, you're not fighting a war. You're trying to maintain an occupation started by an illegal invasion of a sovereign country. Who's your "enemy"? The "insurgents?" The "terrorists?" Or the Shias or Sunnis? Whoa, hold on! You command soldiers, troops, tanks, combat helicopters, battleships off shore, and the humongous supply chains clear back to Kansas and points north, west, south and east. "Clearing out" homes of Iraqi citizens doesn't seem quite consistent with your generalship training, General. Now is it? For instance, can you spot an "insurgent" or "terrorist" from a civilian?

Now how about that "funding" problem. It's now grown to $10 billion a month. When are the US taxpayers gonna wise up to this theft? (Has anybody calculated what the carbon-footprint is generated by that hunk of loot?) The congress is elected by the people and the people are telling their congressmen/women to get those husbands, fathers, sons and daughters outa there pronto. But does Bush really care? He himself never left US shores as a soldier. He barely left US shores as a civilian before he could climb aboard Airforce One. The clue to his indifference is in his brutally callous statement that he will be "judged by history" and not by his contemporaries. The mothers, especially of the fallen sons and daughters, "should be outraged," as Helen Thomas put it.

You see, General, I have the advantage of being neither in the US Congress nor a part of the US electorate. So it's easy for me to be objective and neutral. It's like looking down from outer space. Or at least from the Space Station rattling around the planet every 90 minutes at 1179 mph. Those space travelers can't even see Iraq much less the "Middle East." It's all one big mess of land and a bigger mess of water to them and yours truly.

Put bluntly, you have no choice but to resign your commission forthwith. The war is a phony. You've been had, in spades. You've got to bug out. Don't worry, you'd not be the first one. So many 3 and 4 stars have blinked out before Bush's disastrous mistakes, you'd be in excellent and historic company. So why be the fall guy for a third-rate, inexperienced and phony veteran who never saw an enemy soldier, who is illegitimately placed in the Oval Office ludicrously wearing a commander-in-chief's hat and with peacock struttings, putting the onus on you whose career is to fight wars and not destroy the remaining civilian remains of a state which your former buddies-in-arms invaded-to bail him out? Don't you realize yet that however you present that September report, Bush cannot change his deadly course. With 3650+ humans wearing US uniforms already dead-Who'se counting the Iraqi civilians and refugees now abroad?-as the saying goes, "Who will be the last soldier dying before his buddies climb aboard their cargo ships homeward bound?"

But I'm not just a naysayer. Far from it. There is a way out. Guess where? It's up! Ever hear of human rights, General? Ever hear of world citizenship or world law or world government? No? Well, read on. First, world peace is not a chimera; it's a necessity since August 6, 1945. Second, sorry but your killing profession is obsolete. It's based on dysfunction; not function like, for instance, the Universal Postal Union or kids sitting in front of their computer screens watching the Hubble telescope opening up a minuscule dot in cosmic space and, after ten days, counting 5,000 or so galaxies where there were none before. Yup, General Petraeus, it's one tiny world ALREADY! No kidding! Hey, I'm typing this letter on my G5 iMac and when I finish, I'll put it in a PDF format and send it out WORLDWIDE instantaneously. From my blog: "Views From My Space."

Shucks, no big deal. Anyone can do it. Kids 5-years-old fire emails to friends 7000 miles away chatting or getting answers to their homework. So tell brother Bush, "It's ONE WORLD, George, and I'm joining it before you go shizoid and push the N-button. I'm a father too, you know, with two kids, a boy and girl. And they're not responsible for our stupidities."

So the bottom line, General, is that, in this 21st century, it's a new ballgame. Einstein was right: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." We've IMAGINED a new government way back in 1953: The World Government of World Citizens. Why not? We're the people. It's our world. And like the Declaration says: "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government." Call us foolish, utopic or just plain crazy. But then look at YOUR position RIGHT NOW. Is it sane, correct, rational, moral? Oh yes, let's talk morality too. Your job, General David Petraeus is killing, right? Moral? I don't think so. Remember that old jingle, "Do unto others, etc.?" Sure I killed too, at age 26 as a B-17 bomber pilot in WWII. (No disrespect, but you were a gleam in your father's eye). And my brother, Bud, did too from the USS Buck, a tincan destroyer which incidentally got blown to hell at Salerno. So you're part of the same old killing fields, General, only now they threaten humanity. And we, the world's people, simply can't afford you anymore either fiscally, professionally or politically.

In short, we need you and your comrades-in-arms out of those deadman's uniforms.

Please think about it-hard. That's an order-from the global front!

Yours in one world,

Garry Davis
World Citizen

P.S. The Guardian in the UK (16 July, MacAskill and Borger) headlines "Cheney Pushes Bush to Act on Iran." With 18 months left on his presidency, Bush noted in the above-mentioned press conference "I will be able to say I looked in the mirror and made decisions based on principle, not based on politics, and that is important to me." Are you prepared, General Petraeus, to obey Bush's order to preemptively invade Iran, perhaps with nuclear "bunker blasters," so that in his retirement he can look in his mirror with self-gratification, when uncounted thousands of his fellow humans lay dead and others are contaminated with deadly and permanent radiation, due to his "virtuous principles"?

Cc: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
President George W. B ush
Vice-President Richard Cheney
Secretary-of-State Condoleezza Rice
Senator Patrick Leahy
Senator Bernie Sanders
Representative Peter Welch
Ban ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations
Dr. Francis Boyle, World Court of Human Rights

Angelina Jolie

Citizen of the World

The breakthrough humanity needs to make is on the human level. And the bringers of the breakthrough are those who most feel the pathos of humanity and the instinct of nature...women.
Palden Jenkins, The Age of People

As a fellow entertainer who has been in four Broadway shows, I am extraordinarily pleased to welcome such a glamorous yet down-to-earth luminary as Angelina Jolie to the growing "constituency" of world citizenship.

My first awareness of Angelina Jolie was through the film "Beyond Borders." Here a famous, beauteous Hollywood star was in a film dramatically exposing the plight of the world's refugees for moviegoers over the world. The movie revealed realistic shots of refugee camps in Cambodia, Thailand and Chechnya. Desperate individuals in these areas frequently write to the World Service Authority for world passports and documents to help them find freedom. They are typical of millions* of refugees and stateless people throughout the world.

Following a trip in 2001 to Sierra Leone, a "war-torn" country with tens of thousands of refugees, Jolie confessed that "I got into some situations that were pretty intense and realized how completely naive I was to think I had a difficult life..It was as if someone slapped me across the face and said, 'Oh, my God, you silly young woman from California, do you have any ideas how difficult the world really is for so many people.' We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us."
August 27, 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.

Eventually, she became a "Goodwill Ambassador" for the UNHCR, visiting over thirty refugee camps in the world's most remote and forbidding and war-torn places. In so doing she called herself recently "a citizen of the world." (with incidentally, a world family. She is a "mother" to Maddox, from Cambodia; Sahara, from Ethiopia; Shiloh from Brad Pitt and recently, to Pax, from Vietnam.)

In brief, she is out trying to save the world as well as making movies and being a responsible and loving mother and companion. Real cool!

"A very beautiful woman," writes Tom Junod in this month's Esquire, "who sees herself as the underdog becomes very famous. Because of her fame, she suffers; because of her suffering she becomes more famous, the most famous woman in the world, she fulfils her vision of herself as the underdog; because she's the underdog, she connects to the world's genuine underdogs, and so, in the end finds meaning and a measure of happiness."

"These are people with the widest reach in the world and not by accident," says Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, and he should know because he works and travels with them - Bono, Madonna, Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. "When you consider what Angelina does or Bono or Madonna - these are real forces of nature; It goes beyond their fan bases. They are able to speak to ten of millions of people, and that goes back to how bright they are, how well they manage across their artistic work, their work in music or film. Their participation has been absolutely essential to the mainstreaming of these global issues into American life, Angelina goes at it with utter honesty, hard work, and deep feeling for the common fate of humanity."

Well, dear Angelina, on behalf of the entire world citizen "constituency," please accept this World Citizen's heartfelt and most sincere thanks for your magnificent efforts to help make our world a better place.

For your information, we are historically in excellent "company." So did Socrates claim to be a "citizen of the world" 2500 years ago. And indeed advised his fellow Athenians to do likewise. Then there was Mencius, Dante, Bergson, Rousseau, Emerson, Thoreau, and revolutionary Tom Paine, who claimed in 1789 that his country "was the world." Then in modern times, Victor Hugo, Teilhard de Chardin, and, of course, that universally-loved "everyman," Charlie Chaplin, then Albert Einstein, "father" of the Nuclear Age, and master architect, writer and creator of the "World Game," Buckminster Fuller, then Martin Luther King, Jr. whose "dream" included one world, and, revealing its extraordinary eclecticism, even Presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Carter in their inauguration speeches and, incredibly, Ronald Reagan in an address to the General Assembly of the UN, September 1, 1987. And let's not forget the 30,000 students at the City Montessori School in Lucknow, India and their billions of fellow students throughout the world demanding of us world law to outlaw war. Though history is sparse in citing women who actually "claimed" world citizenship due no doubt to manmade laws prejudicial to "female political rights," such renowned contemporary women as Jane Addams, Rosika Schwimmer, Lola Lloyd, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mother Theresa, Vandana Shiva, Arundhati Roy, Shurin Ebadi, Aung San Sui Kyi, Rigerberta Menchu Tum, Princess Diana, and recently Wangari Muta, among others, all exhibited in action a universal humanitarian vision of the world.

Of course, Hollywood luminaries such as George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and Madonna, among many others, merit the title whether they claim it or not for their growing humanitarian work, not to forget Oprah Winfrey through her imaginative generosity to young South African girls.

But rare it is when a woman of global fame endowed with such iridescent beauty, in her dedication to make a better world, innocently without any pretence, declares that she is "a citizen of the world." And spreads the word.

In so declaring, in our humble opinion, she represents the "universal" woman; the mother, wife, daughter, sister, companion, the perennial Eve, the "yin" or intuitive aspect of humanity, not only willing to take on the world's suffering like Mother Therese but to right wrongs, and to find the just answers to global "accountability" for the horrors she herself has witnessed in her travels.

To that end, Tom Junod in the Esquire piece writes that she is now studying international law.

In this new educational mission, permit us to say that you, Angelina, as a "citizen of the world" have already defined and become THE SOLUTION: world law -in -microcosm! In other words, in recognizing yourself as a citizen of the world HERE and NOW, that world law which is the cause of world peace and all that follows begins with you and us. The remainder is only commentary and implementation.

That's the true meaning of sovereignty: the power of choice of the people of the world.

In his inaugural address, President Roosevelt said we had learned to be citizens of the world, but he didn't tell is where we might apply for our first papers. The world's department of justice is still a long subway ride from any given point, but to go forever unnaturalized in so promising a land, is unthinkable.
(E.B. White, The Wild Flag (Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1945)

Now the next step is to obtain your global "naturalization" papers!

We at the World Service Authority, the administrative organ of the World Government of World Citizen, have been supplying those essential human rights ID's for world citizens since September 4, 1953. And that "subway ride" is now only an "online" stop away!

Therefore the application for your global "naturalization" papers as a World Citizen, Angelina, can be downloaded directly from our main web site: www.worldservice.org. Incidentally, for your new studies, with our compliments, our own books on world law, world citizenship and world government are in the mail. (See www.worldgovernmenthouse.com).

In the sense that "all the world's a stage," seemingly huge but increasingly accessible to one and all, we look forward with pleasure and profound respect to continue "performing" with you on it.

**********************

* Refugee Population
As of 1 January 2007, UNHCR reported a total of 21 018 589 individuals falling under its mandate.
1: 7 979 251 in Asia, of which
2 580 638 in the Middle-East
2 974 315 in South-East Asia
218 584 in Central Asia
1 304 189 in South Asia
901 525 in East Asia and the Pacific
2: 4 740 392 in Europe, of which
1 617 214 in Eastern Europe
708 132 in South-East Europe
616 132 in Central Europe and in the Baltic states
1 798 914 in Western Europe
3: 5 069 123 in Africa, of which
1 359 175 in Central Africa and the Great Lakes region
2 105 314 in Eastern Africa
1 031 030 in Western Africa
434 427 in the Southern African region
139 177 in North Africa
4 3 229 822 in America, of which
717 545 in North America and in the Caribbean
5: 2 512 277 in South America

I Interview Space

Me: You're in the news again bigtime. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?

Space: Shoot. Just sitting here in my ubiquitous lonesomeness whiling away eternally.

Me: Ever since Sputnick, you've been a fascinating and intriguing topic of conversation. Seems everyone suddenly realized you existed. Or rather you didn't exist but were at least usable. Even John Kennedy here informed his fellow citizens they were going to the moon in ten years through you.

Space: Yeah, I heard. Big deal. Hop, skip and plop! I didn't even feel it.

Me: Yes, well one big problem is, all that junk already floating in you, at last count, 8,927 man-made objects weighing over 4 million pounds. We would like your reactions. I mean, aren't you a bit worried?

Space: Me? Worried? Let's get something straight first. I look at you mortals from my position surrounding you all while you look at me stupidly from your so-called national positions. The truth is staring at you every time and everywhere you look up. Damn few of you humans even know what I am. Or better, what I'm not. Only a few of you got it right. Like that Lao Tse guy who wrote the Tao Te King.

Me: You mean in chapter 11 which claims that things are for profit and space is for value?

Space: You got it. And there's that Gaia man, Lovelock who thinks of your planet as a whole living being surrounded by me like billions of others. But the Webster's definition is definitely out of whack: "the unlimited three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur." I am not merely a "where" or a "non-thing." Look, I was first, even before the Big Bang. Before the material world. Check those stars. They're all "in" me. Capisci?

Me: Yeah, capisci. But tell me, were there any others of us here who got it right?

Space: Yeah, a few like Emerson who wrote that "The material universe was created by, and is totally permeated, by Universal Soul.." He got that right. Hey, where do you think God lives anyway? Then there was T. Paine who wrote that his "country was the world." Anyhone who recognizes that is space-struck. Then there's that space/time scientist, Einstein. He somehow figured that I was "bendable" and deduced a whole relativity theory on it. Real cool. But most of you haven't a prayer which only proves you don't deserve me, not to mention your minor planet itself. Well, no great loss. There's millions more. Like Emerson said, "The dice of God are always loaded!"

Me: Hmm, You don't paint a pretty picture. But listen, we have an immediate and growing problem here. There's so-called national leaders who insist they own you. I mean like exclusively. And they claim to have the power to keep everybody out of you. In other words, they're thinking of using you as a bloody battlefield. And what's worse, they've got nuclear bombs on the alert now. That really scares a lot of us. Some of these despots are even sending up stationary platforms in you claiming all sorts of phony reasons, for instance, cell phones communication. But the majority of us want to keep you as you are, you know, peacelike.

Space: Anyone who claims to own me is either a fool or thinks everyone else is a fool. I'm 83 miles from everybody. The bottom line is, I "own" every-thing, planets, moons, stars, including you humans, because without me, you couldn't exist. You'd all be squashed together like jelly in a giant jar.

Me: (Laughing) That's sure true. But let's get back to reality, I mean, definitions. Some astronomers in ancient times called you "ether" not just empty "space." Claimed you filled the universe. You mentioned Einstein. He was intrigued by the idea that you were not really empty-like because then light couldn't move through you. And the sun couldn't heat the earth. He cottoned onto this "ether" idea and figured that you or "ether" accounted for electromagnetic radiation. Got a Nobel for it too. So what are you, "space" or "ether"?

Space: Sorry, that's classified! And I'm not authorized to give out any classified information. Here's a hint, however. Whatever's out here (Pointing upward) is in there. (Pointing at my head). Dig a little. Use your own awareness and, believe me, you'll come up with all the right answers. The kids know them already. OK?
Sorry, gotta go. Time to expand.

**********************

Einstein to the Rescue!

"Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle."
"There is no salvation for civilization. Or even the human race, other than the creation of a world government."
"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."

Albert Einstein
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I am reading Walter Isaacson's extraordinarily detailed book: Einstein, His Life and Universe.*

Einstein thought in postulates. That is, he was a deductive thinker. It is the key to world peace. "The deeper we penetrate and the more extensive our theories become," he (Einstein) would declare toward the end of his life, "the less empirical knowledge is needed to determine these theories." (P. 118)

What is deductive thinking? Here, from Isaacson's book:

"Some scientific theories depend primarily on induction: analyzing a lot of experimental findings and then finding theories that explain the empirical patterns. Others depend more on deduction: starting with elegant principles and postulates that are embraced as holy and then deducting the consequences from them. All scientists blend both approaches to differing degrees. Einstein had a good feel for experimental findings, and he used this knowledge to find certain fixed points with which he could construct a theory. But his emphasis was primarily on the deductive approach...The simplest picture one can form about the creation of an empirical science is along the lines of an inductive method. Individual facts are selected and grouped together so that the laws that connect them become apparent. However, the big advances in scientific knowledge originated in this way only to a small degree. The truly great advances in our understanding of nature originated in a way almost diametrically opposed to induction. The intuitive grasp of the essentials of a large complex of facts leads the scientist to the postulation of hypothetical basic laws. From these laws, he derives his conclusions." (P. 117/118)

The Founding Fathers of the United States postulated a new government deductively above/beyond the separate states' governments which, being only parts of a whole, had forfeited their past deductive raison d'etre. In short, the founders had to imagine the USA first, then fill in the details. This process took many years as individual citizens only gradually accepted the holistic deductive political reality the credo of which was "E pluribus unum."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge," wrote Einstein.

He warned us in 1945 following the publication of Emery Reve's best-seller, The Anatomy of Peace, that "Our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man's discovery of fire. This basic power of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalism....In a war fought with the atomic bomb, perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth might be killed.." and that we should "Remember your humanity, and forget the rest." (P. 491)

Indeed, the Nuclear Age itself was deduced from Einstein's historically insightful equation E=MC2.

That's precisely why there is no "solution" to the present Iraqi situation. It is only part of a total deductive situation involving the entire world community. Both the Bush administration and the Congress are mired in an inductive framework which in itself can admit of no deductive solution. Only a wholesale political postulate involving that community which is already physically one and totally interdependent can present a solution.

Neither can the US troops in Iraq-literally an occupying force-return home nor can they stay since violence per se provokes its counterpart. Catch-22. Moreover, given the artificial religious divide between the Sunnis and the Shiites, a peaceful solution between them cannot ensue within the context of the relativist inductive framework and reasoning.

Einstein's first and most famous postulate was the holistic principle of relativity.

In the chapter "One Worlder," Isaacson extrapolates: "As in science, so it was in world politics for Einstein: he sought a unified set of principles that could create order out of anarchy. A system based on sovereign nations with their own military forces, competing ideologies and conflicting national interests would inevitably produce more wars. So he regarded a world authority as realistic rather than idealistic, as practical rather than naive. For the remaining ten years of his life, his passion for advocating a unified governing structure for the globe would rival that for finding a unified field theory that could govern all the forces of nature." (P. 488)

He also advocated a world legislature that would be elected directly by the people of each member country, in secret ballot, rather than appointed by the nation's rulers. (P. 490)

On September 4, 1953, at the City Hall of Ellsworth, Maine, as a stateless person and declared world citizen, with Einstein's written approbation** , and in the name of over 750,000 registered World Citizens, I postulated a world government (of world citizens). The reasoning was totally deductive: I based it on three 'principles': One God (or Wisdom, Reason, Understanding, Spirit, etc.); One World and One Humanity. "When I am judging a theory," Isaacson quotes Einstein, "I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way." From these three postulates-which I called "world laws"-we citizens of the world have been filling in the details ever since. (See The Ellsworth Declaration, worldservice.org/doc)

"Iraqis," "Americans," and everyone inbetween are already united in the deductive postulates of one God, one world and one humanity.

Albert Einstein, we aver, would have approved wholeheartedly of this politically deductive follow through to his imaginative scientific postulates of the entire natural cosmos wherein humanity finds its perennial home.

*Simon & Shuster, 2007

(Note to Walter Isaacson: In your Chapter 'One Worlder,' please include in subsequent editions Einstein's support of the December 3rd, 1948 Salle Pleyel meeting in Paris - where an 'Honorary Chairman' place was reserved for him - 8 days before the UN General Assembly left its "international territory" of the Palais de Chaillot after declaring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10th as "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations".)

*************************
**"I am eager to express to the young war veteran Davis my recognition of the sacrifice he has made for the well-being of humanity. In voluntarily giving up his citizenship rights he has made of himself a 'displaced person' in order to fight for the natural rights of those who are the mute evidence of the low moral level of our time. The worst kind of slavery which burdens the people of our time is the militarization of the people. But this militarization results from the fear of new mass-destruction in threatening world-war. The well-intentioned effort to master this situation by the creation of the United Nations has shown itself regrettably insufficient. A supra-national institution must have enough powers and independence if it shall be able to solve the problems of international security. Neither can one nor has one the right to leave the taking of such a decisive step entirely to the initiative of the governments. Only the unbendable will of the people can free the forces which are necessary for such a radical break with the old and outlived traditions in politics. I greet this assembly as a serious effort to serve a most important mission of our generation. A. Einstein

What Iraq "War?"

"Insurgent":" "A person who takes part in forcible opposition or armed resistance to an established government or authority."
"Insurgency": The state or condition of being insurgent." (Webster's College Dictionary, 1991)

Let's start from the beginning. Who invaded Iraq in 2003? Men in United States military uniforms ordered by George W. Bush. Given the legitimacy of humanity - "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights; they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights - they were "insurgents" and, with Bush, merited indictment before the International Criminal Court as such.

This insurgency was illegal and violated fundamental human rights not to mention all treaties between sovereign states going back to St. Petersburg in 1868.

The language was then perverted. The insurgency ordered by Bush was declared a "war."

"War" "Armed conflict between nations or factions within a nation."
But there was no enemy. Iraq was not the "enemy." The Iraqi people were not the "enemy." Sadam Hussein was not the "enemy." al Qaida was not ever there. No enemy: no war.

So the chief insurgent, George Bush and his advisors, publicly declared it a "war against terrorism." But there cannot be a "war against terrorism" as "terrorism" is "the use of violence and threats to violence to intimidate or coerce." Again, no enemy! Only a condition. And what is the condition which allows "terrorism" to occur?

Anarchy.

When Bush ordered his citizen-soldiers to become "insurgents" against the Iraqi nation, he acknowledged and condoned the condition of anarchy between the United States and Iraq. Otherwise, his "insurgents" could not operate outside the continental limits of the United States from which to invade Iraq.

So there was in fact a unilateral "invasion" by U.S. citizens in United States army uniforms as "insurgents" of the people of another sovereign state. But by calling the Iraqi invasion a "war," Bush invoked the words "winning" or "losing" to define the outcome. A foreign insurgency, however, doesn't "win" or "lose" an invasion. It simply becomes an occupier from which the populace invariably rebels. Following those definitions, flow the further delusions of "national patriotism," "loss of face," the "fighting troops," and such characteristics as "morale," "courage," and for the insurgent's families at home, "dedication," "patience," "approval." and so forth. The public and private mind thus is closed to the reality both of what happened and what is today happening on the ground.

The Congress of the United States thereby is trapped in the dilemma of "supporting the 'troops' or "stopping the 'war.'" A non-sequitor. Senator Harry Reid himself, the majority leader, sanctioned the delusion Thursday, by declaring, "The war is lost," thus unleashing a storm of protest by Republicans - particularly Vice-President Cheney - of defeatism and disloyalty to the troops in the field and to those already dead. (The disclaimers didn't mention the dead Iraqis.)

Underlying this delusional drama is the blind allegiance to the dysfunctional nation-state system itself as the only outlet for civic life and morality. Hence the dilemma within the Iraqi government unable to function under the insurgency from without and that within between internal factions of long-standing.

Last week, for instance, the Vermont Senate voted to "impeach" President Bush. The emphasis was on his violating the U.S. Constitution by starting an "illegitimate war" against Iraq. At an outdoor meeting before Burlington's City Hall where the impeachment crowd of citizens gathered, I took the mike at the end and reminded the crowd that George Bush was indeed a "war criminal," not only for his so-called preemptive war policy, i.e. insurgency, but particularly for his first-strike nuclear option declared illegitimate by the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 1979. and merited indictment before the International Criminal Court for violating the Nuremberg Principles.

The Vermonters there applauded this solution enthusiastically.

We, the citizens of the world, are the plaintiffs, but where oh where are the counselors to represent us?

The Suicide Vote vs the Power Vote

The barbarous race is on again! Hillary Clinton has raised $26 million; Obama has raised $25 million; Gov. Romney, $20.6 million, Guiliani, $14 million, McCain $12.5. Total so far: $127 million. The Democrats have raised $78 million; the Republicans $51 million.

But that's just the beginning. Chicken-feed. So you may well ask: Where's this loot going? Mostly into TV political commercials. What for? To blare ad nauseam into the US citizens' reluctant ears and fractured minds their alleged programs. (Typical example: Today's-4/11-NYT headline: "Romney Says He'll Expand Armed Forces by 100,000." His good Mormon reasons: "Our objective is a strong America and a safe world." The classic national contradiction.) And what exactly are these programs? The elimination of war itself by outlawing it with world law? To resolve the global warming problem with global environmental and enforceable laws? To create a global currency so as to eliminate the divisive and crippled national currency chaos? ? To clean up space or the oceans which belong to humanity and not any one nation? To help the millions of nobodies, citizens of nowhere, forgotten or neglected by governments: the world's stateless? Or to preserve the world's forests?

Not on your life. Or theirs.

The candidates already know these problems are outside the scope of the nation-state. But what is more insidious, they also know that a U.S. president is TOTALLY POWERLESS to address much less solve these or ANY global problems.

So what's the election all about? Does it REALLY matter who you vote for as U.S. president? Or for that matter any national president? Aren't they ALL on the wrong political level? OUR problems are global whereas the U.S. elected candidate's first duty is to swear to "defend the Constitution (mind you, not the world's people) against all enemies, foreign and domestic." (Tom Paine wrote that "government was for the living, not the dead.") "Defending the national Constitution" in a nuclear world where any psychopath can literally push THE BUTTON is to live in a fantasy world of TOTAL DENIAL

The exclusive nation-state IS the enemy! And it wars against US, humanity.

In brief, an election for a national president in a world of anarchy is the greatest scam in modern history. It's like sheep voting for the next butcher while lining up outside the slaughterhouse. If you don't believe me, write a letter to any candidate demanding to know what is their program to OUTLAW WAR.

I myself ran for U.S. president in 1988, along with George G.W. Bush and Dukakis but as a World Citizen! There were over 200 of us "minor candidates," as the media dubbed us. My global platform is still online at www.garrydavis.org. Check it out.

Two years before that, I ran for mayor of Washington, D.C. This was a little more serious as, on the municipal ballot, I was actually and legitimately among only six candidates, Mayor Barry among them. My platform was "To protect One world for the 'world city,' Washington, D.C. (targeted by the Soviet Union as Moscow was targeted by the U.S. AND THEY STILL ARE!) where no one was represented in Congress anyway." (Check D.C. license plates still). My only campaign expense was a round pillow in the shape of the planet Earth: $20. I received 585 votes!

Thank you, oh enlightened ones!

In my second book, World Government, Ready Or Not!* I refer to the national vote for presidency as a "suicide vote." "Contemporary problems beginning with war itself are in large part generated by the very institution, the sovereign-state, that controls the elective process." On the contrary, I concluded, the only election which made sense in our global village was for world citizens voting for a candidate for world president (which I just happened to be!) and/or for a world parliamentarian.

This I call a "power vote."

That will be the subject of a future blog. Stay tuned.

*See: www.worldgovernmenthouse.com
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I Interview Water

Me: Given the hoopla over 'international water' these days, I have a few questions directed to the source, that is, you.

Water: Be my guest.

Me: First off, what is your opinion of that phrase, 'International water.'

Water: It's a washout. Doesn't compute. I'm me, indivisible and global. Anyone who tries to divide me is nuts. As one of your more intelligent humans, Jacques Cousteau, said "There's only one ocean."

Me: But then, why do you think certain humans use that word "international" to define you?

Water: Listen, I've been on this planet a few billion years. You humans are a drop in the bucket, I mean the earth bucket. Your words are totally irrelevant to reality. You think you own the planet. You split it up into itsby-bitsy sections which you then claim as 'yours' even while I drop on you bigtime or wash over your coastlines from time to time In short, I own you. You're 70% me. Even Tony Blair, George Bush and Ahmadinejad, not to forget Renee Zellweger. Your ancient brothers even named me an earth god: Neptune. I like that. Fits.

Me: OK, OK, we 're all very grateful for your august presence but there's a grave political problem at this very moment. People are beginning to fight over you. It could get serious what with the weapons spread around the human community.

Water: Your fight's not over me! What do I have to do with your stupid politics? Couldn't care less. I've been hearing about your problems from Babylonians, Carthaginians, Mesopotamians clear back to cavemen. Nothing new there. But like the song, I jest keeps rollin' along.

Me: That's a comforting thought. But you've gotta help us. We're in deep trouble. A few of these national politicians can blow us all up over this "international water" business.

Water: You people are so short-sighted. You don't even know who you really are. Listen. I'll give you a for instance. You humans go to sleep every night, right? Just like all the other species on the planet. Then when your minds blank out, gone are the nationalities, religions, exclusive tribes and regions, pagan or superior cultures, rich or poor, aliens or citizens, enemies or friends, a big nothing, nada, zip. Then energy, or what some of you call 'synergy,' starts flowing in from the cosmos to your outer etheric body and finally settles where? Inside me which is mostly you. Then you wake up, your batteries recharged, totally unaware of what really happened, that, in spite of your great god brain, you all still depend on me for life on earth. All of you. Then, you start your same divisive B.S. the next day. Why do I even try?

Me: I said we were grateful, at least some of us are. But what advice can you give us to overcome our stupidities which have already in the past become very dangerous for all of us?

Water: It's simple. Wake up, man! I mean, really wake up! Listen, aeons ago I made this place livable for you. How many planets do you think have 70% surface water? So grow up already! Mature! You're a race, a species for God's sake, that's what. Get used to it, and soon! But with all your CO2 and radio-active pollution, you're making it rough for the planet itself, not to mention the other species out there who have been here a helluva lot longer than you. Besides they came first. After all, I've got to take care of my own. You're way down on the list. Last in, first out. And believe me, it's later than you think.

Me: OK. I'll pass the word. Thanks a mil.

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To The World's Billionaires
Memo No 2

Yesterday I downloaded the list of the 946 world's billionaires in the Forbes recent mag. Maybe it had to do with a naive incredulity mixed with a vague sense of mission. In any case, I wanted to see the actual names. It took over 2 hours to print out the 38 pages, one by one.

Certain names stood out: Steven Spielberg, ($3b), Steven Jobs, ($5.7b), George Soros, ($8.5b), Rupert Murdoch, ($9b), Henry Ross Perot, ($4.4b), Richard Branson, ($3.8b), George Lucas, ($3.6b), George Mitchell, ($2.6b), Jeffrey Skoll, ($4.2b), Gerald J. Ford, ($1.7b) (He has a World Passport).

Only twenty-two are older than me (85) though many ages are left out. As to countries, the USA has 415 billionaires; Russia is next with 53 billionaires worth $282 billion. India has 36 worth $191 billion; Japan has 24 worth $64 billion; the UK with 26, Hong Kong with 19 and so on.

As I viewed each billionaire's "Rank," "Name," "Citizenship," "Age, "Net Worth $BIL," and "Residence," a dawning realization came into sharp focus that these bare paper notations were not merely of two-dimensional cardboard cutouts but of real flesh and blood people, our fellow humans! Amazing! Our planetary neighbors not some alien species in a far-off galaxy. Moreover, like us, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, etc. as well as captains of industry and stewards of immense largess. Were they reachable given the right message and channels? Because as the figures of their worth in billions were revealed in page after astounding page, I began to realize the mind-boggling POWER they possessed, that is, financial power. If "Power follows property" as the proverbial axiom states, the inevitable question fairly screamed at me: Why doesn't that immense global financial power-$3.2 trillion-translate into its requisite political power? Obviously if it did the world would not be in the mess it is in.
What's the missing link?

If indeed the nuclear sword, WWIII and environmental devastation is hanging by a thread above all our heads-billionaires to the contrary notwithstanding-there is an overwhelmingly disastrous lack of GLOBAL systemic coordination in spite of the Universal Postal Union, flights to Mars, instantaneous communication-like this blog-and the "flat world" permitting giants like Walmarts to prosper.

Then it became transparently obvious, at least to me.

These 946 billionaires are as yet unaware that they desperately need us!

To save them!

And by "us," I mean, WE WORLD CITIZENS. We have the experience and programs for survival!

But don't take my word for it. Read excerpts from an August 23, 1970 speech to a World Congress of World Federalists in Ottawa, Canada from former UN Secretary-General U Thant who, contrary to his "establishment" duties to Member-States, also witnessed the global scene from his privileged perch:

"The sense of belonging to the human community must now be added to, and become dominant over other allegiances. Man has not only the possibility but the necessity for recognizing and for demonstrating his essential unity. This has always been the vision of the great religious teachers, philosophers, sages and wise men of the past. Today it is a basic requirement for progress. For mankind cannot proceed, or even survive at all, as a divided and warring species. If we accept this concept, then there is no aspect of world affairs and national affairs that does not require the attention of world citizens as they work steadfastly to usher in the new world order. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has set a planetary norm for the treatment of human beings. (Emphasis added).

While on another and deeper level, Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. reminds us that "The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions. Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. [It] needs to be both defended and fed constantly. People will often enter into a compulsive pursuit of ego-gratification and things to identify with in order to fill this hole they feel within, a deep-seated sense of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole, constant feeling of not being worthy or good enough. It will only be felt indirectly as an intense craving, wanting and needing. So they strive after possessions, money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship basically so they can feel better about themselves. Feel more complete, But even when they attain all these things, they soon find that the hole is still there. That it is bottomless. Then they are really in trouble, because they cannot delude themselves anymore."

My bottom line is it is shamefully apparent that our world's billionaires are not yet cognizant of the founding, evolution and practice of our 54-year-old world government since not one of them has yet proffered any appropriate financial support to it.

Is that about to change?

Well, YES!

The reason is obvious. We need each other in order to survive.

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A Humanitarian Crisis

One disastrous result of the phony Iraq war is the more than 2 million Iraqis who have fled their land seeking asylum because of its violence to civilians both from the U.S. military and the Shia-Sunni civil war. Flooding into Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran as "refugees," (More than 18,000 are now seeking asylum in Europe, half in Sweden). As "aliens" they face a life without resources of health care, education, work security or basic life support. "Washington and the U.N. do not acknowledge the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis," according to Ken Bacon of Refugees International.

Even procuring a passport to leave Iraq has become a frustrating and even dangerous problem. Sebastian Usher of BBC News Middle East reports that "The desire to get out of Iraq increases in line with the violence." New nationality cards are required in order to apply for a new passport series. Lines in public places and delays are long often requiring bribes to unscrupulous Iraqis. Usher concludes that "For those struggling to find a way out of the most violent areas in Iraq, the passport obstacle course is not just a cause for frustration but potentially a matter of life and death."

Since its inception in 1954, the World Service Authority has been issuing its human rights documents to individuals in the Middle East as in the rest of the world. From its inception, all national governments have been advised of its documentary service to refugees and stateless persons. (See "Documents" section in main web site). But the World Passport has a precedent.
The history of the Nansen Passport, the original "refugee" passport, is little known today. But Norwegian explorer Fritjof Nansen, Norway's delegate to the League of Nations, was commissioned in 1918 to open a passport office for refugees, mostly "White Russians" who had fled to Europe following the 1917 Communist revolution in the Soviet Union.

With the League's sanction the passport was recognized by all European countries proving an indispensable identity and travel document for hundreds of thousands of refugees, and stateless persons, up to 1939 when WWII started thereby scrapping the League of Nations itself.

Its successor, the United Nations, however, failed to continue Nansen's mission, (he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922) yet the refugee population had expanded exponentially following the war. Instead it proposed a treaty to be signed by Member-States defining refugees rights. This effectively placed the refugee within the jurisdiction of each state adhering to the treaty. But paradoxically, even before the treaty went into effect, 1956, the UN in 1948 proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations."

Article 13(1) provided that "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state" while article 13(2) provides that "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

There was no UN document publicly issued identifying these human rights concerning freedom of travel and residence. The WSA was therefore born out of sheer necessity in 1954, fully two years before the Convention on the Rights of Refugees was finally ratified in 1956 by the requisite number of nations for it to be effectuated. The first World Passport was designed, printed and obtained its first national visas by this writer in 1955 on my trip to India at the invitation of Nataraja Guru, a South Indian sage. (The full story is in my first book, My Country Is The World, (Putnam, 1960, see "Catalogue," WG site).

The 4th edition of the World Passport conforming to the identification codes authorized by the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal for travel documents began issuance on January 1, 2007. Upgraded information has been sent to all UN Member-States on a specially-edited CD-Rom disc also available to the general public. (See "Catalogue" in WG site).

The new refugee population fleeing Iraqi's civil war once again exposes the dire anarchic condition dominating the entire world community despite lip service to fundamental human rights by national leaders.

We at WSA continue, however, to serve the general public as our slender means permit, a further reason for increased and major funding to cope with the immense and desperate problems the world's refugees face in increasing numbers.

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Memo To The World's Billionaires

Memo To The World's Billionaires

According to Forbes Magazine, you number 946 in the world. Joining your elitist club this year alone were 178 newbies "including 19 Russians, 14 Indians, 13 Chinese and 10 Spaniards,"plus the first billionaires from Cyprus, Oman, Romania and Serbia. Quite a mixed-bag, eh?

Now in the name of the 6 billion, 6 hundred million, 9 hundred thousand, etc., etc. of us poor bumblers gazing at you with unmitigated envy, I have a few questions. First off, do you ever feel poor? I mean, FEEL not think poor. For instance, in your dreams at night, are you ever desperate for a handout, or say, you can't get "home" because you lack the carfare? Or you just barely miss trains or boats? Dreams do tell, you know. Then, when you wake up in the morning, do you shake off the poverty ghost and think, "Ho ho, another day, another million!"?
Then who actually counts your money? Isn't that a continual but tedious problem? Must cost a small fortune in itself too. Are your billions in ten, twenty or hundred dollar bills? That must weigh a ton. Especially in tens. Having a billion dollars (or worse, lots of billions) seems to me to have a humongous mountain resting on your head. What about headaches? Isn't that a problem too?

But the major drag, I imagine, is how to spend your day with a billion bucks increasing by the hour while we workers struggle to improve our sorry lot by the year. I mean you don't have to work, do you? That would be redundant. Heck, you've already made it, right?. And besides, personal luxury is a pretty limited business. I mean how many meals can you eat at a time? Or sleep in beds per night? So what's left to accomplish? Sure, the world is in a mess. Plenty of people, and I do mean PLENTY OF PEOPLE are having a hard time just surviving. I suspect you know all that. But does it ever cause you to ponder about what you could do to help? Oh, I know about Bill and Melinda's foundation and Warren's gift to it and Oprah's academy in Africa for young girls and Angelina and Brad's adoptions in far-away lands, etc. and all those other non-profit foundations, all to the good, no doubt.

But according to Forbes, the combined net worth of you all increased just this year by $900 billion to reach a mind-boggling $3.5 trillion while most of us got poorer. That's enough to wonder that the heck life's all about on our troubled world, stuff like equality, human rights and the 'rule of law' and such.

I tell you what. Let's start a World Citizens' Billionaire's Club and you can all become members. The membership fee will be a paltry $50 million. That'll give it a starting net worth of $473,000,000. Then we'll start a bank, a world bank, and use the fees as capital, minus expenses and overhead, to print and issue world money against national currencies. (A Bucky Fuller idea, incidentally, who wrote that money was only 'crystallized energy' and proposed 'kilowatt dollars' as the world currency*). After all, national currencies are 'floating' out there between nations anarchically with no real solid base like goods and services. Billionaires like Soros have made theirs by speculating on the national currencies' daily worth against each other. No problem with global electronic synchronization. But that's no way to run a railroad. Or a planet.

Then there's wars to get rid of. Who can afford them anymore? Nations need plenty of national moola to keep that killing machine well lubricated. (You could say that all national currency today is blood money). And besides, if WWIII starts, your billions won't be worth the paper they're printed on.

Change the currency from national to global and, voila! wars will cease. We could even buy everyone a hybrid. Now that's something worthwhile for you all to think about, right?.

How about it Bill? Why don't you start the ball rolling since you're number 1 on the chart?

You wouldn't want Warren, Carlos or Ingvar or even Oprah to beat you out on such a noble mission. My cell is (802) 598-3211. Give me a call and we'll work it out.

Me? I only want to help.

Hey, I went to high school in a Rolls-Royce, too!

*Critical Path, St. Martin's Press, 1981