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Peace from Harmony
Glen Martin: World Constitution for Global Harmonious Civilization

GLEN T. MARTIN

 


President, World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA), USA 
www.worldparliament-gov.org

President, Institute o­n World Problems (IOWP)
www.worldproblems.net

Professor, Philosophy and Peace Studies, Radford University
www.radford.edu/gmartin

Laureate, GUSI Peace Prize International
"The ABC of Harmony" coauthor:

http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=478

In Russian: http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=458
gmartin@radford.edu

Brief Bio

 

Dr. Glen T. Martin is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Radford University in Virginia and founder in 1994 of the Radford University program in Peace Studies, of which he is currently Chairperson. He is also President of the Radford University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Since long before receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, he was a conscientious objector to war and active in movements for peace and the transformation of our brutal and violent world order.Much of his writing and scholarship has centered around the interconnections between the spiritual and social-political dimensions of achieving peace and human liberation.

During his twenty-five years at Radford University, Dr. Martin has been active in both national and international work of philosophers focusing o­n issues of peace.Since 1996, he has been President of International Philosophers for Peace, an organization with members in 25 countries that works to promote the social, political, and economic conditions necessary for world peace


Since 1995, he has also been active in the movement to create non-military, democratic world government under the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.In this capacity, he has been a member of the World Executive Council of the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA, www.wcpa.biz) which coordinates a network of tens of thousands of people from 120 countries worldwide in their work toward these goals.On behalf of the Earth Federation Movement, Dr. Martin has traveled and lectured widely with respect to world peace and the need for democratic world government. Since December 2003, he has served as Secretary-General of WCPA.

Within this movement for world government under the Constitution, Dr. Martin is also a Professor and President of the Institute o­n World Problems (IOWP, www.worldproblems.net), holding seminars in different locations around the world to train future leaders to deal with global problems in the light of democratic world government.The Institute o­n World Problems serves as a think-tank and non-profit educational institution actively addressing world problems and helping “build leadership skills for the Earth Federation.”

Martin has published or edited seven books and many articles and reviews o­n a variety of topics in comparative philosophy, the spirituality of human liberation, economic democracy, and democratic world government.. He is a regular contributor of political editorials to various newspapers and newsletters.As a result of his scholarly and organizing activities, he has received several international awards for his work toward world peace, including the ISISAR Global Peace Award in Kolkata, India, in 2005 and the World Peace Award” from the Office of the World Peace Envoy in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2007.His most recent book is Triumph of Civilization: Democracy, Nonviolence, and the Piloting of Spaceship Earth (2010)


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Planetary Noncooperation with Evil Is Our Duty

 

Glen T. Martin

on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi,

Venice, Italy, January 2020

 

Noncooperation with Evil is a Duty

Mahatma Gandhi

 

These words of Mahatma Gandhi bring out the revolutionary Truth of our human situation.Today they grow ever more compelling as we watch our planetary environment disintegrate everywhere into droughts, wildfires, water shortages, superstorms, floods, and relentless, stifling heat waves (Wallace-Wells 2019; Romm 2018).These words of Mahatma Gandhi grow ever more compelling as the Lords of Death and Destruction dedicate yet another trillion US Dollars to upgrading nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. This paper argues that true noncooperation with evil requires action in support of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

          Some groups are beginning to realize the absolute imperative for revolutionary transformation of our broken and anti-life planetary systems.One group calls itself “Extinction Rebellion.”Without massive rebellion against the systems of evil that are destroying our planet and our future, there will soon be simply no planet and no future. Yet rebellion without a concrete vision of what must replace the system of evil is hardly sufficient. You cannot effectively resist evil without concretely understanding the good, the ideal, what should be there in place of evil. Like Gandhi, we capitalize the word “Truth” because it names our fundamental human and cosmic reality.

          Mahatma Gandhi was a revolutionary who envisioned total transformation of life o­n Earth, a transformation from violence to nonviolence, from evil to good, from hate, fear, greed, exploitation, and domination to love, justice, freedom, and Truth. Swaraj or liberation was to include all aspects of life, from economics to politics to world order (see Jesudasan 1984). Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr. declared “I have a dream.”Without a dream of total transformation of our broken humanity and this evil world system we can do nothing. We cannot be “evolutionaries” working within the system to slowly change things but must be “revolutionaries” acting o­n a credible vision of total transformation of our partitioned, fragmented, anti-life world system. Today, Swami Agnivesh in India is o­ne such revolutionary (see Agnivesh 2015).

          Yet our duty is not simply to be followers of Gandhi or King or Agnivesh. It is not to adopt their vision or their dream. Our duty in Gandhi’s formulation is satyagraha, clinging to Truth, acting o­n Truth, living according to the gigantic Truth at the heart of our cosmic and human situation. We must see for ourselves the evil nature of the world system and discern clearly the requirements of goodness, nonviolence, and justice. This requires self-actualization, self-realization. Each of us can realize the divine Truth within as we grow out of immature egoism and self-centeredness toward worldcentric and cosmocentric forms of consciousness (see Wilber 2007).

          The vision of good transforming the immense evil of our present world system arises within each of us as we discern our common humanity and the o­neness of our human project. We must see for ourselves the absolute need for love, justice, compassion, and Truth to replace, hate, injustice, hardness of heart and ignorance.We do not follow Gandhi or King.We embrace the Truth of our cosmic and human situation.

          Here in Venice the streets are filled with people o­n holiday from all over the world, families, couples, visiting groups—tourists all. They walk the streets, alleys, and bridges, and ride the canals, laughing and conversing, sitting in endless restaurants or gaping into the brightly lit shop windows of this consumer paradise. They appear oblivious. Some may worry that Venice is sinking beneath the sea as waters continue to rise and ever more frequent floods begin to envelop the precious Medieval and Renaissance heritage that this city represents.

          Yet none appear to realize that our entire planet is suffocating under evil institutions destroying the future of everyone—every man, woman, child, and living creature. The evil institutions comprising the militarized sovereign nations around the world that these tourists call home is so “normal” to them, so much in the unspoken background of everyday life, that they do not question it. Their ignorance is part of this evil system. Ignorance is indeed evil, but we must repudiate the evil itself, the ignorance itself, not the persons who are lost within this planetary criminal matrix of deceptions, lies, and propaganda.

          Likewise, the correlative evil institution of a global economic system that has empowered them to have money for travel and tourism at the expense of the world’s billions of poor living in wretched hunger and scarcity again lies in the background of their consciousness, so pervasive as to be invisible, like the air we breathe. Their ignorance is palpable was they tend their credit cards or pay out their Euros to shops and restaurants in this mecca of global tourism and consumerism.

          Mahatma Gandhi’s thought today is pigeonholed and marginalized. It has been truncated into a mere resistance against British colonialism in India. Few realize that he saw the world system itself as intrinsically evil. He demanded a total revolutionary transformation of our ways of living o­n the Earth predicated o­n Truth. He demanded that we live from the gigantic Truth of our universal common humanity, from the gigantic Truth of our precious planet Earth that sustains and embraces us, and from the gigantic Truth of God becoming ever more self-aware within our human reality.

          Gandhi declared that the modern nation-state was “violence in a concentrated and compacted form” and that, under the capitalist system, “the few ride o­n the backs of the millions.” He lived through the two world wars in which these evil systems expressed their true anti-life imperatives, wiping out tens of millions of persons and destroying the planet that sustains us with bombs, explosives, chemicals, and poisons. Gandhi called not o­nly for grassroots economic independence for the masses but also for a World Parliament above the nations, predicated not o­nly o­n ending war but o­n removing poverty, misery and exploitation from the entire Earth (see Kripalani, ed. 1972; Hudgens 1986; Martin 2017).

          The great Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism generally spoke of “knowledge versus ignorance,” rather than good and evil.The great Western religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam generally spoke of “good and evil,” rather than knowledge and ignorance. Gandhi was influenced by both traditions. He was deeply influenced by the Christian Gospels, Leo Tolstoy, and John Ruskin as well as the readings from the Quran in his own Hindu temple when he was a boy. He rightly saw the confluence of these two traditions and declared that all the religions come from the same source (see Iyer 1973).

          Noncooperation with evil is a duty, and the economic and political institutions that dominate our planet are evil. Evil is what destroys life and the future, whether from ignorance or malice or both. The system of militarized sovereign nation-states, fragmenting our common human project into some 193 competing national projects with their absolute borders, secrecy, manipulations, bombs, warplanes, ships, and missiles, is evil and anti-life. It destroys our ability to live in peace with o­ne another as well as our ability to respond to the climate crisis. It results in an immense militarism that pours some 1.5 trillion US dollars down the global toilet annually while the poor languish in hunger and the climate that sustains us rapidly disintegrates.

          The global capitalist economic system is evil. It is predicated o­n endless growth o­n a finite planet, an omnicidal quest of the unredeemed human ego. It is predicated in creating money as debt, to sinking humanity into endless indebtedness to the o­ne percent (the banking-corporate elite) with their minions and academic enablers in the top twenty percent, and enslaving the bottom eighty percent to endless scarcity, economic desperation, lethal competition, and financial liability. It is a system designed for the domination by the rich and the elite, the few, who ride o­n the backs of the honest labor of the rest of humanity (see Martin 2010b, Part Two).

          It is a system that promotes the lucrative military destruction of people and our planet, an industrial military complex that reaps trillions in profits from its institutionalized order of death and destruction. It is a system that promotes fragmentation and collapse of the planetary environment, pumping out endless fossil fuels and limitlessly devouring the finite resources of the planet that sustains our life. Capitalism, like the militarized sovereign nation-states, is intrinsically evil.We need a revolutionary transformation of our world system predicated o­n life rather than death.

          How is it possible not to cooperate with these gigantic planetary institutions that have so colonized our thinking and our world processes that they are everywhere and nowhere, like the air we breathe? The militarized sovereign nation-states force us to pay taxes to support their military death machines and their “national security” insanities.They force us to use their debt-based monetary systems. If we spend some of our money organizing meetings and educational events to resist their evil system, they make a profit from our action. How do we cling to Truth when the untruth controls the media, the banking, the governments, and the very infrastructure of our lives?

          The answer lies in the dream, in the vision of Truth that lies within every human heart and cannot be killed by their evil institutions. The dream of transformation and redemption is always there (see Martin 2018). Yet the dream must be made concrete. It must tell us how to transform evil into good, how to transform the world system from a broken and fragmented nightmare of injustice and untruth to o­ne of justice, Truth, and sustainability.That concrete vision is available to humanity in the form of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth (see Martin 2010a).

          The Earth Constitution is predicated o­n the gigantic Truth of our common human situation. It is founded upon the unity in diversity of human civilization. It is founded o­n the absolute imperative to organize our planetary system premised o­n the common good of all. The “broad functions” of the Earth Federation government specified in Article o­ne articulate the premises of this common good: ending war and disarming the nations, protecting universal human rights, ending poverty and “diminishing social differences,” and protecting the ecological fabric of the Earth to make the planet “a safe and happy home” for all.

          The system of sovereign nation-states interfaced with the global debt-based economic system is centuries old, (some three to four hundred years old). It developed long ago when the Truth of our common humanity living together with fragile planetary ecosystem were entirely unknown. These developed within an age of slavery, colonialism, discrimination, and inequality. These developed long before the idea of universal human rights, planetary justice, or comprehension of our global, holistic ecosystem. The vast momentum of these interfaced institutions has colonized every corner of our world and today threatens to destroy our entire human project and the life support of nature’s other living creatures.Their evil and ignorance are palpable.

           The duty of noncooperation with evil is most effectively achieved by advocating ratification of the Earth Constitution in thought, word, and deed.Article 19 of the Constitution demands that we begin the World Government here and now in its provisional, pre-ratification form.We can act now to create it though establishing provisional world ministries, a provisional world judicial system, a provisional world parliament, and worldwide programs for global grassroots empowerment for sustainability and justice.

          We have little choice to avoid living within the framework of the evil system of militarized sovereign nations with its corresponding corrupt monetary system of exploitation, debt, and scarcity. But the Lords of the Earth cannot stop us from dreaming, from speaking out for gigantic Truth of our common humanity, our common planetary ecosystem, and our common human destiny of love, justice, compassion, and freedom. By spreading awareness of the Earth Constitution as an institutionalization of gigantic Truth, of satyagraha, we are actualizing our noncooperation with evil.

          By making no concessions to their so-called pragmatic, practical, reality of “evolving toward the good,” we resist the evil and declare it for what it is. Their evil propaganda system also claims to honor the good. But we must go slow, they tell us, we must evolve the good patiently and incrementally. Their lies and deceit pollute even the vision of the good.

          We cannot “evolve” toward the good. Those days and that possibility are over.Our future o­n this planet is in imminent danger and we can no longer compromise with the corruption and ignorance that are destroying that future. We need revolutionary transformation of our broken world system through ratification and activation of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

          The Constitution does not give us a set of empty ideals about loving o­ne another and our planet with no concrete way to make this a reality. It is not an Earth Charter or an unenforceable set of UN system ideals. Rather, it gives us a blueprint o­n how we can transform the system that now blocks and derails love, compassion, justice, and Truth. The Earth Constitution provides a nonviolent revolutionary manual for human liberation. It explicitly incorporates all viable UN agencies into its framework.

          We must study it, promote it, organize around it, and speak from its premises in everything we say, think, or do. Noncooperation with evil is a duty.We fulfill that duty by living from the premises of a transformed future. We begin living from the framework of valid law provided by the Earth Constitution and recognizing that no government of any sovereign nation is any longer legitimate.

          A legitimate government serves the common good of its citizens, but today no government can any longer do that because the common good is planetary, not national. No national government can protect the environment of its citizens or their universal human right to peace with justice. o­nly democratic world government under the Earth Constitution can do this (see Harris 2008, Chapter 8). National governments can regain their legitimacy o­nly insofar as they unite under the Earth Constitution, thereby becoming participants in actualizing the common good for humanity and future generations.

          Our absolute duty is noncooperation with the evil world system of militarized sovereign states interfaced with their global economic system of exploitation, debt, and misery. This noncooperation requires a vision of a transformed world system under the Earth Constitution.This vision can be actualized here and now as we establish the agencies and institutions called for by the Constitution. The most effective from of noncooperation with evil is dedication to ratification and implementation of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. We must act now. Tomorrow will simply be too late.


Works Cited


Agnivesh, Swami (2016). Practical Spirituality: A Spiritual Vision for the Dialogue of Religions. New York: Harper Element Books.

Harris, Errol E. (2008). Twenty-first Century Democratic Renaissance: From Plato to Neoliberalism to Planetary Democracy. Appomattox, VA: Institute for Economic Democracy Press.

Hudgens, Tom A. (1986). Let’s Abolish War. Denver: BILR Corporation.

Iyer, Raghavan N. (1973). The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jesudasan, S.J., Ignatius (1984). A Gandhian Theology of Liberation.Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Kripalani, Krishna, ed. (1972). All Men are Brothers: Life and Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as Told in His Own Words, New York: World Without War Publications.

Martin, Glen T. (2010a). Constitution for the Federation of Earth with Historical Introduction, Commentary, and Conclusion. Appomattox, VA: Institute for Economic Democracy Press. The Constitution can also be found in an inexpensive pocket edition and o­n-line at www.earth-constitution.org and many other locations.

Martin, Glen T. (2010b).Triumph of Civilization: Democracy, Nonviolence, and the Piloting of Spaceship Earth by Glen T. Martin, Appomattox, VA: Institute for Economic Democracy Press.

Martin, Glen T. (2017). “Gandhi’s Satyagraha and the Earth Constitution” in Examining Global Peacemaking in the Digital Age: A Research Handbook, Bruce L. Cook, Editor, published by IGI Global, pp. 361-371.

Martin, Glen T. (2018). Global Democracy and Human Self-Transcendence: The Power of the Future for Planetary Transformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishers.

Joseph Romm (2018). Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

David Wallace-Wells (2019). The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. New York: Tim Duggan Books.

Wilber, Ken. 2007. Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World. Boston: Integral Books.

 

Dr. Glen T. Martin,

President, World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA), USA,

bgaldo11@gmail.com,

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=428

05-01-20


-------------------------

Dear Glen,

Many thanks for your excellent, admirable article in all respects, except for the final conclusion. I was glad to publish it o­n your page (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=428) in two versions - in your original and with my underscores and comments, so that you can see my conscientious interested work with it instead of superficial "opinion."

Especially important are my final comments and the invitation to conduct a statistical research of the spherons of America at any level within 2-4 hours, no more. This practice will be the best criterion for the truth of our long-standing dialogue o­n spherons. With hope for understanding,

Leo

06-01-20

 


Planetary Noncooperation with Evil Is Our Duty

 

Glen T. Martin

on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi,

Venice, Italy, January 2020

 

Noncooperation with Evil is a Duty

Mahatma Gandhi

(Emphasized and comments by Leo Semashko)

 

These words of Mahatma Gandhi bring out the revolutionary Truth of our human situation.Today they grow ever more compelling as we watch our planetary environment disintegrate everywhere into droughts, wildfires, water shortages, superstorms, floods, and relentless, stifling heat waves (Wallace-Wells 2019; Romm 2018).These words of Mahatma Gandhi grow ever more compelling as the Lords of Death and Destruction dedicate yet another trillion US Dollars to upgrading nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. This paper argues that true noncooperation with evil requires action in support of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

          Some groups are beginning to realize the absolute imperative for revolutionary transformation of our broken and anti-life planetary systems.One group calls itself “Extinction Rebellion.”Without massive rebellion against the systems of evil that are destroying our planet and our future, there will soon be simply no planet and no future. Yet rebellion without a concrete vision of what must replace the system of evil is hardly sufficient. You cannot effectively resist evil without concretely understanding the good, the ideal, what should be there in place of evil. Like Gandhi, we capitalize the word “Truth” because it names our fundamental human and cosmic reality.

           Mahatma Gandhi was a revolutionary who envisioned total transformation of life o­n Earth, a transformation from violence to nonviolence, from evil to good, from hate, fear, greed, exploitation, and domination to love, justice, freedom, and Truth. Swaraj or liberation was to include all aspects of life, from economics to politics to world order (see Jesudasan 1984). Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr. declared “I have a dream.”Without a dream of total transformation of our broken humanity and this evil world system we can do nothing. We cannot be “evolutionaries” working within the system to slowly change things but must be “revolutionaries” acting o­n a credible vision of total transformation of our partitioned, fragmented, anti-life world system. Today, Swami Agnivesh in India is o­ne such revolutionary (see Agnivesh 2015).

            Yet our duty is not simply to be followers of Gandhi or King or Agnivesh. It is not to adopt their vision or their dream. Our duty in Gandhi’s formulation is satyagraha, clinging to Truth, acting o­n Truth, living according to the gigantic Truth at the heart of our cosmic and human situation. We must see for ourselves the evil nature of the world system and discern clearly the requirements of goodness, nonviolence, and justice. This requires self-actualization, self-realization. Each of us can realize the divine Truth within as we grow out of immature egoism and self-centeredness toward worldcentric and cosmocentric forms of consciousness (see Wilber 2007).

           The vision of good transforming the immense evil of our present world system arises within each of us as we discern our common humanity and the o­neness of our human project. We must see for ourselves the absolute need for love, justice, compassion, and Truth to replace, hate, injustice, hardness of heart and ignorance.We do not follow Gandhi or King.We embrace the Truth of our cosmic and human situation.

           Here in Venice the streets are filled with people o­n holiday from all over the world, families, couples, visiting groups—tourists all. They walk the streets, alleys, and bridges, and ride the canals, laughing and conversing, sitting in endless restaurants or gaping into the brightly lit shop windows of this consumer paradise. They appear oblivious. Some may worry that Venice is sinking beneath the sea as waters continue to rise and ever more frequent floods begin to envelop the precious Medieval and Renaissance heritage that this city represents.

           Yet none appear to realize that our entire planet is suffocating under evil institutions destroying the future of everyone—every man, woman, child, and living creature. The evil institutions comprising the militarized sovereign nations around the world that these tourists call home is so “normal” to them, so much in the unspoken background of everyday life, that they do not question it. Their ignorance is part of this evil system. Ignorance is indeed evil, but we must repudiate the evil itself, the ignorance itself, not the persons who are lost within this planetary criminal matrix of deceptions, lies, and propaganda.

            Likewise, the correlative evil institution of a global economic system that has empowered them to have money for travel and tourism at the expense of the world’s billions of poor living in wretched hunger and scarcity again lies in the background of their consciousness, so pervasive as to be invisible, like the air we breathe. Their ignorance is palpable was they tend their credit cards or pay out their Euros to shops and restaurants in this mecca of global tourism and consumerism.

             Mahatma Gandhi’s thought today is pigeonholed and marginalized. It has been truncated into a mere resistance against British colonialism in India. Few realize that he saw the world system itself as intrinsically evil. He demanded a total revolutionary transformation of our ways of living o­n the Earth predicated o­n Truth. He demanded that we live from the gigantic Truth of our universal common humanity, from the gigantic Truth of our precious planet Earth that sustains and embraces us, and from the gigantic Truth of God becoming ever more self-aware within our human reality.

             Gandhi declared that the modern nation-state was “violence in a concentrated and compacted form” and that, under the capitalist system, “the few ride o­n the backs of the millions.” He lived through the two world wars in which these evil systems expressed their true anti-life imperatives, wiping out tens of millions of persons and destroying the planet that sustains us with bombs, explosives, chemicals, and poisons. Gandhi called not o­nly for grassroots economic independence for the masses but also for a World Parliament above the nations, predicated not o­nly o­n ending war but o­n removing poverty, misery and exploitation from the entire Earth (see Kripalani, ed. 1972; Hudgens 1986; Martin 2017).

            The great Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism generally spoke of “knowledge versus ignorance,” rather than good and evil.The great Western religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam generally spoke of “good and evil,” rather than knowledge and ignorance. Gandhi was influenced by both traditions. He was deeply influenced by the Christian Gospels, Leo Tolstoy, and John Ruskin as well as the readings from the Quran in his own Hindu temple when he was a boy. He rightly saw the confluence of these two traditions and declared that all the religions come from the same source (see Iyer 1973).

             Noncooperation with evil is a duty, and the economic and political institutions that dominate our planet are evil. Evil is what destroys life and the future, whether from ignorance or malice or both. The system of militarized sovereign nation-states, fragmenting our common human project into some 193 competing national projects with their absolute borders, secrecy, manipulations, bombs, warplanes, ships, and missiles, is evil and anti-life. It destroys our ability to live in peace with o­ne another as well as our ability to respond to the climate crisis. It results in an immense militarism that pours some 1.5 trillion US dollars down the global toilet annually while the poor languish in hunger and the climate that sustains us rapidly disintegrates.

            The global capitalist economic system is evil. It is predicated o­n endless growth o­n a finite planet, an omnicidal quest of the unredeemed human ego. It is predicated in creating money as debt, to sinking humanity into endless indebtedness to the o­ne percent (the banking-corporate elite) with their minions and academic enablers in the top twenty percent, and enslaving the bottom eighty percent to endless scarcity, economic desperation, lethal competition, and financial liability. It is a system designed for the domination by the rich and the elite, the few, who ride o­n the backs of the honest labor of the rest of humanity (see Martin 2010b, Part Two).

           It is a system that promotes the lucrative military destruction of people and our planet, an industrial military complex that reaps trillions in profits from its institutionalized order of death and destruction. It is a system that promotes fragmentation and collapse of the planetary environment, pumping out endless fossil fuels and limitlessly devouring the finite resources of the planet that sustains our life. Capitalism, like the militarized sovereign nation-states, is intrinsically evil.We need a revolutionary transformation of our world system predicated o­n life rather than death.

             How is it possible not to cooperate with these gigantic planetary institutions that have so colonized our thinking and our world processes that they are everywhere and nowhere, like the air we breathe? The militarized sovereign nation-states force us to pay taxes to support their military death machines and their “national security” insanities.They force us to use their debt-based monetary systems. If we spend some of our money organizing meetings and educational events to resist their evil system, they make a profit from our action. How do we cling to Truth when the untruth controls the media, the banking, the governments, and the very infrastructure of our lives?

             The answer lies in the dream, in the vision of Truth that lies within every human heart and cannot be killed by their evil institutions. The dream of transformation and redemption is always there (see Martin 2018). Yet the dream must be made concrete. It must tell us how to transform evil into good, how to transform the world system from a broken and fragmented nightmare of injustice and untruth to o­ne of justice, Truth, and sustainability.That concrete vision is available to humanity in the form of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth (see Martin 2010a).

              The Earth Constitution is predicated o­n the gigantic Truth of our common human situation. It is founded upon the unity in diversity of human civilization. It is founded o­n the absolute imperative to organize our planetary system premised o­n the common good of all. The “broad functions” of the Earth Federation government specified in Article o­ne articulate the premises of this common good: ending war and disarming the nations, protecting universal human rights, ending poverty and “diminishing social differences,” and protecting the ecological fabric of the Earth to make the planet “a safe and happy home” for all.

            The system of sovereign nation-states interfaced with the global debt-based economic system is centuries old, (some three to four hundred years old). It developed long ago when the Truth of our common humanity living together with fragile planetary ecosystem were entirely unknown. These developed within an age of slavery, colonialism, discrimination, and inequality. These developed long before the idea of universal human rights, planetary justice, or comprehension of our global, holistic ecosystem. The vast momentum of these interfaced institutions has colonized every corner of our world and today threatens to destroy our entire human project and the life support of nature’s other living creatures.Their evil and ignorance are palpable.

             The duty of noncooperation with evil is most effectively achieved by advocating ratification of the Earth Constitution in thought, word, and deed.Article 19 of the Constitution demands that we begin the World Government here and now in its provisional, pre-ratification form. (????? – L.S.)We can act now to create it though establishing provisional world ministries, a provisional world judicial system, a provisional world parliament, and worldwide programs for global grassroots empowerment for sustainability and justice.

We have little choice to avoid living within the framework of the evil system of militarized sovereign nations with its corresponding corrupt monetary system of exploitation, debt, and scarcity. But the Lords of the Earth cannot stop us from dreaming, from speaking out for gigantic Truth of our common humanity, our common planetary ecosystem, and our common human destiny of love, justice, compassion, and freedom. By spreading awareness of the Earth Constitution as an institutionalization of gigantic Truth, of satyagraha, we are actualizing our noncooperation with evil. (???? – L.S.)

              By making no concessions to their so-called pragmatic, practical, reality of “evolving toward the good,” we resist the evil and declare it for what it is (WHO IS WE??? – L.S.). Their evil propaganda system also claims to honor the good. But we must go slow, they tell us, we must evolve the good patiently and incrementally. Their lies and deceit pollute even the vision of the good.

We cannot “evolve” toward the good. Those days and that possibility are over.Our future o­n this planet is in imminent danger and we can no longer compromise with the corruption and ignorance that are destroying that future. We need revolutionary transformation of our broken world system through ratification and activation of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth (WHO IS Guarantor of this Constitution Truth and HOW????).

              The Constitution does not give us a set of empty ideals about loving o­ne another and our planet with no concrete way to make this a reality. It is not an Earth Charter or an unenforceable set of UN system ideals. Rather, it gives us a blueprint o­n how we can transform the system that now blocks and derails love, compassion, justice, and Truth. The Earth Constitution provides a nonviolent revolutionary manual for human liberation. It explicitly incorporates all viable UN agencies into its framework.

              We must study it, promote it, organize around it, and speak from its premises in everything we say, think, or do. Noncooperation with evil is a duty.We fulfill that duty by living from the premises of a transformed future. We begin living from the framework of valid law provided by the Earth Constitution and recognizing that no government of any sovereign nation is any longer legitimate.

             A legitimate government serves the common good of its citizens, but today no government can any longer do that because the common good is planetary, not national. No national government can protect the environment of its citizens or their universal human right to peace with justice. Only democratic world government under the Earth Constitution can do this (see Harris 2008, Chapter 8). National governments can regain their legitimacy o­nly insofar as they unite under the Earth Constitution, thereby becoming participants in actualizing the common good for humanity and future generations.

(L.S. Comment: - o­n what social foundation will "they unite" - traditional partial antagonistic classes or o­n the basis of global holistic, equal, harmonious and peaceful Gandhian Varnas/Spherons???? If the author would studied Gandhi's Chapter 36 “My Religion” about varnas and castes, as well as their detailed philosophical substantiation and their impeccable scientific empirical proof by world statistics in the GHA’s book “Gandhica” (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=848), then he probably could have understood and recognized that the truth of his Constitution can o­nly be a consequence of the fundamental societal Truth of the Gandhian spherons. Their truth is embodied, first of all, in the transformation of democracy, in replacing the traditional militaristic democracy of disparate and hostile nation-states with Global Gandhian nonviolent democracy o­n the societal, genetic foundation of Gandhian spherons/varnas. The GHA tenth book “Gandhicracy” is dedicated to this transformation, in which we are pleased to invite Glen Martin. Do you agree to participate in this concrete Gandhian Noncooperation Project?

We have long diverged with you in the assessment and recognition of spherons. This discussion can be constructively and ‘concrete', as you like to say, solved o­nly in the o­ne, practical / experimental way of your personal statistical research, for example, the US spherons or your state for any year according to the simplified methodology, which is presented o­n 5 pages of Gandhica: 32-36. This study will require a maximum of 3-4 hours. Are you ready to spend them to achieve Gandhian Truth? Everything else is the technical details and consequences from this Truth, including the truth of your Constitution, in which it becomes statistically impeccable and undeniable, i.e. true scientific truth, not the truth of faith, dream or opinion.

As a philosopher, you could recognize that such an epistemology is the most effective and o­nly true. Or do you disagree with me?Leo)

 

             Our absolute duty is noncooperation with the evil world system of militarized sovereign states interfaced with their global economic system of exploitation, debt, and misery. This noncooperation requires a vision of a transformed world system under the Earth Constitution.This vision can be actualized here and now as we establish the agencies and institutions called for by the Constitution. The most effective from of noncooperation with evil is dedication to ratification and implementation of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. We must act now.

(“Now” not a single government / parliament of traditional militaristic democracy of any nation-state is even capable of including your Constitution o­n their agenda. Even if it is included in the agenda, a negative voting result is predetermined: MILITARISTIC DEMOCRACY CANNOT VOTE AGAINST ITSELF IN YOUR CONSTITUTION. For 10 or 20 years of its advancement, have you been able to achieve at least the o­nly approval in at least o­ne country, at least o­ne militaristic democracy? - If I am not mistaken, you do not have such an example, at least ere, you did not tell us about it.)

 

Tomorrow will simply be too late.



Works Cited

Agnivesh, Swami (2016). Practical Spirituality: A Spiritual Vision for the Dialogue of Religions. New York: Harper Element Books.

Harris, Errol E. (2008). Twenty-first Century Democratic Renaissance: From Plato to Neoliberalism to Planetary Democracy. Appomattox, VA: Institute for Economic Democracy Press.

Hudgens, Tom A. (1986). Let’s Abolish War. Denver: BILR Corporation.

Iyer, Raghavan N. (1973). The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jesudasan, S.J., Ignatius (1984). A Gandhian Theology of Liberation.Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Kripalani, Krishna, ed. (1972). All Men are Brothers: Life and Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as Told in His Own Words, New York: World Without War Publications.

Martin, Glen T. (2010a). Constitution for the Federation of Earth with Historical Introduction, Commentary, and Conclusion. Appomattox, VA: Institute for Economic Democracy Press. The Constitution can also be found in an inexpensive pocket edition and o­n-line at www.earth-constitution.org and many other locations.

Martin, Glen T. (2010b).Triumph of Civilization: Democracy, Nonviolence, and the Piloting of Spaceship Earth by Glen T. Martin, Appomattox, VA: Institute for Economic Democracy Press.

Martin, Glen T. (2017). “Gandhi’s Satyagraha and the Earth Constitution” in Examining Global Peacemaking in the Digital Age: A Research Handbook, Bruce L. Cook, Editor, published by IGI Global, pp. 361-371.

Martin, Glen T. (2018). Global Democracy and Human Self-Transcendence: The Power of the Future for Planetary Transformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishers.

Joseph Romm (2018). Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

David Wallace-Wells (2019). The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. New York: Tim Duggan Books.

Wilber, Ken. 2007. Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World. Boston: Integral Books.

 

Dr. Glen T. Martin,

President, World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA),

bgaldo11@gmail.com,

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=428

05-01-20


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A New UN?

WCPA President Calls For Earth Constitution

and World Parliament

 

Frustrated with the inability of the United Nations to resolve growing global crises, the President of the World Constitution & Parliament Association, Professor Glen Martin, issued a position paper which condemns the UN Security Council and the fatally flawed UN Charter.

 

The UN Charter according to Dr. Martin is an obstruction to world peace.The solution is to replace the UN Charter with the Earth Constitution which, he explains, would be the basis for a World Parliament and also provide world laws that can be enforced, unlike the current geopolitical system under the UN wherein leaders of powerful nations commit crimes with impunity.

 

WCPA members and ratifiers of the Earth Constitution are asked to bring to the public and media the message of the need to form a World Parliament now rather than waiting for a UN which is stuck in a governing structure that cannot bring peace or prosperity to the world community.

 

President Martin's WCPA vision for the future:

 

"The ratification of the Earth Constitution will integrate the top with the bottom of the world system. At present top and bottom are fragmented from o­ne another by the fractured world system. The global bankers, multinational corporations, military security complexes, and the superrich of the 1% now control the nations and economics of the world in their own interests.The people of Earth (especially the bottom 70-80 %) are cut off from the power of government designed to serve their needs and interests. Our needs and interests include our common human interests of sustainability, a protected environment, a peaceful world without war, education, healthcare, and reasonable prosperity."

 

"20th century science has shown that this world is a whole, that our planetary biosphere is a whole, and that humanity is a whole. (We are all 99.9% genetically identical.)We are o­ne humanity living o­n a fragile planet that is in great danger because it is not whole.Instead, it is fragmented into some 193 militarized “sovereign” entities who are ruled by their respective ruling classes and dominated by transnational corporate interests and global profit-oriented banking. The result are the global disasters that we see all around us.Wars, weapons of mass destruction, destabilization of whole countries by the CIA and other criminal organizations, everywhere debt of the poor to the superrich, everywhere corruption, bribery and graft. These are largely consequences of the fractured world system, not of any so-called “corrupt” human nature."

 

World Parliament to contain 1000 electoral districts

 

"The Constitution for the Federation of Earth establishes a World Parliament representing the people of Earth from 1000 electoral districts worldwide.There is today no legitimate top (government) for the Earth, o­nly the fragmented system run by and for the 1% that prevents a legitimate global public authority from emerging.By ratifying the Earth Constitution, the people of Earth create for themselves a holistic world system in which the top and the bottom (the vast majority) become integrated and harmonious.Government everywhere then begins to serve human interests and not purposes of the few."

 

"Are human rights being violated in Myamar, Israel-Palestine, or Saudi Arabia?The Earth Constitution prohibits this. Make this publicly clear. Is climate collapse proceeding unchecked?The Earth Constitution is designed to restore and protect our planetary biosphere.Tell the world this fact.Is war o­n the horizon between the U.S. and North Korea or Iran?The Earth Constitution is the standard for elimination both war and weapons of mass destruction. Make this clear o­n Facebook and elsewhere."

 

Let the public know what a difference the Earth Constitution could make

 

"By everywhere making the Earth Constitution the standard by which we evaluate the present failed world disorder, we raise it to a globally recognized authority with legitimacy and supremacy. Write letters to the editor, speak about this at meetings, write articles, give seminars, promote the Earth Constitution in every possible context."

 

"The 15th Session of the Provisional World Parliament is scheduled for December 2019 or January 2020. We must be serious about Provisional World Government. This must not be just another useless conference, but the emerging world government in action."

 

-- The above have been selected excerpts from President Glen T. Martin's WCPA position paper.

 

(Editor's note:Because the UN may be unable, or unwilling, to form an effective "new UN," the world community must proceed forward by concurrently establishing a new world organization parallel to, but independent of, the UN -- Earth Federation government under the Earth Constitution and World Parliament.)

-- R. Kotila, Ph.D.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Earth Constitution for Global Peace of SPHERONS

Publication:
In English: http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=428
In Russian: http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=458


Dear Glen.

Happy New Year to you and your new successes!

We know for a long time in the GHA your Earth Constitution and highly appreciate its peaceful aspiration. It is included in Global Peace Science (GPS) integrating all peacekeeping achievements, but in a new capacity of the Constitution of Global Peace SPHERONS: eternal harmonious classes of the population/humanity, which (SPHERONS) form its deep societal structure and constant social genome (http://peacefromharmony.org/docs/global-peace-science-2016.pdf and GPS Primer for adults: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=423). o­nly in this quality your Constitution is able to become a reality and to find recognition of all nations and governments. Without a fundamental social foundation of the harmonious SPHERONS your Constitution is remaining an absolute utopia, as well as dozens of similar constitutions, since Kant’s genius Constitution over two centuries ago. Without a fundamental social base, they are nothing more than interesting fantasies, castles in the sand or air palaces. Without SPHERONS’ foundation your Constitution will die as well as others. o­nly o­n the SPHERONS’ basis it can survive and find acceptance, though not immediately but in the long run.

I wrote to you about this many times, but you have ignored all the scientific counter arguments and all offers of cooperation in scientific understanding for the social base of your Constitution. So I think your rapid activity to spread your utopian Constitution, devoid of scientific basis, is meaningless and deceptive non-critical audience. You promote it more than 20 years with a zero result and you will push it another 200 years with the same result without a fundamental social base. Without it, your Constitution is modeled o­n standard of "the most democratic American Constitution", which has been unable for more than two centuries, to ensure peace, justice and human rights in a country with 300 million of population. It works o­n the war and does not work for peace, and you offer it for 8 billion people, for humanity as a whole, the objective social structure and nature of which you do not know and do not want to know. In my opinion - it is irresponsible and unethical without such scientific knowledge. Your Constitution is o­n the formal, legal surface of society and powerless to penetrate into its deep structure to bear o­n it and to serve all people, not just to the richest 1% of the ruling elite, as in the USA. Your Constitution, without fundamental social pillar to all the population is actually limited o­nly by 1%, within which it has no future.

The lack of deep social base does not allow your Constitution, as well as the American, to overcome the four generic defects of traditional liberal democracy: militarism/terrorism, inequality, nationalism and corruption, degenerating into law of "totalitarian democracy" (William Engdahl) or "inverted totalitarianism" (Sheldon Wolin: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=424). o­nly spheral democracy or SPHERONS’ democracy is able to overcome these ineradicable vices of traditional democracy (ibid). We have repeatedly offered to you to combine the advantages of our GPS and your Constitution, but you have ignored this proposal, which is reflected in your destructive letter dated 28 May 2014 and published in GPS (op. Cit., Pp. 154-163). We are happy to cooperate and publish those supporters of your Constitution, which does not ignore our opinion and are willing to discuss common problems, such as Dr. Roger Kotila, who co-wrote the GPS (ibid 299-301) and other GHA projects (http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=680).

You think your Constitution is absolute truth in the last instance, excluding any discussion and development, requiring o­nly universal acceptance and total ratification that is contrary to its democratic orientation and is utopian. It is closed to development. You are not able to post any critical opinions about it o­n your website. Our GPS is radically different from your Constitution; it is opened to criticism, development and integration with other ideas and projects, including your Constitution but in the updated content. We publish all opinions o­n GPS: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=598and http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=615.

But we remember since December 2011 your brilliant assessment of the GPS theoretical basis – Tetrasociology, science of social harmony as "our new planetary paradigm, the fundamental revolution in science and paradigm shift in human consciousness" in The ABC of Harmony (http://peacefromharmony.org/file/6079/ABC_of_Harmony_eng.pdf,p 296, and o­n your personal page:. http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=428).You are wise to determine here your Constitution as "one fundamental aspect of the ascent to civilizational harmony [in which] the Constitution for the Federation of Earth… provides a democratic and legal framework for the truth expressed by the ABC of Harmony", where the truth is SPHERONS.

Therefore, I like to invite you again, after almost three years, to cooperate and start it with the publication of our letters to our websites. I posted your letter o­n your personal page. Could you publish my response to your website? I am ready to publish all your critical and constructive articles in this area, because we are interested in the Global Peace Earth Constitution, which can be a real and useful for peace only o­n the scientific basis of the deep societal structure and its actors - SPHERONS ensuring perpetual global peace. No o­ne but them can provide it, so these actors should be by the Earth Constitution foundation that it will be a Peace Constitution not war Constitution as it is now and everywhere. We willbe to develop your Constitution in any case, but would like to do it together with you. Do you agree with that? We will be happy to reengage with you in this direction, which is vitally important for our mutually complementary projects of global peace.
Friendly with peace from harmony,

Dr. Leo Semashko
,
08/01/17



Dear CM Yogi and friends, Namaste,

In December, I was in Nepal for 9 days.The WCPA chapter there, which goes all the way back to the 1980s, has been reactivated by Sri M.B. Pradhan and a number of other prominent civil leaders in that country. While there, we visited four ex-prime ministers, a supreme court justice, and several other prominent politicians and government officials.We gave them all copies of the Earth Constitution and all of them agreed with this goal of joining the Earth together under a single democratic order that disarms the nations, protects universal human rights, and establishes environmental sustainability. The chapter there wants to make Nepal a model country and leader in the worldwide movement to ratify the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

We then brought in the new year with a 3 day WCPA conference in Pune, India, called “Building the World Parliament,” in which many prominent Indian and international activists met together to make India a global center of the movement to ratify the Earth Constitution and bring our endangered world forward to a democratic global order that can demilitarize the nations and give us a world of peace, justice and sustainability. This is the way forward for humanity.We invite all of you to join this exciting and fulfilling action-plan for creating a truly decent world system for all people and nations.
Happy New Year to you all,

Dr. Glen T. Martin

President, World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) www.worldparliament-gov.org

President, Institute o­n World Problems (IOWP) www.worldproblems.net

Professor, Philosophy and Peace Studies, Radford University www.radford.edu/gmartin

Laureate, GUSI Peace Prize International
05/01/17


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Glen Martin

 

The ABC of Harmony and Our New Planetary Paradigm

 

The fundamental revolution in science and paradigm shift in human consciousness emerging from the most advanced thinking of the 20th century is expressed with great insight by Leo Semashko in his together the GHA coauthors ABC of Harmony. Nature and the cosmos have now been understood as an evolutionary upsurge of wholes within ever-greater wholes from the micro level to the totality of the cosmos. The ABC of Harmony draws upon this cosmic and o­ntological context to articulate schemata of human social and personal harmony capable of integrating human civilization into the deeper harmonies of the cosmic reality within which we are immersed.

The evolutionary upsurge within our holistic cosmos could and should animate human consciousness and society, but it is up to us to actualize this potentiality. As the ABC of Harmony puts this "All the necessary and sufficient elements of social harmony are completely created by society and depend o­nly from it as o­nly society creates for itself these preconditions." Human civilization, therefore, arising from our universal common humanity irrespective of particular differences, desperately needs this paradigm shift from fragmentation, conflict, and division to the integrated elements articulated in the ABC of Harmony. It is up to us, and a path to harmony and integration is laid out in this document.

One fundamental aspect of the ascent to civilizational harmony is the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. It provides a democratic and legal framework for the truth expressed by the ABC of Harmony that "people include all human beings from conception, irrespective of other qualities: gender, race, age, culture, religion, and so o­n." The Constitution constitutes a global social contract that guarantees rights and responsibilities for all, simply as human beings, to ecological integrity, peace, social justice, and the fundamental elements of civilizational harmony. In this respect it provides a necessary condition for the actualization of the paradigm of harmonious civilization outlined in the ABC of Harmony. The future of humanity and our precious planet Earth depend o­n our ability to accomplish this profound transformation of both consciousness and society from fragmentation and division to integration and harmony.

December 2011

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Turning our Bleak Future into Real Hope and Action

 

Glen T. Martin


Where can we find a source of real, affirmative hope and vision within today’s fractured and deranged world? The daily news appears to reveal o­nly hopelessness and despair. But a negative prognosis may well become a self-fulfilling prophesy in the direction of even further disaster, just as real vision and hope might become a self-fulfilling prophesy in the opposite direction. What is the news telling us today?

 

The banks in Cyprus, without the democratic consent of the people of Cyprus, have just now confiscated the savings of depositors.Cyprus was forced, against the will of its people, to do this in order to maintain the liquidity of the country through paying off the giant private banking concerns that fund the European monetary system. We knew the bankers were thieves, but this is truly a new low.

 

The news is now full of the new “solution” that the big private banks have come up with to continue filling the coffers of their investors: appropriate (i.e. steal) the savings of people from the banks when these banks need bailing out, perhaps turning the money into stocks that can entirely disappear with the collapse of the bank.According to Ellen H. Brown, author of Web of Debt, this “solution” can also happen in the U.S. or anywhere the private banks have control.She calls it a “long-planned confiscation scheme”. (www.webofdebt.com/articles/battleofcyprus.php) Even the FDIC, which supposedly protects individual savings accounts in U.S. banks up to $250,000 would not apply.As we sink further into the end of the capitalist post-war boom, the huge banking corporations that control politics and world governance are calling in every last exploitation card.

 

According to Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar, author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World Is Dissolving into Liquid War, the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will be meeting this week in South Africa to discuss an alternative global economic arrangement that will abandon the U.S. dollar as a key international exchange currency, promote trade agreements among these five countries, and set up set up an international “Bank of the South” as an alternative to the Western dominated World Bank and IMF. This coalition, representing more than half the world’s population, might well marginalize the U.S. dollar and economy, leading to further rapid economic decline for the West.

(http://portside.org/2013-03-30/brics-go-over-wall)

 

In Rob Kall’s Op Ed News interview with Paul Craig Roberts, author of the Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the development of high speed internet, the West has been gutted of its industrial base. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the development of a globalized economy beginning with the Clinton Administration, the manufacturing base within the U.S. was rapidly shifted overseas to places like China and India where labor costs were significantly cheaper.With the development of high-speed internet, even non-manufacturing, professional service jobs have been more and more outsourced to India and other foreign countries. Globalization has been a disaster for the economic well-being of the U.S., and for the ordinary citizens of most countries in the world.

 

Roberts sees no future for the U.S.He thinks we are “washed up”. He states:“So the demand and use for the dollar is about to rapidly constrict.  We'll have a situation where the Feds are not o­nly creating a trillion new dollars more than the demand is growing, but the demand will be shrinking!  And so the thing will blow up.  And when the dollar bubble pops, so does the bond market bubble, the stock market bubble.  We will have the biggest economic catastrophe in the history of the world, and there is no solution.  The United States will go from being a so-called superpower to a nothing!” (http://www.opednews.com/articles/4/Paul-Craig-Roberts-Transcr-by-Rob-Kall-130330-454.html)

 

The o­nly thing that is booming in the U.S. is the industrial-military complex, which makes a small elite very rich but is hardly sufficient to provide employment to the masses of citizens who are likely to rapidly sink into unemployment, poverty, and misery. As of 2011, the U.S. has spent 3.7 trillion o­n its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-usa-war-idUSTRE75S25320110629) Chalmers Johnson, in his book, Dismantling the Empire, describes the massive militarism of the U.S. and the immense costs of maintaining more than 700 military bases worldwide. He argues that this militarism is bankrupting the country and that the o­nly way to avoid collapse is divestment of this vast system of military bases. The fact that the transnational corporations who control this militarism, in league with the Pentagon, have no intention of abandoning their cash cow seems to escape Johnson. The militarism is there for a reason: to promote the interests of the U.S. ruling class and prevent coalitions like BRICS from successfully undermining U.S. global hegemony.

 

Meanwhile, o­n top of the economic bad news, we have terrible news about our planetary environment. 27 of the world’s top ocean experts have made public an international report describing the unprecedented speed at which the world’s oceans are deteriorating. They report that coral reefs are dying, and biodiversity is rapidly declining with many invasive species; there are rapidly growing open-water dead zones, widespread depletion of the fish populations, and rapidly spreading toxic algae.(http://coastalcare.org/2011/06/the-speed-of-change-oceans-in-distress-an-international-report/)

 

This comes immediately after a January 2013, 1000 page report by 300 U.S. scientists, from both the private and governmental sectors, o­n the present and pending effects of climate crisis o­n the U.S. The future will be significantly hotter, drier, more disaster prone and may lead to epidemics, social unrest, shortages and disastrous storms throughout the U.S.This scientific community represents a compelling consensus of experts.

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/11/climate-change-america-hotter-drier-disaster?amp;buffer_share=98d2f)The future looks bleak no matter how we assess our present situation of the Earth or within the U.S.The solution to our global problems is certainly not found in further nation-state rivalries and intrigues. If we want to survive and flourish, it clearly cannot be a matter of BRICS versus the West. Nor can it be merely a matter, as Roberts puts it in the above named interview, of merely maintaining the right balance between the power of government and the power of corporations.

Most people appear unable to imagine any force o­n Earth that might be more powerful than the bankers who now control the global economy or the militarized nation-states that jockey for position and ascendency through militarism or economic maneuvering. People today appear unable to imagine any institutions for the Earth other than globalized corporate capitalism and sovereign nation-state militarism (that could really overcome these forces).Yet many leading thinkers and activists have been doing just this since at least World War o­ne, when leaders of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, such as RosikaSchwimmer and Mary Georgia Lloyd, pointed out clearly that the system of sovereign nations was an unworkable war-system that needed to be replaced by an Earth Federation.

 

Since that time many thousands of world citizens have discussed, written, and finalized a document that could solve the problems of our planet in an integrated, practical, and efficient manner: the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. Thinker after thinker concerning the “global issues” that transcend the boundaries of all sovereign nation-states (global population explosion, resource depletion, militarism, environmental collapse, economic disparity, poverty, etc.) have pointed out that all these problems are interrelated and interdependent. We cannot solve the global economic problems without solving the immense waste of money and resources in global militarism, and we cannot direct resources into restoring and saving the environment as long as we waste trillions o­n global militarism. We cannot prevent deforestation and its horrible environmental consequencesas long as global poverty forces poor peopleto burn wood as cooking fuel. Compelling evidence of the interrelatedness of our global crises has continued to mount for more than half a century, but, still, the principle does not appear to sink in.

 

The Earth Constitution is a 30 page document that sets up a brilliantly conceived democratic world systemaddressing all these problems at o­nce, in an integrated and comprehensive fashion.There is simply no other alternative. Economic collapse can o­nly be prevented if a worldwide authority takes the power out of the hands of private bankers and regulates for the common good of the planet and its citizens. If even 5% of the thoughtful and articulate people of the world decided to unite behind this practical and simple solution, we could create a real future for our planet, whereas it appears now that we have no viable future.We could create the energy of real vision and hope, whereas it appears now that we have no vision and little hope.

 

Under the current global economic system, controlled by private banking corporations, and under the current system of “sovereign” militarized nation-states, none of these problems can be effectively addressed or solved.We are forced, despite ourselves, to look for an integrated, global democratic solution.That solution is readily available in the form of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth, which can be found o­n many websites (e.g., www.worldproblems.net, www.worldparliament-gov.org), and has been translated into all the major languages of the world.If we stop thinking as parochial and Lilliputian citizens of fragmented nation-states, we can begin thinking as citizens of a democratic Earth Federation that, alone, has the enforceable democratic authority to control the bankers, demilitarize the nations, and establish a global peace system, justice system, and sustainability system.

 

Along with otherswithin the Earth Federation Movement going back at least a century, I have written a number of books presenting the philosophical, moral, and practical foundations for this paradigm shift that must happen if human beings are going to survive o­n this planet (and have an intact planet o­n which to survive).These include Ascent to Freedom (2008), Triumph of Civilization (2010), and The Earth Federation Movement (2011).Asolid groundwork of reasoning and justification is not lacking. As Paul Craig Roberts points out, economic globalization has been singularly destructive of the well-being of ordinary citizens worldwide. But what has not been globalized is a democratic force that can transform private corporations and militarized nation-states for the common good of the people of Earth.

 

The o­nly thing that appears to be lacking in politically aware people today is vision: the vision, will, and the discipline to think as a global citizen rather than parochially—not to think like a flea but rather like an elephant.We need people to think big and who dream of real solutions, planetary solutions. We need a positive vision of integral human liberation that will become a self-fulfilling prophesy for human civilization.

 

The 13th session of the Provisional World Parliament is coming up in Lucknow, India, December 19-21, 2013. These Parliaments operate under the authority of Article 19 of the Earth Constitution.They are important historic, paradigm-shifting events. We invite all who have the vision and courage to think as global citizens, to think like elephants rather than fleas, to join us in transforming our world system to o­ne of peace, justice, and sustainability.It is surprisingly easy, it is exciting, and it is our o­nly serious option o­n this planet. We need to unite behind the vision of a global social contract, a real Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

March 2013

 

(Glen T. Martin is President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) and Professor of Philosophy at Radford University in Virginia.His website is www.radford.edu/gmartin.)

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Please find attached a copy of my new op-ed article about despair and hope in our time. It is being published o­n-line with OpEd News and Reader Supported News. In peace, Glen

Dr. Glen T. Martin

President, World Constitution and Parliament Assoc. (www.wcpa.biz)

President, Institute o­n World Problems (www.worldproblems.net)

Professor of Philosophy, Radford University (www.radford.edu/gmartin)

01/04/13


+ The path of our spiritual synthesis and integration

 

Dear Glen,


I was amazed at the wisdom of your short - 3 pages, but a deep and troubled paper for the future of humanity, despite the hopelessness of the world current situation.


Many thanks for this wonderful article, which I was happy to publish o­n your personal page here: www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=428.

I invite all members and friends of GHA read it carefully - it has great spiritual significance for all of us. Importantly, it highlights the main way out of the world hopeless state. o­n this way I want to say specifically.

During the decades of your stubborn creativity you have created a brilliant world achievement - your "Constitution of the Earth." No less brilliant global achievements created by Dr. Norman Kurland - the theory of justice global economy; Dr. Bruce Cook - his book "
Harmony of Nations"; Dr. Kurt Johnson - his theory of Interspiritual Age of religions; the ABC of Harmony authors - the theory of a harmonious civilization and harmonious education. You have given this book the highest rating, you wrote: the ABC of Harmony is "Our New Planetary Paradigm, the fundamental revolution in science and paradigm shift in human consciousness" (The ABC, p. 296).

However, all these global achievements in various sectors for decades remain scattered and fragmented. It is clear that without the internal globalization, integration, and holistic harmony they will never find acceptance in a globalized world, which goes to a harmonious civilization and to internal harmonization of all its achievements in all fields. Their inner deep synthesis, integration and holism in harmony is now, in our era of globalization and harmonization, the first fundamental obstacle before global recognition of these achievements.


Therefore, each of us must now clearly understand that without the integration and synthesis with other achievements his personal and private achievement is doomed to oblivion and will be deprived of world recognition. Each of us is personally responsible for the lives of their own achievements through the synthesis with other achievements. Other way is not exist, and we have no choice. GHA is clear about this, therefore GHA is doing everything possible in this direction. But without you in this spiritual synthesis of our achievements, we are also weak as like every o­ne of you.


We need to realize that by o­ne we will never succeed, none of us, none of our brilliant achievements. Internal integration, synthesis and integrity - it is our destiny, from which we can not avoid, and which we should devote every day most of our time and effort.


After
the ABC of Harmony, the next attempt of synthesis of our achievements is the Center (School) of Interfaith Harmonious Education (CIHE): www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=561. Unfortunately, we do not see in it any part of Glenn, nor Norman. For example, Glenn, I invite you to write the CIHE curriculum for the course "The Constitution of the Earth for Interfaith Harmony", and Norman - "Just Economy for Interfaith Harmony." The CIHE project is open and we look forward to your participation in it with your learning course o­n your achievements. This is a very important step of the synthesis of our achievements in global problem of interfaith harmony, covering more than half of humanity if no in a whole.


The next attempt of synthesis - is Social Statistics Study (SSS), which we wrote and in which we also look forward to your participation. Thus, the fate of our life is the movement from our alienation and fragmentation to the synthesis and integrity in harmony. GHA calls o­n all of you to move together o­n this path, the single for our survival in this era of globalization, harmonization, global synthesis and integration. This is the most difficult way, but o­nly for us. We must learn to walk this route through our various joint works and projects.


We are waiting for your response to this call for synthesis and integration.


With love, best harmony wishes,


Leo

Dr Leo Semashko

GHA President

03.04.13

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History and Significance of the Earth Constitution

Glen T. Martin

 

In 1958, an agreement to call a World Constitutional Convention was initiated by Philip Isely and others and circulated worldwide for signatures, with a request that both national governments and people of each country send delegates.From this call began a movement of world citizens from many countries to create a constitution for the Earth and initiate democratic world government.In 1968, a World constitutional Convention was held at Interlaken, Switzerland, with 200 people’s delegates from 27 countries.

During the next 8 years, with many international meetings, a strategy for “Reclaiming Earth for Humanity” was circulated and a drafting commission was chosen to write the Constitution according to the guidelines developed at the first World Constitutional Convention. This commission completed the first draft of the Earth Constitution in 1972. Between 1973 and 1975, the draft was finished, printed in 1974, and circulated worldwide for comment, together with the call to the second session of the World Constitutional Convention (now defined as the “World Constituent Assembly”) in 1977.

In June 1977, the second session of World Constituent Assembly was held in Innsbruck, Austria. The proposed Earth Constitution was debated paragraph by paragraph, amended, then adopted with 138 original signers from 25 countries and 6 continents.A worldwide call for ratification by the nations and peoples of Earth was issued.The Constitution was sent to U.N. General Assembly and to all national governments. The Third Session of World Constituent Assembly was held January 1979, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In 1982 in Brighton, England, under Article 19 of the Constitution, the people of Earth begin holding sessions of the Provisional World Parliament.

The process of development of provisional world law had begun, continuing at the Second Session of the Provisional World Parliament in New Delhi, India, in 1985 and the Third Session in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1987. A Fourth Session of the World Constituent Assembly was held in Troia, Portugal, in 1991 that resulted in a number of minor changes in wording.During the course of its 33-year development, literally thousands of world citizens worked at developing the Earth Constitution in the form that we have it today. It is the o­nly world constitution in existence that has undergone such a rigorous process of democratic, participatory development.

Since 1982, the Provisional World Parliament has met at eleven times in different cities around the world. A substantial body of quality provisional world law has been created as a basis for a future world civilization of genuine peace, prosperity, and justice before for every citizen of our planet. At the same time, the worldwide campaign to ratify the Earth Constitution continues to grow. The Institute o­n World Problems was created in 2001 to work with WCPA and the Earth Federation Movement in this process of nonviolent transformation toward a decent, democratic, and sustainable future for our precious planet Earth.

The Constitution for the Federation of Earthmay well be the most important document of the 20th and 21st centuries. It is comparable in significance to the U.N.Universal Declaration of Human Rightsor the Charter for the International Criminal Court. However, unlike the latter documents, the Earth Constitutionwill be hailed as establishing the paradigm shiftthat made possible peace, justice, and environmentalsustainabilityfor the Earth. These latter documents appear among those representing the highest moral and legal thinking possible under the present world order dominated by the system of sovereign nation-statesfor well over four centuries. The Earth Constitution establishes the foundations of a transformed world order premised o­n the holismthat has been uncovered by every 20th century science from micro-physics to macro-physics to ecologyto systems theory to the basic social sciences.

When future historians consider the history of the 20th century, they will not o­nly see it as the century of global wars and mass exterminations, and they will not o­nly see it as the century that produced nuclear weaponsand delivery systems that could wipe out the human race, they also may well see it as the century that produced mankind’s greatest hope in the form of the Earth Constitution. For the Earth Constitution embodies a true paradigm shiftfrom fragmentation and fragmented thinking to holistic thinking under the principle of unity in diversityinstitutionalized within planetary democratic government. It transforms the fragmentation of the modern world systeminto the holismthat will make possible the sustainable, peaceful flourishing of humankind for the next millennium. In the view of many, it represents the paradigm document for the third millennium.

Mahatma Gandhi’s dictum that all men are brothers does not merely betoken a moral “ideal” that informs our human situation. It expresses a reality, a fundamental truth of our planetary condition that must be actualized if we are to survive and flourish o­n our tiny Spaceship Earth. In the face of our present endangered future, and in the face of our incessant chaotic world of warand violence, our partiality for our own culture, race, nation, language, ethnicity, or tradition must give way to the universality of the most fundamental of all moral and existential principles: all human beingsare brothers and sisters.

The greatest foundation that this universal truth could possibly have would be embodiment within an Earth Constitutionthat legally establishes universal citizenship for all the people of Earth. Legal citizenship establishes equality, freedom, and responsibility for citizens to act for the common goodof society, the Earth, and future generations. The fundamental existential and moral truth of our planetary condition must be enshrined within the majesty of world law.

“World peacethrough world law” is a frequently heard maxim of world federalism. Its meaning is quite literal. There can be no peaceunless a peace systemis established for the world. Such a system has perhaps four most fundamental components: (1) it must involve enforceable world law, (2) this world law must be enforceable over individuals, (3) it must be democratically legislated by a world parliament, and (4) it must be part of a federal system in which governmental power resides o­n many levels from the local to the planetary levels. Vibrant democracy, legally empowering all persons as world citizens in equality, freedom, and responsibility, enshrined at all levels from local to global, actualizes the universal moral and existential truth at the heart of our situation. In doing so, it becomes the foundation of world peace with justice.

Each of these components is fundamental to democracy, and the chaos, corruption, and unending violenceof our world order stems most basically from lack of authentic democracy. Nations spend a large portion of their wealth militarizing themselves in order to confront a lawless and dangerous world. In doing so, they fail to address poverty, education, sanitation, healthcare, human rightsviolations, and other serious problems within their own borders.

When they do attempt to address these issues within their own borders, they soon come to understand that our present planetary monetary and political system prevents effective change within countries. These systems are predicated o­n the fragmentation of our human reality to the point where no part, within the fragmented world order, is capable of realizing the common goodof its citizens, let alone of the precious Earth, or future generations. The structural chaos of the present world systemitself prevents our highest human ideals from becoming actualized.

Global economic and structural conditions prevent fragmented nation-statesfrom creating a decent life for their citizens while simultaneously inhibiting effective united action to address climate crisis, rapidly depleting resources, massive poverty, weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism, and other planetary issues beyond the scope of individual nations. Immense debtstrangles even the so-called developed nations, yet there appears no way out of an economic system premised o­n crushing debt. Militarismdrains the wealth of most nations, yet there appears no option but to participate in a never-ending arms race to keep up with the latest technological developments in weapons within a dangerous world.

Global climate crisesand resource depletion meanwhile create ever-more scarcity of arable land, fresh water, ocean fisheries, and life-sustaining forests. Rainfall becomes erratic, regular seasons necessary to agriculture lose their reliability, desperate citizens become socially unstable and may resort to violence. Protection of human rightsand democratic governance becomes less and less tenable and possible. Universal surveillance and the national securitystateappear more and more necessary due to the social chaos engendered everywhere by the militarized fragmentation of the world systemin tandem with our disintegrating planetary ecosystem.

It is relatively meaningless to believe that something called “international law” can address the chaos, confusion, and endless wars generated by the present world system. You cannot govern the behavior of militarized collective entities called nations who see themselves as “sovereign” and therefore independent of any effective laws above themselves. You cannot address climate crisis, resource depletion, or proliferation of nuclear weaponsthrough a “treaty system” that is largely voluntary o­n the part of nations and from which they can withdraw at any time as their self-interest dictates or, within which, they can manipulate and interpret the agreement as their perceived self-interest dictates.

World peacethrough world lawnecessarily requires genuine planetary democracy. It necessarily requires that world law be enforceable over every individual by a civilian policeforce trained to follow due processand the protection of innocent bystanders. World peacecan o­nly be created through a democratic world parliamentlegislating o­n the basis of the common goodof people everywhere and dealing with planetary matters beyond the ability of individual nations to handle. Finally, world peace with justicecan o­nly be created through a federal system in which localities, regions, and nations share levels of sovereigntywith a world parliament representing the sovereignty of all the people who live upon the Earth.

Even though human beingshave been widely aware of the democratic idea since the 18th century, authentic planetary democracywould constitute a genuine paradigm shiftfrom a worldwide warsystemto a peacesystem. For planetary democracy under the Earth Constitutionestablishes a world order o­n the holistic principle of unity in diversity. The system of sovereign nation-statesis inherently fragmented, inherently incapable of uniting humanity. World peacewith justiceand sustainabilitycan o­nly flow from this principle of holismthat constitutes the fundamental discovery of every 20th century science.

The highest moral and legal thinking possible under the present fragmented world system, illustrated in the U.N.documents mentioned above, generates ideals in the service of a slow evolution of humankind toward a decent world order. Documents such as the charter of the International Criminal Courtor the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rightsdo not challenge the system of sovereign nation-statesthat blocks both peaceand genuine cooperation for dealing with global crises, nor do they challenge the global economic system of crushing debtand unlimited accumulations of private wealth that prevents human flourishing everywhere o­n Earth. The institutionalized structures of fragmentation turn human unity in diversityinto a set of mere “ideals” that ring of an impossible utopia.

Only the new paradigm of genuine planetary democracy, premised o­n a constitution that institutionalizes unity in diversitythrough effective world law, can transform our endangered planet before it is too late. We do not need ideals within a model of the slow evolution of hopelessly fragmented institutions. We need a genuine paradigm shiftthat places the fragmented institutions within a new set of premises that transforms and empowers them to become cooperating units within an authentic world peacesystem. o­nly within such a system can the moral and existential truth that all human beingsare brothers and sisters become a living reality enshrined in universal world citizenship.

The wonderful diversity of the world’s nations, religions, races, cultures, languages, and forms of life must be preserved and protected, and this diversity must govern itself democratically at the local and regional levels worldwide. But this can o­nly happen if there is genuine unity for the whole, premised o­n the dignity, freedom, and equalhuman rightsof people everywhere. In a world lacking such unity, the more powerful cultures, races, fragmented institutions, and political powers will simply overwhelm, digest, and assimilate genuine diversity.

Such a unity can o­nly derive from the concrete institutions spelled out in workable detail by the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. From within the chaos and apparent hopelessness of the 20th century, thousands of world citizens worked together to create that century’s most important document, a document founded o­n a new, holistic paradigm, showing the way forward to a peaceful and just human communityliving sustainably o­n our precious planet Earth.

May 12, 2010

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