Outreach

"Late-term Abortion of Human Species" letter to the Santa Barbara News-Press, publ. Friday May 27, 2005

I think President Bush needs a more consistent ethic of life than that displayed in his comments on stem cell research in a recent News-Press article.
    Mr. Bush stated at a Catholic prayer breakfast that he does not support the use of "federal tax money to promote science which destroys life in order to save it."
    I wish he'd adopt that attitude when it comes to promoting the scientific development of more sophisticated nuclear weapons.
    I wonder if the deeper significance of the abortion issue isn't some cosmic plea for us to "wake up" to the dangers of nuclear proliferation. THe human species, by the choices we are making, is about to "abort" the whole creative process itself. And this would be, in human development stages, a "late-term" abortion, the most heinous of all.
    We are at a critical period, the "late term" of collective human growth. We are witnessing, if we have eyes to see it, the collective shift from adolescence to adulthood, from an over-identification with our individual selves to the responsibility for our collective identity as one human family. It doesn't take much to see the adolescent behavior of our species at this moment in time.
    We need adult visionary leaders, political and spiritual, who will help us to unite and to take responsibility for choices we are making that not only destroy the very life we are seeking to save, the human species, but which put the "mother"—Earth—at great risk also.

Alice MacDonald
Santa Barbara

UNITED NONVIOLENT NATIONS (UN2)

A SCENARIO TO REFORM THE U.N. AND

BANISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS BY THE YEAR 2015

Imagine most of the 180-odd non-nuclear[i] states of the world, on their own, without the permission of the superpowers, coming together to create a serious coalition of nonviolent, non-aggressive nations, proud to be non-nuclear, and committed to the worldwide elimination of WMDs.

Imagine a non-nuclear host country (Japan? Switzerland? Canada? Australia? Spain? a Nordic country?) [ii] inviting the foreign ministers of nearly all 180 other non-nuclear states to a meeting to create and celebrate this new alliance of countries fully committed to nuclear sanity, non-aggression, and nonviolent dispute resolution. Their new charter could include the best of the present UN charter, adding the most needed reforms, like an effective “Emergency Peace Service” and a strong International Criminal Court. It would no longer favor the nuclear superpowers that currently dominate the Security Council and exercise exclusive veto power.

This new, nonviolent coalition might call itself the “United Nonviolent Nations” (UN2). Full membership would be offered only to non-nuclear states, although nuclear states could have observer status until they disarmed or began a UN2-monitored disarmament process. Its 180-odd member states would refocus their humanitarian and other development programs through leaner, more accountable UN2 agencies.

The UN2 could pursue its objectives resolutely either within the present UN or independently, from its own headquarters in the non-nuclear host country. The member states of the new UN2 would:

a. establish favorable trading agreements with other UN2 states, and use their collective weight in international trade, markets, and raw materials to pressure nuclear states to abandon their WMDs;

b. work collectively by all available economic, diplomatic, and cultural means (including grassroots mobilizing, and media blitzes) to isolate nuclear states, conceivably even using trade and air travel embargoes;

c. in general force the issues of nuclear and other WMD disarmament and nonviolent dispute resolution in the interest of the world’s children and grandchildren—indeed, all humankind—by actively marginalizing the minority of states which still cling to these abominable relics of anti-population warfare.

If successful, this initiative will lead the nuclear states to see the wisdom (the urgency) of dismantling and destroying all nuclear weapons. It will ultimately induce them to join a new, more humane, more egalitarian world order, represented by the UN2 charter—a framework worthy of the 21 st century.

Creative nonviolence is at the heart of this proposal. The international confrontation of the minority (eight, including Israel, India, and Pakistan—perhaps nine or ten if N. Korea and Iran go nuclear) by the majority (181) could be our best and last hope for achieving world nuclear disarmament. Carefully orchestrated, strong, non-violent words and actions, such as boycotts and media blitzes, could create conditions of intolerable isolation for any and all nuclear nations, including aspiring ones. But time is of the essence!

Creating a new UN2 organization could send the necessary message to all actual and potential nuclear states: “Arm at your peril. You will lose more than you gain. The nations of the world will reject your goods, your services, and your leadership.” Were this all to occur, verifiable nuclear disarmament might be accomplished within five to ten years.

Version of March 2005

[i] Non-nuclear in this document refers only to nuclear weapons, not to nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

[ii] The eventual host country could even be the U.K., France, or India if one of them would kindly surprise the world soon by unilaterally ridding itself of WMDs. (Imagine the consequences in terms of good will, media attention, and moral authority!)