A Good Citizen of Humankind

Do you want to be a good citizen, even a model citizen of humankind. Do you want to help promote self determination, personal rights and fairness. Do want to listen to and respect the viewpoints of other good people on this planet regardless of race, color, gender or nationality. Beyond that do want to value all life and support those too weak to support themselves. If so, I would like to hear your comments ... your input.

Once upon a time it was okay to be racist.  

Blacks got in the back of the bus, Hispanics kept their heads down when talking to their white bosses.  There is still a lot of racism around, but most people have evolved to the point that they at least think it is wrong.  We are still in the middle of recognizing gender bias as bigotry.  

Prejudice based on national origin is recognized as being unacceptable .... but when we stand behind America when they are doing something that is wrong, just because it is our country, isn't that a type of prejudice - for America and against the other country or people. So, is it ever right to take the side of your country unless what they are doing is morally right? So, perhaps loyalty to a nation never makes sense, only loyalty to doing what is right.

Of course, we do this from a historical perspective also. We want America to look perfect so we can justify what we are currently doing because we have a long history of doing the right thing (compared to other people the story goes). If you look at this site, US Dakota War of 1862, you will find a story documented that Abraham Lincoln ordered the largest mass execution in history, 39 Indians were hung for hunting outside their reservation. Of course, we only remember the good stuff about old Abe. Have you ever wondered how Mexico remembers Texas being taken from them. I bet we are the bad guys in their version of the story.

When we look at another country, our perspective tends to switch: we remember Japan for Pearl Harbor, we remember Germany for Hitler, we remember Mexico for its drug lords. Our first goal is usually not to tell the truth, our goal as Americans is to write the story in a way that makes America the good guys (or leave it out).

Does America ever act as a terrorist state?

In a book I am reading, “Discontent and Its Civilizations” by Mohsin Hamid, a Pakistani Muslim, he talks about billboards in his country that digitally track the number of people killed by American drones.  His mom in Pakistan says, “when the U.S. talks of terrorism they do not consider how their actions fills the life of ordinary people with terror.”  That’s nationalism at work.  We would never consider ourselves as terrorists just because we terrorize a population - day after day, year after year. After all there are bad guys hiding among the civilians and we are pretty good at hitting our targets. But, the questions is "do we terrorize their population with the silent drones that appear out of nowhere and wipe out the good and the bad?" 

 If some foreigners decided that Cheney, who made billions from Iraq's misery, should be taken out by a drone how would Americans react?  And few of us even like the guy.  And yet, when we take out a Palestinian leader with a drone, how is what we do any different? How many of these countries have invited us in to kill who they think are their bad guys, much less who we think are the bad guys. Do you know that 30,000 people have been killed by terrorists in Pakistan? And yet, can we accept that Pakistan wants and needs to handle this problem without our interference? The point is, can we see the story from the Pakistan viewpoint?

We are all in the Same Boat

Globalization, the Internet, airplane travel, social media, globally spread pathogens (ebola), nuclear weapons and rubbing elbows with all seven billion of our neighbors on our small planet should help us realize that we are all in this ride together.  In the most extreme view, any one of the dozen countries who possess nuclear powers can terminate much of civilization as we know it.  Or, we can all slowly pollute the planet until the earth shrugs us off  like lice perhaps a few centuries down the road. But, good people everywhere, in every country,  all bleed, all love, and all want to raise and enjoy their families. They are not the bad guys, they are us.

A Good Citizen of this Earth

If we want this planet to survive with us on it,  we need to recognize that our allegiance can no longer be to a single country or way of life.  No single country or group of people no matter how powerful or well intended can make decisions for the seven billion people on this planet.  At the moment, 5% of the people (FIVE PERCENT) act as the policemen of the world, the conscience, the bully, the GOD of this planet.  This five percent knows what is best for the seven billion.  The five percent spends trillions of dollars projecting its will through its unmatched military.  Meanwhile, it has concentrated its wealth, political power, government and decision making to its own wealthy elite. These wealthy elite, less than one tenth of one percent of the world population now controls most of the wealth for the other seven billion people on this planet.  I wish it was for noble causes, like spreading self-determination but if you look at our long term allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt  and their record on human rights then you realize it is more about controlling the accumulation of wealth, nothing more. We are all surviving on this planet that is controlled by this wealthy elite, we are all in the same boat.

So how do you be a good citizen on this planet.  Well, a good decision for this planet is not about increasing the GNP of America or even enforcing the laws pushed through Congress by the elite based on fear of terrorists, or fear of immigrants (who are portrayed as terrorists), or fear of the Muslims (terrorists for sure), or the fear of gays (undermining the family), or the fear of communism (Cuba), or the fear of Ebola (a-backward-people-in-Africa-disease), or the fear of helping someone who doesn’t deserve it, or the fear of helping the undeserving addict, or the FEAR of anything.  Most decisions based on FEAR are not for the good of this planet.

Any decision based on self-righteousness, nationalism, fundamentalism, greed, our self-importance, our superiority, our uniqueness, or getting our share is probably not for the good of the planet, it is not good for All of Us.

Universal Compassion and Love is required to be a good citizen

Any decision that does not place the needs of every individual on this planet on equal footing with the needs of everyone else on this planet is likely to be a bad decision.  Any decision that does not consider the needs of the other animals on this planet from the bee to the elephant to the tiger to the coyote is likely to be short-sighted and lead us down a road where the planet is not healthy.  

So what guides the decisions of a good citizen of this planet?  Love and Compassion for each individual, man or animal, perhaps even plants, on this planet.  We have to hurt, shed tears, when the least among us is harmed or ignored.  And yes, we can still condemn the bad guys, whether they are us or them.

Not Just Americans Have Inalienable Rights

We demand Americans be treated justly.  Its our GOD GIVEN RIGHT we believe.  We must take that arrogance and share it with all the creatures on this planet.  The rights we believe in for Americans apply to all humans. For instance,  if we believe in innocent until proven guilty, we must apply it to the prisoners in Guantanamo.  Fear has driven our decisions there so far.  When we fly drones over Pakistan or Yemen to kill terrorists we must ask ourselves if we believe in self-determination for those countries or if we are going to make decisions based on fear and greed.  To date, we have decided the life of an American potentially being killed outweighs the lives of the innocent people killed by our drones or imprisoned in our cells without a trial.  A view that can only be supported by a nationalistic view, not a worldview where we are citizens of the planet.

A new order

Yes there is a lot of fear of the concept that any power that might supersede the self interests of the Americans.   Of course,  that is rooted in a belief that we are superior to the rest of the world.  My Peruvian friends used to tell me "you Americans think you know how to do everything better than us because you know how to make money.  And, we will concede you know how to make money, but we do not think you know how to live and enjoy life.  So please, do not share your advice so much".

Let's start by challenging our own government to consider the rights of good people in other countries as having rights equal to our own rights.