A Really World-Class Act

I was one of the 4 billion+ humans watching, with Robin Lloyd, Coordinator of the World Women Commission of our global government, the "One World, One Dream" Olympic opening in Beijing 6578 miles from my living-room in South Burlington, VT.

Myriad thoughts pulsed through my mind as I watched the teams from every corner of the planet parade by the fortunate 91,000 spectators. My first thought was the excruciatingly painful contrast of the dates 63 years ago-August 5th and 9th-when the "Nuclear Age" burst upon our world by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

The hand-waving, the smiles on every face, white, brown, black, red or any color in between, the overwhelming sense of unity and joy, not to mention wonder at the glorious spectacle spreading before our eyes, the elegant, colorful costumes, the precision of the dancers and performers, and the splendiferous finale!-that giant blessed world with the planets soaring above magically circling like friendly observers-all coalesced into the reality that, indeed, the world was one and peopled by us, the human race. Would "lucky" 8/8/08, inserted willfully by the Chinese government between those two dreadful moments, when 260,000 humans were obliterated in a gigantic flash of fire with radiation continuing its devastation for years thereafter, mitigate that human tragedy?

But then, here were Putin and Bush, Sarkozy and Hu Jintao, all with nuclear bombs at their fingertips, now powerful enough to obliterate the human race, ordinary spectators among the others applauding when their national teams entered the vast arena. Indeed, news of armed conflict between Georgia and Russia, and continuing alleged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan competed ironically with the worldly extravanganza opening via satellite before more then half the world's eyes.

"Wouldn't it be great to see our world flag being carried by that Olympic speed skater who tried to renounce his U.S. citizenship in Athens and declare himself a world citizen?" Robin remarked as tiny Naura marched by.

"Oh, you mean, Nathaniel Lincoln Mills,"* I replied. "Yes, we talked with him later about putting together a World Citizen Olympic team with him as the captain. He found the idea very timely and appealing. In the meantime, he agreed to fronting a World Sports Commission for the government. In fact, he told us, 'There's a phenomenon already of world-class athletes moving across national boundaries to compete in the Olympics. Take Maria Mutola, for instance. She's a middle-distance runner from Mozambique who's on the U.S. team. She's won more than a dozen championship titles. Then there's Bernard Lagat, born in Kenya, a world-class runner for the U.S. who won Olympic medals for Kenya in Athens and Sydney. The U.S. team here, 596 members, includes three dozen foreign-born athletes including British rower Jen Goldsack. Then Becky Hammon joined Russia's 2008 Olympic basketball team after she didn't make the U.S. squad. And Qatar, which wants to host the 2016 games, has gathered the Somali runner Mohammed Suleiman who finished third in the 1,500 meters, and Angel Popov, a Bulgarian weightlifter who won a bronze in 2000. You see, a sort of globalisation is beginning to invade the Olympics despite the nationalistic fervor.'"

"And high time too!" we both agreed.

As we continued to watch the elaborate and inspiring show, my mind's eye returned to the Olympic's beginnings in 776 BC in Greece. They were celebrated until AD 393, in short, for 1169 years. According to Wikipedia, interest in their revival was first shown by the Greek poet and newspaper editor Panagiotta Soutsos in 1833. But the first modern international Olympic festival didn't happen until 1859 sponsored by Evengerios Zappas when nation-states were in their infancy in response to feudalism. The Olympic motto from its beginnings-Citius, Altius, Fortius-Faster, Higher, Stronger-obviously applied directly to the athletes' prowess, not to their political allegiance or where they were born on the planet.

They were humans. That was sufficient. Indeed the Olympic Charter is clear on that point: "The goal of Olympism is to place sport in the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

The bottom line was expressed by one Sharon Andrews in response to a Christian Science Monitor story on August 4 by Crista Case Bryant and Danna Harman entitled Now more than ever, Olympic teams go multinational.

"I found this a fascinating story-a background piece so typical of the Monitor in its depth. As world-class athletes move across national boundaries to compete, we will not only see the true meaning of world class, but will also see the emergence of a world citizenry that can become ambassadors for peace, as the athletes learn to love and appreciate multiple cultures and nationalities: Bravo!"

My (and Robin's and Nathaniel's) sentiments precisely.

Now, about that nuclear Damocle's sword hanging by 8 nationalistic threads above our heads....

*See: www.OlympismProject.org

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

A Conference on Dignity/Humiliation Missed

"The desire for recognition unites us human beings."
(Dr. Evelin Lindner, Making Enemies, Praeger Security International, 1954)

Henrik Arnold Wergeland was a renowned Norwegian poet and prose writer who worked against discrimination. The Minister of Culture in Norway, Trond Giske, as part of the Wergeland Heritage,has announced 2008 as the "Year of Diversity" in Norway. "This vision is relevant for a number of cooperation partners in Norway," he added, "such as the Oslo University, International Summer School, the Nobel Institute, the Peace Research Institute of Norway, the Oslo University and the Nansen Academy".

As I write, in celebration of the "Wergeland Year," the 11th Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies is taking place in Oslo, Norway coordinated by its founder/director Dr. Evelin Lindner. As a member of the Conference, I was invited by Dr. Lindner who graciously wrote, "We appreciate highly your willingness to contribute to our workshop. Your participation is of extreme importance to our meeting and we are certain that your contribution will have important reverberations not only for your work, but also have fruitful impact in your wider field."

Anticipating a problem on obtaining a Norwegian 15-day visitor's visa on my World Passport, I wrote to King Harald V on April 23, 2008:

King Harald V
Det Kgl, Slott
N 0010 Oslo 1
Norway

Your Majesty,

I write to inform you of my proposed visit to Norway, at the invitation* of Dr. Evelin Lindner, founder/coordinator, to attend the 11th Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies to be held in Oslo beginning 23rd June as part of the "Wergeland Year for Human Dignity." (I enclose my talk at the 2007 Workshop at Columbia University).

Prior to my request for the requisite visitor's visa, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, I take the liberty to quote a personal bio penned by Dr. Lindner to fellow participants:

"(Garry Davis) is a former US Presidential Candidate, and peace activist who created the first 'World Passport.' A former World War II bomber pilot and Broadway actor, he renounced his American citizenship in Paris in 1948 to become a 'citizen of the world.' Davis founded the World Service Authority, which now issues the passports-along with birth and other certificates-to applicants. Davis first used his 'world passport' on a trip to India in 1956, and has been variably admitted into...countries around the world after using his world passport. Up to 150 countries have accepted the world passport at one time or another. In France, his support committee was co-founded by writers Albert Camus and Andre Gide and the Abbe Pierre (quoted from wikipedia)".

The World Passport above-mentioned derives from an article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations December 10, 1948: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." The Charter further obliges Member-States to "Observe and respect fundamental human rights.." in articles 55/56.

I attach a partial list of "Honorary World Passport" holders among whom you will find eight Nobel Peace Laureates. Apropos, a group of "Global Elders" chaired by Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela and including Jimmy Carter, Muhammad Yunus, Aung San Suu Kyi and Kofi Annan, initiated by Sir Richard Branson and human rights activist Peter Gabriel, have launched a human rights campaign "to empower global citizens to protect the first ever comprehensive agreement on human rights among nations."

"Human rights are not a privilege," the Group claimed, "They are everyone's entitlement..So as we approach the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Rights, we now have the opportunity to enforce the Declaration's principles assuring that every single woman and every single child enjoys the rights of all human beings."

I am reminded that the Norwegian Constitution in Article 110c provides that "It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to respect and ensure human rights. Specific provisions for the implementation of treaties hereof shall be determined by law."
I have the honor and pleasure to enclose my book, World Government, Ready or Not!

Please accept, Your Majesty, the expression of my most cordial and respectful one world regards,

Etc."

On May 4th, upon presenting myself at the Norwegian Consulate in Washington, D.C., I was refused a visa on the basis that Norway "does not recognize the World Passport as a valid travel document." Ditto for the Swedish consulate the next day. (I mentioned to the Swedish Secretary that, following the Peenemunde raid on August 24, 1944, I was interned in Sweden along with my B-17 crew.)

The irony of this refusal is implicit in the following points re the evolution of the World Passport itself:

First point: The WSA World Passport is the only successor to the Nansen Passport, created by Norway's Fritjof Nansen in 1919 following the Soviet revolution in 1917 when tens of thousands of so-called "White Russians" had to flee to Europe to escape death from the Communists. Nansen was Norway's delegate to the League of Nations and both a humanitarian and explorer. He was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1922 for this action.
Second point: When World War II began in 1939, the League was disbanded and the Nansen Passport Office closed never to reopen. But the refugee population proliferated following the war.
Third point: The UN itself did not authorize the reestablishment of a passport agency for the world refugee population now in the millions. (The UNHCR does not issue passports to refugees).
Fourth point: A treaty was finally signed in 1956 by certain nations authorizing them to issue a "Refugee Travel Document" to individuals to whom they arbitrarily assigned refugee status. Millions of refugees were excluded and remain today either in camps or in prisons. (UNHCR "official" figures: over 20,000,000).
Fifth point, Following the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948, as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations," the World Service Authority was founded in 1953 to promote and service articles sanctioned by the declaration, specifically article 13(2), the right of freedom of travel. Thus the first World Passports were issued as of July, 1954.
Sixth point: To date, over 750,000 World Passports have been issued on public demand with both de facto and de jure recognition from over 150 nations, including Norway.*
*See www.worldservice.org/visas.html The World Passport is filed with the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.

(Note to Norwegian and Swedish citizens: Both King Harald V and King Carl Gustav XVI have since been "issued" honorary World Passports which acceptance has been duly acknowledged via return postage. While King Gustav acknowledged the accompanying letter, King Harald has not yet deigned to reply. It should be noted that while neither king enjoys executive power according to their constitutions, one of the most globally-publicized functions of both is to present the yearly Nobel Laureate prizes to the self-declared "world citizens" selected by the Nobel Committees whether for "peace" or other world community accomplishments).

It also goes without saying that the participants of the Conference on Human Dignity and Humiliation did not travel to Norway identified solely by World Passports.

(Additional footnote and final irony: Norway has given refuge to a certain number of Iraqi refugees who fled from the ongoing conflict in their country. Recently the World Service Authority has been receiving World Passport application forms from them downloaded from its internet web site-www.worldservice.org).

Personal afterthought: (Posted 7.1.08) While the conferencees in Oslo have a humiliation case at their intellectual and actual doorstep as it were, this particular issue herein described is minor compared to critical issues of humiliation worldwide such as nuclear weaponry, global warming, male-female relationships, homelessness, poverty, rival tribalism and war, etc. etc. Then the question of who is being humiliated and who is humiliating is complex with many levels. Are we, who take human rights seriously attempting to claim them being humiliated by national "leaders" and their underlings who defend the fictional frontier world or are they in turn being humiliated by their own affiliation with, say, the United Nations which in principle provides the very human rights agenda for we, the citizens of the world?

At least, Dr. Evelin Lindner and her coterie of globally-minded intellectuals have opened this critically-important and dynamic discussion. More power to them!

A Serious Proposal To Hillary Rodham Clinton

First of all, Mrs. Clinton, let's face it; you don't really want to be the Vice-President of the United States. It's a puppet position and it's just not you. Sitting in the chair of the Senate and banging the gavel from time to time like you were accomplishing something important is not your cup 'a tea. No, Hillary, you are too important for that wimp job. In fact, ever since Bill became prez, you became a world voice, a molder of public opinion far beyond America's frontiers. The present campaign reinforced that global image.

There is another and far more compelling role for you to play in these historic times.

And that takes us back to WWI when the women's movements against war and for world government began.
But almost daily we hear news of women everywhere agitating against war, against poverty, against global warming, and etc. Some are in national power; some are in international movements such as "The Council of Women World Leaders" and "Peace X Peace," "Code Pink," "Connecting Women for Peace." And WILPF. Some are Nobel Peace Laureates. The women of the world are beginning to wake up not only to their global unity and responsibilities but to their giant and invincible power vis-a-vis the threats to humanity itself. Surely you, Hillary Clinton, know many of them yourself.

They are where the real action is!

Hillary Clinton, history is calling upon you to join the world's peacemakers, especially pioneers such as Jane Adams, Rosika Schwimmer and Lola Lloyd. Pioneers who had the passion, foresight and enormous drive to change their world against the madness of war and destruction to one of justice, freedom and peace under law.

Eleanor Roosevelt is a prime example of the woman's role in world politics. Leading the US delegation to the United Nations from 1945 to 1948, she chaired the Committee commissioned to define and proclaim the Universal Declaration of Human Rights now arriving at its 60th anniversary December 10th.

It was a mandate for the legitimatization of world citizenship for all humans on planet earth.

Let's face it, Hillary Clinton, a United States president alone cannot solve global problems however intelligent, earnest, patriotic and willful he is. The administrative level just doesn't cut it in the 21st century when the problems we all face are global.

That first day in the Oval office, Barack (or John) will suddenly be faced with an anarchic world community in which his commander-in-chief hat will be useless. His political tool, the US Constitution, simply doesn't provide for world peace as part of his executive power.

Hillary Clinton, if you want to be truly powerful, you must "go global!" You must "represent" the entire world community.

How?

You are a politician. How can your immense talents, experience and wisdom in that profession be applied to the issue of world peace?

In your best-selling book you wrote: "Let us build a village worthy of our children" and you said: "Children have many lessons to share with us-lessons about what they need, what makes them happy, how they view the world. If we listen, we'll be able to hear them."

So what do the children say? 30,000 students at the City Montesssori School in Lucknow, India have called for a "world parliament" in order to legislate world laws to outlaw war. You can read their appeal at: http://www.cmseducation.org/article51/children_appeal.htm

The notion of a world parliament is an ancient idea first proposed by the Greeks. Wise men and women throughout the centuries have enthusiastically endorsed the idea. But our highly technical world, for the first time in our human history, possesses the instant communication methods to actually realize it. Indeed, the world citizen constituency already exists. Then the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures." (Article 21.3) Article 28 provides that "Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized."

The moment for this MAJOR HISTORIC CHANGE IS AT HAND! We, the citizens of the world, have already claimed our sovereign will for world peace through law.

Hillary Clinton, we need your wisdom, encouragement and ACTIVE support WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF YOUR CHOSEN PROFESSION. Indeed, what mission is more important for those whose very destiny is to lead humankind other than world peace?

Therefore, we, the citizens of the world government founded September 4, 1953, enjoin you to declare yourself a candidate for a WORLD PARLIAMENT-to be.

How can you declare yourself a candidate for something which does not yet exist?
Back in the early 1970's Willie Brandt, when Chancellor of West Germany and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, made an announcement that he's a "candidate" for a "European Parliament." Everybody was shocked, has he gone mad? There is no European Parliament journalists reminded him. "Don't you think I know that?" he replied. Willie Brandt tosses his hat into a political ring which does not exist-no machinery for it. It implies that citizens can vote beyond their nation? Heresy! This upsets the whole business of national sovereignty and yet Willie Brandt is imagining it! Five year later all the citizens of the Common Market are voting for direct representatives to the European Parliament! Willie Brandt's courage in stepping out and saying 'I am a candidate' for something that does not exist signaled a political milestone which finally lead to the creation of a European Parliament!

Einstein reminded us that "imagination is more important than intelligence."

On November 22, 1948, with friends, this writer interrupted a session of the General Assembly in Paris calling upon the UN to establish "one government for one world."

In her column, My Day, on December 15, 1948, five days following the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, US delegate and Committee Chairperson Eleanor Roosevelt wrote the following:

"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."

Seven years later we did just that. (See www.worldgovernment.org)

Einstein ended his incredible life with these words: "We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest."

Hillary Rodman Clinton, remember your humanity, and forget the rest.

I Interview Sleep

Me: You've been in the news recently and there seems to be some confusion as to how some of us humans can find you once we close our eyes. Lots of scientists have been researching you, getting people's brains all wired up and bodies filled with goodnight pills, etc. Then there's the question of how many hours humans should, uh, invade you. Mind a few questions?

Sleep: (Yawning) Go right ahead, that is, if I don't have to wake up.

Me: Don't worry. I'll be quiet. First, what actually happens to us humans when we're in you?

Sleep: What you've got to understand right off is that you all spend about one-third of your life in me. That's a big hunk of living. Or rather, out of your wakeup world.

Me: Yes, we know all that. That's precisely the reason we need some clear answers from you. For instance, just where is it we go when we're in you?

Sleep: Go? There's no going anywhere. You're right there where you plopped down. It's awareness that skips town. Goes back into the Big Pool, what you humans call "god."

Me: Now wait a minute. You mean when we're in you, we become God?

Sleep: Whoa! Not you per se. You remain just a big blob of flesh and bones filled with water. But you're still breathing. Heart beating, blood flowing, etc. In short, alive but unconscious. You see, I've got to get rid of your brain waves, where you store your phony "identities" and such, in order that the water, which is about 70 per cent of you, is able to accept a new supply of energy.

Me: Do you mean to say that we get filled with energy when we're in you?

Sleep: Yeah, something like that. But, it's not that simple. You see, energy's got to come from somewhere outside your body. But it just can't enter, kerplop! Like a baseball And suddenly it's inside the glove. There's gotta be a medium through which it can pass.

Me: Wow! This is getting complicated. But where does the energy come from and what is the medium by which it enters the body?

Sleep: I really find it amazing that you humans in thousands of years haven't yet cottoned onto the fact that the whole universe is full of energy.

Me: Well, some of us have. Einstein, for example, and Bucky Fuller who claimed it was 'synergy' and a Swiss named Theodor Schwenk who proved that water had inter-surfaces which stored energy.

Sleep: There you go! And it's those very inter-surfaces which contain the energy which flows into you-the human battery-when you're in what your scientists call 'deep sleep.' Why do you think all of you are 70% water? Energy can't enter solid bone. But nothing happens when you're just dreamin'. That's only your brain having a bit a fun with you. You gotta be out cold, blotto.

Me: But you mentioned a 'medium.' So what is that?

Sleep: Well, you might not believe it, and a lot of you will surely deny it-but you're not just a bundle of bones and muscle and national citizens. That's just the outer shell. Or say, the lowest framework or skeleton. You've got what some of you call an 'astral' or 'subtle' body. Some of you have called it a 'karmic' or 'Buddhic' body. It's like an outer shell, mistylike, but invisible.

Me: Hey, I've read something about that. Sort of explains ghosts and stuff. But so what happens to that 'body' when we're in you?

Sleep: Well that subtle or etheric body has to separate from the physical body in order to receive the cosmic energy from outside. It stays linked up like a tube but it's able to sort of drink in energy like a sponge. How do you think you can function the next day without a new supply of energy? Incidentally, when the physical body is kaput, the astral goes out through the tube. But that's another story.

Me: What a marvelous system! And just think all of us humans go through the same process every night throughout our whole life..

Sleep: Yep. But you sure don't act like it during the day. The minute you come out of me and awareness pops back in, you screw it all up for about sixteen hours until you have to enter me again.

Me: How do you mean, 'screw it up'?

Sleep: You go crazy with phony identities, political, religious, cultural. The works. Especially you men. Look at your world: wars, phony frontiers, destroying the planet with carbon, etc. Most of you haven't even discovered the obvious fact that you're one species yet. You still think in national tribal terms. Goes back to the ancient days. When two human tribes met, say, separated by a mountain or a sea, they either fought or merged. If they merged, it was probably because the chiefs figured that one plus one equals three, a peaceful society itself being the added digit.

Me: So what is your advice to our race today in order to become a single world society.

Sleep: Simple. Everything's been arranged already, that is, cosmically. First, get a good night's me. And when you wake up, and awareness-which incidentally, is global itself, comes flooding back, use the cosmic energy you've been given freely to thank Whomever it is always catering to your basic needs on earth. Hey, I've got my own job to do and I have to perform every night not only for you humans but for billions of other living beings throughout the cosmos. The least you could do is recognize you're all really just a bunch of big batteries which run down every day no matter who you claim you are when you're awake. In short, drop the pretense-kings and commoners, etc. and ignorance you're anything but human organisms living on one rather insignificant planet among billions. Otherwise, someday you'll all be permanently in me 24/7. Your kids dig this better than you elders. For their sake, wise up,

Me: Whew! Thanks a mil. I'll try to get the message out.

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

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.