Open Letter
Open Letter — 2021
Subject: Societal Reconstruction to achieve resilient Peaceful Systemic Sustainability
Mr. President, Members of Congress, Governors, Mayors:
The Holigent Peace and Sustainability Initiative can begin as experimental projects in the cities then expand across states, one community at a time, nurtured by Mayors and Governors. On the national scale the program would create massive numbers of jobs, move the U.S. toward energy independence and balanced budgets, sharpen America’s competitive edge, create economic security, reduce the burden on governments and provide quality of life at a sustainable rate of consumption and minimal carbon footprint.
When I emerged from the bomb shelter near the end of Word War II in Budapest, amidst the rubble, my eight-year-old-self asked, "Why would grownups destroy a beautiful city and kill innocent people?" I devoted much of my life to searching for answers. During the past forty years I placed a particular focus on understanding the connections between socioeconomic stress and collective human behavior. The connections speak about the increasing disorder in the world, the depletion of our planet's life support capacity and the rising probability of nuclear war.
In my life I experienced both extremes of Western bipolar political choices — fascism on the right and communism on the left. In 1956 I escaped Soviet occupied communist Hungary. Later, along with many others, I took satisfaction in the collapse of Soviet communism and the “victory” of democracy and capitalism. More recently, however, we are discovering with regret that capitalism and democracy are failing to provide economic security and essential quality of life for large segments of humanity in the United States and beyond. It is also discouraging to find that the tipping point between left and right excludes the possibility of enduring political balance in the center.
Another deep concern is that humanity's wastefulness is leading to the exhaustion of our planet's life-support capacity. The underlying current of unforgiving entropy is making our world more disordered, dysfunctional and dangerous. It is not difficult to see dark clouds gathering on the horizon. When in convergence that social, political, economic and environmental super storm arrives it will leave behind devastation and a wreckage of civilization.
There is no political, military or technological solution for any of the above. This brings up an urgent question. "Why is it that the greatest problem solvers in the known universe with countless brilliant minds credentialed by higher educational institutions are unable to solve humanity's existential challenge: Creating universal quality of life, peace and systemic sustainability on our eminently habitable planet?"
It seems the solution to our existential challenge will have to come from outside established concepts. In that spirit, the Holigent Peace and Sustainability Initiative proposes cellular societal reconstruction. It is to begin with experimental projects to demonstrate how an all green, mixed-use, live/work, pedestrian, compact urban village with hybrid economy and social contracts would secure economic, social and environmental justice, quality and systemic sustainability for all its participants even during severe downturns of the general/global economy.
As our world drifts toward the dark scenarios, the Holigent Proposal will serve not only as a pacifier of the disillusioned and angry but also as a beacon calling on all to direct their energies toward a well-reasoned non-political socioeconomic experiment away from business as usual toward solutions in societal reconstruction for peaceful systemic sustainability.
Such solution would secure employment, housing and quality of life for its residents. When the successful experiment is replicated and expanded to national scale, collective socioeconomic stress would remain dormant. When in time such societal reconstruction is seeded and nurtured around the world, global peace and true sustainability would open the possibility for all humanity to survive and thrive on this rare and breathtakingly beautiful planet Earth.
I ask you to join the ranks of "Solutioneers" and be the mover of an extraordinary societal experiment and innovation in your city and across your state. Be fearless in Washington DC to step outside conventional comfort zones as Congress and FDR did during the Great Depression passing unconventional, landmark legislations.
The existential challenges facing the United States in this multi-polar, disorderly, post-pandemic, conflicted and nuclear-armed world presents the condition for unconventional action. Please move bravely to promote an extraordinary act of Congress establishing the Department of Homeland Reconstruction to fund Societal Reconstruction Projects — building communities that are compliant with nature's building and sustainability code. This is to build a future of universal quality of life and peaceful systemic sustainability while protecting Earth's life support capacity. A national Holigent systemic societal reconstruction program would be a game changer. Over time the program would be seeded in communities around the world that would help reduce global collective socioeconomic stress — lowering the probabilities for war. The program would leave a legacy of self-maintained, affordable, healthful, secure and sustainable communities across America and beyond. Once again America would offer directions to a rudderless world in a Peace Offensive of solutions and goodwill without undue sacrifice of American life and treasure.
Respectfully,
A. Nicholas Frank
Founder and CEO
Holigent.Org
Los Angeles, California
P.S. You may learn more about the proposed societal reconstruction in the book:
Holigent RECONSTRUCT America, Europe, the World — available from Amazon.com
Holigent ® is a registered trademark • The Alliance to Reconstruct America™ • Copyright © 2010, 2018 A. Nicholas Frank
H O L I G E N T
Societal Reconstruction
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