Death Ledgers . . . World Peace in a Post-Heroic Society

By Alan V. Gordon

This book highlights the role that the United Nations will hopefully play in the next century, when its newly instituted world parliamentary assembly replaces the security council as the sole body with the power to decide on the most effective way of ensuring that all international conflicts are quickly and equitably resolved.

The UN will also be charged with a two-pronged peace education program. Firstly, an international roll out of large electronic billboards, nicknamed Death Ledgers, would be installed in every major urban center, showing the public on a 24/7 basis that is the true costs of war. Only then will each nation has a factual presentation of the losses of life and war expenditures for each conflict in which it is involved. Secondly, the UN will undertake a worldwide An Eye for Peace compulsory schooling program, which would teach the true costs of war, showing it to be the most unprofitable undertaking, far better replaced by international trade.

This new and more positive view of international affairs replaces the stick of punishment with the carrot of long-term economic prosperity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524560973

Alan V. Gordon

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Death Ledgers…

World Peace in a

Post-Heroic Society

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How Death Ledgers and www.

Peace Education may end Wars

Alan V. Gordon

Copyright © 2017 by Alan V. Gordon.

ISBN:   Softcover   978-1-5245-6098-0

   eBook   978-1-5245-6097-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information

storage and retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and

incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or

are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons,

living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock

are models, and such images are being used for

illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/20/2017

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Contents

Chapter One: The Genesis of the Book

Chapter Two: A Framework of Definitions

Chapter Three: UN and World Wide Schooling

Chapter Four: The Rise of Pacifist Morality

Chapter Five: UN’s Role in Fostering a Peace Culture

Chapter Six: The Dawning of a New Pacifist Era

Chapter Seven: Nexus of the UN and World Conflict

Chapter Eight: The UN World Parliamentary Assembly

Chapter Nine: There Are Big Profits in War

Chapter Ten: When Will It Ever End?

Concluding Remarks

Chapter One

The Genesis of the Book

Oceans of ink have been drained writing books and articles about the effects of war on both the protagonists and the antagonists. Many authors have written throughout the ages about what they see as the most effective ways of ending international conflicts and resolving the age-old dilemma, of nation states warring over issues of religion, mineral wealth, and territorial boundaries.

The futility of going to war, has historically been accompanied by a confirmed psychology that sees wars themselves as a never-ending phenomenon, a man-made wall that has stopped mankind from ever achieving the universal desire for peaceful co-existence.

What so many writers have ignored, is the role played by man’s own instinct for survival, in pushing mankind’s behaviour towards a certain form of action which ensures the continuation and reproduction of the human race.

To date no-one has disproven the fact that ‘hate’ is a uniquely human emotion, which we all experience as a direct and immediate response to any outside threat to members of our own community.

It is at that instant of aggression towards us, that our grief evolves into a deep psychological hatred of the perpetrators of the aggression, a hatred which has to be avenged by the reciprocal killing of all those responsible for our loss.

Other important driving forces for international conflict situations are ethnic differences and the non-rational human needs of seeking justice for a perceived offence against what is deemed to be a fair decision.

The goal of the book is to put forward several suggestions on how the United Nations can realistically deal with the tragedy of international armed conflict, and to implement directly low-cost solutions that will effectively end the perpetual cycle of war followed by peace.

What has to be taught is that war is not inevitable, and that conflict avoidance is effectively carried out in countries which have politically stable governments and are actively engaged in international trade.

It is proposed that the UN should introduce a completely new two-pronged ‘Information Age Publicity Program’, one which intentionally brain-washes out man’s desire to go to war, and which proves with facts and figures that the undertaking of war, is in fact an extremely unprofitable undertaking. Knowing these facts would be like removing the thorn of ‘Aggression’ as a driving force from the minds of politicians, statesmen and the leaders of the military establishment.

The road to peace is a long and winding road with numerous pitfalls and dead ends, but the UN must psychologically prepare all its member states to successfully confront the established militaristic view, that armed conflict has always existed throughout all of history, and will never end, as it is a part of the format of our human existence.

A new way of looking at ‘Peace’, is not to see it in a negative light of surrender by one side in a conflict, but as a positive occurrence, which facilitates the use of scarce funds, away from destructive war expenditures into constructive economic development programs.

In fact, one of the long-term aims of the book is that it plants the seeds of doubt and consternation into the minds of all people, especially those holding political power, and helps to bolster the push for world-wide national legislation in all countries, thereby allowing the UN to facilitate settlement of the destructive aspects of war, as well as helping to differentiate the arguments, always advanced by both the antagonist and the protagonist forces in every conflict.

The very rapid growth in modern international communications through the internet and mobile telephony, has made possible a new approach, allowing real time interactions between individuals of all different nationalities.

Such a new way of seeing peaceful co-existence as a new type of business operational model, which does not rely on traditional diplomacy, but in its place, incorporates the active promotion of all forms of international trade and the introduction of a world-wide compulsory educational program for all schools of every member state of the UN.

Such a new international education model possibly called ‘An Eye for Peace’, would teach a variation of the ‘Pacifist’ school of thought to the youth of the world. Emphasis would be placed on teaching the core needs of international