November 2010, Issue #33 of The WorldVoter

[The WorldVoter]

Hello from Vote World Parliament.

To view this, the 33rd 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/worldvoternewsletter33.pdf or
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Thank you for your interest in a democratic world parliament.
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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’s 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 #33, November, 2010
(This issue and all previous issues are posted at
http://voteworldparliament.org/about/newsletter/)

THE SCORE

As of November 13, 2010, 21,534 people have voted. So far, the votes
are 95.4% in favor of creating a democratic world parliament.

Quote of the month

The world will not survive if it remains on the present course.
Establishing a proper Earth government is my most important idea, an
absolute necessity, and then most other ideas can be fulfilled. Robert
Muller died in September of 2010. He was a genuine visionary, and
worked at the UN. He spelled out his “4,000 best ideas for a better
world” (subscribe at www.GoodMorningWorld.org), and this one (above)
was the greatest of all.

* * *

News in brief

Stark back in the saddle after heart attack

On September 27, 2010, Vote World Parliament’s founder Jim Stark had a
heart attack. He has been recovering well, and has returned to a
leadership role in VWP (he is now a co-president, along with Ted
Stalets).

* * *

Add a TWIGG to your diet

Brian Coughlan (with Fred Brandi and Deon Barnard) interviewed Jim
Stark on October 31, 2010 as Episode #13. TWIGG stands for “This Week
in Global Governance,” the full name of the weekly podcast. The
WorldVoter highly recommends TWIGG as a regular part of your listening
diet, and VWP thanks Brian et al for adding the graphic link to our
portable ballot (a “voting booth”) to the TWIGG page (http://
twigg.squarespace.com/). All 14 TWIGG episode links are at:
http://twigg.squarespace.com/twigg-episode-archive.

* * *

Robert Muller: a great man remembered
by Jim Stark

Dr. Robert Muller, who died in September of 2010, was a genuine
visionary. He spelled out his “4,000 best ideas for a better
world” (subscribe at www.GoodMorningWorld.org) as an enduring legacy
for a world in great need of great ideas.

In 1979, I gave a speech at the UN under the auspices of an NGO called
Pacem in Terris (meaning Peace on Earth). It was the very first time
the idea of a global referendum had been presented at the UN. Dr.
Muller was in attendance. At that time, he was the head of the
eighteen agencies that made up the United Nations Social and Economic
Council (the civil service of the UN), and as an international public
servant, there were constraints on what he could say in public.
However, after my speech (as faithfully reported in my 1991 book, Cold
War Blues), Dr. Muller astonished everyone by calling the global
referendum “historic and inevitable.” He later wrote me a letter in
which he said: “Without hesitation I can say that a world referendum …
would be extremely useful — you can quote me at will.”

PS Cold War Blues is available free from http://voteworldparliament.org/about/books/.

* * *

Opinion

“Asinine nonsense”

Re: “Once a noble dream, the UN is now a joke,” was penned by Rex
Murphy, Canada’s best-known grumpy old political pundit and printed in
the National Post Sept. 25, 2010 (http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/
2010/09/29/todays-letters-when-we-spoke-the-un-went-to-lunch/). His
article received this pithy analysis (below) from Larry Kazdan, VP of
the Vancouver branch of the World Federalist Movement and a friend of
VWP.

“While the UN can certainly be improved, that organization has ended
or prevented numerous wars thereby saving millions of lives, and has
improved the lives of millions more with social and medical programs.
Rex Murphy’s blinkered rant on the value of the United Nations from a
western point of view demonstrates that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad certainly
does not hold the monopoly for spouting asinine nonsense.” Larry
Kazdan

* * *

Russian opinion leaders
by John O. Sutter

John Sutter, President of the Democratic World Federalists
(www.dwfed.org), thanks Treasurer Bob Hanson for bringing this to our
attention.

Back in 1992, Mikhail Gorbachev declared at Westminster College in
Fulton, Missouri:
“On today’s agenda is not just a union of democratic states, but also
a democratically organized world community.... An awareness of the
need for some kind of global government is gaining ground, one in
which all members of the world community would take part.” Is
Gorbachev a closet world federalist or a world citizen?
In the century that started as the Bush/Cheney/neocon regime called
for “full spectrum dominance” of the land, sea, air, and outer space
leading to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and complicity in
crimes against humanity, the U.S. policy was to thumb our nose at the
United Nations, the International Criminal Court, Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, et al.
Well, let’s see what four Russians have to say today. Do we have here
more closet world federalists or world citizens?

Russian “Gang of 4” calls for a new disarmament plan

“Nuclear disarmament is not a goal in itself but rather an important
area, precondition and method for reorganising international life on
more civilised principles,” say Yevgeny Primakov, Igor Ivanov, Evgeny
Velikhov and Mikhail Moiseyev October, 22 2010. (Full story at
http://indrus.in/articles/2010/10/22/start_a_new_disarmament_plan04815.html
… also reprinted below.)

Yevgeny Primakov is Russia’s former Prime Minister and Minister of
Foreign Affairs
Igor Ivanov is a former Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs
Evgeny Velikhov is President of the Russian Scientific Centre
“Kurchatov Institute”
Mikhail Moiseyev is a former Chief of the Russian General Staff

Full story:

The year 2010 has seen important events in the sphere of nuclear
disarmament and non-proliferation, with positive impact on global
security. The presidents of Russia and the US have signed a new
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Prague. If ratified by national
parliaments, it will make strategic ties between the two nuclear
powers more stable, transparent and predictable. A summit on nuclear
security in Washington has passed resolutions to enhance the safety of
nuclear materials worldwide. The 2010 Review Conference of the Parties
to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
concluded with the signing of the final document on strengthening the
treaty.

Useful as these steps are, they have not touched upon the strategic
nuclear ideology of mutual deterrence. It is the paradox of nuclear
deterrence that largely addresses the threats of the last century,
while in the new global and multi-polar world, any major armed
conflicts between great powers and their allies are highly unlikely.

At the same time, nuclear deterrence is not effective against the new
threats of the 21st century, including the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction and delivery systems, global terrorism, ethnic and
religious conflicts, and cross-border crime. Nuclear deterrence in
some cases can provoke proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

To prevent the negative impact of nuclear deterrence on cooperation
among global players, it is necessary to decrease arms levels through
pacts based on the principle of minimum sufficiency, and also promote
strategic stability to ensure equal security for all and exclude the
possibility of the first nuclear attack or rocket launch due to
technical error or erroneous interpretation of the other party’s
intentions or a lack of time for decision-making by the political
leadership. The new START meets all these requirements, but much
remains to be done.

The next stage of nuclear disarmament cannot be exclusively bilateral.
It will require restrictions and confidence measures towards other
nuclear countries. Unlike the US, Russia’s geostrategic position makes
it accessible to all nuclear countries, which has to be taken into
account for deep disarmament.

The concept of nuclear deterrence has become an insurmountable
obstacle on the path to global nuclear disarmament. It is no secret
that there are not just supporters, but also opponents of nuclear
disarmament in the US, Russia and other countries. Some are still
guided by Cold War stereotypes, but many voice specific and justified
concerns related to the process of disarmament. Their arguments cannot
be simply ignored. For example, there is a widespread belief in Russia
that the country’s nuclear potential is a key element of Russia’s
great power status.

We are convinced that Russia’s foreign image will be largely ensured
by its economic modernisation, rising living standards, social and
political rights and freedom and development of science and culture.
However, as long as the threat of “power projection” is used in
international relations, Russia will have to retain sufficient
military, including nuclear, potential to protect itself, its allies
and its lawful interests.

Thus, nuclear disarmament requires greater confidence among nations,
along with greater international security and stability. The Obama
administration has revised its global security agenda, shifting to a
new, multilateral approach with focus on strengthening global security
regulations and institutions, the use of diplomacy in dispute
settlement, and equal partnership with Russia. It is important that
these principles are reflected in the foreign policy of the US and its
allies.

This applies to anti-ballistic missile defence, conventional weapons
and strategic non-nuclear weapons, as well as space militarisation
plans. Taking a long-term perspective, we came to the conclusion that
the world without nuclear weapons is not our existing world minus
nuclear weapons. We need an international system based on other
principles and institutions. A nuclear-free world shall not become a
world free of wars using other weapons of mass destruction,
conventional arms, advanced non-nuclear weapons and systems based on
new physical principles. It is not just about major wars, but about
local conflicts as well. Today, small countries view nuclear weapons
as a means to offset the huge advantage of great powers in terms of
conventional weapons. It is this idea that provokes nuclear
proliferation at the regional level, triggering the threat of nuclear
terrorism. To eliminate such threats, it is necessary to build
reliable mechanism for peaceful settlement of major and local
international and border conflicts.

Nuclear disarmament necessitates a thorough overhaul of the entire
international system. This will also help solve other key problems of
the 21st century related to global economy and finance, energy
supplies, environment, climate, demography, epidemics, cross-border
crime and religious and ethnic extremism. Nuclear disarmament is,
therefore, not a goal in itself but rather an important area,
precondition and method for reorganising international life on more
civilised principles and according to the demands of the new century.