Our Society, Our Planet

1. PREAMBLE

As the reader, you will soon find out this could be classified as a rather unusual book.

It’s a story … yes … all chapters are an important part of the ‘whole’ … yet one can easily jump to any chapter of interest as an entity, and return to where one left off.

Most of the text is spaced for two reasons: one is that some statement stands out much more clearly and can much more easily be found and referred back to; and secondly one can more easily make notes where one needs to make any comments in just that part of the text.

It’s important, as you’ll find out, that every ordinary citizen pretty soon will (or should) have a far more direct influence on the running of all our societies around the world than now is the case with Political Parties … this, of course, well and truly beyond my time …

I see this as an absolute necessity as it would be clear to everyone that we can’t possibly keep on to produce more and more people, in developing and particularly in under developed countries.

The reader will also find that certain short parts or sentences have been repeated in other parts of the text; this to make sense in just that part rather than having to refer back to some page elsewhere in the text.

It’s also hoped that, in the new system, far more women will be able to positively contribute to society’s development, as it is for young people in later Secondary Schools and University students … male and female!

Any communication that you may wish to enter into can be sent to this address:

oursociety@ventthomas.com

I’m certainly looking forward to your comments and possible solutions for special problems in our society that are important to you specifically!

Maybe it’s prudent to first introduce myself. My name is George Thomas, born 1922, in the former Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.

Called into the armed services when Japan started the war in the East, I was caught in the mountains of the island of Java and consequently interned in Japanese concentration camps for four years during which I saw a good deal of the Pacific Islands. I ended up working on the railway the Japanese were building through the island of Sumatra from Pakanbaru. This until the end of the war.

Back for a few months in the army on Sumatra before I was considered unfit for further military service. I was demobilised and went back to Holland where I received an interest free loan from the Government, enrolled in the Academy of Arts and started my studies in Interior Architecture and Design, a five year full time course. Not having many cents to my name, I was allowed to do the first three years in two years.

The fourth year, being a practical year, I was lucky enough to be able to do in Sweden, which at that time (and still) ranks among the world’s top design countries. This was made possible thanks to the wonderful personal help of the Swedish Ambassador to the Netherlands, Mr. de Lagerberg.

I am very much indebted to Mr. de Lagerberg who, without my knowledge, organised contacts with the equivalent education institution in Sweden. And this proved to become the major reason for my future development.

Whilst in Sweden I was offered a scholarship to finish my studies in the final year of the Swedish Design Institution in Gothenburg, which I of course gratefully accepted. I was then lucky enough to straight away get a good job. Contacting the Academy in Holland for approval to do my final year from Sweden, coming back for any exams, was refused.

So, at 26 having my first job, I decided to stay in Sweden. (I don’t call the time in the army having to kill good people I didn’t even know, as a job).

This book OUR SOCIETY - OUR PLANET is not necessarily a story that needs to be read from beginning to end; the reader can choose to go to any chapter of interest at any time.

I have some difficulty with the order of the different chapters; alphabetically - order of importance - any other possible order? Everyone could have their own preference and everyone’s choice could be perfectly acceptable. The order in which they here appear is, for what it’s worth, my choice … and I’m even not certain as they all are of about equal importance.

This is really because all Chapter subjects and all topics, i.e. the few samples of intolerable situations I describe, are all closely interconnected. And they, in some way, all basically have their origin in our Laws of today.

Or, were necessary, laws are still completely ignored by politicians and lawmakers.

This leads to the logical conclusion that, in my opinion, some of our Laws need to be changed or discarded and that a number of new Laws need to be established.

And this then, in turn, leads to the conclusion that certain institutions may have to be changed, reduced in importance or abolished and new ones have to be introduced.

I’m expressing my deep concern about the future of our societies on this ‘our’ planet.

I have noticed the accelerating decline in some values, not only in my own country Australia, but generally in many of our so called developed countries.

There is such an uneven, unbalanced situation between some small and large groups, privileged and less privileged, within one country as well as between countries. This can, and does, create some highly unacceptable conditions which are consciously allowed to exist by a small group of people with the full knowledge of the great injustices to millions of people who do not belong to the so called ‘elite’.

It is about the injustices and, in some cases, the criminal behaviour of small groups of people who have the power and economic might to influence governments and other institutions to leave legal possibilities open for them to behave and do the things their way with hardly any restrictions.

In amongst all the real ‘good’ that undoubtedly exists specially in the developed countries there is, regrettably, a little ‘bad’ and some ‘real bad’. And as always, it is so unfortunate that just a little ‘bad’ can cause such enormous damage and suffering to thousands of people right around the world. It’s like one drop of poison that can make thousands of litres of good drinking water totally undrinkable.

It is therefore the injustices I shall discuss and hopefully I shall be able, with your help, to suggest necessary changes to effectively and permanently improve conditions for millions of people around the world.

I must emphasise ‘with your help’ because it is you and I, every single one of us, who must become involved personally. In theory this should happen through the (political) people we vote for to form a government, but we know that this has been proven, in some important cases, not to be so.

The best (or worst) example lately was the invasion and war against that small and militarily weak country Iraq. And ‘we’ here means those thee countries of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, the US, England and Australia, of which at least two of those can he considered to be among the militarily strongest in the world …

Basically the changes should come down to simply ‘give and take’; it is the ‘give’ part, the introduction of new ways, that will prove to be the great stumbling block.

For all that, it will not only be about injustices in our societies; there is these days much to be discussed about the way we have behaved towards our planet.

Most of us, around the world, generally seem to agree that something must be done about, say, ‘global warming’ … certainly … and we are still talking rather than acting.

The following chapters and the few samples would, at least partly, cover the areas which need to be looked at critically in order to remedy some of the injustices we have created.

It shall become clear that those injustices and the way we have been (and still are) treating this planet we live on, are closely related. There then remains those problems between countries; they too have to be considered carefully.

No matter how vital it is to eradicate small and serious injustices in our different societies of today, there are most probably more important future issues, that could become apparent in one or two generations.

Our studies, paired with logic thinking, will certainly show in what general direction our work today should progress … that is … only in my opinion.

Issues like the need to realise that by now many of our ‘societies’ are already getting closer together. It is as if different countries form something like several suburbs in a large city. Suburbs of families that are completely independent yet that are closely bound together by many common interests.

The European Union (EU) is already some example and I foresee that this concept is bound to intensify, not only between developed countries but also between industrial, developing and under-developed countries (particularly the latter ones). And we know that even the EU still has problems to overcome.

Therefore, some of the drastic changes that are necessary cannot be introduced in the short time of a couple of decades. It will take time and, of course, in the meantime much of the present state of affairs will continue. In fact, one can almost be certain that new injustices could be established by some mighty groups to counteract any changes that would encroach on their hegemony and this, as we shall see, is just about inevitable.

It’s clear that we are talking about several generations here, maybe a century or even longer, but what seems to be crystal clear is that we, now, must take the first positive steps to make the necessary start.

Always keeping in mind the final goal of as much equality for all people on earth, no suppressing of some areas for profit, equal opportunities for all children and generally respect for others’ customs and religions.

We must start to understand that radical, sound and logical solutions must be found which then must be internationally accepted and implemented.

Are there difficulties for us, to day … you bet … and I firmly believe that the greatest difficulties are exactly for us to day … Because it is we who must have the capacity to day, to be able to foresee where today’s general thinking and development will ultimately lead our society to … in a few generations to come.

And as these are only the thoughts of one person, much further thinking, logic reasoning and other steps are needed to change present injustices.

I would like to emphasise that it is of the utmost importance that those millions in underdeveloped countries who never have been given a chance to go to a school, learn to read and write, that those also must become involved in this process of one world of all countries and people being connected.

Each single one of us billions of people on this earth has to become equally important in decision making as to the future of us on this, ‘our’ planet.

To this end it is the intention to have condensed issues of these writings, relevant to those countries, in every language necessary, distributed free to certain areas and villages so that groups of citizens in those countries can be informed of other societies, the problems facing us and, above all, to make them, men and women, understand that each of them and their voice, too, are just as important as that of the very rich in other countries. And, most important, that their voice never must become subject to ‘bribe-pressure’.

If there is one most important area that first of all has to be worked on, it would be for everyone in our developed countries to start thinking of our present frame of mind, our attitude, our honest view of today’s society … to then take action, even a little, it doesn’t need to be all embracing … each one only a tiny bit, as much as one is prepared to do or as much as one can.

Only with such an all encompassing respectful cooperation is there a chance that we eventually can get sustainable world societies that can live together in peace in a much less overcrowded world. I cannot emphasise this strongly enough.

Finally, I would like to explain that because every subject dealt with here is closely related to just about every other subject, you will find that I have repeated certain short parts of one chapter in other ones; this for the sake of clarity and to avoid searching back and for easy reading.

2. INTRODUCTION

My reasons for writing these pages are many in detail as the different chapters indicate, but in short they are threefold:

•   my deep concern with injustices,

•   the greed that manifests itself in so many ways and

•   the future of mankind on this ‘our’ planet.

As I have stated in the Preamble, these writings are about the many undesirable situations that have become so common in the world’s societies that we have created and developed throughout the last couple of centuries … that we are now so used to and almost take for granted.

In an Introduction one usually deals with the general broad ideas and some explanations of coming details. These don’t necessarily need to be in a strict logical sequence, yet it would still be advisable to put things in some order.

The problem I have is that, when writing about undesirable situations in a small community at one side and then also deal with counties’ attitude toward the good of planet earth, how does one go about deciding where to start and in what order to proceed, specially because there are many links between these areas.

It seems to me there really are no logical steps because, almost literally, everything is interconnected; if not directly then certainly in a round about way.

An example would be that poor man somewhere in central Africa working the earth with his shovel to plant food for his family. He’s depending on iron ore mining companies for the steel of his shovel. They in turn are depending on smelters that produce the steel, who in turn depend on energy sources. Not to mention the cloth of his pants, made by textile companies who are depending on cotton growers or oil companies for plastic cloths. All those companies are depending on their engineers who depend on schools and universities for the design of their equipment and on their workers who, again, may depend on many others in order to do their work. Tree forests to provide the raw material for paper, transport from forest to paper factories. All industries depend on manufacturing companies, some of which also make the man’s shovel.

So, leaving logical order aside, I will deal with a few randomly chosen examples of the many areas of injustice that occur daily in our modern society. There are of course many thousands more; some typical cases will be mentioned in the coming chapters and each of these are, again, only a few of many thousands.

Having said that, it’s probably best to state that nothing, absolutely nothing, I say here about undesirable situations at home in Australia (and that probably also exist in some other countries) has not been known and said by millions of people for a long time.

There’s nothing new whatsoever in what I have to say about the present state of affairs, they are just critical observations of some undesirable situations, laws and practices that those affected by them already are very much aware of. And hopefully that those lucky enough not to be affected already are or will be making an effort to become deeply aware of them.

It is probably also best from the start to state that most of the so called ‘solutions’ to change that I hopefully will be able to suggest would not and could not (and probably should not) be implemented in my time, in all likelihood not even in my sons’ time or some possibly not even in my Grandchildren’s time.

This for reasons that will become clear a little later.

Usually there is of course a beginning … (what logic!), but I believe there need to be two beginnings … I’ll explain:

To start off straight away by suggesting wide- ranging law changes in our present system of government is bound to fail for the following main reasons:

1.   Because some organisations and businesses with power and influence in governments would necessarily be curtailed in some way; as soon as it becomes clear, they will immediately start to spend a few millions (little cost to them) on counter measures.

2.   In our present ‘democratic’ system the population at large would not actually have been involved in the decision-making process. Population being actively involved in decision making is crucial.

I know many would say but that is up to our chosen Political Party to do, in our name.

Granted, but we all know that’s not always the case, in fact it’s quite often not the case at all, and that can have disastrous and deadly consequences for many tens of thousands of innocent people.

A good, but sad, example is the Iraq war. The chosen Governments and their Party leaders of the three involved ‘democratic’ countries, the Coalition of the Willing, knew that their citizens, both those that did and did not vote for them, would strongly oppose an invasion of that small militarily weak country.

So they understood that they had to manipulate us, to soften us up. They did this by a series of different methods: they made us believe that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world with his weapons of mass destruction, WMD, that he would be able to strike with a nuclear weapon within a day or so. And that when just about all intelligence agents’ reports of the Coalition of the Willing countries showed that there were no WMD.

The Governments (read: the Political Parties in power at the time) of those three countries changed and so falsified some reports to suit their needs; all in order to prove to us the need for their illegal actions.

Therefore, our so called democratic Political Party system has let us down badly and has cost the lives of thousands of innocent people.

Although this is quite a serious example how our present party system can easily be manipulated, there are of course many less dramatic examples of how that small group of people (that we voted into government to rule in our name) can misuse the power we’ve been giving them.

The latest war was started by three countries that are among the most prominent members of the United Nations, the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ namely the US, Great Britain and Australia.

These three countries started an all out attack on a small, militarily weak, country, destroying their homes, killing daily hundreds of people in Iraq, old ones, young ones, children, babies, destroying people’s homes, using army and air force, so called just to capture that country’s criminal head of state.

Of course they didn’t succeed; Saddam Hussein was found after the war, hiding somewhere.

Today everything seems to be forgotten about this murderous party … what … oh yes, of course … this was no murderous party, it was a real war …

And today the leaders of this (sorry, but it still always will be a murderous party) are still well respected citizens in their countries.

One can ask oneself, how and what is it with our modern conception of such a clear inhuman injustice … or … could it possibly be … oil?

As things are, there is a real danger that such a situation could easily be repeated today!

Changing this system will be a first priority for the free countries of the world.

The ‘first beginning’ in an effort to change the present system of governments by Political Parties must therefore be to explain to our citizens the need for necessary organisational changes, intelligently explaining the intended way to go about it and give an indication of the necessary proposed changed structure to do the work.

Most importantly, to explain the intention as to a necessary new structure without Political Parties, a new system arrangement which must assure that the majority of a country’s citizens will have a far greater say in the running of their state or country than lately proved to be the case.

Once a majority or enough of a county’s citizens have become convinced that Political Parties have had their time, we have then reached the point to start thinking of how and with what to replace the present system.

This Second Beginning would then be to decide how a new system could ensure that a country’s citizens would have a greater and more direct say in the running of their country.

In later chapters we shall go into more detail, but for now we can decide that a system of Groups consisting of citizens, which will include young people, shall be formed to study and recommend all the different needs of running a country, the same as it’s done by today’s Political Parties, but in the new, different system.

 A great obstacle will be the often encountered starting changes it’s new and strange, difficult to imagine, how to know if this is better, etc.

And then there is the reaction of powerful business groups when they become aware of the direction in which these citizens groups are moving that could be to some disadvantage to them.

With tangible first results the existence and structure of such groups must eventually be made legal. This then will make possible further improvements in the development of the groups that ultimately should lead towards a new system replacing Political Parties in a government. Of course Political Parties with their members can and will probably still exist, but they will have no say in government as a party in the new system.

It is, I believe, of great importance to have young people right throughout our society actively participate in the study of injustices and decision-making on the land’s laws.

The mere fact that I’m so concerned about our societies’ development and about the factors that influence, control and govern the undesirable changes and attitudes that have taken place means that, inevitably, much of the writing will be criticisms of some existing conventions - laws - institutions - practices - traditions - businesses - injustices - etc.

And because they are just that, criticisms, they are therefore mainly pure negative statements I’ll be making to start with.

Criticising is easy and it also seems to be quite a popular subject in conversations. Of course, it is valid to point to an undesirable situation, criticise and discuss it.

Yet, apart from possibly some general statements like ‘they have to do something about it’ or ‘they’ve got to change the law’, nothing much is further suggested about what, in some detail, could be wrong and what could be the reason(s) that there are laws that allow some atrocities and injustices to happen almost freely. And only too often to innocent defenceless people of any country, developing countries as well as rich developed ones.

However, it will not only stay with summing up undesirable situations, the negatives; critique should always be followed by a least some positive suggestions to improvement, maybe not much detail to start with, just a suggested change of direction to facilitate improvement.

It is clear that many of the changes I will be proposing are, or will seem to be, radical and therefore may be more difficult to understand or accept.

I will try to explain my thoughts in as simple terms as possible for several reasons:

•   I can best express myself in such terms.

•   It will be easy to understand and it would avoid much misunderstanding and ambiguity.

•   Simple terms and simple logic are essential in the process of thoroughly understanding problems before one can even start to think about finding effective solution.

In the chapter Education I mention something about the ability of thinking critically and logically.

I’d also like the reader to read these writings critically. To some I may have drawn illogical conclusions or made unreasonable statements. Please make a note of them and let me know.

It even seems rather unthinkable to me that many of my suggestions for changes would initially be taken seriously and accepted as possible solutions by those in power, or at least as a change of direction that eventually could result in a satisfactory solution.

After all, as many would know, changes in any organisation are just about the most difficult to bring about and if the organisation is as huge and complicated as our societies, then any wide-ranging, far-reaching changes will be very difficult indeed to initiate.

In particular in our present form of society with political parties. It is after all those that have made, formulated, influenced and approved the laws and regulations that allowed the injustices to exist and remain, are the ones who will have to approve the proposed changes. Or at least to acknowledge that radical changes are long overdue and start bringing in the first improvements.

We must not forget that an immediate start must be made to solve certain vital problems such as overpopulation and global warming. International meetings have already been held but there has been no agreement on several details … so, further talks sometime in the future … and probably further talks again … I’m afraid, as usual.

When I say ‘those that have made and approved the laws’, I do not mean certain individuals. Rather I refer to those groups of people who over the last century have moulded, designed and approved many of those laws and regulations that have, apart from much good, also resulted in all the injustices and cruel inhuman activities that now (unofficially) are allowed to exist and remain. Laws that mainly affect those that belong to that large group of people like you and I, the Many Small.

There will undoubtedly be hostility to some of my proposals from certain powerful groups. Over the last half century or so they have had a great influence in moulding the shape of our present society, helping formulate, designing and agreeing to certain laws and regulations. Their influence also encompasses to a great extent the influence on people’s minds and their needs, for instance through advertisements.

I hope and believe that groups of citizens consisting of experts and members of the Many Small together with genuinely democratically thinking members of the Mighty Few, in time, may want to implement some proposals that will benefit a great deal of their country’s people.

It can be done through 100% honesty in their deliberations, communications and actions without any prejudice. This then may well become an example for citizens of another country to demand equivalent changes.

And so, possibly, a small start could be made to a society with more justice, more equality, understanding and tolerance, less lies and strife for power just for the sake of it, less greed, less violence, injustices and wars, no poverty no apartheid in any area.

And … who knows … maybe no political parties as we know them today but groups of experts, chosen by the people, working together in harmony for the best of everyone, nationally and internationally.

I hope that it will be on the reader to find the injustices and the laws that allow them to exist … and decide what drastic measures are necessary to rectify this situation.

I would be grateful if you, some time, would let me know your thoughts about this.

3. SOLVING PROBLEMS

Everyone knows that there are problems in our modern societies that need to be rectified; problems that range from small to the most serious ones, costing the lives of innocent populations sometimes through spraying weeds with poisonous substances. Serious ones have sometimes come about by those that we here describe as the Mighty Few, members of some developed countries in conjunction with certain political parties and governments both in developed as well as in underdeveloped countries.

Sadly this is still allowed to go on with the full knowledge of those countries’ governments.

We shall come back to these problems later.   

Whenever changes or new ideas are considered necessary, those decisions should of course first of all be made public. Such first statements on the decision of law changes must be based on a careful study leading to logical conclusions that will be presented at the first introduction of the necessity for changes.

Those that are being negatively affected by some flawed law already know very well what is wrong and what causes it. But it’s more important that those not affected should be clearly aware of the repercussions an imperfect law has on many others.

The greatest difficulty of trying to introduce new, better ideas is that people will be influenced by the knowledge of, and being accustomed to, the present situation. There seems to be a natural reluctance to change, especially from those who are not affected by a flawed or non existent law.

For many this is a quite natural reaction to maybe strange, new ideas or laws.

Therefore, the better the logical conclusions are presented and explained in at least some detail, the easier it is for people to understand the necessity for change and in what direction the improvements should be aimed.

Emphasis must always be made on the ‘logic’ in any writing, but especially in laws. Reference to logic will be made in several parts in these writings.

One important factor of the problems in today’s society is the seemingly inability and refusal to effectively eradicate injustices, the appalling behaviour and cruelties that are officially allowed to occur. In particular since some of the worst injustices that happen in a developing country, caused by some business from a developed one, are sometimes not made public, especially not by the news media.

It is the lack of capacity, often paired with unwillingness;

•   to intimately understand a problem and

•   in such a most complicated entity as a country’s society, to comprehend the intricate and complicated interaction of factors (often seemingly unrelated) that can ultimately lead to injustices and outrageous cruelty.

Only when all these factors are clearly understood by those in charge is there hope that the (many) right decisions can be made to change things around.

But, of course, even if all those factors are clearly known and understood there still can be a strong unwillingness, for whatever reason, to do something about it. And as a result, hundreds of thousands of people will keep on suffering avoidable injustices and children keep on dying needlessly from medical experiments.

The tragic … and really scandalous … part of the whole is that we, us humans in our society, have let this happen for many years and still, at the time of writing, nothing substantial seems to have been done about it.

Yes, I’m very much aware that I’m one of those ‘humans in our society’ who let this happen for much too long and, I guess, it’s one of the reasons that I decided to write about this … and as usual, I’m much too late doing it …, but then, maybe better late than never … we hope …

Many will say that our governments already are working on several projects to improve conditions for many and new projects are being worked on. That’s absolutely true, no one can deny that, yet things haven’t really changed much.

People often say that something is ‘difficult’. As a first impression this can be perfectly correct and understandable but in most cases this is where it stays.

If we can become used to thinking a bit further than staying with first impressions, one will notice that in fact many problems, situations, tasks, etc. could actually consist of a number of simpler parts.

The degree of difficulty we perceive then depends mostly on the number of those simpler parts and possibly the way each of those parts must be used, in which order, etc. But some specific knowledge is of course always needed.

To make matters more involved is to understand that each part of a problem may again be ruled by other aspects and not so seldom even these can consist of further details that need understanding … and so on.

This then will make a problem more involved still and it is logical that this complexity makes it more difficult for people to understand a problem.

Keeping this always in mind will be important to follow a step by step progress of developing common sense solutions.

It