SAVING THE ONLY HOME WE HAVE!

The most important—the most vital—of the steps that must be taken to protect and preserve the Earth and its life forms is to make family planning universal and mandatory on a world-wide basis.

It goes without saying that this is a cultural challenge the likes of which many countries have never faced before. But not meeting the challenge is too horrible to contemplate.

There is, of course, a precedent for this challenge, and that is China, where in 1979 supreme leader Deng Xiaoping decreed that couples in urban Han [racially Chinese] areas of the country could not have more than one child in a desperate measure to stop the ballooning of the population that had already exceeded one billion.

Deng was able to make this draconian policy stick because he had absolute control of the country and did not face the wrath of religious zealots whose God demands that couples have as many children as is physically possible—a practice that traditionally has been more acceptable to men than to women.

In advanced and developing countries the reduction in population growth rate is underway because a growing number of couples are making the decision on their own, regardless of their religious affiliations.

This movement is based on immediate economic factors as well as on a growing awareness that large families are not as desirable as they used to be. But it is far below what is necessary to lower the overall population of the Earth.

Still, it has been shown repeatedly that when wives in poverty-stricken countries are provided with the means to avoid multiple pregnancies many of them will do so.

But achieving a neutral much less negative birthrate will require a combination of government will on an international basis and a fundamental change in the position of religions that promote large families because it is “God’s will.”

As said, the world needs some kind of parenting code of ethics that people be taught before they get married and have children—in or outside of wedlock. To start with, courses in parenting responsibilities and skills should be made a mandatory part of the education of the young. But there must be more. There must be a universal family planning program that brings rationality and practicality into procreation.

One of the most critical factors in American society that makes the population problem even more pressing is the preponderance of single women, particular Blacks and Hispanics, who have children—something that has developed because of sexually aggressive and irresponsible males and a government system of sup-porting single parents.

In earlier times in Catholic Mexico one of the prerogatives of upper class males was to impregnate lower class female employees…a practice also followed by owners of black slaves in early America.

The political, economic and social policies of promoting growth and more growth for the sake of profit and power must be eliminated from the human mind-set. Economic growth should first of all be designed to raise the level of the living standard of all people on Earth to a comfortable level that it is sustainable.

The battle for women’s right to control the number of children they have is far from over. Individual religious zealots in the private sector as well as many who are in public office are keeping the fight going by opposing family planning in any form or fashion—with many resorting to mental and physical intimidation and some to murder.

National polls show that over two-thirds of young American males and females believe that the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies is important, but sixty-three percent say they know very little about birth control pills, and much of what they say they know is wrong.

All public institutions and organizations, including the religions, should join together to make the Pill available to females worldwide. Each Pill costs only a few cents to produce, and they could be made avail-able for free-pickup in places in every city, town, village and rural area in the world.

But the responsibility of controlling the population of the Earth should not and will not be left up to females alone. Dramatic advances had been made by scientists in the development of new means of preventing conception that are designed for men.

Whether or not males make use of this new technology will be the ultimate test of their concern, both for their female partners and the Earth.

The Population-Growth Sickness!

In the past, the proselytizing success that Christianity has had has invariably been in poor countries where women especially were oppressed. These successes did not come from the theology or spirituality the missionaries preached but from the gender and social reforms that were inherent or added in their message.

The mistreated and unhappy people in these countries should have learned long ago that believing in, bowing before, and praying to spirits and gods did not improve their political or social situation one iota. That was something that required fundamental reforms in political and social institutions over which they had no control whatsoever.

The Mormon religion is one partial exception in the proselytizing gambit to increase its membership. Not-withstanding the infantile fable of its founding, the Mormon Church follows a system that in many respects is far more practical and positive than that of competing religions.

Its emphasis on language and culture learning, on strict dress and behavior and on business acumen has made it a powerful force that attracts and holds people born into Mormon families. The method of child-upbringing designed by male members of the Mormon Church incorporates brainwashing techniques, and it works.

But the positive side of the Mormon campaign to increase its number of members does not alter the fact that the whole population-growth concept is like a virus that has infected the Big Three religions since their founding.

The religious-economic-political concept that prosperity and the quality of life is based on a continuously growing population is not only outdated, it is one of the primary factors in the poverty that plagues over half of the population of the Earth, including millions of people in the most prosperous nations. It is also one of the primary sources of much of the violence that afflicts so much of mankind.

The Economic Growth Obsession

Another vital factor in saving the Earth is eliminating the political, economic and social policies of promoting economic growth and more growth for the sake of profit and power. Economic growth should first of all be designed to raise the level of the living standard of all people on Earth to a comfortable level that it is sustainable—and then economic policies should be based on improving the quality of life.

This is another area that must be addressed by not only by the education system but by the news media, the business world, the political establishments, and by ordinary people who understand that there must be a limit to economic growth.

The Gross National Product [GNP] of a nation should not be the standard by which it is measured. That is a mindset that inevitably leads to irrational and immoral behavior. It permeates a culture and leads to competition that in turn can and has led to war.

There are some societies that are not as obsessed with GNP as the United States, China, Japan and other industrialized nations. But to my knowledge as of this writing only tiny Bhutan in Southeast Asia has an official policy that promotes Gross National Happiness [GNH] instead of GNP. There were, however, a growing number of countries that were beginning to give more priority to GNH, including [not surprising-ly] France, resulting in many foreigners beating up on the French for their “irrational” behavior.

Transforming a society from an economic base to a happiness base is an educational challenge. It will not happen from the top down. It must be a personal choice made by individuals and families and grow from the bottom up.

More on the Problem of Human Sexuality

Throughout history most human beings have desired only to live in peace and be safe and secure, but they have not had the power to dispute or ignore their religious and political rulers who added to rather than solved the problem of human sexuality.

The misunderstanding and abuse of human sexuality is not going to go away until we manage to create a new ethic for sexual behavior that is rational, satisfying and doable.

Just one of thousands of daily examples of the inadequacies of the present system: in India official statistics estimate that there are some 1.2 million child prostitutes. The number of child prostitutes in African nations and in other nations as well, including the United States, is both staggering and astonishing.

There is no mystery at all as to why this incredible situation exists and has existed for millennia. In short, the sexual nature of the human male, male-dominated religions and male-dominated political, economic and social systems are responsible.

This situation will not be eradicated until enough men of goodwill find the courage and the voice to defy the misplaced moral teachings of religions and other anti-human ideologists to demand that the sexual nature of human beings be recognized and a rational, practical system for accommodating this nature be accepted as the norm.

Interestingly, as is almost always the case when it comes to cultural changes, it will be younger people, not leaders, who bring the final solution to the sex problem—and with the entertainment and news industries now pushing the process and the Internet providing them with instant access to billions of people that could happen within the 21st century.

When this happens the sex-based advertising, entertainment and news-based industries as well as the anti-sex positions of religions will have to find something else to justify their existence. With the time span of each generation getting shorter and shorter, there may yet be foreseeable hope for humanity.

***This blog was excerpted from my book: THE PLAGUE OF MALE DOMINANCE – The Cause and Cure!, available in ebook and printed formats from Amazon.com.

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Boyé Lafayette De Mente has been involved with Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, journalist and editor. He is a graduate of Jōchi University in Tokyo, Japan and Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona, USA. In addition to books on the business practices, social behavior and languages of China, Japan, Korea and Mexico he has written extensively about the moral collapse of the U.S. along with books on his home state of Arizona. To see a full list of his books go to: www.authorsonlinebookshop.com. Recent books include: THE PLAGUE OF MALE DOMINANCE! – The Cause and Cure!; CHINA Understanding & Dealing with the Chinese Way of Doing Business; JAPAN Understanding & Dealing with the NEW Japanese Way of Doing Business; AMERICA’S FAMOUS HOPI INDIANS; ARIZONA’S LORDS OF THE LAND [the Navajos] and SPEAK JAPANESE TODAY – A Little Language Goes a Long Way!