Articles

World Peace

What is world peace? What does it look like, feel like? How does the
population of a peaceful planet compare to what we have today? Is
such a thing possible in a productive society? Is it, in fact, desirable?

I for one believe it is immanently desirable, and that a planetary society
without it is counter-productive. As for how to achieve it, more on that
later.

World peace is more than just a planet without war. It is a planet without
fear of war, or violence against person in any fashion, including
physical, mental (electroshock “therapy”, forced drugging), or spiritual.
We are talking about a population unhindered in its invention, its
production, its creation – a human race free to work together or
separately, for the betterment of an individual, a family, group or nation,
all mankind, or the planet itself.

This is no small thing, but it is no convoluted, confusing knot, either.
Let’s break it down into its simplicities.

Certainly, there is no violence or threat of violence of country against
country, overtly or covertly. This includes invasion, blockade,
occupation, and any troops stationed outside their homeland,
regardless of justification. It further excludes espionage, kidnapping
and imprisonment of individual citizens of one country by agents of
another.

While we’re at it, let’s get rid of all stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction, no matter where situated, and seek out and destroy the
millions of land mines and unexploded ordnance strewn across the
planet.

Closer to home, take a look at a nation against its own citizens.
Certainly there are horrors on this planet right now where government
officials are seeking out large numbers of their own people to torture,
murder, disappear; and history, both ancient and recent, is rife with its
own examples. Genocidal governments must simply cease to exist,
and their own brand of “justice” meted out to the perpetrators, but what
about other, more subtle government suppression, less bloody but no
less heinous in the long run?

The mess many earthlings live with in their own, “peaceful” countries, is
in some ways more difficult to confront, but will bring about an end to
our civilization no less certainly.

What about nations that legislate the empowerment of large
corporations to massively pollute their air, water and soil; poison the
population by adding thousands of deadly chemicals to the food supply;
prescribe unnecessary drugging and “treatment” of the children of the
poor and any other unwitting victims they can get their cold, clammy
hands on; that help these same organized criminal societies keep a
heavy heel upon the very laborers they depend upon for production and
run smaller, more honest businesses to the ground; then further
empowering monopolistic news media to sugar coat the entire mess,
roundly impugning the sanity and motives of any who might protest
these very real crimes against humanity.

All of this in the name of a quick buck for their masters, enforced with
ready police violence “if necessary”.

I will rant, won’t I? I’ll cut the rest of it short.

World peace contains no violence of race against race, religion against
religion, any ethnic group against any other ethnic group.

I also expect no more government protection by threat, regardless of
benevolent motive. One of my favorite examples of this, from the state
of Washington USA, is driving along a peaceful country highway and
seeing a sign – blocking the pleasant view – with a picture of a seatbelt
over the caption, “Click it or ticket.” But that’s just me.

What Can We Do?

There have been times, on this very planet, when nations who
professed undying hatred for one another cooperated for the
betterment of mankind. A spectacular example of one of these times is
the eighteen months from the middle of 1957 to the end of 1958. It was
called the International Geophysical Year. Great strides were made in
the physical sciences, including the launching of the first artificial
satellites, the discovery of the van Allen radiation belts in our upper
atmosphere, soundings of the ocean floor planet wide, and much more.

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) marked the beginning of the
space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union
(ultimately leading to landings on the moon), as well as development of
microminiaturization, discoveries in human nutrition, the list is still going
on.

Interestingly enough, while the IGY was intended as a scientific
cooperation, the germ spread to the humanities. There was much
exchange of art and artists, music and musicians, literature. There
were fast, cross-cultural friendships made during these eighteen
months that lasted decades, some continuing to this day, resulting in
sometimes clandestine cooperation that has benefitted mankind almost
immeasurably.

One reason I am bringing up this example is that while over sixty
nations participated, most of them (and especially the USA and the
USSR) were in it for what they could gain from others, not what they
could contribute. On the other hand, for the sake of international public
relations imaging, there was a great race (again, especially between
the USA and the USSR) to demonstrate the greatest achievements,
ballyhooed as gifts to mankind.

It was a wonderful example of cooperation through competition! It was
a planet-wide game, and that makes it a good example for us to follow.
It is a good example for us because the very fact that this form of
competitive cooperation has been successfully done before, even
among belligerents, makes it real enough, to much of the population
and leadership of Earth, to make it a relatively easy sell. All we need to
begin with is a clear picture of what the whole thing will look like, a
clearly conceived ultimate goal or goals, a proposed program of how it
all can be done, and a good name for it.

Within the next week or so, I will have a program outlined for your
perusal.

Some of the scientific areas we can concentrate on should be, I
believe, replacement of carbon burning, non-renewable fuels for
airplanes, automobiles, trucks and trains, and ocean going vessels;
non-polluting electricity generation; sustainable agriculture for every part
of the globe, so that none go hungry; ridding the planetary population of
the curse of AIDS and other deadly plagues, preferably without the use
of expensive drugs with devastating side effects.

While the above is being accomplished, let us not forget the
humanities: worldwide literacy, massive diverse cultural exchanges
embracing all the arts, all races, all ethnicities; and finally, cessation of
country to country violence and genocidal practices within individual
countries. This last couple is, I believe, a public relations operative’s
dream project.

This is a more than worthwhile, fun game, with plenty for everyone to
do. Who can do the most? Whose will be the greatest
accomplishments? What country, individual, or group will win this
cooperative competition by presenting the greatest gift of all gifts to all
our people?

Race you!

Oh, and help me come up with a name.