Reposted from The Yellow Times.
John Brand
All other leaders who had that opportunity muffed it. Alexander the Great had the chance to weld the world into a community of law and order; he died in a drunken brawl. Caesar could have victoriously imposed a lasting Pax Romana on the world; he met Brutus. Napoleon had the fate of the world in his hands; he met his Waterloo. Metternich’s grandiose plans developed at the Congress of Vienna came to naught when his dogmatism became self-defeating.
After World War II, the torch of peace and justice flared for a short while. It seemed as though the world might yet become a community of nations. Alas, it was not to be. The two most powerful nations in the world exhausted their resources in an arms race leading nowhere.
Now destiny again knocks on the front door of the White House.
After the victory in Iraq, no nation in the world will be left to challenge the United States seriously. North Korea is a threat with its small arsenal of atomic weapons. China, of course, always looms large in the affairs of the world. Much political unrest in the Middle East presents potential sources of conflict. That ferment begs for a solution. As always, problems present the greatest opportunities for creative action.
It is precisely that state of imbalance that is allowing President Bush to become the greatest man the world has ever seen. The recipe is simple. It is to make lemonade out of lemons. There is nothing that needs to be discovered, invented, determined, or researched. We have, so to speak, the lemons, the water, the sugar, the pitcher, and the glasses. All Mr. Bush has to do is to mix it all up and serve that life-giving nostrum to the world.
The prescription for greatness lies in the simplest of all ideas ever to cross the human brain: all the earth’s people are human! Now that’s a no-brainer! Yet, the leaders of the world throughout history do not seem to understand that fact. Instead of recognizing our commonness, the rulers treat the masses of people as though they were pawns to be moved about on the chessboard of history. The result was and continues to be genocide.
Whether Iraqi, American, Democrat, Republican, Black, White, Yellow, Red, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, we all have the same DNA. We all have the same need for water and food. We laugh when we are tickled and we bleed when we are cut. Our throats parch when thirsty; our guts wrench when hungry.
So, Mr. President, after the last shot has been fired and before even the last body has been brought home, you announce a new vision for the world. It is not an American strategy. It is an actualization of the dream dwelling in human hearts. Tell the world, Mr. President, that we are done with that old jaded game of competition. Proudly proclaim that America no longer worships at the feet of that great God, Mammon. Blazon abroad that America no longer seeks to impose its dominance on the world! Tell it far and wide and let the mountains echo the new refrain: This is not Pax Americana. This is Pax Humanitas!
For the first time in human history, we will honestly and competently seek to bring to the world the recognition that all human beings everywhere are members of the same species. You will iterate that victory over a vicious tyrant brought about the wisdom not to repeat the stupidities of the ages. America will not exploit, not dominate, and not control.
Instead, Mr. President, declare that America will lead the world towards peace by pursuing a course of action tried only once before. It was successful until the voracious appetite of a few money/power hungry myopic despots destroyed it all. Of course, I am speaking of the Marshall Plan in Europe and the similar plan in Japan. We actually helped those whom we defeated to achieve productivity and economic power. The plan worked fine until humanitarian goals were usurped by those who believed that our God is Profit and our Divine Mission is to control. When these twin evil monsters took over, the world started going to hell again.
Does it not seem obvious that the two most pressing worldwide needs are access to energy and water? Bring affordable energy to the people and the needs of life can be provided with amplitude. Bring water to the masses and the world can create a veritable Garden of Eden.
By providing the essentials of life in adequate measures, you will have eliminated, with one masterful stroke, much of the reason for aggressiveness and genocidal behavior. Think about it, Mr. President. You can become a veritable Prince of Peace. Of course, we need to follow up and strengthen and confirm our resolve to maintain a lasting peace.
Much must be done! However, for the immediate present, let’s get started on developing alternative sources of energy. Surely, even your oil and gas buddies, Mr. President, deep down inside their craniums, know that oil is a non-renewable resource and in a few decades only saltwater will come up through the drill bores. So, this is your historical moment to acknowledge that there is no future for the world in the pursuit of the oil and gas mantra. There is enough energy in the world to suffice all human needs on our little planet until such day as it becomes an ice-cold rock or is flung into the solar furnace of the star giving us life. After that moment, we no longer will have any further concerns.
However, until that day, sun, tides, wind, and the bowels of the earth generate enough power to fill our needs. You know that the technologies are in place to tap into these tremendous resources. Of course, you have to make certain that the likes of Kenneth Lay are kept away from stealing the world’s energy reservoirs for their own personal gain.
I think, Mr. President, you should announce the fact that Adam Smith’s idea never did work for the benefit of humankind. His “unseen hand” that supposedly converted human selfishness to the common good just does not exist. That unseen hand results only when magnificent human beings transcend their own animal nature and direct their efforts for the benefit of all humankind. Recall the words of Meister Eckhart, who in the 13th Century said, “only the hand that erases can write new things.” If you decide to write new things, your name will be lauded for millenniums in even the smallest villages of the world.
Once the energy challenge has been solved, you can direct America’s tremendous resources to the most vital problem of desalinating ocean water. Viewing your own State of Texas from your lofty office in the White House, you can see just how counter-productive are the deliberations of our State Legislature. They are now involved in haggling over who will control the water rights in the state. Lobbyists of all stripes pressure the legislature to favor their own parochial interests. But ten or fifteen years from now there won’t be enough water for all of our needs. Then whatever legislation has been passed won’t be worth the paper on which it has been written. There just will not be enough water, unless we tap the ocean and convert its reservoir to potable water.
Just think, Mr. President, we will have enough water to flood the Sahara and turn that rich soil, now only sand, into a fertile Garden of Eden. With energy and water we can turn the world into a Paradise where human needs are met.
Then we can go to work and help human beings to understand some of the reasons for their aggressiveness. I do invite you, Mr. President, to read my book “Shaking the Foundations,” for information that will provide you with a new perspective on the nature of human beings. It is based on very sound research developed by Paul MacLean, M.D., former Chief, Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior, NIMH. When we begin to understand our own nature, we shall “beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.” We shall stand at the gate where “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together.”
It shall not be a little child who shall lead them but you, Mr. President, will have the honor to empower the forces that will “let justice roll down like the waters and righteousness like an overflowing stream.”
Of course, failure to erase old mistaken assumptions and to act on the dreams in human hearts will reduce your place in history to just a meager footnote. Your name will join that long list of “could haves, but didn’t.” Instead of a blazing star set high in the sky, you will be but an insignificant cipher in the catalog of the long line of those who failed.
John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of Shaking the Foundations .” John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org