Obama’s speech, world peace, and income security
Obama’s Speech, World Peace, and Income Security
Obama’s speech yesterday in Cairo is receiving enormous attention around the world, and that makes sense. Here’s the conclusion:
The Holy Koran tells us: “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”
The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”
The Holy Bible tells us: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.
A practical path to peace is to start with income security for all. It’s easy to understand how and why that is so.
From my perspective, the major obstacles to world peace are habitual ideas and attitudes, particularly the conventional practice of thinking in terms of abstractions, such as “war,” “peace,” “terrorism,” and “the economy.”
Instead of abstractions, the way thinking at the core of income security for all starts with individuals and our everyday lives.
Imagine that everyone in, say, Palestine has a guaranteed basic income, enough for food and shelter.
Ordinary Palestinians have never known economic security, no matter who governed their territory, Turkey, Great Britain, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, or the Palestinian Authority. There have been reports for years that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, inefficient, ineffectual; that was the main reason for the emergence of Hamas. About half of the 4.1 million Palestinians live below the regional poverty line of $2 a day. Unemployment is more than 40 percent overall, more than 60 percent in some areas.
Suppose the international community offered to provide the funds and help the Palestinians establish their own version of Citizen Dividends. Just $3 billion a year would double the incomes of the poorest. Every Palestinian would have a more direct stake in seeking peace, ending terrorism, and remaking the Palestinian Authority into an effective government that can negotiate with Israel. The plight of the Palestinians will no longer be a rallying point for Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and other enemies of Israel, including Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Moderate voices might finally be heard over the shouting of militants and fundamentalists.
A few billion dollars a year. That’s a lot less than current international aid to the region. It’s less, in fact, than the current aid that pays for weapons.
Does this make sense? Could it work, do you think? Have you heard anything else that might lead to peace in the Middle East?
The complete proposal, the benefits, and the plan to make it happen is in my book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.
A lot of additional information about Citizen Dividends is on this web site, IncomeSecurityForAll.org.
Please explore the web site, read the book, and help spread the word.
We can achieve world peace, and we will, when We the People demand it.
Steven Shafarman
Tags: Barack Obama, Middle East, other countries, peace