"Klatuu barada nickto." It's time for an end to the nation-state.

[Cyrano]

The start of that headline is from the 1950s film "The Day The Earth Stood Still." It was a message given to a galactic policeman, a robot, to prevent him from destroying the earth.

The gist of the film was that a large federation of planets had banded together, turned their mutual security over to these "policemen" and given them full power to totally destroy any entity that presented a threat to the peace, security and well-being of all.

A similar idea has twice been tried to bring about world unity and security. First, the League of Nations, and today, the U.N. Both have failed in their missions.

The nation-state came into being a few millenia ago and ever since, the world, or some part of it, has been engaged in war, conquest, death and destruction. It's time to end the very concept of the nation-state.

Many years ago, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner had a comedy routine called "The Two Thousand Year Old Man." Brooks claimed to have invented national anthems. When asked by Reiner what his sounded like, Brooks sang, "Hurray for cave 69. Screw everybody else."

We evidently haven't evolved much since then. But, assuming we survive our current American/fascist threat to the world, it's past time to get rid of countries, flags, national anthems, "USs and THEMS," and every other artificial man-made designation that separates and divides human beings (including, perhaps, not faith, but ORGANIZED religion).

I have no idea how to go about doing this. But I think it's an idea whose time has come. Tribalism and nationalism have got to go if we ever can hold out hope for the survival of our species. All we need is a way to get from here to there. And if any genius among us has an idea of how to start down this road, throw it out for discussion.

I don't expect we'll see it in our lifetimes. But it's past time to start talking about how to do it.

[Deja Q]

1. Accept people like me, for a start.

The downside is, you don't know the context behind that statement.

Do I refer to bisexuality?

Do I refer to autism?

Do I refer to introvertedness?

Do I refer to enjoying vanilla cake with asperagus frosting?

Or am I referring to something else, which I may or may not tell on a public forum given how personal the issue is and the unique forms of hurt I've felt in life?

[Cyrano]

4. What I've posted above obliquely refers to universal inclusiveness with

the single exception of those who would do harm to others.

[Generic Other]

2. Gort (Mutual Assured Destruction) saves the world

[genie_weenie]

3. Nation-States and nationalism

have unfortunately been responsible for the Bloddy Record of the 20th century and Unfortunately, the UN has failed because instead of guarenteeing the Rights of Man it has been co-opted and used to guarentee the Rights of Nation-States.

The Olympics are another example. Reinforces the Us and Them mentaility you are refering to. Can a person compete as a non-aligned or World Citizen in the Olympic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anationalism

[jwirr]

9. Since Globalization by Corporate Power is the most likely thing

to replace nation/states are you saying that Helliburton is better than democracy? Wake up one of the most dangerous aspects of globalization is the lose of borders and the power of nations to control events in their own sphere. For instance: pollution, labor issues, slavery, etc.

[Cyrano]

10. Yep. But what I'm trying to imagine, or inspire in someone, is a

way to forever put an end to that scenario. And as I indicated in my OP, I'm damned if I know how.

However, the past few thousand years of butchery have been a gory demonstration that the nation-state is not the path to a harmonious existence.

Perhaps murder, mayhem and "Me, Me, Me," is the natural state of our species. If so, humanity will go the way of the dinosaur sometime in the not-too-distant future.

And as for democracy? The past six years has, if nothing else, shown us that it is a fragile illusion. Not to mention the past few hundred years in which democracy tolerated slavery, the slaughter of native Americans, robber barons, unregulated capitalism and the "crime" of being poor.

Overall, it's been a better system than most. But we can do better.

[genie_weenie]

13. Democracy? Where on Earth is

a Democratic Nation? I believe you are offering a false dichotomy (This is not an attack but an observation) between Rampant Nation-States & Rampant Corporations. You do state Globalization by Corparate Power is most likely but just so I understand do you think Halliburton will produce a merc army to enslave workers, work them to death and make massive amounts of pollution if the current world order is radically altered? Are there no other options then being controlled by immoral politicians or immoral CEOs?

I don't know. What I do know is the Creation of the UN did not lessen the amount of Wars in the 2nd half of the 20th century. The proxy wars of the US and USSR inflicted more casaulties on third party peoples than the population of those States but, The massive military buildups leeched a huge amount of money/production into warfare until it has grown into at least a 1/4 of the US budget.

Man is the measure of all things. Governments and extra-governmental bodies like the UN do not recognize this fact.

[jwirr]

18. I hear what you are saying. There is a book by Emanuel Todd

that suggests that we may be moving toward regional powers to control both corporate power and over zealous empire builders. Can't remember the name. Example would be EU, Russia, Turkey and Iran united to form a world power. Another would be various Asian countries uniting to protect their own area. Also I think we are seeing Central & South America pulling together against the threat they see from us.

[progdonkey]

5. tangential note re: Brooks...

The anthem was actually, "Let 'em all go to Hell... except Cave 76!!"

[Cyrano]

7. Thanks. Heard it a long time ago. Damn, I'm too young for a senior moment.

[progdonkey]

12. don't feel old and forgetful that you didn't get it exact...

My brain just has the strange tendency to discard a lot of necessary information and save a lot of Really Useless Information, such as the finer intricacies of the 2000-Year-Old Man. ;-)

[T Wolf]

6. What many miss from this story is

something left out of the movie. The original story is "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates.

What the reporter finally learns is that Gort (the robot) is the master and the biological unit (to borrow a Star Trek descriptor) is the servant.

Further reinforcement of our (humanity's) ego- and ethno-centrism.

[BootinUp]

8. Its available online apparently

http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/bates.html

[The2ndWheel]

11. Simply getting rid of the nation-state

won't do it. You have to get rid of all large scale organizing. The only way to do that is to do away with agriculture. To do that in 2006 and beyond would be mass murder on a very large scale.

If it's not the nation-state, it will be something even bigger and that much more out of our hands. It will be specialized to an even greater degree than it is today. That is the general trend in civilization, and will continue to be so, unless you get rid of civilization.

[Cyrano]

14. I hear you, but unless we can come up with an alternative that works,

we're all screwed. I don't follow your reference to agriculture, but unless we find a way for all of us to inhabit this planet in a sane, humane way, we're doomed to an ongoing blood bath.

People seem to think that the dark ages are a thing of the past and conveniently ignore the fact that they never ended. The only thing that has advanced is our technology. Human nature hasn't changed one iota.

[The2ndWheel]

16. I doubt anything will work

From your original post:

"We evidently haven't evolved much since then."

This is something that always bothers me. From the context of that sentence, you seem to be equating progress and evolution. They're not the same thing.

"The only thing that has advanced is our technology."

Which to me is a big problem, because we live within giant systems based on power. While that technology may be used to help, it's damn sure going to be used for killing and control as well.

"I don't follow your reference to agriculture, but unless we find a way for all of us to inhabit this planet in a sane, humane way"

That's my reference to agriculture. It won't allow all of us to inhabit this planet in a sane, humane way. With agriculture comes class. With agriculture comes specialization. With agriculture comes endless growth(it's the basis of every empire to have ever existed). With agriculture comes organized force. With agriculture comes more people wanting more. With agriculture comes mass production.

If you're looking for an alternative, that's the alternative. The nation-state is only possible with agriculture. Empire is only possible with agriculture. If you take the nation-state out, but leave what makes large scale organization not only possible, but necessary, you'll end up with something else that acts in the same manner as the nation-state.

I'm all for it. I know what it would mean in terms of what we would have to live without. I also know it's not even remotely possible in 2006 to do anything like that. Like I said, it would cause such a die off around the planet, billions of people. So we're stuck. The nation-state may be dying thanks to globalization, but we can't get rid of the foundation upon which it is built, so we'll end up with basically the same entity, only bigger. We won't shrink a power base voluntarily.

[flowomo]

15. Something to share with you.... I wrote this in 2002:

http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2002/12/05/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt


The big guy is the answer

By Rich Lewis December 5, 2002

I was driving down the road the other day gloomily mulling the state of our over-weaponized world.

The weirdo North Korean government has nuclear weapons.

Our own president seems disappointed that Saddam Hussein isn't giving him a quick enough excuse to start a war.

Saddam himself is likely sitting on piles of bombs filled with toxic gases and horrible diseases.

Some violent fool has shown all the other violent fools that shoulder-fired missiles could be an economical way to blow up planes full of people.
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And on and on and on....

I was getting pretty depressed, convinced that we are doomed to blow ourselves up, and that we are utterly incapable of stopping it from happening.

That's when it hit me — just flashed into my mind, out of the blue.

What we need is... Gort.

That's right, Gort. You remember him. He's the eight-foot-tall, gleaming metal robot from the classic science-fiction movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

In that movie, made in 1951 but still as good as anything coming out of Hollywood today, a spaceman named Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie) comes to say that peace-loving aliens are worried that Earthlings are developing weapons and technology that could threaten the entire galaxy.

His message: "It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet. But if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration."

Wow. They just don't write dialogue like that any more.

Anyway, Klaatu's bodyguard is Gort, a member of an intergalactic police force of robots. Their job is to melt weapons — and the bad guys who carry them — with a laser beam that shoots from their heads. The image of that creepy light swirling inside Gort's head as he prepares to fire still gives me the chills.

As you recall, Klaatu gets shot and spends time in the hospital.

Later on he gets shot again and just before he dies, tells Patricia Neal she must go to the big robot and utter that immortal line, "Gort, Klaatu barada nickto."

That will cause the robot to fetch Klaatu and bring him back to life so that the spaceman can deliver the "cinder" speech quoted above.

While all this is happening, Gort is running around microwaving into dust anything that even looks at him the wrong way. Rifles. Tanks. Soldiers. Poof, gone.

We Earthlings need that kind of tough love now.

It's obvious that people can't put the world aright — and that we truly are threatening all life on this planet, if not on other planets.

So I say, send in the Gorts.

Ok, it sounds silly at first, but really, is it any dumber than Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" defense shield? Visions of that gazillion-dollar boondoggle are still dancing in the heads of the president and his friends.

If we're going to waste all that money anyhow, Gort is a much better idea to waste it on.

The danger these days isn't from big missiles shooting through space where "Star Wars" can zap them. What we need to fear are those shoulder-fired babies, car bombs, nukes-in-a-suitcase, anthraxes-in-a-bottle, sniper rifles and other earth-bound stuff.

Exactly the kind of stuff that Gort eats for lunch.

And yes, I've seen "The Terminator" and "The Matrix" and so I know how these robots can get uppity and decide to take over the world for themselves.

But that's just a design problem. Build 'em right and they'll run right.

And yes, it is a tad fascistic — you know, a swarm of giant metal cops melting down everything from slingshots to nuclear submarines.

But we could soften that by equipping them with features that would benefit mankind in other ways. They could have vacuum attachments to keep the streets clean.

Or they could dispense freshly brewed coffee or play your favorite CD. Nobody says Gort has to be a uni-functional bore.

So that's my idea for saving the world.

If you've got a better one, by all means share it.

But do it quick. I have a feeling that if you put it off too long, there won't be any world left to save.

[Joanne98]

17. To be replaced by the Corporate state. No way!