The Humanist 1000 Summers
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| 's get to Lund, at least, tonight.” she cautioned.
For the next two hours they cruised through a light chop in the open waters of the Salish Sea, then turned in behind Texada Island for a protected run of 10 km over flat water, as the strong breeze from daytime heating began to die down. She went below for two more beers and passed Evan the hand-held control for the autopilot. She retrieved a fresh rag soaked in paint thinner, scrubbing the last of the antifouling paint from among her fingers and forearms. "We've got antifouling on the wheel and seat, you'd better clean up. Here’s your clothes." Evan stood up, still steering and removed his shirt and stained socks. Marnie looked at his matted black hair and tried to scrub some equally black paint out of it. “The paint soaked right through the back of your shirt," she scolded him, like the boy that he was. "You're poisoning yourself. Let's set this on auto pilot and clean that off.” She began dabbing at the paint on his on his back, and the cool solvent evaporating made him shudder. As she continued to dig the paint out from among his sculpted muscles she noted some movement and swelling in his old fisherman's pants. "Better take those off too,” she said. Evan looked around in mock puzzlement over the adjoining waters, bereft of any vessels, smiled and removed the balance of his clothing. "Woohoo! Let’s get naked!” she exulted. 28. Orders Curt Leeman had decided that the Supreme Commander's orders were to be obeyed, and he toed the line as best he could during the storm of controversy around the disarmament proposals, inasmuch as they affected the United States. Incessant calls by the media, the Christian right and the denizens of every red state in the union - demanding that he resist their government's acquiescence to the UN directives - had been ignored. At the same time he had done nothing to accelerate the process, just ‘standing easy’ as the President had directed him, and now, at a meeting before the full Joint Chiefs of Staff he would once again leave it to others to find some exit from all of this. The meeting was held in-camera at the White House, and while the President was not in attendance, he was available for consultation should that be required. As the Defense Secretary, Leeman began the meeting by reviewing the compliance activities of the Europeans and Japanese, amid speculation as to what the Russians and Chinese were up to. "And I do know that the UN this week has agreed to reserve the canton options for another year unless there is a persistent application around conclusive genetic surveys - I think the only one open like that is in Serbia and maybe one more in Spain. The North African ones are peacekeeping situations, and Tibet will probably be dealt with in the next three months, that's when the Chinese request, to put all of this off for a few years, is to be addressed. Those were the triggers for this canton idea in the first place. I am advised that it is an ad hoc mechanism for resolving internal issues and will not be applicable otherwise. So we don't have to be concerned about the physical dissolution of this country for another year, if you need something to cheer yourself up with today." The Chiefs of the military services around the table had no comment, sensing that they were on treacherous ground. To say anything was to possibly misjudge the wind direction and risk treason against the armed forces they had spent their entire careers in. Like the decade-long dust bowl ordeal of the 1930’s, each man had hoped the situation before them would just go away. But it had not. General Pattison spoke up and suggested that it might make more sense to bring in the President for his thoughts on what they might do regarding the disarmament schedule. Leeman typed the request into the computer before him, and agreed that it wasn’t up to the military to be proceeding unilaterally or rudderless on a matter like this. He directed an adjutant to inquire about the possibility of the President dropping in on their meeting, and then summarized his position. "I agree that it's improper for us to be sitting here deciding how to scrap our nation's armed forces and its defense industries, without a civilian component in that decision. I'm aware that Congress has approved beforehand any actions we might take here, but I think I speak for all of us in that I'm not comfortable in doing that. And I don't think that's insubordination, with all due respect. I'm seeing here on the computer - yes - that the President will join us if we reconvene at 1400 hrs. So let's continue this after lunch and see what we can put together at that time. Maybe we can get a handle on this today." President Obama headed for the two o'clock meeting knowing that these Pentagon officials wanted the dirty business of dismantling the American military infrastructure to be seen to be coming from his office and auspices, not theirs. Some may have been hoping that he’d be at best a lame-duck President his last year, and then someone more sympathetic to the military might replace him. Be that as it may, he would take this opportunity to introduce a new wrinkle. The meeting convened at 1400 hrs with the President sitting alongside Leeman at the table. The joint Chiefs were dog-faced but solicitous as they awaited the comments of the President; this was not going to be a happy occasion in their estimation. Each felt like a new incarnation of Benedict Arnold toward their branch of the services, and they held out little hope of Obama changing course, as he soon confirmed. "Yesterday, and again an hour ago I was in negotiations with Mr. Ban around this question of our country’s compliance with the disarmament accords. He asked me to understand that all the eyes of the world are watching what we, the Russians, Israel, India and China are going to do here, to what degree and on what schedule. Congress has approved this, the politicians have cooked this stew, and there's really not much for us to decide on, as you gentlemen have no doubt discovered. But I did broach an idea with Mr. Ban that he was willing to support, provided that our disarmament schedule remains unchanged as an example to the other parties - which I then agreed to." The demeanor of his generals grew ever blacker with this update, and they shifted in their chairs as they listened to the President's explanation. "The UN insists that all nuclear-capable weapons and delivery systems must be removed from their sites, scrapped, and then verified independently - period. I couldn't move them off that, I don't think it's practical to reopen this - the boycott is about nukes and can end next month if we comply, and it's my responsibility to make every effort to exit this depression, because that’s what it is to us. What I proposed to them - to Mr. Ban - is that the US bases be the main sites where the UN stations and maintains their military personnel, conventional weapons and peacekeeping resources, for the Western Hemisphere and Pacific islands, after he clarified that the UN presence in NYC was going to be maintained. So I want you to identify for me which ships we have that can be converted to peacetime or peacekeeping use – mostly refugee relief and supply delivery. Same for the Air Force, we are keeping all air transport infrastructure, and the Army – where do we want to house the twenty percent overall of the UN personnel component we are allowed for the next five years?” Admiral Burnley looked across at General Pattison with a quizzical expression on his face that said “Can you believe this?” that was in sequence echoed in the silence of the other three. Obama saw this and wondered to himself if this was how Capt. Bligh’s last meeting with his officers went… “This is preliminary, boys, nothing in stone yet, but understand that this nation is bankrupt and jobless and the days of military dominance for us are over. We’re going to get out from under this boycott, out of this de facto depression, and see this country learn the value of being competitive again. I’ll expect your reports on these vessel and aircraft allocations to be on my desk in one week, and then we’ll do some short-listing from there. We’ll meet again at the same time next week unless otherwise advised.” With that the President rose from the table with a clouded look on his face too. The Generals stood and saluted him as he walked from the room. There was silence around the table as the remaining men shuffled and collected up their papers, then filed out in silence. 29. For Pete The main lecture Hall at Amsterdam University was already full at 8:15am on Saturday morning as the Humanist Union's eight board members took their seats on the stage. The amphitheater seated 3500 people, most of the delegates being web discussion leaders from around the globe and European university types, along with a sizable contingent from the Internet media. The anticipatory roar of animated conversation was palpable above the background folk and world music. The banner at the back of the stage displayed "Humanist Union 4th Anniversary AGM” and beneath it an enormous photograph of Earth from space with the theme 1000 Summers! across it. Bent Jespersen walked up to the lectern, waited for the crowd noise to abate, and then welcomed everyone to Amsterdam and the AGM. He said a few words in Dutch to the effect that for practical purposes the balance of the proceedings that week would proceed in English, but was available via Google in five languages within ten seconds via speech recognition, and he requested that delegates plug in the provided ear buds if they wished to access the translations during the proceedings. Turn all cellphones off, please. He introduced May Biersten, Tsuyoshi Yamanaka and Allan Boehm as committee members, to strong applause, and then summarized the notable events that had occurred since their AGM in Rotterdam a year before. "Events do not usually move with the speed we are seeing." he began. "When we consider the sudden arrival of the United Nations to its rightful station in human governance, this abnegation of militarism and its war mentality that has hunted our species for too long, and above all the coming together of humanity that we see evidenced in organizations such as our own - all of you in this building today have a front row seat to watch history in the making." He raised his hand to allay any applause. "The theme for our meeting this year is taken from Martin McGlade's game-changing book ‘1000 Summers’ of course, which has caught the imagination of us all. The idea that the time has come to take stock of where our species is, where we live and where we are going, while accepting each other and the planet into our personal care - that is humanism. We all recognize how precious and fragile this moment may yet prove to be, and I thank you on behalf of our organization for your endorsement of this gentle crusade. For those of you who are curious regarding the folk music and the banjo icons throughout this convention today, we are honoring someone no longer with us, who many years ago should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - Mr. Pete Seeger. We are announcing at this time that we are commissioning the Seeger Prize to be awarded in his memory each year for contributions to world humanism.” He reached under the lectern and held aloft a small crystal banjo. “As you can see, this award is delicate and easily broken – in keeping with the first winner’s precious gift to humanity. The first recipient is the woman who broke the military monopoly that had enslaved our species for a 1000 winters - Ms. May Biersten!" The crowd had not fully recognized the frail older woman sitting quietly at the board table, and they exploded in acclamation. Standing, waving, blowing kisses, the cheering and whistling drowned out the thunderous ovation itself. It was a fitting acknowledgment of the most influential activist in the world. Biersten arose gingerly from her seat to come forward and accept the prize. She looked at it lovingly, murmured “...this is for you, Pete, you dear soul,” kissed it and placed it on the lectern. "Pete Seeger exemplifies for me how individual humanists who, like me, never realizing I was one, can nonetheless preserve and embroider our collective fabric - he used his intellectual and artistic abilities courageously to change this world around us. He created an ethos for sixty years that was a lifeboat for the progressive influences of the 1930s onwards. He kept them afloat right up into the present, and as a musician he handed us our anthems almost as an afterthought. We shall indeed overcome! Homage to you, Pete, we shall try not to disappoint you.” Now it was Biersten who was shedding a tear. "Why is it," she asked "that some of the most obvious things in this world and in our lives are so hard to achieve? Why has peace been so elusive, where does religious intolerance come from, how can a species so paramount with its powers of reason have reduced itself to such poverty and corruption? We must thank Pete Seeger for keeping some flame of compassion alive for three generations, while the rest of us worked to keep our ticky-tacky houses in order. Let me leave you with these thoughts regarding the challenges that face us in the upcoming years.” She accepted a glass of water and peered out at her audience determinedly. "Our battle with the military cartels on this planet has begun in earnest, and we cannot rest on our laurels and presuppose that your support for our cause is all that will be needed for it to come to fruition. Quite the opposite. National governments, their military controllers, the press and media continue to view us as a fleeting fad or worse, and they are waiting for the UN to fall on its face. We cannot allow that to happen, we must maintain our momentum, and I would like to broach to you an idea today, in honor of Pete, to initiate immediately an application in international law that would make the manufacture of any war materiel on this planet illegal.” The noise level began to rise again as she tried to make one last comment. "Reject militarism! Boycott weapons and war industries. Forsake arms! Never forget what they have done to us for a thousand years. Thank you all!" The crowd was energized by the acidity in her remarks, and exploded some seconds later with another ovation buoyed by exuberant youth, as she returned to her seat at the board table. It was informative of itself to have seen her resentment of militarism so patently displayed, and McGlade decided to begin his address to the delegates where Biersten had left off. Bent introduced him to more cheering, and he waited patiently until he could again hear himself think. “Ms. Biersten was being rhetorical," he joked with the crowd "we're pacifists remember, certainly Pete Seeger was, so please don't off any soldiers until further notice. Instead, let's consider May’s legal proposal - can we successfully bring that argument before The Hague in the coming years, and what obstacles might we face? As you know the United Nations benefited greatly from the decision by the US Supreme Court to allow its citizens to forsake arms and, as an alternative, to directly support world government. Most countries have followed suit in some fashion, yet the contributions of their citizens are still seen as ‘defense’ remittances - they continue to characterize humanity as somehow needing to waste our bounty on arms against each other. That's wrong - we have to simply pay taxes to the UN as we have to sovereign nations, without earmarking them for military purposes. The best way to do that is to take the approach that Ms. Biersten has used so effectively and get right to the heart of the matter - make it flat out illegal to manufacture weapons of any sort - to outlaw instruments, processes and organizations whose only purpose is to injure or murder other human beings. Until we can extricate this unbearable cancer from our midst, we shall always be trapped in this vampire society. Heraclitus warned us that “Man’s character is his fate,” and Salman Rushdie maintained that “Our lives teach us who we are,” so we know what we have to do. With that I congratulate Ms. Biersten, for a revolution that is as fragile as that little glass banjo that she so richly has earned. And may it be as enduring as our debt to Pete Seeger for his faith in our own kind.” He waited out the crowd’s approval of his comments then held up the brochure that had been left on the delegates’ seats outlining the AGM's agenda under its theme ‘1000 Summers’. "We're going to do something different here, in that we're discussing the next edition of ‘1000 Summers’ with you, our membership, and leaving the more prosaic agenda items such as fundraising and housekeeping for tomorrow. We shall also be having the board election then, please take that into account, so without further ado I would like to outline for you how we intend as an organization to turn ‘1000 Summers’ from a concept into reality.” He changed the projected graphics backing the stage to images of wilderness and agriculture. “Can we ‘popularize’, for lack of a better word, the notion of a sustainable earth for ten centuries, a period not of growth, but of optimization? Dedicated to values of love, labor and life’s treasure, where war and poverty are eliminated once and for all, the weak defended, the old honored and innovators rewarded, as we realize our true paradise on Earth. We are here today because we know this dream is not naively utopian, it lies within our grasp but it will not lay there forever.” He was gratified by the rapt attention his words were being given, and took the opportunity to summarize his perspective. “As May has suggested, let's forget about war and weaponry to start with - that will always be our central cause as humanists, we cannot tolerate those intrusions into our species governance - enough already. But there are other directions that are promising. Buckminster Fuller pointed out for me, while I was a young student in a university lecture hall just like this one, that industrial societies tend to have far fewer children, and consequently declining populations. As we support women in every facet of our societies around the globe, we must hope that families will come down in size to the point that our population eventually becomes a fraction of what it is today, and in balance with the sustainable resources available on earth. We’ll continue with our struggle against global heating in the meantime, and must remain aware that our atmosphere is compromised by threats coming from many directions, particularly from deposited methane. We are very privileged today to introduce to our board Mr. Tsuyoshi Yamanaka, the architect of nuclear fusion control, whose gift promises to relieve us from our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels. He will now offer you a few words." Yamanaka was clearly not comfortable speaking to a large lecture hall, in English, but he took some time to gather himself until the boisterous accolades that were afforded him by the young crowd attenuated. “I should first correct Martin’s statement that I am the architect of - what was that? - nuclear fusion control? Perhaps, but we scientists have been working on that for many decades and we continue to do so. What I did was make a simple observation that the superposition quantum states of atomic nuclei are mathematically in step with the iterations found in fractal geometry or chaos theory, giving us the opportunity to use a logical container instead of a physical or magnetic one. Like a digital stepper motor, the control this affords is near-absolute, at least in theory and you can adapt it to real-time processes, such as allowing fuel for the fusion reaction to be activated in minute amounts." He felt more at ease now that he was discussing his technology directly, although he did wish he was speaking to a mathematics symposium. Nevertheless the number of non-English speakers in the audience gave him some confidence that his English was no worse than theirs. His California years stood him in good stead. "Ever since the successful tests at the ignition facility at Livermore, we have known that we could light the fusion fire with lasers. The work at ITER demonstrated that we could contain a reaction magnetically in practical terms. We know that mathematics and computers can ‘spoon feed’, as my American friends say, this clean source of energy and I'm very pleased that we have prototype reactors successfully running in Japan and in Saudi Arabia. What remains is the challenge of ramping them up to larger reactions, which is somewhat different from controlling it - for the past five decades we've been trying to control the reaction, to enable it really, using Tokomak toroids and magnetic belts and we realize that we only have to use that group of technologies for the reactor basins. We have sufficient input control that the reaction can cease in a millisecond, if needed or if contingencies arise. But I don't want to bore you with such details, which you can glean from the many news reports around our efforts in these challenges. I believe it is a straightforward matter of progressively building larger and larger reactors as we gain confidence in our containment facilities.” He was comfortable relating some observations by the Japanese. “I'm grateful that nuclear power has at last come to be seen as a friend of mankind and not as the destroyer of worlds that Oppenheimer feared. Early nuclear fission was indeed a dangerous and polluting activity, I have heard the Japanese describe that era as similar to a two-year-old boy walking around with a full diaper," he laughed "and I can tell you right now they characterize this era as a teenage boy that is rather full of himself. Indeed we are growing to manhood in the field of energy sourcing, control and production and I'm looking forward to our species managing the remaining fossil fuels as legacy materials for biodegradable plastics and chemical substrates. Those raw materials may prove invaluable toward real sustainability, for our next 1000 summers.” He paused to look at his notes, relieved that his stage fright had abated once he got into his subject matter. “Some say that the skies have parted, that the CO2 and pollution clouds will be clearing, that our species has caught lightning in a bottle - all colorful ways of saying that we are of course demigods from the perspective of all our sister species on earth, and from the viewpoint of our own painstaking history. True, of course, but this can be threatened and reversed if we as humanists do not stand up for our species per se, for our planet, to organize and enrich our lives, and - as Martin put it so nicely in his book - to hold open life's window. I know many of you are still uncomfortable with talk of immortality, but I am not, and I believe there are an increasing number of us who envision humanism - Martin's inclusive humanism – as an equally revolutionary social mechanism that will join us as brothers and sisters forever. I believe Mr. Roy Kurtz will address you later this afternoon, regarding the Transhumanist idea that a ‘singularity’ is approaching that could threaten our very humanness. As a mathematical scientist I think there is a strong likelihood that Mr. Kurtz's characterizations of cyborgs - rather unwholesome alliances between computers and some humans - will itself become a threat to us all just as militarism has been. This singularity threat is one more indicator that our window of opportunity is closing. Let me be the first here to throw my support behind him; this is a grave matter and it obligates us as humanists and species critics to respect this danger for what it is, and to provide for dealing with it not atavistically, but rather as good parents would, who are looking out for future generations. Thank you for allowing me to speak with you and thank you all for humanism - a sensibility at last for all of mankind." The little Japanese superstar of the energy industry looked up from his reading, and bowed repeatedly before the clapping throng. The sense of solidarity in the lecture Hall brought emotion to a thousand unashamed faces. Here was the camaraderie of communism without the authoritarianism, the fellowship of religion without the supernatural silliness. Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2015 2015 -> Police Militarization 2015 -> 2015 ihbb championships: hs history Bowl Round 4 – Prelims First Quarter 2015 -> Wrtp/big step · 3841 W. 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