Blog – Page 6 – Voices of Humanity

POLICE TRAINING AND HIRING MUST CHANGE by George Wolfe

Posted on March 22, 2015 by admin

POLICE TRAINING AND HIRING MUST CHANGE
by George Wolfe

George Wolfe

A few months ago I was driving north on Wheeling Avenue in Muncie to a meeting I had scheduled with an author friend at the Starbucks on McGalliard. As I approached the traffic light at Wheeling and McGalliard, I realized I had forgotten a pen to take notes with, so I began thinking where I could purchase one on my way to the meeting. The Speedway convenience store on the corner just before the turn onto McGalliard came to mind, so I turned right into the store parking lot.

Then I had second thoughts and realized the Walgreens drug store further east would be more likely to carry what I needed. So in the interest of saving time I drove through the Speedway parking lot, re-entered McGalliard and proceeded eastward. Several blocks later I turned left onto North Walnut Street as I prepared to enter the Walgreen’s parking lot. Suddenly I noticed a patrol car behind me with its lights blinking. Immediately I pulled over to the curb.

As the officer approached my car, he asked if I have any weapons that could hurt him. After I said “no,” he asked to see my license and registration, then inquired why I entered the Speedway parking lot only to exit it immediately onto McGalliard, as if to skirt the traffic light. I was somewhat flustered with the blinking lights behind me, by getting stopped, and also because I was running late. I took a deep breath to settle myself down and explained about needing to buy the pen. He looked at my identification and then let me go.

This was an awkward encounter for both me and the officer, but you can imagine how much more tense I would have been if I were Hispanic or middle Eastern and did not speak English well. My reason for driving as I did was innocent, but my explanation could have aroused suspicion. It certainly was helpful for me to be white and a native English speaking U.S. citizen. Fortunately, the officer who stopped me in Muncie was experienced and very professional.

When I see the news reports of African-American citizens in Ferguson, Missouri and other communities claiming local officers subject them to discriminatory treatment and profiling, I can understand. This all boils down to police hiring and training, and the scathing report of the Ferguson police by the U.S. Justice Department exposes the depth of the problem.

Police hiring and training must be changed. There is no excuse for employing officers who are racist as revealed in Ferguson by email messages and other documents. And it is difficult to understand why an officer should need to shoot an unarmed man six or seven times as was the case with Michael Brown.

There is also the case where an African-American male, holding a knife and showing signs of mental illness, was shot multiple times by two officers who were clearly at a safe distance and could have remained so. They had ample opportunity to wound the suspect or talk him into surrendering his weapon. At least the officers could have made that effort since, as shown by the video, they were at least 15 yards from the man and not in immediate life-threatening danger.

Such cases can’t help evoke memories of the death of Ball State student Michael McKinney who was intoxicated, unarmed and shot four times by an rookie police officer who had not finished his training.

We must work to prevent such tragedies by hiring officers who are properly trained in communication skills and in the use of nonlethal force (e.g., mace, stun guns, shooting to wound) against individuals who are unarmed.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus at Ball State University and former Director and Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and is the author of The Spiritual Power of Nonviolence: Interfaith Understanding for a Future Without War.

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Will the Genders Quarrel?

Posted on February 21, 2015 by admin

For presentation to the Feb 21, 2015 meeting of the UNA SF Bay Area Council of Organizations meeting.

The world is in transition. It is clear to thoughtful people everywhere that we must develop our sense of common humanity so we can deal intelligently with the global problems that we ourselves have created by our expanding population and increasingly powerful technology. We love our nations and religions and are not going to give them up, so our task is to persuade them to cooperate. How can we do that?

The Gender Crosstalk is a global online exchange between the genders. It is sponsored by the San Francisco Chapter of the United Nations Association and is just starting up. It is our idea how to persuade the nations and religions to cooperate. Each lunar month, participants will write a message on a topic of their own choosing. The messages are traded around and rated by other participants. Two messages are chosen each month, one written by a woman and rated highest by the women and similarly for the men. These two messages will be posted prominently so everyone will read and respond to them for the following month. It is a bottom up process so we cannot be quite sure where it will go. The expectation is that we will get a generous, intelligent and suspenseful conversation going between the genders.

We are starting the process by electing two messages addressed to the Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. We have a way to get the messages on her desk, but as of yet no promise that she will respond. The first two messages will be chosen at the new moon of March 20, 2015.

The topic of your message is for you to decide, but clearly, since we are sending the first two messages to Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka, something related to gender issues would be appropriate. No more than 150 words, including the salutation. As the discussion proceeds, the expectation is that the topic will open up and not be focused only on gender related issues.

The global Women’s Movement has a huge role to play, I believe. I like to say that the Women’s Movement is humanity’s best asset! The women already transcend the nations and religions, while the men, I have to say, do not.

The Women’s Movement can use the Gender Crosstalk as a tool to bring the men in on a shared journey to a human unity with gender equality built in. The Crosstalk, if we can get it off the ground, will create a common consciousness and a kind-hearted sense of unity at every level from global to local. That common consciousness and heart-felt sense of unity is what we need to underpin an orderly transition to a world of ten billion people, coming soon, we better hope!

Will the genders quarrel? The UNA Gender Crosstalk is designed to unite humanity. Yet it does so by establishing a collective dialogue between the Women and the Men, thus seemingly dividing humanity instead of uniting us. But no, the genders will not quarrel, because at the collective level, each gender is mindful of the children, and for them as well as for many other good reasons, both genders have the interest of humanity at heart. Still, there will be some suspense!

By March 20, the Crosstalk technology will have a geographic slider so we can easily move from global to national to state to metro levels and have a discussion between the women and the men at each of those levels. That means we can have a gender crosstalk discussion here in the Bay Area as well as globally. That brings it home, I expect. What if we could bring the NGO crowd in on this in the Bay Area? All of a sudden we would all be on the same page, with gender equality built in. This is where I see the Gender Crosstalk as a tool for the COO.

If every group, at its meetings, would have a brief discussion of the latest Gender Crosstalk results at both the world and metro levels, then that would create the common consciousness that we need, bringing everyone onto the same page, both globally and locally. I would like to propose that for our next COO meeting we take ten minutes for that discussion.

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What Do the Ancient Ones and the Ancient of Days Say About the Future of the Human Family

Posted on February 14, 2015 by admin

What Do the Ancient Ones and the Ancient of Days Say About the Future of the Human Family
by Phil Lane Jr.

Very Beloved Relatives,

There is no question that a tempest, unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course, catastrophic in its immediate effects, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is at present sweeping the face of the earth. Its driving power is remorselessly gaining in range and momentum. Its cleansing force, however much undetected and misunderstood, is increasing with every passing day. As we can clearly see, Humanity, gripped in the clutches of its devastating power, is smitten by the evidences of its resistless fury. It can neither perceive its origin, nor probe its significance, nor discern its outcome. Bewildered, agonized and helpless, it watches this great and mighty wind of the Creator invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth, rocking its foundations, deranging its equilibrium, sundering its nations, disrupting the homes of its peoples, wasting its cities, pulling down its bulwarks, uprooting its institutions, dimming its light, and harrowing up the souls of its inhabitants.

Certainly, there is no lack of recognition by national and international leaders of the world-wide character of these challenges, which is self-evident in the mounting issues that confront them daily. And there are the accumulating studies and solutions proposed by many concerned and enlightened groups as well as by agencies of the United Nations, to remove any possibility of ignorance as to the challenging requirements to be met. There is, however, from my perspective, a paralysis of will; it is this that must be carefully examined and resolutely dealt with. This paralysis is rooted in a deep-seated conviction of the inevitable adversarial nature of humankind, which has led to the reluctance to entertain the possibility of subordinating national self-interest to the requirements of a Cooperative Global Forum, of any form, and an unwillingness to face courageously the far-reaching implications of establishing a united world authority. This paralysis is also traceable to the incapacity of uninformed masses of human beings who speak different languages and have been denied basic, universal education, and who are unable to articulate their desire for a new order in which they can live in peace, harmony and prosperity with all members of the Human Family.

The primary question to be resolved is how the present world, with its entrenched patterns of conflict, can change to a world in which harmony and co-operation will prevail. In essence, the establishment of a new world civilization.This is what I would like to address by drawing on the best spiritual and prophetic sources that I know.

The new world civilization, that Indigenous and other related prophecies speak of is not to confused, even remotely, with the various new world orders that are fearfully alluded to by various contending sources, whether it be a new world order where the extremely wealthy or a secret elite enslave most of humanity, for their own selfish and greedy purposes, or a new world order where everyone is forced to look, act and think the same, or a new world order dominated by any one nation state or a new world order created by an Anti-Christ prior to an Armageddon.

This new world civilization, whose advent was foretold by our Ancient Ones and the Ancient of Days, including the 2012 Mayan prophecies, The Reunion of the Condor and the Eagle, the Eighth Council Fire, the Return of the White Buffalo, the Prophecies of Black Elk , Deganiwida, Quetzalcoatl, Sweet Medicine, Handsome Lake, the Hopi`s, and many others, are firmly and unshakably rooted in the spiritual understanding and consciousness of the Oneness and Prior Unity of the Human Family. From this spiritual understanding and consciousness naturally unfolds the realization of the Equality of Men and Women, the Balancing of the Extremes of Wealth and Poverty, the Elimination of All Prejudices, the Unity of Science and Spirituality, Universal Education, the Independent Investigation of Truth, Unity in Diversity and a new world civilization where the voices, the wisdom and vision of Indigenous Peoples are justly and respectfully represented.

We know from all these prophecies that a new world civilization can only be founded on an unshakable consciousness of the oneness of humankind, a spiritual truth which all the human sciences confirm. Anthropology, physiology, and psychology recognize only one human race, although infinitely varied in the secondary aspects of life. As we, also, know, recognition of this truth requires abandonment of prejudice — prejudice of every kind — race, class, sexual orientation, color, creed, nation, sex, degree of material civilization, everything which enables people to consider themselves superior to others. This is a great challenge for all of us.

Yet, acceptance of the oneness of humanity is the first fundamental prerequisite for the reorganization and administration of the world as one country, the home of humankind. Universal acceptance of this spiritual principle is essential to any successful attempt to establish world peace. It should therefore be universally proclaimed, taught in schools, and constantly asserted in every nation as preparation for the organic change in the structure of society which it implies. This is, also, a great challenge for many.

From my perspective, the recognition of the oneness of humankind calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole world — a world organically unified in all the essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its federated units. This will take some faith, vision, and time.

The implementation of these fair-reaching measures were shared in prophecies, more than 150 years ago by the Ancient of Days and others. In essence, these prophecies said, “The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of human beings will be universally realized. The rulers and leaders of the earth need to attend it, and, participate in its deliberations. They must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world’s Most Great Peace among all members of the Human Family.”

The unity of the human race, as envisioned by these prophecies, that were given when our Indigenous ancestors rode free on the high plains of North America, clearly outline the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded.

This commonwealth, as visualized, would consist of a world legislature, whose members will, as the trustees of the whole of humankind, ultimately control the entire resources of all the component nations, and will enact such laws as shall be required to regulate the life, satisfy the needs and adjust the relationships of all members of the human family in a sustainable and harmonious manner. A world executive, backed by an international Force, will carry out the decisions arrived at, and apply the laws enacted by, this world legislature, and will safeguard the organic unity of the whole commonwealth. A world tribunal will adjudicate and deliver its compulsory and final verdict in all and any disputes that may arise between the various elements constituting this universal system.

These prophecies said that a mechanism of world inter-communication would be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvelous swiftness and perfect regularity. Furthermore, A world metropolis will act as the nerve center of a world civilization, the focus towards which the unifying forces of life will converge and from which its energizing influences will radiate. A world language will either be invented or chosen from among the existing languages and will be taught in the schools of all the federated nations as an auxiliary to their mother tongue. A world script, a world literature, a uniform and universal system of currency, of weights and measures, will simplify and facilitate intercourse and understanding among the nations and peoples of the Human Family.

In such a world society, science and spirituality, the two most potent forces in human life, will be reconciled, will co-operate, and will harmoniously develop. The press will, under such a system, while giving full scope to the expression of the diversified views and convictions of humanity, cease to be manipulated by vested interests, whether private or public, and will be liberated from the influence of contending governments and peoples. The economic resources of the world will be organized, its sources of raw materials will be sustainably tapped and fully utilized without waste, its markets will be coordinated and developed, and the distribution of its products and services will be equitably regulated.

National rivalries, hatreds, and intrigues will cease, and racial animosity and prejudice will be replaced by racial amity, understanding and co-operation. The causes of religious strife will be permanently removed, economic barriers and restrictions will be completely abolished, and the inordinate distinction between classes will be obliterated. Destitution on the one hand, and gross accumulation of ownership on the other, will disappear. The enormous energy dissipated and wasted on war, whether economic or political, will be consecrated to extend the range of human inventions and technological developments, to the increase of the productivity of humankind, to the extermination of disease, to the extension of scientific research, to the raising of the standard of physical health, to the sharpening and refinement of the human brain, to the sustainable development of the unused and unsuspected resources of the Mother Earth, to the prolongation of human life, and to the furtherance of any other agency that can stimulate the intellectual, the moral, the cultural, the artistic and spiritual life of the entire human race.

A world federal system, ruling the whole earth and exercising unchallengeable authority over its unimaginably vast resources, blending and embodying the ideals of both the East and the West, liberated from the curse of war and its miseries, and focused on the sustainable and harmonious development of all the available sources of energy on the surface of Mother Earth(On the Surface!), a system in which Force is made the servant of Justice, whose life is sustained by its universal recognition of one Creator and by its allegiance to one common, never ending Revelation — such is the goal towards which humanity, impelled by the unifying forces of life, from my perspective, is undeniably and swiftly moving. A difficult challenge? Yes! But what is the alternative?

With this understanding and vision, we must remember, though the course the Creator has traced for us seems, at times, lost in the threatening shadows that are now enveloping a stricken humanity, the unfailing light that the Everywhere Spirit is continuously shining upon us is of such brightness, that no earthly dusk can ever eclipse its splendour. Though we are small in numbers, and circumscribed as yet in our experiences, powers, and resources, the Divine Force which energizes our mission is limitless in its range and incalculable in its potency. Though the enemies, which every acceleration in the progress of our unified work must raise up, be fierce, numerous, and unrelenting, yet the invisible Hosts which, if we persevere, will, as promised, rush forth to our aid and in the end, enable us to fully vanquish their hopes of our destruction and annihilate their forces of disunity.

Though the ultimate blessings that will crown the consummation of our ultimate victory, be undoubted, and the Divine promises given to us be firm and irrevocable, yet the measure of the goodly reward, which every one of us is to reap, will depend on the extent to which our daily exertions will have contributed to the expansion of the mission at hand and the hastening of its triumph. Though the task be long and arduous, yet the prize which the All-Bountiful Bestower has chosen to confer upon us is of such preciousness that neither tongue nor pen can befittingly appraise it. Toward this vision and the ultimate fulfillment of these prophecies of the Ancient Ones and the Ancient of Days, may we all be fully assured, that we will always be together, both in this world and the spiritual worlds, yet to come.

As always, it is my prayer that you and your beloved ones are in the very best of health and happiness.

With Warm, Respectful and Loving Greetings,

Brother Phil
Ihanktonwan Dakota and Chickasaw Nations

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THE POWER OF THE PEN: LET’S USE IT TO DIGNIFY, NOT HUMILIATE By George Wolfe

Posted on January 21, 2015 by admin

THE POWER OF THE PEN: LET’S USE IT TO DIGNIFY, NOT HUMILIATE
By George Wolfe

George Wolfe

The public response to the terrorist attack on the journalists in France illustrates the power of the pen and the futility of violence. While terrorists may be able to kill people, they can’t kill ideas. Ideas, both good and bad, live on in the collective human consciousness.

Ironically, it is repression that gives them new life. As a result of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo January 7, well over 5 million copies of a recent edition of the paper depicting a cartoon image of the prophet Mohammad have been sold, and people around the world have seen the image on the internet.

Those of us living in the United States and in European countries hold as precious the right of freedom of speech, and like academic freedom, it should vehemently be defended. But the question remains: should Charlie Hebdo have published the cartoon images of Mohammed knowing that many Muslims around the world would take offense?
It will help if we consider this question in the context of another artistic controversy.
In 1987, artist and photographer Andres Serrano created a controversial artwork entitled Piss Christ. Serrano photographed a crucifix submerged in a glass of his own urine. When exhibited in New York City at the Stux Gallery, the work was initially well received. But two years later it became the center of a scandal.

Conservative politicians such as Jesse Helms were outraged that Serrano had received a total of $20,000 in taxpayer money for the creation of Piss Christ through the National Endowment of the Arts. Other U.S. politicians argued that such government funding violated the separation of church and state.

In a subsequent exhibit in Victoria, Australia, Piss Christ was vandalized and gallery officials received death threats. As recently as 2011, Christian protesters vandalized a print of Piss Christ while on display in Avignon, France at the contemporary art museum known as Collection Lambert.

Andres Serrano, however, did not create Piss Christ with the intent of offending Christians, nor was it a cartoon caricature. And there were prominent Christians who defended the work’s thought provoking artistic message, such as Sister Wendy Beckett, a Roman Catholic Nun.

In a television interview with Bill Moyers, Sister Beckett saw the artwork as making a statement about contemporary society and the way it has come to reject the values Christ represents. The cultural values and the context in which Serrano was working in 1987 were much different than exist in our multicultural milieu of today.

Since 9/11, there has emerged a clash between the secular values of Western culture and the Islamic world. There is clearly a need to build cooperative and collaborative relationships with Muslims living in the United States and Europe. Given the tension that has existed over the past 14 years, it is counterproductive to intentionally print images that will knowingly insult our Muslims neighbors.

Yes, free speech must be vehemently upheld and defended, but in the present historical context, restraint and respect for a religious tradition and its beliefs is by far a more noble position to honor.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus at Ball State University and former Director and Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and is the author of The Spiritual Power of Nonviolence: Interfaith Understanding for a Future Without War.

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HAVE YOURSELF A TWILIGHT ZONE CHRISTMAS By George Wolfe

Posted on January 8, 2015 by admin

HAVE YOURSELF A TWILIGHT ZONE CHRISTMAS
By George Wolfe

George Wolfe

It’s always hard to say goodbye to a Christmas tree. Twelve days hardly seem enough.

For many people, and certainly for the business community, the Christmas season is over by New Years day. But the traditional Christian calendar actually extends Christmas until January 6, which begins the season of Epiphany. Hence, the “Twelve days of Christmas” as enumerated in the popular song.

In my hometown of Corry, Pennsylvania, there was an Episcopal priest I knew named Father McIlveen. He was an old-school Anglican from Canada. He and his wife would wait until Christmas Eve to set up and decorate their tree, then leave it up for the full twelve days until the Epiphany season began. In my family, we always disrobed our tree on New Year’s day, usually before the Rose Bowl game started on television.

Father McIlveen’s adherence to tradition is a rarity nowadays. As commercialism crept into Christmas over the years, the god of capitalism asserted its influence. Christmas decorations began appearing the day after Thanksgiving, and black Friday superseded in importance the first day of Advent. Nowadays, people are more interested in being the first to enter Walmart than they are the nativity manger.

When I was teaching at Ball State University, in December at the end of the first semester, I would have my students over to our house for a holiday party. Each year I would make it a point to show them a video of a Twilight Zone episode written by Rod Serling entitled “The Night of the Meek.” In it, celebrated actor Art Carney, renowned for his role as Ed Norton on Jackie Gleason’s popular show “The Honeymooners,” plays a drunken department store Santa Claus named Henry Korwin.

Rod Serling’s script is one of social protest. Early on in the show, after falling flat on the floor from intoxication in front of a self-absorbed mother and her spoiled child, Art Carney, delivers one of the great performances in all Christmas shows in his role as the drunken Santa. “Christmas,” he says to the store owner using semi-slurred intoxicated speech, “is something more than barging up and down department store aisles and pushing people around. . . . Christmas is another thing finer than that, richer, finer, truer, and should come with patience and love, charity, compassion. . . . I live in a dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people, where the only thing that comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve is more poverty.”

After being immediately fired by the proprietor, the drunken Santa leaves to find in a back ally, a bag full of garbage that miraculously turns into “Santa’s bag” full of Christmas presents that would have in it, anyone’s heart’s desire. By the end of the show, our unlikely hero would have given away all of the presents in the bag and have nothing left for himself. Yet he would come to realize that there was nothing he wanted, nothing more than to be the biggest gift giver of all times.

Christmas is the season when Christians celebrate the greatest of all gifts, and the very act of giving itself. For those who celebrate this true spirit of the holiday season, the Christmas tree stays lit the entire year.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus and former director of the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and the author of The Spiritual Power of Nonviolence: Interfaith Understanding for a Future Without War.

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UNA-SF Application for UNDEF grant for Gender Crosstalk Human Unity

Posted on November 20, 2014 by admin

Here is the text of the application for a grant from the United Nations Democracy Fund UNDEF Logo by UNA-SF. The application was submitted just under the wire on Dec 31, 2014, UNDEF grant number 14-21880. UNDEF proposal receipt number: 31520_GLO. Learn more about UNA Gender Crosstalk here. Participate in the UNA Gender Crosstalk here.

http://www.un.org/democracyfund/

Organization Name: United Nations Association San Francisco

Organization Acronym: UNA-SF

Type of Applicant: Civil Society or Non-Governmental Organization

First Time or Prior Applicant: First Time

Prior Experience of Your Organization (650 characters):

UNA-SF has organized and carried out large successful UN Day Celebrations for the 50th, 60th and 65th Anniversaries of the founding of the United Nations. Budgets varied from 20 to 100 thousand USD. Current Chapter Leadership is now assessing the possibility of a UN 70th Celebration for UN Day 2015 with an estimated budget of $30,000 at the War Memorial where the UN Charter was signed on June 26, 1945 here in San Francisco. Also for UN Day 2015 we will have a Flag March across the Golden Gate Bridge with the UN flag leading the parade of national flags. Each year we have an International Women’s Day, a Human Rights Day and a UN Day event.

Operational Budget: less than $50,000

Prior Experience of Your Organization with the UN (500 chars):

Current UNA-SF Chapter leadership has participated in UN conferences in New York City. In San Francisco and the Bay Area we have held and participated in post-2015 SDG development meetings. One of our board members is a contracted employee of UN Volunteers, which is administered by UNDP.

Affiliation (500 characters):

UNA-SF is a chapter of United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA), which is a Program of the United Nations Foundation out of Washington, DC, USA.

Other Grants (255 characters): None known, certainly nothing of this size.

Head of Organization: Mr Pablo Castro, President, pablo.castro@una-sf.org, http://ugc.unasf.intermix.org

Key Contact: Mr Roger Eaton, Communications Chair, +1 415 933 0153, rogerweaton@gmail.com

Project Title: Appealing to the Genders for Human Unity

Project Scale: Global

Project Summary (500 characters):

NGO members will participate in a collective, i.e. crowd-sourced, inter-gender dialog that will build trust in our common humanity. The dialog will underpin a world conference to kick-start a massive global movement for peace with gender equality built in. The genders, collectively enabled by innovative online technology, will be empowered to persuade the nations and religions to trust each other, thus providing humanity with a surprising new route to global cooperation.

Requested Grant Amt: $250,000

Applicant’s Own Contribution (255 characters):

$3000 is all that is currently available. Please note that a grant of $100,000 will be nearly as useful, because simply winning a grant from UNDEF will give us the entree we need to raise more from local SF Bay Area foundations and wealthy individuals.

Project Theme: Civil society empowerment

Previous Initiatives/Innovation:

The centerpiece of the “Appealing to the Genders for Human Unity” project is an innovative online process. Previous larger scale projects carried out by UNA San Francisco have been focused on in person UN Day festivities. As far as we know, the idea of going over the heads of the nations and religions, so to speak, and appealing to the genders collectively is an entirely new notion. The project is novel too in the scope of its ambition for world peace with gender equality built in.

Problem Analysis (1000 characters):

UNA’s Gender Crosstalk technology, now in advanced prototype stage, implements a collective dialog between the genders. Every lunar month, the Women and the Men elect a message to represent their gender in the dialog. Gender equality is built in and if you dig down a little there are also winning messages for Youth, Middle-Age and Seniors. The purpose of the project is to build trust in our common humanity so we can persuade the nations and religions to cooperate. The lack of such cooperation and trust, especially between nations, but to a degree also between religions, is the major roadblock to the peaceful, sustainable world that we need. We will aim to bring in NGO members from around the world. Love and wit are what everyone appreciates, so those are the messages that will win month after month, building a massive conviction that humanity is worthy of our trust and can be united. At a 3-day Human Unity Conference in San Francisco, USA, a plan will be developed to do just that.

Project Beneficiary: Women Groups

Project Objective (255 characters):

The “Appealing to the Genders for Human Unity” project will use innovative online democratic methods in conjunction with in-person meetings to empower women and men collectively to set in motion a world movement for peace and unity with women in the lead.

Describe the intended results or outcomes expected (max 3). The results/outcomes should look beyond the project outputs and indicate the expected positive changes in condition/capacity that will be brought about within the time frame of the project. Max. 255 characters.

Outcome 1:

A Human Unity Conference in San Francisco for IDP 2016 is the major outcome of the grant. The online Gender Crosstalk and person-to-person meetings will build both numbers and morale towards a global movement for gender equality, human unity and world peace.

Outcome 2:

The Gender Crosstalk online social media will “take off” and achieve “critical mass” so it is viewed as a smart choice for NGOs both to connect with each other and to promote gender equality, human unity and world peace.

Outcome 3:

A “Make Your Gift Work Twice” fundraising campaign will provide a viable new avenue for NGO fundraising and will at the same time incentivize participation in the Gender Crosstalk process.

Describe the immediate realizations generated by the key activities. These are measurable results (100 women leaders trained, 80 public debates held, 1000 copies of report published, etc) Max. 600 characters.

Outputs for Outcome 1:

Each month shortly after the women’s message and the men’s message have been chosen, online and/or in-person meetups will discuss the monthly results as they relate to human unity. Notes from these meetings will be shared online. The 2016 IDP Human Unity Conference will produce a feasible “Roadmap to Human Unity” document. Seventy Crosstalk female participants from developing countries and who have written highly rated Gender Crosstalk messages will be recruited and given a full scholarship to the 2016 IDP Human Unity Conference in San Francisco.

Outputs for Outcome 2:

The Gender Crosstalk monthly participation level will increase exponentially to more than 10,000 by September 21, 2016, and the quality of the two messages selected each month will be consistently generous and intelligent. The winning messages will be sent to UN Women Exec Dir Dr. Mlambo-Ngcuka in hopes she will at some point respond.

Outputs for Outcome 3:

By September 21, 2016, an average of five dollars per participant will be raised each month from NGO members and distributed as points to the Crosstalk participants for redistribution by the same participants to the UN registered NGO of their choice. By the same date, 200 such NGOs will have set up their own page in the Gender Crosstalk website in order to qualify to receive participant points, which translate to income for the NGOs.

Describe the key activities that will be undertaken for each output mentioned above. Max. 1000 characters.

Key Activities

* Outreach via NGOs and social media to bring in participants for the Gender Crosstalk
* Monthly online and in-person discussions of the Gender Crosstalk results with focus on human unity
* Efforts to secure active participation by UN Women Exec Director Dr. Mlambo-Ngcuka
* A three day San Francisco Human Unity Conference for International Day of Peace 2016
* Selection of 70 female Gender Crosstalk participants from developing countries with highly rated messages for Conference scholarships
* Implementation of “Make your Gift Work Twice” in the Gender Crosstalk software

For each outcome, please frame at least two indicators. An indicator is a statement, either qualitative or quantitative, related to some aspect of the outcome, and allows us to directly measure progress towards achieving the outcome. It must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound (SMART). Do not restate an output of the project as an indicator. The indicator must go BEYOND the level of the output/s to actually measure the positive results/impact of the output/s. e.g.: % of indigenous populations aware of their rights under the new electoral administration laws. Max. 400 characters

Performance Indicators for Outcome 1:

* Number of monthly meetups and meetup participants
* Number of women from developing countries who have accepted scholarships
* The feasibility of the Roadmap to Human Unity will be measured by a poll of both Conference and Crosstalk participants before and after the conference.

Performance Indicators for Outcome 2:

* The number of online participants who write messages that receive an average positive approval rating by other participants
* The number of online participants who write messages that receive an average negative approval rating by other participants
* The increase (or decrease) in the number of participants each month

Performance Indicators for Outcome 3:

* Number of NGOs with outreach to their members encouraging Gender Crosstalk participation
* Amount of money distributed each month to NGOs via the Make Your Gift Work Twice campaign

Describe how project results/outcomes will be measured, what measurements will be used (outcome indicators, baseline, targets and monitoring tools) and who will be responsible for measuring them. Max. 500 characters.

Monitoring and Evaluation:

A part-time paid intern will be brought in for M&E. A detailed plan will be produced to monitor and evaluate the Gender Crosstalk, the monthly meetings and the final conference. Pre and post Conference questionnaires will be developed. Monthly Gender Crosstalk results and statistics will be made available online. Likewise results from monthly person-to-person meetings.

Describe how the achievements of the project will be maintained beyond the UNDEF funding period. Max. 300 characters.

Sustainability:

If the Gender Crosstalk takes off as expected and the IDP 2016 Conference produces a feasible roadmap to human unity, then more and more NGOs and citizens from around the world will want to participate going forward, and funding will be easy to find.

Gender Considerations: Addressing gender inequality is a key objective of the project

Explain:

It works two ways. Because gender equality is built into the structure of the project, the global Women’s Movement is expected to be keenly hopeful of success of the project and be the prime early backer. The payoff of success is to enshrine gender equality, the real thing, as a foundational element of the global social contract. The software implements global : national : state : metro levels, so gender equality will be built in at every level from local to global.

Marginalized or Vulnerable Groups: The needs of marginalized or vulnerable groups are taken into account in the project design.

Explain:

The online Gender Crosstalk process enables groups to develop a collective voice. The collective voice of Marginalized and Vulnerable groups will further empower the already strong inclination of these groups to support each other at the global level, thus helping to reduce the conflicts that sometimes occur at the national or local level.

Describe why UNDEF funding is particularly strategic for the proposed project. Max. 300 characters.

Why UNDEF?

The Gender Crosstalk is the application of democracy to the genders, globally, nationally and locally. The Crosstalk capability also applies to the generations, so Youth has a voice too. Women’s issues and Youth issues are high on the agenda for UNDEF. Make Your Gift Work Twice will strengthen NGOs.

Proposed Implementing Partners: United Religions Initiative Multiregion see http://www.urimulti.org.

Budget by type of activity:

Activity 1    IDP 2016 Human Unity Conference
Activity 1 – Amount in US$       $ 215,000
Activity 2   Monthly in person or online meetings
Activity 2 – Amount in US$       $ 15,000
Activity 3   Software Maintenance and Development
Activity 3 – Amount in US$       $ 15,000
Activity 4    Online administration of Gender Crosstalk
Activity 4 – Amount in US$       $ 5,000
Total Project Costs (TPC)       $ 250,000.00

Budget by type of expenditure:

Professional project personnel, administrative personnel and all other staff costs for general project management
Salaries – Amount in US$       $ 5,000
Transportation and per diem (meals and accommodation) for project management team and participants traveling to activities (e.g. workshops or training sessions).
Travel – Amount in US$       $ 190,000
Commercial/consultancy services, translation, providers, etc.
Contractual services/consultants – Amount in US$       $ 16,000
Rental of premises, refreshments, banners, public address systems, interpretation, travel, hotels and meals, resources
Workshops, Meetings, and Seminars – Amount US$       $ 25,000
IT equipment, project support equipment (e.g. TV, radio equipment, printer)
Project Equipment/Hardware – Amount in US$       $ 3,000
Publications, pamphlets, brochures, print media, websites, broadcasts
Outreach – Amount in US$       $ 5,000
Fellowships, Grants,Study tours & others       $ 0
Stationery, communications, postage, insurance, maintenance, utilities
Miscellaneous – Amount in US$       $ 5,000
Certification of reports on the use of funds by an independent auditor/accountant
Audit – Amount in US$       $ 1,000
Total Project Costs (TPC)       $ 250,000.00

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Pan-Africa Program an Example of Excellence by George Wolfe

Posted on November 1, 2014 by admin

Pan-Africa Program an Example of Excellence
by George Wolfe

George Wolfe

Twice this year, Ball State University has hosted an exceptional program for students from African countries to visit and study in the United States. Entitled the “Pan-Africa Youth Leadership Exchange Program,” it is sponsored by Meridian International Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington D. C. that is funded by grants from the U.S. Department of State.

The students stay in the United States for roughly three weeks and are hosted in private homes by families in Muncie, Anderson and other nearby cities. They come from English and French speaking African countries and are mostly from Islamic and Christian families.

According to Nick Sabato, Associate Director of the Center for International Development, Ball State University provides the core academic component for this Pan Africa student exchange. The focus of the workshop is social entrepreneurship and community development, and each participant creates an “action plan” to create lasting change in their local communities. The university was approached directly by the Meridian International Center because of its success with a similar program which brought to the U.S. students from Iraq.

Lecture topics covered during the three-week program include volunteering, the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy, leadership and collective problem-solving, and interactive training in conflict resolution.

For each visit, I have been asked to give a presentation on behalf of the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies entitled “Achieving Harmony between Religious and Ethnic Groups: Strategies for Inter-religious Dialog.” This presentation begins by defining peace, not as a static state or condition, but as an unfolding process. Peace should be viewed as a means to building relationships of cooperation, trust and mutual respect. The focus of these relationships should then be directed toward mediating and addressing social and environmental problems.

As my presentation progresses, I list and explain several common themes and symbols that the great religions share. These themes include humility, charity, forgiveness, pilgrimage, nonviolence, respecting one’s elders and service to the community.

The students are then asked to focus on wisdom teachings, such as the golden rule, that they may have learned from their own faith tradition or from their family elders. I am always amazed at how enthused and insightful these high-school aged students are when speaking about wisdom teachings they have absorbed from their respective cultures.

The leadership emphasis of this Pan-Africa program challenges the students to take back to their home countries ideas for improving their local communities. A short video produced by an interfaith organization known as the United Religions Initiative explains how they can setup interfaith “Cooperation Circles” for the purpose of organizing community efforts to solve local social and environmental problems.

The Pan-Africa Youth Leadership Exchange Program is one of the most educationally beneficial, well organized and worthwhile peace-building efforts I’ve experienced. Ball State University should be commended for its part in bringing this program to East-Central Indiana. For more information, contact Nick Sabato, Center for International Development, 200 Carmichael Hall, Ball State University, 765-285-2678.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus and Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He is also chair of the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and is the author of The Spiritual Power of Nonviolence: Interfaith Understanding for a Future Without War.

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CAN WE HAVE A NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD? By George Wolfe

Posted on November 1, 2014 by admin

CAN WE HAVE A NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD?
By George Wolfe

George Wolfe

On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan proposed a space age defense system that would intercept and destroy ballistic missiles carrying nuclear weapons. His idea was to render nuclear weapons and their delivery systems “impotent and obsolete.” Dubbed as his “Star Wars speech,“ this gave birth to the hope that one day we would have a world free from nuclear weapons.

Five years ago, President Barrack Obama, speaking in Prague on April 5, 2009, issued another call for a nuclear-free world.

President Reagan’s Star Wars defense was hardly foolproof, since it would motivate a country to develop ways to disable satellites equipped with powerful lasers. But it does awaken us to the dangers of having a world where the nuclear arsenals of the United State and Russia are still poised and ready to launch.

The arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the size and power of their nuclear arsenals, became the focus of protests during the Cold War. Both superpowers had deployed enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other ten times over. Referred to as overkill, public momentum was created for a moratorium or freeze to halt the testing, production, and deployment of more weapons, and for the United States and USSR to reduce their arsenals.

Nuclear freeze activists also raised public awareness of the tremendous cost of atomic weapons and the resulting diversion of funds from humanitarian causes to support weapons programs.

Nuclear weapons are offensive weapons of mass destruction. But there is a paradox in that they can serve as a deterrent to pre-emptive invasion or pre-emptive strikes between nuclear powers. This deterrence capability is undoubtedly behind Iran’s and North Korea’s motivation to develop nuclear weapons. Would the United States have launched its pre-emptive invasion of Iraq if Saddam Hussein had possessed nuclear weapons? There is little doubt the answer is “no.”

Then there is the concern that if the current nuclear powers eliminate all their nuclear weapons, they will be vulnerable to rogue countries developing nuclear weaponry and holding the rest of the world hostage to nuclear attack. This is similar to saying, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” While this argument may have merit with regards to small arms weapons, it does not hold up when applied to nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons and their delivery systems require highly sophisticated and expensive technology. With today’s intelligence gathering technology, we are quite able to detect such development well enough in advance to intervene politically, economically or militarily.

There are two overriding reasons today for ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

First and foremost is the possibility that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. This was a major concern of former Republican U.S. Senator Richard Lugar. If a country like Pakistan would fall to an extremist group like ISIS, they could gain access to its nuclear arsenal.

The second reason is that a nuclear exchange could occur by accident.

In a nuclear attack, the missiles, once launched, could reach their target in as little as a half an hour. This creates the necessity for the defending country to respond within thirty minutes or risk losing the ability to launch a retaliatory strike. Referred to as launch on warning, this defense strategy opens the possibility of a false alarm triggering a nuclear war. The nation that believed it was under attack would be prone to launch prematurely if it misread a radar screen or miscalculated the reading on a satellite sensor.

A world free of nuclear weapons is a noble and reachable goal. Because of the growth of terrorism and the risks of an intelligence error, it is in the interest of all nuclear powers to collectively accelerate efforts to create a nuclear-free world.

George Wolfe is Professor Emeritus at Ball State University and former Director and Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. He also chairs the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship, is a trained mediator, and is the author of The Spiritual Power of Nonviolence: Interfaith Understanding for a Future Without War.

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Crowdsourcing the Genders

Posted on October 11, 2014 by admin

Crowdsourcing the Genders
or
How Gender Equality can Save the Planet
by Roger Eaton

The Big Picture

The world, our world, Earth is in trouble, a trouble of our own making. Humanity, by a combination of population growth and an ever more powerful technology, has overstepped Nature’s limits. Civilization as it goes is not sustainable and will collapse, and in the non-linear way of things, all too likely sooner rather than later.

The peaceful transition to a sustainable world requires global trust and cooperation between the nations and religions, and also the active support of the people everywhere. We love our nations and our religions, and won’t give them up, so in this shift to a larger sense of unity, we need to be thinking how we can motivate the nations and religions to be willing partners.

What Does it Mean, Crowdsourcing the Genders?

Gender crowdsourcing is simple: women elect a message to represent their gender and the same for the men. The participating women write “candidate” messages and then rate each other’s messages online. The highest rated message written by a woman and rated by the women is taken as the “voice” of the women. Ditto for the men. Participants determine their gender identity for themselves.

Gender Crosstalk: a Safe Format with Gender Equality Built In

A “Gender Crosstalk” is a particular format for gender crowdsourcing, a format which guarantees gender equality within a greater sense of common humanity.

The Gender Crosstalk format proceeds in rounds from new moon to new moon. Each round, one message is chosen to represent the women and one to represent the men. The participants read and rate messages from both genders. Importantly, the gender of the authors is hidden during the voting. At the end of a round the winning women’s message and the winning men’s message are featured, and the overall winner representing humanity is also available. In each succeeding round of a gender crosstalk, the two gender winners from the previous round are prominently displayed and the participants are invited to respond to those two messages.

A Gender Crosstalk is not a direct back and forth between the genders. The fact that messages are read and rated by both genders gives the participants a choice of perspective. They may respond to either the women’s or the men’s message from the previous round, and they may pitch their message to their own gender or to the opposite gender or to everyone. When they rate the messages, too, they may be thinking in terms of what is best for their gender, but given the setup, they will often be thinking in terms of what is best for humanity. As a result, though the winning messages will represent the genders, they will also represent our common humanity.

The Gender Crosstalk format gives us a fluid bottom-up humanitarian basis for a conscious civilization with gender equality built in to replace the static top-down male dominated nation-state system that is steering the world towards runaway destruction. That is a simplistic picture, to be sure. In fact we are making a lot of progress in a number of ways, and things are not all that static, but as things go, without some kind of transition to an integrated and conscious global culture built on trust between the nations and religions, civilization will collapse.

The Formula for Success

Gender Crosstalk has gender equality built in and the potential to rise above the existing political and cultural divisions at every geographic level. Therefore women particularly, but also men who support the women’s movement, will support crowdsourcing the genders. With such massive backing, an online Gender Crosstalk platform has a real chance to take off.

Crowdsourcing the women will create a powerful voice that transcends the nations and religions and which will naturally support peace, human rights, social justice and sustainability. Unlike the women, the men do not naturally transcend the nations and religions. However, men do share a common humanity, and the crowdsourced voice of men will empower that sense of humanity. Therefore those men who already support our common humanity will join with the men who support the women and with other men personally brought in by the women in their lives to create a powerful crowdsourced voice of men. Together, the voice of women and the voice of men will weave a suspenseful tale of love and wit, capturing the heart and mind of the world.

A Gender Crosstalk will provide a dynamic bottom up source of authority and morale for humanity. It will naturally bring forth a nonviolent global citizens movement (GCM) that will take political control of humanity’s future, and it will do so with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of kindness and intelligence. Love and wit are what we all appreciate, so at the level of humanity only messages reflecting that generosity and understanding have a chance to be selected. As we read these messages month after month, we will come to see the human race as our ally. We will experience a welcome salutary shock and something akin to a conversion experience as we realize that a world where people are respected and take an overall kindly view of each other is within our reach.

Bringing in the Nations and Religions

To this point we have been discussing a global gender crosstalk, but there is no reason we cannot also give a voice to each nation and religion, round by round. Notice, though, that these national and religious voices will be contained within the context of the overall global Gender Crosstalk. Hardline nationalists and religious extremists will have a choice of participating in a process that has a built in edge for humanity, or not having any say at all. In other words, they will be marginalized. This is how we can motivate the nations and religions to be willing partners in the building of global trust and cooperation.

And the Generations and the Issues

Moreover, we can easily break out the discussion by age group as well as gender, giving youth, middle-age (“voice of experience”) and seniors (“voice of wisdom”) their own say in matters. Finally, various issues can also be broken out – such as nuclear disarmament, or climate change.

Technical Feasibility

Crowdsourcing the genders is technically feasible. We have a working prototype in the InterMix Voices of Humanity Software. The prime motivation for getting the Gender Crosstalk in play in a big way is its potential role in promoting gender equality. In keeping with that motivation, we should aim to build a large team of chiefly female volunteer programmers coordinated by a smaller paid staff, also mainly women.

It is easy to sign up and participate in the Gender Crosstalk, and please check out Jeremy Rifkin’s Ted Talk on the Empathic Civilization.

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A Brief Critique on Mass Incarceration by Iris Wang

Posted on October 9, 2014 by admin

America is known as the land of the free. And yet despite making up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, our nation has over 25% of the world prison population. 2.4 million Americans are behind bars. A 2008 study found that one out of every 48 adult working-age men is imprisoned, and since then the statistics have continued to rise steadily.

It wasn’t always this way. At the beginning of the 70s, the average state’s incarceration rate was around 200 per 100,000 individuals. By now, it’s already risen to 700 per 100,000. That’s well over a tripling in less than 45 years.

The reason behind the drastic leap in incarceration rates is not due to a sudden boom in dangerous crime. In fact, since 1993, violent crime in the US has dropped by a half. So why the sudden rise in jailbirds?

The reason can be traced back to the War on Drugs. When President Nixon instituted the strict crackdown, his intention was to reduce drug usage in the US. What his administration did not foresee was the most War on Drug’s most insidious effect – the drastic rise in the prison population.

Evidence supporting this hypothesis is indisputable. Today, nonviolent offenders make up over 60% of the prison and jail population. One out of every four inmates is serving time for a nonviolent drug offense. This is up from less than 10% in the 1970s.

Part of the reason why the US has such a high prison population is because since the institution of the new judicial policies in accordance with the War on Drugs, many relatively minor crimes have been revised to include much longer prison sentences, often with unyielding high minimum sentences without any flexibility for judicial consideration of extenuating circumstances on a case by case basis. In some extreme cases, laws instituted post-1971 have established life sentences for even certain nonviolent crimes.

Cesare Beccaria, the great European philosopher, wrote in his book Crime and Punishment, “For a punishment to be just, it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes. Revisions in recent years have made sentences for offenses such as drug usage and other nonviolent crimes unnecessarily long, almost to an intolerable extent. When sentences are too harsh for the crime, they can have much more adverse effects on inmates than when the sentence is reasonable and offers the opportunity for a new beginning. Once they are released after long periods of incarceration, their physical state, family lives, economic situations, and psychological stability are all highly disrupted and in a state of deterioration. These are not the only victims of an unjust justice system; indirectly, children, families, and entire communities all suffer, which the most tragic result of all. One of the main purposes of incarceration is to protect the general populace from dangerous criminals who pose a serious threat to society, which is why imprisoning violent offenders should theoretically be much more common than nonviolent ones. The irony is that with today’s draconian policies regarding non-violent crimes, the poorly executed attempt to improve society only ends up hurting countless people in the end.

But perhaps the most significant reason for why mass incarceration is such a catastrophe is because it compromises the ideals of democracy that have guided the United States since its founding. Today, the US is, by far, the single democracy with the highest rates of incarceration. As a global leader in today’s modern world, the US sets a poor example for rising democracies and fellow nations.

The outlook of our judicial and prison system is undoubtedly bleak, but progress over time is not impossible. After all, the massive rise of mass incarceration happened in less than half a century. With increased awareness and activism, we can stop and even reverse this trend. We can create change in the years to come – and this time, it’ll be for the better.

Author: Iris Wang
Images: Public

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