My Priorities if I were the New President of the United States of America: Peace (Self-Knowledge), Dignity and Prosperity

By Enrique R. Suarez

deltamodel55@yahoo.com

https://enriquesuarez.academia.edu/

“The unexamined life is not worth living”

Socrates

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

“The world would be so different, so incomparably more liveable, if anyone in power could hear your words. They can't, but a genuine popular movement might bring them to their ears. It's happened before.”

Noam Chomsky´s Comments to Enrique Suarez´s Essay, 2010

“The issue is not whether in this world there needs to be peace. The issue is that in each of our world there needs to be peace.”

Enrique Suarez

The International Arena

“To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.”

Adam Smith

My Priorities if I were the New President of the United States of America: Peace (Self-Knowledge), Dignity and Prosperity

I first wrote this essay back in 2010. I am about to finish updating the second version of this essay that I will share with all the peace-loving people anywhere in the world.

If I were the new president of the United States at this moment I will immediately examine some of the most important issues that should rank high on the agenda of concern for human welfare and rights which bear so directly on the prospects for decent survival, namely, nuclear war, environmental disaster and U.S. foreign policy which according to many leading analysts is increasing the likelihood of these catastrophes by reminding all of us that we are guests and not a host in this planet. Therefore, I will immediately end the unlawful Iraq and Afghanistan wars, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would free five trillion American dollars to be used for war reconstruction and reparations to these countries which will also have dramatic positive spillover effects to the U.S. economy, let alone the beginning of a new and more constructive relationship with these countries as well.

Furthermore, I will abide by the World Court decision by also paying reparations to Nicaragua and most of the Central American countries for the illegal wars that were conducted against legitimate governments elected in free elections in the Reagan administration years. And, I will not hesitate to acknowledge the crimes committed against Native Americans and to start the reparations and healing process as we did with our African-American brothers in the recent past as well. This is what any decent nation would do for the sanctity of life come first. I will do all of the above and much more based on the fact that we as human beings share more similarities than differences, and those similarities begin with acknowledging that we are not only human beings, but that we also share a divine part that ties us all together to the same destiny which is to recognize the creator within each of us by experiencing this divine part within us in every moment of our lives. Then and only then would higher-level communications will take place among human beings regardless of race, education, and culture. This inner and very practical self-realization will be the new foundation of peace, dignity, and prosperity in the XXI century. If we had had this understanding of what a human being really is and our real purpose on this planet, then Mahatma Gandhi would have never stated when he was asked about his opinion about the “Western Civilization” that “it would be a good idea.”

In addition, armed with this new self-knowledge and as a result of recent U.S. foreign policy projections and efforts to control the world energy resources, as the new president of the United States, I will seriously examine the global power dynamics, namely, the role of the three major power systems (the USA, the EU, and North-East Asia, now joined by India, South Asia, and South-East Asia), in reshaping the balance of power in the world aimed at having a more constructive relationship with these other power centers based on mutual respect and self-determination and not on traditional American unilateral expansion to enhance our security, for these same policies trigger unintended consequences, responses, and distrust by other countries that see American actions as unacceptable threats to their security and national sovereignty.

By the same token, the new strategic system or intergovernmental mutual-security organization called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which was founded in 2001 by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan that many analysts see as a new power block created to counter NATO will be discussed with the American people if I were the president of the United States, namely by asking the American people and the rest of the world whether a peaceful diplomatic resolution of potential conflicts would be favored by my U.S. constituents or as it is currently being done, to resolve conflicts through military threats, invasions and nuclear weapons expansion which violates not only United Nations Charters but makes this fragile world a more dangerous place to live. There is, therefore, a direct correlation between arms sales and human rights violations that should be taught and acknowledged beginning in elementary schools if we really want to create a new cadre of leaders.

In other words, the simple question I will ask the American people is this: do we rather make war or make love with other countries? Historically, the answer from the American government has been the former and not the latter, this is why we need not a change but a complete transformation of the individual in our society beginning with staffing our U.S. foreign policy personnel, including the presidency of the United States and the Cabinet with people of the highest spiritual, intellectual and moral and ethical caliber that can work together with the American people based on the premises stated in the title of this essay: peace, dignity, and prosperity, in that order.