DEMOCRATIC WORLD FEDERALISTS
PEACEFUL | JUST | SUSTAINABLE | WORLD
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Articles for This Issue:
DWF NEWS
April 27, 2023
Important Omen for Leadership India, UN Charter Review, and a 'New UN'
Roger Kotila
UN Expresses Concerns Over Reports of US Spying on its Top Officials
Peoples Dispatch
NATO's Growing Military Presence in Latin America & the Caribbean
Sergio Rodriquez Gelfenstein
Don't Tell the World About America's Extensive List of War Crimes & Atrocities
The Atrocity Mill: How the West Conjures up Atrocities Overseas to Cover for Its Own
Evan Reif
Ralph Yari rang the wrong doorbell!!
They See You Coming!
Fritz Pointer
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Important Omen for Leadership India, UN Charter Review, and a 'New UN'
Roger Kotila
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COULD IT BE THAT THE ZEITGEIST (spirit of the times) is changing, moving away from the current UN global war system to be replaced by a global peace system? Can we imagine a "new UN" with a world constitution that provides for a democratic World Parliament and a well-designed world judiciary system to end global lawlessness?
To my complete surprise, the present issue of Foreign Affairs (May/June, 2023) titled "The Nonaligned World" features a pair of articles which are in line with plans underway by the World Constitution & Parliament Association (WCPA) and the Center for UN Constitutional Research (CUNCR) to establish a new UN, or Earth Federation government.
Foreign Affairs, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, is perhaps the most important foreign policy journal representing the U.S. ruling government. It serves as a think tank outlet for U.S. elites who (unfortunately) tend to support U.S. world "leadership" (to conquer the world) and free market capitalism.
But the articles by Rao on India, and Murithi on UN Charter Review take foreign policy in a new direction, away from militarism and toward cooperation, where all nations are given a voice in decision-making regarding global problems. (Perhaps America's foreign policy establishment is starting to realize that its goal to rule the world by military force and covert operations is unrealistic, morally wrong, and endangers all of us.)
WCPA has strong roots in India and is actively seeking the support of the government to take the lead in the UN General Assembly for a Review of the obsolete UN Charter. A Review will show why the UN can't end war. WCPA will introduce its Earth Constitution as a guide, model and authority for the UN General Assembly to establish a new UN, one with the tools needed to end war and global lawlessness and anarchy.
Recommended reading in the May/June, 2023 issue of Foreign Affairs:
"The Upside of Rivalry - India's Great-Power Opportunity" (p. 17 - 23) by Nirupama Rao (India's Foreign Secretary from 2009-2011). Rao argues that India can work with Russia, China and the U.S. without taking sides, and that India can help cultivate a "universal sense of one-ness." She supports Modi's "One Earth, One Family, One Future." Rao discusses the need for "fundamental reforms to major international organizations" (such as the United Nations).
"Order of Oppression" - Africa's Quest for a New International System" (p. 24 - 30) by Tim Murithi (Head of Peacebuilding Interventions at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, and Professor of African Studies at the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University in South Africa).
Professor Murithi was part of a Paris Peace Forum team sponsored by CUNCR. Murithi discusses Article 109 for UN Charter Review, a strategy he learned from CUNCR at the first Paris Peace Forum. He argues for a democratic World Parliament and a global court of justice granted real authority. There are glaring Charter deficiencies which prevent the UN from doing its primary job. Murithi sees African countries building "a coalition of the willing" among the Global South, to advance a movement for a new international system.
That these two articles were published in the leading journal for US foreign policy suggest that the rulers of the world themselves are starting to get nervous, sensing a world spinning out of their control. Perhaps they are desperate to find a new direction, one which would bring world peace rather than world war. Could India and the Global South provide the needed boost to empower the UN General Assembly toward a urgently needed "new UN" or Earth Federation government?
Roger Kotila, PhD is a psychologist (ret.), president of Democratic World Federalists, co-editor of DWF NEWS, and an advocate for the Earth Constitution. See dwfed.org and earthfederation.info.
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UN Expresses Concerns over Reports of US Spying on Its Top Officials
Peoples Dispatch
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The classified documents leaked from the US Department of Defense recently have yet again exposed how it spies on even its close allies and violates their sovereignty to pursue its own interests. |
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EXCERPTS
19 Apr 2023 –
The United Nations officially expressed concern over recent reports of the US government spying on its top officials, including Secretary-General António Guterres, and attempting to interfere in their work. The statement came from UN Secretary General’s official spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric on Tuesday, April 18.
Dujarric said that the “UN officially expressed to the host country its concern regarding recent reports that the communications of the secretary general and other senior UN officials have been the subject of surveillance and interference by the US government.”
He also asserted that the said US actions violate its obligations to the UN Charter and the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN.
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NATO'S Growing Military Presence in Latin America & the Caribbean
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At present, it has become customary to speak of NATO’s expansion “towards Eastern Europe”, which, while effective, is a reductionist concept. The truth is that since the end of the bipolar world, the United States, believing itself to be the master of the world, has used NATO to expand throughout the planet. Proof of this is the signing of the AUKUS Treaty (Australia, United Kingdom and United States), the creation of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) formed by Australia, India, Japan and the United States and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) as instruments of NATO’s military expansion in Asia and Oceania.
The same is happening in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the United States is initiating an aggressive expansion plan throughout all latitudes and longitudes of the region. The following three installments will provide data to confirm the above assertion.
EXCERPTS:
At the end of last year, the United States had installed 12 military bases in Panama, 12 in Puerto Rico, 9 in Colombia, 8 in Peru, 3 in Honduras, 2 in Paraguay, as well as installations of this type in Aruba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Cuba (Guantanamo), and Peru among other countries, at the same time that it is orienting its search for the total coverage of the land and maritime surface of the region.
In Argentine territorial waters and in the Malvinas Islands, which were usurped by the United Kingdom, there is a NATO presence integrated in a system formed by bases on the islands of Ascensión, Santa Elena and Tristán da Acuña which “guards” the entire Atlantic from the north to the Antarctic area.
The U.S. general has called China a “malign state actor” after 21 of the 31 countries in the region have joined China’s Belt and Road initiative, at the same time as Beijing’s investment in critical infrastructure such as deep-water ports, space research or telecommunications, with 5G networks and the company Huawei, has increased.
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The Atrocity Mill: How the West Conjures up Atrocities Overseas to Cover for Its Own
Evan Reif
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[Editor: See the pictures of deformed children below, a small example of the results of extensive U.S. military war crimes. The U.S. government has violently threatened International Criminal Court officials if they attempt to prosecute Americans who have committed war crimes. Bush, Jr. and other U.S. presidents (commanders in chief), including Biden and Pentagon generals, will remain above international law no matter what world crimes that they may be responsible for. In a wildly outrageous double standard, the U.S. piously demands that Russia's Putin be prosecuted by the ICC for Ukraine, but refuses to allow the ICC to prosecute American war criminals! -- R. Kotila]
EXCERPTS:
American troops bombed hospitals and schools, shot up weddings and markets, and massacred thousands at roadblocks throughout the country. The U.S. bombarded Iraq with cluster bombs and white phosphorus, and poisoned the water and land through the use of depleted uranium and other toxic chemicals, causing a rate of unprecedented birth defects vastly more than that of the United States, along with massively increased rates of cancer, renal disease, and other serious ailments.
The Iraqis who have died from this and will continue to die for generations are once again not included in official figures of the dead. The countless Iraqi children who survive and must suffer with these terrible defects may pity those dead, as they have little hope of their poisoners ever being brought to justice.
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They See You Coming!
Fritz Pointer
Ralph Yarl rang the wrong doorbell!!
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When I was a Professor at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa in 1983, James Baldwin was invited to give a lecture. The title of his lecture was “The Enemy Is At the Gate.” He talked about global problems and how the use of this idea enabled the US, in particular, to ignore internal problems to focus on a mythical, fabricated external enemy. The macrocosm. He also talked about domestic US problems and how this idea, of an imaginary enemy permeates, infects, and distorts human relationships. The microcosm.
Baldwin used an analogy. We must use our imagination. It’s a simple story. A Black man’s car breaks down on a rural country road. It is dark and it is cold. He sees the lights from a house in the distance. He walks toward the light. He approaches the front door. He knocks. The people inside, White people, are not mean, they’re not cruel but, they see you coming and they cannot let you in. They see you coming.
In other words, they don’t really see “you” (an individual Black person) but a figment of their imagination, a walking symbol of stereotypes repeatedly implanted, drummed, into their brains about what “you” (an individual Black person) represent: by media, educational, political, and religious institutions. For example, on networks like FOX news, Black and Criminal are synonymous. This is true for White America generally. It’s the “Dog Whistle” in every US election. The grandson of the decrepit old man who shot Ralph Yarl said his grandfather was a faithful viewer of FOX news and internalized their racist views and commentary.
Ralph Yarl, 16 in Kansas City rang the “wrong” doorbell to pick-up his siblings. And he was shot in the head and chest by an eighty-four-year-old Neanderthal, reacting as FOX News had programmed him to react to the presence of a Black male. There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans; that is, more guns than people. Americans call this “Freedom”. China is called “Authoritarian” because civilians cannot own or carry guns. What to me, is even “more Authoritarian” is to require civilians to own and carry guns. And, the United States is doing just that right now, with insane speed committing mass suicide, and the cowardly wholesale murder of children…of children. It isn’t new. The US has done this throughout its murderous inception and history.
In Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz notes: “The Second Amendment thus reflects this dependence on individual armed men, not just in terms of a right to bear arms, but also as a requirement to bear arms” (33). This is authoritarianism of another sort, in a different primitive, uncivilized direction. Yes, this started a bit ago, in the 17th century. Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz notes: “Virginia, the first colony, forbade any man to travel unless he was ‘well armed.’
A few years later, another law required men to take arms with them to work and to attend church or be fined. In 1658, the colony ordered every settler home to have a functioning firearm and later even provided government loans for those who could not afford to buy a weapon” (35). No man was to appear in a public meeting unarmed.
And this is civilized?! These are civilized laws? This is civilized behavior? This to me is psychotic and demented. China is authoritarian? Well, consider that abortion has been legal in China since 1950. What’s happening in the US in 2023? Who’s authoritarian? Once more recall Mathatma Gandhi’s answer when asked what he thought of western civilization: “I think it would be a good idea.” And, I would add that the US is becoming less civilized and more barbaric every single day. Think for just a moment of POTUS (doesn’t matter which one) traveling to a different state, daily, to comfort parents and relatives of mass shooting victims. With the hackneyed, hypocritical, dumbass message that “violence never solves anything.” And, in the next instant sends billions of dollars in weapons’ systems, firearms, munitions, tanks, missiles to Ukraine to keep the war going against Russia.
Americans generally and White Americans, in particular, have a disturbingly shallow, superficial and stereotypical understanding of people who are not White; and, too many, like idiot DeSantis, are trying to deepen and broaden this ignorance. Banning books, like the story of Rosa Parks; and words like “gay” or “trans” or what have you is one of the most ignorant “bans” to ever come out of the mouth of a government official anywhere in the word. This is US world leadership?! A youth population ignorant of its own history and that of others. This fool doesn’t even want students to learn about their neighbors or fellow citizens.
So, when the typical White person sees a typical Black person, they don’t see an individual, but a representation of all they’ve been indoctrinated to understand that person represents: a criminal, a threat, a thief, a spook. This is ‘what’ they see coming; not you, but what you symbolize, what you represent. Here, I need the help of Ralph Ellison. In the “Prologue” to his classic novel Invisible Man, the narrator experiences what it’s like “to be seen coming.” The narrator introduces himself as an “invisible man.” He explains that his invisibility is not due to some biochemical accident or supernatural but rather to the unwillingness of other people to see him as an individual, who happens to be black. In other words, he is not literally invisible, but what this White person sees is not who or what he or she is.
The narrator relates an incident in which he accidentally bumped into a tall, blond man in the dark. The blond man called him a ‘Nigger,” and the narrator attacked him, demanding an apology. He throws the blond man to the ground, kicked him, and pulled out his knife, prepared to slit the man’s throat. Only at the last minute did he come to his senses. He realized that the blond man insulted him because he really didn’t see him. He saw what he had been taught to see. He saw what he had been told to see. Black equals evil, criminal, thug, rapist, bad, bad, bad. In the eloquent speech of the former caveman who occupied the White House.
For the few remaining literate souls in America, let me recommend Dr. Carol Anderson’s new book; The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. Her analysis looks at the Second Amendment and how it has been engineered to deny rights of African Americans since its inception.
Inter alia she notes that the Second Amendment has had horrible consequences on American democracy. It has become a gateway to right-wing extremism, Nazism and white supremacists. It has provided the excuse to make our schools unsafe, our grocery stores unsafe, our recreational facilities unsafe, and, frankly, whole communities unsafe. Most important, the Second Amendment has made American democracy unsafe (183).
A truly respected world leader will want to know and want her or his citizens to know as much as they can about the world - and certainly their fellow citizens and neighbors: about the people, cultures and languages of the world; about the contributions of the peoples of the world, to world civilization: to science, technology, art (be it fine or folk art, music, painting, sculpture, literature) philosophy, architecture. And abandon the absurd idea that White people and White people only are responsible for developments in these areas of human progress. In other words, a world leader should know, or certainly want to know, about the world and the people of the world…Duh.
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