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Table of Contents
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This is the way 
Message from the Editor
Message from the President of Earth Government, the Federation of Global Governments
History of the Global Community organization, Earth Government and the Federation of Global Governments 
The Global Community days of celebration or remembering during the year
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Global Dialogue 2009 Introduction
Global Dialogue 2009 Program
Global Dialogue 2009 OVERVIEW of the process
Global Dialogue 2009 Call for Papers
A just, fair and most needed Global Government
by
Germain Dufour
Spiritual Leader of the Global Community
President
Federation of Global Governments
Over the past several decades, the Global Community along with the Federation of Global Governments (Federation), have promoted a just and fair global government. The United Nations (UN)
organization does not offer such global service to all Peoples. It is not a government. It has no power to legislate, protect and offer essential services.
There is no Justice possible coming from the UN. The Five Permanents Members are the only rule of law. There are themselves subsidized by corporate rulers, lobbyists
with vested interests in keeping things the way they are now. There are no change in sight because they cannot change themselves. We must let go the UN. It is a 20th Century
WWII organization that can truly make things work for only 5% of the world nations. Staying with the UN certainly means there will not be a 22nd Century to live for most people on Earth.
The world needs a 21st Century organization able to manage Earth and bring hope in every home.
The Global Community organization is the only possible and practical solution to our world. We know how everything work, and we know what to do to make it work for
us all.
The Peoples of all Nations, in creating an ever closer Federation among
them, are resolved to share a peaceful future based on common values. Conscious
of its spiritual and moral heritage, the Federation is founded on
the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and
solidarity; it is based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law.
It places the individual at the heart of its activities, by establishing
the Global Community citizenship of the Federation and by creating
an era of freedom, security and justice.
The Federation contributes
to the preservation and to the development of these common values while
respecting the diversity of the cultures and traditions of the peoples of
all Nations as well as the national identities of Member Nations and the
organisation of their public authorities at national, regional and local
levels; it seeks to promote balanced and sustainable development and ensures
free movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and the freedom of
establishment. To this end, it is necessary to strengthen the protection
of fundamental global rights in the light of changes in society, social progress
and scientific and technological developments by making those rights more
visible in the Global Constitution.
The Global Constitution reaffirms, with due regard for the powers
and tasks of the Federation and the principle of subsidiarity, the global
rights as they result, in particular, from the constitutional traditions
and international obligations common to Member Nations, the Scale of Social Values, or Scale of Global Rights,
adopted by Earth Government and by the Global Council of all Nations
and the case law of the Earth Court of Justice of the Federation and of the
Global Court of Global Rights. Enjoyment of these rights entails responsibilities
and duties with regard to other persons, to the human community and to future
generations. The Federation therefore recognises the rights, freedoms
and principles set out hereafter.
We the Peoples of the Global Community are reaffirming faith in the fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and smalll. We the Peoples
implies every individual on Earth. Earth management and good governance is now a priority and a duty of every responsible person on Earth. The
Global Community has taken action by calling the Divine Will into our lives and following its guidance.
Divine Will is now a part of the Soul of Humanity to be used for the higher purpose of good and Life's evolution.
We will learn to serve humanity and radiate the Will of God to others. We will establish conditions under which justice and
respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and we promote
social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.
The spiritual belief, universal values, principles and aspirations of the Global Community will be attained by:
* practicing tolerance and living together in peace and harmony with one another as neighbours,
* promoting the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
* maintaining peace and security in the world by using negotiations and peaceful means,
* finding unity in diversity with all Life,
* giving essential services to all peoples,
* establishing the Judiciary,
* establishing the respect for the life-support system of the planet,
* keeping Earth healthy, productive and hospitable for all people and living things, and
* applying the principle that when there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible,
which causes reversible damage as opposed to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
Response to our request for change was unexpectably ( mercie mon Dieu, thank you Soul of Humanity, God, Allah swt) acknowledged by:
ENCYCLICAL LETTER
CARITAS IN VERITATE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
BENEDICT XVI
Holy See: Global Crisis and United Nations
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 29 June, the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in the year 2009, the fifth of my Pontificate.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html
67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United
Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses
the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect[146] and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared
decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for
the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and
the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to
regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority
would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good[147], and to make a
commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally
recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights[148]. Obviously it would have to have the
authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this,
despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The
integral development of peoples and inernational cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization[149]. They
also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between
politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.
Note:
SWT: Subhanahu wa-ta'ala is an Islamic Arabic phrase meaning, "glorious and exalted is He (Allah)." The phrase (often abbreviated to "swt") appears after the name of
Allah in Islamic texts such as the Qur'an and the Hadith. Saying this phrase is seen as an act of reverence and devotion towards Allah among Muslims.
We seek more symbiotical relationships with people and organizations
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Authors of research papers and articles on global issues for this month
James Cogan, Peter Goodchild, Paul Krugman, Sustain Lane, Stephen Lendman, Tara Lohan, Roberto Lovato,
Rajendra Kumar Pachauri,Dr. Gideon Polya (2), Sara Robinson
James Cogan, Oil And The Iraq “Withdrawal”
Peter Goodchild, Peak Oil And World Food Supplies
Paul Krugman, Betraying The Planet
Sustain Lane, 10 Dangerous Household Products You Should Never Use Again
Stephen Lendman, America's "Bases Of Empire"
Tara Lohan, Food Inc: Michael Pollan and Friends Reveal the Food Industry's Darkest Secrets
Roberto Lovato, What Kind of "Hope" Is Obama Offering to Latin American Countries Still Traumatized by U.S. Empire?
Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, The Climate Imperative
Dr Gideon Polya, G8 Failure Means Climate Genocide For Developing World
Dr Gideon Polya, Afghan Genocide: An Open Letter
Sara Robinson, We've Been Trapped Inside a Bad Health Care System So Long, We Don't Even Know How Much We're Missing
Research papers and articles on global issues for this month
| Date sent |
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| July 11, 2009 |
G8 Failure Means Climate Genocide For Developing World
by Dr Gideon Polya ,
Countercurrents.org,
The G8 First World countries meeting at L’Aquila, Italy (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK and the US) were occasionally joined at the summit by leaders or representatives from the G5 group of emerging economies (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) .
The leaders of the G8 leading industrial countries have agreed to try to limit global warming to just 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels by 2050; that G8 nations are to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050; and that World carbon emissions should be cut by 50% by 2050 (see BBC report, “G8 set new climate targets”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8141514.stm ).
This outcome has been trenchantly criticized by the UN Secretary General Ban-ki Moon as insufficient and inconsistent with urgent scientific advice (see BBC report “Ban criticized G8 climate efforts”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8143059.stm ).
The grossly inadequate response of the G8 nations is effectively a statement of climate racism and a declaration of prospective climate genocide. Top UK climate scientist Dr James Lovelock FRS has estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive global warming this century due to unaddressed, man-made climate change, this constituting a prospective climate genocide that will kill 10 billion non-Europeans including 6 billion infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis (see “Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise “:
http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-disruption-climate-emergency-climate-genocide-penultimate-bengali-holocaust-through-sea-level-rise ).
Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and a world leading greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter. Thus Australia’s domestic and exported “annual per capita GHG pollution” is 54 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year – 2 times that of the US, 10 times that of China, 25 times that of India and 60 times that of Bangladesh (see “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere “: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalley
climateactiongroup/australia-s-5-off-2000-ghg-pollution-by-2020-endangers-australia-humanity-and-biosphere ).
The must-read Synthesis Report of the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference concluded “inaction is inexcusable” (see “Summary of the Synthesis Report from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference “ :
http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/synthesis-report-of-the-2009-copenhagen-climate-change-conference ) - yet pro-coal Rudd Labor policy means that Australia will INCREASE its domestic and exported GHG pollution to 80% above the 2000 level by 2050.
The position of the major Developing countries was put forward by the PM of India, Manmohan Singh as summarized by the The Hindu (see N. Ravi, “A strong political message on climate change: India”: http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/10
/stories/2009071060261000.htm ): “On the principle of “polluter pays,” the major responsibility lay with the industrial nations, and this was a responsibility that they had acknowledged and undertaken under the UNFCCC. The developing countries wanted the industrial nations to commit themselves to sharp and significant reductions in emissions by 40 per cent below the 1990 (the date of the Kyoto protocol) levels by 2020. This could form the basis for a more ambitious target over the longer term. The developing nations were faced with the problem of adaptation to climate change and India itself was spending 2 to 2.5 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product on adaptation, including to extreme climatic events and disasters and the impact on agriculture. Even if emissions were reduced to zero, the accumulated emissions would continue to impose a long term burden on the developing countries. Based on this perspective, the developing countries have been emphasising the two pillars of financing mitigation and adaptation actions and the transfer of technology.”
According to the leading Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald “The most tangible target Singh has offered is to pledge that his country's per capita CO2 emissions will never exceed the average of developing countries.” - well below that of developed countries and accordingly this was an extraordinarily generous offer considering the actualities of comparative greenhouse gas pollution.
Thus, as of 2008, “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 2.2 (India), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included) (see Wikipedia, “List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita and “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere “: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/australia-s-5-off-2000-ghg-pollution-by-2020-endangers-australia-humanity-and-biosphere ).
An 80% reduction of present levels of GHG pollution by 2050 as specified by the G8 (and assuming, for the purposes of simplicity, Zero Population Growth or ZPG) would mean, by 2050, 5.4 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year for the US - as compared to 1.0 for India.
However, based on ZPG and an 80% reduction on the 2000 value by 2050 for Australian Domestic GHG pollution would mean 68 tonnes per person per year of Domestic and Exported GHG pollution by Australia in 2050 - nearly 70 times that of India.
This makes for a novel re-valuation of Asians by racist, Apartheid Australia (see Apartheid Australia Backs Racist Zionist Run Apartheid Israel”: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290609.htm ).
In 1901, the first PM of newly-independent Australia declared “The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of an Englishman and the Chinaman.”(Australia’s first Prime Minister Edmund Barton debating the Commonwealth Immigration Restriction Bill (1901), commonly known as the “White Australia Policy”; Barton (1901) speech to Federal Parliament concerning the Commonwealth Immigration Restriction Act 1901, quoted in Buggy and Cates (1985), p145 in Buggy, T. and Cates, J. (1985), Race Relations in Colonial Australia (Nelson, Melbourne)).
In 1947, the racist (they were all racists) Australian Labor Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell made the following notorious declaration of racial inequality in the Australian Federal Parliament: “There are many Wongs in the Chinese community, but I have to say - and I am sure that the honourable member for Balaclava [T.W. White, Liberal] will not mind me for doing so - that “two Wongs do not make a White.” [“Aussie joke”: 2 wrongs don’t make a right i.e. 2 Chinese don’t equal a White man] (see Calwell speech to Parliament (1948), Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 2 December 1947, vol. 194, p2948; quoted in Murray-Smith (1984), p36; quoted and discussed in Kiernan (1978), chapter 5, pp114-135; Murray-Smith, S. (1984) (editor), The Dictionary of Australian Quotations (Heinemann, Melbourne); Kiernan, C. (1978), Calwell. A Personal and Political Biography (Nelson, Melbourne)).
Now in 2009, racist White Australia, Apartheid Australia, is in effect saying that 70 Indians equate to 1 White Australian when it comes to greenhouse gas pollution and dealing with climate change.
If Indian students want to come to Australia, to pay huge rip-off fees to be taught Indian holocaust-denying, anti-Indian lies by Australian history lecturers (see “Western Holocaust Ignoring 1. BBC TV’s “The Story of India” ignores horrendous British atrocities in India”:
http://gideon.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/06/western-holocaust-ignoring-1-bbc-tv-s-the-story.htm ) and then get bashed and robbed by anti-Indian, racist thugs into the bargain – well, all I can say is that it’s their call.
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| July 9, 2009 |
An Open Letter sent out to Anti-war groups and Anti-war folks around the world.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I applaud your protests over the Bush (now Obama) wars in Occupied Afghanistan and Occupied Iraq.
A 5 decade research career biological scientist, I have been reporting estimates of how many people have died in Occupied Afghanistan since the US-led invasion using UN Population Division data. My recent estimates (2009) are outlined below. For details of methodology see “Obama’s Afghan War”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29546/42/ .
In Occupied Afghanistan post-invasion non-violent excess deaths (avoidable deaths from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease) total 3 million; post-invasion violent excess deaths (assuming the same ratio of post-invasion violent/non-violent excess deaths as in Occupied Iraq of 1.3) total 4 million; post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths total 3-7 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 2.3 million; post-invasion avoidable under- 5 infant deaths (90% are avoidable) total 2.1 million; 3-4 million refugees have been generated plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees from the NW Province of Pakistan under Obama war policies – an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention
(see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Much of this carnage is due to US Alliance violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demands that an Occupier must provide life –sustaining food and medical requisites to the conquered population ”to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ) – yet the “total annual per capita health expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is merely $29 as compared tot $6,714 in the Occupier country the USA (see WHO: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ).
The carnage does not stop there – we must also note the 0.7 million global opiate drug-related deaths since 2001 (circa 3,000 in the UK ) due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan industry from about 6% of world market share in 2001 to about 93% at present (see UN ODC World Drug Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/
data-and-analysis/WDR-2007.html ) .
Appallingly, there are only a couple of scholars currently identifying this continuing catastrophe as an Afghan Genocide, notably myself (on the basis of the above data) and top humanitarian US lawyer Professor Ali Khan (on the basis of the US Alliance policy of attempted extermination of an Indigenous religious group, the Taliban) (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya080208.htm ).
A final damning statistic: the “annual death rate” is 7% for Occupied Afghanistan under-5 year old infants - as compared to 3% for inmates of the Nazi Buchenwald Concentration Camp and 10% for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War 2 (for which crimes Axis generals were tried and hanged) (see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2009/06/08/2907231-obama-
holocaust-denial-in-buchenwald-cairo-speeches-?groupId=1350 ).
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Please tell everyone you can.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne, Australia
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/
ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/
bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see “Truth , Beauty & Saving the World – Science, Art & Nuclear, Greenhouse & Poverty Threats”: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeacepl
anetmotherchild/truth-beauty-saving-the-world .
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| July 7, 2009 |
NEW DELHI – Today, international action on climate change is urgent and essential. Indeed, there can no longer be any debate about the need to act, because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of which I am chairman, has established climate change as an unequivocal reality beyond scientific doubt.
For instance, changes are taking place in precipitation patterns, with a trend toward higher precipitation levels in the world’s upper latitudes and lower precipitation in some sub-tropical and tropical regions, as well as in the Mediterranean area. The number of extreme precipitation events is also increasing – and are increasingly widespread. Moreover, the frequency and intensity of heat waves, floods, and droughts are on the rise.
This change in the amount and pattern of rainfall has serious implications for many economic activities, as well as for countries’ preparedness to handle emergencies such as large-scale coastal flooding or heavy snowfall.
Some parts of the world are more vulnerable than others to these changes. The Arctic region, in particular, has been warming at twice the rate of the rest of the globe. Coral reefs, mega-deltas (which include cities like Shanghai, Kolkata, and Dhaka), and small island states are also extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels.
Other negative effects of climate change include possible reductions in crop yields. In some African countries, for example, yields could decline by as much as 50% by 2020. Climate change would also lead to increased water stress, which by 2020 could affect 75-250 million people in Africa alone.
Overall, temperature increases are projected to increase by the year 2100 within a range of 1.1 to 6.4°C. In order to focus on this set of outcomes, the IPCC has come up with a best estimate at the lower end of this range of 1.8°C, and 4°C at the upper end. Even at the lower estimate, the consequences of climate change could be severe in several parts of the world, including an increase in water stress, serious effects on ecosystems and food security, and threats to life and property as a result of coastal flooding.
There also may be serious direct consequences for human health if climate change is not checked, particularly increased morbidity and mortality as a result of heat waves, floods, and droughts. Moreover, the distribution of some diseases would change, making human populations more vulnerable.
Because the impact of climate change is global, it is essential that the world as a whole take specific measures to adapt. But it is already clear that the capacity of some communities to adapt will quickly be exceeded if climate change goes unmitigated.
To help these most vulnerable communities, it is essential for the world to devise a plan of action to limit the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Several scenarios have been assessed by the IPCC, and one that would limit future temperature increase to between 2.0-2.4°C would require that emissions peak no later than 2015, and decline thereafter. The rate of decline would then determine the extent to which the worst effects of climate change can be avoided.
The IPCC also found that the cost of such a strict effort at mitigation would not exceed 3% of global GDP in 2030. Moreover, there are enormous co-benefits to mitigation: lower emissions of GHGs would be accompanied by lower air pollution and increased energy security, agricultural output, and employment. If these co-benefits were taken fully into account, that price tag of 3% of GDP in 2030 would be substantially lower, perhaps even negative. The world could actually enhance economic output and welfare by pursuing a path of mitigation.
The need for international action, therefore, stems from two important observations arising out of the IPCC’s work. First, if we do not mitigate emissions of GHGs, the negative effects of climate change will be difficult to reverse, implying great hardship and possibly danger to mankind and other species.
Second, the benefits of mitigating emissions of GHGs are so overwhelming that this, combined with the prospect of the harm resulting from inaction, makes it imperative for the world to devise an international response and a plan of action. Given the challenge facing us, the magnitude and nature of which were clearly brought out by the IPCC, the Copenhagen Conference later this year must produce a multi-lateral agreement that deals adequately with climate change.
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| June 30, 2009 |
It is fitting that today’s deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq’s cities coincides with a meeting in Baghdad to auction off some of the country’s largest oil fields to companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum. It is a reminder of the real motives for the 2003 invasion and in whose interests over one million Iraqis and 4,634 American and other Western troops have been killed. The Iraq war was, and continues to be, an imperialist war waged by the American ruling elite for control of oil and geo-strategic advantage.
The contracts will facilitate the first large-scale exploitation of Iraq’s energy resources by US and other transnationals since the country’s oil industry was nationalised in 1972. On offer are 20-year rights over six fields that hold more than five billion barrels of easily and cheaply extractable oil. In the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, where foreign companies are already operating, the Norwegian firm DNO is now producing so-called “sweet oil” from a relatively small field at Tawke, at a cost of less than $2 a barrel.
In an apt analogy, Larry Goldstein of the US-based Energy Policy Research Foundation told the New York Times last week: “Asking why oil companies are interested in Iraq is like asking why robbers rob banks—because that’s where the money is.” Iraq’s total oil reserves are estimated to be at least 115 billion barrels. Its reserves of natural gas are at least 3.36 billion cubic metres.
Millions of people around the world understood in 2003 that the claims of the Bush administration and its international allies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism were threadbare lies promulgated to justify the plunder of the country’s oil wealth. The claim by the Obama White House that it is continuing the occupation to consolidate “Iraqi democracy” is also a lie.
The war driven by the decline of US global power and growing class tensions within the United States itself. The American capitalist elite believed that military domination in the Persian Gulf would give them access to lucrative resources, as well as a powerful lever against their main European and Asian rivals, who depend upon the region for critical supplies of energy. The militarist agitation surrounding the war was used to smother public disquiet and divert discontent away from the economic inequality that wracks American society.
It has taken more than six years of carnage—far longer than any pro-war analyst would have predicted—to establish the conditions where major corporations feel sufficiently confident to begin making substantial investments in Iraq’s oil industry. Iraqi resistance to the US invasion had first to be drowned in blood and the population reduced to a state of terror and insecurity.
The war has produced a litany of crimes, from the torture policy at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, to the destruction of cities such as Fallujah and the attack on densely populated suburbs like Sadr City; to the unleashing of Shiite death squads to depopulate the centres of Sunni resistance in Baghdad.
The country has been economically ruined. Unemployment and underemployment stand at between 30 and 50 percent. At least seven million people live on less than $2 a day, and malnutrition and disease are rampant.
The Shiite fundamentalist-dominated Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presides over the misery of the population in exchange for US backing. It now has a bloated US-equipped military and police apparatus of over 630,000 armed men.
The repression of the Iraqi masses was the basis for the withdrawal timetable that was agreed to by the Bush administration in last year’s Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). US forces are deemed no longer needed to perform the frontline operations against what remains of the anti-occupation insurgency. Instead, units of the Iraqi army are to take over those tasks.
The bulk of the 130,000 American troops in Iraq have been pulled back to heavily fortified camps on the outskirts of the cities, or to the massive air bases that have been built at places such as Balad and Tallil. The SOFA permits them to remain until December 2011, by which time new arrangements for the long-term presence of US forces will have been worked out.
American commanders, while outwardly optimistic, have not been able to hide their apprehension over the withdrawal from the cities. To shore up the Iraqi army, some 10,000 US troops are currently embedded as “trainers” in its ranks—a number that will increase to over 50,000 over the coming months. Baghdad’s western suburbs have been creatively categorised as “outside” the urban area. Aircraft, helicopter gunships, artillery and rapid response units are on constant standby to assist Iraqi forces when needed.
The concerns are not only that insurgent groups will take advantage of the US withdrawal to regroup in Iraq’s cities and resume significant resistance to both the Maliki government and American troops. Both Washington and its puppet government are worried that the social plight of the Iraqi working class and popular opposition to the concessions Maliki is making to US imperialism and foreign capital could give rise to large-scale protests and unrest.
The Obama administration is acutely conscious that a large majority of Iraqis bitterly opposes the US presence in the country. Behind the scenes, it is reportedly pressuring Maliki to abandon a promise to hold a referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement, knowing that it would be overwhelming rejected.
There are also sharp disputes between the rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions of the Iraqi ruling elite over the allocation of oil revenues and other sources of wealth. The most explosive tensions centre on the insistence of the Kurdish autonomous region that it get control of the northern oilfields around the city of Kirkuk—two of which are among the six fields being offered for contract in this week’s auction.
The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) last week denounced the auction as “unconstitutional” and warned that companies are “ill-advised” to enter into any contract in Kirkuk to which the KRG is not also a party. The outbreak of an ethnic civil war in the north cannot be ruled out, nor can US military operations to suppress such a development.
US imperialism faces a debacle of its own making in Iraq. Amidst the meltdown of economic activity internationally, and the escalation of the US war in Afghanistan and its proxy war in Pakistan, a large proportion of the American military is still tied down by the conflict in Iraq and there is no end in sight. The Obama administration is nevertheless committed to continuing the occupation and realising the predatory objectives of the invasion—in which oil has always loomed large.
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| June 29, 2009 |
Only about 10 percent of the world’s land surface is arable, whereas the other 90 percent is just rock, sand, or swamp, which can never be made to produce crops, whether we use “high” or “low” technology or something in the middle. In an age with diminishing supplies of oil and other fossil fuels, this 10:90 ratio may be creating two gigantic problems that have been largely ignored.
The first is that humans are not living only on that 10 percent of arable land, they are living everywhere, while trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes bring the food to where those people are living. What will happen when the vehicles are no longer operating? Will everyone move into those “10 percent” lands where the crops can be grown?
The other problem with the 10:90 ratio is that with “low technology,” i.e. technology that does not use petroleum or other fossil fuels, crop yields diminish considerably. As David Pimentel showed in 1984 in his “Food and Energy Resources,” with non-mechanized agriculture, corn (maize) production is only about 2,000 kilograms per hectare, about a third of the yield that a farmer would get with modern machinery and chemical fertilizer. If that is the case, then not only will 100 percent of the people be living on 10 percent of the land, but there will be less food available for that 100 percent.
Incidentally, my use of Pimentel’s study of corn is mainly due to the fact that, although his analysis is only a small and limited one, it provides a handy baseline for other studies of population and food supply. In general, a vegetarian diet requires far less of the world’s resources than a carnivorous one, although I have my doubts about the dietary wisdom of avoiding meat entirely. More specifically, corn is one of the most useful grains for supporting human life; the native people of the Americas lived on it for thousands of years. Corn is high-yielding and needs little in the way of equipment, and the more ancient varieties are largely trouble-free in terms of diseases, pests, and soil depletion. If it can’t be done with corn, it can’t be done with anything.
Actually, of course, there is a third problem that arises from the first two. This is the fact that if 100 percent of the people are living on 10 percent of the land, then the land may have so many people, roads, and buildings on it that a good deal of that land will be unavailable for farming. This problem of disappearing farmland is certainly not a new one; for centuries it seemed only common sense to build our cities in the midst of our paradises.
Let us play with some of these numbers and see what happens. These are only rough figures, admittedly, but greater accuracy is impossible because of the question of how one defines one’s terms, and even more by the fact that everything on this poor planet is rapidly changing. The present population of the Earth is about 7 billion, but there is no point in being more specific, since the number is increasing daily. Nevertheless, 7 billion should be a large enough number to make us seriously consider the consequences. (What other large mammal can be found in such numbers?) When I was born, in 1949, there were less than 3 billion, and it amazes me that this jump is rarely regarded as significant. These 7 billion people in turn live on only about 29 percent of the surface of the Earth, i.e. on dry land, which is about 148 million square kilometers.
Of that 148 million square kilometers, the arable portion, as I said, is only about 10 percent, or 15 million square kilometers. If we divide that 15 million square kilometers into the present figure for human population, we arrive at a ratio of about 470 people per square kilometer of arable land.
Is that last ratio a matter for concern? I would think so. A hard-working (i.e. farming) adult burns about 2 million kilocalories (“calories”) per year. The food energy from Pimentel’s hectare of corn is about 7 million kilocalories. Under primitive conditions, then, 1 hectare of corn would support only 3 or 4 people — or, in other words, 1 square kilometer would support 300 or 400 people. And all of these are ideal numbers; we are assuming that all resources are distributed rationally and equitably. (We are also assuming no increase in population, but famine and the attendant decrease in fertility will take care of that matter very soon.) Even if every inch of our planet’s “arable portion” were devoted to the raising of corn or other useful crops, we would have trouble squeezing in those 470 people mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Given such figures, I have little patience with writers who sprinkle the words “alternative,” “sustainable,” and “transition” over every page. Simple arithmetic is all that is needed to show that such a lexicon is unsuitable.
Nor can I do anything but shake my head when my “organic gardener” friends tell me that they can grow unlimited amounts of food merely by the liberal application of cow manure. Eliot Coleman, Andrew W. Lee, and other recent writers on “low-tech” agriculture (not to mention any farmers of the old school) agree that if cow manure is used on a hectare of farmland, for the first year of crop production at least 100 metric tons are necessary, and after that about 20 tons per year might be adequate. However, cows take up land. Another older but valuable book is Frances Mooore Lappe’s “Diet for a Small Planet,” in which she points out that one cow requires over a hectare in pasturage; that is in addition to the hay, grain, and other foods that the animal is given.
How many cows are needed for all that manure? I neither know nor care. All that is certain is that the use of cows to keep a garden in production would multiply the necessary land area enormously. There would also be no mechanized equipment to deliver the manure. The knowledge of animal husbandry, under primitive conditions, could certainly not be learned overnight. But I can say from experience that reality hits when the sun is going down and the shovel is getting heavy.
Many of the false figures that appear in discussions of the future are the result of armchair gardening of the worst sort. Growing a tiny patch of lettuce and tomatoes is not subsistence gardening. To support human life one must be growing grains and similar crops high in carbohydrates and protein, and these foods must be in quantities large enough to supply three full meals a day, every day, for every person in the household. We must also consider that in apocalyptic times it will certainly not be possible to stroll over to the tap and use a hose to pour unlimited amounts of water over one’s plants; on a large garden, the water is whatever the sky decides to send.
There may be an odd solution or two. There are parts of the Earth where population is actually decreasing in absolute numbers, as people mistakenly come to believe that country living is too hard. Well, yes, being squeezed out by multinationals is definitely too hard, but I’m talking about subsistence agriculture, not trying to survive by picking beans for a dollar an hour. Another partial solution may be a return to foraging, especially for those who choose to live in that non-arable 90 percent. Hunting and fishing have become unfashionable hobbies, but for the physically fit these skills could be a lifesaver; over-harvesting is certainly a concern, but the great majority of westerners are far too weak to spend a day plowing through underbrush.
The seacoast has possibilities that intrigue me. In various coastal areas it is traditional to grow potatoes by placing them on bare rock and covering them with seaweed. Even without a boat it is possible to get a meal by gathering shellfish.
Nor should we totally discount the practicality of animal husbandry. There are many parts of the world that are not suitable for agriculture, but the same land might produce wild grasses or other vegetation that in turn could feed domesticated animals. Under primitive conditions the density of human population in such areas would have to be very low, and the danger of over-grazing would always be there, but the truth is that there are large parts of the world that supported a pastoral life for centuries.
I don’t have much patience with cobbled-together happy endings, but I think there are answers for those who are single-minded enough to go after them. Remember that you can’t save the whole human race, you can only save a few people; learn to use a gun and an ax; head for the country. Oh, yes, and get yourself a reputation as a good neighbor; they may not actually adopt you, but they might help you out when there’s trouble.
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| June 29, 2009 |
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.
But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn't help thinking that I was watching a form of treason - treason against the planet.
To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.
The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe - a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable - can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.
Thus researchers at M.I.T., who were previously predicting a temperature rise of a little more than 4 degrees by the end of this century, are now predicting a rise of more than 9 degrees. Why? Global greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than expected; some mitigating factors, like absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans, are turning out to be weaker than hoped; and there's growing evidence that climate change is self-reinforcing - that, for example, rising temperatures will cause some arctic tundra to defrost, releasing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Temperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves - the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation - may become annual or biannual events.
In other words, we're facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?
Well, sometimes even the most authoritative analyses get things wrong. And if dissenting opinion-makers and politicians based their dissent on hard work and hard thinking - if they had carefully studied the issue, consulted with experts and concluded that the overwhelming scientific consensus was misguided - they could at least claim to be acting responsibly.
But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn't see people who've thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don't like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they've decided not to believe in it - and they'll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.
Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday's debate, it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a "hoax" that has been "perpetrated out of the scientific community." I'd call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists - a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.
Yet Mr. Broun's declaration was met with applause.
Given this contempt for hard science, I'm almost reluctant to mention the deniers' dishonesty on matters economic. But in addition to rejecting climate science, the opponents of the climate bill made a point of misrepresenting the results of studies of the bill's economic impact, which all suggest that the cost will be relatively low.
Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn't it politics as usual?
Yes, it is - and that's why it's unforgivable.
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an "existential threat" to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole - but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it's in their political interest to pretend that there's nothing to worry about. If that's not betrayal, I don't know what is.
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| June 25, 2009 |
Besides waging perpetual wars, nothing better reveals America's imperial agenda than its hundreds of global bases - for offense, not defense at a time the US hasn't had an enemy since the Japanese surrendered in August 1945.
According to the Department of Defense's Base Structure Report (BSR) through 2005, it totaled 737 but likely exceeds 1000 today with so many new ones built since then - some known, others secret and always others planned.
Unacceptable noise, pollution, environmental destruction, expropriation of valuable public and private land, and drunken, disorderly, and abusive soldiers committing crimes that include rape and murder that often go unpunished under provisions in US-imposed Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs).
Officially, over 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in 909 military facilities in 46 countries and territories. There, the US military owns or rents 795,000 acres of land, and 26,000 buildings and structures valued at $146 billion."
However, the numbers are misleading as they exclude the massive base and troop presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, former Soviet republics, and Warsaw Pact countries as well as unknown numbers of secret facilities in numerous other nations. They consist of three types:
-- Main Operating Bases (MOBs) like the Iraq Balad Air Base housing 30,000 troops, 10,000 contractors, and covering 16 square miles plus another 12-square mile "security perimeter." MOBs are large and permanent, have extensive infrastructure, command and control headquarters, accommodations for families in non-war zones, hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, and nearly anything available in a typical US city.
-- Forward Operation Sites (FOSs) that are also major installations but are smaller than MOBs, and
-- Cooperative Security Locations (CLSs) that are small, austere, called 'lily pads," - to preposition weapons, munitions, and modest numbers of troops.
Farm and public land is expropriated for their use. Toxic pollution is enormous as well as extensive environmental damage. Noise levels from round-the-clock aircraft are intolerable, and around numerous bases America is at war. It also imprisons and tortures thousands, props up despotic rulers for its own advantage, and virtually holds the entire planet hostage to its extremist agenda.
The Purpose of US Bases is that they reflect empire, an aim to dominate everywhere, a sense of "racial, cultural, or social superiority," and a success when "wealth is extracted from peripheral areas and redistributed to the imperial center."
The Pentagon claims they're in place to:
-- defend the homeland with a forward or global presence; and
-- provide other nations with security.
In fact, they're to control trade, resources, local supplies of cheap labor, and political, economic, and social life of host countries. They also force them to support American imperialism, including foreign wars despite harmful fallout to local populations.
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| July 10, 2009 |
What Kind of "Hope" Is Obama Offering to Latin American Countries Still Traumatized by U.S. Empire?
by Roberto Lovato, World
Throughout the Americas, there exists a powerful political tradition in which esperanza (hope) is defined by the fight against U.S. domination.
Until "hope" has some heft besides military heft to back it up, "esperanza" of Latin America will reign supreme -- and be defended ferociously.
Once called "America's Backyard" by Obama's predecessors, America the continent has torn down the fences of what political scientists call the "unipolar" power of the United States in the region as the forces of esperanza usher in a new, more multipolar moment.
According to a widely quoted poll by the respected Latinobarometro Corp. in November, Latin Americans have a more favorable opinion of Spain, Japan and the European Union than they do of the United States -- an unprecedented development -- and two-thirds of all Latin Americans say they "don't believe that the change of leadership in that country (the U.S.) will change the attitude of that country towards the region (of Latin America)."
In the land of esperanza, Obama must recognize that talk of "hope" that is accompanied by continued military funding for governments like those of Honduras or Colombia rings as hollow. And are as increasingly vapid as the political slogans, such as "Si Se Puede" (Yes We Can), deployed by politicians and corporations pilfering beer, burgers and bad foreign policy.
Although the diplomatic dance between the Obama administration and Latin America has just begun, the initial steps in tiny Honduras may not be taken to the tune of "hope," but to that of esperanza.
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| July 9, 2009 |
10 Dangerous Household Products You Should Never Use Again
by Sustain Lane, Health & Wellness
Air fresheners, disinfectants, and cleaners found under your sink are more dangerous than you think.
Here is a list of the ten products you should ban from your home -- forever -- along with suggested alternatives.
1. Non-Stick Cookware
2. Plastic Bottles
3. Conventional Cleaning Supplies
4. Chemical Insecticides and Herbicides
5. Antibacterial Products
6. Chemical Fertilizers
7. More Bulb for Your Buck
8. Air fresheners
9. Flame Retardants
10. Plastic Shopping Bags
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| June 26, 2009 |
We've Been Trapped Inside a Bad Health Care System So Long, We Don't Even Know How Much We're Missing
by Sara Robinson, Campaign for America's Future, Health & Wellness
Our current system has robbed us of the chance to save, educate ourselves, see the world and live to a robust old age.
Polls say most Americans who have health care are satisfied with it. But nobody ever asks them if they're satisfied with what they've had to do to get it, keep it, or afford it.
What would you do differently? I watch my Canadian neighbors live their lives, and the world beyond the swamp comes into sharp and stunning focus.
My neighbors go to the doctor when they need to -- and often, when they don't. If they're just feeling funky for a day or two, they go. If the splinter is too big to handle with a needle, they go. Anything goes a little bit sideways -- they go.
By American standards, they're probably overusing the system.
But the upshot is that the small symptoms of really big things -- little lumps, creeping blood pressure, wounds that don't heal right, coughs that don't go away -- are caught and diagnosed early in a GP's office, instead of months or years down the road in a full-blown crisis at the ER, which is now the American way. And this is central to cost containment: getting emergent problems calmly headed off right away in a $30 office visit is a lot more cost-effective than having to deal with the full catastrophe later on in a $3,000 emergency-room drama scene. And it allows people to maintain their good health through the years, instead of delaying treatment until it's too late to recover it and permanent damage is done.
My neighbors heal, recover, and go on with their lives. The U.S. disability rate last year was 19.1 percent, and rising fast. In Canada, it's 14.3 percent -- and Statistics Canada believes that the only reason their stats are creeping up these days is that people who once hid their disabilities are now more willing to admit them.
That disability rate affects the country's economic competitiveness. Americans just don't have the time or money to spend on a proper recovery after a major event, or get the full course of treatment that a chronic condition requires to be truly well-managed. Fearing for our income or our jobs, we hurry back to work too soon. Our insurance doesn't cover necessary follow-up therapies, so things may not heal thoroughly or properly. We can't afford the drugs, so we cut the pills in half, or stop taking them entirely.
The result is that too many of us end up far more impaired than we need to be -- and may, in fact, never be quite right again. Deferred maintenance -- which is what this is -- takes a ferocious toll on the American workforce, which is now being forced to compete with workers around the world who get better care, make better recoveries, and are able to return to work at full strength.
My neighbors start small businesses.
My neighbors go back to school.
My neighbors quit jobs they hate.
My neighbors stay home with their kids.
My neighbors invest.
My neighbors travel.
My neighbors seldom go bankrupt.
My neighbors have never seen anyone die because they didn't have health care. With 22,000 Americans dying every year due to a lack of health insurance.
Think about it. Let yourself get good and angry. The current system has robbed an entire generation of Americans of their full potential. It has made us serfs. It has narrowed our horizons. It has undermined our families and communities. It has deprived us of the chance to save, to own a home, to educate ourselves and our children, to see the world, to retire in comfort, and to live to a healthy and robust old age.
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| June 25, 2009 |
Food Inc: Michael Pollan and Friends Reveal the Food Industry's Darkest Secrets
by Tara Lohan, Environment
The new film Food Inc. is a shocking look at the health, human rights and the environmental nightmare that lands on our plate each meal.
It turns out that figuring out the most simple thing -- like what's on your dinner plate, and where it came from -- is actually a pretty subversive act.
The story's main narrative chronicles the consolidation of our vast food industry into the hands of a few powerful corporations that have worked to limit the public's understanding of where its food comes from, what's in it and how safe it may be.
But it's also a larger story about the people that have gotten in the way of the stampeding corporate herd.
There are also the farmers who appear with their faces blacked out on screen for fear of Monsanto, or the communities ravaged by Type 2 diabetes, or the undocumented workers at processing plants who are recruited from their NAFTA-screwed homelands, illegally brought over the border to work dangerous jobs for peanuts, only to be humiliatingly sacrificed in immigration raids that only criminalize workers and never the employers.
But it is the ordinary folks in the film that make you realize how critical these issues are to the future of food, health care, the environment and human rights in this country.
when 1 out of 3 Americans born after the year 2000 is going to get early-onset diabetes; it is going to bankrupt the health care system. And I think there is a direct connection between food and health.
I don't think you can deal with the environment without dealing with the food system when 20-25 percent of your carbon footprint involves growing and transporting food.
I think these issues are coming to the surface and are becoming more important, there has just been some movement on food safety where the FDA will have the power to recall food (which they do not have now).
one of the shocks of making this film was that at every rural location we went to there were parts of towns that only spoke Spanish and that our food is grown and processed by illegal immigrants, and it is really this hypocritical world that we live in because we are depending on them to deliver this inexpensive food to the supermarket, but yet we also don't want them in our communities because people think it taxes communities -- the health care and schools.
But unfortunately, the people who get arrested are the workers who are working hard and doing their part, and the reason they are being hired is because they are doing difficult, dangerous, low-paying jobs, and only people without rights would want to do that work. And that for me was as important as talking about how the animals are mistreated -- I tried not to even go there. But people are always shocked by animal mistreatment in the film, and I didn't think I even put it in.
People think if they can't do it all the time they don't have to do anything. Change one meal. But then we have to stop subsidizing food that is making us sick, we have to change the national school-lunch program. If we supported local farms and got that to the school systems and spent a dollar there, we'd save a a fortune in medicine and train kids to eat right, and we'd have better communities.
We have to vote with our votes and our forks. I am really optimistic that it's going to change. I feel a sense of real growth -- it might not be quick, but it is going to change, there is a real growing movement. The question is when. This is an unsustainable system, it can't go on.
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The Editor of the Global Information Media is now accepting articles, letters, reports, research papers, discussions and global dialogues, and messages for publication.
This Media is a way to communicate workable sound solutions to problems arising in the
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survival. Our world is changing fast before our eyes, and we must react quickly and hard to protect all life on Earth. No hesitation! Right now and no waiting! Life on the planet is our first priority. We must protect it at all costs. We, global
citizens, fight to protect life on Earth for this generation and the next ones. We are the defenders of the environment and the global life-support systems. We know who the beasts are, and how they destroy the living on our planet.
We have rallied together all over the world to protect our home, Earth. But this time we are not alone. We know it all! We know how everything works. And we will do whatever it takes to protect life on Earth.
" We the Peoples", the Global Community, are the Earth revolutionaries, and we will protect life on Earth at all costs.
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The Editor.
The world is in a state of perpetual turmoil. We are worlds within worlds orbiting in and through each other’s space.
Our interactions with one another can be planned and executed in a caring, considerate manner so that all may exist and not destroy the other.
A good place to start this day would be to see the people living in far away places as we see our neighbors. Neighbors are people we should see as people very much like ourselves. Love your neighbors as yourself.
Many scientists have shown that our genetic make-up as human beings are not that much different than that of many other life-forms. The reality is that we as people are not that
much different from one another. Our education and upbringings are different and created cultural and religious differences. Conflicts originate often because of these cultural and religious differences.
My teaching for the day is to make the effort to understand what make us different from one another and find a way to appreciate those differences.
We also have to make the effort of understanding other life-forms in Nature and appreciate the differences.
Because of brain capacity, we dont expect other life-forms of understanding us, but we do have a moral responsibility of understanding them and appreciate the differences.
God loves diversity in Nature and in Souls. God loves good Souls from all cultures and religions, and from all life. Yes there is a Soul in every living life-form and God
loves them too.
Germain
Spiritual Leader of the Global Community
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/Lifeisprotected.htm
You may use the following short description of myself and the history of the organization.
Short description and history of the Global Community, Earth Government and the Federation of Global Govewrnments
The Global Community organization, Earth Government and the
Federation of Global Governments were founded in 1985 in Calgary, Canada by
Germain Dufour, Prophete of God, Spiritual Leader and President, and further developed
through Global Parliament meetings.
Later on in 1990s he was joined by his wife, Virginie, in the developing of many global concepts.
Symbiotical relationships were defined to show the path for a better world.
The Federation was formed to replace the United Nations. Its basic
proposal is a de-centralized global government. A Global
Government offers essential services to the people where it operates and
the Federation main function is to serve all people and help in this process
with the formation of Global Ministries to protect all life on our planet.
Essential services to the people of each member nation are now the most
important global rights on the Scale of Global Rights and are protected by the
Global Protection Agency (GPA) of each member nation whose function is
to enforce Global Law as defined in the Global Constitution. The Scale
is the fundamental guide to Global Law which itself includes
legislation covering all essential aspects of human activities. That is how we will bring
about the event of Peace amongst us all and give security to all people, all life on Earth.
As a first step to getting help, all nations can and should approve those first three sections on the Scale of Global Rights.
The approval would supersede the political and physical borders of participating member nations.
The Global Protection Agency (GPA) would have the approval from all member nations to give immediate help, bypassing normal government protocols.
Somewhat like an emergency unit but at the global level. That is what those first three sections mean. They represent an efficient and immediate emergency response to help.
First, participating member nations need to give their approval to the Global Protection Agency ( GPA).
The GPA is a global organization much like the World Trade Organization (WTO) for trade between nations, the World Health Organization (WHO) for health,
or the European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), South American Community of Nations (SACON) for trade and economics.
The GPA offers an efficient emergency response to help.
The GPA is a short term solution, an immediate and efficient response to help.
There are also long term solutions. As with the short term solution, the most significant long term solution is also related to
the Scale of Global Rights. The Scale was entrenched in the Global Constitution and is thus the fundamental guide to Global Law.
Now the Scale of Global Rights is a long term solution and is also a part of the Global Movement to Help of the Global Community.
The Scale was designed to help all life on Earth. What would be preferable is that nations unite amongst themselves to help.
Over time, we have seen the creation of the United Nations, the European
Union, the South American Community of Nations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Except for the UN, these organizations are mainly concerned with trade and economics.
The Global Community offers a more meaningful union in the form of nine or more Global Governments. For instance the South American Community of Nations can be
a Global Government by simply accepting the Global Constitution as a way of dealing between member nations. A Global Government is concerned not only with economics and trade,
but also with the environment, health, agriculture, energy, food, social, cultural and many other essential aspects.
The Federation of Global Governments is the place of meeting between Global Governments.
The very first step of the Federation, and maybe the only one for several decades ahead of us, would be the approval of essential services amongst the participating member nations. The Global
Community has researched and developed such services and listed them here.
All of them are already in operation on a small scale.
I believe
that there is no greater task in the world today than for the Global Community
to proceed through the maturation of its leadership, emerging from a more
self-interested adolescence as a global leader into a nobler adulthood.
We have the potential to act as a torchbearer for a better tomorrow. Do
we heed the call? I hope this message has convinced many international organizations and the millions of people who have been with us over the past decades,
that the question of how to proceed with that maturation is of far deeper
significance than the reforming of the United Nations.
In fact the United Nations should not be reformed it should be replaced by the Federation.
I thus pray that
we move with wisdom, grace, clarity, and love in the days, years, and even
decades ahead.
Germain Dufour
Spiritual Leader of the Global Community
(short
Bio)
President
Earth Government
Federation of Global Governments
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Dear friends,
On and around May 26, 2009, millions of people will join together in a global call to celebrate Life, the gift to the universe from God.
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Celebration of Life Day
is May 26 every year, a day to say
thank you God for the gift of Life on Earth
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On May 26, 2009, the Global Community asked all Peoples of the world to participate in this celebration of Life in your own community. The following project
was appropriate to everyone.
From the experience in your life and local community tell us:
* Why are you important to this "Global
Community"?
* Why is it important to you?
* What do you like about it?
* What bothers you about it?
* Anything need to be done?
* What is really good there?
* What is very very important?
* What is not so important?
* What is not good?
* What is needed to keep the good things?
* What could make them even better?
* What could you do to keep the good things good?
* Could they help get rid of bad things?
* What unimportant things need to go?
* How could you help get rid of these things?
to sustain Earth, humanity and all life.
Please send us the following information:
1. What are the most important issues that would allow your community become more sustainable? Over the past several years, many communities have held Life Day
dialogues to determine the answer to this question. We look forward to hearing from all of you.
2. A brief story of success in your community from the last 10 years in regard to a sound sustainable development.
3. A picture related to the above or to a Life Day event.
4. A sample of your idea of the Earth Flag.
We will gather this information from groups all over the world and
compile it into a comprehensive report. Your work will be shown during Global Dialogue 2009.
Please mail or email your ideas, pictures and descriptions, videos, Earth Flag samples to:
Germain Dufour
Spiritual Leader of the Global Community
President
Earth Government
Federation of Global Governments
Visit our website for more details concerning the Celebration of Life Day.
Celebration of Life Day
On May 26, as part of the Global Community Peace Movement, the Human Family,we will be rejoicing with
all Peoples of the world , and all life, for the annual Celebration of Life Day. Life is the most precious gift ever
given by God to the universe and this event needs to be celebrated.
At the early stage of the formation of the Earth, and a while later, all the conditions for the formation of life were present, and
life was
created to better serve God. Life was made of matter and every particle of that matter had a Soul that merged with all the others. A
Soul is a part of the Spirit of God, His consciousness, and is a living, loving presence, a Being. A Soul can merge with other Souls
and become one Soul, and it can evolve as well. The first spark of life was the cause for the formation of a unique and independent
Soul to better serve God. Throughout the different evolutionary stages of life on Earth, Souls have guided the step-by-step
evolution of life and kept merging with one another to better serve God. They guided the evolutionary process in small, incremental
ways over a period of several billion years. Many groupings of Souls became more complex than others as they were much brighter
beings than other groupings, but all serve God in their own special way.
One unique and most wonderful grouping was the grouping that made the Human Soul. God loves the human Souls a lot because of
their wonderful qualities. Over the past thousands of years, through their Souls human beings became conscious of God in many
different ways. Religions of all kinds started to spread on Earth to adore God and pray. Different groupings of Souls affected human
beings in different ways and Peoples today have different religious beliefs. God is like a river feeding plentifully and bountifully
all lifeforms and plants. There are many pathways leading to the river. They are God's pathways. God loves diversity in Nature and
in Souls. God loves good Souls from all religions.
Different religions have different ways to love, adore and pray to God. And God's Heaven exists. Heaven on Earth is different from
God's Heaven. To be in Heaven with God will mean a Soul has left the matter of the universe forever to enter God's Heaven.
The Divine Will or Will of God is the most powerful force of the universe and is pure spiritual energy. The Will
of God is for life to reach God, God’s Pure Light, in the best possible ways. Life is the building block through which Souls
can have a meaningful relationship with God. By observing the Universe, the galaxies, we are observing and studying God. We are
seeing His magnificence, His greatness, and His complex making. There is more to the Universe we observe today, that is, there is
more to God, much more. God is self-existent, eternal and infinite in space and time. Follow God's Word. God's Plan was revealed
to humanity a short while ago.
The Divine Plan for humanity is:
a) for everyone to manage Earth responsibly, and
b) about to reach the stars and spread Life throughout the universe and thus help other Souls to evolve and serve God in the best
possible ways.
Humanity’s higher purpose is to serve God by propagating life throughout the universe. Humanity will evolve spiritually to
fulfill God's Plan. The human species has reached a point in its evolution where it knows its survival is being challenged. The human
species knows through the Souls and now that all human Souls have merged together and formed the Soul of Humanity, we
will find it easier to fight for our own survival. The Soul of Humanity does not make decisions for us and can only help us
understand and guide us on the way. In the past, human beings have had some kind of symbiotical relationship
(which is
something common in Nature between lifeforms in an ecosystem) with the Souls, and now with the Soul of Humanity. We work
together for both our survival and well-being. Cooperation and symbiosis between lifeforms (especially human beings) on Earth
and between lifeforms and their Souls and the Soul of Humanity have become a necessity of life. We help one another, joint
forces, and accomplish together what we cannot accomplish separately. Several billion years ago this symbiosis between matter
and Souls resulted in the making of complex biochemical systems. Symbiosis has worked throughout the evolution of life on Earth
and today, the Soul of Humanity has decided to be more active with humanity by purifying Souls. The Soul of Humanity shows us
the way to better serve God.
The Soul of Humanity is helping to bring about the event of Peace in the world. Knowing that Earth is a spiritual entity as
well as a physical entity in space and time in the universe we begin to have a better relationship with Earth and with all its
living inhabitants. This way Earth management will become a spiritual and a natural process whereby each person is responsible and
accountable for its management the best they can. Peace in the world and Earth management have for too long been in the hands of
and affected by government and business leaders, in the hands of a few people on the planet, as opposed to being in the hands of
all of us (7 billion people on Earth) working together to keep our planet healthy. We are the keepers of the Earth.
The Soul of Humanity will help us:
* resolve problems, concerns and issues peacefully;
* reinstate the respect for Earth;
* work with humanity to keep Earth healthy, productive and hospitable for all people and living things;
* bring forth a sustainable global society embracing universal values related to human and Earth rights, economic and social justice;
respect of nature, peace, responsibility to one another;
* protect the global life-support systems and manage Earth;
* evolve spiritually to fulfill God’s Plan; and
* enter God’s Heaven, His Spirit, His Pure Light, His universal mind and global consciousness.
We have the responsibility of managing Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within
the Global
Community. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or
conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as oppose to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
Life exists on millions of other planets in the universe and our species got to be who we are today through the evolutionary process.
Other lifeforms in the universe may have evolved to be at least as advanced as our species. Their Souls may even be more complicated
than ours. They may have merged a trillion times more than the human Souls. They may have evolved as well.
We the Peoples of the Global Community, the Human Family, are reaffirming faith in the fundamental human and Earth
rights, the Scale of Human and Earth Rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small. We
the Peoples implies every individual on Earth, every community and every nation. Earth management is now a priority and a
duty of every responsible person on Earth. The Global Community has taken action by calling the Divine Will into our lives and following its
guidance. Divine Will is now a part of the Soul of Humanity to be used for the higher purpose of good and life's evolution.
We will learn to serve humanity and radiate the Will of God to others.
As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning. This requires a change of mind and heart, and calling
Divine Will to come into our life to show us the way. It requires a new sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility.
We must develop and apply the vision of a sustainable way of life locally, nationally, regionally, globally, and within ourselves
throughout life. Our cultural diversity is a precious heritage and different cultures will find their own distinctive ways to
realize the vision. We must deepen and expand the global dialogue that generated the ongoing collaborative search for truth and
wisdom.
Life often involves tensions between important values. This can mean difficult choices. However, we must find ways to harmonize
diversity with unity, the exercise of freedom with the common good, short-term objectives with long-term goals. Every individual,
family, organization, and community has a vital role to play. The arts, sciences, religions, educational institutions, media,
businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and governments are all called to offer creative leadership. The partnership of
government,
civil society, and business is essential for an effective global governance based on global concepts and the Scale of Human
and Earth Rights.
In order to build a sustainable global community, each individual, each local community, and national governments of the world must
initiate their commitment to the Human Family.
Let our time be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the
quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life. Let our expanding consciousness blend with
that of the Soul of Humanity.
Humanity welcomes the
"Belief, Values, Principles and Aspirations of the Global Community"
(see the Global Constitution on our website) with Faith in the Divine Will and without fears such as the fear of
change. Humanity seeks meaningful experiences and embraces the future for the better. Divine Will has caused the event of the Global Community.
Our time is the age of global cooperation and symbiotical relationships. There are many different kinds
of symbiotical relationships. Symbiotical relationships exist between nations of the European Union. It is mainly an economic base
symbiotical relationship. Other types of symbiotical relationships maybe created all over the world between communities, nations,
and between people themselves. The Global Community, the Global Governments Federation, and the Global Government of North America are examples.
They may be geographical, economical, social, business-like, political, religious, and personal.
There has always been symbiotical relationships in Nature, and between Souls and the matter of the universe to help creating Earth
and life on Earth to better serve God.
The Global Community has begun to establish the existence of a meaningful global co-operation all over the planet. National governments and
large corporations have taken the wrong direction by asserting that free trade in the world is about competing economically without
any moral safeguards and accountability to peoples and the environment. The proper and only way is for free trade to become a global
cooperation between all nations. Surely, if we can cooperate in fighting against terrorism, then we should also be able to
cooperate in fighting against the effects of the type of free trade and the emergence of the planetary trading blocks as applied
by national governments members of the World Trade Organization(WTO). It has already been shown (see Newsletters on
our website) that these effects will be disastrous socially and environmentally and are a direct threat to the existence of life
on Earth. The Global Community is proposing a solution that the process of trading within the planetary trading blocks be changed
from a spirit of global competition to that of global economic cooperation. This is the new way of doing business, the new way
of life.
The Global Community has made clear that globalization and planetary trading blocks should be serving the Human Family and not the other way around,
the people around the world serving the very few rich individuals. The September 11 event was the result of bad trading of
arms and oil and the absence of moral responsibility and accountability in our way of doing business with the Middle East nations.
By applying proper moral safeguards and accepting responsibility and accountability of all products (arms and oil in this case),
from beginning to end where they become wastes, each corporation would make free trade and globalization serving the Human Family.
The September 11 event was also a turning point in human history and indicated the end of the last superpower in the world and the
birth of the Global Community. Over its long past history trade has never evolved to require from the trading partners to
become legally and morally responsible and accountable for their products from beginning to end. At the end the product becomes
a waste and it needs to be properly dispose of. Now trade must be given a new impetus to be in line with the global concepts of
the Global Community. When you do exploration work, and develop, manufacture, produce, mine, farm or create a product, you become legally
and morally responsible and accountable of your product from beginning to end (to the point where it actually becomes a waste;
you are also responsible for the proper disposable of the waste). This product may be anything and everything from oil & gas,
weapons, war products, construction products, transportation and communications products and equipment, to genetically
engineered food products. All consumer products! All medical products! All pharmaceutical products! In order words, a person
(a person may be an individual, a community, a government, a business, an NGO, or an institution) becomes responsible and
accountable for anything and everything in his or her life.
Certainly an important action has been for the Canadian Government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol as it is. No more waiting! Time for
action is now! We are all responsible for the creation of global warming, and there are plenty of observable effects. Greenhouse
gases are accumulating dangerously in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, and temperatures are rising globally
due to these activities. Climate changes have to be manage without delays and the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is only the
beginning of a long fight for the protection of life on Earth. There is much more to be done to even come close to what we have to
do. The ratification was only the beginning to help save the next generations.
Global consumption is a very important aspect of globalization. Consumers should be concerned with the impact of their decisions on
the environment but also on the lives, human and Earth rights and well-being of other people. Since one of the key functions of
families as a social institution is to engage in production (selling their labour in return for wages) and consumption (using
those wages to buy goods and services), then the role of families has impacts on sustainable consumption and development.
Corporations are required to expand their responsibilities to include human and Earth rights, the environment, community and
family aspects, safe working conditions, fair wages and sustainable consumption aspects. Global Community has summarized the rights of every
person on Earth by developing the Scale of Human and Earth Rights. The scale will eventually be
replacing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Global Constitution established all rights.
Just as corporations have social responsibilities and so do consumers in societies. Consumers are socialized to improve the
quality of their lives. Quality of life is a multi-dimensional, complex and very subjective concept. For instance,
someone who has changed their consumption habits to better ensure that their choices will make a better quality of life for
themselves, the environment and future generations, may be seen by others as having a lower or inferior quality of life since they
have removed themselves from the materialistic mainstream characteristic of our consumer society. Someone may feel that an absence
of violence and abuse in their life leads to a higher quality of living even though they have fewer tangible resources, money, or
shelter; peace of mind and freedom from abuse has increased the quality of their daily life relative to what it was like before.
There are universal quality of life values which lead to "human betterment" or the improvement of the human condition. In addition
to the value of species survival (human and other living organisms), they include: adequate resources, justice and equality,
freedom, and peace or balance of power. A better quality of life for all people of the Global Community Earth Government is a goal for all of us and
one of our universal values.
Global Community found that an adequate level of health care is a universal value as well as a human right. We expect adequate health services to
be accessible, affordable, compassionate and socially acceptable. We believe that every individual of a society is co-responsible
for helping in implementing and managing health programmes along with the government and the public institutions.
Being unified under the Soul of Humanity, Divine Will, God the Spirit and the Human Family dissolve all barriers and expand our global
consciousness. We become more whole and complete within ourselves and as a group. Our common Spirit is able to resolve planetary
problems in a coherent way. One common 'global Vision'
allows us to see how all the parts of the whole relate to each other. We
have the right relationship with one another, with all lifeforms and Earth itself, and with the Soul of Humanity, the Divine Will
and God the Spirit.
On May 26, let us all celebrate life in our heart, mind and Spirit. Let us thank God for the gift of life.
On August 22 of every year the Global Community celebrates the Global Cultural Day, the Cultural Appreciation Day. The event's theme is "Culture, Values and Social Development."
Noting that culture and development are not mutually exclusive, event organizers are asked to promote a union between historical preservation and future local - global growth.
The Global Community is rich with tradition and art.
Culture is certainly tangible - churches, temples and monuments; and intangible - heritage with performing arts, fine arts or visual arts.
Every community is based on a society distinctly different from any other country and its people.
The Cultural Appreciation Day celebration.
The Cultural Appreciation Day celebration promotes the meaning of culture, the real nature of Humanity and what inhibits its development.
It is for all, regardless of education, age, race, political or religious beliefs. The idea of the Cultural Appreciation Day celebration is that Humanity
in truth is limitless, and that there is a unity underlying all the apparent diversity in our daily lives.
Activities
Activities during the celebration may include mask making, cooking, singing, music, dance/drama, and puppet making by and for the children.
The day provides vendors, live entertainment, children's activities, and food in celebration of the various cultural groups.
The Cultural Appreciation Day celebration occurs at the same time and is an important part of the Global Exhibition.
For the fourth year since the first time ever promoting of a Global Exhibition, there is a Global Exhibition at the time of Global Dialogue 2009, and at the same site in Nanaimo. It is also occurring
everywhere else in the world along with Global Dialogue 2009. People of all nations are asked to organize a Global Exhibition during the period August 17 - August 22 of each year.
We live in a world where all natural and human resources
are exploited without limits, so that a small minority can consume far more
than their rightful share of the world's real wealth. Now, while that is going on, we found
that the industrial era faces a burnout, because it is exhausting the human
and natural resource base on which our very lives depend.
A sound governance and management of our planet is needed for the long term survival of our species.
We need to grow strong caring communities in which we
get more of our human satisfaction from caring relationships and less from
material goods. We need to reclaim the
ideal of being a democratic middle-class people without extremes of wealth
and poverty.
And we need to realize what is a priority, what is the most
important, and what is the least important for our survival. We need to
make hard choices. We need a clear vision. We need a common vision. And
we must all change! There are many important aspects of our lives we can
no longer do, or should never do anymore. They are destructive. Humanity
and all life can no longer afford activities that destroy life and the
global environment, and certainly the military is a major one of them.
And there are other activities we must do, thousands of them, to assure
the survival of life on Earth. In view of the planetary state of emergency, we all must change, we must do things
differently to give life on Earth a better survival chance.
We need ways of organizing ourselves to help us live
in a world with less energy and fewer material goods. We need to recover a deep sense
of community that has disappeared from many of our lives. This means letting go
a sense of ourselves as consumption machine.
The Global Community has found that consumption of the
Earth resources and the amount of wastes we create can be managed very
differently, more efficiently, and be less destructive to the global environment.
Our ways of doing business and trade can be improved upon to decrease waste
and consumption of Earth resources.
Often what is called trade is really moving of resources
across borders between subsidiaries of the same corporation. Nothing to
do with free competition. Economic activity is centrally-managed and planned
by the corporate elite. Capital move freely across borders as restrictions
on the flow of money have been removed. Corporations can relocate their
operations to the countries with the lowest wages, the least active unions
and the lowest environmental standards. The reality is that more polluting
industries are encouraged to relocate to developing countries. A polluting
industry tends to increase the chances that people in the surrounding area
will have health problems. It costs less to dump a load of toxic waste
in the lowest wage country.
The Global Community has developed a strategy to improve
our ways of doing business and trade so as to protect all life on the planet.
Over its long past history trade has never evolved to require from the
trading partners to become legally and morally responsible and accountable
for their products from beginning to end. At the end the product becomes
a waste and it needs to be properly dispose of. Now trade must be given
a new impetus to be in line with the global concepts of the Global Community.
You manufacture, produce, mine, farm or create a product, you become legally
and morally responsible and accountable of your product from beginning
to end (to the point where it actually becomes a waste; you are also responsible
for the proper disposable of the waste). This product may be anything and
everything from oil & gas, weapons, war products, to genetically engineered
food products. All consumer products. All medicinal products! All pharmaceutical
products!
The natural resources of the Earth belong to all the "global communities" along with the Global Community where they are found.
When people know they own the resources in their communities then people can start directing the wealth of their resources towards
the building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all in their community.
The Global Community concept of ownership states
that land and natural resources of our planet are a common heritage and
belong equally to everyone, to all life on Earth, as a birthright. Products
and services created by individuals are properly viewed as private property.
Products and services created by a group of individuals are properly viewed
as collective property.
Along with ownership comes the obligation of using the
resources, share them or lose them. Land and all other Earth natural resources
are not commodities. Use the land, share it or lose it. This principle
also applies to banks and similar institutions all over the world and to
Wall Street. You own property because the previous owners could not pay.
Use that property, share it or lose it.
It should also be our goal to create locally owned enterprises
that sustainably harvest and process local resources to produce jobs, goods
and services. We should favor local firms and
workers, who pay local taxes, live by local rules, respect and nurture
the local ecosystems, compete fairly in local markets, and contribute to
community life.
A community should benefit from the use of commonly held natural resources. That includes land, air, water, all minerals, and the electromagnetic spectrum.
The exploitation and use of natural resources should be taxed.
Moving taxes onto resources and land use and off of incomes should make people
less expensive to employ.
Taxes should be designed to conserve resources and energy, and increase employment.
Labour should not be taxed but pollution should.
Resource taxes should be assessed as early as possible.
Resources should be taxed before entering the manufacturing process in
order to green all aspects from extraction phase to the finished product.
Be sustainable locally first, and globally next only if needed. Let go
the WTO, NAFTA or any free trade agreement.
A workable type of Tobin tax should be in place as
it is a powerful instrument to promote global sustainability and force
shareholders to be responsible and accountable to the people of global communities.
A Tobin tax is a tax on
all trade of currency across borders to put a penalty on short-term speculation
in currencies. The tax rate should be 10 to 25 cents per hundred dollars.
The proposal is important due to its potential to prevent global financial
crises such as we are seeing now. Also, an estimated $500 billion per year
makes it possible to meet urgent global priorities, such as preventing
global warming, disease, and unemployment.
The tax should be managed by the
Global Community and the Federation of Global Governments. In the globalized
economy, there is a lack of adequate funding for global problems which threaten local
communities worldwide. Projects which could help to address these needs
and create jobs will cost more than $500 billion annually. Private donors
do not meet the need, and some nations cut their aid budgets. New multilateral
approaches to public finance, such as Tobin Taxes, may provide part of
the answer.
We are facing the dire consequences of ecological collapse, Climate change, water scarcity, extinction of biodiversity and over population.
In the past 20 million years, the carbon dioxide content of the biosphere has been 300 ppm. Only in the past hundred years has the carbon dioxide reached 370 ppm. The question is whether this change may
react in such a way that it becomes a tipping point for extreme disaster.
In 1930, the population of the planet was2 billion. In 2000. It was 6 billion. In 2020. It will be 8 billion
There is massive, inequity in distribution of world income. A living wage in San Francisco, is $96 a day. Poverty in the US is
defined as, $12 a day. 60% of people in the world live on less than three dollars a day and they cannot afford any of the economic material luxury goods, which the current global economy thrives on.
40% of people by 2020 will not have enough water to live on and 95% of people in the world are predicted to be living in urban situations.
It is predicted that oil will peak by 2010. Oil is the source for growing food and fertilisers and plastics etc,. Because of this, the poorest people in the world will not be able to sell sufficient goods to survive.
We are in phase six of biodiversity, mass extinction. Within 20 years, 20% of biodiversity will be extinct and 50% by 100 years. This makes the biosphere, unsustainable. We are looking towards a whole
systems crisis within 20 years, unless we get our act together fast.
The structure of the political system is changing, due to the rapid change in the nature of information now available andthe fact that individuals have a greater say in what they want. Individuals, therefore, need to
be educated, and there needs to be greater emphasis on holistic education and holistic health. Economic rationalism per se does not work in a global milieu which does not have infinite resources.
Peace needs to be emphasised above all else, because the greatest threat to our extinction as a species is aggressive competition and war. There are still 40,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and we
completely forget about this., when we talk about climate change.
The big change occurring, which seems to be ignored., generally, is the coming together of science and religion. It is now proven scientifically, that Human consciousness has a profound effect on the
environment, as well as on society. The experiments done are more valid and more stringent than any medical double-blind trial, you will see for example in The New England Journal of Medicine.
For humanity , to survive a greater emphasis needs to be on decentralized representation, and a transnational representation of the voices of the Global community of people who in their billions are crying out for change
The creation of Ministries and Commissions for peace throughout the World would be a tremendous advance for global society, in rapid transformation and change
Only by expressing in every way the new paradigm based on interrelationship, interdependency and cooperation amongst all humanity regardless of race, creed, culture or belief system can we hope to
reverse the trend of global degradation and demise
The Global Community claims that everyone on Earth should
be able to live in peace. This Global Peace Mouvement is about the courage
to live a life in a harmonious peace order and showing by example, thus
preventing poverty, wars, terror and violence. We need to educate the coming
generations with good principles, being compassionate, social harmony and
global sustainability being some of them.
The responsibility of a peacemaker is to settle differences through compromise and negotiation before they erupt into violence. Conflicting
views do not have to bring about fighting. War is an irreversible solution to a problem. War is never an appropriate solution to resolve a conflict. In order to bring about the event of peace, the Global Community is offering other good organizations around
the world to work together to bring warring parties to peace.
Peace in the world and the survival and protection of all life on our planet go hand-in-hand. Asking for peace in the world means doing whatever is necessary
to protect life on our planet. Protecting life implies bringing about the event of peace in the world.
Let our time be a time remembered for a new respect for life, our determination to achieve sustainability, and our need for global justice and peace.
From now on, building global communities for peace require understanding of global problems this generation is facing. There are several major problems: conflicts and wars,
no tolerance and compassion for one another, world overpopulation, unemployment,
insufficient protection and prevention for global health, scarcity of resources and drinking water, poverty, Fauna and Flora species disappearing at a fast rate,
global warming and global climate change, global pollution, permanent lost of the Earth's genetic heritage, and the destruction of the global life-support systems and
the eco-systems of the planet. We need to build global communities that will manage themselves with the understanding of those problems.
All aspects are interrelated: global peace, global sustainability, global rights and the environment. The jobless is more concerned
with ending starvation, finding a proper shelter and employment, and helping their children to survive. Environmental issues become
meaningless to the jobless. In reality, all concerns are interrelated because the ecology of the planet has no boundaries. Obviously, as soon as our environment is destroyed or polluted
beyond repair, human suffering is next.
Our goal for peace in the world can only be reached by resolving those global problems. Those problems have brought up a planetary state of emergency.
In view of the planetary state of emergency, shown and declared by the Global Community, we all must change, we must do things differently to give life on Earth a better
survival chance and bring about the event of peace amongst us all.
Our first objective was to find statements from all religions, all faiths, that promote ethical and moral responsibility to life and a responsible Earth management.
This was assumed to work well within the context of the global civilization of the 3rd Millennium and after defining the Global Community criteria of symbiotical
relationships. In this context, we have defined that
any symbiotical relationship is for the good of all. It is based on a genuine group concern and unconditional support for the individual's well-being ~ a giant leap in human behaviour.
Symbiotical relationships are needed today for the long term future of humanity, for the protection of life on our planet,
and to bring about the event of peace amongst us all.
The fundamental criteria of any symbiotical relationship is that a relationship is created for the good of all groups participating in the
relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship allows a global equitable and peaceful development and a more stable and inclusive global
economy.
Religious rituals now support the conservation efforts and play a central role in governing the sustainable use of the natural environment.
The Global Movement to Help, an initiative of the Global Community and of the Federation of Global Governments, is now applying more emphasis on the urgent need from
the people of all nations to give everyone essential services.
The urgent need to give all Global Citizens essential services was made obvious in the past few years after the occurrence of natural disasters, and the
global destruction created by the military.
The very first step of the Federation, and maybe the only one for several decades ahead of us, is the approval of essential services amongst the participating member
nations. To that effect, new global ministries will be established to guide us onto the path of global sustainability.
Through these new global ministries, we want each Global Government to take a larger share of responsibility of the specific region where it operates, and be more accountable to the people of that region.
Be compassionate. Essential services to the people of each member nation are now the most important global rights on the Scale of Global Rights and are protected by the
Global Protection Agency (GPA) of each member nation. The GPA will train and lead a global force, bypassing traditional peacekeeping and military bodies such as the United Nations and NATO.
The GPA is a short term solution, an immediate and efficient response to help.
There are also long term solutions. The Scale of Global Rights is the fundamental guide to Global Law. Global Law includes legislation covering all essential aspects of human activities.
The GPA will enforce the law. And that is a long term solution to the planetary state of emergency.
And that is also how we can solve the global problems facing this generation, thus largely improving the quality of life of the next
generations, and that is how we will bring about the event of peace amongst us all.
An important aspect of global governance is the security
of a person and of a nation. Security must be achieved by other means than conflicts
and wars. We might as well shelved the war industry from humanity right
now and that means phasing out all nuclear, biological, chemical weapons
right now. War products and equipment and weapons of mass destruction from all nations must be decommissioned.
Governments that have weapons of masss destruction are obviously terrorist governments. The Global Community is asking them to disarm.
No waiting!
Global security can only be achieved if it can be shared by all peoples and through global co-operation, based on principles as explained
in the Global Constitution such as justice, human dignity, and equity for all and for the good of all.
War is not sustainable to all life on the planet. It never was. The military option, war, is against global sustainability and global peace in a big way.
The worst environmental degradation happens in wars.
The military is no replacement to the " will of the people ", democracy, the rule of law, social justice, and to Global Rights and
Global Justice. The Global Community has no need of a subversive military
force. NATO must be subject to the people, the Global Community, and to
the Federation of Global Governments.
Contact Information
Telephone: 250-754-0778
Postal address: 186 Bowlsby Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada V9R 5K1
Electronic mail: globalcommunity@telus.net
Website: http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/
Webmaster: gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com
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