Now about that 3 A.M. phone call

Brrrrrr!

Hello, White House. How may I direct your call?

Let me speak to the president.

Who's calling, please?

The Coordinator of the World Government of World Citizens.

I'm sorry, sir, the U.S. president is asleep. It's 3 a.m. here in Washington. Can it wait until morning?

No. This call is important, VITALLY IMPORTANT! U.S. national security is involved. And I know it's 3 a.m. dammit.

Would the vice-president do, Sir? He's still playing poker in the West Wing.

No way. It's the president or nobody. It concerns an issue of global significance.

Oh that. OK. Hold the line please. (Pause)

Hello. (Yawning) What's up Garry? This is a helluva time to call.

But Madame, you practically ran on the 3 a.m. call.

All right, all right! So what's so important it disturbs my sleep?

Well, Madame President, I thought you should be the first to know.

Know what? This better be good.

The World Parliament in Tasmania just passed a resolution outlawing war ten minutes ago.

Oh my God! What? No! I don't believe it. That would sabotage our entire nuclear missile strategy along with our Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe Iran planning. The Joint Chiefs will befurious not to mention Limbaugh.

But that's not the worst of it, Madame President. The global parliament has cited Nuremberg, you remember, the '45 trial, and in particular, the 'crimes against humanity' wicket and enjoined the ICC to issue indictments against all heads of state possessing nuclear weapons..including the US and Israel. Better prepare yourself. It could get nasty.

(Sounds of falling and glass breaking).

Madame president, Madame president, are you all right? Hey somebody! Help!

(No answer).

Yep, that 3 o'clock a.m. call could be a real kick in the teeth. The poobah in the White House who answers it must be well prepared to cope with such a catastrophic event. Will it be Hillary, Barak or John? The Commander-in-Chief's chapeau would be on a stand right beside the bedstead where GHB reluctantly hung it ready to be fastened onto the next eager warrior's head. (The United States voters have a real problem trying to decide who it will fit best. Dwight Eisenhower, who had already experienced war's glory and shame, had no problem knowing how tight it squeezed a working president's mind, but actually got a little too tight for his and the peoples' comfort in his waning days. Remember "Beware the military-industrial complex"?).

But wouldn't it be a cryin' shame for our national presidents if world peace broke out all of a sudden like? If we world citizens finally got our trip together, elected some world parliamentarians amongst ourselves then just went ahead and passed some world laws based on the Golden Rule? Boy, wouldn't that make all those generals, diplomats and border guards mad! Where would they find work? But I bet there'd be dancing in the streets in all the world's cities. Just think of where all that war money ($12 b/month alone for the Iraqi occupation) could be transferred? Why I bet all those hungry kids could finally have enough to eat and maybe get cured of what ailed them.

The Nobel Peace Laureates who gathered in Rome for their 7^th World Summit in September, 2007 almost got it right when they claimed that "Nuclear weapons are more of a problem than any problem they seek to solve. In the hands of anyone, the weapons themselves remain an unacceptable, morally reprehensible, impractical and dangerous risk." But despite the critical nature of the danger to humanity as such, they pledged feebly "to challenge, persuade and inspire Heads of State to fulfill the moral and legal obligation they share with every citizen to free us from this threat." (Note no mention of world law or government "to free us from this threat.")

Indeed, The BOMB doesn't respect "Heads of State" any more than it respects humanity itself.

This humiliating "call upon Heads of State"by the Laureates, however, chosen by an elite group of Norwegians, as icons of world peace to save humanity from "a 3 A.M call to the White House,"(or the Kremlin)can only be viewed by us average blood-and-sweat mortals as a monumental cop-out of world responsibility. Why call upon the very humans who willfully have their collective thumbs poised on the nuclear trigger to save us from them? The vaunted Laureates somewhat redeemed themselves, however, by at last calling upon "the citizens of the world to join us in this work." (So why don't they, as fellow "citizens of the world," also register with our world government?)

(An aside: I always thought it must be embarrassing if not downright humiliating to accept the accolade of "Peace Laureate" when the BOMB was still pointing at humanity and war was still "the last resort" of the nationalistic addiction to anarchy while billionaires racked in more ill-gotten loot and kids with their desperate parents hungered by the millions. I often wondered what Alfred, who started the prize-giving (to ease his conscience about inventing dynamite-while making millions from it) would have thought about all that upscaled "dynamite" playing havoc in today's world. Evelin Lindner, in her epical book, Making Enemies, defines humiliation as "enforced lowering of a person or group, a process of subjugation that damages or strips away pride, honor, or dignity," By singling out one person a year for the Nobel, isn't the Nobel committee actually humiliating every other human equally-or maybe more "equally" deserving of that so-called distinction?

And why don't they, the Peace Laureates themselves, call the White House, the Kremlin, the Palais l'Elysee, 10 Downing Street, and all the other presidential domains at 3 a.m. some morning and tell 'em what's what in our name? Tell them-with no diplomatic gobbledygook-that we, the people, ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE, that we're taking over our world just because it is OURworld. And their national "wargamesmanship" is terminated ONCE AND FOR ALL!

Indeed, what other message is worthy of a 3 a.m call to a national president with 6,000 nuclear weapons at her manicured fingertips?

Or maybe his.

Humiliation

Is it a precursor to conflict?

"The 21st Century requires different politics, a different world order: an order of humanism, peace and justice. This order must be based on human values and on the moral principles expressed - in particular- in the great universal religions and on the rules of international law. The acknowledgment and defense of human rights must be the touchstone of national and global order, as well as the criterion of democracy and political humanism."
(Statement, First World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, 1999)

Daily news via television of soldiers raping women (in Somalia, Kenya, the Congo, Darfur, etc. ) evoke emotions of shame along with indignation and anger. Viewing the women huddled together in refugee camps, their eyes deadened by the violence soldiers invaded on their bodies, we too are humiliated in sympathy. We must ask, what is it about soldiery the world over going back into ancient times which motivates this debasing action? How can fellow humans regress to such a bestial and pervasive condition?

The New York Times is running a series on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.) The Times found 121 cases where Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, after their return from war, committed a murder in this country or were charged with one. "Clearly, committing homicide" wrote the authors, "is an extreme manifestation of dysfunction for returning veterans, many of whom struggle in quieter ways, with crumbling marriages, mounting debt, deepening alcohol dependence or more minor tangles with the law."

All the TV ads promoting the army, navy or Marines speak of courage, pride, power, economic opportunities, respect from others, especially family and women, and above all, "patriotic service" to the mother country.

They do not talk of dignity, human values, peace, respect for others, human rights or morality. Killing or being killed, of course, is never mentioned. Nor do they tell you that the army's first task is to discipline you to obeying without questioning. To accomplish this dehumanizing act, the recruit must be systemically humiliated ad nauseum. And so to "boot" camp: Humiliation's Playground. There, as a lowly recruit, you will be subjected to violent, irrational and deliberate diatribes from the "drill sergeant." Neither can you talk back to his personal insults but you must "prove" your ability to "take it," to "suck it up" as the Marines say, in the full knowledge that he is attempting to destroy your own reason and moral sense. It is the opposite of education. It denies every social code you have been taught almost from birth.

But hold on! Even before deliberately annulling the recruit's moral and rational center, his own decision even to don a soldier's uniform in the first place is to humiliate himself, to agree to become less than human, a soldier, dispensable to killing and being killed.

"These guys today," said Hector Villarreal, a criminal lawyer in Mission, Texas, who briefly represented a three-time Iraq combat veteran charged with manslaughter, "I recognize the hole in their souls."

What is the reason for this systemic humiliation? Obviously your primal duty as a soldier is to kill another human. You cannot therefore consider him/her/a child as "human," but only a member of the "enemy."

"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..."
Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

The primal thinking is tribal or relativistic: we-and-they. We are already conditioned to this way of thinking through competitive sports, in school, the "team" syndrome tied in to the mythical "winning" paradigm. It prevails throughout the educational system-my school against their school-my town team against their town team, and finally, my country against their country. "Winning" and "losing" are the geo-dialectical interdependent polar "opposites" defining this paradigm.

Humiliation or loss of pride, self-respect, or dignity is the built-in consequence of this way of thinking.

When the "winners" of wars humiliate the losers, the inevitable consequence is the need to "get even." Ot better, to "win" the next battle. Thus the deadly duality persists. Was not WWII the result of the Versailles Treaty demeaning the vanquished German nation?

Extrapolating this win/lose syndrome to our global community we must ask how does the "win/lose" paradigm pervade the human race itself-as a whole? In other words, can humanity itself be "humiliated" by losing? The question seems absurd because if humanity "loses," there will be no one left to be humiliated.

But now we all know-even the smallest child-that humanity, in this nuclear age, indeed, can "lose." First, the national soldiery, already disciplined to unleash the destruction at its fingertips at their "enemies" if given the order by their national masters, can launch the final holocaust via nuclear weaponry. And the national so-called leaders themselves are cognizant of this deadly duality. Second, the world citizenry itself, in its unbridled and irrational demand for increasing energy, can pass the "tipping point" causing the environment to "win" the "war" for the 14-billion-year's old planet, totally disinterested in humanity's short-lived survival.

When, as a 22-year-old United States bomber pilot, I was flying over Germany during World War II dropping bombs on cities and civilians, underneath the intense concentration of formation flying in a group of 12 B-17s, I too felt morally degraded as a human being. My profession was acting. On stage, facing an audience, I was joyful, fulfilled and felt worthy of life itself. My relation to my audience was one of mutual respect, appreciation, even love. Each performance was a mystical bonding experience, eternally fresh. To me the theatre was a temple of joy and wonder, justifying my humanity. But as a wartime pilot I had lost my humanity, my soul, if you will. I had become a mere killer of fellow humans. My rationale, (the "Allies'" rationale): "Win the war against the Nazis" was my sole unthinking motive in life at that moment. Despite the thrill of flying and the atavistic tribal certainty of being one of the "good guys," against the "enemy," by definition, "evil," it was as a "national citizen", a subject to an ancient tribal syndrome: win or die. No longer was I only a happy entertainer. I felt debased, used, humiliated.

Together with my two brothers, I had surrendered my true human identity to the false god of war.

Then came Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 and THE BOMB!

Politically, my sovereignty as a human being was at once annulled by THE BOMB's very existence. My sacred rights-and that of my fellow humans-to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was vitiated by the presence of a total weapon in the arsenals of competitive, warring nation-states.

In short, what was my new earthly ID vis-a-vis THE BOMB? What is yours? Indeed the mere existence of THE BOMB suddenly blasted into our very souls: What then is humanity's? Suddenly the realization that humanity itself was threatened forced us to realize that humanity REALLY EXISTED! Our political orientation viewing the world from our particular nation was suddenly exposed as deadly and obsolete. Especially following the death of my own brother at the invasion of Salerno I was forced to reevaluate my very human purpose living on planet earth. Of course I was not alone in this quest.

Why indeed, did Einstein himself claim that " a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels?" "Today the atomic bomb," he wrote, "has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we know it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking...In the light of new knowledge, a world authority and an eventual world state are not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, they are necessary for survival...This must be the central fact in all our considerations in international affairs: otherwise, we face certain disaster."

Along with Einstein's warning, Stafford Beer, former president of the World Association of General Systems and Cybernetics wrote that "Man is a prisoner of his own thinking and his own stereotype of himself. His machine for thinking, the brain, has been programmed to deal with a vanished past."

The "vanished past" is obviously the horse-and-buggy 18th century nation-state imposed on the instantaneous, one world 21st century. But does not the nation-state system itself, in dividing humanity artificially into its tribal units with anarchy separating them, generate and perpetuate conflict? And is not humiliation embedded in our very primary political allegiance to the dysfunctional and warring nation-state system now proven obsolete by the aspect of omnicide? In short, given the nuclear threat to humanity, is not THE BOMB the ULTIMATE HUMILIATION today embedded within this admittedly dysfunctional politics ?

Absolute in its indiscriminate destructive power, THE BOMB exposes our national citizenry as virtually and literally impotent. In this century, when, via technology and electronics, time and space have utterly collapsed between us, the nation-state leaders, feeling their power fading, tighten the screws to our fictional state coffins in the false name of "security."

The dichotomy could prove mortal.

That is our problem. Do you need more evidence? Note the platforms of the US presidential candidates, both Democratic and Republican, now vying for their citizens' votes. Do any of them claim to have a program to outlaw war once they are in office? They do not because they cannot. They are on the wrong political level. Do they claim to eliminate the nuclear threat if elected? The next US president will swear "to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" the same oath George Washington took in 1789. But whereas the first president only commanded muskets and short-range cannons, the next US president will command an army and navy with an arsenal of upwards of 6,000 nuclear missiles enough to wipe out all living matter on our planet.

He or she will become the "Commander-in-Chief of National Humiliation."

My words are dictated by my status as a willfully stateless person. That is, I personally owe no allegiance to any nation-state nor can any sovereign-state claim my allegiance. National allegiance, in truth, is a collective suicide pact. My perspective since May 25, 1948 when I legally renounced my United States citizenship at the US Embassy in Paris is "outside the box looking in" as it were.

I speak, therefore, clothed with the sovereignty of one single human being born as you from another human being onto our common planet Earth. The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that "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."

If you are a former reader of these blogs, you know already that in order to meet this ultimate threat to me and my humanity, I have claimed as my primary political identity: "citizen of the world."

So, as THE BOMB itself is global in its power, so am I, and so are you, if you but claim it.

This claim is legitimate. Why? Because each one of us has the sovereign right as human beings to identity ourselves politically or otherwise.

Einstein wrote that "Imagination is more important than intelligence.." while Emery Reves pointed out in The Anatomy of Peace, "There is no 'first step' to world government; world government is the first step."

My inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, required a valid political framework consistent with my identity as a world citizen.

A mandate came from a surprising but official source. Following our interruption of a UN General Assembly meeting in Paris on November 22, 1948 demanding "one government for one world," in her column, My Day of December 15, 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt, the US delegate and chairperson of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Commission, wrote "How very much better it would be if Mr. Davis would set up his own governmental organization and start then and there a worldwide international government. All who would join him would learn that they have no nationality and, therefore, not being bothered by any special interest in any one country everyone would develop what he believes to be a completely co-operative feeling among all peoples and a willingness to accept any laws passed by this super government."

Indeed, the wife of the US president, Franklin Roosevelt, was only confirming article 21(3) of the human rights declaration proclaimed by the General Assembly December 10th of that year: "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.."

After registering over 750,000 individuals claiming world citizenship from January 1, 1949, therefore, on September 4, 1953 from the city hall of Ellsworth, Maine, I declared the World Government of World Citizens. Its administrative agency is a Washington, D.C. corporation called the World Service Authority. Its web site is www.worldservice.org.

It was the only rational reply to THE BOMB's proliferating existence throughout the national world where anarchy prevailed in the we-they deadly win-lose equation.

It is the win-win solution for we humans who, after all, derive from an omniscient, ubiquitous and omnipotent SOURCE.

At Lucknow, India, there is a high school of 30,000 students, CMS, the largest in the world. From day one, upon entering, each and every student is made aware that he or she is a "citizen of the world." Becoming computer literate almost from their first grades, they are already globally aware of the imminent danger of a nuclear holocaust brought on by national politics which artificially separates them from their fellow students worldwide. They already know that war itself-bred by a condition of anarchy between nations-must be outlawed by world government. To them, that is a given. Their brains are NOT "programmed to a vanished past" but are operating in the eternal NOW.

And they are demanding of us adults to OUTLAW WAR via the world government.

For, they assert, they and their 2.4 billion fellow students can be served by nothing less.

By claiming our rightful human heritage as Citizens of the World and its institutional corollary, the World Government NOW, by reasserting our dignity as fellow humans we annul our global humiliation and THE BOMB as light eliminates darkness and as wisdom dispels ignorance.

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

An Indian (and global) Dilemma

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some relevant quotes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Open Letter to Senator Patrick Leahy

Chairman: Senate Judiciary Committee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,
Garry Davis
World Citizen

Bush Threatens Humanity to "Save" Israel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay Tuned.

Marcel Marceau

A Citizen of the World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Another Anniversary & Another 9/11!

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

But that's not where it really started.

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

Was this declaration "legitimate"?

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

Before they became "legitimate" citizens.

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

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

Enter a historical anomaly.

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

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

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

It's designated as "international territory."

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

It doesn't exist. Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Legitimately.

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

And continues to this day.

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

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