| Oklahomans for Global Solutions |
| Envisioning a future in which people work together to abolish war, protect our rights and freedoms, establish a culture of peace, and solve the problems facing humanity that no nation can solve alone. |
| "I salute the flag of the State of Oklahoma. Its symbols of peace unite all people." |
| This website is maintained by Bill Bryant, dba Small World Business Services ... Page created January 12, 2005. |
| The Woolly Rhino Hunters You know about the Woolly Rhinoceros, don’t you? They were fearsome creatures. They lived thousands of years ago, and they occupied a vast stretch of land from Europe to eastern Asia. They were big. They were fast. And they had a bad temper. … [MORE] You Might Be a World Federalist If... 10. You think it is perfectly plausible that Klingons and Vulcans would be able to live peaceably as part of a planetary federation, so why not the nations of Earth? 9. You admire the people of Switzerland, and not just because they make good watches. 8. You celebrated the 200th anniversary of the publication of Immanuel Kant's essay, "Toward Perpetual Peace." … [MORE] The Unconquerable World Jonathan Schell has written a hopeful book, “The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People.” …Schell describes how our world operates, in a political sense, on two basic types of power. One kind of power is coercive … Another kind of power is “cooperative power...” It is a power that manifests itself when people work together to achieve a common goal. … [MORE] Department of Peace By Dennis Kucinich The United States was founded on hope, optimism, and a commitment to freedom. We can once again become a beacon of hope for the world…. It is time to jettison our illusions and fears and to transform age-old challenges with new thinking. This is the idea behind my proposal to establish a Department of Peace. This is the idea to make nonviolence an organizing principle at home and abroad and dedicate ourselves to peaceful coexistence, consensus building, disarmament, and respect for international treaties. Violence and war are not inevitable. Nonviolence and peace are inevitable…. [MORE] On World Democracy By Jim Stark At the height of the Cold War, in 1977, I founded “Operation Dismantle” in Canada. The organization spent years and a busload of money trying unsuccessfully to launch a global referendum on balanced and verifiable nuclear disarmament. On reflection, that goal was far too limited…, plus there was a showstopper, in that the only practical way of having any global referendum was for the governments of nations to conduct the world vote…. Now, a quarter century later, there is a new route around that showstopper, and there is no doubt what the question on the ballot must really be. That “new route” is the Internet, and the objective must be world democracy. ... [MORE] |
| Articles |
On World Democracy
by Jim Stark
by Jim Stark
Acting President, Vote World Government
www.voteworldgovernment.org
“I think that people want peace so much that one of these days
[national] governments had better get out of the way and let
them have it.” -- Dwight Eisenhower
At the height of the Cold War, in 1977, I founded “Operation Dismantle”
in Canada. The organization spent years and a busload of money trying
unsuccessfully to launch a global referendum on balanced and verifiable
nuclear disarmament. On reflection, that goal was far too limited
(disarmament in itself will not bring peace), plus there was a
showstopper, in that the only practical way of having any global
referendum was for the governments of nations to conduct the world vote
in segments by adding the referendum question on to the ballot in their
next national elections. Most UN ambassadors—and I met with almost all
of them in 1979—said they would vote for this initiative if it was to be
introduced into the General Assembly, and several governments were
willing to co-sponsor it. However, no government would agree to be the
primary sponsor of such a resolution, and without a primary sponsor,
nothing could happen. Now, a quarter century later, there is a new route
around that showstopper, and there is no doubt what the question on the
ballot must really be. That “new route” is the Internet, and the objective
must be world democracy.
If we want to outlaw war, which we have to do if we are to survive “WMD”
(biological, chemical and nuclear “weapons of mass destruction”), the
goal must be not disarmament per se, but democratic world government,
or DWG, a House of Commons or parliament for the entire world, making
and applying world law. (Nations under a DWG would still have military
forces, just as provinces and cities would continue to need police forces,
but no government will be allowed to possess weapons that threaten all
life on Earth.)
National governments do not seem to realize that with WMD in the mix
(and increasingly available to unstable nations and terrorists), it is
impossible to provide “actual” security to their citizens, nor do they see
that for the rest of human history, actual security will be possible only
collectively, through a directly-elected and democratic world government,
through the resolution of international conflicts in the same way that the
police and courts provide actual security to you and me, where we live. As
a result of this unfortunate bit of ignorance, I’m sure that most national
governments still won’t want to conduct a segment of any world
referendum. But we have the Internet now, which we did not have in
1979, and that dramatically changes all the equations and calculations!
After a year of planning, the Internet-based global referendum on DWG
has begun. It is hoped and expected that in a decade, we will collect
“yes” votes from a strong majority of adult humans on the planet.
(Clearly, 50% + 1 of those who do vote is not enough. To be
“compelling,” we would have to prove “yes” results from perhaps 60% of
those who voted and prove that perhaps 60% of living adults had cast
votes, or some such formula.) It is difficult to imagine any person or
government or group of countries telling the entire human race that a
democratically-taken decision can’t be implemented. Even in law, such a
referendum result must trump all other law. At some point, the consent
of the people is more than consent; it is authorization, it is instruction, it
is law … in this case, world law. After a successful global referendum, any
person can speak for the human race and say: “We can live lawfully on
the global level just as easily as we now do within our nations, provinces
and cities, and since this is what it will take for human life to survive and
thrive for the next million years, we are now creating a democratic world
government.”
[NOTE: Canada had to deal with these issues in relation to a referendum
held by one province to seek a mandate from its provincial population to
become a separate nation-state. And even though there is “no right,
under international law or under the Constitution of Canada, for …
Quebec to effect … secession … from Canada unilaterally,” there would be
an obligation for Canada to negotiate the terms of such a secession if
the vote for the secession option was strong, the question in the
referendum was clear and if the turnout at the polls was sufficient. For a
copy of the Clarity Act, write voteworldgovernment and request it. ]
The United Nations is an institution where national governments are
represented, not the people. The DWG can associate itself with the UN, or
not (I suspect it will, and I think it should), but whatever the case, the
DWG must be a directly-elected body, responsible to the people of Earth.
It can and must stop terrorism, it can and must prevent abuse to the
environment, it can and must send AIDS to the same graveyard of
diseases where the UN sent smallpox and do many other things that are
in the interests of the human race and the planet.
The site where you can vote is www.voteworldgovernment.org. The
number of ballots at the time of writing is only about 200. We need at
least 3 billion!
We’re just getting started. It is very hard to prove that a political strategy
will work until or unless we can make it work and then say, “See, we told
you so.” The “catch” is that we need the first thousand votes so that
people will realize we will soon have ten thousand, and we need the first
100,000 votes to show we will soon have millions, and we need the first
million votes to prove that soon we will have a hundred million votes, or a
billion? It is our plan to let votes trickle in until we have a powerful Board
of Directors set up, and a few influential institutions ready to stand
behind this global referendum initiative (such as municipal councils,
companies, service clubs, churches and unions, etc.). Then, before all
these institutions call upon their constituencies to vote, and hopefully to
vote “yes” to the proposition, we will get the essential elements of the
site translated into at least all major languages (eventually, to all
languages). When all the preparations are done, we will plan and execute
an official “launch” to kick-start the process in earnest.
So please, vote! And get all your friends and family to vote—and get
them to get all their friends to vote too, so we can get up a head of
steam. If you do your part and others do theirs, these (below) are the
milestones that we think are realistic.
A few donations and loans to the sponsoring organization (Vote World
Government) will get us off to a shaky start.
In 2005, our concept will come into public view and we will acquire
momentum. We will translate the ballot into all languages and the
website into many languages, and we’ll get a worldwide coalition of NGOs,
churches, unions, companies and universities assembled to act as the
engine of this historic movement, and do the official launch.
By 2006, the writing will be on the wall. We hope and expect that many
thousands of organizations will be collecting ballots, and people will
assume that we are going to reach our goal of three billion “YES” votes
on schedule (our target year is 2014).
By 2007, the first national government will decide to run the DWG
referendum ballot in tandem with its next national election, relieving us
of the cost and labor of doing that and freeing up people to concentrate
on nations where the cooperation of the government may never be
achieved.
By 2008, work will be under way to prepare for DWG elections. Boundaries
of perhaps 700 global constituencies will have been defined, and
methods of “corruption-proofing” a DWG will have to be settled, because
humanity can’t afford to have a Hitler in power at the world level—ever.
(This prospect is really the only serious argument against a DWG, but
such a nightmare scenario is easily preventable with the common sense
application of existing modern technology.)
By 2010, a “provisional” DWG can be in place, preparing for the election
of real DWG representatives.
By 2013, the first actual “representatives” can be elected to the DWG.
By 2014, we expect to see the inaugural session of a duly-elected DWG.
Our efforts to lawfully resolve human conflicts can begin, and
negotiations should begin as to how the DWG will coordinate with or
associate with the United Nations.
You needn’t “believe” what is said here, but you should see that all this
is possible, and if the Earth is to have a future of any kind, we, the
people, must finally civilize ourselves on the global level. We’ve known
this since the mid-19th century, but no one seems to know how to get
there. You now know of a strategy, and it can work. With your help, we
think it will turn out the way it is described above. If you want to do more
than just vote in the referendum, click on the “volunteer” or “donate”
links on our website.
www.voteworldgovernment.org
“I think that people want peace so much that one of these days
[national] governments had better get out of the way and let
them have it.” -- Dwight Eisenhower
At the height of the Cold War, in 1977, I founded “Operation Dismantle”
in Canada. The organization spent years and a busload of money trying
unsuccessfully to launch a global referendum on balanced and verifiable
nuclear disarmament. On reflection, that goal was far too limited
(disarmament in itself will not bring peace), plus there was a
showstopper, in that the only practical way of having any global
referendum was for the governments of nations to conduct the world vote
in segments by adding the referendum question on to the ballot in their
next national elections. Most UN ambassadors—and I met with almost all
of them in 1979—said they would vote for this initiative if it was to be
introduced into the General Assembly, and several governments were
willing to co-sponsor it. However, no government would agree to be the
primary sponsor of such a resolution, and without a primary sponsor,
nothing could happen. Now, a quarter century later, there is a new route
around that showstopper, and there is no doubt what the question on the
ballot must really be. That “new route” is the Internet, and the objective
must be world democracy.
If we want to outlaw war, which we have to do if we are to survive “WMD”
(biological, chemical and nuclear “weapons of mass destruction”), the
goal must be not disarmament per se, but democratic world government,
or DWG, a House of Commons or parliament for the entire world, making
and applying world law. (Nations under a DWG would still have military
forces, just as provinces and cities would continue to need police forces,
but no government will be allowed to possess weapons that threaten all
life on Earth.)
National governments do not seem to realize that with WMD in the mix
(and increasingly available to unstable nations and terrorists), it is
impossible to provide “actual” security to their citizens, nor do they see
that for the rest of human history, actual security will be possible only
collectively, through a directly-elected and democratic world government,
through the resolution of international conflicts in the same way that the
police and courts provide actual security to you and me, where we live. As
a result of this unfortunate bit of ignorance, I’m sure that most national
governments still won’t want to conduct a segment of any world
referendum. But we have the Internet now, which we did not have in
1979, and that dramatically changes all the equations and calculations!
After a year of planning, the Internet-based global referendum on DWG
has begun. It is hoped and expected that in a decade, we will collect
“yes” votes from a strong majority of adult humans on the planet.
(Clearly, 50% + 1 of those who do vote is not enough. To be
“compelling,” we would have to prove “yes” results from perhaps 60% of
those who voted and prove that perhaps 60% of living adults had cast
votes, or some such formula.) It is difficult to imagine any person or
government or group of countries telling the entire human race that a
democratically-taken decision can’t be implemented. Even in law, such a
referendum result must trump all other law. At some point, the consent
of the people is more than consent; it is authorization, it is instruction, it
is law … in this case, world law. After a successful global referendum, any
person can speak for the human race and say: “We can live lawfully on
the global level just as easily as we now do within our nations, provinces
and cities, and since this is what it will take for human life to survive and
thrive for the next million years, we are now creating a democratic world
government.”
[NOTE: Canada had to deal with these issues in relation to a referendum
held by one province to seek a mandate from its provincial population to
become a separate nation-state. And even though there is “no right,
under international law or under the Constitution of Canada, for …
Quebec to effect … secession … from Canada unilaterally,” there would be
an obligation for Canada to negotiate the terms of such a secession if
the vote for the secession option was strong, the question in the
referendum was clear and if the turnout at the polls was sufficient. For a
copy of the Clarity Act, write voteworldgovernment and request it. ]
The United Nations is an institution where national governments are
represented, not the people. The DWG can associate itself with the UN, or
not (I suspect it will, and I think it should), but whatever the case, the
DWG must be a directly-elected body, responsible to the people of Earth.
It can and must stop terrorism, it can and must prevent abuse to the
environment, it can and must send AIDS to the same graveyard of
diseases where the UN sent smallpox and do many other things that are
in the interests of the human race and the planet.
The site where you can vote is www.voteworldgovernment.org. The
number of ballots at the time of writing is only about 200. We need at
least 3 billion!
We’re just getting started. It is very hard to prove that a political strategy
will work until or unless we can make it work and then say, “See, we told
you so.” The “catch” is that we need the first thousand votes so that
people will realize we will soon have ten thousand, and we need the first
100,000 votes to show we will soon have millions, and we need the first
million votes to prove that soon we will have a hundred million votes, or a
billion? It is our plan to let votes trickle in until we have a powerful Board
of Directors set up, and a few influential institutions ready to stand
behind this global referendum initiative (such as municipal councils,
companies, service clubs, churches and unions, etc.). Then, before all
these institutions call upon their constituencies to vote, and hopefully to
vote “yes” to the proposition, we will get the essential elements of the
site translated into at least all major languages (eventually, to all
languages). When all the preparations are done, we will plan and execute
an official “launch” to kick-start the process in earnest.
So please, vote! And get all your friends and family to vote—and get
them to get all their friends to vote too, so we can get up a head of
steam. If you do your part and others do theirs, these (below) are the
milestones that we think are realistic.
A few donations and loans to the sponsoring organization (Vote World
Government) will get us off to a shaky start.
In 2005, our concept will come into public view and we will acquire
momentum. We will translate the ballot into all languages and the
website into many languages, and we’ll get a worldwide coalition of NGOs,
churches, unions, companies and universities assembled to act as the
engine of this historic movement, and do the official launch.
By 2006, the writing will be on the wall. We hope and expect that many
thousands of organizations will be collecting ballots, and people will
assume that we are going to reach our goal of three billion “YES” votes
on schedule (our target year is 2014).
By 2007, the first national government will decide to run the DWG
referendum ballot in tandem with its next national election, relieving us
of the cost and labor of doing that and freeing up people to concentrate
on nations where the cooperation of the government may never be
achieved.
By 2008, work will be under way to prepare for DWG elections. Boundaries
of perhaps 700 global constituencies will have been defined, and
methods of “corruption-proofing” a DWG will have to be settled, because
humanity can’t afford to have a Hitler in power at the world level—ever.
(This prospect is really the only serious argument against a DWG, but
such a nightmare scenario is easily preventable with the common sense
application of existing modern technology.)
By 2010, a “provisional” DWG can be in place, preparing for the election
of real DWG representatives.
By 2013, the first actual “representatives” can be elected to the DWG.
By 2014, we expect to see the inaugural session of a duly-elected DWG.
Our efforts to lawfully resolve human conflicts can begin, and
negotiations should begin as to how the DWG will coordinate with or
associate with the United Nations.
You needn’t “believe” what is said here, but you should see that all this
is possible, and if the Earth is to have a future of any kind, we, the
people, must finally civilize ourselves on the global level. We’ve known
this since the mid-19th century, but no one seems to know how to get
there. You now know of a strategy, and it can work. With your help, we
think it will turn out the way it is described above. If you want to do more
than just vote in the referendum, click on the “volunteer” or “donate”
links on our website.
Democracy and the
global community
"The true development of
human beings involves much
more than mere economic
growth. At its heart there must
be a sense of empowerment
and inner fulfilment. This alone
will ensure that human and
cultural values remain
paramount in a world where
political leadership is often
synonymous with tyranny and
the rule of a narrow elite.
"People's participation in social
and political transformation is
the central issue of our time.
This can be achieved only
through the establishment of
societies that place human
worth above power, and
liberation above control. In this
paradigm, development
requires democracy, the
genuine empowerment of the
people.
"The challenge we now face is
for the different nations and
peoples of the world to agree
on a basic set of human values,
which will serve as a unifying
force in the development of a
genuine global community."
-- Aung San Suu Kyi
Democratic leader and recipient
of the Nobel Peace Prize, Burma
global community
"The true development of
human beings involves much
more than mere economic
growth. At its heart there must
be a sense of empowerment
and inner fulfilment. This alone
will ensure that human and
cultural values remain
paramount in a world where
political leadership is often
synonymous with tyranny and
the rule of a narrow elite.
"People's participation in social
and political transformation is
the central issue of our time.
This can be achieved only
through the establishment of
societies that place human
worth above power, and
liberation above control. In this
paradigm, development
requires democracy, the
genuine empowerment of the
people.
"The challenge we now face is
for the different nations and
peoples of the world to agree
on a basic set of human values,
which will serve as a unifying
force in the development of a
genuine global community."
-- Aung San Suu Kyi
Democratic leader and recipient
of the Nobel Peace Prize, Burma