David Cameron’s blunt but essential message to the United Nations yesterday that it must not just be “united in condemnation, but united in action” and continued,“You can sign every human rights declaration in the world. But if you stand by and watch people being slaughtered in their own country, when you could act, then what are those signatures really worth?”
The new Cameron doctrine of foreign policy might echo the biblical injunction in declaring “policy without works is dead”. If people are to have confidence in intuitions then they must see that there is a connection between what they say and what they do. Even one average policy which is implemented in full is worth a hundred finally crafted policy declarations which aren’t.
This is basic politics: it is what motivated Newt Gingrich change the course of political campaigning in 1994 with his ‘Contract with America’ which addressed voters growing cynicism with the high rhetoric and ever expanding manifestos by pledging eight very specific and measurable pledges. The merits or radicalism of the pledges in many ways did not matter it was the fact that politicians were saying elect us, and we will do this, and if we don’t then throw us out. It is a tactic which has been replicated in campaigns across the world ever since.
Legislate and say less, listen and implement more is the means by which confidence can be restored in our government and institutions.
The first test of this essential new doctrine will come next month on Monday 17 October when the United kingdom government will for the first time (as host nation) propose the Olympic Truce resolution to the United Nations General Assembly which will urge “all member states to pursue initiatives for peace and reconciliation in the spirit of the ancient games” for the period seven days before the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Games until seven days after the Closing Ceremony of the Paralympic Games.
In the past the UN resolution has been signed by all 194 member states, including the UK, but no member state has ever implemented it. On 29 June, 2011 David Cameron told the House of Commons that the Olympic Truce represented a “historic opportunity” which the government intended to make the most of.
With the long overdue gust of fresh air which the prime minister blew through the dusty corridors of the UN yesterday the Olympic Truce provides the perfect opportunity to show that the UN is not just united in aspiration but united also in action and in so doing begin to restore its own credibility, for if not then “what are those signatures really worth.”
Lord Michael Bates is currently in Italy, 1450 miles into a 3000 mile ‘Walk for Truce’ from Greece to London to promote the Olympic Truce www.walkfortruce.org
I don’t want to put a damper on Lord Bates’
pilgrimag-ic ardour, but was it not Munich, when there was no truce at all?
I trust that his own personal walk will not end in tears, but a celebration of life!
You political players take the cake. We have horrendously serious issues to concentrate on and the Olympics is simply used as a facade to cover it. Another ‘keep your eye on my fancy footwork as I steal your wallet.’
For those out there who understand financial dilemma’s and the consequences of financial collapse, which includes us all, should read these links. And then ask if our politicians are fit for purpose? The whole bloody lot of them that is.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=25607
And in the link below we are being advised that Russia is being asked to save Europe as they are willing to consent to lending 15 billion dollars to the IMF to bail us out.
Make no mistake, the UK and Europe are one and the same in this debacle. Russia, by the way has, been going from strength to strength whilst we collapse.
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/21-06-2011/118272-euro-0/
In amongst this strife, once again, our front man, David Cameron, is out there batting for the salvation of the nations of the world, those who have nothing to do with his own voters and their need for a saviour. He is worried about the ‘Human Rights’ of those across the world as he watches Britain burn in debt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOzR3UAyXao
For once Maude, I don’t need to add to a fellow poster’s comments.
The same applies to Cameron himself –
and to any and every UK organisation or individual –
that opposes, rejects, denies, ignores, or fails to actively-support any British citizen who is attempting or wishing to maintgain and further build their own healthy-living and working habits specificly by following published advances in individual and mutual self-healthing
such as with
“The New Rules of Posture” by Mary Bond; and the (now by no means new but equally avoided0
“Six Thinking Hats” (de Bono);
and the Dr Thomas Gordon Method III win-win-win cooperative needs & hows recognition and friendly problem solving
e.g. with
“Leader/Teacher/Parent Effectiveness Training”;
and those are by no means the only excellent individual human development and collective peace-building advances being repressed, even suppressed and suffocated, by the UK and within the entire UK.
Lord Bates,
I do applaud your commitment to this cause and the grand gesture involved in the walk. I would like to believe you shall see some success in pursuing your cause. However, the ancient Olympics were Greek and although ancient Greece was very diverse and very large compared to the picture most have in their minds and included many of the ancestors of Italian, German, Slavic, Turkish, Celtic and several other peoples that exist today they were still an identifiable group surrounded by everyone else — the Barbarians. A Barbarian nobleman it was believed could be noble and aristocractic in his own place and culture but a Greek gentleman (or genteel minor lady in the case of the Heraklion games) was noble and magnificent everywhere. It is hard for me to see the countries of the modern Olympics as sharing any sense of common identity equal to that which inspired the ancient Truce…
So first legislate the Olympic Games to be permanently held in Greece;
thus obviating multi-national wastages of precious resources and infrastructural funds;
and by making them reasonably profitable for Greece,
they could also be strongly restored to their ancient nobility and common-identity.
Security would also be both stronger and more internationall affordable.
Good thinking Miles. It would save all those white elephant stadiums from depleting the treasury coffers.
Except, that will not suit those who benefit from the public purse, namely, developers, and friends of the ruling classes who rely on the pay backs on this business philanthropy. Now would it?
Miles JSD,
A very well expressed opinion which has many good points and further illustrates certain differences… Yet I do love the Modern Olympics as they have been evolving and sincerely wich them well. It is simply that I do not think they yet match the meaning of the old ones. Perhaps in time they could…
A debilitatingly complex obstacle here is “competitiveness”.
Without labouring it, the term envelops literally millions of different levels, intensities, and friendlinesses and hostilities of multifold human efforts, from the friendly tiddleywinks end of a scale up through both old-time social-cricket and Packered-profiteering-cricket, both Military “Live training” versus Battlefield-capture-by-the-enemy-and-torture, employer-owned “the Company unfortunately has to ‘let you go'” versus Sweatshop-ism-suicide and further versus psychiatry’s “we are allowed 10% medication fatalities” (1999 in UK, USA, and Australia), as far as genocidal killing-fgields and warlordism and the embezzlement of Common Funds by those already overpaid and overprotected to guard them, and the Overkilling of Earth’s Lifesupports and future-means of emigrating to another Planet.
is already being driven down the “Packer-profiteering” track: so between what levels of competition is The Games historically, currently, and futurely set ?
Focus it right down: give it to Greece, say for a trial 40 years.
There will still be annual “Commonwealth Games” and suchlike in almost every other country around the world.