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“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Albert Einstein "We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims." R. Buckminster Fuller
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." R. Buckminster Fuller "There is only one thing more powerful than all the armies of the world, that is an idea whose time has come" Victor Hugo
“We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.” Edward de Bono
"Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.” Edward de Bono "Most of the things worth doing in the world have been declared impossible before they were done." L. Brandeis "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Albert Einstein "The purpose of political evolution is to foster the greatest good for the greatest number of all persons for the greatest length of time." John Stuart Mill "The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” Ralph Nader "Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.” Alfred North Whitehead "It takes an unusual mind to analyze the obvious" Alfred North Whitehead "Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made.” Robert H. Schuller "Unless we establish some form of world government, it will not be possible for us to avert a World War III in the future." Winston Churchill "We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully, nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody." R. Buckminster Fuller “All the issues we care about most - climate change, international debt, nuclear proliferation, war, the balance of trade between nations can be resolved only at the global or the international level. Without global measures, it is impossible to see how we might distribute wealth from rich nations to poor ones, tax the mobile rich and their even more mobile money, control the shipment of toxic waste, sustain the ban on landmines, prevent the use of nuclear weapons, broker peace between nations or prevent powerful states from forcing weaker ones to trade on their terms. By working only at the local level, we leave these, the most critical of issues, to the men who have appointed themselves to run the world.” George Monbiot "Ignoring global governance does not make it go away. It is happening now. It will continue to happen, with or without us. And – and this is the most uncomfortable truth with which we must engage – it must happen, if the issues which concern us are not to be resolved simply by the brute force of the powerful." George Monbiot “War is the ultimate tool of politics. Political leaders look out only for their own side. Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.” R. Buckminster Fuller "We wish to remind the world’s political and corporate leaders that the authority of the state and the powers of the private corporation are grants extended to these institutions by the sovereign people, by civil society, to serve the collective human interest. It is the people’s right to demand that governments and corporations remain accountable to the public will and interest.” The People’s Earth Declaration - A Proactive Agenda for the Future
Excerpts from One World Democracy by Jeremy Tetalman and Byron Belitsos "The challenge of our time is to redefine our community as all of humanity. We currently define ourselves by our nationality, but are we not truly one human community? Are we not unified by a common source, by the earth we all share, and by the desire for security and peace equally held by people all over the world?"
"Global survival requires that we expand our loyalty to include humanity and the planet -- and that we reaffirm this with global law and democratic governance" "None of this requires that nationhood be destroyed; it only means "absolute sovereignty" becomes integrated into a more just and lawful political order at the global level" "Many feel that global government is overly idealistic and not a realistic solution to today's problem ... but perhaps the real dreamers are those who believe that today's anarchic system of nationalism and war will bring lasting peace" "Should we say it makes sense to have local, state and national governments, but that it would be wrong and dangerous to have a global government? What is it about the global level of government that changes this equation?" "There are ultimately only two permanent and functional levels of sovereignty: the free will of the individual person - the "citizen of the world" - and the collective sovereignty of humankind as a whole." "The great truth is that the world's people, and not the world's nation/states are the true sovereigns of this planet." "Under a global government foreign invasions would be outlawed; all military forces come under the control of the world body insofar as they cross national borders, and global law, democratically agreed upon and enforced by global marshalls and a world police force, governs the actions of individual nations in global affairs." "At the moment, our world is stalled in a quagmire of nationhood, held up by centuries of inertia from proceeding toward planethood. The problem at this stage is the delusion of national sovereignty, especially when linked to the corrupting influences of war profiteering, religious fundamentalism, global banks and organizations." "It is time to choose between enforceable global law based on democratic deliberation or the law of force in a world of anarchy." "The only way to abolish war entirely is to establish the just rule of enforceable world law. If we can find the political will to achieve this great victory, the resulting reign of peace will in time produce the mutual trust and security between peoples and nations that could create a worldwide cultural and spiritual renaissance."
One World Democracy -- A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law
by Jerry Tetalman and Byron Belitsos can be read online here.
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