[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 27, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E223-E224]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 MOVING HUMANITY TOWARD A GREAT FUTURE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. LOIS CAPPS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 27, 2001

  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, today I bring to the attention of my 
colleagues, a thoughtful article by Frank Kelly that appeared in the 
Santa Barbara News-Press, entitled ``Moving Humanity Toward a Great 
Future'' on October 1, 2000.
  Mr. Frank K. Kelly has been a journalist, a speechwriter for 
President Truman, Assistant to the Senate Majority Leader, Vice 
President of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, and 
Vice President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit the following article:

       The sight of 152 national leaders streaming into the United 
     Nations headquarters for a Millennium Summit meeting filled 
     me with rejoicing. The leaders were called together by the 
     Secretary General to develop plans for action to move toward 
     lasting peace and a sustainable future for every one on 
     Earth. They endorsed an eight-page plan to deal with the 
     world community's hardest problems--and the U.N. staff has 
     responded to the Summit mandate.
       That gathering was particularly encouraging for me because 
     it came close to being what I had envisioned 33 years ago in 
     articles for the Center Magazine and the Saturday Review. 
     Those articles focused on the signs I saw then of the coming 
     transformation of humanity--when people everywhere would act 
     to meet the needs of every member of the human family. I saw 
     the creative power of human beings being released in a 
     glorious surge of new achievements.
       In the Center Magazine articles, I proposed that the 
     Secretary General should be authorized by the U.N. to present 
     annual reports on the state of humanity--reports based on 
     information drawn from all the nations and broadcast around 
     the world each year. I contended that the reports should 
     emphasize the noblest deeds and wisest statements of human 
     beings in every field. It should salute Heroes of Humanity--
     men and women who were highly creative and compassionate, who 
     served one another and helped one another, who broke the 
     bonds which kept others from developing their abilities, who 
     displayed the deepest respect for the inherent dignity of 
     each human person.
       The Millennium Summit was certainly based on the 
     transforming principles that I expected to see. Secretary 
     General Kofi Annan asked leaders there to take every possible 
     step to enable the people of every country to move upward in 
     health and prosperity, and to make a strong effort to reduce 
     the number of people living in dire poverty by 50 percent by 
     the year 2015. His goals were clearly similar to those of an 
     American president--Harry Truman--who declared in an 
     inaugural address in 1949: ``Only by helping the least 
     fortunate of its members to help themselves can the human 
     family achieve the decent, satisfying life that is the right 
     of all people.''
       The gathering of the world's political leaders at the U.N. 
     this year must be followed year by year by reports to 
     humanity from the Secretary General. Year after year, the 
     people of this planet must be reminded of what wonderful, 
     mysterious, amazing beings they actually are. There must be 
     continuing celebrations of human greatness.
       I do not believe that political leaders--even the best ones 
     among them--can adequately represent the brilliance, the 
     beauty, the enormous diversities of human beings. Future 
     Summit meetings and future reports must involve singers and 
     dancers, choirs of voices, painters and sculptors, novelists 
     and historians and poets, musicians and composers, mystics 
     and spiritual servants, mediators, theologians, retreat 
     masters, and scientists, homebuilders and architects, 
     craftsmen and teachers, administrators and fire wheelers--
     people from every field. And every celebration should 
     proclaim and reflect the inexhaustible energies of love.
       The Millennium Summit revived for many the people the 
     torrent of hope with which we began the New Year. One the 
     first day of the year 2000 there were television broadcasts 
     from places we had never seen before--showing people 
     welcoming the new era with songs and dances, with outburst of 
     exuberant joy. We felt the kinship of belonging to one human 
     family--but that wave of linkage subsided as the patterns of 
     previous centuries took over again. The new perspectives 
     which we had glimpsed through global communications were not 
     absorbed into our thinking and acting.
       But the gathering of leaders at the U.N. brought back our 
     awareness of the fact that we do live in a time of 
     transformation. With all their capacities and their 
     limitations, the leaders made informal contacts with one 
     another than they had never experienced before. When Fidel 
     Castro came close to Bill Clinton and shook Clinton's hand 
     before anyone could stop him, there was a moment of change 
     that would not be forgotten. And the President heard comments 
     from other leaders who milled around him and approached him 
     as person, he responded to them and he had a personal impact 
     on each one of them.
       The effects of the Millennium Summit will be felt in 
     countless ways. The U.N. has already gained new vitality from 
     it--new attention from the media, new understanding from 
     people who had largely ignored it. The leaders who mingled 
     there, who talked in the halls and encountered one another 
     unexpectedly, will feel wider responsibilities to the world 
     community as well as to their own nations.
       Yet this time of transformation goes far beyond the 
     repercussions from a conference of presidents and prime 
     ministers. It has started dialogues in the homes of people 
     everywhere--and around the Earth through the Internet. It 
     calls for a continuous recognition of the creative events 
     occurring in all countries. It demands a wider awareness of 
     the fast currents of change that are carrying us into new 
     circles of conflict and compassion, new embraces new surges 
     of evolution, tall feelings of hope that great things are 
     coming.
       In July, 50 passionate advocates of long-range thinking and 
     constructive action took part in a three-day meeting at La 
     Casa de Maria, a conference and retreat center in Santa 
     Barbara, with the purposes of connecting their lives to one 
     another and becoming more effective in benefiting humanity 
     and a threatened world. Much attention was given to the ideas 
     of Joanna Macy, a Buddhist philosopher and activist, who 
     believes that many signs indicate a great turning in human 
     attitudes. She asserts that many people are turning away from 
     destructive habits of an
       The men and women in the sessions at La Casa cited these 
     goals: ``To provide people the opportunity to experience and 
     share with others the innermost responses to the present 
     condition of our world: to reframe

[[Page E224]]

     their pain for the world as evidence of their 
     interconnectedness in the web of life and hence their power 
     to take part in its healing; to provide people with 
     concepts--from system science, deep ecology, or spiritual 
     traditions--which illumine this power along with exercises 
     which reveal its play in their own lives . . . to enable 
     people to embrace the great turning as a challenge which they 
     are fully capable of meeting in a variety of ways, and as a 
     privilege in which they can take joy . . . ''
       The soaring presence of joy permeated the gathering in 
     Santa Barbara. We danced and we sang, we looked at one 
     another face to face, finding deep realities in each other's 
     eyes; we imagined what the people of the next century might 
     ask us if we were confronted by representatives of future 
     generations. We went far forward in time and in our sharing 
     of our thoughts and emotions. We laughed together and some of 
     us came close to tears. We felt the potential greatness of 
     the human species.
       That experience in the beautiful surroundings of La Casa de 
     Maria on El Bosque road reinforced my conviction that Summit 
     Meetings for Humanity should be held annually or possibly 
     more often. It made me determined again to uphold a right of 
     celebration as a human right essential for a full 
     understanding of the immortal power in the depths of human 
     beings.
       Walter Wriston, author of ``The Twilight of Sovereignty,'' 
     has given us a vivid description of the increasing impact of 
     the global communications system which now provides unlimited 
     channels for education and illumination: ``Instead of merely 
     invalidating George Orwell's vision of Big Brother watching 
     the citizen, information technology has allowed the reverse 
     to happen. The average citizen is able to watch Big Brother. 
     Individuals anywhere in the world with a computer and modem 
     can access thousands of databases internationally. And these 
     individuals, who communicate with each other electronically 
     regardless of race, gender, or color, are spreading the 
     spirit of personal expression--of freedom--to the four 
     corners of the Earth.''
       Noting that we are now living in what can be called a 
     global village, Wriston observed: ``In a global village, 
     denying people human rights or democratic freedoms no longer 
     means denying them an abstraction they have never 
     experienced, but rather it means denying them the established 
     customs of the village. Once people are convinced that these 
     things are possible in the village, an enormous burden falls 
     upon those who would withhold them.''
       This is the Age of Open Doors--and the doors cannot be 
     closed against anyone. More than 50 years ago, the U.N. 
     General Assembly endorsed a revolutionary statement drafted 
     by committee headed by an American woman, Eleanor Roosevelt--
     the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Assembly 
     called upon all member countries and people everywhere ``to 
     cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded 
     principally in schools and other educational institutions, 
     without distinction based on the political status of 
     countries or territories.'' The Declaration is now part of 
     the human heritage--an essential element in the aspirations 
     of people all over the planet.
       The Declaration proclaims a bedrock fact: ``Recognition of 
     the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights 
     of all members of the human family is the foundation of 
     freedom, justice and peace in the world.'' Every Summit 
     Meeting for Humanity in all the years to come should begin 
     with a reading of the 30 specific articles of the 
     Declaration. It encourages us to become intensely aware of 
     our own marvelous gifts--the package that came to us in the 
     process of becoming human. It sanctions the pleasure of 
     trying new thoughts, of taking new steps on new paths, and 
     tossing our fears behind us. In the light of it, we welcome 
     the hunger to know and to grow that we see in all the 
     glorious beings around us.
       Many scientists now acknowledge that human beings embody 
     the creative power of the universe in a special way. We are 
     connected with the divine power that shaped the stars and 
     brought all things into existence. We limited only by the 
     range of our imaginations--our visions of what can be done.
       Herman Hesse, a great novelist, described our situation 
     most beautifully. In one of his books, he wrote: ``What then 
     can give rise to a true spirit of peace on Earth? Not 
     commandments and not practical experience. Like all human 
     progress, the love of peace must come from knowledge.''
       It is the knowledge of the living substance in us, in each 
     of us, in you and me . . . the secret godliness that each of 
     us bears within us. It is the knowledge that, starting from 
     this innermost point, we can at all times transcend all pairs 
     of opposites, transforming white into black, evil into good, 
     night into day.
       The Indians call it Atman; the Chinese; Tao; the Christians 
     call it grace. When the supreme knowledge is present (as in 
     Jesus, Buddha, Plato, or Lao-Tzu) a threshold is crossed, 
     beyond which miracles begin. The war and enmity cease. We can 
     read of it in the New Testament and the discourses of 
     Gautama. Anyone who is so inclined can laugh at it and call 
     it ``introverted rubbish,'' but to one who has experienced it 
     his enemy becomes his brother, death becomes birth, disgrace 
     honor, calamity good fortune.  . .
       ``Each thing on Earth discloses itself two-fold, as `of 
     this world' and not of this world. But `this world' means 
     what is outside us. Everything that is outside us can become 
     enemy, danger, fear and death. The light dawns with the 
     experience that this entire `outworld world' is not only an 
     object of our perception but at the same time the creation of 
     our soul, with the transformation of all outward into inward 
     things, of the world into the self.''
       As humanity moves from one summit to another, as the deep 
     connections of the human family shift from the outward world 
     to the world within us, as we know one another fully at last, 
     the inner knowledge enfolds all of us. A glorious age is 
     around us, and in us and we will take it all into ourselves.

     

                          ____________________