"Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.... I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions... But I also know that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.... As new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times."
Thomas Jefferson
A Time For Every Purpose
On December 19th, 2009, I saw a photograph in the Globe and Mail, of a crowd of people walking through the streets of Copenhagen with a large banner. That banner read System Change, not Climate Change.
That was perhaps the first public acknowledgment that our national and international political systems are not equipped to lead us to an ecologically sustainable world. These are the same political systems and operatives that are now advancing a form of world government, over which they will have almost total control. Not a good prospect for democracy, or for the conditions necessary to repair a physically damaged planet.
The first of the three components forming this world government, is its cornerstone. It is the United Nations.
The United Nations was designed for, and essentially functions to support the imperial ambitions of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and then to clean up and salve over the debris it leaves behind through militarism and ecological damages. The United Nations is governed as an oligarchy, through representatives which are nation state appointed and controlled.
The second component will be a series of Continental Unions, like for instance the European Union, and an emerging North American Union. There will be other continental unions to follow.
Continental Unions, as now exemplified by the European Union, are carefully constructed and managed elements of this world government. They are meant to perpetuate and grow the United Nations system, to keep power where it has always been, in the hands of the few for the benefit of the few. That is the way of imperial systems. The most powerful oligarchs and plutocrats within these Continental Unions are already granting themselves the imperial power to orchestrate the conduct and elections of less powerful nation states, within their own Continental Unions.
The November 13th, 2009 edition of the Globe and Mail is reporting in an article on who should be the European Unions first president and foreign minister, that these "first big decisions under the treaty (the Lisbon Treaty) which is claimed to make the E.U. more democratic, transparent and accountable, will be taken in secret and without contenders formally declaring they are after the jobs." "Polish proposals for a more open contest by declared candidates" have been "dismissed" as "unrealistic".
Apparently European electorates have no right to know in whose interest those proposals were dismissed, or why. Just as in the United Nations oligarchic system, European electorates have been denied the fundamental right to elect their representatives, or for that matter, too even know who those representatives are going to be.
North American electorates are not going to be given the right to vote on whether we want to enter into a Continental Union. Canadian, American, and Mexican voters are too have no say whatsoever on entry into, or the extent of the legal binding of our nations to a North American Union, or for that matter, that Unions relationship to The United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.
Smaller, less powerful North American nations, are to continue in their role as servants to this imperial state. There is no reason to expect a different result for the periphery nations of other Continental Unions as they emerge.
The third and final component of this World Government is an institution to bind the United Nations and these Continental Unions as one, to merge under the control of a new United Nations political entity being developed as The United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.
The United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, the campaign for which began on April 24th, 2007, is described as "a proposed addition to the United Nations system that could eventually allow for the direct election of U.N. Parliament members all over the world."
Reality Check. The United Nations Security Council has no intention of giving "people all over the world" the democratic right to overrule their decisions. It has already been reported that this so called Assembly is backing away from the idea of elected representatives, in favour of appointing them. Count on it, and count on the fact that combined with phoney elections at the Continental Union level of government , these three institutions will constitute a dangerously centralized form of World Government that will have none of the democratic controls or federal protections that democratic World Federal government was meant to establish.
There is an urgent need to legally establish the political tools of Foundation Canada and World Foundation, Without these democratic institutions to remind us of what is at stake, and what is possible, we will continue to be fooled into giving up important democratic rights and freedoms to codify a model of world government, that so far most strongly resembles the political realities and structure of the former Soviet Union.
Carl Joudrie; January 4, 2010
Foundation: Regarding an UN Parliamentary Assembly, and a new way forward for Democratic World Federalism.
In the 20th anniversary issue of United World, I was pleased to see an editorial emphasis on securing “practical, workable, specific programs, not fairy tale castles in the sky platitudes”. “Too long have we wasted our time arguing over reforming the U.N. or creating a world constitution”.
It was interesting to note the reactions of college students in a course titled “Introduction to peace studies” who dismissed “world government” as “dangerous, too likely to become tyrannical”. An Interesting and deserved observation, which leads me to wonder why we still put that Orwellian foot forward, and then all but demand that people shoot at it. Dance pardner, dance. A kind of self flagellation. They are not confused, we are.
Mr. Shepherd plainly states that “We are clearly not answering people’s basic objections”. What we are continuing to do is what we have all done for the last half century. We have just reelected our favorite political parties and politicians to status quo political offices and institutions that will not have any interest in, or the power to advance the political machinery of Democratic World Federalism.
We have once more chosen to support the existing nation state and United Nations systems, no matter how dangerous they have become to the health of our physical world, or to our democratic freedoms. To add insult to injury we have sadly been maneuvered across the floor to aid and abet a form of United Nations sponsored World Government that will end in the same imperial tyranny that spawned it.
Does anyone in the World Federalist movement for instance, seriously believe that the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly will ever be allowed to control the United Nations Security Council? The idea is ridiculous, a tragic diversion of precious World Federalist resolve, and an embarrassment to a once proud democratically minded movement.
World federalists do not have another generation to waste, discovering that an assembly is not a government. At best an assembly is a low level legislature or a “group of persons gathered together, as for worship, instruction, entertainment, etc.” World Federalists should find their entertainment elsewhere, not in the foolish or manufactured idea that an appointed United Nations Parliamentary Assembly will somehow meet the standard of a republic, or that if it is elected, it will have the authority to enact, interpret and enforce world federal law, irrespective of what the United Nations Security Council wants.
This barrier to global democratic oversight is being constructed I am ashamed to say, with the full consent, cooperation, and active participation of people who claim to represent World Federalism. They don’t. At least they don’t represent me.
What they represent through their support of and involvement in the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, which combined with the North American and European Unions, is the effort to consolidate an unelected corporate/political world order, moving toward a democratically unaccountable global deep integration. This United Nations sponsored “world government” and that is what it is, will not support any meaningful democratic national oversight, from any of its member national electorates. Not American, not Canadian, not Mexican, not European, not any.
Be mindful of the fact that the United Nations system was designed for, and essentially functions to support the Imperial ambitions of the United Nations Security Council, and then to clean up and salve over the debris it leaves behind through militarism and ecological damages. This system needs to be laid to rest, buried, as unworkable for this new century, in favor of a form of democratically induced and regulated World Federalism in which we can all have a stake.
World government or democratic world federalism? We can’t live in both worlds any more, at least not as far as those students are concerned, so end the argument now, choose one. Straight up, we would all be much better off if we let the United Nations do its own work, and if they left us to do ours.
What is ours? I would suggest that if we are to begin at the “ground level” of democratic world federalism, we start with foundation, and foundation starts with social contract.
According to the Canadian World Federalist National Charter, we were “To secure support for the establishment of a competent World Federal Government, elected by and responsible to the people under its jurisdiction” and “to strive toward the creation of a World Federal Government with authority to enact, interpret and enforce world law.”
World Federalism does not exist to “secure support for the establishment” of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, but “for the establishment of a competent World Federal Government.” This government is to be “responsible to the people,” not for them. That means that we need to secure the support of the people, among them, those students, and to do that, we need to define an appropriate social contract for them that distributes World Federal power in such a way, as to render that power subject to their full democratic consent and oversight, both as national, and as world federal citizens.
In doing so, we can achieve something that has the force of law behind it, that is to say national political party status wherever that is legally possible. We can also attain much of the moral authority to lead it, provided we are prepared to lead it in productive ways that reflect democratic values.
Through such an effort we could set standards that would otherwise take generations to bear fruit. We could for instance as regards equal rights, simply state as a matter of policy that one man and one woman will occupy what is now one seat, in any elected foundation national legislature, or world foundation federal legislature. There is important work to do in designing a space based industrial and transportation system, and in designing complimentary national and global polices to protect vital biological and ecological systems. With imaginative and relevant policy, foundation could popularize world federalism and bring it relatively rapid success.
There is potentially a very significant constituency for such a political movement, and a growing global pool of innovative leaders and ideas that are now without a unifying political home. In a politically united world, these forces could bring an exiting and essential change that is within the democratic grasp of nations and electorates everywhere. Perhaps we can stop dancing now.
Please read World Federalism: A Minority Opinion at www.foundationcanada.ca
Thank You: Carl Joudrie. November 6, 2008
Revolutionary changes in the way we govern ourselves, nationally and internationally, are at least as warranted today as they were during Jefferson’s time, much more so in fact, but the injuries that might compel people to risk the uncertainties of revolutionary change, are only beginning to outweigh the comforts of delay. As in Jefferson’s time that tipping point will be reached.
Foundation aims to prepare for that certainty in our time, based on the reality of a rapidly degenerating ecosystem that will require a politically co-operative global effort to repair, or to mitigate the damages of that decline.
A new social contract, defining limited but real powers for national electorates might move the global ship of state in a new direction less prone to violent collisions. Foundation could offer important federal protections for the rights of member nation states, and the independence of their national electorates to secede from that federation should it become oppressive or unjust.
Carl Joudrie
Please contact me at foundationletters@yahoo.com if you have any problem reaching any of the pages of this site.