A New World Social Forum

We have a World Social Forum, designed to discuss human rights, global justice and environmental issues, but it has never been hosted by us, the United States.

Why have we never hosted such a worthwhile forum? Too much politics beyond our control I suspect; too many cooks in the kitchen.

Even Canada, this year’s host country, refused to issue visas to politicians from more than half of their invited countries, citing concerns that those politicians might defect, and apply for political asylum.

In consideration of Canada’s concerns, my idea is this…we, the United States, invite unprejudiced citizens from around the world (one from each country) to gather together at Lake Tahoe and go on record with their concerns and suggestions regarding fractious social problems that bedevil us today. I shall organize this forum myself.

On second thought, they don’t need my antediluvian thinking and antiquated ways. I shall ask my son, Mac, to organize it, as he is 28, and has a cadre of exemplary Capoeira friends who are passionately interested in jurisprudence and social policy.

Dedicated to the promotion of universality, the New World Social Forum will provide inspiration and influence toward avoiding another Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda and Syria.

Last week we had the honor of welcoming 70 Fulbright Scholars from around the world to America with a reception dinner at Lake Tahoe before they fanned out across this great land of ours to pursue doctorates and Nobel Prizes.

The Lake of the Sky filled their hearts with peace, love and goodwill. I am confident that every one of those exemplary scholars will endorse a New World Social Forum, for they are some of the best and brightest that the world has to offer.

Mark Twain reminds us, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”

In the beginning religion was the holy wheel that taught us to be kind. Then there were two wheels and three, and finally four, until the fifth wheel poked a stick in the spokes of the first four. Religion provided a greater good, until nascent religions began to exhibit intolerance toward established religions, and violence became the tool of choice for marketing religion. Religious intolerance escalated and intensified, mutating into crusades, pogroms, genocide, internecine wars, and most recently, jihads: “If you do not believe as I do, prepare yourself not for heaven, but for the other place.”

So let’s go millennials, establish a New World Social Forum, and drag us into the 21st century. Show us that solidarity of fairness, and abolition of violence in problem solving, can posit a wholesome relationship between homo sapiens, and a vigorous nurturing of Mother Earth.

Learn more about McAvoy Layne at www.ghostoftwain.com.