World Citizen Blog: 2011

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Message to All "Occupyers":
"Verticalize," then "Syntegrate"!

By Garry Davis

"As nations are torn apart and restructured, as instabilities and threats of war erupt, we shall be called upon to invent wholly new political forms or 'containers' to bring a semblance of order to the world -- a world in which the nation-state has become, for many purposes, a dangerous anachronism."

--Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave

When I placed my hand on the Gideon Bible in the US Embassy in Paris May 25, 1948 and took the Oath of Renunciation of US nationality, I became a legitimate "occupier" of planet Earth!

The words I then recited were simple but prophetic reaching back thousands of years to the ancient Greeks, Stoics and Raja Rishis of South India:

"I hereby swear that I desire to make a formal renunciation of my American nationality, and pursuant thereto hereby absolutely and entirely renounce my nationality to the United States and all rights and privileges thereunto and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to the United States of America."

When I dropped my hand, I had legally freed myself from the 19th century Age of Nationalism...and war itself...at least in this lifetime.

But it wasn't enough. Though I was in my own stateless "space," the national myth no longer binding me, I was still a full-bodied member of the human race and eager to fulfill that sacred and challenging destiny wherever it would lead me.

That same day, therefore I issued a press statement, carried by AP, Reuters, INS and other wire services, that "I should like to consider myself a citizen of the world."

In short, I had "verticalized" myself to the global level. Who, indeed, could deny me that sovereign right? Moreover, I became a "world citizenship government-in-microcosm." "Every man possesses the right of self-government. Individuals exercise it by their single will." (Thomas Jefferson, 1776) "My country is the world." (Tom Paine, 1776)

No longer "in" a nation, when I walked out of the US Embassy "territory," and onto the Champs Elysee, I started my personal "occupying" of "world territory"!

I was happy and felt free as a bird in full flight!

But the French government immediately roared: "Out! Or our national gendarmes will put you 'inside.' Permanently!"

Out, but where? Out to sea? Up in a balloon? The moon? Que faire?

As my final date for departure arrived, I was surprisingly if contradictorily "saved" by the United Nations which "verticalized" in the middle of Paris: Place de Trocadero, the Palais de Chaillot where its General Assembly was to hold its session. In brief, France had ceded a tiny piece of alleged French territory to the UN...for three months! The absurd charade was on! With pack on back, on the morning of September 11th, I "left" France taking the Metro to Place Trocadero and, "entering" the UN's "international territory," claimed to be its "first citizen."

In short, I "occupied" it as a human being!

A New Age for citizenship was born! We had a "proper home!" Seven thousands journalists were in Paris awaiting the opening sessions. I became the "story" of the day...and even that year.

That first sojourn on the UN "territory," however, lasted only 7 days. French gendarmes in collusion with the UN’s Secretary-General staff, "invaded" the territory, bundled me and my tent into a police car (familiar?) and transported me "back" to France. Illegally! (Or perhaps "allegally"). But 7 days were enough. The issue was joined: world citizenship inclusivity versus national exclusivity.

I became world famous.

But if I, still "stateless," could claim to be and function as a world citizen on world territory, why not everybody else? Indeed, as I wrote in my last blog, we, humanity, are already THERE! Rather, HERE!

The letters started trickling in, but soon became a torrent. Three years after WWII with Europe still in ruins and Hiroshima fresh in everyone's minds, the "cold war" starting between the USA and the USSR, the refugee world proliferating, many recognized world citizenship as the "way out" of the war game entirely. And it is! Even the UN proclaimed it on its final day in Paris.

On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly unanimously voted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a "common standard of achievement for all people and all nations."

As legitimate members of the world's "people," we World Citizens eagerly grabbed it and ran.

Over 750,000 fellow humans joined me by registering at the International Registry of World Citizens I founded on January 1, 1949. "World territory" was filling up!

Then on July 10, 1949, a giant leap forward occurred and is the real lief motif of this blog: The city of Cahors in Southern France passed a resolution signed by the mayor declaring it a "world city." Thus began the "Mundialization" movement which has since spread to over 900 cities throughout the world. (See, www.worldservice.org/mund.html).

From that day when Cahors "mundialized," every citizen in a "mundialized" city "verticalized" to world territory!

Lastly, on September 4, 1953, from the City Hall of Ellsworth, Maine, after numerous jail visits thanks to my stateless status, on the advice of top civic rights lawyers, and with the mandate of the UDHR, based on our claimed global sovereignty, I declared the World Government of World Citizens. ("The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government." Art. 21[3], UDHR).[1]

Fast forward to 1986. On August 22, 1986, I filed with the DC Municipal Office my "world citizen" candidacy for mayor of the capitol of the United States!

Mayors, I thought then and now, (2011), legally responsible for their citizens welfare and safety, are the veritable key to a world of order and wellbeing, NOT the now totally dysfunctional nation-state system. Luis Kutner, the passionate advocate of World Habeas Corpus[2], wrote that,

"The time-clock of World-Man is now ever-set at one half-hour from annihilation. Man, who has achieved the ever-expanding greatness of physical science, of ultimate outer space Satellite control, of intercontinental missiles, can annihilate total World-Man in minutes...Since total man is a unified being, with an international dimension, a basic unifying principle is necessary to unify the freedom and liberty of man."

    My candidacy for mayor was formally accepted by the DC government despite the fact that in 1977 I had been classified an "excludable alien" by the US Immigration Department and succeeding courts clear up to the Supreme. (See www.worldservice.org/petition.html).

My platform in brief was "World peace through world law" claiming that Washington, like Moscow, was targeted by nuclear bombs and could only be protected by the world government.

I received 585 votes.

My rationale was simple: Most people lived in cities throughout the world. That's why we're called "citizens." Cities are real; nations are fictions. Cities have become the prime targets since WWII. Think Hiroshima, Nagasaki, London, Coventry, Tokyo, Berlin, Jerusalem, etc. Cities are now targeted...everywhere. That's where we, or most of us, live. Nations don't "die." They have no blood, no heart, no being. They are man-made creations usurping part of the planet's territory. But cities "die," or are destroyed in national wars.

You can't live "in" a nation. Because a nation is a passive fiction of pure imagination whereas a city is dynamic with ancient codes of communal living based upon the "one and the many" social philosophy. One could even describe national citizenship given today's instant communication and space research as not only oxymoronic and transient but mortal. After all, World War II was the first war where cities gained the deadly status of "targets" on war's "front lines."

I know. From the pilot's seat of a B-17, at age 23 I bombed some of them myself. (The victims, incidentally, were civilians, man, women, children, not Nazi soldiers.)

And that brings me to mayors of cities, God bless 'em...elected by the citizens...responsible to the citizens...no matter where on the planet.

On November 2, 1985, for instance, the World Conference of Black Mayors[3] passed a Resolution stating in part that "...it is unconscionable that spending of the arms race consumes more of the world's resources, while human needs go unmet; and...the increasing militarization of the world and the threat of an arms race in space is unacceptable...and the cost of the arms race has endangered the economic and social resources from domestic needs such as housing, jobs, public transportation, health care, human welfare, and education..."

Talk about 99% vis-a-vis 1%!

And on Saturday, June 18, 2011, the United States Conference of Mayors gathered in Washington and passed a resolution calling for the "speedy end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

All mayors talk the same human language: water supplies, traffic problems, street and electrical maintenance, recycling waste, local administration and on and on. Today over 900 cities throughout the world have "mundialized," that is, declared themselves "worldly" like Cahors. Makes perfect sense. When you can fly around the globe in two days and the Space Station does it in 1 and 1/2 hours, We, humanity, "left" the nation-state system over 200 years ago when the horse was the fastest way to get around. Are we crazy to continue the war game when, as the good and wise mayors are now complaining, it is killing our cities (not to mention our world) with us in them?

The message is clear:

MAYORS OF THE WORLD ARE ALREADY UNITED! AND HAVE BEEN CLAIMING IT!

In brief, they are ALREADY de facto World Citizens.

Read what the City Council of Burlington, VT claimed on June 20, 1992 after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in my last blog: "Occupy...Earth?"

Brave, relevant and inspiring words, but what is missing? Like all good resolutions, it is static, not dynamic. Nothing happens. Where's the "beef?" How do the good citizens of Burlington or Shanghai or Berlin or Rio de Janeiro "declare their citizenship responsibilities BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF OUR CITY, STATE AND NATION? " And to what should they declare it to? The UN? Sorry, neither cities nor citizens allowed. (I found that out personally). Only nation-states...eternally talking. There's got to be something "out there" to ACCEPT that global responsibilities.

Here then is the simple yet revolutionary answer: Citizenship and government are corollaries! There was no recognition formerly of the overall world government to sanction the citizens' good will pledge... "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government..." provides art. 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The authors of the UDHR unfortunately didn't use the present tense. They assigned peacemaking as a "shall be..." not as "is."

But to the mayors of all the cities of the world, and to their citizens gathering today in town squares and parks, the World Government of World Citizens NOW IS! How do I know? Because, following the sanction of the UDHR declared by the entire body of nations in the UN, I myself declared it on September 4, 1953 from the City Hall of Ellsworth, Maine! (See www.worldservice.org/ells.html).

If the mayors of our cities recognize their avowed responsibilities to represent their citizens' wellbeing, given the "global village" they actually live in this century, they must REGISTER THEIR GLOBAL ALLEGIANCE TO THE ONLY DECLARED AND OPERATING WORLD GOVERNMENT EXTANT.

Moreover the over 900 cities already declared "global" are thereby inhabited by literally millions of already declared "world citizens" as have the citizens of Burlington, Vermont.

The wait is over. Our human future is at stake. We are at that historic juncture where it is all or none in terms of survival. THE BOMB is ticking away! It is pointed at US the real "occupiers" of world territory. The species itself is in danger of annihilation...and by its own hand. The "shift" in consciousness is taking place NOW.

Citizens of the World, we are already the human occupiers of planet Earth!

Claim it before it is too late!

Only then can we passengers communicate to one and all via the internet and all the myriad technical marvels finally eradicating space and time between humans the "operating manual" for Spaceship Earth.

And that's known as "Syntegration."

***************************
[1] See www.worldservice.org/ells.html
[2] Oceana Publications, Inc., 1962
[3] Founded by Johnny Ford, Mayor of Tuskegee in 1972

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Occupy...Earth?

By Garry Davis

It's our world; when do we get our turn in running it?

Last Saturday, as I walked out of "World Government House" where I live and work in South Burlington, and climbed into my Accord to join the local Vermont group at the Burlington City Hall park supporting the now global "Occupy Wall Street" movement, I wondered what would be appropriate for me, a world citizen since 1948, to contribute in a meaningful way. Following Amy Goodman's daily "Democracy Now!" reports of the same happenings in cities around the United States and the world, I was struck by the lack of positive programs brought forth by speakers and signs. Everyone knows what we are against, but what are we for?

But even more basic, who are we...together?

In my briefcase were copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, applications for registrations of world citizens, my World Government Passport and a dwindling supply of "I am a World Citizen" buttons, as giveaways, always gratefully accepted by young and old alike. Was it enough? What key element was missing? Then I had a flash of inspiration. Cities! We were all gathering in cities around the world! That's it! I remembered that almost two decades ago the Burlington City Council unanimously adopted the Resolution declaring itself a WORLD CITY! Eureka!

Jumping out of the car, I reentered World Government House, ran upstairs to my office and IMac, hit the "Q" button and typed: "World City Burlington." Up flashed the Resolution of June 20, 1992 adopted by the City Council of Burlington declaring it a "World City" following the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. I quickly printed up a bunch of copies and drove down to city hall for the rally. A few dozen people had gathered milling about some with signs "We are the 99%!" and "Down with Capitalism!" I went to the speaker area and said I had a short but relevant announcement to make. Given the no mike system, I simply announced to the crowd that the City of Burlington 19 years ago had already taken a major step required, if we, the people were to take back our planet from corporate control. I then read the opening paragraphs of the Resolution:

"WHEREAS the City of Burlington, Vermont, recognizes the greatly increased interdependence of the people of the world in this age of pollution, deforestation, natural resources depletion, overpopulation, and hunger; and WHEREAS, we seek to free humanity from the scourge of war, and to use the world's resources of energy, and knowledge for the benefit of the people; and WHEREAS, we realize that the common interests of the world's people can only be advanced through cooperative effort on a global scale, as exemplified by the recent Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro; and WHEREAS, we affirm that we can best serve our city, state and nation when we also think and act as world citizens:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL:
That the City of Burlington hereby recognizes its status as a

World City

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the citizens of Burlington recognize their sovereign right to declare that their citizenship responsibilities extend beyond the boundaries of our city, state, and nation; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the citizens of Burlington are urged to pledge their efforts to the establishment of world peace, economic justice, and ecological security based on just world law..."

Burlington was not the first "World City," -- that honor goes to Cahors in central France on July 7, 1949. Since that historic moment, more than 1000 cities and towns have declared themselves World Cities including Boston, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Toronto, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Nivelles, and Konigswinter. See list at http://www.worldservice.org/mundcity.html. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundialization.

As soon as I finished, I was mobbed by people reaching for handouts of the resolution.

"We are already actual citizens of planet Earth at birth." I said to one and all. "So we have a right to claim it, and to govern it. But as long as we are kept locked behind these invisible lines called nations, we are artificially divided, and senselessly war against each other. But as soon as we recognize our common human sovereignty, and realize that we are all one, all citizens of planet Earth, we gain enormous power, the power of the sovereignty of the whole. Only then can true justice and democracy prevail.

"Thomas Jefferson and America's founders," I added, "argued that corporations need to be regulated for the public good. Just as good cells in the human body, vital for our growth and well being, turn cancerous when the mechanisms of regulation fail, so corporations, can become the source of our destruction, unless we find the human power to bring them into balance and proper regulation for the common good. Our only hope of bringing them into balance is for we, the people, to take responsibility for governing our world.

"It's one thing to militate about what we don't like," I concluded, "war, injustice, the failing economy, devastation of our environment--and hope someone else solves it for us. But we are the leaders we've been waiting for! We are the sovereigns, we, the people, are the ones who create governments."

I handed out the "I am a World Citizen" buttons. The kids especially love them. "Cool," they would say fastening them to their coats.

"At our web site," I added, "you'll learn how you can join with your fellow humans in taking back our planet, even to setting up our own World Court of Human Rights and more. You can even download its Statute and the apps for the human rights documents we issue."

Buckminster Fuller reminded us: "If you want to change anything, don't fight the existing reality; create a new reality and you render the existing reality obsolete..."

And Mahatma Gandhi wrote "Be the world you want," while Renaissance man Steve Jobs had boldly suggested: "Be the future you want."

"Occupy Wall Street"? OK, but it's high time for us to take the Big Leap to land on the political space beyond so-called national frontiers.

In fact, guess what, we, humanity, are already occupying it!

Friday, July 1, 2011

CALLING ALL WORLD CITIZENS!

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

IT'S ONE WORLD NOW!

   Citizens in the streets of the world are crying out for “JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS & DEMOCRACY”
   Yet even when the old rulers fall, they’ve been replaced by the military or other rulers who just dish out more of the same – oppression, bureaucracy, riches for the few, exploitation of nature, and money policy based on unsustainable growth, debt, and war. Why? Because such universal concepts as “Democracy” and “justice” cannot be realized in an 18^th century, dysfunctional, war-dominated and artificial political entity called a “nation".
   As long as we allow the old order to artificially divide us into nationalities, the true power of the people will never be realized. Humanity entered the 21^st century with its survival in question. But humanity also entered this century with the knowledge and tools to make a successful "Crossover" to One World Now! Today, we must think and act as citizens of the world on behalf of all generations to follow. The only way we can truly claim our power is to move beyond protest and rebellion and become the creators and founders of a new way for we-the-people to run our small planet. We must choose a positive way to transcend the entire broken system of nation-states and ask the question, “How can we, as sovereign world citizens, govern our world?”

The first step has already been taken. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted unanimously by the United Nations, stated “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order” which can protect human rights and freedoms. It called on “every individual” to take “progressive measures both national and international” to secure these rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt, the US delegate to the UN, went further and wrote “How very much better it would be if Mr. Davis would set up his own governmental organization and start then and there a worldwide international government…”

So, in 1953, with 750,000 people signed up as World Citizens, I declared the “World Government of World Citizens.”

The new government established the World Service Authority (WSA) in Washington DC, as the microcosmic beginning of a new model for a people-powered world. It started by providing a service for individuals to identify themselves as world citizens by obtaining world ID’s, Passports, Birth Certificates and other documents based on the UDHR. The declaration of Human Rights was the great gift of the 20th century to human governance.

   Buckminster Fuller, design-science philosopher, wrote that “"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." In 1993, inspired by the genius of Buckminster Fuller, cybernetician Stafford Beer, Commissioner of World Cybernetics (1987-1994) invented a protocol for self-organization and self-government of we, citizens of Earth. Its formal title is "The World Syntegrity Project." You can observe the results of the grassroots "Infoset" meetings from 14 cities on 4 continents--with over 500 volunteers "syntegrating" to answer the question: How can we, sovereign world citizens, govern our world? (See http://www.worldservice.org/syn.html. )
   "Syntegration" is a transparent, proven method to unite our wills, both as individuals and together as members of a world community of fellow humans.---much like a symphony orchestra is composed both of individual instrumentalists and functions as a whole at the same time.
   The aim of the worldwide grassroots meetings was to provide subject matter for the eventual elaboration of a flexible, ongoing and dynamic “world constitution” wherein each and every citizen could play a vital and useful part.

With the digital one world technology, world citizen agreements, knowledge and actions are today already inter-connected in the frontierless “technosphere”—the planetary real-time knowledge-enriched collective intelligence commons of humanity. With satellites, we are experiencing the first waves of citizen-centered connectivity, and the World Syntegrity Project 4.0 offers world citizens a ready tool to go from unstructured NO to coherent YES. The basis of YES for humanity is already expressed and codified in the above-mentioned Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government." (Art 21[3], UDHR) Our agreement to think and act as a world citizen is expressed in the Statement of Allegiance (see appendix 1 or web-site registration form for world citizen registration).

The aim of WSP4.0 then is to provide a world governance space to enable world citizens to focus on and achieve specific Crossover actions based on the recognition of humanity and Planet Earth as sovereign.

When you meet in a "World Syntegrity" gathering, you are already in the “Global Commons” as world citizens seeking the agreements and actions that realize the challenges of the core question ([3]). When connected with the communication power of the ‘one-world technosphere’, it unites those who “enter” OUR GLOBAL SPACE with all other world citizens who together acknowledge and affirm its legitimacy. The collective intelligence of humanity can thus be focused effectively to find and enact the Crossover actions that enable individuals-in-society to make it successfully to a viable 21^st century future.

The totally democratic structure of the meetings in the geometric form of the icosahedron allows 30 individuals of diverse backgrounds, cultures and social status to join in a disciplined framework to arrive at a whole-system answer to the World Citizen Question: [4]

The protocol is available from WSP 4.0 for world citizen use. We are looking for co-researchers-in-action to build the continuous learning system that connects the syntegrity follow-throughs with other world citizens to enable coherent, transparent, sociocratic, simultaneous Crossover.

The results of the original 1993 “Infosets” were transferred daily to the WSA’s site, www.worldservice.org for all the world to peruse. What became most striking from the first round of World Syntegrity Project “Infosets” was the similarity of concerns addressed in diverse parts of the world.[5][3] In many cases, infoset participants in far-flung locales arrived at nearly identical conclusions. Ecological preservation, multicultural diversity, drug legalization and economic responsibility were just a few of the issues addressed in common by the various infosets. This was in 1993—before the omni-presence of the World Wide Web. These same issues are now real-time, front-line news—20 years further along, and, mostly, 20 years further down the wrong road. The nuclear option, for one, is still ticking away on the national Armageddon clock.
Any group of world citizens are offered to use the WSP protocol within the terms of reference of the world government principles inherent in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Let us suppose that in Cairo, Alexandria, Tunis, Tripoli, Damascus, Tokyo, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Gaza City, Tehran, Baghdad, Riyadh, Jeddah, Geneva, Manchester, etc., etc., 30 people gathered for three days using the icosahedron as model to “play” the game, “Syntegration,” generating answers to the prime question:

“How can we, sovereign world citizens living in world cities co-govern our way forward to a viable society/world partnership?

WSP 4.0 will connect the answers, concepts, people and action, over the next 3 years to: make explicit, measured, forward movement on core societal needs/goals relating to the survival and benefit of humanity living in/travelling through our cities; locate the principles and policy agreements that make sense to align Crossover initiatives; seek global world citizen legitimization of these results; develop capacity and competence for citizen-centered societal governance; co-operate fully in enabling a successful Crossover of all our World Cities to a viable future; join other world citizens and create the outcomes that matter together.[6]

Article 19 of the UDHR, to which all Member-States of the UN are subject, provides that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion…” while Article 20 provides that “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.” The issue is one of sovereign right. Every national constitution with the exception of Saudi Arabia, provides that its original power derives from the people themselves.

As “World Citizen No. 1”, I here (re)announce this updated world peace-affirming program. We are enjoining a citizen-centered world future to enable World Citizens, at all levels, to tackle the issues of human survival facing humanity. Having worked 60 years to articulate the principles, practices, and protocols of world citizenship, we are now re-activating the World Syntegrity Project to amplify and integrate the values of human sovereignty in transcending the nation state prisons we are all in.

We are already FREE and our POWER IS NOW!

All aboard Spaceship Earth!

Launching of WSP4.0 Crossover Facility.

Resourcing Offer from World Syntegrity Project.

Each world citizen syntegration increases the value of all world citizen syntegrations. To establish the effectiveness and viability of the WSP in its Re-Activate phase (2012-2015), a resourcing schema is presented below. The start-up funding requires a Booster funding to achieve and sustain the Momentum required for effectiveness in the 21^st century. That funding will evolve in a 3 year agreement with our key allies.

Foundation Stewards:

These are individuals /groups of individuals who identify themselves as world citizens and commit the funds necessary to implement the syntegrated agreements around a Core Crossover question that matters to them most. They participate in the Launch Event and make available the requisite resources for the 6 month follow-through to bridge the time between launch event and next resource infusion.

These will identify themselves on a case-to-case basis. We seek a launch fund of 480.000 euros to ensure the competence and capacity of our digital socio-infrastructure. For 2012.

Viable Future Investors.

These are individuals and organizations who will partner with world citizens to accomplish a priority Crossover. (e.g. From heavy to light footprint; FROM fossilized infra-structures TO renewable infra-structures. ETC>) They co-create the solution with a high-talent world citizen team and are entitled to claim a R * 0 * I * achievement in ROI currency[7]. We seek only partnerships with for profit organizations willing to take responsibility for their own organization’s Crossover mandate(s).

Problem-Holders.

World Syntegrity Project is available to enable world citizens in world cities to make significant Shifts in their city-planet relationships. These problems, held by local governments, and addressed by local world citizens, provides feasible answers for citizen-centered responsibility in major Crossover issues. (eg. migration; eg. C02 reduction; disaster resilience. Etc. We invite urban leadership to use the world talent living in their city to integrate a citizen-centered whole planet element in their Crossover strategy.

Local Champions.

Six world citizens can host a World Syntegrity project. 30-42 people have the breadth of experience/influence and depth of commitment to liberate the social energy required to make rapid social-system Shifts. At the moment, we can only provide the quality service the ReStart Up of WSP 4.0 demands for a minimum market price of 30.000 euros. This is an extremely low service fee—for a protocol that cuts Start to Results time by more than 50%; delivers 30 -40 high-agreement solutions; and is immediately eligible for significant large funding.

The lowly-resourced.

If you are six world citizens with a Common Quest of world citizenship, and have the involvement of the key people you want to succeed with, send us your question, the participants who have agreed to join in, and the place FROM which the six of you want to move TO the place you want to get to as world citizens in the coming 2-3 years. We’re already seeking funding for you!

For further information, contact:

Garry Davis at worldlaw@globalnetisp.net

David Gallop at davidgallup@worldservice.org

David Beatty at: david@reflection-action.nl

==================================================================
APPENDIX

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

I, the undersigned, do hereby, willingly and consciously, declare myself to be a Citizen of the World. As a World Citizen, I affirm my planetary civic commitment to WORLD GOVERNMENT, founded on three universal principles of One Absolute Value, One World, and One Humanity which constitute the basis of World Law. As a World Citizen I acknowledge the WORLD GOVERNMENT as having the right and duty to represent me in all that concerns the General Good of humankind and the Good of All. As a Citizen of World Government, I affirm my awareness of my inherent responsibilities and rights as a legitimate member of the total world community of all men, women, and children, and will endeavor to fulfill and practice these whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself. As a Citizen of World Government, I recognize and reaffirm citizenship loyalties and responsibilities within the communal state, and/or national groupings consistent with the principles of unity above which constitute now my planetary civic commitment.

[1][1] If you want to see a prime example of 18th century thinking, read Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ statement of June 10th on the subject of NATO).

[2][2] "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." Buckminster Fuller

[3]

The generic question is always: How can we as sovereign world citizens govern our world? The current 21^st version of that question is: How can we, as world citizens living in (a large city..or a watershed.. or around an ocean.. or… or..) ____________, Crossover FROM ______ national TO -global government in the shortest possible time without ecological offense of the disadvantage of anyone?

[4] "Crossover" signifies that the dimension of World is core to where we are moving as a species. WSP 4.0 focus for the next 3 years is to enable citizens of the world to make the specific, significant FROM-TO decisions relevant to their situation and its place in the World. All Crossover Questions include Planet as relevant recursion and all Coherent Sets are government-in-action experiments. WSP 4.0 is in a learning-in-action phase and is currently designing a Continuous Improvement Learning System for syntegrated world citizenry.

[5][3] See the Universal Declaration of Human Rights attached

[6] This, of course, has to be designed and implemented. Thus a Crossover Question: How can we, as sovereign world citizens, co-create a reciprocal value-exchange economy to accelerate successful Crossover to self-governing non-hierarchical systems of government on planet Earth? Each question comes out of the hosts of the event, a unique variation of our Earth generic question: How can we as sovereign world citizens govern (in) our world together? This question is asked in an area of application (e.g. Artic Ocean; e.g. Moslem country. E.g. World Tourism Association, etc.) and is open to others to join, co-create, co-own responsibilities and rewards, etc.

[7] R*O*I* is Release & Realization of Inspiration. It is measured in terms of the distance covered from the present outcomes of the system TO the whole system solutions located and leveraged in the opening event. Return-on-Investment indicates that there will be a share-holding structure which enables all participants (and sponsor) shareholders to convert their holdings back to national currency.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Memorial Day - The Yearly Camouflage

(Doonesbury's strip yesterday pictured Ms Trudeau asking Gary in the first box "You marching in the parade tomorrow?" "I guess so," he replied. Then in the next cut, he added, "It’s a bit demoralizing. Memorial Day is for remembering, but no one wants to be reminded we’re still at war." )

Starting from World War II, while the number of dead has been totaled,[1] the number of veterans from the world's wars remains unknown. But as national wars continue uninhibited for lack of world laws to stop them, it is obviously growing. Moreover, with nuclear arms "on the table" for nine states, humanity's survival itself is in grave doubt.

I, for one, would gladly enlist my fellow veterans worldwide, we who did the killing on the "fields of glory," in a global police force mandated by a framework of world constitutional law-not the United Nations Charter-representing all citizens of the world.(See http://www.worldservice.org/sowg.html)

After all, as Trudeau suggests, if Memorial Day has any real meaning, the unanswered question of "Why war?" and its geodialectical corollary, "How peace?" must be equally honored and, indeed, practiced. Or, as the editorialists, mourning families and politicians of all levels like to profess, simplistically, "They will have died in vain.” (Like my own elder brother, Bud").

Some relevant items re our world community from the New York Times: 5/29/11: Thomas Friedman: "..the Egyptian revolution is not over. It has left the dramatic street phase and is now in the seemingly boring but utterly vital phase of deciding who gets to write the rules for the new Egypt."

Tkmur Kuran, professor of political science, Duke: "The preconditions for democracy are lacking in the Arab world partly because Hosni Mabarak and other Arab dictators spent the last half-century emasculating the news media, suppressing intellectual inquiry, restricting artistic expression, banning political parties, and co-opting regional ethnic and religious organizations to silence dissenting voices."

Then Anthony Shadid's "Can Turkey Unify the Arabs?" "Even amidst the din of the upheaval in the Arab world, that new sense of belonging represents a more pacific and perhaps more powerful undertow pulling in direction that call into question more parochial notions.."

"None of the borders of Turkey are natural," said Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, "Almost all of them are artificial. Of course we have to respect them as nation-states, but at the same time we have to understand that there are natural continuities."

"It's been almost 100 years that we've been separated by superficial borders, superficial cultures and religious borders, and now with the lifting of visas to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, we're lifting national boundaries," said Yusuf Yerkel, a young academic on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's staff.

"Across the region, the Arab revolution has inspired a rethinking of identity, even as older notions of self hang like a specter over the revolts' success. In its most pristine, the revolution feels transnational, as demands for justice, freedom and dignity are expressed in a technology-driven globalism." Young people don't buy into this idea of a clash, and they don't buy into this idea of fixed identity. They know how to negociate these so-called polar opposites, and they’re looking for something new."

Still not a word about war's elimination via global government buttressed by fundamental human rights.

Then in the mail was Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation "Spring 2011" newsletter. President Timothy E. Wirth letter announces that "we are working with the UN and our partners to address the world's toughest challenges with 21^st-century solutions." And what are the "world’s toughest challenges"? Well, "to promote democracy, protect human rights and deliver humanitarian aid using new and creative approaches."

"To accomplish these goals," he writes, "we need a strong U.S.-UN partnership." (As Eleanor Roosevelt herself, the US delegate to the UN, told this writer, 63 years ago, the UN is only a "bunch of nation-states and has no power in itself to do anything except talk").

Further down the page, he mentions "the programs underway to help women and children lead healthy lives, to combat climate and to empower the next generation of global leaders." No mention of war being eliminated via world law and government or the nuclear danger but on the contrary, "that the UN is making our world a better place for every one of us.." and "that a strong UN is critical.." (75 wars, big and small, have been fought since 1945 when the UN was formed. See http://www.worldservice.org/posipapr.html; "Position Paper, The United Nations vs.World Government").

However, happily, on p. 7, we read of a "Program Inspires Future Leaders" called UNA-USA Global Classrooms." "On Feb. 5, more that 700 students from 41 New York-area schools had the unique opportunity to debate and propose solutions to pressing international issues at the Global Classrooms." Sharon Shambourger of Life Sciences Secondary School in Manhattan, a model UN advisor for seven years "has attended more than a dozen Global Classrooms conferences and "watched students mature from rather school/neighborhood-oriented, to truly global citizens." (WSA will send them application forms for the World Passport).

I attended a historic "Meeting of the Elders" on May 8-9 at the Menla Mountain Retreat & Conference Center in the Catskills, NY. The notice announcing the reunion proposed that "The Elders will reflect upon how, through their ancient wisdom, they can help bring about a deeper understanding of the original instructions that constitute the key to preserving this sacred balance. Numerous indigenous cultures of the Western hemisphere have kept alive a prophecy that foretold how native peoples will come together and reunite as one, known as the prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor. In the South, Center and North, many native peoples share its foretelling about balance and harmony, and about how intellect and spirituality should come together as one. Our Elders tell us that we will unite and get our strength back like many arrows that will not be broken. They remember the history to keep the fire alive. We have to come together to be one, to have complete understanding."

From Columbia came the Kogui, the Wiwa and the Arhuaco; from North America, the Hopis, Algonquin, Havasupai, Tewa of the Colorado River Tribes, Southern Ute, Navajo, Shoshone, members of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Havassupai, Tewa, and Bear Clan Mothers.

At the close of the meeting on Sunday evening, after humbly requesting permission of the Mames to address the Elders, I was permitted as a "World Citizen" and "indigenous to planet Earth" to do so. I was deeply honored.[2]

[1] 160,000,000 war dead in the 20^th century: Wikipedia

[2] When 16 year’s old, at Kennebec summer camp in Maine, I became “blood brother” of a Passamaquady (Abenaki nation) chief at a traditional camp fire. Ceremony.