CHALLENGE

Earth Trustee World View (4)

A CHALLENGE TO
DOLE AND CLINTON
By the founder of Earth Day, John McConnell

Senator Dole and President Clinton both believe the approaching new millennium can provide a great uplifting agenda for America and the world.

But then, each in their own way, go back to the old divisive arguments for a better future. Instead of a look at the basic causes of our problems, they discuss alternative treatments for the symptoms.

It is obvious that we need to look for a new agenda that will recognize the successes and failures of the past and structure the future on a sound basis of rights and responsibilities in the human adventure.

We now have a window of opportunity. Ignorance and shortsighted choices in this millennium have partitioned and dangerously polluted our planet. But we now have the information and technology that rightly used can provide an epoch of prosperity and opportunity to realize human aspirations.

We now know that this miracle planet has all the raw materials and natural resources needed for a good life by the whole human family. But to accomplish this requires a new vision, a change of attitude from exploitation to conservation.

To bring this about we need an effort equal to World War II. Our globe is covered with the results of our folly. There is appalling pollution in land, sea and air; millions of land mines and waste sites; crowded slums, violence, hunger and despair.

This will require a moral equivalent of war. Instead of destroying men, women and children, we will destroy poverty, pollution and the will to violence.

The way to success is to recognize that actions good or bad begin in the mind. Let leaders and laymen, with the help of mass media, seize the idea that we are all Trustees of Planet Earth, and must seek, each in our own way, to make choices in ecology, economics and ethics, that will provide long term benefits to people and planet.

This vision of life and its purpose will appeal to the best in every creed and culture. It will deepen our sense of belonging to one human family, without compromising our separate beliefs about the mysteries of life.

If we look at our economic crisis as Earth Trustees we may see new solutions to our problems. For example, equal rights to the natural planet (the land -- without improvements, gold, oil, etc. No person made any of them.) entitles every human, including the disinherited poor, to some compensation for their claim,. Rights to their inheritance should not be limited to the children of the rich.

A simple way to provide justice in this matter would be to have everyone pay two percent (2%) each year on the value of their assets in land or raw materials --less improvements. This would go equally to everyone. Indigent or disabled people would need the help of local institutions -- Red Cross, service clubs, churches, etc. in managing their new inheritance. But this would promote better attitudes of responsibility and function with far less bureaucracy and waste than our present welfare system.

The industrial machine that on short notice can provide billions of dollars of instruments of death would instead provide homes, equipment, education and work for new interactive villages . A new human breed will emerge on our planet: Earth Trustees!

Along with this, action should be taken to eliminate the problem of power and its misuse in the market place. A first step would be to eliminate the present trillion dollar debt This can easily be done with the stroke of a pen.

A resolution in Congress is needed that will enable the United States Treasury to act as a corporation and issue stock, which will replace all bonds and other government obligations. This would immediately convert the debt to an asset. Stockholders would be paid -- not interest, but dividends. And the evils of compound interest would be eliminated. The dividends would depend on the growth of the GNP and result in purchasing power increase as production increased.

Many other changes would follow as our new open society with its democratic internet made us aware of economic structures (Stock Market, etc.) that reward power instead of service. There would be new methods of economic reward for action in production and marketing that followed Earth Trustee policies.

The Earth Trustee vision, policies and agenda is now on the World Wide Web: www.earthsite.org. There you will find "The Earth Magna Charta" which George Gallup, Jr. says "...should be the rallying cry for the people on our planet."

Let Bob Dole and Bill Clinton both affirm the Earth Trustee vision and show how their agenda will accomplish its purpose. Here is a choice the American people will welcome. The voters who regret Senator Dole's stand on tobacco and also President Clinton's views on sex and abortion, can turn their attention to the vital issues that will decide whether we have a future in which to work out our differences.

Then we can come together behind the winner -- aware of our differences but inspired by the power of the truths we all support. With appreciation of the past and a clear vision of the future we will then see America lead the world into a new millennium of hope for our planet.

888 Sept. 1, 1996

John McConnell
The Founder of Earth Day
http://www.earthsite.org