VICTORIAN HUMANIST

There is a bitter irony in the recent outrage by the US as a result of the S11 bombing, generally unrecognised by the sycophantic saturation in the local media for weeks on end and the heinous crimes against humanity in part documented by Geoffrey Robertson, Christopher Hitchens, Noam Chomsky, Richard Neville, Prof George Monbiot and John Pilger. Gerrand rightly covers two of the more recent examples of military feudalism, Somalia and Iraq. Others are not spoken of by states not wanting to incur the wrath of economic sanctions like Argentina. It is this weapon that is its most powerful deterrent and therefore unlikely to receive unfavourable attention in the major organs of the media.

There are however encouraging signs of the characteristics necessary as a foundation for the World Government. They have been culled from Michel Chossudovsky, Michael Rowbotham, Arthur MacEwan, Will Hutton and Anthony Giddens, and our own Duncan Kerr. They are as follows:-

1. Debt reduction and/or forgiveness for the poorest of nations and allowing enhancement of broad-based domestic development and social programmes of education, health, land reform and welfare.
2. The enforceable protection of core human and labour rights in trade and investment agreements.
3. Reduction of financial volatility, including capital controls, a tax on international securities transfers (Tobin tax) to finance the UN and an end to bail-outs that pay off private creditors and leave poor nations saddled with debts they cannot pay back, coupled with an anti-tax evasion strategy- Financial Action Task Force (FATF) - and to reduce money-laundering from drugs and arms.
4. A new system of international democracy and accountability, leading to an elected second chamber for a revitalised United Nations, using the European Union as the first system of international democracy as the model.
5. A World Financial Authority that regulates financial markets and oversees the adequacy of the balance sheets of international financial institutions, with the World Central Bank as the lender of last resort.
6. A Global Environment Protection Agency giving the poorer nations a chance at sustainable agriculture and a mandate to reduce pollution and global warming.
7. A World Competition Authority which will contest the domination of the cultural market by half a dozen private broadcasters and publishers.
8. Foster the evolution of transnational political groupings.
9. Democratically pre-select leaders of key international bodies-- such as secretary-general of the UN, heads of WTO, IMF, World Bank, UNESCO or secretary-general of the European Union.

The United Nations Electoral Commission would need to supervise these elections - otherwise the world would have to witness a corruption of that process similar to that that allowed Bush Junior to be elected.

LATE MOTIONS for the CAHS Convention 2002 from the HSNSW

To be discussed 10 March Discussion Group

1. That CAHS calls on all Australian State Departments of Corrective Services to accept Humanist Society Secular Chaplains as having equal visiting rights to prisons as do religious chaplains.
2. That CAHS calls on Australian Governments to promote co-operatives as a means of facilitating community control of service provision and economic activity.
3. That CAHS calls on the Australian Government to extend the provisions of Section 120 (1)(B) of the Income Tax Assessment Act of 1933 to cooperatives other than those engaged in primary production.
   Rationale:
   This provision currently allows cooperatives involved in agricultural production to deduct capital as well as interest on money borrowed from government prior to assessment for taxation purposes.
4. That CAHS calls on Federal and State Governments to lend money at low interest to disadvantaged community groups to form cooperatives for housing purposes.