A WORLD CITIZEN'S TAKE ON THE NOBEL "PEACE PRIZE" CHARADE

Once a year five unknown white Norwegians, one male and four female, elected by the Storting, Norway's parliament, humiliate all 6 billion+ humans except for one (or maybe two) on whom they confer the "Nobel Peace Prize."

The only year that this exclusive group of super judges living in Scandinavia recognized that peace maybe was a result of law and that therefore world peace could only result from world law representing humankind was in 1904 when they awarded the coveted prize-to which was attached a handsome monetary bounty-to the Institut du Droit International, not quite a world law group but close enough for that pre-electronic, pre-computer, pre-space world. From then on no self-claimed world citizens were anointed unless you counted Fridtjof Nansen in 1922 who-authorized by the League of Nations- came close by issuing the first "world" passports to refugeed white Russians who fled the 1917 Communist revolution and found themselves in Europe in trouble without IDs.

From then on it was national presidents, national and international leaders and peaceniks, (Jane Adams, Lord Boyd Orr, Schweitzer, Mandela, Gorbachev, Aung San Sui Kyi, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, etc.), international organizations such as the Red Cross, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, UNICEF, spiritual leaders such as Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Bishop Tutu, and so on.

Tagged with the title "Nobel Peace Laureate" for the rest of their lives, these men and women were guaranteed an audience among their peers wherever and whenever they deemed to speak out.

For what?

World peace?

Well, not exactly. Because to justify that supreme goal, they would have had to first acknowledge their own world citizenship, then the entire world citizenry of their fellow humans, then putting both "the one and the many", the 21^st century version of "E Pluribus Unum" into a viable political framework such as a, (OK, I'll say it!) a world government of, by, and for all the humans of the world community, peace would then prevail on our home planet.

Otherwise the Nobel Peace Prize show is only an elaborate but ominous and tragic warning of humanity's impending doom.

Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite who thereby became a multi-millionaire, salved his conscience for having invented such a destructive product which he claimed would "eliminate war" (bypassed, however, in 1945 by nuclear WMDs in magnitudes of "indiscriminate" power) by instituting a sort of global competition so long as world peace itself was not achieved. Once humanity had a peaceful world, there would obviously be no need for a "peace prize." So the Nobel "Peace Prize" is awarded only when and because the world is not at peace.

When the latest recipient is the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet with a 2009 military budget

of over $650 billion*, almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined, a total of 3376 domestic and foreign military bases, who, as the "Commander-in-chief", is in constitutional command of the U.S. Navy's 12 deployed nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), and over 6,000 nuclear weapons at his fingertips enough to wipe out humankind and every species on the planet hundreds of times over, yet with a policy of nuclear deterrence astoundingly "on the table," whatever his personal and public hopes and dreams of a peaceful world, his Nobel "peace prize" is stunningly revealed as a grotesque and humiliating travesty.

Bottom (world) line: Every human who registers as a World Citizen merits a noble (read: sovereign) "peace prize" for making peace with his/her fellow humans.

Critical to all present "Nobel Peace Laureates": In order to validate your world peace credentials, register asap with the World Government of World Citizens (See www.worldservice.org).

Personal note to "Peace Laureate" Obama: My declaration of world citizenship predates yours (Berlin, July 24, 2008) by 61 years. Isn't it time to activate yours?

Final note to Nobel Prize Committee: Don't give up your day job.

(Memorial to our brother Bud who died in the invasion of Salerno, September 9, 1943).

*The U.S. Department of Defense budget accounted in fiscal year 2009 for about 21% of the United States federal budgeted expenditures and 24% of estimated tax revenues. Including non-DOD expenditures, defense spending was approximately 31-37% of budgeted expenditures and 35-42% of estimated tax revenues. According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000-2009. the Department of Defense budget is slated to be $651 billion in 2009 (including the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan previously funded through supplementary budget legislation, higher than at any other point in American history.. This calculation does not take into account some other defense-related non-DOD spending, such as Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and interest paid on debt incurred in past wars, which has increased even as a percentage of the national GDP. (Wikipedia)

HUMANITY-AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

OPEN LETTER TO ALL HEADS OF NUCLEAR STATES (clandestine or overt)

The undersigned, a stateless World Citizen and WWII veteran, (88) respectfully addresses you in the name of the legally-registered* constituency of World Citizens.

By the recognized indiscriminate destructive nature of your current weaponry, you are pointing your nuclear WMD at us in the Global Commons thereby threatening our lives as well as future generations of humans.

Moreover, the launching of this weaponry in our world community risks to annihilate not only our species but other species co-inhabiting the planet.

In the name of justice, world law and the teachings of all of humanity's wisdom sages throughout history, we, of the living, cannot permit this suicidal madness.

According to the statute of the International Criminal Court, this constitutes a

GLOBAL FELONY

not to mention a violation of innumerable United Nations' General Assembly resolutions** as well as articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically 1, 3, 5, 28, and 30. (See www.worldservice.org/udhr.html)

What then is our global civic and legal recourse to prevent this potential holocaust?

With reference to the Nuremberg Principles*** in accordance with the statute of the ICC at The Hague, as heads of state directly responsible for your nuclear policy, you personally are criminally liable, therefore indictable.

A class-action suit will be filed at the ICC citing you, defendants, as "war criminals," and we, the world citizen constituency, plaintiffs, as potential victims.

Why then are we advising you beforehand of this action?

It is to clarify for the general world citizen public the fundamental difference between treaties of allegedly sovereign states and enforceable law agreed-upon by the sovereign world citizenry.

When, as a timely example, the president of the United States comments in a recent speech at the United Nations that "treaties must be enforced," he inadvertently is confessing to a flagrant yet common error in political/legalistic thinking which must be publicly exposed as a prelude to our legal action.****

In brief, treaties, by definition, are static documents between equally sovereign states; enforceable law, on the contrary, is dynamic agreement between equally sovereign citizens under a representative government. (Ref., Declaration of Independence, 1776).

Furthermore, wars between states are a result of the lawless condition between them-so-called international law to the contrary notwithstanding-despite innumerable treaties between them condemning war*****.

Examples of broken treaties between sovereign states are scattered historically throughout the wreckage of our war-torn planet.

Your national mandate, therefore, proven time and time again at the expense of the people of the world, is to preserve illegally that anarchic condition in the name of "national security" which has led to world wars beginning 95 years ago at an incalculable cost in human lives and money.

In the name of humanity,
Yours, in one world,
Garry Davis
World Coordinator
World Government of World Citizens

*World Service Authority. (www.worldservice.org)

**The General Assembly of the United Nations, November 24, 1961; Resolution 1653 (XV)
"Any State using nuclear or thermonuclear weapons is to be considered as violating the Charter of the United Nations, as acting contrary to the laws of humanity, and as committing a crime against mankind and civilization."
Resolution 33/71:December 14, 1978; Resolution 35/152-0D, December 21, 1980
"The use of nuclear weapons would be a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and a crime against humanity."
Genocide Convention, Article I
"..genocide committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they (contracting Parties) undertake to prevent and to punish."
Article IV
provides that
"Persons committing genocide shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals."
Resolution 96(I), December 11, 1966
"Genocide is a crime under international law.."
"Genocide" Definition:
"The deliberate and systemic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group."
Webster's College Dictionary, 1991.

***Nuremberg Decisions of 1945: Principle I:
"Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment."
Principle VI:
"Crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity are punishable as crimes under international law."

**** Chapter IX: TREATY OR LAW, The Anatomy of Peace, Emery Reves:
"We have had thousands and thousands of peace treaties in the history of mankind. None of them has survived more than a few years. None of them could prevent the next war, for the simple reason that human nature, which cannot be changed, is such that conflicts are inevitable as long as sovereign power resides in individual members or groups of members of society, and not in society itself..If we seek peace between sovereign units, based on treaty agreements, then peace is an impossibility and it is childish even to think of it..Treaties are essentially static instruments. Law is essentially a dynamic instrument. Wherever we have applied the method of law to regulate human relationship, it has resulted in peace. Whenever we have applied treaties to regulate human relationship, it has inevitably led to war....Agreements and treaties between national governments of equal sovereignty can never last because such agreement and treaties are the products of mistrust and fear. Never of principles.."

*****The Geneva Conventions of 1949: "The Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War" updated and strengthened the 1907 Regulations particularly with regard to requiring belligerents "to ensure the essential requirements for the health, safety and sustenance of the civilian population."
The Hague Convention of 1907 Regulations, No. IV Prohibits "wanton and indiscriminate destruction;" Forbids "the attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings or buildings that are undefended."
"..the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the laws of nations as they result from the usage established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of public conscience."
Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928
Art 1 Art 2 Art 3
"Treaty between the United States and other Powers providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. Signed at Paris, August 27, 1928; ratification advised by the Senate, January 16, 1929; ratified by the President, January 17, 1929; instruments of ratification deposited at Washington by the United States of America, Australia, Dominion of Canada, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Great Britain, India, Irish Free State, Italy, New Zealand, and Union of South Africa, March 2, 1929: By Poland, March 26, 1929; by Belgium, March 27 1929; by France, April 22, 1929; by Japan, July 24, 1929; proclaimed, July 24, 1929."
And etc.

World Space & UN's SG Ban Ki-moon

Good news! The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has finally discovered global warming! (Which "lives" in world space as do wars). In northern Norway recently, 1200 kilometers from the North Pole, he had a quick but astounded look at the fast disappearing ice from local glaciers, He was appalled to say the least. Why didn't someone inform him in the secretariat of what had been going on in the real world for over half a century outside the 38th floor of the multi-layered box on the East river ?

So what was the SG's reaction to this 21^st century ongoing disaster? Did he call a special session of UN diplomats to warn them of the coming environmental holocaust and to "do something"? Did he send out an urgent memo to all the national leaders to warn them of the impending global catastrophe? And ask them to "do something"? Seeing those glaciers actually melting before your eyes up there in the Arctic Circle, is a frightening sight. But no way could Mr. Ban Ki-moon have gone back to his 38^th floor office in the UN building and call upon the 191 national leaders to "solve" the problem of global warming. He knew their impotency from direct daily experience particularly in view of the Security Council's lop-sided makeup. In former U Thant's 1977 Annual Report, the 3^rd Secretary-General, spelled out his official mandate:

"The Secretary-General operates under the Charter in a world of independent sovereign states, where national interests remain dominant despite ideological, technological and scientific changes, and despite the obvious dangers of unbridled nationalism..The truth is of course, that the United Nations, and the S.G. have none of the attributes of sovereignty, and no independent power.."

No. He called us "world citizens to take action immediately..to preserve our home."

We world citizens? But hold on. What in the world does the SG of the United Nations have to do with "world citizens"? Isn't there a rather blatant contradiction here? Are we world citizens not "outside" the national space limits by definition? And are we not considered heretics, unpatriotic, dangerous "aliens," to be dismissed as either crackpots, "illuminatees," or worse, not being "properly" documented, to be put away in national lock-ups and/or camps with high fences around them so we can't escape to contaminate the patriotic national citizens? But even more confusing, the obviously distraught SG also called for "world leaders".."to help our succeeding generations to be able to live in a hospitable environment in a sustainable way."

He didn't name any "world leaders," however. How could he? Who, in God's name, are they? Where are they? Surely not in any national president's or prime minister's offices. Nor provincial kings' and queens' palaces. If there were any bona fide "world leaders," wouldn't they already be at the global political helm to solve not only the oncoming environment disaster but also that other knotty global problem: war itself? Surely the SG was not suggesting that the national heads of state, nine of whom have their itchy fingers poised above their separate nuclear bombs, are "world leaders." No, we world citizens, who will get blown up with the rest of humanity if one of them pushes The Button, are not that naive.

"..no attributes of sovereignty and no independent power!" That's clear enough. The obvious reason then that Ban Ki-moon calls on us is that he recognizes that we have the attributes of sovereignty and possess independent power..as declared world citizens. And that "world leaders" do not and cannot refer to national presidents, prime ministers or indeed anyone inside the national frontier dysfunctional system

Emery Reves in 1945 put it succinctly in his classic Anatomy of Peace: "The tragic fact..is that we are neither heading nor thinking in a new direction. Those in power have no time and no incentive to think. And those who think have no power whatsoever."

Therefore, recognizing the global space of environmental warming, the SG naturally bypasses the nation's archaic frontier system and calls upon we World Citizens who are already occupying the global space in which warming and incidentally wars reign supreme.

In short, we are the sovereigns he seeks..and the true "world leaders."*

And so, indeed, is humanity to which we are intrinsically bound.

Reves also wrote about sovereignty in his epic best-seller:

"The fundamental problem of peace is the problem of sovereignty..This is not a theoretical debate but a question more vital than wages, prices, taxes, food or any other major issue of immediate interest to the common man everywhere, because in the final analysis, the solution of all the everyday problems of two thousand million humans beings depend upon the solution of the central problem of war. And whether we are to have war or peace and progress depends upon whether we can create proper institutions to insure the security of the peoples."

When this writer entered upon the UN's fictional "international territory" in the middle of Paris on September 11, 1948, "ceded" by France for three months, I knew, as a declared World Citizen, that the UN would be exposed as a political fiction unable to cope with even one human who, being "stateless," was already beyond its artificially-constricted limits. And so I was preemptively ejected, ironically by French gendarmes who "invaded" the "international territory" at the behest of the frustrated first SG, Trygvie Lie. The Europeans, whose land was still in ruins from WWII, were not taken in by this successor to the League of Nations which, in 1939, blew up in their collectives faces.

So what you have discovered to your chagrin, Mr. Secretary, is that global warming occupies the space beyond your formal mandate as SG. It is worldwide while the UN is, by definition, only nation-wide despite its several specialized agencies which deal with world problems: food, health, air traffic control, etc. And so you must appeal to us whose actual living space is obviously global. But that suggests a further relevant question: In seeking us out, are you not also acknowledging implicitly to be a de facto world citizen yourself? As UN SG you are obviously restricted by the limited space occupied by its Member-States. But not as a fellow world citizen. And having crossed that civic Rubicon with your appeal, are you not then prepared to address the multitude of diplomats you contact daily-as President Obama did explicitly in Berlin before the world public on July 24^th last-as a world citizen? Indeed, are not all our human lives at stake given an impending environmental breakdown not to mention the nuclear bombs pointing directly at humanity itself?

The question therefore is really one of space itself. Whereas the immediate problems "out there" beyond that limited and thus divisive national space are by definition global, your national mandate and power is obviously inadequate to cope with them. To put it bluntly, a new order requires "new" space. And what is always realized and taught by true sages**, everything ever invented first had to recognize the space in which to imagine, operate, invent, experiment and codify the new gadget, institution and/or code of behavior we call "government."

The US Founders first had to recognize the empty "space above" and beyond their then state affiliations. How else could they have even considered a higher legal framework for the 3 million humans on the eastern seaboard of the continent, each of whom considered himself bound civically as well as emotionally to his state allegiance?

Space itself, like the human womb, is the very birthplace of every thing including the stars. The astronauts have words for their experience in circulating the planet every 90 minutes: "wondrous" and "mind-changing."

There are multitudes of individuals calling themselves "world citizens" seeking to "transform"the United Nations into a world government. But they have not yet accepted the world space they have already claimed to inhabit as the first requisite, not a "world parliament," or a "world federation" or a "peoples house grafted onto the effete United Nations." As "world citizens," they are already a micro-world government! Reves put it bluntly: "There is no first step to world government. World Government is the first step." By registering with the actual operating World Government of World Citizens, (now 56) they are publicly "walking the talk" thereby sanctioning the already self-evident human unity codified by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.***

As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote parenthetically in My Day on December 15, 1948, five days following the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the General Assembly-and as the US delegate to the UN she understood what had to be done: "You call yourself a world citizen, Garry, then asked the UN to become a world government. But you're already in the proper space for it. We, at the United Nations, are not and cannot be. So why don't you start it yourself!"

So welcome aboard! The World's Space Train is gathering speed hoping to overtake humanity's twin dangers: ecological and omnicidal, before it's too late.

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*"The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.." Art 21(3), UDHR

**Lao-Tzu, in the 6^th century BC, wrote

"We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends. We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends. We pierce doors and windows to make a house; And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends. Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not." Tao Te Ching {12)

***"All human being 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." (Art 1, UDHR)

An Elaborate Artifice

Garry Davis

Did Justice Sonia Sotomayor make the cut? Will she finally don that black robe and preside mandarin-like with the other 11 justices over US law? More relevant, given humanity's problems, does it really matter?

I wish I had been there asking questions of the eminent Judge. All the Republican senators received for answers to their charged questions was her firmly delivered mantra, "I believe in the rule of law" or colloquially, "Catch me if you can." Every time she invoked that catchphrase, my mind soared to the 13 humans, (re astronauts) in the space station whirling around the planet at 17,000+ mph every 90 minutes violating countless national frontier laws every second. I imagined an "International Union of Immigration Frontier Guards" bickering as they prepare a multitude of indictments their separate nation-states would issue for all thirteen if and when they dared "land" into the strictly regimented national space. Its Secretary-General would exclaim "They didn't even have national passports when they lifted off! Outrageous! But we'll get 'em when they come down if only we could resolve what court can sentence them and where it'll put 'em after they're charged with breaking, umpteen national laws a few thousand times all over the whole dern world territory."

What would Judge Sotomayor decide as a Supreme Court judge in the light of this horrendous and blatant example of national frontier violations? Well, let's be frank: nothing. The "rule of law," national or otherwise, doesn't extend 250 miles above the earth's surface. In matter of legal fact, how far "up" (or "out") does national law extend?[1] The Pentagon has claimed unilaterally that "We own space: the next battle-ground." Would Supreme Court Judge Sotomayor support that mad, delusional contention as within the parameters of "constitutional law"? And what about her fellow Supreme Court justices worldwide who attend the yearly meetings at the City Montessori school in Lucknow, India, to affirm their support and devotion to "international law"?[2] Not to mention state officials of China, India, Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and Canada, all of whom have splattered the space around our planet with their own satellite junk.

Let's face it, the bottom line is, when it comes to the problems we world citizens face, you National-Supreme-Court-Justices-of-the-World, are out-of-synch with war ITSELF; with nuclear weaponry pointed directly at we, the people; (Nations don't die) and with global environmental disaster. The legal framework in which you work is simply obsolete, unreal, and worse, illegitimate! You are adjudicators for a horse-and-buggy, strictly agricultural world while time and distance have imploded around US, the HUMAN RACE ITSELF! "Equal Justice Under Law" must cope with the reality of one instant world. Or else "respect for law" has no meaning.

To put it another way, when war is declared by any given nation, (and the U.S. Constitution condones it)[3], you and your adjudication mandate BECOMES INOPERATIVE: "Inter armes, silent legis" has been each and every nation's motto since their inception. Why? Because the state itself is "above" its national law. In time of threats, its fictional security becomes "sovereign" replacing that of the citizenry.

Is that "legitimate"? And especially in the "Nuclear Age"?[4]

Arthur S. Miller wrote that "In times of declared war..the President acts as a 'constitutional dictator.' In brief, the U.S. Supreme Court's judicial silence on international issues aptly illustrates the impotency of national law to implement fundamental human rights which, by definition, require the protection of "a regime of (world) law."[5]

The very Oath of Office Judge Sotomayor will be obliged to swear to-already three times-is itself a travesty of justice in that it obliges her to defend a 219 year-old constitution in an instantaneous one physical world in which over 95 years ago WORLD WARS HAD ALREADY STARTED!

Tom Paine said it best: "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 man 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.."

Given the context of fundamental human rights as set forth generally in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and particularly in the US Constitution's 9^th amendment referring to unalienable rights "retained by the people," as World Citizens-a status also claimed by President Obama in Berlin-we have a vested interest in exposing the irrelevancy of such elaborate artifices as judicial hearings for national supreme court justices.

Even the Founders were caught in that political time warp. In the 18^th century, after fighting a war over the principle of barely evolving democracy (though only for white men with property), yet they had to endow the new president with dictatorial powers vis-a-vis other nations poised to knock the states off one-by-one.[6] (Only Patrick Henry had the courage to walk out of the Congress claiming that the article conferred "discretionary" powers on the president).

The U.S. Constitution, therefore, contains no remedy for the elimination of war itself, much less nuclear weaponry. The national army and navy perform outside the national frontiers in the anarchic area between nations. Indeed, the lack of enforceable world law prohibiting war permits national wars to be fought.

So how, future Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor, would your Court respond to that contradictory situation? No precedent, you say? But I myself as a stateless World Citizen, barred from entering the United States, exposed that very anomalous situation in my Writ of Certiorari of August, 1981[7].

The supreme court justices throughout the world are now proclaiming their "allegiance," somewhat fictionally, to "international law," Here is the President of the Supreme Court of Serbia, Madam Justice Leposava Karamarkovic who said[8]: "In conclusion I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to all participants in that conference to debate noble cause to build world judiciary and increase respect toward international law." Then the Honorable Mr. Justice Djalol Isroillov of Tajikistan states[9] that "It is clear that today we have no real active mechanism that would promote effective solution to this global present-time problem such as arms race and annihilation of weapons of mass destruction." The Honorable Madam Justice Janina Stripeikiene, Judge of the Supreme Court of Lithuania maintained[10] that "The purpose of law, apart from protecting certain social values at the time of its validity, is also to ensure the future interests of the society. In order to attain its prospective aims, the law must already provide for effective safeguards of the interests of the future society..such resolutions of the problem, which calls for the contribution of all the states of the world, is the key to the global unity, the lack of which creates new threats to the humanity.." The honorable Madame Justice S. Peeroo, Supreme Court of Mauritius added[11] that "The children of the world as a whole represent the future of humanity.." and that "..sanctions should be imposed on those who endanger life, world ecology and environment. To attain this objective, an effective system of international law is needed with efficient mechanisms and power to impose its application and to sanction any breach of it."

The Honorable Justice Marcus Enfield of the Federal Court of Australia opined[12] that "As we balance perilously upon the threshold of either destructive catastrophe or enforceable international law, we Judges, as pre-eminent representatives of the civilized world, must collectively declare our uncompromising commitment to ensuring a safe and sustainable future for our children..and hold the greatest stake in our establishment of a just world order."

Chief Justice Benjamin Joses Odoki of Uganda claimed[13] before the 30,000 students that "The greatest challenge that faces the world today is securing the survival of human kind. We must develop systems of governance that promote fundamental human rights, peace, security and development."

Indeed, decades ago, even Pope John XXIII stated (in Pacem in Terris) that:

"The common good of all nations involves problems which affect people all the world over: problems which can only be solved by a public authority..whose writ covers the entire globe. We cannot therefore escape the conclusion that the moral order itself demands the establishment of some sort of world government."

While Pope John Paul II expressed essentially the same sentiments:

"The international community should support a system of laws to regularize international relations and maintain the peace in the same manner that law governs national order."

On December 6, 1949, the U.N. General Assembly unanimously endorsed Resolution 375)IV, "Declaration on Rights and Duties of States." Art 14 provides that "Every State has the duty to conduct its relations with other States in accordance with international law and with the principles that the sovereignty of each State is subject to the supremacy of international law."

"It is time to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era," said President Obama last July. "This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons." Last month, President Medvedev declared that his country "is fully committed to reaching the goal of a world free from these most deadly weapons. They and a growing number of hard-nosed realists around the world understand that, as long as nuclear weapons exist, they will continue to spread, increasing the chance that they will be used. Total elimination of all nuclear weapons is the only real solution."

Our world citizenship response to the nation's lack of juridical power to cope with global problems is contained in our own World Court of Human Rights Statute[14] proclaimed June 12, 1974 in Mulhouse, France, the country which, in 1789 proclaimed "La Declaration des Droits de l'Homme et des Citoyens ." I will leave the circumstances for my next blog.

The "elaborate artifice" of a hearing before the US Judicial Committee to replace a departing Supreme Court judge, with either a "liberal" or "conservative," will not effect in the real world any of humanity's major problems of ultimate survival.

That still begs the primordial question for you and me: world law or human extinction?

As Walter Cronkite, a fervent advocate of world government,[15] would have put it: "And that's the way it is."

---

[1] The "Outer Space Treaty" of 1967 has been ratified by 98 states.

[2] 150 judges from 150 nations (See www.cmseducation.org/article51)

[3] Via Article I, Section 8, para. 11 and II, Section 2

[4]In July, 1996 the International Court of Justice stated, "It is illegal to threaten to use or to use nuclear weapons." This is interpreted by Francis Boyle in his book, Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, "Nuclear weapons, their components and delivery systems are nothing more than instruments of international criminal activity that are condemned, repudiated and prohibited by international law, including and by the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles."

[5] Preamble: Universal Declaration of Human Rights

[6] Hence Article II, Section 2: the war powers of the president when acting as the “Commander-in-chief in the active service of the state.”

[7] No. 81-428

[8] 1^st International Conference on Article 51, Constitution of India held at City Montessori School, Lucknow, Utter Pradish, India, 6^th May, 2001

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

[13] Ibid

[14] See http://www.worldservice.org/wsalstat.html, & Chapter 13,"Is The Individual A Subject of International Law?, World Government, ready or not! (Booksurge, 1984)

[15] See his UN Address, 1999

A World Citizen Views "Iran" From Outside

How does a World Citizen view the present events in Iran?

Viewed from "above" the growing hostilities on the ground between citizens and government, one overall fact becomes apparent: the illusion of sovereign power held in the hands of a few men, the chief of whom, the unelected Ayatollah Ali Khamenei-claiming "divine" sanction-is being challenged by the innate democratic sovereign power of individual humans accidentally born on-or immigrated to-that particular part of the planetary surface.

Within this overall sub-set of humanity, the feminine humans provide the spiritual/biological, if socially unrecognized, power,-wives, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, sisters, etc. who still face civil/political domination by the hierarchical and patriarchal leaders, in the name of a former "revolution."

(This phenomenon of rising female power in politics throughout the world is an auspicious and dynamic harbinger of an enlightened era of human progress.)

Faced with the uprising of an outraged population claiming the recent presidential election fraudulent, the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unwittingly exposed the weakness of one-man governorship by withholding pseudo-legal authority for public (and peaceful) demonstrations-the only alternative for a democratic show of indignation against injustice-followed by the arbitrary use of force against the still angry citizenry claiming that the "law" had been broken therefore the public itself was responsible for the ensuing bloodshed.

The dilemma of other nation-state leaders, such as President Obama, who publicly claimed to be a "citizen of the world" in his Berlin speech of July 24, 2008, lies in the duality itself of the present nation-state governing system. So long as a condition of anarchy persists in the so-called international domain-treaties and conventions to the contrary notwithstanding-all national leaders are caught in the paradox of being the executors of laws for their own citizenry, while obliged to identify all humans beyond their artificial frontiers as "aliens," and potential enemies. Thus leaders have to support their fellow national leaders over whom they have no legal control, or, as in the case of implied threats to the security of their own citizenry, risk war as in the present North Korean situation.

Moreover, since 1945, the advent of nuclear "weaponry" adds the final dimension to the overall risk factor being, for all practical purposes, equal for all.

The good citizens of Iran, rather than attempt public demonstrations against an internal and admittedly farcical presidential election given Iran's heavily-weighted constitution against democracy itself, should recognize their 21st century relationship with humanity itself and claim the higher level of world citizenship already sanctioned by articles 21(3) and 28 of the 61-year-old United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which, paradoxically, the Ayatollah Khamenei is already subject as the alleged leader of Iran, member-state of the UN: "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.." and "Everyone is entitled to an international and social order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized." That claim can then be legally registered with the World Government of World Citizens. (See www.worldgovernment.org).

Moreover, in that Islam is a world religion transcending national frontiers, the extension of citizenship to the global level is in conformity with the universal spiritual precept-one God- taught by Mohammed as well as Jesus and Moses centuries ago.

Finally, to return to my first premise of being "outside" the entire nationalistic duality-I am stateless as is humanity itself-the self-evident fact that communication is global and instantaneous-now with Twitter, Facebook and You Tube adding to the media mix, and problems like global warming and nuclear holocaust facing humanity itself questioning our very human survival, today's events in "Iran" seem not only parochial but irrelevant to our major and common problems.

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2009 & 1450 Days

Tuesday, January 12, 2009

"I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before, although tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen--a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world." Barack Obama, Berlin, July 24, 2008

"Economic analysts from hard-line socialists to monopolist capitalists and all grades in between operating from within the nationalistic framework stop far short of the obvious and vital relationship between global politics and global economics. While analyzing today's deteriorating economic situation as 'crisis-ridden,' with its soaring inflation, exorbitant interest rates, stagnating industrial productivity, ballooning national deficits, wobbling and absurd 'floating exchange rates,' rising unemployment, shortages of critical materials and parts, exponential increase in bankruptcies in both business and nations themselves, and monstrous, futile and suicidal armament budgets in the midst of agonizing human misery and need, they myoptically reject a world political government as 'impractical,' 'utopian,' or simply 'irrelevant.' Who Owns The World?, World Government, Ready Or Not!, Booksurge, 2003

"HOW MANY MORE OF US WOULD IT TAKE TO REGISTER, AND MAKE THE POINT THAT NATION STATES ARE OBSOLETE? Worse yet: they are harbingers of universal death. Only a World Citizen could be expected to see that the two mighty powers, representing all that overkill, rattle their spears at each other in mere ritual. But each of us IS a world citizen. We know the risks. We know exactly where the profits are. WE HAVE NO VOICE UNTIL WORLD GOVERNMENT MASSIVELY DECLARES ITSELF."
Stafford Beer, President, World Association of General Systems and Cybernetics, Managing Modern Complexity, Fifteen Years After, 1985
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On the History channel this week, the prophecies of December 21, 2012-only 1441 days from this writing-including those of Einstein and Nostradamus, that a humongous change will take place on planet Earth dominate that public media space. It pictures dinosaurs appearing on Earth nearly 250 million years ago in a period of time geologists called Triassic. Their feet shook the planetary soil for nearly 200 million years - 40,000 times as long as recorded human history- yet suddenly they all mysteriously disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous Period about 65 million years ago. We can only guess why.

Today, googling for "2012, The End of the World" brings up nearly 700,000 hits. More than 6,500 videos about the fateful day have been posted on YouTube. There are also countless books on the topic, many published in the wake of the success of Daniel Pinchbeck's "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl," which has been selling thousands of copies each month since it was released last May.

The Mayan calendar, an extraordinarily exact recording of the sun and moon's positions vis-a-vis the Earth also ends on December 21, 2012. It corroborates the Hindu Prophecy in the Brahma-Vaivarta Purana where Lord Krishna tells Ganga Devi that a Golden Age will come following the Kali Yuga period when rulers became unreasonable, avarice and wrath was common, men openly displayed animosity towards each other, ignorance of Dharma occurred, lust was viewed as being socially acceptable, people had thoughts of murder for no justification, and saw nothing wrong with that mindset.

But we do know what will happen cosmically on December 21, 2012.

In brief, for the first time in about 26,000 years a total lunar eclipse will take place; the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way on the same day. Some scientists say that will disrupt the energy flow to Earth, or that the high rate of sunspots or sun flares that NASA has predicted for 2012 could affect Earth's magnetic fields. Others say a polar reversal, where the North Pole becomes the south, where the sun rises in the west, will trigger natural disasters around the world.

Still others say the date marks a worldwide spiritual awakening-the prophetic Millennium-that is, IF humanity gets its trip together.

So how do we humans spend our time during this wink of a cosmic eye period: a mere 1140 days from now? Is human doom inevitable? The dinosaurs made our planet home for 200 million years. So we wipe ourselves out in an insignificant 10,000! Big deal. The planet itself is 4.5 billions years old. It will certainly be indifferent to our demise..or staying power. Well, too bad. It was fun while it lasted..sometimes.

As I write, the headlines of the world recount that the Sons of Abraham-Jews and Arabs-are at each other's throats (again) in a part of the world called "Gaza" and "Israel." Is not the real meaning of "The Patriarch" the father of a family? We are appalled and saddened by the suffering of the innocent children. But "Israel" and "Gaza" like the "United States," "Russia," "Iraq" and every other nation-state are bloodless and lifeless, mere imaginary human creations on one planetary soil. Yet humans are bleeding and dying to defend them as if these temporary political fictions and not the humans are real. After all, humans live and die, not Jews, Palestinians, Christians or Moslems.

Hey, let's get real!

The nation-state divisive (and dysfunctional) system cannot but be seen as an underlying motivating factor for much of the social problems humans face today. Defying systemic organization, carried over from the agricultural world of the 18th and 19th centuries and imposed by fiat on the 21st when both time and space have collapsed to render an interdependent world community fact, the national myth, is being exposed daily as humankind's deathtrap.

As Einstein proclaimed in 1945, "Everything has changed except our way of thinking" when THE BOMB, being genocidal in its very nature, humiliating our whole race by its mere existence, thereby irrevocably prefaced the ominous December 21, 2012 dates of possible total human elimination.

Our human species, lacking unity at that crucial moment, therefore would obviously deserve its cosmic fate.

How then do all these dire warnings equate with the Sermon on the Mount, The Decalogue, the "Golden Rule," the Bhagavad Gita, Koran or Torah, the Nuremberg Principles, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the evolution of the world citizenship movement-with President-elect Obama even proclaiming his own world citizenship to the world as well as to those who elected him-or indeed the so-called Space Age with a Space Station circling the planet every 90 minutes at 1700+ mph?

But even more revelatory and hopeful are the growing movements of outraged women such as the Council of Women World Leaders, Peace X Peace, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and events like the World Women's Wellness conference in Channai, India scheduled for this coming March.

Is the distaff side of humanity at last awakening to its righteous role of protector of humankind as "Earth Mother"?

If so, perhaps we humans can make it together past December 21, 2012.

The heavens await.

The Mondo

"Our conventional money is..created by a global hierarchy where developing countries don't have a chance at influencing the rules; it is enforced at the national level through a hierarchy under the authority of a Central Bank; a money whose interest feature encourages accumulation and concentration of wealth..But money and monetary systems are not God-given realities, like air or water, but rather are an agreement within a community to use something as a medium of exchange. As such like social contracts or business arrangements, they are subject to review and amendment."
Bernard Lietaer, A World In Balance

"Given that the world has never been more interconnected, it is essential that we work together because we're in this crisis together."

President George W. Bush, Camp David, 10/18/08

"And therein lies the central truth of globalization today: We're all connected and nobody is in charge."
Thomas L. Friedman, The Great Iceland Meltdown, NYT, 10/19/08

"Together, we should show the way towards an international response. We need a new global financial order."
Jose Manuel Barroso, President, European Commission, 10/18/08

"Most of our valuable assets are not on the books. We need to reinvent economics. The financial crisis is an opportunity,"
Robert Costanza, professor of ecological economics, University of Vermont



The world financial system is in crisis. The flow of the world's currency is stalled. We need a starter button to get the current flowing. And that starter button is world money. We need a world currency in sync with the reality that we are now living in a Global Village.

The purpose of this blog is to initiate a world currency that is at the same time local and global-that will meet the economic demands of each and every local community as well as the total world community.

One of the major factors causing the current world economic system to be so dysfunctional is the mishmash of monetary systems, with 200+ national currencies unattached to real wealth, "floating" in a lawless void above real people.

What is the dominant failure of the national monetary system?

"..official money is kept purposely scarce in the mistaken belief that scarcity is what gives money value", wrote Thomas H. Greco, Jr. in his provocative and enlightening book, Money, Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender.* "As a result," he continues, "the official monetary system does not provide an adequate supply of money to allow for a fair distribution of the products of the economy or even to provide everyone with a subsistence level of income. Monetary scarcity also makes it possible for money to be 'lent' at high rates of interest and enables those who control its creation to determine the course of the economy and the financial fate of the people. The tragic result is that important work remains undone and human needs often go unmet because of the lack of money."

The seeds of a solution are already in place, Greco says, in the various currency and mutual credit systems that have been created by local communities. At some point, he suggests, such systems could be networked together into "a web extending over a wide geographic area and including a very large population. It could conceivably be a global network, embracing virtual communities whose members are scattered around the globe."

Such an evolution of a global social currency is essential, for while trade has grown truly global, the very basis of trade itself is split up into 200+ itsy-bitsy engraved colored printed paper arbitrarily called "money."

"There is no textbook on world economics, though economics as a science-if it is really a science-should necessarily be most directly concerned with the happiness of humanity as a whole. Instead, economists visualize a world consisting of differently-colored patches of territory from within which each man is thinking hard economically so as to defeat his neighbor."
Nataraja Guru, Values Magazine, Vol 4, No. 2, Gurukula Press, Varkala, India

Let's apply our own world citizen imagination to the problem of world trade. First, we start with the world public itself as a unit, a whole. It's called "humanity."

Humanity first claimed its rights and identity as a whole in 1948 when the United Nations, responding to worldwide citizen demands, proclaimed unanimously the Universal Declaration of Human Right (UDHR). Article 1 declared:

"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." ("..and sisterhood" of course).

Now, skipping to article 25 (though I enjoin you to read ALL the others,) we learn that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate to the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability. widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

(Emphasis added).

Sounds great! But are governments going to hand us these rights on a silver platter? Are they going to create a world economic system that actually fulfills the rights promised? Or is it our responsibility, as citizens of this world, to implement the UDHR and claim our rights?

Art. 21(3), like the American Declaration of Independence, declares that the people have the authority to design government to our own choosing, "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.." It goes on to provide that "every individual and every organ of society" shall take "progressive measures, national and international, to secure the universal and effective recognition and observance" of these rights.

If we accept these principles, then isn't it our human right and our duty to institute new global financial systems that will indeed provide us with an adequate standard of living and provide the opportunity for the pursuit of happiness? If money is a notion humans created, then don't we-the-people have the right to create our own currency?

People have created complementary currencies for the exchange of labor and barter of goods at a local level in coops and communities. Can we now take it to the global level? And if we do, will it have purchasing power?

"The power of money lies in the fact that it is readily acceptable in the market in exchange for whatever one may need or want," explains Tom Greco, Jr.

So far, so good. But what is behind it? What makes it "readily acceptable"?

"When trust is present, money flows smoothly from lenders and borrowers, allowing new enterprises to start, existing ones to expand, and daily business to move along without a hitch. When it's absent, we find ourselves in a world where lenders hoard capital, borrowers are left empty-handed, and the economy's gears grind to a halt-a world, in other words, like the one we're now living in." (The Financial Page, The New Yorker, Oct. 20, 2008).

Originally, in order to create trust in money, it was based on something of value like gold. But the world economy evolved way beyond the limiting factor of the supply of gold. What could we base money upon that is sufficiently abundant to fuel a prosperous world economy?

Bucky Fuller in Critical Path identified money as mere "crystallized energy." What exactly did he mean? Using simple deduction, he was claiming that energy itself is a universal "currency"readily available to one and all in ever-renewable quantity. So why not base "money" on renewable energy? he asked. Not upon limited oil or coal or nuclear but on solar, the greatest and closest energy unit readily available without which we humans wouldn't exist. Doesn't it "arrive" every morning? Talk about "trust"! It's built-in to our very existence. There are others as we all know by now: hydro-electric, wind, (due to solar power), biomass, etc. Even the planet's inner heat, not to mention conservation.

If we think of currency as a current energizing the flow of goods and services in our world, then, what would be the most logical, self-evident, world monetary energy unit? Kilowatts! Indeed, that's what Bucky himself suggested in his book Critical Path in the chapter on the World Game.

But his fertile and practical imagination went further. He created a strange-looking map of the world which revealed that the five major continents were joined except for 30 miles at the Bering straits. He called it the Dymaxion Map. "Link up all the electric grids, the 'railroad tracks' of energy, " he advised, "and, after using the sun to generate it you could transmit via direct current the kilowatts instantaneously (electricity travels at the speed of light) throughout the world and make everyone energy billionaires!"
(And, incidentally, also protect the environment! And the planet;
And eliminate war;
And reduce the population! [Population goes down as standards of living go up];
And reduce crime..
And disease..
And general misery).

Well! Why not?

Because our political thinking is still stuck in the 18th and 19th century national frontier world, that's why not.

The sun, however, doesn't recognize national frontiers.

We world citizens, in order to properly issue and use the new currency based on solar energy, will create a "bank," a world energy bank** to issue " kilowatt money" or "Mondos."

And since kilowatts are both local and global units of value, the Mondo will be at once both a local and global currency.

In addition to being pegged to renewable energy, an even more overarching requirement is for money to reflect the value of nature itself.

"I believe the 21st century," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program told Reuters at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Barcelona, "will be dominated by the concept of natural capital, just as the 20th was dominated by financial capital."

Professor Robert Costanza of the University of Vermont, estimated a decade ago that the value of the services provided to us by nature amounts to $33 trillion a year. His estimate, widely quoted, helped open the debate of money's "other dimension."

"To establiah an equitable, efficient, and ecologically sustainable society," wrote renowned economist Dr. Shann Turnbull, World Citizen News, VIII, June/JUly, 1994, "we need money with the same characteristics. To achieve this objective we need to reinvent the nature of money in accordance with ecological principles."

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

In order to give the currency immediate global/local trust, we would initially relate it to a monetary "value" the world public already recognizes and respects in our present time period. The principle here is known as the "double negative," or an application of the science of geo-dialectics. (see www.worldservice.org/memor.html) (A current example is the issuance of a World Passport by our government based on the human right of freedom of travel. Obviously, if travel were free throughout the planet, there would be no need of passports. At present, however, with national frontiers crisscrossing the planetary territory, the World Passport serves to "neutralize" while apparently conforming to, that artificial, manmade system.)

With regard to paper money, in a world of mutual abundance, (forecast by Fuller predicated on design-science) it would eventually become a useless artifact of historical significance only valuable to collectors. (A few "Star Trek" episodes have depicted time travelers who were surprised-after defrosting-to discover that there was no more money on Earth in the 24th century!)

In order to immediately establish the intrinsic value of trust, the exchange rate at the outset would be set to 1 Mondo = 2 Swiss francs. (or equivalent in any negotiable national currency.)

As incoming national currency is exchanged for Mondos, it will be immediately established, both conceptually (solar and/or natural trust) and perceptually as the Mondo can always be reexchanged for national currencies if so desired. However, given its universality, the Mondo will evolve into being recognized as both more practical in actual use as a medium of exchange for goods and services whether local or global. Being both universal and local, there would be no exchange charge in its use.

We also envision it as a "world peace currency" that, like other trade and barter systems, would be outside the current national monetary systems and thus not taxed for war purposes. In that way it becomes per se a true world citizen currency.

World Citizens will be advised to use the new world currency between themselves as an appropriate medium of exchange for whatever goods and services they may provide each other. As the bank's currency will be backed by the initial capitalization, it will have immediate exchange value. Thus incoming national currency will be exchangeable for "kilowatt dollars."

The present "capital" in "world money" (Kilowatt dollars) of the World Government of World Citizens, as mentioned in my last blog, is a scant $K5,000 minus the bills distributed freely at the Earth Summit, i.e. $K1,000. In order to raise the initial capital for our "Mondo Mutual Bank", we will thus offer 4,000 of the original kilowatt dollars (signed by yours truly, laminated and officially sealed with "Mondo Mutual Bank"), for $100 per bill which will constitute a "share" in the new "bank." (Maximum 10 to a person.) (There is admittedly an aspect of philanthropy as well as endowment in this offer given its historical significance.) Thus our initial capitalization will be, in principle, $40,000 (a modest beginning) for the issuance of the new "Mondos" or "kilowatt dollars". (As national currency is subsequently exchanged for the Mondo, bearers of the original Kilowatt dollars will eventually be able to renegotiate them for national currencies if they so desire.)

The Mondo bills will be printed in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese and Esperanto with holographic enhancement. The logo will be the world wherein a human figure touches the circumference. The background will be the starry heavens. An intricate computerized design will constitute the first eighth part of each bill. Other features will insure its unconterfeitability. (The Dutch company Joh Enschede, in the Netherlands, was approached several years ago to be the printer of our world bills. After much detailed discussion, we received its agreement eventually duly authorized by the Netherland's government.)

"Imagination," wrote Einstein, "is more important than intelligence." Everything created on earth had to first be imagined by the human mind. With today's headlines dealing in unimaginable numbers, i.e. "trillions," our proposal herein seem ridiculously insignificant in comparison. But, with full confidence, we must "walk the talk" boldly yet humbly with Bucky's words inspiring us onward:

"Essence of the world's working will be to make every man able to become a world citizen and able to enjoy the whole earth, going wherever he wants at any time, able to take care of all the needs of all his forward days without any interference with any other man and never at the cost of another man's equal freedom and advantage."

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*Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Co., White River Junction, VT, (2001)
**Its "locale" will, at the outset, be allied with the World Service Authority's account in the Bank of America and titled "World Government Treasury Account."