December 2009, Issue #22 of The WorldVoter

[The WorldVoter]

Hello from Vote World Government.

To view this month's newsletter as a .pdf file (nicer, easier to read
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http://www.rescueplanforplanetearth.com/WorldVoterNewsletter22.pdf

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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 President is Jim Stark; Vice President is Ted
Stalets
www.RescuePlanForPlanetEarth.com
This site, above, is for the book Rescue Plan for Planet Earth

Issue #22, December, 2009
(This issue and all previous issues are posted at www.RescuePlanForPlanetEarth.com)

Quotes of the month

Leaders are indispensable, but to produce major social change many
ordinary people must also be involved. Anne Firor Scott (From the
November 2009 newsletter of Citizens for Global Solutions, Minnesota)

The future depends on what we do in the present. Mohandas Gandhi (From
the November 2009 newsletter of Citizens for Global Solutions,
Minnesota)

This [global referendum] initiative is vital to the very future of
humanity. People everywhere must understand the necessity of
democratic world government for the survival and flourishing of life
on the Earth. Vote World Government brings our one real option for a
decent world order to the attention of humanity. God bless this
movement. Glen T. Martin, author of Ascent to Freedom: Practical and
Philosophical Foundations of Democratic World Law

News in brief

What’s in a name?

We have changed the name of the NGO from “Vote World Government” to
“Vote World Parliament,” as required by the change of organizational
focus (from a world government to a world parliament), approved some
time ago. The work of making this conversion is quite onerous, and
won’t be completed for weeks yet. Ted Stalets is doing the redesign of
the site (the “under construction” version can be seen at
www.voteworldparliament.org), and the “switch will be thrown” to do
the transfer in the near future. “What’s in a name?” you may well ask.
In this case, the foundation and the point of our initiative is
described by our name, and we are satisfied that we have fine-tuned it
correctly.

Authors’ Campaign to remain as it was

Under the rubric of “it seemed like a good idea at the time,” we tried
to find a few authors on our Authors’ Campaign list to form a steering
committee. However, we were unable to find anyone to chair (or even co-
chair) such a committee. They are all busy professionals, and our
global referendum initiative hasn’t quite proved itself yet, so this
response wasn’t too unexpected. VWP’s Executive Committee has
therefore decided to leave the Authors’ Campaign as it was, a list of
cosmopolitan authors who may be called upon (individually or as a
group) as may seem beneficial from time to time. Certainly it helps
just to have all those impressive names up there on our site to aid
our search for more NGOs to join with us in collecting ballots for the
global referendum.

New Author on the list

While we are no longer actively trying to find new authors to join
that list, there is a new one to tell you about ... Troy Davis, author
of Appel pour une Démocratie Mondiale and a well-known activist in the
field of global democracy. FYI, his decision to join with us is a
direct result of our decision to change the emphasis of our
initiative, one of several steps forward that have derived from this
recent change-of-name.

Poor countries walk out on climate talks

Although we all hope that the negotiations in Copenhagen will succeed,
we see again the same predictable dynamics that have happened in the
past. Instead of marching around and shouting and getting arrested as
the demonstrators are doing, or walking out of the talks as the poor
countries have done, it might be better if those who understand our
dire world situation worked for a positive solution, such as a
democratic world parliament. It is recommended that you read this
article (URL below), although it may be overtaken by events by the
time you read it.

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/environment/Poor-Countries-Walk-Out-on-Climate-Talks-79207477.html

Rob Wheeler to take global referendum to People’s Congress

Rob Wheeler, the Chair of the Executive Committee of WATUN (the World
Alliance to Transform the UN) has offered to propose basically the
same resolution that WATUN has passed to the People’s Congress, to see
if they might choose to climb on board the “global referendum
express.” The People’s Congress has a listing of 10,000 “registered”
world citizens, and presumably, if they embrace the global referendum
strategy, that will turn into at least 10,000 new votes—thousands more
if each new voter from the People’s Congress asks a couple of friends
to join in.

Heartfelt thanks for doing this, Rob, and best of luck.

[Editor’s note: In the new year, Rob will be inviting all 27 member-
NGOs of WATUN to get their respective memberships to cast votes in the
global referendum. If they all do as requested, the global referendum
should acquire “Big Mo” … significant “momentum.”]

Report from Deepak Vyas (from an email dated December 3, 2009)

Our Global Trust peace march started in September, 2009. We have
covered many small villages, rural areas and a few towns spreading the
message of Global Democracy. We will be covering Iran, Pakistan, Iraq,
Turkey, Austria, France, the UK and the countries on the way from
India to the USA. Right now, it is difficult to frame a timetable as I
am a government employee and I have to go through a lot of formalities
in order to be able to leave the country. We will be in constant touch
with you, reporting all progress with the march. Your blessings and
good wishes will be a great driving force in our ambitious endeavour.

And Global Trust has put a link onto their home page that reads “Click
here to vote on the establishment of a democratic world parliament.”
We expect other NGOs to follow their example. (See link at
www.globalharmony.info/home.html.) VWP now plans to put a similar mini-
banner on our home page for other NGOs to download (the redesign of
our site is almost done).

Report from Gram Bharati Samiti (GBS)

Bhawani Shanker Kusum heads an NGO called Gram Bharati Samiti (GBS),
and is a player in a network of 200+ NGOs. GBS has started its
campaign, and Bhawani’s plan is to enlist units of GBS and other NGOs
to collect votes. Their objective is 100,000 votes ... soon, they
hope ... and I expect they will far exceed this number, since there
are more than a billion citizens of India! GBS also plans to post
letters to 1,000 dignitaries to get their signatures on an appeal to
media outlets in India (and others) to support the global referendum
on the creation of a democratic world parliament.

[Note: GBS will also be adding a link to the VWP ballot on their home
page, becoming the second web site to do so (the first was Global
Trust).]

Report from GigaVote

GigaVote, as the name implies, is being set up to collect “millions”
of votes from all over the world. The two main GigaVote players there
are Erandi Diaz and Jorge Ramirez, both Mexican citizens. They are
creating a “dual mirror portal” that will allow GigaVote (and later,
other NGOs) to collect ballots, keep their own tally and run their own
show, while all GigaVote ballots will also be tabulated at Vote World
Parliament headquarters. Erandi has just started collecting votes, and
already has 500 to input … and 90% are “yes” votes! He sees the
potential of getting up to 800 votes per hour (!) by using the
Internet.

Activity in Brazil

Kelvin Paul Scholz is a law student in Brazil. His aim is to launch a
“CV” (chain-voting) campaign in the hope that it will go viral in
Brazil, and perhaps in Portugal as well (and perhaps elsewhere). See
http://voteworldparliament.org/you-can-help/fast-track/ for more
details of this CV plan (that anyone can initiate).

Editorial, by Jim Stark

Obama defends war

Howard Kurtz, host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, noted that conservative
American media commentators and politicos were delighted with
President Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech. Kurtz characterized it as
“an impassioned defence of war,” with Obama asserting that war is
“sometimes necessary for the defence of peace.”

Obama had a point, to be sure, although what he should have said is
that “the use of force is sometimes necessary for the defence of
peace.” There’s a huge difference.

The use of highly targeted force by police is sometimes necessary to
defend the freedoms and rights of citizens, because crime exists. But
the Chicago Police, for instance, cannot declare war on and carpet
bomb one crime-ridden neighborhood of Chicago and then just lament the
extent of collateral damage, meaning those who are killed
unintentionally, and whose numbers in modern wars are often greater
than those who are killed on purpose.

Obama should get past the part of his job description where he is
called on to defend the USA and become, additionally, the “leader of
the free world” who finally realizes that war must be criminalized,
like theft and rape. Of course to do that he would have to buy into a
new mental framework that admits that 200 totally sovereign nations is
a perfectly ridiculous way to run a planet.

There would still be periodic wars among modern cities if not for the
existence of laws, courts and political machinery that provide for the
nonviolent resolution of disagreements within nations. As former U.S.
President Harry S. Truman said 65 years ago: “… [if] Kansas and
Colorado have a quarrel over the water in the Arkansas River, they
don’t call out the National Guard in each state and go to war over it.
They bring suit in the Supreme Court of the United States and abide by
the decision. There isn’t a reason in the world why we can’t do that
internationally.”

The USA often brags about being a “nation of laws,” but its leader
plays no useful role in the growing demand for world law, and for a
world parliament to make such law, and for a world judiciary to
enforce such law when circumstances call for enforcement. This kind of
approach is forehead-slapping obvious when seen on the level of a
nation, province (or “state,” in the USA) or municipality.

Most people live comfortably under a triple regime of local, regional
and national law. It’s both amusing and pathetic when otherwise
intelligent people wet themselves in their panic to insist that to
advocate a world of laws is unrealistic, naïve, dangerous or stupid.
That “blind spot” may cost the human race everything, in the end. It
is long past time that we, the people of Earth, insisted on global
democracy, and demanded far more common sense and courage from all our
politicians.

* * *

Jim Stark is the president of Vote World Parliament, an NGO dedicated
to launching a global referendum on democratic world parliament (see
www.voteworldgovernment.org or www.RescuePlanForPlanetEarth.com; 121
authors support the global referendum; the full list is at
www.voteworldgovernment.org/authorscampaign.shtml)