As I type this two Chinese men are orbiting the Earth in a spaceship. The Chinese are the third nation capable of sending a person into space. The two men whom the People’s Republic of China launched into space are not called astronauts as American space-pilots are known, or cosmonauts as the Russians called the men and women of their space program, instead they are called Yuhangyuan. It is the Chinese translation for a space-navigator. Somewhere miles above the Earth two yuhangyuans are circling the heavens in a tiny capsule reminiscent of early American space efforts of the 1960s, navigating their way through the darkness of space. Today is a proud day for me. Anytime a human being travels into space, I delight and marvel at what we can do when we work together toward a goal of our choosing.

Now for some, the fact the Chinese are in space is a strong reason to worry. For those of a military bend, with the Chinese in space, the old Space Race from the days of the Cold War might be reawakened by new competition and fears the space surrounding Earth will become an arena for territorial disputes. To the military mind, space is merely a new theater for a new school of warfare.

It is the 21^st Century. It is a new century and yet the attitudes of the old still pervade the thinking of today. The spirit of today, globalization, reaches into nearly every culture on Earth, and still so many people fear their neighbors and conspire against the unknown. Can the trend of globalization ever bring rise to a new global citizenry? Or will it remain a struggle of nations for power sponsored by greed and waged with the innovations of technology and the winner-take-all mentality of conquest? To answer these questions one must look earnestly upon the machinery of our times, the institutions we engage in our public trust, and as squarely as possible at ourselves and our values. Now, having said all of that, and after taking many earnest stares at the machinery and institutions of our day, to many, this may come as a surprise, but, there are many reasons for optimism for our new century. In fact there are roughly six and half billion reasons. The source of this optimism one might call “the birth of the World Citizen.”

To qualify myself as a suitable midwife for such an esteemed beginning as the

birth of the World Citizen, I submit the simple and undeniable fact I was born a bi-racial boy in the Deep South, back before it was the New South of Ted Turner and CNN, and as such know of a world shedding old values in favor of the adoption of new values. Born amongst the soot and ashes of the Civil Rights struggle which burned down the institutions of the Old South and left the land smoldering as the people rebuilt the South for a second time, I started into the world during, as the Chinese say, interesting times.

Rather than reconstruct the destroyed structures the way the Old South rebuilt after Sherman’s March to the Sea, the re-construction of the New South was guided by a plan to rebuild the bonds of community due to the immediate need to find new ways of living together, as well ways to re-establish what it meant to be a southerner. The process is still underway today. But unlike thirty years ago, in the days when I was born, it seems more and more the people of the south are sitting down on the same side of the lunch counter and seeing the world from the perspective of their similarities as southerners rather than waste time seeing the world from their differences of skin tone and racial history. I think Jesus, who is really popular in the South, would be awfully proud of their new bonds of brotherhood. It is progress. And progress of this stripe should be celebrated as a human victory of agreement; which are the victories we rarely celebrate as much or as loudly as our victories of warfare and dominance.

The New South exists today only because of a change in values and not because of a change in leadership or a victory of one people over another. Leadership can inspire but only people can do the work necessary for a new world. The American South is an example to be held up for scrutiny. For instance, as young bi-racial (black/white) man, I can now drive the back country roads in the deep south at night, alone, and that just wasn’t possible thirty years ago. That’s real progress, that’s not political progress.

Now some doubters of the New South whose flag I fly so proudly might point to New Orleans as an indictment of progress in the New South. The bitter embarrassment called the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, however, does not point as an indictment of the New South, but points rather at the fact race was not an issue for the survivors and victims, it points past race to the sole issue that divided people- money. If anything, the Katrina disaster should be hailed as the end of the Civil Rights struggle.

Before the eyes of the whole world, New Orleans was torn asunder by water and desperation. During the initial newscasts of the horror Nature can unleash, the television personalities dryly described the scene as a devastating situation, and did so while camera after camera showed poor people clutching to their belongings and making their way anyway they could out of the disaster area. Not really the kind of imagery that needs much analysis or explanation. But the talking heads are paid to talk, so talk they did, and as they tried mightily to be journalistic and fair, the television news, a perennial whore to their ratings, began to fall into old patterns and portray the scenes of poor black people in New Orleans as something different. As if other victims and survivors behaved differently from black victims.

The message soon became, subtly of course, poor blacks were looters, while poor whites were scavenging to survive. And the newsrooms began to focus on the violence, and the desperation of these poor urban black people. But where was the equal coverage of the poor whites whose rural communities were devastated further down the road in Gulfport and the Mississippi delta regions? That’s not to say, the poor whites of the delta were becoming violent, they weren’t, it’s more important to remember they were being equally ignored by their government. Apparently, unless there is someone to shoot, or a country to invade, America can’t respond within 72 hours.

In the newsroom if it bleeds it leads. And this philosophy dictated coverage of the Hurricane relief effort. The story about reported shots fired at a United States military helicopter by presumably black urban teenage boys will always trump a story about a whole Mississippi town gathering in a school and struggling to get through the disaster together. Now, to be fair, some of the “people banding together” coverage was shown, but was seemingly deemed not as dramatic I suppose, for it never received the same amount of airtime. Or perhaps, it was the values of the newsmen and women. Perhaps, so used to capturing a story from certain angles, they missed one of the key early facets of the story.

When New Orleans and Mobile and other urban centers were evacuated it wasn’t that black Americans weren’t able to leave and were left behind, it was that poor blacks and poor whites and poor Latinos, poor children and poor elderly people weren’t able to get out of the path of the disaster. It mattered less in the New South that you were a nigger and mattered more that you were broke. It is a New South, indeed. And the lesson to be learned from the federal government’s tardy response to Hurricane Katrina was: woe to the poor, for now they are lower than the nigger on the social ladder of America.

The greatest struggle today in America is not for equality but for equal protection from the government. Although many may disagree, the United States government does legally protect ethnic minorities and women; which is as close to equality as a person can ask for- equal legal protection. However, one group of people, a group consisting of people from every other group, this one group remains largely disadvantaged by the laws of the land- the poorest Americans. Poverty is the single greatest embarrassment to our proclaimed American equality.

Without protection of the poorest members of our society, without the ability to provide aid in a time of need, what value is the promise of aid and protection to any other American citizen? If we can not help and protect our most vulnerable during a federal emergency what real value does our federal government provide to the people? The day our government fails to protect the people, which is the primary job of government, that same-day our government becomes merely a tax collector, a license board, a regulator of business, and a money-lender. The Hurricane Katrina relief effort is not how a government by the people, of the people, or for the people behaves. What we witnessed was the response of a government by the dollar, of the dollar, and for the dollar.

When a nation’s government is up for sale as the American institutions so clearly are, then what does one do to correct such gross negligence and corruption? How can the citizens of America be heard if their votes are ignored, if their ballots rejected, if their system can be rigged and elections stained with improprieties and challenges of fraud? As it was suggested by Will Rogers, "It is awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it." Or perhaps, it was Mark Twain who better captured the persistence of corruption in American politics when he said, "We have the best congress money can buy." And both of these statements are still quite true to this day, if not more so. American politics can sometimes appear like a sweaty old whore hopping up and down on the lap of any business man with a buck in his fist, but to portray it in such a throbbing red light would be to miss the elegance. American politics is also filled with self-congratulatory empty public statements, and these days thanks to the cunning of Karl Rove, happy ad-campaign slogans, easily digestible jingoism for the mass market. What better way to distract from a pro-logging campaign than to call it “Healthy Forests.” Who doesn’t want healthy forests? Arguments and rhetoric such as this are source of the elegance of American politics.

With previous generations one appealed to the people with long speeches and numerous public appearances to get the word out about whatever was new in public policy. Nowadays, who has the time to listen to long well-crafted arguments? The world moves at the speed of light shone through fiber optic cables, getting a message out to the people is no longer an obstacle. In fact now it is so easy to get a message out, it becomes a contest between competing messengers over who can get their message to the most people. And thus, today a simplification of the message down to easily-understandable slogans and mottos is the way information is quickly passed. Unlike with Cicero and the great orators of the democratic past, rhetoric is no longer beautifully structured. Today, rhetoric must fit the confines of a bumper sticker.

With every passing day, gaining ground and influence in the world is the internet generation, a group consisting of any person born after 1969, the year the internet was born from the Pentagon’s think tanks. The world since the advent of the internet is much smaller and much friendlier than it ever was for prior generations. Of course, the internet is not solely responsible for making the world smaller, jet airline travel is also responsible, allowing a person to cast themselves across oceans so they might be able to talk with and dance with and eat with all manner of people throughout our world. Now the world is becoming not so foreign, nor so remote, nor so intimidating.

The internet as well as the greater march of technology and innovation follows the simple rule- any great strength is equally a great weakness. Much will be lost in the light-speed process of globalization, and the unification of cultures of the world. It is a fact many languages will disappear never to be heard again, and many arts and crafts, many towns and villages, in fact whole ways of living as a human being will be lost to the unifying process of the globalization of our cultures. Stated plainly, there will be great sacrifices we can not avoid as we become a global culture. But if one reflects soberly and considers these sacrifices against all that is gained in the greater globalization of human activities, the losses are worth the gains.

As a process, globalization is not dangerous or wrong-headed. It is a phase of human development, no more, no less. But thus far, the globalization most people of the planet have experienced as it is spurred on by capitalism is dangerous for a community, and can best be compared to letting a casino and a whorehouse move in next door. Somehow, if globalization can be separated from global capitalism then the progress underway would better be directed by the people for whom the progress represents real change. For instance, if globalization created greater connectivity, rather than encourage deeper market penetration for business communities.

Currently, the efforts of globalization are primarily being lead by the business community. From steel plants to eco-tourism, business has driven the progress of globalization. And through the lens of business the world look like a profit and loss sheet- all numbers. To the politician the world looks like donations and votes. But to the citizens of the world we see ourselves and our children. To which group would you prefer to ensure your security and well-being?

If one travels the world, a simple eye-opening lesson occurs, and one begins to realize all people are the same and only cultural differences exist around the world. Any mother has the same concerns for her children. Fathers around the world share the same worries and fears. And children equally experience laughter and play, and seemingly all share a love of ignoring their elders. It is difficult to have enemies in this world if you can remember the shared humanity of all people. The more one knows of their enemy the less they can stay an enemy and the more they become human.

It’s an inescapable fact we’re all the same animal. The only differences that exist to separate peoples are differences of culture. All human beings are very similar when you ignore the obvious distinctions like language, choice of dress or hair textures. The Chinese people aren’t sending men into space because they want to destroy the Western world, or anyone else, for that matter. They want to go to the Moon, and they want to be sure no one destroys the Chinese people’s chances for life, liberty and their pursuits of happiness. And thus, the Chinese government postures, unsure if it can trust the Western world with the interests of China, while also needing to look tough so no outsiders choose to bully the Chinese people. It’s very basic human psychology of toughness to mask fears and insecurity, but played out on a global scale.

The only reason to fear the process of posturing, or the chance of war or unprovoked aggression from other human beings is when the aggression is based on greed. Greed will sell your Mamma to the Gypsies for a string of shiny beads. Greed doesn’t care. Only greed can devour a person’s decency and rob them of their humanity. Greed for power, or for resources, or for money, or for sex, these irrational grasps at control of the world make a man evil in the eyes of his fellow humans. And consequently, there is no group of truly evil people by nature, greed is a choice. Corruption is a choice. Only ignorance suggests otherwise.

There is a simple aphorism one can use to understand the world, it states: the way you do anything is the way you do everything. Think about it for a moment. Let it sink in. The idea is that your attitude determines the outcome. And if you wish to change your outcome, change your attitude, your approach. The father of Taoism, Lao Tzu, educated human beings about the simplicity inherent in life and our efforts to complicate what we see. The way I live my life I have little in common with the day-to-day life of a Chinese sage from the time of Confucius, yet somehow, I feel his words more deeply than any words from my culture or time-period. And this awareness born of the words of Lao Tzu created a subtle shift in my world perspective, and once I began to see his ancient Chinese culture as part of my human culture, his world became my world. As much as Willie Mays or Malcolm X, Lao Tzu is my people.

Not to bog one down in philosophy, but, another aphorism that is helpful is: The world is the way you are. Or put in another way, you see the world as you are. If a person is happy the world is a happier place, if a person is afraid, they see the world as a place to fear and the others who do not fear the world as fools because the others fail to see what all there is to fear in the world. This is a similar practice to cognitive racism. When you see a person, but do not see them as a person, because you see before you what you expect to see or reduce what you see to caricature. This is the subtle almost subliminal effect of cognitive racism. A careful distinction should be made between the racist and the bigot. A bigot sees a person in terms of racial or cultural differences and holds those differences against the person. While a racist sees the same racial or cultural differences and keeps them in mind as a means of understanding the other person. In America, we are all racists, trained from birth to see the world not as a mélange, but as a salad bar. For instance, the American suffering from cognitive racism doesn’t use racist language or tell racist jokes, per se, but they still see the world in terms of race and racial differences. It strikes all American people regardless of political affiliation. Cognitive racism is a process well-meaning liberals unconsciously use all the time. They may go to marches, and they may go to all sorts of high-minded cultural events but their perceptions are still colored by race, only to the other extreme wherein the logic is- if it’s exotic it must be better. If they like a restaurant it’s because it’s ethnic or exotic not because the food is necessarily good. The real value for them is in the color of the man cooking and not the shrimp in the gumbo. It’s a deceptively proud-of-yourself sort of racism; the kind of racism that tells a person because they can appreciate someone of another race and the differences between them, somehow this means they are a forward-thinking person, when in actuality they are naively or ignorantly telling the person of another race they are not their equal. This attitude reminds or at least suggests the cognitive racist see the person of another race as a novelty or as a curious example of their culture. And this is a habit all people share. Black Americans do this to Mexican Americans. Polish Americans act this way towards Japanese Americans. Italians act this way toward Brazilians. Australians act this way toward Aborigines. It is a worldwide phenomenon. The attitude suggests someone of another race or culture is somehow intrinsically dissimilar due to differences arising from the person’s race or culture. If a dog is a dog regardless of breed, then people are people regardless of nation or creed.

Cognitive racism is the sort of prejudice that strikes people like former first lady Barbara Bush, who when faced with a sea of poor black faces in the Superdome as part of the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina, suggested since these people didn’t have much of anything before the hurricane struck and flooded them from their homes, a stay in the Superdome, some donated clothes and food was “working very well” for them. Not to defend her but she made these statements because these weren’t real people she saw standing before here but rather some category called “the poor.” And as she knows from reading her Bible even Jesus said “the poor” will always be with us. And that’s right where they seem to stay in the mind of Barbara Bush as some permanent under-class. Barbara Bush expects there to always be poor people. It’s part of God’s plan as far as she seems to understand it. Of course, this is the same woman who, as reported by nationally-syndicated Texan journalist Molly Ivins in her book Shrub, during a dispute with her son, the current president, George W., called televangelist Billy Graham to settle the disagreement they were having over whether Jews would go to Heaven. Billy Graham told them his opinion, off the record, since as far as Billy Graham is concerned only God gets to decide who goes to Heaven, and this means Billy’s opinion is just that, his opinion. However, he did settle it for them with an understanding it was not his “official” position. If you’d like to know what his opinion was- he said Jews would not go to Heaven. But, to be fair, I don’t think Jews will be too upset to hear this since they don’t believe in Heaven anyway. However, regardless of the after-life choices available to Jews, you can see the sort of prejudices coloring the mind of the American president when it comes to leading the people of America, and as the president will tell you, by default the whole world.

If the leaders can’t understand large swaths of the people they govern, or simply fail to see them as people the same as themselves, then how can they be effective leaders of their people? Our leaders today are rich capitalists, for the most part, or are beholden to rich capitalists, because money is needed to become a politician with any power. As long as this is the case, we, the people, will be lead by the rich, who plan to profit off our divisions. As long as we can point at each other and see something to fear, politicians and capitalists will reap the rich rewards of our fears and our prejudices.

As long as we find it difficult to imagine the sobbing mothers of the sons who die in defense of our businessmen’s greed and in defense of our culture’s fear of the unknown; as long as we can allow our soldiers, our sons and brothers, to die in a hostile and unforgiving desert or face-down in the sand of some dusty and unknown town thousands of miles and across an ocean from their families because some of our business leaders ensure the American populace the military needs to be in Iraq for the oil democracy and a stable Middle East; as long as we allow our governments to work for corporations first and the people second, we will remain at war, we will remain afraid, we will remain poor, we will remain angry and scared of the future.

We need to realize it is businessmen who desire war, for a war requires bullets, and helmets, trucks and bombs, planes and staplers. War can start its own economy. Abraham Lincoln taught us war can stabilize an economy, and George W. Bush seems to think war makes economical sense- like war counts as some ill-advised means of investment. But businessmen who plan their wars with the sons and daughters of the poor as their soldiers do so because in their eyes- the poor will always be with us.

The day the majority of human beings see the world as one shared globe, and all the world as our land, and our seas and our skies, shared by a family of human beings, the day we, as a unified people, can proclaim ourselves sovereign citizens of the whole and entire world, that day we will live as real human beings. No leaders are necessary for this advancement to occur, no more wars need be fought, and no more weapons need be created. Instead we need only to adopt a new attitude of brother and sisterhood. And until that day, we will remain a hyper-intelligent ape-man with a penchant for territory, warfare and a fear of our shadow and the unknown. Rather than as we currently do, wherein we fear every other person as strict competition for resources, if we behave and think of others as brothers and sisters we can cooperate, and cooperate in the Public Television way we so earnestly teach the children. And emboldened by and enmeshed in our new attitudes and values we could erase our entrenched ideological differences, and as they did deep in the heart of Dixie, we can start learning how to live together, work together, communicate with one another, compete with each other and love one another, as brothers and sisters, as husbands and wives, as one united and strangely beautiful world family. Inventions from the 1960s such as the internet and innovations in travel such as jet airline travel brought our whole human family together and gave birth to the world citizen, and now some forty years later, we should begin to ask new questions, and do so from our newly gained perspective rather than explain the world to ourselves in the same stratified language of the past.

Spin a globe and as you spin it call the whole world your home.