To The World's Billionaires
Memo No 2

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

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

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

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

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

Then it became transparently obvious, at least to me.

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

To save them!

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

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

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

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

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

Is that about to change?

Well, YES!

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

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A Humanitarian Crisis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Memo To The World's Billionaires

Memo To The World's Billionaires

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Me? I only want to help.

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

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

Human Rights & the United Nations - Geo-dialectics in Microcosm - The Territory Game - World Government in Paris, Again!

Human Rights & the United Nations

The NYT story of March 11th speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of national politicians as well as underscoring the general ignorance of the public when the issue of human rights is raised.

"Dismay Over New Human Rights Council" headlines the three-week session in Geneva of the embattled 47 member UN Human Rights Council which replaced the Human Rights Commission after being "widely discredited for allowing participation by countries like Sudan, Libya and Zimbabwe."

I was in Paris on December 10,1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first proclaimed by the General Assembly as a "common standard of achievement for all nations and all peoples." We world citizens were thrilled and ecstatic after the horrendous destruction of World War II which had left Europe in ruins and millions dead and refugeed.

Because the declaration's emphasis was on people, not nations, it defined our rights not state's rights. "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.." was clear and unequivocal. "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law;" and "Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized."

"Everyone," "everywhere." That's us, humanity, on planet earth. Our global government was finally mandated. That excludes and bypasses nations. Given an anarchic world they are principally war machines, divisive. And the United Nations itself? A mere successor to the League of Nations which blew up in our faces in 1939.
"I interrupt in the name of the people not represented here," were our opening words to the GA on November 22, 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. So how and why is the United Nations even involved in a "human rights council" ? After all, aren't nations the chief violators of human rights? What else is a national frontier but a violation of freedom of travel? There's a kind of madness here.

The sad fact, however, is that the average person-in-the-street is ignorant of his/her fundamental rights. I have queried thousands of adults and students throughout the years as to whether they had even heard of the UDHR. And even if they admitted, "Oh, sure, that's a UN document isn't it?" few could quote any of the 30 articles. "How can you practice human rights if you don't even know them?" I would ask. Embarrassed or uncomprehending stares.

A sub-heading on the NYT article is "A voting bloc stymies an effort by the U.N. to toughen up on abusive governments." The implication here is another monstrous falsehood: that the U.N. is a sort of sovereign interim government enjoying legislative, executive and judicial power on its own whereas its Member-States constitute a mere league of independent sovereignties. The new Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a human rights gathering in December that he "was worried by its disproportionate focus on violence by Israel." It appears that the human rights council had passed eight resolutions against Israel and the Islamic group was planning four more for the coming season. Group against group; state against state. Where oh where are we humans? And humanity?

Bottom line: The so-called human rights council is nothing more than another upmanship artifice for blocks and states to gain power over their competitor state and/or groups, a total abnegation of fundamental human rights where "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."
Let's wake up, for heaven's sake!

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Geo-Dialectics in Microcosm

Every morning on my daily walk, I conduct a fascinating experiment. I walk on the side of the road facing the traffic. As the cars approach and I know the driver can see me, I wave. Always, well, mostly always, the driver waves back.

I have analyzed this simple event. Why does the driver inevitably return my wave? I don't know the driver and he or she doesn't know me. You might rightly say, "But that's normal." I agree. Rather like the kids at the back of the school bus waving at the cars driving behind. But upon reflection, I think there's more to it than that and even connotes a universal principal based on the new science of Geo-Dialectics .

First of all, we share the same environment, the road. Second, we are both in action, me walking, the driver, well, driving. In other words, it is a dynamic situation. Third, when I raise my hand in greeting, the driver, who I know is watching me to be sure he/she doesn't hit me, acknowledges my greeting in precisely the same way. A dialectical "opposite." Four, we share The Present Moment, the eternal Now together.
In geo-dialectical terms, we are at opposite poles of the same event rather like a stretched rubber band, equal and opposite at both ends. In short, we are "joined." (A geo-dialectical equation: hunger/food; up/down; in/out; good/bad, pain/pleasure: interdependent, a "pair of opposites"). Five, we are acknowledging each other's welcoming gesture, the dynamic part. The meaning is clear. We are friendly. Six, there is a sense of satisfaction and pleasure and even fulfillment or accomplishment, at least for me. It makes me feel useful and good. If only momentarily I have made contact with a fellow human and shown my goodwill toward him/her. In short, we have become a momentary human 'community' undivided, a recognition of unity-in-diversity, minor differences ignored, irrelevant. Seven, by initiating the gesture, I have offered to my fellow human the right and pleasure to respond in kind. How can he/she not also feel useful and appreciative? Eight, we are expressing to each other that we are at peace, both with ourselves and with each other.

And finally, overall awareness of this "Now" event was experienced by both parties.
Is there a moral to this seemingly innocuous blog item? You bet. First, I'm writing it and you're reading it, online. That's the first "wave." Hi! Second, every time you and I go online, we're "waving" to millions of our co-netizens also on the same cybernetic "highway." Indeed, super or global highway! This may be obvious to you but it's never happened before our present time. Third, and most awesome, that global "wave" is increasing exponentially bypassing all the antagonisms, fears, hatreds, divisions and, I'll say it, absurdities and childishnesses which dominate our national political world.
In brief, the global "wave," innocent, naive, heartfelt, ever mindless (thus eliminating the fear of death as Eckhart Tolle points out in The Power of Now, p. 44) is a powerful tool for a peaceful world.
So "Hi again!"

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The Territory Game

Two of my children live in Montreal, Quebec. I live in South Burlington, Vermont. Between us is an artificial frontier separating two fictional nation-states (N-S) known historically as "Canada" and the "United States."

On May 28, 2006, after visiting with my kids, arriving at Highgate Springs, Vermont, the "frontier," I was "paroled into the United States after being fingerprinted.
On August 8, 2006 I wrote to the president of the latter N-S that "I occupy presently a sovereign planetary territory of 0.3 acres situated in the city of South Burlington, in the State of 'Vermont.'" I added that "According to your U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, I have been designated an 'alien' and 'paroled' into the United States for six months. I reject both the designation and its arbitrary 'authorization.'" and returned the I-94 parole document issued to me by Homeland Security "as evidence of [my] parole status in the United States."

My claim of "planetary territory" actually began on May 25, 1948 when I walked out of the Paris Embassy after having renounced my sovereign allegiance to the U.S.A. and claimed the status of "citizen of the world." In my first blog, I mentioned the 9th Amendment to the US Constitution which sanctions "political choice" as an "inalienable right." So world citizenship was my inalienable right of political choice.

The French government, however, did not take kindly to this claim and, after some bureaucratic jostling, ordered me "out" of its alleged territory. This presented a dilemma as all refugees and stateless persons can attest to. On what territory does a world citizen live? Either on world territory or paradoxically "within" an exclusive part of the earth's surface temporarily claimed or better, usurped by a particular group of tribal-minded humans called "national citizens."

Fast forward to the present. On December 10, 2006, I again visited my two children in Montreal for a pre-Xmas dinner. The next day, December 11th, I started back to my tiny piece of "world territory" adjacent to the International Burlington airport. My only travel document again was the World Passport, 4th edition., No. 334879, issued on January 25, 2006 by the Central Office of the World Service Authority, Washington, D.C.

In the interests of transparency, I had informed all authorities concerned that I would be arriving at the Highgate control center at around 11 a.m. (I actually arrived at 4:30 p.m. accompanied by Walter Miale, a videographer).

I drove up to the control box where a young man in a Homeland Security uniform and badge to match asked for my identity papers. I handed him my World Passport. After a cursory look, he asked me curtly to park and "Step inside."

After threatening me with a refusal to permit my "entry" as a "parolee" unless I agreed to be fingerprinted, which I in turn refused, insisting I was a World Citizen simply travelling from one part of the world territory to another, the officer in charge handed me back the World Passport - after photocopying the pages and reminding me smugly that the new U.S. passport would contain a microchip - and told me to "go home."

Postscript: On January 4, 2007, I received a letter from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security signed by Paul M. Morris, Executive Director, Admissibility Requirements and Migration Control, Office of Field Operations. He thanked me for my letter of July 6, 2006 to President Bush. Then, "Having reviewed our records concerning this matter, it is our conclusion that the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) Officers at Highgate Springs, Vermont, acted within the scope of their authority and in compliance with established law, regulations, policy, and procedures."

"No one," the letter concluded, "is allowed to enter the United States until he or she has satisfied the examining officer that he or she is either a citizen of the United State or an alien who has overcome all grounds for inadmissibility."
But I did. As a World Citizen! With passport to match!

The game continues.

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World Government In Paris, Again!

The World Government flag is flying in Paris! At the Palais de Tokyo exhibit of "micronations."

Also our governments artifacts: world passport, world money, world human rights documents, application forms, even my book, Cher Monde, etc., are on display until May 7. Please go see it, Parisiens/ennes.

I have been invited by the organizers to attend but there is a problem. Our world governmental passport has been the object of several indictments by French courts in past years. I was charged with "confusing the public mind" by issuing it and spent time in France's local prisons. (Ironically, a friend recently traveled to France and upon her return had her World Passport stamped with a French exit stamp and a Homeland Security entry stamp!)

The irony is that the French Constitution of 1789 was the first to claim that the right to "aller et venir" were fundamental human rights. Only the slave was prohibited to travel freely. The World Passport is mandated by that very right updated by the UDHR in Article 13(2): "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." (As a computerized or MRTD*, it is filed with the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal).

I wrote to President Jacques Chirac enclosing our information CD-Rom disc concerning the upgraded 4th edition World Passport (which has been mailed to all heads of state: see note below) adding the announcement of the Palais de Tokyo exhibition in his capital.

Coincidentally, the Coordinator of the Film Commission of our government, Arthur Kanegis, emailed me a remarkable talk by Chirac on February 2nd given at a conference on the environment he had convoked in Paris where he claimed that "The planet is sick," and "We need a revolution in our thinking. Humankind must stop seeing itself only as the 'master' and owner of nature. We must move toward a new state, a state of responsible awareness; our intelligence must be devoted the protecting the planet. To ensure that we all become 'Citizens of the Earth', let us adopt a Universal Declaration of Environmental Rights and Duties at the United Nations." Bravo, Monsieur le President!

Attending the conference were representatives of States, international organizations, eminent scientists, heads of NGOs, business leaders and "committed citizens." Chirac concluded by acknowledging that "In your discussions and your work, you will be helping to mobilize international officials and international public opinion, a task that is more urgent not than ever before."

After reading his speech, I decided that President Chirac as a "Citizen of the Earth" merited receiving an honorary World Passport from the World Government of World Citizens. (See list below).

Today, March 11, 2007, I read that Jacques Chirac is retiring from active political life. Yesterday, in our local paper, the Burlington Free Press, I read that "European leaders agree on Energy Plan. EU proposes to cut one fifth of nonrenewable energy." President Chirac, at what was likely his last summit before leaving office, is quoted as saying "We assume leadership with this unilateral reduction. This is part of the great moments of European history." Esperons.

(A personal note to President Chirac: Now that you are properly identified as a 'Citizen of the (World) Earth,' may I respectfully request as a gesture of solidarity and good fellowship that Your Government accord its "bienveillance" as did former President Vincent Auriol on December 24, 1948 to this concitoyen, who lived for many years with his children (born at Strasbourg) on "world territory" at "Chaggarah" in Alsace, so he may join his fellow citizens at the Palais de Tokyo before its microstates Paris exhibition closes in May, 2007).

(Honorary World Passports issued to Heads of State: Emperor Akihito, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, President Chen Shui-Bian, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Gerald Ford, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, President Vaclav Havel, Prime Minister Toshio Kaifu, President Vytautus Landsbergis, President Lee Teng-hui, Prime Minister Jawarharlal Nehru).
*Machine-Readable Travel Document

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My First Blog

"Speak your latest conviction and it shall be the universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment."
Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks for tuning in. This is my first blog. Quite an awesome responsibility to be read by millions...Well, at least by you. It's really a one-on-one deal, isn't it?

You may know I am already "in" cyberspace with my own web site, (garrydavis.org), then you can check out my 7 books at worldgovernmenthouse.com, plus lots of articles at worldcitnews.org and over a half century of press material via a google search on "World Citizen Garry Davis").

But a blog is something else. More intimate, spontaneous, revealing, hopefully inspiring...and fun...for me and I hope for you too. Let's hear from you.


To set the overall tone, I dug out my well-thumbed copy of David Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience': "All men recognize the right of revolution, that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable." (In my book, the entire 18th century nation-state system has become increasingly dysfunctional and tyrannical! I want to spell that out later on). "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." (As a "stateless person" I myself have seen the "inside" of national goals 34 times!)

Then how about, "When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished"?

Lots of talk now about revolution especially since 9/11. More about that later. I myself "refused [national] allegiance" at age 26.

Here's a key quote: "Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place without it." (Emery Reves, Anatomy of Peace).

All National politicians by definition are "within the institution." Yet our 21st century problems are "outside" the governing system, i.e. war and global warming.

Buckminister Fuller claimed that "...for the first time in the history of man for the last ten years, all the political theories and all the concepts of political functions, in any other than secondary roles as house-keeping organizations, are completely obsolete. All of them were developed on the you-or-me-basis." (Utopia or Oblivion ). Thoreau also exposes the civic hypocrisy in wartime: "The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war..." (The US public overwhelmingly cries "Bring the troops home [from Iraq but not Afghanistan] but agrees to pay the cost while they're still there!" ).

And finally, "Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything that was." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) In other words, don't just talk the "walk" but you must "walk the talk" if you want to institute change.

I also concur with Thoreau's thoughts on the U.S. Constitution: "Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this American government are in many respects, very admirable and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?" (For example, are those 3 astronauts in a Space Station 360 miles over all our heads circling the planet every 90 minutes at 17,000 mph still bound by their national constitutions? Who and where, for instance, is "the enemy"?)

Tom Paine in 1789 wrote that "The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insulting of tyrannies. The circumstances of the world are continually changing and the opinions of men also change. And as government is for the living and not the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it."

So my blog has the distinctive feature of viewing the world from "outside" the established national governments and "looking in" rather like those astronauts in our Space Station. I call it "The Vertical View" as compared to "The Horizontal View" when on the planet. You've heard the expression, "Think globally; act locally." Well, for over sixty years (I'm 85) having claimed to be a "world citizen" at age 26, I have not only been thinking globally, but, of necessity, acting globally. It's really an ancient idea, world citizenship. The Greeks and Stoics 3000 years ago called themselves "cosmopolites." And Socrates 2500 years ago told his fellow Athenians not to consider themselves only Athenians and Greeks but also "citizens of the world."
So away we go! Let the global chips fall where they may. Have fun! I will.

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There Is No Iraqi War!

Lt. Ehren Watada, US army, is a modern-day symbol of the military refusenik. The "Iraq war" is "unjust" he claims due mainly to its pre-emptiveness, and he requests to be let out of his oath of military servitude.

In a court martial February 5 the presiding officer, Judge Head, declared a mistrial when he realized that Lt. Watada's legal arguments had already gotten to the jury with a good chance of acquittal on one or more of the charges remaining in the case. Given the increasing public outrage and frustration with President Bush's harebrained and disastrous policies, his case could break the back of the Pentagon's whole muddled warring machine. Indeed popular support from around the world is already flooding the offices of his US team. Besides other soldiers have joined him in his mission.

During the Mexican war of 1812, Thoreau deals with the military aspect of government with his usual prescience: "A common and natural result of an undue respect for law, is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, private, powder-monkeys and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their will, ay, against their common-sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts, and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous men in power....[B]ehold a marine, such a man as an American government can make. or such as it can make a man with its black arts, a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments..."

Now Ehren Watada's admirers and supporters, in a special web site, are asking we who agree with him to write to General David Dubik to release him from his Constitutional pledge "to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

I have, however, a fundamental disagreement with the good lieutenant along with Bush's murderous policies. Ehren signed up to be a soldier ostensibly to fight a war and/or defend his country. But that presupposes an enemy. So, with the event of 9/11 as his jumpstart, ostensibly its justification for the so-called Iraqi war, Bush and his gang dreamt up a fantasy enemy: "terrorism." Once established in the public mind that "terrorism" was an "enemy" and not merely a condition, the trap was legally closed. And what was that? Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution which put a commander-in-chief hat on Bush's head.

In 1789 the debate in Philly on the issue of who should speak for the fledgling nation itself vis-a-vis other nations (England, France and Spain had their man-o-war's in the Atlantic threatening the former colonies) resulted in Art II, Section 2 conferring "discretionary powers" on the president in time of war. Patrick Henry abandoned the Committee of the Whole claiming the constitution conferred "dictatorial powers" on the president a la King George III. Because this issue relates to young men throughout the world being conned into a soldier's uniform with gun to match by heads of state, I wrote the following letter to General Dubik exposing the fundamental false premise of war itself and the "Iraqi war" in particular:

February 27, 2007
Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik
Fort Lewis and I Corps
Bldg 2025 Stop 1
Fort Lewis, WA 98433

Dear General Dubik,

I write on behalf of Lt. Watada. Before explaining my motives, however, allow me to note, respectfully, that, while I do not know your present age, Sir, as a U.S. Air Force pilot in WWII, I was bombing German civilians from a B-17 60 years ago. My rank at the time was the same as Lt. Watada's. And while I sympathize with his present stand of refusing to fight in what he terms an "unjust war," my considered take on his present situation and that of all soldiers everywhere is somewhat different.

What if there is no war in which he can refuse to fight?

Because there is no real enemy!

Allow me to explain. The so-called Iraq war is a non sequitur. "Terrorism" is a condition, neither a nation nor a particular people... As you are aware, war has two main definitions: 1. One must engage in it determined to win it; in short, there must be a winner and a loser. 2. Society must be left intact after the war is over. An alleged war against "terrorism" is by definition unwinnable since its environment is anarchy; society itself therefore will be eventually drained morally, physically and economically to its inevitable collapse. Empires have perished in this delusion.

Anarchy itself is the "enemy" as the US Founders foresaw and eliminated.

In short, President Bush and his advisors hoodwinked both the American people and the Congress starting with the September 11, 2001 debacle in accepting that the United States itself was under "foreign" attack. The fact that 15 "aliens" could take down the Twin Towers despite the US army, navy and all security agencies was tantamount to a psychic/emotional shock for Americans which permitted President Bush to assume dictatorial powers as "commander-in-chief" provided under Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution, a 214-year-old flawed "birthmark" on an otherwise almost miraculous document.

Lt. Watada found out too late the travesty foisted on both the American and Iraqi people. He had already signed up. He then belatedly if rightly scored not only the "preemptive" character of Bush's invasion to eliminate, ostensibly, Iraq's then leader, Saddam Hussein, but the essential dichotomy between authoritarianism and conscience. That Hussein was a war criminal under the Nuremberg Principles was evident due to his known usage of chemical warfare against his own citizens. The ICJ, however, the only court then adjudicating war crimes remained impotent due to the UN's weak-willed intervention to prevent Bush's opportunistic and feckless attack. Thus, President Bush, ironically, became the "war criminal" of which he accused President Hussein!

Now Lt. Watada is on trial for refusing to fight in an "unjust war." (Is any war just?) "For wars to end," he told a Veterans for Peace gathering in Atlanta recently, "the American soldier must rise above the socialization that tells (him) the authority should always be obeyed without question. They must know that neither Congress nor this administration has the authority to violate the prohibition against preemptive war, an American law that still stands today."
The core of his defense, however, is finally summed up in his claim that "Enlisting in the army does not relinquish one's right to seek the truth, neither does it excuse one from rational thought nor the ability to distinguish right and wrong." 'I was only following orders,' he insists, "is never an excuse."

"Can there not be a government," Thoreau asks in Civil Disobedience, "in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?...Must the citizen even for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?"

The question is perennial yet topical.

But I would go further. War itself is obsolete, an artifact of bygone eras. The age of the exclusive nation-state has been surpassed by global revolutions in industry, electronics, weaponry (as of August 6, 1945) and now space travel. Veterans the world over stand with Watada, not only as old soldiers but as citizens of the world bonded with humanity which seeks its unity and peace. When he tells his fellow veterans, transmitted worldwide via satellite, that "If soldiers realized this war is contrary to what the Constitution extols, if they stood up and threw their weapons down, no President could even initiate a war of choice again," he is speaking for all citizens of the world and indeed to all nation-state leaders.

...And should you condemn him to prison, (General) may I remind you of Thoreau's comments on this institution when jailed by the good citizens of Massachusetts for non-payment of his war taxes: "I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was."

Yours truly, incidentally, as a stateless World Citizen, has spent as free a time in 34 prisons throughout the world for his sentiments expressed briefly herein.

Please be assured, General Dubik, of my most respectful regards and salutations.

Sincerely,

(Signed)
Garry Davis

Cc: Lt. Ehren Watada
Enclosures
(This letter also was emailed to key senators and representatives as well as my list of heads of state and world citizens.)

---

The Hidden 9th Amendment

My last item on this 1st blog fits in surreptitiously yet authoritatively to the comments above.

If you asked 100, nay 100,000 citizens or even a million on the streets of any city in the United states to quote the 9th Amendment to the United State Constitution, you would receive blank stares. Even congressional staffers cannot pass the simple test. I have a quirky offer to many 'experts' in Senators' and Representatives' office of "a quick $100" if he quoted the 9th amendment. I never had to take it out of my pocket much to his chagrin and embarrassment.

What is the mystery here? The 9th amendment, first of all, does not spell out any specific right as do the first 8. But the writers of the Bill of Rights - and my research failed to identify who actually penned it though I suspect James Madison - did not want to limit the peoples' rights to those 8. Hence the 9th which provides that, in spite of the written rights, all the others are "retained by the people."

BUT THEY DIDN'T SAY WHAT THEY WERE!

The key word is "retained." If rights are "retained" that infers that the people have them by virtue of their humanness and not by any specific civic codes. Voila! Inalienable human rights.
But the major sanction by this subtle phrasing is that THE PEOPLE ARE SOVEREIGN AND NOT THE GOVERNMENT THEY CREATE.

And where do we find the first mention of "inalienable human rights"? Why, The Declaration of Independence, of course.

Remember "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"? Every school kid knows these. But ask them or their parents, how are these rights protected and you will again receive blank stares. The wonder is that this ignorance pertains in spite of the very words following these fundamental rights as to the very protection of our inalienable rights.

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Therefore the 9th Amendment is the only popular LEGAL remedy available to the United State's citizen to neutralize the usurpation of dictatorial powers of the US president!

But how?

OK, here is my final "global chip": The major and fundamental human right, one which founded the United States in the first place, is simply political choice, the sovereign right of the human being part of human society.

In short, the 9th Amendment sanctions each and every U.S. citizen's right to ADD world citizenship to his/her national citizenship, [as the founders did to their state citizenships], thus eliminating the condition of anarchy which in turn breeds "terrorism."

And war.

Moreover Article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights likewise provides that "...the will of people shall be the basis of the authority of government."

Attention: All heads of nation-states.

Until the next "View from my Space," I remain

Your fellow citizen in one world,
Garry Davis

Views From My Space: My First Blog

Views From My Space: My First Blog