Bill's Berkeley Address
Two score and a baker's dozen years ago "we the peoples" of our "one world" brought forth upon our Mother Earth, in the beautiful City of Saint Francis, a rebirth of a very old dream, the dream of peace on earth and goodwill to all human beings and to all life.
We did so "determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" which so regularly had brought untold sorrow to humankind and all life.
We did so tired, worn out and weary from decades and centuries of warfare and preparation for warfare, decades and centuries of destruction and devastation, decades and centuries of millions and millions and millions of innocent and guilty deaths.
We did so anxious and ready to bring in that glorious and prophesied day when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they study war anymore."
But between then and now we found ourselves distracted from the pursuit of that glorious vision by two almost fatal detours. The fatal, false promise of nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons and the fatal, false promise that the accumulation of wealth and material goods - whether pursued from the left or the right - would somehow solve our human problems.
We live now on our one planet, "Spaceship Earth", on the eve of a new century and of a third millenium. We cannot permit the 21st Century to be another century of hell and holocaust and humanicide. We cannot permit the millenium ahead of us to be another manifestation of military insanity.
We have proved in these fifty some years that we can solve almost any technical or scientific problems or challenges or questions to which we choose to apply our minds and resources.
The new century and new millenium invite us - no, rather urge us to apply our minds and bodies and hearts and resources to the nurturing and nourishing of the only global instruments of true peace that we presently possess - the United Nations and its family of specialized agencies and other bodies.
In her last book, Tomorrow Is Now, published shortly before she died in 1963, Eleanor Roosevelt urged "that the United Nations should be the foundation of policy, not a diplomatic tool". She acknowledged that this course of action would involve risk. Of course it is risky. Sovereign nation states are slow to relinquish anything. The personnel of state departments and foreign ministries and the United Nations itself are all human beings.
But how else can we truly honor and remember the millions upon millions of human beings - and the uncountable numbers of other species and life forms - who have perished directly or indirectly in our 20th Century of warfare and waste? (to be continued)
Sincerely, /s/Bill Trampleasure
Bill Trampleasure
1423 Acroft Ct.
Berkeley, CA 94702
570-843-2484
There's a flag that calls us onward
to the day when peace shall rule
when all folk" live as neighbors
and no warriors play the fool
It's a flag that speaks for one world
one small ball we all call home
with room for all to put down roots
and room for all to roam
It speaks of swords to ploughshares
and spears to pruning hooks
and calls us to keep the promise
of that ancient book of books
And for that flag that calls us onward
beyond nation, race and clan
to the "federation of the world,
the parliament of man"
For that flag that calls us onward
to the time when all wars cease
I now pledge my mighty ounces
to help bring in the day of peace
BUY AND FLY THE UN FLAG
Fly it as a prayer for peace,
speed the day when all wars cease.
Fly it as a vote for Earth,
be a midwife for global government's birth.
Fly it as an earthly embrace,
give a healing hug to the whole human race.
Fly it as a flicker of light,
Less your hope shine in our nuclear night.
my
window on the world
views U.N. blue and white
stretching
to the edge of Earth
a powerful, promising sight
a blooming, potted geranium
at rest on my window sill
reminds me
that the plant of peace
needs much nurturing
still
an open window
beckons me
to breathe deep
in our growing world
filling my lungs and soul
with hope
as the flag of peace
is unfurled
* * * * * * * * * * * There's a flag that flies above us. * * * * * * * * * * * It's the symbol of our land. * * * * * * * * * * * And for that flag that flies above us, * * * * * * * * * * * we'll proudly take our stand. * * * * * * We took our stand all 76 And again in the Civil war. We've taken our stand many other times we'll take it forevermore.
THE FLAG (Written by my grandfather, H. T. Trampleasure, in Oakland, California, around 1920, and found among family papers years after I had become my own kind of flag waver.)
I dreamed as I lay in mood, of a wondrous emblem
Floating out to the farthest reach of a waiting world;
An emblem of red, and white, and blue,
With myriad stars all sprinkled through.
Yet far above 'mid a field of blue were other stars:
Stars of all magnitudes, stars of another day,
When hate shall cease and love shall reign Supreme.
And all along the staff from earth to heaven,
Was writ: "Liberty to All Mankind."
Then at its apex, bathed in refulgent glory,
Far o'er the eagle soaring,
Floated The Dove of Peace.
Every face
is a flag,
revealing,
feeling.
Every body
a banner,
standing tall
or kneeling.
Every person
a pennant,
uniquely
appealing.
In life's
passing parade,
all have a place.
No one/nothing
but us
fills our
special space.
No one/nothing
but us
flies our
special face.
So run up your flag;
bare your banner.
Let your colors
ripple and flow.
The planetary
pageant of
peace
needs
your personal
"on with the show!"
- Between Hope and History: Meeting America's Challenges for the 21st Century
by President Bill Clinton
"Shall we live by our fears and define ourselves by what we are against,or shall we live by our hopes and define ourselves by what we are working for, by our vision of a better future?"
The United Nations is a gesture in the direction of nonviolence on a world scale. There, at least, states that oppose one another have sought to do so with words instead of with weapons. But true nonviolence is more than the absence of violence. It is the persistent and determined application of peaceable power to offenses against the community—in this case the world community. As the United Nations moves ahead with the giant tasks confronting it, I would hope that it would earnestly examine the uses of nonviolent direct action. __MLK,Jr., Where do we go from here? p 184
__Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
NEW CENTURY SUGGESTIONS
·UN focus first in foreign policy
·Pay all our UN obligations now
·Rejoin UNESCO
·2,000 more UN flags flying by year 2,000
NOSOTROS LOS PUEBLOS DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS RESUELTOS Respectfully Quoted
178 I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. —Thomas Jefferson
395 We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. —Benjamin Franklin
474 We live in an age disturbed, confused, bewildered, afraid of its own forces, in search not merely of its road but even of its direction. There are many voices of counsel, but few voices of vision; there is much excitement and feverish activity, but little concert of thoughtful purpose. We are distressed by our own ungoverned, undirected energies and do many things, but nothing long. It is our duty to find ourselves. __Woodrow Wilson
477 We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave—to the ancient enemies of man—half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all. __Adlai E. Stevenson
1306 Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. —Samuel Johnson
1324 So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And, as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war. __John F. Kennedy
NOUS, PEOPLES DES NATIONS UNIES RESOLUS
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom...
Preamble, UN Charter