Reviews
"Rescue Plan for Planet Earth ... is a
brave and visionary book... [It] should be required reading in every
school and by every politician." Jerry Tetalman, California
president of Citizens for Global Solutions and co-author of One
World Democracy
(This is an excerpt -
full text here)
"I'm reading your fabulous book. Best compendium of fabulous quotes
I've ever read. You've put a great deal of thought into these issues
and I salute you for the important groundbreaking work you are
doing. You can quote me on that. Thank you so much." Arthur
Kanegis, American filmmaker
"Jim Stark lays out an extraordinarily thoughtful set of
guidelines for moving beyond this historical era of
nationalism, which has become an increasingly toxic
impediment to our collective future. As Rescue Plan
makes clear, we all need to begin to think of ourselves
- now - as citizens of one profoundly distressed
planet." Ross Gelbspan, author, The Heat Is On
and Boiling Point
"I love the idea... I think you have a brilliant
idea that bypasses governments and puts the power in the
hands of ordinary people. I was particularly impressed
with the way you addressed the questions that arise in
the mind of the reader as the discussion unfolds."
Mary-Wynne Ashford (MD, PhD), author (with Guy Dauncey)
of Enough Blood Shed; past co-president of
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear
War
"Rescue Plan for Planet Earth is a triumph. It
belongs in a class with Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense.'"
John Kintree, Sub-Pool Librarian, St. Louis Public
Library
(This is an excerpt -
full text here)
"Rescue Plan for Planet Earth
is a serious book by Jim Stark, a serious anti-war
writer and peace activist.... He deserves to be admired
for pointing out a way to save planet earth."
Dr. Stephen
Gill, Poet Luareate of Ansted University and author of
20+ books
(This is an excerpt -
full text here)
"The idea of a global vote is a powerful one and Jim
Stark needs to be commended for putting all the
arguments together and presenting them with clarity,
logic and passion.... I think the steady development of
such a worldwide appeal has the potential to be one of
the great forces leading the world in the direction of
DWG [democratic world government]." Lyndon Storey,
author of Humanity or Sovereignty: A Political Roadmap
for the 21st Century
(This is an excerpt - full text here)
FULL TEXT OF REVIEW BY JERRY
TETALMAN
This book clearly articulates the crisis that the human race is
facing with the proliferation of nuclear weapons and war still being
used as a legitimate way of settling disputes. The author uses the
word omnicide to describe the possible mass extermination of humans
that will come as a result of the use of weapons of mass destruction
or environmental collapse due to overpopulation and global warming.
Stark describes the urgency of taking corrective action now, before
it is too late.
This book offers hope that civilization will rise to the challenge of abolishing war, just as it abolished slavery in the 19th century. He proposes extending the rule of law and government to the global level and building a democratic world government. The world government would replace the weak and ineffective structure of the UN with a democratic and transparent government of the people...
The goal is to replace a system of 194 sovereign states, each with its own army, with a system of law that includes a world parliament, directly elected by the people, and world courts with the power to settle disputes. Democratic world government would have the power to address international problems such as global warming and overpopulation.
The question of course is how can such a government be brought about? Stark proposes that the power of the Internet be used to create a referendum on democratic world government, and he has created a website (voteworldgovernment.org) and an organization (Vote World Government).
Collecting votes to support the creation of a democratic world government will create a political will that leaders cannot ignore. The book includes over 200 quotes from world leaders and great thinkers, such as Einstein, that support the creation of a democratic world government.
This is a brave and visionary book that puts a
challenge to the reader: act and be part of a great movement to
bring civilization and law to the global level, or prepare to face
disaster. This book is full of hope and inspiration and will leave
the reader with a clear objective and direction.
Rescue Plan for Planet Earth should be required reading in
every school and by every politician."
Jerry
Tetalman, California president of Citizens for Global Solutions and
co-author of One World Democracyy
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FULL TEXT OF REVIEW BY JOHN
KINTREE
Rescue Plan for Planet Earth is a triumph. It
belongs in a class with Thomas Paine's "Common Sense."
Just as Paine was a commoner who dared to advocate
independence from British rule for the United States of America,
Stark is a commoner who dares to advocate the creation of a
democratic world government through a grassroots initiated global
referendum.
The book provides a compelling argument for creating an
effective structure for global governance, as well as a detailed
description of how to make it happen. There is a companion web site
at
http://www.voteworldgovernment.org, at which people
can vote today to "support the creation of a directly-elected,
representative and democratic world government."
Stark affirms the principle of "subsidiarity" which
means that "all issues should be resolved by the smallest
appropriate political unit." So, national governments will continue
to deal with national level issues, on down to municipal governments
dealing with local issues. A democratic world government would best
be able to deal with issues such as weapons proliferation and
disarmament, and global climate change.
An appendix is included which contains a "hoped for
sequence of events." In this sequence, the online voting which has
already begun will continue until at least 2013. Preliminary efforts
to write a draft Earth Constitution would begin in 2009, a Global
Electoral Commission would be set up starting in 2012, and the
inaugural session of the Democratic World Government would begin in
2018.
Stark qualifies many of his ideas as "proposals," and
there are any number of ways some of his proposals could be
challenged. For instance, in order to guarantee some measure
of transparency and corruption-proofing of the directly elected
world parliament, members of this parliament and other top level
officials would have "recorded lives." This means that every word
uttered and action taken by these individuals during working hours
would be recorded and published.
A technical solution to the problem of concentrating
power into the hands of a relatively small number of people may or
may not work. Other proposals and gaps in the rescue plan will be
challenged as well.
That is as it should be. The American Revolution was not
completed by the publication of "Common Sense." It wasn't until six
month later that the Declaration of Independence was signed, and
almost six years after that when the Revolutionary War ended, and
six years after that until the Constitution of the United States was
written.
What Jim Stark has written is a starting point,
advocating a totally nonviolent method, for humanity to take the
next step in its social evolution.
John Kintree, Sub-Pool Librarian, St. Louis Public
Library
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FULL TEXT OF REVIEW BY DR. STEPHEN
GILL
The thought of a government for the whole
world has been nurtured for centuries in nearly every
culture in one form or the other. With the advancement
of civilization, these seeds kept sprouting, though the
formation of a world government still remained a mirage.
It is no more a mirage in the 21st
century because there is no shortage of tools with which
to form a democratically elected world parliament; there
is only a shortage of sincere workers.
How to sprout and nourish this centuries-old seed to its
meaningful growth is the subject of Rescue Plan for
Planet Earth.
The author argues further that a global referendum is
possible because of the Internet. He has established a
website (www.voteworldgovernment.org) where citizens
from any corner of the world, provided they have
Internet access, can vote. He has created a non-profit
organization called "Vote World Government" to
kick-start the global referendum.
The author targets two main forces, security and
environment, that could lead to omnicide, or
self-extinction. Writing about security, author
Stark points out that nations have enough weapons to
destroy the world several times over. The other force
that could lead to omnicide is global warming, or
climate change, which is also a supranational problem,
requiring a supranational authority to handle it.
The author is convinced that the areas of security and
warming can be handled successfully only by a
democratically elected world government. This government
would require also a democratic constitution. Stark
discusses constitutional matters in chapter 12. He
suggests a way to divide the world into constituencies
for the purpose of election on worldwide basis in
chapter 8, called "Implementation.";
Concerning financial needs, he proposes that the
world parliament levy taxes on the citizens and also to
sell Peace Bonds, something along the lines of War
Bonds. Taxes for the world government should not
increase the over-all burden of citizens because
national taxes can be reduced as a result of a
predictable reduction in the military expenses of every
nation.
It is a fact that a war starts first in the mind. It is
also a fact that every weapon that has been invented or
discovered has been used, most on massive scales.
Nuclear weapons have not been used on a massive scale
yet, but in the light of human history there is every
likelihood that they will be, sooner or later. As a
result, the civilization that has taken centuries to
build up can be annihilated within days, if not hours.
This is what concerns the author. He is also concerned
that terrorist groups may acquire these nuclear weapons.
Rescue Plan for Planet Earth
is a serious book by Jim Stark, a serious anti-war
writer and a peace activist who has been crusading for
years for a democratically elected world government.
He has been and is still obsessed, rather with more
vigour, with this ideology because of the growing fear
of complete self-extinction.
Readers may doubt whether a
global referendum can be done, or whether such a
referendum would pass, and they may doubt that the world
parliament that Jim Stark advocates is even possible.
Whether one believes in his strategy or not, Rescue
Plan for Planet Earth is a must read book because
peace concerns every citizen of the world.
The concept of one government for the world has been
around for centuries. What was considered utopian is
within the realm of possibility. Jim Stark quotes freely
from statesmen, scientists, writers, singers and others,
including Pope John Paul II to convince his readers that
he is not alone in his beliefs. Whether he succeeds in
his goal or not is a different matter. What is most
important here are the sincere and achievable beliefs of
the author that have already started stirring the ocean
of inaction. He deserves to be admired for pointing out
a way to save planet earth.
Award-winning writer
Stephen Gill has authored books of literary criticism,
historical/ political nature, fiction and collections of
poems. His poetry and prose have appeared in more than
five hundred publications. He writes mostly about peace.
For details, please visit:
www.stephengill.ca
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"So many governments bickering at one another about
topics which may be petty in the eyes of most. Rescue
Plan for Planet Earth: Democratic World Government
Through a Global ReferendumRescue Plan for Planet
Earth is highly recommended to those looking to
alternative political solutions." James
A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, Midwest Book Review
FULL TEXT
OF REVIEW BY LYNDON STOREY
Jim Stark's Rescue Plan for Planet Earth is an
important book about an important topic. The book
provides a clear diagnosis of one of the major problems
facing the world today; humanity's division into
competing states, a division which not only provides the
preconditions for warfare and other forms of conflict,
but which has left humanity unable to cooperate
effectively to deal with problems such as environmental
protection and the persistence of poverty and starvation
in some parts of the world.
Of course Rescue Plan for Planet Earth is hardly
the first book to point to these issues. There have been
many solutions proposed to the problem of our divided
humanity, ranging from world government to world love
with everything in between also considered. But the
advocates of these solutions usually leap straight from
the problem to the ideal solution without considering
the process which might take us to the ideal solution;
for instance, going into detail about the constitutional
provisions for a new world government without spending
much time explaining how the ideal world government is
going to come about.
The great merit of Jim Stark's book is that it considers
how to get there as the major issue. The book advocates
a Democratic World Government (DWG), but its main focus
is not on explaining exactly what a DWG will look like,
but on explaining how we will get there. According to
Rescue Plan for Planet Earth we will get there after
a global referendum delivers a strong majority of votes
for DWG, and the bulk of the book is taken up with
explaining how this referendum can be organised.
The global referendum, according to this book, can be
started through Internet voting so that for the first
time it is possible for the people of the world to voice
their concerns and express their sovereignty. Large
parts of the book are taken up with discussion of what
would constitute a persuasive majority of votes and what
would be the legal effect, if any, of a majority vote in
favour of DWG.
The idea of a global vote is a powerful one and Jim
Stark needs to be commended for putting all the
arguments together and presenting them with clarity,
logic and passion.
Before discussing the merits of the proposal, the
problems should be noted, of course. With the world
constituted as it is, we cannot be confident that
everyone has an equal chance to vote or to be informed
of the issues. We would need many safeguards in place to
be sure that people only voted once and were not
ineligible, for instance by being underage at the time
of voting. Allowing the referendum to keep going on,
perhaps for years, as Jim Stark seems to envisage, until
enough positive votes have been recorded may also create
problems. People may have changed their minds, or even
died, after casting their initial vote years earlier. In
some systems a failure to vote is counted as a no vote,
so, if after a set period of time, there are not enough
yes votes then the proposition is counted as being
defeated. Non-voters are not usually given years to
vote. At the moment, not everyone has access to the
Internet to vote, of course, although Jim Stark
envisages the referendum going offline as well, once it
builds momentum.
The book also suggests that such a referendum would
provide a legal mandate for DWG. Apart from the problems
mentioned above, there is the practical fact that
referenda usually occur inside an existing
legal-political jurisdiction and are supervised by the
governing authorities of that jurisdiction. The
referendum develops any legal force through following
the correct procedures within whatever jurisdiction is
conducting them. I think it is unlikely that by itself
such a referendum would develop legal force.
But while these criticisms are significant, they do not
go to the heart of the matter.
The heart of the matter is finding the answer to the
question of how do we move from the current situation to
a better one? There are several possible answers and Jim
Stark focuses on one; the global referendum.
If we ignore the question of the legal force of the
proposed referendum, and simply consider it a petition
or appeal, the idea still has great strength. What could
be more persuasive than an appeal or petition signed by
millions of people? I think the steady development of
such a worldwide appeal has the potential to be one of
the great forces leading the world in the direction of
DWG.
Other steps as well will have to be taken to get us
there. Those steps will have to include some
(democratic) government-to-government negotiations and
some more discussion of what form a DWG is likely to
take. The closest example the world has today to such a
development on an international scale is the European
Union (EU) which has overcome many of the worst
manifestations of nationalism, or reduced them to
nonviolent proportions, amongst its members in Europe.
The EU evolved slowly through government-to-government
negotiation rather than being based on a referendum. Of
course many would say it should have relied much more on
the use of referenda! However, here is not the place to
discuss all the possible steps to DWG.
Nonetheless, all supporters of global reform need to
consider how to show that what they advocate has popular
support, and the sort of referendum proposed in this
book is a most clear and well thought-out proposal for
showing that. I recommend this book to anyone interested
in building support for global political reform. I hope
that other cosmopolitan political groups will see the
project associated with this book as complementary
rather than competitive. I recommend this book to all
who are interested in building a better political system
which respects the human interest rather than just the
national interest.
Lyndon Storey, author of Humanity or Sovereignty: A
Political Roadmap for the 21st Century, September 2008.
