Writing the Rules for a New World

New World without fixing Islam ? Zakaria .. you are getting old!

There is a global awareness now on the need to fix Islam - but darkness prevails on the best method - a solution that is simple and sure will evolve from here.Sounds far fetched ? Just consider the peculiar case of 1 million deaths in the Iran Iraq war- this was no Jihad with Kafir and hence all those dead went to hell for no fault of theirs except that they had Saddam as "boss" - in the post Lehman world we all agree that this is very unfortunate & avoidable case of bad leadership , which brought ruin to followers!

On a brighter note - a nuclear attack on middle east from either US or Israel canoot be ruled out at all - it appears to be very central to planners of Islamic life. As all muslims prey 5 times a day for death in jihad and seat in heaven ; this is the most practical way for a benevoilent kafir to delivery a heavenly martyrdom in jihad to all muslims on equal footing.... so that at the Allah's brothel - stock of 72 goats/ martyr can be enjoyed equally by each muslim.

In terms of Islam? Well that is not an American problem. Think about it. The unites states along witht the Bush and Obama regimes have fallen into a trap. A trap setup by the Jewish and Arab intellectuals and war pigs. The main struggle here is between Jews and Arabs with Saudi Arabia having the upper hand at the moment. Christians, do not have a say in this other than the butting into other people's business. Christianity exists in Rome and Western Europe. The US regime is being manipulated on the one hand by Irsral in its attempt to protect its homeland - no argument there and by Arabia proper, or Saudi Arabia in particular trying to kick them out. However they are not in direct confilcit. Enter the banana republick headed byt the Obama regine (U.S) and there you have it - a WAR. Unlike any other war. No Jews are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan nor do you see Saudi Arabians only "poor dumb b*s as General Patton once put it. Yes American GIs are taking the casualties for the rich Saudi Arabian Masters of the new world order. Since the United States has lost these wars, the Latin Americans have started their invasion into the United States to take it over (welfare, foodstamps, etc). All this benefits the Saudi Arabian Kings and not the American people.

I see too much rhetoric about Islam in a lot of these articles, and wonder if this is just an attempt to insinuate the muslim ways into the American society, or just blatantly "claiming" the whole world?
Our problems should not include fanatic sub-humans with idiotic ideals.
We make the rules here, in the United States of America, and no other self-serving country tells us what to do.
We dont need the rest of the world, really.

Agreed,people in Pakistan for esxample are zealously against drone strikes by the United States.everyone is protective and guards their sovereignity.America must not act imperialistically,However with a new administration in the United States Pakistan as well as the Iraqi and Afghani people are waiting for change in American policy.
Globalisation, capitalism is welcome,but not authoritarianism and high handedness.We wish the new American government well as we all need to fight the forces of extremism and fanaticism, islamic and otherwise.

Aaysha Masood
Lahore,Pakistan.

I am a muslim. I was taught by my elders about the great teachings of Islam. After believing in those values for 60 odd years I find that Islam is being preached in different ways by the radical Islamist. History tells us that these are recent interpretation by people taught and funded by Wahabi doctrine. Where were they during the last 1400 years? Islam was and is a religion of peace and beleive all human beings are equal. As can be clearly seen during the Hajj congregration. Today the Wahabi sect has been emboldened with Oil money are trying to re-educate the people in their on interpretaion which goes very much against the spirit of Islam. Today we read and watch on the media people being called Kafirs. Can you think or get anything like that in the history of Islam? I ask these people, has Allah subcontracted you to designate who is Kafir and who is muslim? You have earned nothing but hatred of the muslims all over. All of us including you will be judged by your action in the day of judgement. One thing we know, Allah forbade to create trouble for the mnakind and one killing is as bad as killing the humanity.

The fundamental political problem behind international cooperation to the scale discussed here is simple: how humans identify themselves. We group ourselves into us/them relationships, and we operate according to the various classifications we give ourselves. Think of the now absurd proposition that someone from Virginia would have to choose between being a Virginian and being an American. We've built a system where we do not have to really make this choice. Our identities don't have to be conflicting. Now consider a similar choice between being an American and being a Human, or doing what is best for America even at the expense of the world. Many Americans would probably choose the former without hesitation, and a similar pattern can be seen around the world. This demonstrates the strength of our national identities versus our Human identity.

The essential shift that would be required is identifying strongly with being Human to the degree one identifies with their country. In other words, not just nationalistic pride, but pride in being Human. Consider the question, "Are you proud to be a Human." In just the past 10,000 years or so our species has gone from not understanding how to make fire to building nuclear power plants, from being completely ignorant of medicine to mapping the human genome, from walking everywhere to landing a man on the moon. It wasn't done over night, it required the steady dedication and collective wisdom of the Human species. American notions of the rule of law and democracy weren't created overnight in 1776, they were inspired by philosophical discussions that date back thousands of years. One of the first declarations of Human rights was proposed in 539 BC by a Persian named Cyrus the Great, and today Chinese netizens are discussing what this concept means to them.

The first man on the moon may have been American, but that act has its roots in Chinese fireworks, Italian astronomers, German engineering, and a Russian named Sergey Korolyov who proved to the world in 1957 that we could send objects into space. Put another way, mankind's experimentation, curiosity, innovation, and determination made it possible for one of us to finally land that Great Leap. Think about how vastly improved our standard of living is today than it was 10,000 years ago--that is something all humans should be proud of.

To return to the difficulty of the question, consider another proposal. If you had to choose between your nation's interests and the interests of your family, what would you choose? This is arguably another very easy answer, but you would hope that the society you belong to won't require you to ever make that choice. Thus, the question is simple, "Can we construct an international system that won't require us to choose between being a national and being a Human." Can we form a relationship where we do not need a Them, but only Us.

We are poised on the brink of a new era. Within 25 years, artificial replacements for all human body parts will be available. theoretically, children born after the year 2000 can look forward to a life span of 1000 years (the human brain can last only that long i.e. with healthy living). Unfortunately, climate change threatens to wipe out 90% of humanity in this century (refer to James Lovelock - the prophet of climate change). What we need to do is to bring about democratic world government. Only then can we hope to avoid catstrophe. See www.voteworldgovernment.org for how to go about this.
Raj Shekhar Chandola
rajchandola@gmail.com

When China adopted capitalism many in the West were surprised. To most Westerners, capitalism is the twin of democracy. So how would this work in a non-democratic socialist state? Singapore is not a democratic state but has not only thrived with capitalism but has raised their tiny country into one of the highest per capita nation.

The strangest thing about capitalism is that, by practice, it is the very nemesis of democracy. The reason is that capitalistic practice is autocratic and its leaders are never democratically elected.

The free capital market is a competition of autocratic organisations operating in a 'winner takes all' environment. It is 'free' because there are no encumbrances on how the players conduct their competition and the only objective is winning. .

The capitalistic market is Darwinian; in it the fittest survive. Nature's only rule about survival is to adapt well to the ever changing environment.

Although civilised men believe that all are entitled to equal rights, all creatures are born unequal. It has to do with one???s genes and the environment one lives in.

After the Enlightenment, it became the rule that not only royals have rights but everyone else. Thus was born democracy and the belief that each individual is entitled equally to all that exists in a given society.

How then in any democratic state there exist people who are in abject poverty and ten per cent own as much as 80% of the wealth? The answer is capitalism. Every individual may have equal rights to opportunities but capitalistic practice means that not everyone is avail of the same opportunity.

Democracy, as a philosophy, has the mechanism to give the individual his equal opportunity by redressing the imbalance inherent in the natural world. However if capitalism is given free rein this rebalance is eliminated and society reverts to natural competition.

The idea of government is to create the rules whereby a society is ordered. In Asia, governments mostly do not subscribe to the 'Westminster' model; order rather than individual freedom is paramount. The interest of all precede the individual's interest. And to this is why Asian governments conduct their economies differently and 'free' capitalism is in fact subject to control. This explains, partly why China is least affected by the current financial malaise.

The truth is what actually works best is not 'Laissez Faire' capitalism and democracy. Perhaps the model to adopt is that of Kevin Rudd who yesterday decries the current practice of capitalism and calls for socialist capitalism.

Louis Lim
Australia

I'm all for a new bottom-up democracy for the world - I used to call it a participatory democracy. The Internet is bringing much more political power to ordinary people, and I see politics evolving to greater and more encompassing geographic spheres - where government and law may someday soon address supranational issues like personal justice, war, and environmental degradation. The UN is not the organization to address these global problems, because the UN is not democratic. It is controlled by the victors of World War II. The world is now totally interdependent and with new military, economic and cultural powers entering the world stage - we need a democratic world government and we need it soon.

Finally the message is seeping out into the wider world!

It has seemed peculiar to me, for years now, that governance at the municipal, state (province) and nation-state levels has been democratised in much of the world, but the tier where the stakes are arguably the highest, the supranational tier, is managed by a dysfunctional and deeply undemocratic international system, prone to regular and sometimes catastrophic failure.

The solution is both simple and terrifying, particularly for the convinced nationalist; A democratically elected global parliament. Such a body wouldn't even need hard power to get things done, the legitimacy of a body elected by 3 - 4 billion human beings speaks for itself.

http://se.youtube.com/user/TheModestAgnostic

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"Yet what alternative is there?" you ask? Well, if we face up to the impossibility of nation-states ever cooperating to the extent required, there is the idea of a global referendum (which wuld surely pass strongly) on the option of establishing a democratic world government, an initiative that has already begun online (yes, Internet voting is fraught with problems) and which, if successful online, could lead to a UN resolution for a formal global referendum (see voteworldgovernment.org). Don't bet against it.

Missing the real point. The rest of the world wants to manipulate the USA for their benifit, but adhere to their own restrictions regarding any commerce, tourism, economic sanctions, and basic humanitarianism.
We are wasting our time and effort meddling in other countries affairs, no matter what the issue.
The wild dog will always bite the hand that feeds it. Lets get ourselves squared away first. There is no need for a "world teat" to suckle off of. Besides, rules dont count anymore, we only have untill 2012 so party on dudes!

Say NO to one world government! Consolidation of power into the hands of a few is a recipe for disaster. You will be hearing a lot more of this kind of talk in the days to come. It is the goal of a small group of elites to get you to accept these ideas. Don't buy into any of it.

Fareed, maybe your family's relatively short amount of time in the U.S. allows you to overlook a small detail about our nation's glorious history, OUR FOUNDING FATHERS HATED THE NOTION OF GLOBAL GOVERNMENT OF ANY KIND!! THEY ALSO HATED THE CONCEPT OF NATIONALIZED BANKS CONTROLLING THE SUPPLY AND CREATION OF OUR CURRENCY!! This is the gateway to tyranny and this also tramples on our Constitution. So please, go back to your chickenshyt global elitist masters in the Bildeberg, Council of Foreign Relations and the Club of Rome meetings and tell them to stop trying to infilitrate our media discourse with this One World Government/NWO propaganda. Blood has spilled in this country to prevent this happening before and it will again if necessary. We will not give away our sovereignty to the global banking cartels and oligarchs. Got that?

The author's suggestion that printing money is a tool to be used by government to control the economy or pay its debt shows his ignorance of history. It has been tried over and over again throughout history and it always fails -- 100% of the time. Enormous debt equals economic trouble and war is usually not far behind. In pre-WW2 Germany, a wheelbarrow full of German marks barely had enough purchasing power to buy a loaf of bread. The worst kind of theft is when government steals by printing currency. Are you ready for another world war? Germany tried to print its way out of its WW1 debt and that failed. Money is a medium of exchange, and if you destroy confidence in it, people will flee to another. Printing money is stealing from those who have saved currency, and when they find out they have been robbed, they will rise up.

The author's suggestion that printing money is a tool to be used by government to control the economy or pay its debt shows his ignorance of history. It has been tried over and over again throughout history and it always fails -- 100% of the time. Enormous debt equals economic trouble and war is usually not far behind. In pre-WW2 Germany, a wheelbarrow full of German marks barely had enough purchasing power to buy a loaf of bread. The worst kind of theft is when government steals by printing currency. Are you ready for another world war? Germany tried to print its way out of its WW1 debt and that failed. Money is a medium of exchange, and if you destroy confidence in it, people will flee to another. Printing money is stealing from those who have saved currency, and when they find out they have been robbed, they will rise up.