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WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD GOVERNMENT

 

MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE

MIDDLEBURY, VT

JANUARY 19, 1987

 

Reverend Walsh, members of the Armadillos, the Environmental Quality Club, the International Students Organization, students and faculty, honored guests, also, co-citizens of planet earth, fellow members of an endangered species, our human family

I am delighted and honored to be among you.

To speak to you in this beautiful chapel is both inspiring and humbling. For me, it symbolizes all of God's earthly houses be they churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, or whatever place of worship throughout the world where we humans gather to contemplate the oneness and wholeness of the divine order and our place in it.

The setting indeed provides the appropriate background for our topic this evening: world peace through world government.

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

How appropriate too is the date, January 19, commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and work.

Only when rereading his speeches last week did I realize what constituted one of Dr. King's principal strengths. Besides acknowledging God and love and non-violence in all his words and actions, there was another affirmation which began to slowly reveal itself to me and which seemed to become stronger as he approached his tragic and untimely death.

LOVE FOR HUMANITY

Like all great teachers, he finally allied himself with love not only for his single fellowman but love for humanity itself, not as an abstraction or a romantic fiction, but as a dynamic reality, as an entity distinct in itself, a whole greater than its parts...and a humanity in mortal danger.

For instance, in speaking of the things he wanted others to say at his funeral in a sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, February 4, 1968, two months before his assassination, he told the congregation, "I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity."

And when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on December 10, 1964, he reaffirmed his belief "that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed..."

In that acceptance and love of humanity, Dr. King was a true citizen of the world and a role model which we can only humbly emulate.

HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD COURSE

Now in preparing for this talk, following my usual custom, I carefully checked out your college curriculum to find the course on how to save the world. Imagine my surprise when I found it not. With all due respect to the planners of your academic education, I find this a grave if common omission.

Happily, I am here to at least partially rectify this deficiency.

Besides, though I possess no formal academic degree, I do have unique credentials for this task. Besides being an active World Citizen for almost 40 years, I have recently been appointed dean of a school of world law of the East-West University founded by Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati of Travancore, South India. As such, I will consider your attendance at this lecture as a partial credit when and if you matriculate at the new school...to be founded.

So please consider this World Government 1. There will be no written exam after this lecture.

A CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT, WORLD PEACE

We are dealing here, of course, with a grave and momentous subject, that of world peace...and highly controversial. Because it is a subject which involves everyone on earth. You can appreciate that in the short time allotted me tonight, I can only introduce the main elements and no doubt raise many questions and certainly controversy. That's to be expected and I welcome it. I understand a short period will be allotted for questions.

FOUR PARTS

Let us break the subject down into four parts: first, the idea of world government. How is it normally and wrongfully conceived and a new and radical definition; second, given the new concept, its actual founding in 1953 and what led up to it; third, the actual practice of world government on a daily basis; and fourth, its future and your part with it.

MOON TRIP WITH E.T.

But first, to get in the mood, let's take an imaginary trip to the first moon landing with Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. While joyfully practicing super high jumps over the dunes, let us pretend they notice a mild-looking alien waddling toward them. Having seen the movie "E.T.," they would not be overly surprised.

E.T. would ask them - by means, of course, of his intergalactic Language Synthesizer - "Hey, where do you weird-looking creatures hail from?"

Well, Aldrin was born in Montclair, New Jersey, and Armstrong in Watakoneta, Ohio. But that information wouldn't have meant very much to E.T. Given the circumstances, their answer would have to meet the new parameters posed by E.T.'s off-planet-earth existence.

"Well, that's home." Aldrin would have to say pointing to the small blue globe on the horizon.

"Nice. Nice. A beautiful sight." E.T. would reply. "You guys are lucky. I haven't seen that much H2O in many star systems. I think I'll drop in, or rather on, while I'm in the neighborhood. Please, where is your world's capital city? And who is your leader?

And that would be that. No more conversation. Because if the two astronauts ever revealed that they came from a race that not only had no central government but was contrarily preparing to blow itself up, they would be confessing their own insanity as well as that of their species.

Further, they would be admitting that the human race in its social idiocy yet technical prowess was a deadly menace to other species not only on he planet they shared but potentially to those inhabiting other star systems.

From E.T.'s viewpoint, the human race would be like a plague to be quarantined by the Inter-Galactic Federation Space Patrol.

IS THE HUMAN RACE A PLAGUE?

Well, is the human race a plague? Let me answer that in my own way.

If I were elected the first president of the World Government, say in the year 2000, and obliged to deliver a "State of the World" address to the newly elected world parliament and to my fellow citizens of the world, I would recall that since 1900, nations had fought 207 wars in which 79 million people were killed, a 500 percent increase over the 19th century, that the first major event signaling the breakdown of the nation state system - a carryover from the 18th century - was in 1914 when the first world war broke out, the second in 1939 with WWII, then 75 wars, big and small, continuing from that ominous date.

THE WAR GAME CONTINUES WHILE HUMANS STARVE

I would point out that in 1987, over 50,000 nuclear weapons, over 16,000 million tons of explosive power - measured in TNT - appropriately called "overkill," were available to the two largest nations, the United States and the Soviet Union, that the lead-time between launch and target had been reduced to about 15 minutes and that 42 national governments were spending over $900 billion in weapons while 24,000 humans, many of them children, died of starvation daily, 500 million faced famine and over half the human race went to bed hungry every night.

TERRORISM IS NATIONAL FOREIGN POLICY

I would recall the nationalistic foreign policy credo of that day: deterrence, or mutual assured destruction, that coincident with the nuclear age beginning in 1945, international terrorism was thereby institutionalized by the governing system. Humanity itself became its innocent victim.

I would remind the world citizenry that in that same year 40 major and minor conflicts were raging involving 45 of the world's 164 nations, that 4 million soldiers were directly engaged, and that the refugee population from wars numbered over 20 million and was growing exponentially.

WORLD ECONOMY IN VIRTUAL COLLAPSE

Further, I would review the catastrophic economic world scene of that era with over a hundred currencies vying for recognition, each one in competition with all the others, with 15 per cent worldwide inflation where the poorest 30 per cent of the human population owned 3 percent of the income while the top 20 per cent owned 66 per cent, where giant and flagrant disparities between wealth and poverty existed, where the homeless were increasing geometrically and where many had turned to terrorism in their despair.

I would mention the increase in drug use, especially among the young, always a symptom of a sick, even dying social environment.

ECOLOGICAL DISASTER

I would talk of the increasing deforestation and desertification of vast once-fertile lands of that near-past, the yearly destruction of vast rain forests the size of Switzerland, of water, soil and air pollution due to toxic wastes and of the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and acid rain from industrial poisoning the world's lakes and killing precious trees along with the depletion of the ozone layer in the biosphere and the mortal radioactive pollution of plutonium which became and still is a major problem for hundreds of future generations.

NATIONAL POLITICIANS STUCK

And lastly, I would recall the deadly myopia and reluctance of the national political world to consider the formation of a world government in spite of the almost imminent possibility of nuclear holocaust.

WORLD CITIZENS REBEL

But then I would recount how desperate and angry citizens everywhere began to rebel against the insanity of the nation state system, how they finally awakened to the fundamental unity and wholeness of their human community, how we finally realized that an injustice against one was an injustice against all, that freedom and hunger were allies, that humanity itself was no longer a myth but a reality to which we all belonged intimately, but a reality in deadly danger.

WORLD CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

I would cite the world constitutional convention of 1995 where elected world delegates gathered to hammer out the world constitution by which we are now governed. How war was thus outlawed by laws enacted by the world parliament and disarmament became a reality under the surveillance of the Sovereign Order of World Guards, a corps of retired generals and admirals. How the world's resources and the scientists, engineers, technicians and tool designers were gradually transferred from the insanity of weaponry to the business of livingry, as Buckminster Fuller put it.

In short, how world peace finally came to humanity and to all humans.

That would be my answer as to whether the human race is a plague. By taking thought and acting on it, we had eliminated the disease of disunity, whose latest outbreak was nationalism.

The year 2000 is only thirteen years away. Can this prophecy become a reality? That depends strictly on you and me.

PART 1: THE IDEA OF WORLD GOVERNMENT

Let's now consider part 1. The idea of World Government.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Albert Einstein, in 1946, wrote that "a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels...Today the atomic bomb 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."

"Our defense," he concludes, "is in law and order."

THE THIRD WAVE

Alvin Toffler, in his seminal best-seller, The Third Wave, writes that "all the political parties of the industrial world, all our congresses, parliaments and supreme soviets, our presidents and prime ministerships, our courts and our regulatory agencies, and our layer upon geological layer of governmental bureaucracy - in short all the tools we use to make and enforce collective decisions - are obsolete and about to be transformed." He claims that "Just as the revolutionaries who created the industrial age couldn't govern with the leftover apparatus of feudalism, so today we are faced once more with the need to invent new political tools."

PEACE IS STRUCTURE

What Einstein, Toffler, Emery Reves, who wrote The Anatomy of Peace, Mahatma Gandhi, Douglas MacArthur, Rosika Schwimmer, E.B. White, and all others advocating world government imply is that peace is the result of established order, political structure and not simply a word standing alone.

So what's the problem? What prevents its immediate establishment?

WORLD GOVERNMENT QUICK FIX

It has often been said that the quick fix to world government would be if our planet earth were invaded by E.T.s from outer space.

The hot line between the Soviet Union and the United States would not only be permanently busy but the entire world's communication facilities as well as all its resources would be harnessed for the common defense to help repel the invaders.

A sort of provisional world government would be formed literally overnight by the nation states.

It would be a world government, however, based on fear and its ally, exclusive self-interest rather than on wisdom and enlightened cooperation.

Once the enemy was repelled, the raison d'etre for the world government would no longer prevail. The former national animosities would reassert themselves perhaps more virulently than before.

ALIENS ALREADY HERE: NATIONALISTS

Well, we don't need an invasion from outer space to realize world government here on the home planet. There is a much simpler and direct way which I will explain in a moment. Besides, we have already been invaded...from within. The aliens are already amongst us. They are called nationalists. And they are the true enemies of humanity.

NATION-STATE ETERNAL, ABSOLUTE, IRREPLACEABLE

This may seem simplistic at first sight but we are taught, almost from the cradle, that the nation-state is the highest political organization form of which the human mind is capable. Just think. Don't you believe that America is eternal, absolute, and irreplaceable? Well, so does the Englishman, the Frenchman, the Russian, the Indian and so on about their nations. So did the Babylonians and Carthaginians.

Of course, the very opposite is starkly revealed not only in the history books but in every daily newspaper; that the nation-state system is surreal, fictional, impermanent, anachronistic and, in today's nuclear age, suicidal.

NATION-STATE BREAKING DOWN

Furthermore, the nation is breaking up into smaller and smaller social units. In 1945 when the United Nations was formed, only 55 nations existed. Today, a short 42 years later, 164 exist - not including the micro-states - each claiming full sovereignty over the humans born on their part of the planetary turf. Myriad ethnic groups throughout the world are clamoring and rebelling against the nation which they claim strangles them. Their illusory cry for independence and freedom is in reality a sign of the break-up of the nation-state system itself.

WORLD GOVERNMENT, EXTENSION OF NATION-STATE

You have often heard it said, for instance, that nation-states must give up sovereignty to a world government for it to be formed, that the price of world order is national sovereignty. In other words, world government has normally been thought of as an extension of the nation-state. That is a totally wrong interpretation of government itself and its founding. National sovereignty is merely a fiction of the past that we, in our ignorance, cling to as children cling to their old toys. It is totally dependent on our exclusive allegiance to it.

The ultimate sovereign on planet earth is humanity itself...We, the People.

THE TRUTH IS, NATIONS-STATES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EITHER THE FOUNDING OF WORLD GOVERNMENT OR INDEED ITS FUNCTIONING.

WE RESIST AND OPPOSE WG

But since we credit nation-states as being both the impediment and the initiators of world government, and since nation-states are per se in competition with each other, we, in our almost hypnotic allegiance to the national system, permanently resist and even oppose the notion of world government's establishment. This in spite of our fear of a nuclear holocaust caused ironically by national competition itself in an anarchic world.

FEAR OF "BIG BROTHER"

Added to that national veto on world government is the popular fear of a supra-national government which would centralize and monopolize violence in the name of the common good. Where could we go in case of global tyranny? asks the sceptic. What happens to freedom if a world government takes over? This "Big Brother" fear further closes the mind to reason permitting rejection of the very concept of a just and democratic global authority.

Ask 100 people who claim to want peace if at the same time they desire a world government and 99 will say no. Ask an active pacifist what his politics are and 9 times out of 10, he will clam to be an anarchist.

US AND USSR COLLUDE

In the Security Council of the U.N. both the Soviet Union and the United States collude in preventing any change whatsoever in the Charter which would negate their veto privileges or their war option.

In other words, both nations condone and perpetuate world anarchy.

At Reyjavik, President Reagan and First Secretary Gorbachev tacitly agreed not to discuss the elimination of war through world law but only the reduction of a few nuclear weapons. All heads of state in political fact collude in the war option as an integral part of their foreign policy. Globally speaking, they are all anarchists. If the Nuremberg Principles are accepted, they are all war criminals.

On the other hand, we must ask ourselves, if world government is the key to human survival on planet earth, if so many important persons, sages, philosophers, religious leaders, moralists, scientists, artists, statesmen, even politicians and just plain folk like us agree, what then prevents its immediate establishment before we all get blown away?

INDIVIDUALS CREATE GOVERNMENTS

I have already intimated the answer: governments can't create higher government. Only individuals can create governments, whether local or global. Yet in all the speeches about world government, in all the immense literature on the subject, nowhere will you find a reference to the single individual's role in its formation. Check it out in your library tomorrow. The omission is flagrant and revealing.

AND YET WE ARE STILL TAUGHT IN ALL OUR CLASSES OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OR HEAR AD NAUSEAM AT ALL POLITICAL RALLIES THAT ONLY THE INDIVIDUAL HAS THE POWER OF POLITICAL CHOICE.

But when it comes to global government, the red stop sign lights up. So insidious is the national conditioning that even to consider you or me as having a dynamic part to play in its formation is to risk the charge of crackpot, utopian or even crazy.

But, given our desperate need, that no longer matters. As U.S. citizens, the only question you must ask yourself today is whether the United States can protect you against World War III. If the answer is no, then you must help create the new political entity which can.

I am here to reaffirm tonight- and mind you, I'm in pretty good historic company - that government, in its essence, always begins with the individual.

In other words, world peace is our business and ours alone.

NEW GOVERNMENT BEGINS OUTSIDE EXISTING LEGITIMACY

Now, here's another important but little realized fact about government-forming. By definition, all new government begins OUTSIDE the parameters of the existing legitimacy, in a sort of political vacuum.

The Articles of Confederation - a mere treaty arrangement between the separate sovereign states - had to be jettisoned to find political space for the United States Constitution. The same process occurred, albeit not without bloodshed, in the October 1917, Russian revolution, the French revolution of 189 and many others since including the recent Cuban, Filipino and Haitian revolutions.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS & UNITED NATIONS NOT GOVERNMENTS

Though the global political vacuum was overwhelmingly apparent after World Wars I and II, and still is, neither the League of Nations nor the United Nations filled it by defining and setting up a new government. On the contrary, they both reaffirmed the exclusive sovereignty of each of their member-states. In so doing, they not only perpetuated but institutionalized world anarchy. The most incisive expose of the stillbirth of the United Nations was E.B. White's The Wild Flag. I recommend it highly.

This illusion of political authority betrayed and denied humanity's oneness and wholeness. As Emery Reves wrote in The Anatomy of Peace, "Just as you cannot jump a chasm in two leaps, there is no 'first step' to the establishment of government. Government is the 'first step.'"

INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY CODIFIED

Now individual sovereignty, as you know by our American history course, has been codified in numerous constitutions and declarations.

A year after the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that "All men are created equal..." the Vermont Constitution of 1777 in Chapter 1, Art. 1, stated that "All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring and possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety...."

Certain individuals in 1787 whom we revere as the "founding fathers" decided they needed a new government OVER the separate sovereign states. So they boldly declared themselves its citizens or "Americans." That identification was an exercise of their inalienable right of political choice, the essential, seminal step to the formal United States of America.

THE NINTH AMENDMENT

The U.S. Constitution of 1787 in the Ninth Amendment - and I can't help but wonder how many here know the Ninth Amendment - even provides for you, the citizen, to emulate the founding fathers on the global level. It states:

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparate other rights retained by the people."

The founding fathers were affirming again that the people are sovereign even to defining their own rights. That's a powerful message to you ringing down the corridors of history from Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Washington, Adams and their fellow revolutionaries.

In other words, by exercising their inalienable rights, they structured a new political tool, new decision-making machinery of a higher order based on the innate sovereignty of the people in order to deal with the new industrial age then replacing feudalism.

The very same rational process must now be repeated on the global level before it is too late.

ALL NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONS AFFIRM SOVEREIGNTY OF PEOPLE

In fact, there is not one national constitution in this world today which does not claim to derive from the people, to claim that we, the people, are sovereign, the real arbiters of our fate. And yet, ironically, there is not one national constitution today - including the U.S. Constitution - which can protect we, the people, from World War III.

Why? Simply because national constitutions have war built into their very structure. The euphemism for war is "national defense." You have often heard it said. "In times of peace, prepare for war." This is the insane dictum of all nations.

"Peace is our business," is the motto of the U.S. Navy, and the "Peacemaker" became the Orwellian name of a U.S. nuclear ballistic missile capable of eliminating ten cities.

TRUE PEACE

True peace, on the other hand, is always allied with justice, with law, with civic agreements solemnly arrived at by common democratic accord.

THE ESSENCE OF GOVERNMENT THEN IS INDIVIDUALS FREELY CONTRACTING SOCIALLY WITH THEIR NEIGHBORS TO LIVE IN A PRESCRIBED CIVILIZED WAY WITH EACH OTHER.

In today's "global village," we are all neighbors. No one disputes this anymore. Despite cultural, national, religious, ethnic, economic, linguistic and other relative differences, our fundamental humanity is a recognized fact. What I am saying is that the process of forming government is always organic, spontaneous and, in its structural aspect, revolutionary.

And it always begins with aware and concerned individuals exercising inalienable rights. We hear this word "inalienable" repeatedly in these days of the Bicentennial. But few of us appreciate its true meaning and profound significance in resolving our own problems.

INALIENABLE RIGHTS

Inalienable rights are rights you possess by simply being human. They can neither be taken away nor can you renounce them. It is self-evident that they are anterior to government. Sometimes they are called "natural rights." They are the political side of the spiritual coin of individual godhood taught by all humanity's wisdom sages from time immemorial.

The writers of the Vermont Constitution and the U.S. Constitution translated that wisdom heritage into political doctrine.

HUMANITY, THE ULTIMATE PEACEMAKER

And that brings us to another and profound realization, unique to our times alone. In today's interdependent world, there is an added dimension to peacemaking which is rarely realized. Consider if you will that the ultimate peacemaker is, after all, humanity itself.

This may be a strange thought. But if we accept the reality of humanity and not a sentimental fiction, then we must accept its independent right and even desire to live. Consider this: If humanity itself dies, each one of us dies. But if one of us dies, humanity still lives on. It must, therefore, exist as an entity in itself.

THEN, BEING A WHOLE, IT CANNOT WAR AGAINST ITSELF. THAT'S WHAT THE HUMAN FAMILY REALLY MEANS.

And once this truth is fully realized and accepted, it allies each of us dynamically not only with one another, but with humanity itself, not theoretically, not philosophically, not mystically, but actually.

All our relative differences fade into insignificance in the light of this awesome truth.

A true peacemaker in today's world then - like the man whose holiday this is - always represents humanity itself without frontiers, moral, social, religious, biological and certainly political.

WORLD CITIZENSHIP CLAIM LEGITIMATE

My claim and yours as world citizens, therefore, is perfectly legitimate since it is grounded in our inalienable right to choose our own political allegiance, an allegiance dynamically allied with humanity's survival.

It then becomes a new, valid social contract between us transcending the nation-state system itself and indeed, already sanctioned by it.

I am aware that given our nationalistic conditioning, this is a difficult concept to grasp or realize. An example, however, to which we can all relate is the local post office. Entering a post office is in reality entering a global communication system. The stamps you buy are simply proof of the contract the postal service makes with you, the individual concerned, to provide global service.

UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION

The Universal Postal Union was first established in 1875. Do you know where it is headquartered today? Do you know the name of its Secretary General? Whether it's a man or a woman, white or black, Jewish, Christian, Moslem or agnostic? Did you elect him or her? Do you care what his or her race or religion is? Or how much salary he or she makes? No, these questions are all irrelevant to that service contract. All you are concerned with is that YOUR letter gets to the person at the address YOU put on the envelope.

In short, you are the sovereign operating unit of the global system.

The scientific name for the UPU is a "meta-system." Our world is full of them: the telephone, the television, satellite weather, etc.

THIS THEN IS THE NEW MEANING OF WORLD GOVERNMENT, A PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE GLOBAL SOCIO/POLITICAL SERVICE CONTRACT; A POLITICAL META-SYSTEM.

Now, as Tom Paine said, is the seed-time of union.

PART 2: THE FOUNDING OF WORLD GOVERNMENT

Now we arrive at Part 2: The founding for world government.

I must first apologize for the personal nature of this part of my talk.

WORLD PEACE BEGINS WITH ME

In 1945, after my return from World War II as a B-17 bomber pilot, and a lot of thought about my part in that immense puzzle called world peace, I concluded that world government, being an entirely new and sovereign institution had nothing to do with nations as such and everything to do with us, ordinary human beings, and especially we veterans who had just been professional killers in World War II.

Nations, I reasoned, cannot extend their sovereignty beyond their constitutional mandates. Besides, there is nothing in any national constitution either sanctioning a world government or, contrarily, prohibiting its establishment. I decided I had to act with the sovereignty I innately possessed as one single human being.

I SECEDE FROM THE NATION-STATE SYSTEM.

First, I divorced myself entirely from the nation. That was my first act of personal sovereignty. My family, my friends and many others considered it a crazy or irrational thing to do. But actually I was exercising my inalienable right to choose my own political allegiance...or in the case of expatriation, to not choose the nation-state system, to re-enter that state of natural rights which pertained at birth.

INTO THE WORLD COMMUNITY

In renouncing nationality, I actually seceded into the entire world community of all humans. By so doing, I proved to myself, at least, that the sovereignty of the nation was neither absolute nor eternal. And by withdrawing my personal sovereignty from it, it had one less human to support its exclusivity. Conversely, the world community gained a directly-related human.

I DECLARE MYSELF A WORLD CITIZEN

It was a community with no common citizenship and, therefore, no government. So, for protection, at the same time of my expatriation, I declared myself a world citizen, in other words, a citizen of a non-existent world government. If this sounds crazy, please keep in mind that I have been imprisoned 32 times by national officials for simply not fitting into their rule book. Millions of our fellow humans suffer the same fate.

TO PROTECT THE PART, PROTECT THE WHOLE

Many people considered my renunciation both unpatriotic and un-American. It was neither. To protect America or any country, the whole world must now be protected. Patriotism or love for one's country is totally dependent on love for one's planetary community. How can the part survive without the whole?

FRENCH GOVERNMENT SAYS GET OUT

The French government didn't buy my world citizen status. It ordered me to leave. But I was then without a passport, the 20th century symbol of the national frontier world. Luckily, the United Nations General Assembly came to town bringing its fictional international territory with it. I claimed asylum there on September 11, 1948. The U.N. threw me off with the aid of the French police. Those events were well publicized so people around the world heard of world citizenship, perhaps for the first time.

OTHERS DECLARE THEMSELVES WORLD CITIZENS

Others followed that sovereign choice. Together we were forging a peaceful world constituency. Each declared world citizen was making a new civic contract with his fellowman.

WORLD GOVERNMENT DECLARED

Then, five years later, by our having claimed world citizenship in the hundreds of thousands, our worldly government eventually, inevitably and legitimately came into being in 1953...in microcosm. In the name of over 750,000 registered World Citizens, I declared our global government existent from the City Hall of Ellsworth, Maine, on September 4th of that year.

THE MASTER PLAN

We then devised a master plan in four phases. The first phase would be building or identifying our world constituency. We needed and administration agency for that which we called the World Service Authority. It began operations in January, 1954, from New York City.

The second phase would be the politicization of the new world constituency by means of a new political party transcending the nation-state while also field candidates on all municipal and national levels. Included in the platform of this world citizen party would be a restructuring of the economic environment to democratize wealth-producing capital.

The third phase would be one of consolidation: convening a world constitutional convention from which would come a world parliament and the additional organs of government, the establishment of a world bank and introduction of a world monetary unit, the actual dismantling of nuclear and conventional armaments as the economy regeared to peacetime activities.

The fourth and final phase would be one of fulfillment, a fully functioning world government integrated with national and local units, total elimination of armaments, protection of the environment and the planet on which our life depends.

PART 3: THE ACTUAL DAILY OPERATION OF THE WORLD GOVERNMENT

Now for Part 3, the actual daily operation of the World Government.

UDHR WORKING CONSTITUTION

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights the General Assembly of the United Nations had proclaimed in 1948, became our working constitution.

Since freedom of travel was defined by article 13(2), and since the frontier system of nations with its passports and visas militated against that right, our first document of identity was a World Passport. The first 1,000 came off the press in June, 1954.

To prove its workability, as much to myself as to other world citizens, in 1956 I traveled to India and back with it, after spending six months studying deductive psychology as applied to human events or the science of geodialectics with a South Indian guru or wisdom teacher.

WSA IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

The World Service Authority today operates from offices in downtown Washington, D.C. Legally, it is a District of Columbia non-profit corporation. It issues all World Government documents. The World Passport has gone through seven editions, is now in seven languages. Over 250,000 have been issued worldwide. It has been recognized by over 100 nations on a case-by-case basis. Six nations have given it de jure recognition.

Besides the World Passport, the WSA issues World Identity Cards, World Birth Certificates, the World Citizen Registration Card, the World Marriage Certificate, and the World Political Asylum Card.

Each document represents a human right defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus they are powerful global civic tools vis-a-vis national bureaucratic abuses and violation of fundamental human rights.

WORLD COORDINATORS OF WORLD COMMISSIONS

In order to key in to the operating structure experts in various fields who are likewise committed to humanity's cause, I have called upon certain individuals to become world coordinators of commissions of the World Government.

So far, twelve coordinators have been appointed to head commissions. They are Syd Cassyd for Communications, Stafford Beer for Cybernetics, Yehudi Menuhin and Katherine Dunham for Culture, William Perk for Design-Science, Louis Kelso for Economics, Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati for Education, Badi Lenz for Forestry, Michio Kushi for Health, Theodore Welles for Oceans, Isaac Asimov and Carol Sue Rosin for Space, Georgia Lloyd for Women, and John Steinbruck for World Political Asylum.

THE WORLD COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS.

The statute for our World Government judicial system, the World Court of Human Rights, was written in 1972 by the Commission for International Due Process of Law. It awaits a world judicial commission and then the appointment of 15 world judges and proper funding to begin its imperative role of defending the individual against human rights violations.

250,000 REGISTERED WORLD CITIZENS

The registered citizenry of the World Government today numbers over 250,000. Two hundred and fifty thousands individuals throughout the world have established a legitimate global civic contract between them to act peaceably toward each other. That choice is also yours now. As Americans, the mandate of political choice was given to you over two hundred years ago. But that exclusive political choice has now run its historic course. It can no longer serve you. Your national citizenship has become a collective suicide pact. You must now renew that precious mandate on the sovereign ground of humanity where you actually reside.

Today, we're a mere quarter of a million. Tomorrow, with modern means of communication, with the desperate need for world law and order, with a 15-minute lead time to total destruction, we can and must number in the hundreds of millions as rapidly as possible.

THE 100TH MONKEY PRINCIPLE

Maybe you've heard of the "100th monkey" principle. At a certain mathematical point where a number of any group responds collectively to a crisis facing that group, a quantum leap in consciousness occurs throughout the entire group or species and it becomes transformed or metamorphasizes. I firmly believe we, the human race, are rapidly approaching that awesome moment here on the planet.

PART 4: THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD GOVERNMENT.

Now Let's talk about the future of the World Government..

MONDIALIZATION

Many cities and even states have recognized this new level of politics. Declaring a city worldly is called "mondialization" from the French word, "monde." It began with Cahors, a city of 50,000 in France in 1949 and has spread throughout the world. Minneapolis was the first U.S. town to "mondialize" in March, 1968. It was followed by St. Paul, San Pedro, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Kansas City, MO, Richfield, Ohio, Princetown Township, Akron, Oberlin, Eugene, Oregon, Racine, Wisconsin and many others. Did you know that the states of Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois have made declarations of world citizenship? The wording is of the Minnesota Declaration is both explicit and historic:

"WHEREAS, in recognition of the greatly increased interdependence of the world in this age of nuclear power, pollution, hunger, and

"WHEREAS, realizing that the common interests of man can only be met through world cooperation, and

"WHEREAS, seeking to free mankind from the curse of war and to harness all available sources of energy and knowledge to the service of man's needs, and

"WHEREAS, aware that we can best serve our city, county, state and nation when we also think and act as world citizens

"NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the Governor and Legislative Leaders of Minnesota, recognize the sovereign right of our citizens to declare that their citizenship responsibilities extend beyond our state and nation. We hereby joint with other concerned people of the world in a declaration that we share in this world responsibility and that our citizens are in this sense citizens of the world. We pledge our efforts as world citizens to the establishment of permanent peace based on just world law and to the use of world resources in the service of man and not for his destruction...."

The signature was Wendell Anderson's and the date was March 26, 1971.

Innumerable colleges and universities followed suit: University of Missouri, Ottawa University, L.A. Harbor College, L.a. Valley College, Grinnel College, William Patterson College, University of Wisconsin, etc.

THE WORLD CITIZEN PARTY.

The time has come for these initiatives and aspirations as well as those of the general world peace movement to be translated into down-to-earth political reality.

In short, world citizens must now enter the local political arena.

For this to happen realistically, we need our own world political party. A party of human rights. A party for world peace through law. A party of humanity.

We have the voters now. We have the candidates. Many congresspersons and parliamentarians already have organized into a transnational coalition for world order. But they cannot move without us, the grass-roots, the people of the world.

MAYORALTY CAMPAIGN

I myself ran for mayor of Washington, D.C. in the recent election as an independent on a World Citizen platform.

It was the first time in the District's history that the global dimension of politics was introduced into a local campaign.

I campaigned on the basis of world law, that it alone was able to protect the targetted city and trapped citizens of Washington.

I received 585 votes.

But all America is targetted as is the Soviet Union.

As is humanity.

WORLD LEADERS FOR NATIONAL OFFICE

Only world leaders, therefore, can qualify for national office since the major problems facing the national voter are global.

No presidential candidate from either of the two major parties, Democratic or Republican, can address the question of world war or world peace. Their mandate stops at the national frontier. Only a World Citizen candidate allied with the World Government can truly represent you as voters.

Although President Reagan has called himself a "citizen of the world," and First Secretary Gorbachev has called for an "international legal order," both are opposed to any relinquishment of sovereign power to such an order.

That is why, in the U.S. campaign for president in '88, we are obliged to field our own candidate.

MY CANDIDACY FOR U.S. PRESIDENT

And to start the process, as a committed world citizen since 1948, born in Bar Harbor, Maine, thereby a natural-born citizen, I am today announcing my candidacy for U.S. president in the upcoming election.

MY PLATFORM

My platform will include:

- the denunciation of the arms race as illegal as well as insane; to which denunciation, I add all national programs involving the weaponization of space surrounding our planet such as the so-called Strategic Defense Initiative;

- the legal recognition of and protection for the de facto world citizenship enjoyed by every member of the human race by virtue of the physical reality of one world and one humankind;

- the immediate calling of a world constitutional convention to elaborate a constitution for the World Government;

- the "mondialization" of all United States villages, towns, cities and states and a call to governors and mayors throughout the world to officially declare their municipalities, counties and states integral and dynamic parts of the total world community;

- by a constitutional amendment, the registration of all United States citizens as World Citizens with the World Government in conformity with the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution reserving sovereign rights to the people, and a call to all national citizens to so register through the World Service Authority;

- the registration of all U.S. newborns with the World Government in accordance with the accepted legal principles jus soli and jus sanguinis and the issuance of World Birth Certificates to them via the world Service Authority. This will begin human, therefore world legitimacy at birth where it belongs;

- the call to all heads of state for a world truce so that humans conscripted as national soldiers will cease killing fellow humans and that such killing be designated as criminal under revised Nuremberg Principles;

- the call to all elected officials, mayors, governors, national legislators and executive officers to promote world government through legislative action, political platforms and education of their specific citizenry;

- the establishment of a world peace corps as an option to national military service in conformity with article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "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;"

- a call to retired military men, particularly generals and admirals, to form a command unit to be called the Sovereign Order for World Guards to supervise this world peace corps. As the Nuremberg Decisions outlawed war and its preparations, no longer can fellow man kill fellow man without the charge of criminality;

- the call to all religious leaders to unite under the banner of one world, God's creation. For men of religion to kill others of a different religion is to blaspheme the Creator of the Universe. Religious leaders must condemn such practice;

- a call especially to the women of the world, the mothers, from whom humanity comes, who constitute half the human race, to support the world government to the fullest of their immense and sovereign power.

- the establishment of a World Bank one of whose missions would be to issue a stable world monetary unit gradually to replace the volatile national currencies;

- the revision of the U.S. budget with de-emphasis on armaments and emphasis on basic civic needs and services;

- the further implementation of the economic strategy of democratizing equity ownership of the tools of production through E.S.O.P.s (Employee Stock Ownership Plans), G.S.O.P.s (General Stock Ownership Plans), and C.S.O.P.s (consumer Stock Ownership Plans).

- settlement of Third World debts through establishing a World Park as a life support system for the tropical rain forests - a common heritage of humanity - offsetting the paper value of such monetary debts;

- a call to the myriad peace movements from every clime and of every inclination to unite under the all-encompassing manner of our common world citizenship.

THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS AT ZERO

I begin this campaign with no committees, no pledges and empty pockets. Everything is to do. It is your world I am trying to represent. Can I count on your support?

THE FINAL CHOICE

Immanuel Kant has written that "When those who do the fighting have the right to choose between war and peace, history will no longer be written in blood."

We, who not only do the fighting but the dying, now have that right and we must choose: world peace through world government or annihilation through nuclear holocaust.

For as Dr. Martin Luther King has warned us, "...all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood."

The Universe itself awaits our response.

Thank you.

 


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