Issue No 5. 20/10/05
Determined
The newsletter of the Sapiens Movement.
We have a name for this Newsletter – creatively contributed by Tony Fleming from New York. To quote Tony “This term is used in most international treaties and, in my opinion, reflects
the commitment of world federalists and hopes of everyone.”
The last fortnight has been spent mainly in planning – writing a 16-page plan on the same model as one would write a business plan when establishing a new business. Such a plan, which can be adjusted as time passes, allows a benchmark against which to judge progress (or lack thereof) and also provides a key basis on which to raise funds when that stage is reached. I attach the much briefer “Executive Summary” which is the standard introduction to such planning documents. As will become clear to you on reading it, as our view of our “product” becomes more refined, large areas of our Website are going to require modification. (This third time in 6 months, is par for the course on green field start-ups.)
Last week I discussed the plan with Richard Gee, who is one of Australasia’s top marketing consultants. He gave me much practical advice. Among it was that he felt that the environmental question should be given predominance over the peace, poverty and politics side of Sapiens’ case. The environment is going to impact on everyone – and rings a bell in New Zealand, where we will be putting in our initial effort. In contrast, wars, the presence of poverty and the politics of the UN all seem remote from New Zealanders’ daily lives. Richard also said that we should “feminise” our message. I have put myself on the pill and hope that gradually I will come to see the Website in a different and less masculine light. If any of our feminine readers can help me here with suggestions, I would be really grateful. (That sounds frivolous but it is serious – I would welcome suggestions.)
In the Executive Summary you will read of the Vote World Government campaign. Please take a minute and add your name to Jim Stark’s petition. Later, Sapiens will almost certainly become more involved in his campaign. Jim writes:
Please click on http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/458184591?ltl=1129307719 and add your personal support for the UN resolution. It only takes a couple of minutes. The petition is not "public" yet, but we'd like a few names up there when it does. (I'm not sure how long it takes the people at http://www.thepetitionsite.com to accept our petition and let it "go public" - we have been waiting almost a week already.)
To end on an appropriately environmental note – I notice that the EU is sending a probe to Venus to investigate the factors giving rise to our sister planet’s atmospheric singularity. The Venusian greenhouse effect is so bad that the surface temperatures average around 400C. I guess the little green men couldn’t have had a very effective Green Party.
The Sapiens Movement
1. Executive Summary.
1.1. Movement concept.
With the globalisation of the international economy, the world’s growing population is becoming increasingly at risk of interruption to the interdependent systems on which its survival depends. Financial imbalances, rapid climate change, resource depletion, wealth inequalities, nuclear proliferation, superpower military adventurism and terrorism are among the significant factors that give rise to justifiable anxiety.
The UN and associated agencies provide the international system’s main control structure. However, the nation states that founded the UN ensured, and continue to ensure that its legitimacy and its powers should never be allowed to usurp their own. In consequence, the expansion and integration of international global systems has taken place without a parallel growth in the sophistication and authority of the political mechanisms able to manage them.
As things are, the survival of this complex of interdependent globalised systems attempting to maintain its equilibrium in the midst of international political anarchy would appear improbable. The most obvious route to a reduction in the possibility of such failure is the creation of a global federal government with universally recognised legitimacy. That legitimacy can only come from a democratic system. Sapiens has been established to work for the creation of such a democratic world government (DWG.)
It has chosen to do this with a dual strategy.
a.) The first approach is to use what Professor Andrew Strauss calls the “Interstate Treaty Process” (ITP) http://www.sapiens.org.nz/db/modules/news/article.php?storyid=34 Starting with New Zealand, this will involve persuading through internal political pressure, a group of between 20-30, not necessarily contiguous, national governments to set the ball rolling by voluntarily surrendering certain aspects of national sovereignty to a federal, supranational body. (Key such aspects would be the right to adversely affect areas of the environment held in common with others and the right to deploy armed forces beyond national frontiers.) If the initial federation is successful, it will become increasingly easy to persuade other nations to join.
b.) The second approach is to form an alliance with a Canadian based mundialist organization, “Vote World Government,” (VWG) which is dedicated to using referenda to demonstrate a massive global grassroots demand for DWG. If VWG is successful, the external pressure generated by popular global demand will provide additional leverage for Sapiens’ internal lobbyists. The success or otherwise of either Sapiens or VWG is not dependent on that of the other – but each would greatly benefit from the other’s success.
1.2 Current Situation.
The utopian (and dystopian) concept of a world government has existed at least since the days of Socrates’ “I am a citizen not of Athens, or Greece, but of the world.” If the reader wishes to go further into the background of world government theory, the Wikipedia entry on World Government is succinctly instructive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_government
The current situation in regard to DWG can be summarised as follows:-
· There are many mundialist organizations in existence that advocate DWG.
· Despite the existence of these groups, demand for, or even awareness of the concept of DWG is statistically insignificant among the mass of the world population.
· Though there is mutual good will shared amongst the mundialist groups, and some of them have formed coalitions, there appears to be very little practical cooperation between them.
· The movement, having fallen out of fashion since its popularity in the aftermath of WWII, is noticeably under funded.
· Though all the organizations involved are agreed on the need to replace the current anarchy with an effective DWG, there is no agreement as to the best route to that goal. There exists a plethora of ideal constitutional variations to be put in place when the goal is achieved.
· The UN is the most obvious lead organization under whose umbrella this movement could develop. Several mundialist organizations still place their hopes in this direction. The reality of the UN is somewhat different. It is difficult to imagine the superpowers allowing democratisation to increase the legitimacy of the UN to a point where it could demand that they abandon their rights of veto.
· The movement is characterised by an excess of thinkers rather than doers. It is natural in the early days that the thinkers provide the foresight before the conditions are ripe. Those days are now over. It is time for the doers.
In short, the movement for a DWG, which was very strong in the immediate aftermath of World War II, appears to have been lulled into complacent inactivity by the creation of the UN. There is now minimal public awareness of the issue. The arena of debate is hushed and more occupied by intellectuals than by activists. The gladiatorial arena appears almost empty Those with the inclination to activism are apparently distracted by, and enrolled in organizations dedicated to fighting the individual symptoms of the global anarchy rather than in attempting to remedy the fundamental flaw in the system that makes the symptoms they struggle with so resistant to treatment. The need is now apparent as never before, the Internet has made feasible global mobilisation of opinion. It is time for the doers to get stuck in.
Sapiens has an enormous sales job ahead of it. It would be surprising were the task in hand to take less than several decades.
1.3 Key Success Factors.
Sapiens success or failure in its pursuit of DWG will be mainly dependant on the following factors some of which are outside Sapiens’ control:-
a.) The onset of increasingly frequent crises alarming the population and the governments of smaller nations and sensitising them to the DWG message.
b.) The parallel success or failure and the support of other DWG dedicated organizations, particularly that of VWG.
c.) An ability to recruit the right calibre of membership and officers with a view to generating a powerful lobby.
d.) The ability to raise substantial funds.
e.) The extent and the effectiveness of the dedicated opposition that the DWG movement will face. There are exceptionally powerful groups, including the governing elites of the superpowers and their clients, who benefit from the current international anarchy and who will actively oppose the DWG movement should it be seen to be gaining traction. Additional opposition can be anticipated from some of the nuttier religious factions.
f.) It will ultimately become a struggle between the privileged and the underprivileged. With world population set to increase from 6 to 9 billion in the next 50 years, and with the probable onset of increasing crises as a result of the current mismanagement, the ratio of under-privileged to privileged is likely to increase – both among the developed and the developing nations.
1.4 Financial Requirements.
Work started on this project in February 2005. By the end of September it has got to the point of being incorporated with the NZ Registrar of Societies, having a functioning website www.sapiens.org.nz with another subsidiary site www.sapienspromise.org on the point of becoming operational, having established links with many other mundialist operations, having recruited its first 20 or so members and having enabled its founder/CEO to acquire a reasonable understanding of the operating environment. The cost to date has been less than $6000 in cash (but considerably more than that were the CEO drawing a salary.)
On the assumption that the CEO will be able to continue to function at present rates and that, other than the odd casual undergraduate research assistant, no staff will have to be paid, it is not anticipated that expenditure will go beyond an average of $1000 a month for the next year. This can all be met out of the CEO’s pocket.
At this level of funding Sapiens is capable of a slow expansion of its membership. By the end of September 2006, Sapiens should have grown to about 100 members and be ready to commence its planned operations. At this point it will have in place the infrastructure to be able to build its activities according to the amount of funding available. The more it succeeds in establishing itself in the public eye, the greater the funding that should become available.
