ELEANOR LIVES! BLOG

Hooray! The Eleanor Barbie doll is on sale now – buy it! – especially for any little girl in your life. Let her see and imagine a true superhero, and let her imagine that she can grow up to be one of the most important leaders in the history of  humanity, the same as any man. 

Little girls should have the same dreams of leadership as little boys, and they both should be taught that we are all in this together here on Earth, so their leadership should include everyone, not just those in some particular nation state. 

You can buy the Eleanor Barbie here.

Eleanor Barbie

Now I realize this may seem cheeky to some people. First, there’s nothing wrong with a smile and a sense of humor. Second, it’s actually serious stuff.  Many years ago, I, along with other lawyers, brought a lawsuit to require the Californina State University System to create more women’s sports teams throughout the entire state system. My favorite line in court, with the room packed with women atheletes, was that “women should have the same dreams as men.”

We won based on a state law that women should have equal opportunities as men. That’s the power of law, and why the core of Eleanor Lives! is an International Bill of Rights. Based on this win, and many others across America, hundreds of new women’s soccer teams were created. Then, given the opportunity, these women went on the play in the World Cup for Women, and won numerous times.

Dreams matter, and they are not equal.  Watch this video about the “Dream Gap.” Today, girls are taught at an early age they are inferior to boys.

Dream Gap

Then close the gap. Become a “light for rights” on the Eleanor Lives! website. Don’t listen to the negative voices, including perhaps the one in your head, that “an International Bill of Rights will never happen, so why bother.” The Eleanor Barbie box has one of my favorite Eleanor quotes: “Nothing is ever achieved by the person who says ‘it can’t be done.'”

In the 25 years (approximately 1,000 hours a year) since I began working with the former Dean, then professor, Frank Newman, at the Berkeley Law School, to make rights such as equality for women juridical (that is, enforceable in the courts of all countries), the only argument I have ever heard against it, with some slight variation, is “it can’t be done.”

Eleanor Roosevelt, Rene Cassin, John Humphrey, P.C. Chang, Charles Malik and others created the best plan for humanity ever written. Over the years, and 13 Versions of our booklet, we have even offered a 5,000 reward to anyone with a better plan than the one included the booklet, including the draft International Bill of Rights. No one has offered a better plan – not even close.

So it may appear to just be a doll, but it represents a legacy. One of the most important goals of Eleanor Lives! is to share Eleanor’s legacy and fill girls internationally with the inspiration that they too can be great leaders. When you share the doll, please share the spinning globe on the website too so that girls, and boys, can follow in Eleanor’s footsteps.

Humanity is on the verge of becoming an international community. It’s inevitable and beneficial for each of us. One of the primary goals of Eleanor Lives! is to further this transition. Eleanor, as the “First Lady for the World” had her gaze fixed on creating this community. As she said in her own “My Day” column, May 11, 1934, “We will all go ahead together, or we will all go down together.”

Starlink is a good example. Starlink is a neural net of satellights around our planet, Earth. Elon Musk and the company Space X has initiated the accomplishment, and now has put over 1,000 satellights into near Earth orbit. Starlink has the potential to share knowledge with everyone on Earth – no matter how remote the corner, the collective knowledge of humanity will be at each of our fingertips. Please click on this video link to watch a short story about the promise and peril of Starlink.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-42000-starlink-satellites-earth-effects-stars-2020-10

And it’s not just knowledge that Starlink opens for us, it’s a new way of life. Now, the brilliant work of anyone can be made available to everyone. When a new medical treatment is discovered in India, that treatment can be made accessible to every hospital on Earth. The same is true with ideas, whether it be in psychology, physics or law, ideas can be shared and the collective use of them leads to unexpected breakthroughs that combined thinking can accomplish in a way that the thinking of an individual cannot. 

As an example, Missy Lahren, an Eleanor Lives! Board member, has recently completed her Ph.d dissertation, defended it, and is now Dr. Lahren. Congratulations to her! But also, congratulations to all of us. For her dissertation, Missy painstakingly designed an engaging middle school curriculum for students in all countries for Earth Day, celebrated each year on April 22.

With Starlink, Missy’s curriculum can be shared in our common space, literally, and used in all schools, in all countries, as part of a shared cellebration. In this way the boundryless perspecitve Missy evokes in words, pictures, discussion and play becomes boundryless in application. The stories we tell create the lives that we lead. Starlink empowers us to tell, and teach, stories globally.

The difficult questions left for Starlink are who owns it? and who can use it? The answers are simple: it should be owned by everyone – Starlink is an information superhighway. Highways are rarely privately owned on Earth and this highway should not be either. It should be owned, and funded, by all of humanity.

Next, it should be free. Anyone on Earth, anywhere on Earth, should be able to access Starlink in an instant, and without payment. If there is a high volume of use, then there may be charges, but for everyday searching for information, or to report illegal acts such as the violation of rights, for example, access should be easy, and free. 

This shared course in space is more than just for the well-being it brings, it is for the destruction it prevents. It is a huge mistake for humanity to militarize space. Within our international community, there are still archane nationalistic forces that want to have space become a militarized competitive arena. We must stop them. 

There are also those who would censor the dissemination of ideas such as democracy, equality for women or evidence of environmental destruction. Eleanor Lives! is not just coffee table talk, although it certainly is fitting there, including discussion of Starlink, it is the knitting of an international community. So when you read this, if you haven’t already, please help build that community by becoming a “light for rights” on the Eleanor Lives! spinning globe, and share a few thoughts about the potential of Starlink with a few friends and family too.

Eleanor was assertive. Not in an abrasive way, but as a prod. Much as a parent might give a child a loving push of encouragement, she pushed us all to act. This is particularly true of her feelings about democracy.

In her 1940 book, The Moral Basis of Democracy we can see how devout she was to democracy. She explained her intent in a short forward:

“… I am hoping in this little book to be able to give a clearer definition of the thinking of one citizen in a Democracy. By so doing it may be possible to stimulate the thoughts of many people so that they will force themselves to decide what Democracy means to them – whether they can believe in it as fervently as they can in their personal religion; whether it is worth a sacrifice to them, and what they consider that sacrifice must be.”

Following her guidance, let’s take a moment to think about what that sacrifice for democracy must be: It’s a small sacrafice now, or a large sacrafice later. It’s taking steps such as becoming a “light for rights” on the Eleanor Lives! website to join with others today to thwart the rise in athoritarianism, or it’s fighting later in war which is the result of athoritarism run amok – again. 

She saw first hand the appeasement of Hitler in 1940. The refrain she resisted was that it was “up to the Germans” to decide if they wanted athoritarian government. This appeasement made defeating Hitler more difficult later. 

Unfortunately, appeasement to athoritarianism is happening once again. When Chinese President Xi had the Chinese Constitution changed in 2018 so that he could be President for life, President Trump congratulated him saying “he’s great” and joked that “America should try it.” After these remarks, President Trump’s press secretary said that regarding Xi being President for life, “he [Trump] was fine with what’s happening in China.”

Now President Xi has not only established his position as President indefinitely, he has consolidate the Party so that there is no opposition around him. This is not fine. Democracy is a human right. It in enshrinded in the Universal Decalaration of Human Rights and is a centerpiece of the draft International Bill of Rights that is part of Eleanor Lives! After World War II, a core part of “never again” was that never again shall an athoritarian leader govern a country. 

Eleanor and others understood that unbridled power leads to despotism. This is also a core concept of the U.S. Constitution, which provides for an independent judiciary. Eleanor warned: “Men who have the instincts for dictatorship are always a danger in any society. Free citizens must be constantly alert to preserve their liberties. In the United States, it is easy to discover a demagogue, but it sometimes requires courage to stand up immediately and say you don’t agree with certain methods and certain ideas. However, if we want to preserve our liberties, we had better show that courage – it is the only way I know of to remain a free people.” Americans, and people in other countries need to show such courage now.

The decline of democracy is not new and it is ongoing. According to a report issued by Freedom House on March 1, 2021 Three-quarters of the people on Earth live in countries where freedom is declining.  2021 marked the 15th consecutive year of global democratic backsliding — “a long democratic recession,” in the organization’s words, that is “deepening.”

Let us all make a small, dedicated sacrafice, to fight now with words now, and the rule of law, so that later we do not have to fight with guns, cyber-attacks or nuclear weapons. We’ve been down that road twice with two world wars – a third time and humanity is out. Act now. Follow Eleanor, and participate in Eleanor Lives to uphold democracy!

Given the title of this blog, let me share something that might surprise you:  Eleanor Lives! does not change the world. Rather, Eleanor Lives! provides something into which the change afoot in the world can flow.

It’s an important distiction. If you put Eleanor, Martin Luther King and Gandhi in a room and asked them if they “changed the world”, in their humble way, they would likely respond “No.” They would explain that the forces for change, the current of humanity, were moving swiftly and they helped provide movements into which that current could flow. 

Gandhi argued that the domination of colonialism must end; the colonized peoples were ready to flow into independence. King argued that discrimination was bankrupt, imoral, counterproductive and must end; those segregated flowed into a message of love and integration. Eleanor argued that rights belong to every human being, regardless of nationality, and that despotism must end through rights for all; humanity flowed into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Eleanor Lives! facilitatates the uniting of all these movements, and others. It does not represent a single leader who will “will change the world” but helps unite all leaders, be they a server in a restaurant, a teacher in a classroom, an inspiring musician, or President of a country – all help the current of humanity flow into an International Bill of Rights and “change the world” by creating well-being for all.

Humanity is ready to live together as an international community. Not everyone in a community gets along -be it a community of a few city blocks or international one. There will always be disagreements and some who abuse others, it’s human, and communities are comprised of humans. It takes the rule of law to temper the worst and bring out the best.

Fortunately the rule of law runs deep in the current of humanity and is moving swiftly towards integration, in marriage, travel, the intertwining of culture (not the replacement of it) and the desire for fundamental rights such as equality, a good education, and the ability to speak one’s mind.  

Sure, there is a cacophony of voices in the current, but if we listen closely enough, to each other, and to nature, including the water that flows near and around us, like Siddhartha, the ferryman, we can hear something in common – laughter – and feel something in common, love.

Eleanor Lives! is something into which this current can flow: that collective force is what will change the world, not for some, but for all.

 

History Matters. Eleanor Lives! looks back in order to see our way forward. You can see this in our Version 13 booklet on the homepage of our website. 

If you look back, you see domination by men over women, and of one race over another. It’s indisputable. Two examples in the United States prove this: Women were not allowed to vote and there was slavery. Improvement has been made. Why? Because the rule of law has been used to stop those who would deny women the right to vote, or those who would sell slaves. People did not just become more humane, law contained them. Then, with time, values around that law have became the stories we tell so that these abuses have diminished, but are far from over.

The lack of rule of law lies at the core of countless other abuses. It’s not just a U.S. problem – it’s a human one. Please watch this video of the slave trade, which involved many countries throughout human history. Click forward on the timeline and take it in – each of those thousands of dots crossing the seas is a slave ship.

Video of Slave trade

          Click on the year approximately 1776, the birth of the United States, and watch for one minute. It’s a minute well spent: it will open your mind. All those dots that you see streaming are each filled with the type of human domination and misery that you see portrayed in the still picture of a slave ship above.  As you see that stream of dots, once in a while hit the pause button. When you do, take in the hundreds of ships, all of them full of people living in torture below deck, and then rethink your perspective.

           It is difficult to watch those thousands of dots cross the water in rapid succession. Especially when you realize that many of the people who provided funding for these heinous acts were stockholders, in London, Amsterdam and elsewhere investing to make a profit off of the misery of others while they had their tea. It’s not just the evil slave ship captains, it’s the good people who did nothing, or worse, funded slavery.

Then recall that these horrific acts where followed by slavery, segregation and prejudice for centuries. After taking these few steps it’s impossible to suggest “oh that’s the past, it’s over now.”

There are many reasons to support economic and social rights such as education and health care, for free, or at very low costs, with high standards for all people in all countries. One of them it to take steps to remove the vestiges of the atrocities you see here. It’s owed.  This is an international issue. Eleanor Lives! is a plan, not just another platitude, for people of all backgrounds, including those who have been oppressed and enslaved, to live in well-being.

Well being for one is well being for all. Eleanor understood this, she said “The real reason that home is important is that it is so closely tied, by a millioon strings, to the rest of the world.” Let us tie these strings together through the Eleanor Lives! “Lights for Rights.” campaign. An International Bill of Rights, including economic and social rights, is part of the global reparations that are due.

Take 30 seconds to do something about these dots. And if you don’t, take another 30 seconds to ponder why you won’t take the small step of showing your support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its 75th annivesary. No commitment, no money, just a moment, to join collectively with others to help right some horrible wrongs.

Happy First Anniversary for Eleanor Lives!; Happy International Women’s Day! The two are intertwined and both are worth celebrating. It was a year ago today, on March 8, 2020, that we launched Eleanor Lives!

As the year 2020 began there was hope that the coincidence of the date, 2020, with the standard for good eyesight 20-20, might be a harbinger of a new perspective for humanity.

It arrived, but in an unexpected manner. As initial preparations were made in January and February for a new nonprofit, Eleanor Lives!, to carry on and implement her legacy, and bring our international community together, that community was thrust into a pandemic, Covid 19. With millions dead, and more dying, we realize as Eleanor said “we all go up or down together.”

Rather than give up, or postpone, following Eleanor’s advice not to give up in difficult times, we launched.  Humans don’t last forever, but if they are as powerful and genuine as Eleanor, their ideas, and theirs plans to implement those ideas, continue.

It’s nice to celebrate this day by considering how our work impacts women. Eleanor was a great leader. While girls today are gaining an awareness of women leaders, for the most part, if people are asked about great leaders they tend to think more of men. Eleanor Lives! helps correct this imbalance by continuing the legacy, and spreading awareness, of one of the great women leaders in history.

Eleanor’s ceaseless work for equality for women was grounded in the idea that women, in all countries, should have the same opportunities as men. This concept begins with children. She said: “It is wise, I think, to teach children that intrinsically every human being has the same value . . . and [to] work toward a world where every individual may have the chance to develop his abilities to the greatest possible extent.” 

For Eleanor, it was not enough to proclaim equality, it had to be established as an enforceable right. Eleanor thought of economic and social rights on a par with civil and political rights, and so does Eleanor Lives! The practical effect of the inequality of rights has been the denial of economic and social rights, particularly for women.

The draft International Bill of Rights, which is the foundation stone for Eleanor Lives!, helps address these inequalities and further the movement for enforcement of all rights.

So please join us in celebration of both International Women’s Day, and the Anniversary of Eleanor Lives! If you have not become a light for rights on our website, please do so now. Women’s rights are on the assencion. You can blow out a candle, but you cannot blow out a flame.