WORLD PEACE

During the past few weeks I have focused on the theme of War and Peace on this nostalgic Tuesday.  However, I previously only analyzed the War portion.  This all began on August 5 with my first Huffington Post article:  Well, Barack, We have a Problem..., which was published on 29May2008.  That initial HuffPo was an article on peace.

On 23March2009 my HuffPo was entitled The 10% Solution.  This essay provided details to that first attempt:  an ultimate plan to attain World Peace.

• The timing was right, for the world had suffered through the Great Recession from December 2007, and would continue through the date of this article into June 2009.

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  The U.S. stock market had dropped 35%, but Chinese and Russian stocks fell 70%.
• There was no serious enemy during this period, for Iran was losing money producing oil, there were ragtag bunches of terrorists in the Middle East and North Korea was not a serious concern.
• Nuclear war was just not a worry during those years.
• The big problem was that the International Energy Agency in 2008 had reported that it would cost $45 trillion to neutralize global warming.

• 
  Keep in mind that World War II (using inflations upgraded numbers) had cost over $4 trillion.  So war money, also known as defense funds, was the only place where, over time, dollars could be found to save the world from carbon dioxide.
• So I ended my second HuffPo article on peace with:

Well, let me be brutally naive. If each country can reduce defense spending by 10% each year, with the resultant savings being applied to renewable energy and climate change, that would be a nice start. It will take time for each country to arrive at a legislated resolution, so the protocol for agreement can be signed in the 2010 Canadian Summit. By 2012, when President Barack Obama hosts the G8 gathering, the world economy should be well on the way to recovery, with oil prices tolerable, atmosphere perhaps already showing signs of healing and a globe at peace. Hey, what's wrong with a little loud dreaming? Maybe someone will take some of this seriously.

A year later on 6July2010 came my third HuffPo peace article:  The 10% Simple Solution to Peace.

• I had just written on 1July2010 a HuffPo:  A Simple Solution for Peak Oil and Global Warming.

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  Keep in mind that the price of oil was fickle, for two years earlier it was up to $147/barrel, and oil in 2010 was in the $70-$80/barrel range, just about where it is today, 15 years later.
• A year early, on 30July2009, I had penned in HuffPo my Carbon Dioxide Credit Program, a 5 cents/pound credit program on petroleum, which would translate to an additional $1/gallon at the pump.
• 
  To quote from this third peace article:

When I worked for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, considerable effort was extended towards legislation for the U.S. Peace Academy. Sparky, who earned a Purple Heart in the European Theater, actually still had a piece of shrapnel in his leg. He felt that if the Nation had all those war universities, why not a U.S. Peace Academy to train emissaries for goodwill. The best he could get was the U.S. Institute of Peace.

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  This U.S. Institute of Peace was established in 1984 when Republican President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law.  Has employed 300 personnel and trained more than 65,000 professionals since its inception.
• However, in Februrary 2025, President Donald Trump essentially dismantled the U.S. Peace Institute.
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  Another quote:

However, the world and American people have more recently taken a thrifty turn. As half our Federal budget goes to the military, and we have no obvious enemy (there are only a few thousand terrorists worth worrying over) into the long term future, why not cut our defense outlays? This might be the ideal moment in time to lay the foundation for a more peaceful world of tomorrow.

• 
  A third quote:

I have said this before, in my original HuffPosting, "Well, Barack, We Have a Problem...," and "The Ten Percent Solution." To summarize, President Obama goes to the next G8 summit, and pronounces a Gorbachev-like bombshell: America will reduce defense spending by 10% this coming year, and will continue to slice 10% every year if you all do the same. In just a very few years, military spending will be minimal and the world will be at a higher level of peace forever.

This is the 10% simple solution to peace. Before you make any inane comments, click on those articles to appreciate that Russia is getting feeble and China will also become old before it gets rich. The U.S. will be supreme for a long time to come, and those war funds can better be applied to cure Planet Earth and enhance the fate of Humanity.

As the U.S. seemed disinterested in my peace proposal, I actually wrote two other HuffPos, wondering if China might be interested in becoming the Champion for Peace:

• A Message to President Hu Jintao:  Three Steps for China to Attain Superpower Status.
• I wrote this HuffPo just about the time I flew into Shanghai.
• I was relieved when I was on my flight out of China for Zurich, for it occurred to me while I was there, my article could have been taken in the wrong way, and could have been detained.

• 
  My Second Message to China.
• I was safely traveling in Africa in 2010 whenI wrote again to China, for Xi Jinping was now to become the next president of the country.
• I suggested that he perform two noble acts.

1.  A truly safe, but shocking, pronouncement, soon after you attain presidential status in 2013, is to commit your country to the edicts of the next Kyoto Protocol to check global heating, which by then should have been settled in Cancun. Of course, I can already predict that this second agreement will have all the loopholes necessary to provide another decade of wishy-washy do nothing, but the USA will still be debating the demerits of ratifying anything related to the Cancun Protocol, so your position will, on a relative scale, be statesmanlike.

2.  Now, for the big one, surely to gain a Nobel Prize of your own. You have a couple of years to analyze the sanity and brilliance of the 10% solution. By 2013 the G8 nations should be augmenting this powerful world body to at least ten, and maybe a dozen. China will be invited to join. After your opening remarks at your inaugural presence, you can consider stating:

"Nearly two scores ago, the Group of Seven was originally created to lead the way towards world peace. Humanity today is faced with peak oil, global warming, a metastable economy and a range of wars that, if not immediately and effectively addressed by our Group, will result in a mega depression, compounded by environmental despair and armed warfare that will get out of control. I hereby today would like to announce that China will reduce our defense budget by 10% next year, and continue to do so annually into the foreseeable future. The funds saved will be placed in an international fund to be managed by this Group of 12, but only if every country joins China in advancing the cause of Peace and Prosperity."

Well, Barack Obama, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping ignored my pleas.

By 2011, though, some in the media noted my peace efforts, and I was invited by the U.S. News and World Report Debate club to participate in an international poll on peace, where the question was, Are Cuts to the Defense Budget Necessary?   In a poll of their readers, my contribution placed second to then presidential candidate Ron Paul.  My posting of this debate closed with John Lennon's Imagine.

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