July 31, 2004

Acceptance Speech,

Presidential Candidate for the

ANo More Wars@

Political Party of the United States

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Both war and peace come with a high price tag. The choice is ours. I will give you the options.

Throughout the course of history, most societies have opted to sacrifice a portion of their young generation in order to achieve the goals of the survivors B goals generally associated with increasing land and water resources; obtaining more or new sources of energy; and achieving power over others for the purpose of exploiting them and thereby enriching themselves.

Some societies have killed their young directly, as by sacrificing them to a god who then would accord the people their wish. Most modern societies, however, have done it only indirectly, by declaring war and having the enemy oblige by themselves performing the murders.

We can continue in this direction. We are surrounded by a turbulent sea of potential enemies who are envious at our disproportionate wealth, military technology and use of resources; furious at our warming of the planet, disdain for international treaties, imposition of our capitalist political system, exploitation of their workers and contempt for the value of their lives; fearful of our demonstrated ability to Aerase@ a country at will; and incredulous that in the name of democracy, we support murderous dictatorial regimes worldwide.

Our present course is to have such a decisive monopoly of military force both on earth and in space, as to prevent any rival power which might compete with us, from even arising. Our goal is a Pax Americana for the 21^st century and beyond. We plan to use and control the last drops of oil syphoned from the earth, and if masses of poor die because of our actions, we will find rationalizations as to why it must be so, inevitably, and we are not to blame. After all, we must defend our country.

In this scenario, the chances of an earth disaster are substantial. Disasters waiting to happen abound and are likely to occur B such as by a nuclear conflagration or other dangerous technologies like Aweaponized@ chemical and biological agents; lack of water relative to population; global warming; the pollution and over-fishing of our oceans; the massive extinction of species; the spread of genetically-modified life forms into the environment; the deaths predicted when oil will no longer be available to power our industries, transportation and agriculture; and the spread of tropical diseases to what are now temperate regions of the world.

The alternative is to break with tradition. In that case, our first task is to refuse to name an enemy Aother@ who will then act as a delegate to kill our own. We must extend our sense of community from country to world, as we have extended it in the past from family, clan, band, tribe, chiefdom to our present day nation state.

Justice requires that all people of the world have a direct one person one vote in a world parliament whose purpose would be to debate issues which are global rather than international in character. Examples of such issues include global warming; nuclear technology; the disappearance of forests; the extinction of species; the spread of genetically-modified life forms; the fair distribution of the earth=s remaining petroleum; and why humans have plundered a third of the earth=s available natural wealth in the past thirty years (World Wildlife Fund). The solutions to these issues are hampered by the inter-country rivalry and allegiances to particular nations and cultures that we have now in our United Nations. At first, the world parliament would have no enforcing power. Its power would originate solely from the force of its moral and ethical stand. It could later have police enforcing functions.

We would soon see our privileged world status diminish drastically. We represent 5 percent of the world=s population (U.N., pp. 250 and 253). Soon, we would be able to consume only 5 percent of the world=s oil, in contrast to our present 25 percent (Klare, p. 38). We would have access to only 5 percent of the earth=s raw materials, instead of our present 30 percent (Klare, p. 15). We would be allowed to emit only 5 percent of the world=s total carbon dioxide emissions instead of our present 24 percent (Klare, p. 114). Water from those Canadian glaciers could no longer be assumed to be ours for the asking. We would have to abide by many decisions influenced by the Chinese and Indians, who together make up 38 percent of the world=s population (U.N., pp. 252-253). If we demanded that others reduce their population growth, they might ask us in return to reduce ours by the same proportion.

Terrorist attacks would be treated for what they are, murders by civilians not representing any state and hence subject to police action, not vengeance by war. To the extent that our political system of capitalism depends on continued and unsustainable growth, we would not be able to retain it, at least not in its present form. Our power to hurt and exploit others, militarily and economically, would be much reduced. Equal justice for all members of the world community would be the order of the day, no exception countenanced.

The reward would be incalculable B the possible avoidance of a disaster and a chance for the earth to be able to sustain life as we know it now. In other words, the reward would be no less than the opportunity for our children and grandchildren to have life itself. Humanity can no longer afford war. It is too dangerous for the earth.

Our options are, therefore, on the one hand, peace, justice and equality, and on the other hand, wars, disasters and a probable end to life on the planet as we know it today.

The choice is ours. If elected, I will represent the peace option.

References

Klare, Michael, Resource Wars B The New Landscape of Global Conflict (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, N.Y.), 2001.

United Nations Human Development Programme, Human Development Report 2003 B Millennium Development Goals, A Compact among Nations to end Human Poverty, (Oxford University Press, New York, N.Y.), 2003.

World Wildlife Fund, Living Planet Report 1998 (World Wildlife Fund, Gland, Switzerland), 1998; cited in Michael Klare, Resource Wars B The New Landscape of Global Conflict (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, N.Y.), 2001, p. 18.

The critical resources studied included forest cover, marine fisheries, freshwater systems and fossil fuels.