February 2011, Issue #36 of The WorldVoter

[The WorldVoter]

Hello from Vote World Parliament.

To view this, the 36th straight monthly newsletter as a .pdf file
(nicer, easier to read formatting with hotlinks), please click on one
of the links below, or copy/paste it in your browser...

http://www.rescueplanforplanetearth.com/worldvoternewsletter36.pdf or
http://www.voteworldparliament.org/about/newsletter/

Thank you for your interest in a democratic world parliament.
Support this important initiative for a democratic world parliament.
Become a Silver, Gold or Platinum member at http://www.VoteWorldParliament.com

Best wishes,
Ted Stalets
Co-President
Vote World Parliament

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The WorldVoter
the newsletter of
Vote World Parliament
— democratic world parliament through a global referendum —

www.VoteWorldParliament.org
Vote World Parliament co-presidents are Ted Stalets and Jim Stark
www.RescuePlanForPlanetEarth.com
This site, above, is for the VWP companion book, Rescue Plan for
Planet Earth

Issue #36, February, 2011
(This issue and all previous issues are posted at
http://voteworldparliament.org/about/newsletter/)

THE SCORE

As of February 15, 2011, 21,663 people have voted. So far, the votes
are 95.4% in favor of creating a democratic world parliament.

Quotes of the month

There is an emerging second superpower, but it is not a nation.
Instead, it is a new form of international player, constituted by the
“will of the people” in a global social movement. James F. Moore, The
Second Superpower, Extreme Democracy

There are two superpowers in the world: the United States and global
opinion. Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the U.S. National
Council of Churches (in 2003)

* * *

News in brief

Publicity breakthrough:
WANGO to promote global referendum to members
by Ted Stalets

“WANGO” stands for the World Association of Non-Governmental
Organizations. It is an organization that brings NGOs together in the
cause of peace and global well-being. In early February, with the
press release for the portable voting booth well underway, we received
this very encouraging email from Rick Swarts (WANGO secretariat):
“This is a very interesting initiative, Ted.... If you send us your
press release, we will send it out in our next Enews, which reaches
50,000 members and subscribers, as well as link it to the home page
under WANGO NGO News.”

This decision will provide an immense surge of publicity for the
global referendum. In concert with other publicity initiatives, we
expect 2011 to be the year when voting jumps from a handful of votes
per day to hundreds or even thousands per day. For more about WANGO,
see www.WANGO.org.

Flushing out the opposition
by Jim Stark

We finally made enough of a noise to annoy the opposition! One of our
long-time friends, John Kintree, noticed an article online about VWP,
entitled “A most dangerous idea.” The article calls VWP “dangerous,”
“scary,” “disturbing,” “several bubbles off plumb” (meaning a few
kernels short of a cob, or wacky), “a fringe organization,” “more than
disturbing,” “frightening” and “un-American.” The full article (and
John’s rebuttal) can be seen at
http://thedailysentinel.com/opinion/editorials/article_cf665356-3491-11e0-89d9-001cc4c03286.html.

This was a relatively low-key “shot across the bow,” as the saying has
it. There is every possibility that their next volley will be better
aimed and more harmful in its intent. Part of me says, “Good, the
battle is joined,” but another part of me wonders if our people are
tough enough to not wilt under a barrage of (supposedly) withering
criticisms and name-calling. Time will tell. Personally, for my part,
I will hold my fire ... mostly because I am extremely busy trying to
get a municipal campaign organized (see “second front” article
below).

Here is Brian Coughlan’s response (published on the site above):

So many Americans find democracy frightening, it’s really rather odd.
Human beings have been governing themselves through elected
representatives for millennia. We have a U.S. Congress serving 300
million people, an EU parliament serving 500 million and an Indian
Parliament legislating on behalf of over one billion. A global
parliament is simply the same thing on a larger scale. You may have
heard of the concept, Ken—democracy? By attempting to deny billions of
people the right to representation at the global level, Ken Bonner has
embarrassed himself; the only “un-American” visible is the disgraceful
author of this article.

Opening a “second front” for the VWP campaign—municipalities
by Jim Stark

The aim of our work at Vote World Parliament (VWP) to date has been to
try to collect two billion or so “yes” votes on a ballot intended to
authorize the creation of a democratic world parliament. That goal
remains, but VWP is opening up a “second front,” where we will try to
apply our “bottom up” strategy through existing political
institutions. In short, we are aiming to get a resolution calling for
a global referendum on a democratic world parliament passed by the UN
General Assembly by mobilizing city and town councils! (See draft
United Nations resolution at https://voteworldparliament.org/allies-initiatives/draft-un-resolution/.)
“Can’t be done,” you say? Read on.

In the 1980s, I headed Operation Dismantle, a Canadian NGO set up to
promote gradual and balanced nuclear disarmament by the then-
superpowers, the USA and the USSR. We got one city council to agree to
piggyback a local referendum (using our ballot wording) onto the next
municipal election. We parlayed that one victory into a whole
campaign. In the end, more than 200 cities and towns held referendums
in conjunction with their next elections, at their own expense (a
couple of cents per voter). We got millions of votes and educated a
nation. The full story is at https://voteworldparliament.org/about/books/:
click on Part #1 of my book Cold War Blues (it’s free) and scroll down
to Chapter 8, which is entitled “Municipal Referendums.” And remember,
there was no Internet back then!

This time, the goal is a democratic world parliament, and this time,
we are global rather than national. And we don’t have to ask
municipalities to actually conduct referendums either (which cost tax
dollars), since we have the Internet for that (which is free). For a
background paper on this new “second front,” send a request to
jims...@webruler.com.

NOTE: Back in 1983, these municipal referendums were considered to be
“consultative,” and not legally binding. Still, that campaign was very
much worth doing. Now we are after a global mandate from the entire
human race, and while this point will be argued both ways, we think
once we’ve got such a mandate in hand, no one will dare to say “no” to
our whole species, which is to say a global mandate is as good or
better than “legally binding.”

The new Swedish connection

VWP received a most welcome email from high school teacher Per
Norbäck, who is now also a member of the city council of Vallentuna (a
suburb of Stockholm). He heads up a group called Demoex, which stands
for “Democracy Experiment.” For more details, see
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Swedish+online+party+stirs+municipal+democracy+in+Vallentuna/1076153931670.
Per wrote to say how impressed he was with our concept of a global
referendum on the creation of a democratic world parliament, and VWP
is now working with Per and Demoex to launch the “second front”
mentioned above. As the new municipal campaign goes forward, we will
likely ask our two Swedish Board members (Brian Coughlan and Torbjörn
Tännsjö) to become involved with the Vallentuna group.

VWP website now “as secure as a bank”
by Ted Stalets

The security of the Vote World Parliament website has been enhanced
with additional authentication and encryption capabilities. Just as
banks use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) to protect the safety of monetary
transactions, the VWP website now possesses identical protection.
Essentially, as one votes using the referendum ballot, personal
information cannot be intercepted and read by anyone other than the
voter and VWP.

SSL enhancement for the VWP website provides for 1) authentication of
the website, 2) verification of the website visitor, and 3) encryption
for secure communication between the website and the website visitor.
As the global referendum initiative is now poised to take off, the
security provided by SSL encryption was a necessary addition.

New Board member

Lucy Law Webster is now a member of the Board of VWP. Here is her mini-
bio:

Lucy Law Webster has been an active world federalist since 1947 when
she started a chapter at Princeton Day School. Later, at Wellesley,
she organized a New England Council of Student Federalist Chapters,
and served as the National Chair of the United World Federalist
Student Division. After graduating, she was invited to become the
Secretary General of the World Student Federalists based in Amsterdam.
In 1982, Lucy started a 14-year period in the UN Secretariat, mainly
as a Political Affairs Office in the Disarmament Department where she
edited two publications, drafted speeches, and prepared UN documents.
When she left the UN due to its mandatory retirement age, she worked
as Director of Economists for Peace and Security, where she now serves
on the Board. She is currently the Executive Director of the Center
for War/Peace Studies and the senior Vice President of the Council of
the World Federalist Movement. Lucy has an MS in International
Relations and an MA in Global Political Economy and Finance.

Half of all human adults now use the Internet

The number of Internet users worldwide has mushroomed to reach the two
billion mark, the head of the UN's telecommunications agency, Hamadoun
Toure, said on Wednesday. For more on this, see
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-internet-users-worldwide-billion.html.

Reminder: how to embed the VWP voting booth on your site or Facebook
page

To see the portable ballot on a website, go to www.LifeProfilesBooks.com
and click on the graphic link. These graphic links are available in 53
languages (via Google Translate; see http://voteworldparliament.org/shadowbox/getballot.html).
For detailed instructions on how to embed a voting booth, see
www.screencast.com/t/HrNYQeofwod0 for a video on this, and
www.voteworldparliament.org/votingboothinstructions.pdf for an
illustrated static presentation. There are four small icons on the
bottom of the ballot, for Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in and Blogger.
The ballot installs in these applications automatically if you click
on the appropriate icon and then log into your account.

Letters

This article is from
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Birth-Of-Global-Democracy/articleshow/7328171.cms).
It mentions the UNPA, but I thought you might find the paragraph below
of particular interest.

Cheers,
Larry (Larry Kazdan is Vice President of the Vancouver branch of the
World Federalist Movement—Canada)

The International Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
held global elections in 2000 for electing its board of directors. The
elections were the first-ever example of direct global democracy in
the governance of any global organization. Every voter in the ICANN
election had access to the Internet. All social preconditions of
democracy such as membership, a communication community, interest
aggregation and democratic culture were amply present, dispelling the
popular myth that global democracy is impossible.