The Constitutional Question: A Crisis in Ethics

THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION:
A CRISIS IN ETHICS

I first wrote and compiled Sections I & II of this Paper in Rishikesh, India in January of 1995. Expanded and edited for months afterwards it remains true to its original theme, that of a crisis in ethics and the resultant humanity without foundation.
These realizations in late 1994 and early 1995 radically changed the way I viewed and felt about existence. After years of searching I finally had an objective or concrete truth -- a foundation -- to view, analyze and interpret human kind. Over time, from the spectacular energy and confidence unleashed by this one successful discovery, I was capable of lifting myself up out of the relativistic mess of modern philosophy and society.
Though I no longer agree with all of the particular ideas mentioned in this Paper, like the necessity of a God as a remedy to man's problems, it is the key to understanding my subsequent thoughts and letters, right up to and including the July 2000 Letter: Evolution composed in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
That said, here it is ...

Introduction to Paper II
Section I: The Individual
An Outline ... World War I ... World War II ... Creating The Future
Present Day World Order ... The Psychology of Peace ... A Crisis In Ethics
Summary & Conclusion
Section II: Government
Introduction ... The Constitutional Question & Democratic Gridlock
Particle Instability ... The Treaties ... Resources, Expansion & War
A Humanity Without Foundation ... Weapons for Sale ... Conclusion
A Prologue to Section III

INTRODUCTION

Bertrand Russell of author and friend Joseph Conrad: "I felt, though I do not know whether he would have accepted such an image, that he thought of civilized and morally tolerable human life as a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled lava which at any moment might break and let the unwary sink into fiery depths.

He was very conscious of the various forms of passionate madness to which men are prone, and it was this that gave him such a profound belief in the importance of discipline. His point of view, one might perhaps say, was the antithesis of Rousseau's: "Man is born in chains, but he can become free." He becomes free, so I believe Conrad would have said, not by letting loose his impulses, not by being casual and uncontrolled, but by subduing wayward impulse to a dominant purpose.

Conrad's point of view was far from modern ... In the modern world there are two philosophies: the one which stems from Rousseau, and sweeps aside discipline as unnecessary, the other, which finds its fullest expression in totalitarianism, which thinks of discipline as essentially imposed from without. Conrad adhered to the older tradition, that discipline should come from within. He despised indiscipline and hated discipline that was merely external.

In a letter, Conrad writes: "I have never been able to find in any man's book or any man's talk anything convincing enough to stand up for a moment against my deep-seated sense of fatality governing this man-inhabited world." He went on to write that although man has taken to flying, "he doesn't fly like an eagle, he flies like the beetle. And you must have noticed how ugly, ridiculous and fatuous is the flight of the beetle."

"The world is peopled with minds ... in search of distraction and escape from ... the dilemma of life and death; seeking purpose, security, enjoyment; trying to make sense of the mystery. People everywhere live a confused, bitter search. Reality never matches their dreams; happiness is just around the corner - a corner they never turn."

SECTION I: THE INDIVIDUAL

Present Man's psychological state -- on a world-wide scale. Its destructive manifestations around the globe, both seeming and actual. As example, the following encyclopaedia segments will provide an outline of mankind's condition after which the thesis of Paper Three will be partially presented and expanded upon in each successive section. There are three sections to this Paper.

World War I (1914-1918)
"World War I involved more countries and caused greater destruction than any other war except World War II (1939-1945). An assassin's bullets set off the war, and a system of military alliances (agreements) plunged the main European powers into the fight. Each side expected quick victory. But the war lasted four years and took the lives of nearly ten million troops.

Several developments led to the awful bloodshed of the Great War, as World War I was originally called. War plants kept turning out vast quantities of newly invented weapons capable of extraordinary slaughter. Military drafts raised larger armies than ever before, and extreme patriotism gave many men a cause they were willing to die for. Propaganda whipped up support for the war by making the enemy seem villainous.

On June 28, 1914, an assassin gunned down Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary's province of Bosnia. The killer, Gavrilo Princip, had ties to a terrorist organization in Serbia. Austria-Hungary believed that Serbia's government was behind the assassination. It seized the opportunity to declare war on Serbia and settle an old feud.

The assassination of Francis Ferdinand triggered the outbreak of World War I. But the war had its origins in developments of the 1800's. The chief causes of World War I were (1) the rise of nationalism among various European peoples, (2) an enormous increase in European armed forces, (3) competition for colonies, and (4) the formation of military alliances. When the fighting began, France, Great Britain, and Russia - who were known as the Allies - backed Serbia. They opposed the Central Powers, made up of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Other nations later joined the Allies or the Central Powers.

Germany won early victories in World War I on the main European battlefronts. On the Western Front, France and Britain halted the German advance in September 1914. The opposing armies then fought from trenches that stretched across Belgium and north-eastern France. The Western Front hardly moved for three and a half years in spite of fierce combat. On the Eastern Front, Russia battled Germany and Austria-Hungary. The fighting seesawed back and forth until 1917, when a revolution broke out in Russia. Russia soon asked for a truce.

The United States remained neutral at first. But many Americans turned against the Central Powers after German submarines began sinking unarmed ships. In 1917, the United States joined the Allies. U.S. troops gave the Allies the manpower they needed to win the war. In the fall of 1918, the Central Powers surrendered.

World War I had results that none of the warring nations had foreseen. The war helped topple emperors in Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia. The peace treaties after the war carved new nations out of the defeated powers. The war left Europe exhausted, never to regain the controlling position in world affairs that it had held before the war. The peace settlement also created conditions that helped lead to World War II."

World War II (1939-1945)
"The origins of World War II, a conflict between the Allied Powers (led by Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States) and the Axis Powers (led by Germany, Italy, and Japan) were rooted in the economic, social, and political chaos that characterized the European recovery from World War I.
In Germany, Adolf Hitler rose to power partially in reaction to the punitive restrictions and losses mandated by the treaties ending World War I. In Italy, Benito Mussolini became premier on a pledge to restore national pride and prosperity. Dictatorships in Europe were further fueled by the threat of Communist movements and the world-wide depression.
Pursuing a policy of military aggression, Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, resulting in a declaration of war by Britain and France. Initially, the Axis Powers had the military advantage over their opponents. In 1942, however, the tide turned when the Axis Powers were confronted with the combined forces of the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and resistance fighters from conquered nations.

What began as a localized conflict in Eastern Europe grew to be the most expansive and destructive war of all time. World War II was fought in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific Islands. The loss of human lives, military and civilian, is estimated at 45 million, including six million Jews, victims of Hitler's liquidation program, and others who died in Nazi death camps.
Total property damage amounted to approximately $231 billion, and the total cost of the war exceeded $1 trillion. Technological innovations changed the nature of combat: the airplane became an important weapon both on land and sea; the first guided missiles used in combat were introduced by Germany; and the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Japan ushered in the age of nuclear warfare."

Creating the Future
"If we extrapolate the major trends of the twentieth century, it is likely there will be a nuclear holocaust. Nationalism, the warrior psyche, progress in weapons technology, and the habit of projecting our shadows onto our enemies all add up to a formula for war."

Present Day World Order
"The present day situation is fraught with danger. In the wake of astounding advances in science and technology, the problems that the human race faces not only remain unresolved but we are beset by newer problems. While planning for peace, we have created a world of violence, accelerating tensions, and conflicts. Poverty and hunger still prevail while resources are being increasingly misutilized for the production of armaments.
War psychosis has been created and vested interests in promoting instability have grown. Problems of hunger, poverty, unemployment, inequalities, and exploitation seem to defy solution. The world is faced with a situation of energy shortages, ecological imbalances, exhaustion of non-renewable resources, environmental pollution, and highly sophisticated technology which ignores and undermines human values and is fast becoming beyond human control.
The worst effect has been an ever-increasing feeling of helplessness, drift, isolation, alienation, and lack of significant social purpose in individuals, groups, and even among nations in the face of the impending catastrophe."

The Psychology of Peace
"Human survival is now in question and all the major threats to our survival are caused by humans. Nuclear weapons, pollution, mass starvations, and ecological imbalances all stem directly from human behavior and can therefore be traced ... to psychological origins. This means that the current threats to human survival and well-being are actually symptoms, symptoms of our individual and collective psychological dysfunctions. The state of the world, in other words, reflects the state of our minds, and understanding our minds may therefore be crucial to our survival. Of course, this is not to deny the role of social, political, and economic forces, but simply to emphasize the psychological causes which underlie them.

It is tragic how rarely these apparently obvious psychological factors are appreciated or treated. Rather, almost all discussion and action tend to be military, political, and economic. Most interventions may therefore be largely symptomatic rather than curative, since the causal roots remain largely untouched or are sometimes even exacerbated. Ensuring human survival may therefore demand not only symptomatic treatment, such as feeding the starving and reducing nuclear stockpiles, but also understanding and correcting the psychological factors which led us to create these problems in the first place.

The question which therefore arises is this: how can we create and apply a psychology of peace and human survival? How can we create a psychology which will help us understand the world's problems and our role in creating them, and even to learn and mature both individually and collectively as we do so?"

A Crisis In Ethics

"Ethics begins with the decision to look upon actions and events from the standpoint of right and wrong, good and evil, moral value and moral disvalue, and it involves the resolution to seek the truly valuable in life and to plot one's course in life accordingly."

What is healthy? What is unhealthy? What is right? What is wrong? As there are clashing convictions and opposing ideas on near every issue of human existence, how are we to resolve even the simplest of human conflicts ?

One of the more recent issues in the news is the debate about public smoking. Should smoking be left up to the individual to decide, or should smoking -- as it may be a serious health risk to non-smokers -- be banned from public establishments altogether, as has already been done in many major Canadian and American cities?

Taking the smoking issue further, do you think tobacco manufacturers should be legally barred from supporting sporting events? Do you think that barring them from this area of the market, which takes away the right to advertise their product, will have a considerable effect on the population in reducing the number of future smokers? -- especially the youth of Canada who are supposedly the most susceptible to the 'cunning' of tobacco advertisers?
Do you think that advertising has a considerable effect on people and should be censored by some to protect the many individuals of a country? Do you think there is any truth in the following excerpts -- and if there is, what should and should not be censored?

What is ethical concerning fantastically subtle advertising techniques? Billboards. Posters. Magazines. Radio. Television � "children, as might be expected, are highly susceptible to propaganda. They are ignorant of the world and its ways, and therefore completely unsuspecting. Their critical faculties are undeveloped. The youngest of them have not yet reached the age of reason and the older ones lack the experience on which their newfound rationality can effectively work. � and in due course these living, talking records of television commercials will grow up, earn money, and buy the products of industry. ...hundreds of millions of children, like well-trained soldiers, to respond to the appropriate behavior to the trigger words implanted in their young minds by propagandists." �

Is one buying a certain product or its associations? What is for sale? � "persuasion by association: the propagandist associates his chosen product, candidate or cause with some idea, some image of a person or a thing which most people, in a given culture, unquestionably regard as good." � "we no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not buy just an auto, we buy prestige. Toothpaste -- we buy not a mere cleanser and antiseptic, but release from the fear of being sexually repulsive. The cosmetic manufacturers are not selling lanolin, they are selling hope."
When we are watching a sports event or a captivating drama on television and we are excited or agitated, how much do cigarette and other advertisements affect us? Are we fully aware of the techniques of marketing? � "twenty years before madison avenue embarked on 'motivational research,' Hitler was systematically exploring and exploiting the secret fears and hopes, the cravings, anxieties and frustrations of the German masses." � "in every case the motivation analyst has found some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the consumer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry. Stored in the minds and bodies of countless individuals, this potential energy is released by, and transmitted along, a line of symbols carefully laid out �"
For example, how many of us understand the market's fierce competition to advertise during prime-time television? � "fatigue increases suggestibility: Hitler was quite right in maintaining that mass meetings at night were more effective than mass meetings in the daytime. During the day, he wrote, "man's will power revolts with highest energy against any attempt at being forced under another's will and another's opinion. In the evening, however, they succumb more easily to the dominating force of a stronger will." "

Moving on to other issues in addition to tobacco legislation and advertising, is homosexuality a natural event, perhaps even a next step in evolution? -- or are same-sex relationships some sort of genetic abnormality, or a learning disorder?

Is abortion acceptable? When does life begin? Should there be a nation-wide law to allow or forbid abortion clinics? Which side do you take? Pro-choice? -- or anti-abortion?

Forms of birth control -- is sterilization, as like practiced in China (after one child), a reasonable option to control the new-born billions of tomorrow?

WORLD POPULATION DATE # OF YEARS)
1,000,000,000
2,000,000,000
3,000,000,000
4,000,000,000
5,000,000,000
6,000,000,000
10,000,000,000 1808
1927
1960
1975
1987
1997
2025 .
119
33
15
12
10
--

Is pornography justifiable? If not, where is the line to be drawn between art and the representation of human beauty -- and pornography?

What do you think about pre-marital sex?

Marriage -- is the 'religious' ideal out of date? Are open marriages acceptable so long as both marriage partners consent to see other people?

Going on to other issues: environment or job creation? Trees, water, oil and minerals -- our earth -- or money for food, employment for families?

Our soil's exhaustion: is it wise to continue the sponsoring of mass agricultural yields year after year through the use of chemical compounds which are naturally alien to human, animal and plant organisms in such concentrated amounts? Straining the land with mono-cultures - are more complex petrochemicals the answer for revitalizing the soil? How about creating plant and animal hybrids, super-organisms, which offset the sophisticated balance of our biosphere - a balance millions of years old?

As a Jew, how am I to reconcile the traditional belief's of my people with the pressures and pace of modern day society? In the light of the Holocaust, is, as Emil Fackenhiem writes, God dead? If He is not, then how can I explain the Holocaust? In light of the new Jewish nation born out of World War II and the emerging peace process with the Palestinians, what am I willing (and not willing) to agree to in order for peace and security to prevail?

As a Muslim, how can I reach the non-Muslim world when the propaganda and sensationalism smeared across newspaper headlines paints Islam, this religion of peace, as a gang of militant suicide bombers?
So many Islamic concepts and traditions -- such as the Jihad, the Islamic state, the purity of the Quran, the respect for other religions, the admiration and respect for woman -- are misrepresented by the media, and even by other men and women who call themselves Muslims but do more harm than good in Islam's name -- how can I help to clarify this?
As global communications import Western values into Muslim communities through television and satellite programs, radio, music, etc., and I watch many Muslim youth abandoning their family's beliefs, how can we preserve our identity but at the same time acknowledge and incorporate the great benefits of Western ideas and technologies?

As a Christian who is searching for the correct interpretation of the Bible, how am I to decide who is right and who is wrong when Christianity is so splintered and fragmented? As examples of what I mean, what translation of the Bible is the right one? Is Jesus Christ a man, a prophet, or God? Is there really a heaven and a hellfire? Is this human life all I have? -- or is there life after death?
Can science be reconciled with traditional Christian beliefs? Creation with the Big Bang -- and evolution? In a society which is continuously criticized for its materialistic orientation, its greed and selfishness, its false prophets and preachers, its cults, and on and on -- how am I to make sense of so much contradiction and hypocrisy?

Can war be justified? And if so, what is the criteria for a just war? Why is our 'enemy' angry? Where does this anger ultimately come from? And if we fight back, are we just fighting ourselves? Is violence increasing? Has 'necessary' war built more anger, frustration and hatred?

Splicing reality: is truth relative? That is to say, is something that one person feels right for themself not necessarily right for another person? Can one person have their own set of guiding beliefs and others live by their own set of rules? What, then, if an individual chooses to believe that the Holocaust of World War Two did not happen? What if they choose to teach this belief to others? Children perhaps. Can we deliberately kill six million people and then turn around and say: "we don't know what you're talking about...." and get away with it? Is there no objective reality or law that we must all live by? Or "to each his own"? -- is it possible for the individual's rights to be respected with such a creed?

As closing examples, what if someone finds pleasure in taking hard drugs like heroin or PCP's or LSD but the law forbids them to? Is this an infringement on their personal rights? Are people free or not free to do as they choose? It is their own life, is it not? How about medically assisted suicides, or suicides in general?

Should the death penalty be implemented as a strong deterrent against violent crimes?

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." As it is entrenched in the American Constitution, and as so many deaths in American cities result from the right to bear firearms, should people have the right to own handguns and other weapons in right of self-defence?

In short, what is reality? And how do I / we live it without violence?

Summary & Conclusion
As man lacks full understanding of himself and his environment, he feels unsettled. Anxious. Alienated. The desire for stability and assurance in his immediate surroundings. Addictions. Escapism. Man's great desire to forget his situation in an unstable environment. Man's exploitation of other men.

But man cannot be free except by means of working out a defined universal constitution accepted by each individual in complete understanding. As difficult as it is proving, ethics are the glue to human relations, they must continue to be discussed.

The inability of individuals to come to a concrete agreement on ethical matters in any particular geographical area leads to the necessity of government �

SECTION II: GOVERNMENT

"Oh yes, I would have killed - but whom was there to kill? It was everyone and no one, there was no single enemy, no centre and no villain .... it was the whole of the earth rolling into an obscenity of horror ..."

Kings, Queens, Emperors, Czars, Pharaohs - call them what you will, for their terms all around the world if listed could surely fill this page. If we take the present day popularity of the democratic ideal throughout the world as a sign, then the previous systems of government must have failed to satisfy the people. Which, in turn, resulted and results in the people putting the ability to direct their steps in the hands of a responsive representative government they themselves have one hundred percent control over, for it is a system created by and for the people.
A representative government whose function it is to safeguard individual's rights to property and to the fruits of their labour; its legitimacy depending upon it protecting the individual's rights, liberties and property. With the power to dissolve a failing government, with the advantage of free speech, it is only in this way can all citizens of a country, even alien residents, come to express their opinions and ideas to contribute to the betterment of all people in the world, not only the peoples of their country.

To begin my generalized explanation of section two I will repeat an idea you have already read, which is this: According to Bertrand Russell in his autobiography, he understood the following: "In the modern world there are two philosophies: the one which stems from Rousseau, and sweeps aside discipline as unnecessary, the other, which finds its fullest expression in totalitarianism, which thinks of discipline as essentially imposed from without." The other older philosophy, he went on to write, was that of discipline that should come from within.

The Constitutional Question & Democratic Gridlock

The whole of the population today, which has been abused at one time or another by the repressive majority vote, is individually frustrated with their situation and do not want to be contained within the measures of majority law. Pursuing ceaseless policy and law revisions, individuals and minorities have agitated one another in trying to fulfil their idea of the ideal constitution. The more they have protested, lobbied and even outright fought one another as to refining the subtleties, the more the necessity for security has been to control increased tensions.
Government has supplied such security at the expense of the taxpayer, thus decreasing the individual's freedom and increasing the role of government in the affairs of the people. With such an increased presence, now individuals and minorities think they not only have one another to deal with, but the government is there too trying to subdue them all. So it is with the addition of an ever-expanding, omnipresent government that the people take to despising the very system which is sustaining their ordered existence -- a system designed to help and direct them to freedom, not take it away from them, but many people have lost sight of this.

The number one topic in the United States of America, Canada, Europe, the Islamic Nations -- the world for that matter -- is the issue of constitutional rights and freedoms. The process of defining relationships between ourselves, the human species, and between us and the earth with its myriad forms of life. It is during these persistent discussions, where such controversial health issues are often locked in legislature and in public by quarrelling parties, that what we have been arguing over has led to greater desperation and conflict.
It is the disputed, undefined parameters of our already built constitutions that have largely attributed to our present day situation. This, combined with the recent difficulties of increased population and new technologies in the last fifty years, has resulted in a tangled, disorientating overlapping of affairs where issues, having been sewn into and over with new fraying threads, become so distorted and clouded that they are unrecognizable and therefore seemingly unsolvable when approached.

As Francis Fukuyama has written, democracy and capitalism constitute "the end of history" -- or the highest level of human political and economic organization. Professor of Greek Political theory Earnest Barker has written: "Democracy" in itself is government "by the world" and all things are thrown for settlement into an arena in which "one shrewd thought devours another."
So, ideally, democracy and capitalism should work. But life on the streets is less than the ideal proposed in these two theories. Why? In essence, we, as a whole, as a species, do not understand what and why we are. Hence our inability to come to a solid, universal constitutional agreement.

Particle Instability

As a result of this, then, the people particles have not stabilized one another as time has come to pass. On the contrary, on various pretences of supporting one another, we have raped other particles to stabilize ourselves, thus further tearing the fabric which binds us together. Our global society has not done this in one step -- no, it has been a slow, subdued, stifling process which has shaped our present day state. The 'subtle instability' of the past all of a sudden came to explode in World War One for the social fabric came to be pushed past a certain limit, the people no longer able to bear such an intolerably constricting environment.
World War Two, a war much larger and fanatical in scale, was in reaction to World War One's conclusion and aftermath: the expressive means of a yet then unparalleled mass disillusionment. Unable to disengage from the wrecks of our history, our spiralling uncertainty today stems from the visions of the last global war and the fifty years of raging and bitter controversies which have followed.

As I stand convinced that each and every individual is the cornerstone of humanity, it appears that Jean Jacques Rousseau's eighteenth century definition of freedom as "the power to choose your own chains" cannot hold its solidity on a mass scale. As the world is a reflection of our minds, this, then, is where our minds have led us, to a lot of strangulating chains while pursuing our individual interests, both past and present generations. With peoples repeatedly demanding for the right to govern themselves, a few asking for their own nations, the formula of how individual and mass freedom coincides and binds together remains an enigma overshadowed by the generated surface waves of a currently unstable composition.

I put the earth in this diagram because it is quite inseparable from us for our existence. In silent service, it has been the earth to give freely and unfailingly to all societies, yet soon will come the time when the delicately interwoven energy patterns of this particle's biosphere will be insufficient to balance itself adequately, us being entirely dependent upon its state of health. It too will become unstable, and because of our mental disposition, is already displaying signs of great damage to its stability.

The Treaties
Since the people particles comprising each government particle are not in cooperation, neither are the world's government particles all agreeing with one another. Many of them are joining together in groups, drawing up economic treaties to provide mutual benefit - ie: stabilization - and it is these agreements which are coming to carve the earth into economic blocs. Will this plan work? For a limited time, yes.

Name Description

MERCOSUR

EU

NAFTA
SAARC

APEC

ECO

ASEAN

CEA

OPEC

EU & ASEAN
EU & MERCOSUR
AFTA
TAFTA

WTO
South America's Southern Common Market Formed January, 1995 Four Members: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay. 200 Million Inhabitants. Potential Future Members: Chile, Bolivia.
European Union. Fifteen Members: France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Holland, Greece, Luxembourg, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, England, Denmark, Austria. Finland And Sweden Joined Early 1995. 370.5 Million Inhabitants
North American Free Trade Agreement. Three Members: The United States Of America, Canada, Mexico. 360 Million Inhabitants.
The South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation. Created 1985. Seven Members: India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, The Maldives, Bhutan. 1.2 Billion Inhabitants. Hopes To Establish A South Asia Free Trade Area
Asia Pacific Economic Co-Operation. Eighteen Members: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papau New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, The United States Of America. Russia Applies For Membership March 1995; 19nth Member 1996. Intends To Set Up A Pacific Rim Free Trade Area By 2020
Economic Co-Operation Organization. Ten Asian Nations: Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. 300 Million Inhabitants.
Association Of Southeast Asian Nations. Seven Members: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand; Vietnam Added July 1995. Burma, Cambodia, Laos To Join Later. Then 500 Million Inhabitants
China's Economic Area. Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau.
Indian Ocean Rim Initiative, In Construction. Possible Members: Australia, India, Kenya, Mauritius, Oman, Singapore, South Africa, Seychelles, Madagascar.
Organization Of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Twelve Members: Algeria, Gabon, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela.
July, 1995 "Close To Agreement"

Negotiations Begin September 14, 1995
Asean Free Trade Area, Expected To Form By Year 2000.
NAFTA + EU - Preliminary Discussions Would Form Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement
World Trade Organization A Result Of The Seven Year Uraguay Round Negotiations Among Some 125 Countries. The Round Deal Was Reached Under The Old Gatt (General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade) And Absorbed By The WTO. Both The WTO And Round Deal Went Into Force January 1, 1995. Objective: To Guide Worldwide Free Trade

The economic agreements, to me, ultimately amount to reworded editions of the treaties which were drawn up in the years previous to the First World War. It seems when reviewing articles which take into account the European people's outlook before the War that the future appeared very promising to them. For centuries the earth had been carved up by the European nations into spheres of influence, and continuous military treaties were drawn up amongst groups of these nations to insure one another's stability -- ie: protection of one's territorial market from any other country which had ideas of 'unlawful' expansion. Because the nations' strengths were so massive at the time, the idea of peace through military superiority, to them, was sound.

Resources, Expansion & War
But the catch was and is this: each country can only come to have a certain maximum sphere of influence when it comes to claiming the earth's surface and its currently usable natural resources. Today I still see market potential, and thus an increasing number of developed economies are still expanding - interlinking into one another by means of the global network provided by fantastic transport and communications systems. The earth's people are still synchronized in pursuit of economic prosperity. ....

China, India and south-east Asia stand out as the world's economic powerhouses, writes Graham Bowley. These economies, along with Chile, Uruguay, Turkey, Spain, and parts of Africa, are enjoying growth - as measured by the increase in gross national product per head - of 3 per cent or more each year. This makes them the third wealthiest group of countries - in terms of total gnp - after the more mature economies of the US and Europe, which are growing at a rate of 1-1.9 per cent each year. Their per capita income, however, remains among the lowest. People living in these high-growth countries, with a total population of 2.85 billion, earn $2,350 per head, compared with $12,220 per head in the richer countries. Many other countries are still falling behind. Sixty-three per cent of 209 economies, including large parts of Africa, the Middle East, South America and most of the former Soviet Union, has negative growth between 1985 and 1993.

The next 16 years will see tremendous economic change in China. By the year 2010 China will likely become the third-largest economic power in the world, according to an article in the latest issue of Outlook magazine. The article predicted that between 1995 and 2000, China's GDP -- the value of goods and services produced -- will grow at an average annual rate of 9 per cent to top 4,185.7 billion yuan ($504.3 billion). In the article, economists at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said that the GDP's annual growth rate during the 2001-2010 period will not be lower than 7.5 per cent. Developing at this rate, the country's GDP will reach 8,626.9 billion yuan ($1,039.38 billion) by 2010. The per capita GDP will reach 6,311 yuan ($760) after 2000 provided that the annual birth rate keeps at 0.7 per cent, the article said.

The chambers of commerce and business associations should reorient and modernize their services to help the industry meet the challenges of liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy, he said. Indian industry is undergoing massive restructuring and reorganization through acquisitions, amalgamations, mergers and demergers. It is also striving hard to induct new technology and to produce quality, cost and energy efficient and environment friendly products to become globally competitive.

China's economy will grow by 9 percent in 1995 since the government intends to achieve the dual goals of containing inflation and reducing unemployment, the People's Bank of China predicts. The currency issue in 1995 could be limited to around 142.4 billion yuan ($17 billion), or the same amount as in 1994.
China daily March 24, 1995 By Ban Hongwei The recent fisheries row between the European Union and Canada reiterates the trend that economic interests have become a top concern for a country in developing international relations during the post-Cold War era. The 20th century has seen two catastrophic world wars which devastated mankind. As people around the world celebrated the end of World War Two, the Soviet bloc, and the United States and its allies stood on the brink of the Cold war. "During the past 40 years, security concerns played a dominant role when the world was overshadowed by the Cold War," said Zhang Yebai, a senior research fellow in American studies under the China Association of Social Sciences (CASS). "With the breakup of the Soviet Union and its eastern European allies, security issues have been eclipsed by economic interests," Zhang said. "On the one hand, economic co-operation has been strengthened greatly. On the other hand, friction is booming. "While admitting to booming economic conflicts, we should have a clear idea that co-operation is the main trend," Zhang said. Worldwide economic integration and localization show that economic development has become a major global issue. Most countries pursue co-operation to boost their economies, said Zhang. Yet the recent dispute between Canada and Spain on fishing quotas epitomized the growing economic conflicts and friction of the world, Zhang said. The fisheries row focused on fishing rights in international waters off Newfoundland. On March 9, a Canadian garrison team captured a Spanish fishing trawler, the Eatia, off the coast of Newfoundland. Spain immediately responded. It stopped all formal visits to Canada and threatened to break off diplomatic relations. The European union, which enrolled Spain as a permanent member in 1986, sent an ultimatum to Canada about freeing the fishing boat. On March 15, Canada released the Spanish vessel, which greatly eased tensions. Yet first round negotiations in Brussels on the fishing row reportedly landed on the rocks. The talks are reportedly expected to be resumed at the end of this week. The behind-the-scenes reason for the dispute is not so complicated, the researcher commented. When Spain and Portugal became members of the European economic community nine years ago, the two countries' vessels were forbidden to fish in waters of other European countries. Then Spanish and Portuguese fishing boats turned to waters near Canada to seek their fortunes. This year, an agreement on the total volume of fish in waters near Canada -- sharply decreased compared with previous years -- was reached in the name of protecting the fish. Under the compromise, Canada owns a larger share of the fishing volume while European union countries only have a small proportion. Canadians insist they are protecting fishery resources. The Spaniards insist they are fishing in international waters. Given their own economic interests, neither would compromise easily, Zhang said. With economic development playing an increasingly important role in international relations, struggles on gaining natural resources are becoming severer, Zhang commented. Thanks to quick scientific development and fast-growing efficiency in the fishing industry, fishery resources are being swiftly exhausted. With the world markets swelling demand and decreasing fishery resources, competition is becoming more radical, Zhang added. The fisheries row between Canada and the EU is not the first one. Last year, in the same international waters, Canada seized a Panamanian fishing boat for similar reasons. Canada used to take a peaceful attitude towards world affairs. As members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Canada and Spain uses to boast good relations. But in the post-Cold War era, when their economic interests were infringed upon, Canadians have chosen an adventurous way to fight their opponents, Zhang continued. "The dispute seems to be unexpected, but on second thoughts, we find it's in line with the tendency to make economic interests a top priority in world affairs," said Jin Junhui, a senior research fellow with china institute of international studies. Only a month ago, France and the United States had a severe quarrel over espionage. Previously, sensitive cases, like surveillance with allied countries in Europe, would have been solved silently. The French-US quarrel, once again, showed that economic conflicts and friction between western powers as well as the world will become more serious, Jin said.

.... As this is rapid worldwide economic expansion is happening, internal unrest and discord in each country is rising but has so far been somewhat pacified with only 'minor' outbursts taking place. Without radical widespread innovation in techniques of energy production and consumption, an even greater change in perception, I think that when the world's organic fuel sources (petroleum, wood) and renewable resources (arable land, fresh- water, fish and animal species ...) come to be less available and affordable for the taking, the synchronized behavior which initially binds the earth's people together de-synchronizes and people are going to begin scrambling.

It is the momentum here, in the minds of the world's people, that cannot be stopped, and it this which spills over borders and manifests itself into war. This kind of highly propagandized promise of more is eventual war. Europeans, pre-1914, were so blind to the obvious fact that they had the whole planet under militant domination that they thought war, at long last, would only come to be remembered and found in history's books.

Believing themselves capable of self-realization by means of a faulty relationship with reality, what was then a microcosm of today's world - Europe - turned against itself, imploding. World Wars One and Two shattered the European stronghold over the planet and many new countries came to be somewhat able to direct their own step. But the world, still in ignorance over why both wars happened, began building exactly the some way as before, except this time with technological capabilities vastly surpassing anything ever seen previously. The United States of America, in particular, a democratic power presently in an advanced stage of societal paralysis, shifted to a permanent war economy.

A Humanity Without Foundation
At first when I read Bertrand Russell's idea of there being three philosophies, I agreed with him. But after three months I came to see that sweeping aside personal discipline as unnecessary only leads to totalitarianism. They were not independent philosophies from one another, but a cause and effect cycle of a humanity without foundation. A totalitarian system is what the divided people are heading for, but this is not what they want. I now recognize only two types of philosophy: external discipline and internal discipline. As we will come to see, one is life affirming, renewing; the other - mass suffocation and death.

Weapons For Sale
The dissolution of the Soviet Empire initially was of great potential in the eyes of the many who opposed the Cold War armaments race. But now, with the Empire gone and its fractions undergoing arduous times, a handful in a state of war, an equally dangerous threat is building before us. The current auctioning and smuggling of potential nuclear weapon-making materials across borders, in the opinion of a growing number of minds, is increasing, not decreasing, the chances of a future 'terrorist' or abused peoples (country or countries) to threaten a nuclear exchange. ....

Bonn - illegal trade in radioactive materials has been increasing steadily since the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991, the federal office of criminal investigation told a German newspaper on Sunday. The office cited 707 indications of illegal dealings with nuclear contraband which it said mainly came from Russia and Ukraine, according to a report in Welt Am Sonntag. In 1994 the office became aware of 182 cases of smuggling and illegal trade in radioactive materials. In 1993 they registered 123 cases of the trade.

Teheran - Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani yesterday blasted the latest US troop deployment in Kuwait, saying the move would not guarantee security in the region. "Imprudent Americans have occupied the region on the usual baseless pretexts," Rafsanjani said in a speech during the weekly Muslim prayers at Teheran university. "They have not come to help countries in the region, but to pursue their illegitimate interests," he said.

Pakistan, believing that unless the Kashmir dispute is resolved there can be no peace in south Asia, has refused to give up its nuclear program which is claimed to be totally for peaceful purposes.

Iranian president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani yesterday said a deal involving the sale of nuclear reactors from China to Iran was still being negotiated with Beijing.

Washington - setting the stage for conflict at next week's Moscow summit, US president Clinton is severing remaining economic ties with Iran and pressing Russian president Boris Yeltsin to cancel a "disturbing" nuclear deal with Teheran. Meanwhile, the head of Iran's elite revolutionary guards Mohsen Rezai was quoted as saying yesterday that a military confrontation with the United States is inevitable and Iranian forces must be ready for war.

Pakistan: Islamabad is most unlikely to abandon its nuclear know-how. It has no intention of even capping its nuclear program at current levels unless India does so. India will not consider such a move unless China and other big nuclear powers also call a halt to weapons development.

.... The paradox of peace leveraged by means of the bomb (military superiority) continues to flourish. In many countries desperate for hard currency for basic necessities and in the initial stages of trying to set up their own democratic and/or capitalist systems, who is regulating the extensive armaments of a decentralized Empire - a superpower - which once dominated half the earth?

Conclusion

1991 - global military spending: $900 billion

Brigade staff Sultan O.B. Al Suwaidi, director of the organization of the international defense exhibition Idex'95, told a press conference that "the Middle East defense market is estimated to be worth between $60 billion and $80 billion over the next five years."

Hong Kong - it's no secret that southeast Asia has been spending billions of dollars on arms. Defense spending in Asia rose at an unprecedented rate through the mid- and late-1980's. In the last decade Asia's share of world military expenditure has almost doubled. Military outlays in east Asia, Australia, and New Zealand totaled about $115 billion in 1992 and they will increase to more than $130 billion this year. At that stage, they will equal the amount being spent by all of Europe (excluding the former soviet republics).

American defense expenditure:
1992 - $242.7 billion
1993 - $278.6 billion
1994 - $279.9 billion (est)
1995 - $270.7 billion (est)

Russian and Chinese defense expenditure: 1992 - $ 62.1 billion

Defence expenditures for 1992, 24 countries: India, N. Korea, Vietnam, S. Korea, Pakistan, Turkey, Germany, France, Egypt, Taiwan, Italy, Brazil, Poland, U.K., Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Ukraine, Spain, Romania, Morocco, Cuba, Israel ---- $149.6 billion

1994 est. Of active troop #'s:
China: 3,030,000
Russia: 2,720,000
USA: 1,913,800
India: 1,265,000
N. Korea: 1,132,000

As an increasingly confused and divided population strains to pinpoint and pen the universal constitution, the paranoia and problems of the globe come together, then, to synthesize an extraordinary sense of helplessness in most people's minds. And this, in turn, manifests itself in a greater unproductive and fanatical behavior which only serves to worsen the global situation.
The individual, bombarded with non-stop packages promising a 'fix' for stabilization, has the blatant contradictions of (A) our earth's environmental liquidation, and (B) compounding social difficulties which best expresses itself in hundreds of runaway defense budgets, ironically, the single greatest threat to world security. Each people particle has the usual tendency of wanting to live, to have a secure, prosperous and meaningful life, yet with our environment compressing us, grinding and trapping us, it is becoming extremely difficult in the attempt not to break down, to not collapse.
Personally, professionally, and politically, if peace and long term prosperity are through discipline, what moral law are we supposed to be disciplined to? In a world being torn apart by antagonistic philosophies, what is the foundation to define such a universal morality? What is this wisdom? And ultimately, what is freedom ?

Some people who lived during and/or fought in World War Two have spent a large part of the latter years of their lives trying to teach us younger generations the lessons that the war made them learn. But they are going now, their voices not as loud .... and a lot of my peers listen but do not listen.

We can see throughout history that problems are getting bigger and bigger. In this century alone we have witnessed two world wars. What is coming is obvious. Better technological means, the wholesale of armaments, and the rapid increase in people particles have brought or amplified explosive capability to new heights.
Just as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand capped off events and landslided into what was to become World War One; just as Hitler's voice led to the crossing of the Czechoslovakian and Polish borders and chain reacted World War Two .... our critical limit will be breached .... one superstate will collapse under pressure .... and the kindlings of war will phoenix into flame and desperate fury ....

For a humanity trying to raise a global empire with no concrete foundation, losing its direction, a third world war is inevitable.

A PROLOGUE TO SECTION III
The following section will be my attempt to re-construct and chronicle an outline of mankind's history. From the wealth of accumulated historical materials written and found throughout the world, I will extract essays, articles, and notes to extend the ideas presented in sections one and two. In other words, I am going to present an analysis and theory of world history and, along with this, enter into an examination of the conditions necessary for human life to exist and flourish: a revaluation of all values.

This paper is my answer to a world I cannot help but see like Joseph Conrad; a man that was appalled by individuals who, despite their confusion and pain, wander through existence thinking that "life doesn't stand much looking into." A world where its inhabitants, as history speeds up, are moving to destroy themselves.
From German author Hermann Hesse, written in 1926, comes this paragraph: "Every nation, and even every person, would do better .... to ask himself how far his own faults and negligencies and evil tendencies are guilty of the war and all the other wrongs of the world, and that therein lies the only possible means of avoiding the next war .... they, of course, are themselves all guiltless .... To reflect for one moment, to examine himself for a while and ask what share he has in the world's confusion ... - look you, nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to avoid the next war, nobody wants to spare himself and his children the next holocaust if this be the cost. .... And so there's no stopping it, and the next war is being pushed on with enthusiasm by thousands upon thousands day by day ...."
Or perhaps Aldous Huxley, from 1955, states it clearer: "Almost all of us long for peace and freedom; but very few of us have much enthusiasm for the thoughts, feelings and actions that make for peace and freedom. Conversely, almost nobody wants war or tyranny; but a great many people find an intense pleasure in the thoughts, feelings and actions that make for war and tyranny."

On the flipside of this irrevocable conviction of human 'destiny' is the equally strong tenet of mine that man is destined for greatness .... for future achievements of which we have not even conceived of yet.
A being of truly infinite potential, best expressed in the words of Ayn Rand: ".... it is not true that there is no place is the future for a superlative achievement of man's mind; it can never be true. No matter what her problem, this would always remain to her - this immovable conviction that evil was unnatural and temporary. She felt it more clearly than ever this morning: the certainty that the ugliness of the men in the city and the ugliness of her suffering were transient accidents - while the smiling sense of hope within her at the sight of a sun-flooded forest, the sense of an unlimited promise, was the permanent and the real."

As I know the most definitive logic will never be accepted by all, all I ask from an individual is for him/her to consider the argument to follow. If people should dissent from my verdict, we'll let reality be the court of final appeal.

In my opinion only a handful of people seem to truly know what is happening on this planet -- the great majority being ignorant of the depth of the issue (and sub-issues) and tangled up in the more superficial, or resultant, manifestations of it. I see billions of people, including their organizations, stuck in a partial or fragmented frame of mind to which they have no idea the consequences of their actions -- further still, of their thoughts.

Man's quest into knowledge has manifest itself in many fashions, many philosophies and fascinating outlooks. I find the following synthesis of ideas very attractive and I hope that any person who reads these words will feel free to contribute additional ideas for a sharper and clarified Paper Two.

As we have read in sections one and two, there is only one way to live peacefully in a society of men. This is by means of discussing and working out a fundamental code of values -- an intensive depth of understanding which, for me, I have found requires an equally intensive drive to know: the discipline of wanting to understand, the enthusiasm for life.
As to what the resulting universal constitution should be, or based on, we have great trouble determining. For what some people think is right infringes on what another considers to be the whole perspective. On top of this, many of us think such a universally accepted creed would restrict our unique individuality so we are frightened and shudder even upon hearing the concept of such a 'generic' or 'clone' existence.

As men and women cannot come to a satisfactory agreement on what is ethical and what is not, governments are necessary to hold a growing population in place by creating rough parameters with values that a supposed majority of individuals firmly agree upon. But the latter cannot efficiently function without the former's unified understanding and cooperation. It is the individual's ignorance of his / her self and how everything connects together, then, which brings us to section three.

In my eyes, welcome to the neccessity of God.

SECTION THREE: THE CREATORS

"Who is most influencial : When a human being resists his whole age and stops it at the gate to demand an accounting, this must have influence. Whether that is what he desires is immaterial; that he can do it is what matters." (Nietzsche, 1882)

"Laws have proceeded, in almost every state, from the interest of the legislator, from the urgency of the moment, from ignorance, and from superstition, and have accordingly been made at random, and irregularly, just as cities have been built ... It was only after London had been reduced to ashes that it became fit to live in. The streets, after that catastrophe, were widened and straightened. If you are desirous of having good laws, burn those which you have at present, and make fresh ones." (Voltaire, 1764)

"We must escape the spirit/matter dualism that has dominated Western thinking from Plato to the modern Christian church ..."

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