We stand at a crux in our moral and political development as a species.
Faced with economic uncertainty, environmental catastrophes, uncontrollable population increases, epidemics of infectious diseases and a proliferation of terrorist attacks and regional conflicts, we find ourselves and our governmental entities unable to devise strategies to resolve these problems which confront us—both personally, and globally.
The forces of nationalism and isolationism rear their ugly heads. Crime and hopelessness claim our inner cities. The economic disparity between rich and poor widens as class struggles pull us further apart.
Our governmental leaders are viewed as self-serving hypocrites, their votes sold to the highest bidder as they willing do, or say, anything to get themselves re-elected. Will they be our salvation?
We are at a crossroad. Do we remain on our current path, spiraling downwards towards the eventual and inevitable collapse of civilization, or do we take the steps necessary to insure our survival as a species?
THE CHOICE IS OURS TO MAKE!
So what are we going to do?
It’s the question we ask when we see the disillusion and confusion in the eyes of our children; when we can’t understand why they turn to drugs trying to escape the reality of a world where the probability of a safe, sane and secure future is non-existent. It’s the question we ask as we see the faces of famine staring out at us on the nightly news; when we view the victims of the violence which pervades our society.
What are we going to do? People everywhere are asking this same question and feeling a similar sense of frustration at our inability to resolve the monumental problems which face us.
Resentment abounds at the failure of our governmental institutions to provide a climate in which all of us can flourish, a society where all are free to live without fear in a world where everyone has the opportunity to see their friends and family prosper in a sane and rational environment.
It is time for a new beginning, for a new philosophy that can achieve these universal objectives—time to cast ourselves free from the shackles of the unworkable systems which have mired us in the morass of war and poverty, of starvation and sickness and the desperate acts of destitute people throughout the world—the culmination of which can only lead to the utter devastation of this planet we all call home.
Parts of our World have recently awakened from the numbing effects of totalitarian oppression. The cry of freedom rang out: The Philippines, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Central America, and today, North Africa and the Middle East—people took to the streets willing to confront the corrupt and repressive regimes which bound them. They demanded change and a better way of life.
Old alliances crumbled as the philosophies that bound them together bowed before the winds of change. All were destined to fall—sooner or later, under control or out of control—they toppled from the sheer weight of their inefficiency and the irresistible power of their unhappy populations.
Our worry is that the next regime to fail will take the rest of us with them when they go!
History is predominantly a record of the evolution of our tribal disputes. We have expanded from shaggy groups of nomadic hunters to the ultimate reflection of our tribal heritage—the current slate of our Nation-States.
Our world is certainly a more sophisticated one then that of our ancestors. The choices we must make are no longer as black and white as they once were, nor as limited in their consequences. Our tribal disputes have grown deadlier—the stakes the very existence of humanity.
This is the tumultuous state of our world today. We blunder on in confusion, chaos and consternation, wondering who we are and where we’re going. Looking for answers to the problems that plague us, we search for a way out of this quagmire and a path that will lead us to a just, sane and rational world.
What I do today affects you tomorrow. Isolation is a thing of the past. Nothing is hidden from the scrutiny of the rest of the world and your business is now my business. What goes on here has repercussions there. Our world has become a very small place. There is nowhere which can escape being affected by the actions of others.
And therein lies our problem. We have failed to recognize that we are all, ultimately, members of one vast tribe—HUMANITY! Sharing a single speck of dust in a cold dark ocean of space—in a nothingness so vast it is impossible for us to imagine—WE ARE ALL THAT WE HAVE–EACH OTHER!
Unfortunately though, as complex as our world is today we still deal with each other in terms of our ancestral tribal mentality. It pits us against them, we verses they and I over you. We’re so locked into this fear of others, this legacy of our tribal past, that we border on the brink of self-annihilation. We’ve inherited from our ancestors a chaotic world straining under the burden of having to deal with social, political and technological problems beyond the ability of our antiquated governmental systems to answer.
So, what CAN we do?
First, we must recognize and accept the fact that we’re all in this together; us versus them is no longer valid. We are all one, independent members of a single species, singular parts of a whole—Humanity! We may not like each other, we may hold different views and adhere to diametrically opposed philosophies, but underneath all the dogma is a singular underlying truth—WE ARE ALL ONE!
“I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together.” Familiar words from and old song, but the message is one we need today—WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER! We cannot look at life through that narrow tribal viewpoint any longer, we can’t afford to—our very existence depends on us discarding it. No longer can it be East versus West, North versus South or me versus you. The competition between nations for land, for food , for power has imperiled the survival of our species. We stand on the brink.
The governmental systems operating throughout the world today are the haphazard results of the random evolutionary growth of humanity, inherited by us through no rational pattern or premeditated forethought. We are trying to deal with the basic survival of our species within a system which can’t possible cope.
The established “powers that be” have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo—to do otherwise would be, for them, political suicide. We’re locked into a spiral of nationalistic competition which is strangling us all; arms, economics, even food and water are the weapons we use to attack our neighbors.
We view others with mistrust and suspicion, fearful of their motives and aims, when all the while failing to see a universal truth—WE ALL ESSENTIALLY WANT THE SAME THINGS OUT OF LIFE!
Yes, we may want them to different degrees, and our wants are relative to our particular individual situations, but most of us only want our fair share. Most of us do not seek advantage over others—rather we search for what little peace and harmony we can find in the troubled world around us—most of us simply want a chance!
Certain inalienable rights exist for everyone on this planet and until they can be guaranteed to all we shall never be free from war and the cries of the oppressed. These rights are fundamental to the health, safety and well-being of all Humanity and they are neither up for sale to the wealthy nor the exclusive province of the chosen few—they are a God-given bounty to us all.
Every man, woman and child, as citizens of Planet Earth, has the fundamental right to adequate food and shelter; to sufficient health care, educational and employment opportunities in order to insure a chance at a productive life; the right to elective representation and the freedom to choose who to be and where to be it, provided it doesn’t infringe upon the rights of others.
We all have the right to grow and prosper in peace and until EVERYONE enjoys these inherent rights our world will never be free from the yoke of war, terrorism, violence and fear.
With no rational, universal economic policies we are all held hostage by the irrational and capricious nature of the many financial markets and fluctuating currency values. With the impetus of our inbred hostility and mistrust we exhaust our national treasuries in the name of defense. With our hands tied by arbitrary and unnatural borders, and our distribution systems controlled by the forces of profit and greed, we watch helplessly as some of us starve to death while others die of over-indulgence. Competition rules rather than compassion.
The momentum of our past rolls on. Unimpeded by logic or rationality we are trapped by a system that cannot, and will not, change under its own volition. Our leaders, burdened by restrictions placed upon them by our archaic notions of national sovereignty, grapple with issues which they are fundamentally unable to answer. Our fences may keep you out—but they also keep us in.
So what ARE we going to do?
How can we reconcile our vast differences: the disparity in the distribution of wealth and resources, the myriad forms of political ideologies, and the gulf between those who have, and them that wants, to the satisfaction of all?
Once we accept the reality of our shared humanity and begin to understand that OUR SALVATION LIES WITHIN OURSELVES, WORKING TOGETHER, FOR EACH OTHER AND THE GOOD OF ALL MANKIND, we can take the next step. With the knowledge that we’ve only ourselves to look to in the quest for world peace, can we then move forward.
The underlying cause of most regional conflicts can be directly attributed to an overwhelming feeling of disenfranchise by the aggrieved parties. Without adequate means of redress and lacking effective control of their perceived destinies, people invariably turn to violence as the last resort to achieve the ends they so fervently desire; sometimes those ends are justified—sometimes they are not—but without the means to peacefully alter their situations chaos is inevitable.
The time has come for a new beginning, a new world order. We must cast ourselves free from the tribal attitudes of our evolutionary past and create a world in which the rights of all will be cherished and protected. It’s time for logic and sanity to reign in place of fear and dread. Our world has outgrown the haphazard and counter-productive conglomeration of antagonistic nation-states which, through greed, paranoia and the unchecked lusting for power have driven us to the brink of self-annihilation.
FELLOW CITIZENS OF PLANET EARTH—THE TIME HAS COME FOR A RATIONAL, UNIFIED, REPRESENTATIVE WORLD GOVERNMENT!
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