6403C24 SHSpec-13 International City

A communication is necessary to stop fights, as well as to start them.
The communications that start fights generally occur over distances that are
quite great. The distances set up high voltages and the terminals have to
shout too loudly, so the communication is imperfect. Great distance in
communication enters confusion and misunderstoods. They have to shout at each
other, so they consider that they are mad at each other. The leaders have the
illusion that they are far enough apart to shoot at each other with impunity.
One can blow up Moscow without destroying Washington. It is an illusion of
security, lent by distance. But this is no longer true. None of these
national governments can really operate broadly for everyone's benefit, but
they try to go out and influence areas beyond their borders. The result is
continual brushfire wars, e.g. Vietnam, where Washington and Moscow fight by
proxy. The ultimate result is to bring about a dangerous environment.

In its obsession with "defense", the government absorbs tax money and
spends it on arms. So we get economic upset and inflation because of a
shortage of goods. Peace doesn't pay. Literally. If money won't buy things,
it inflates. We are told that there are plenty of products in the U.S., but
the inflation continues, because the U.S. dollar has gone international, and
there is too little production elsewhere. Inflation leads to communism and no
money. It leads to slavery, because no one can keep up with it. So everyone,
therefore, has to turn to communism. Russia, however, has never succeeded in
feeding its own people. One reason for this fact is Russia's defense budget
and the large army that they maintain. Another is the fact that the
communistic worker is perpetually on strike because he gets no reward for his
labor. Politics has entered into economics, where it doesn't belong.

National degradation results from things like draft laws, which put
people in a "no choice" scene, being where they don't want to be and doing
things that they don't want to do. This leads to apathy. The governments are
at war, not the individual. American and Russian farmers, when in comm, get
along very well. Only when depersonalized as soldiers can people act for the
organizations of earth and slaughter each other. The planet is going to blow
up or otherwise become very unpleasant unless some changes are made to bring
about peace.

This has been a long think, [this question of how to promote peace -- ]
ever since Egypt, in political spheres. A perhaps impractical but interesting
solution is based on the fact that the two sides of the body would, perhaps,
be at war, except for the fact that the left side of the brain controls the
right side of the body and vice versa. So if Washington governed the U.S.
from Moscow and Moscow governed Russia from Washington, the chances of war
would be immensely reduced! Advancing the cause of peace pays nobody, as
things stand now. And war does pay. "The more trouble there is, the more
importance the political figure has.... Man deifies what causes trouble."
Marie of Rumania had a very peaceful. prosperous government. But she didn't
get lots of publicity or admiration. In the U.S., the war presidents are the
ones who get remembered, not the peace presidents.

The common citizen, however, doesn't make his personal fortune out of
such chaos. If Man is to make any real forward progress, he must have peace.
The only way that a government would lay off income tax, for instance, would
be if it weren't being faced with demands for military appropriations. Length
of time since the last war determines the state of calm of a country. The
easiest program for international sanity would be one of reducing strife and
dissonance in the environment, making a less threatening environment, with
less fixation on an unconfrontable future. A person with no future acts
weird. Man is tied to the idea that he lives only once. This gives him a
certain irresponsibility for the area he lives in. [Cf. Neville Chamberlain:
"I bring you peace -- in our time."] Man won't buy the idea that he will
live again. There is too much responsibility in this idea.

To have an effective world peace program, the following problems have to
be solved:

1. The importance of the politician must be maintained. He has to keep
his importance, or he won't support the program.

2. Continued activity for manufacturers and industry, so that the
economy won't collapse without war industries.

3. Shortening of the comm lines among the capitols of the world, so that
there is greater understanding.

4. Reduction of individual nations' initiatives for waging war

5. Reduction of the danger in the environment.

6. Offering some startling, dramatic objective that is very complicated
to bring about. You need some attractive, constructive, and
hard-to-achieve goals.

The solution would have to be big enough to make the problem of war seem
soluble.

LRH put this together initially as an exercise on capacities of OT's.
One of the things that we have to remember is that we have a base, called
"earth". We don't want the base any more enturbulated than it has to be, nor
do we want the base so aware of itself as a base that it will resent being
one. Also, there are exercises that one should be able to do to improve one's
skill. They should not be of a hostile nature, at least towards this planet.
I am being "very vague -- purposefully so -- but I think you understand me."

It takes a long time to develop a technology. We have the assets of our
technology, so our interest in a peaceful earth is not only altruistic, but
also a "first" dynamic interest in its continuance, so that our technology can
survive. Earth also has value as a base because, for one thing, it is in a
nice, quiet backwater of the galaxy and likely to be overlooked by others in
the galaxy.

So LRH dreamed up a project on which thetans could work together. Its
name became "The International City Project". LRH reached the conclusion that
if all the nation's capitols were in one geographical area, all the major
problems mentioned earlier would be solved. The governments would be far less
prone to go to war. They would be close enough to each other to communicate
easily. There would be no false security from distance. There would be a
pleasant social atmosphere, with constant parties with heads of states, not
just diplomats. The bombing of such a city would become a rather remote
possibility, "particularly if you never let people who seemed to be angry at
each other leave the capitol at the same time!,

This would create a problem of a long comm line to the home country. You
would have to prevent the development of a new capitol in the home territory,
by having the comm line go directly to separate states or counties. The comm
lines from the governments would not go on a via to one major city or central
point inside their countries, but would go to all the states, prefects,
counties, or whatever. This would also prevent revolution in the home
country. It would require building lots of comm lines. Also, building the
new capitols in a new place would take an immense amount of building.
Additionally, you would have an international parliament of earth, housed in a
completely bombproof bunker under a mountain. It would have appropriate
representation, based on population, production, etc. There would be plenty
of politicking to keep the politicians happy.

The one-world-togetherness idea is a popular one on earth. If elementary
steps are taken, the rest might follow easily. One preliminary step would
be.

1. All governments turn over nuclear weapons and supplies to the U.N.
immediately.

2. Have the U.N. and all governments select a site for and construct an
international city, preferably in North Africa, on the Mediterranean
coast, where land reclamation can expand its area and its comm lines
can be easily centered.

3. Persuade all governments to move their capitols to International
City, complete with heads of governments, confesses, and
parliaments. Prohibit a secondary capitol or even a comm relay
center within the country itself.

4. Secure comm lines and command lines from International City to each
internal county or state. Regard each of these counties or states as
an autonomous unit, under control of the government in International
City.

5. Reorganize the U.N. on a formula recognizing land area, population
figures, and production value. Remove all favored nations categories
and the exercise of special privileged and the veto by a few. "Form
the U.N. into a judiciary division, two houses, and an executive
branch. Key officials [are] to be popularly elected ... within the
nations that they represent, and by voting by both upper and lower
U.N. houses for the head of the U.N." Reform the U.N. charter into
an instrument specifically engaged in governing the heads of nations
and international affairs. Forbid, in the charter, all interference
with individuals or smaller communities.

6. Forbid all warlike treaties of "mutual assistance".

7. Create a small, effective military force for the U.N., abolishing all
other war facilities.

8. Persuade international monetary activities to stabilize economics.

9. Limit what a national government should be up to in the U.N.

We go ahead with this plan on the basis that a general agreement among
scientologists would push all the individual efforts into a coordinated
activity, so that they would count. Here is a big plan that is sufficiently
sloppy so that if it went pretty far awry, if everybody were moving in that
direction, you would have some possibility of attaining the final objective.
It has good "figure-figure" value. It is a sufficiently interesting plan that
it would cause a lot of conversation. It also has a kind of lonely
individuality, in that no one else is doing anything at all for world peace.
It coheres what could be lots of individual actions. It is feasible, because
it doesn't have to be done perfectly to be done.

Ideas from scientology occur and appear in the world to a surprising
degree. So there is more chance of this plan coming to pass than one might
think. If scientologists were involved in bringing about what amounts to a
complete political revolution of earth, there would be good dissemination in
it. Scientologists would be available to handle personal upsets, etc., so
their influence would get expanded. Keep the word "scientology" parked
somewhere on the fringes of this thing, and we would get a monopoly on mental
healing within the boundaries of International City.

The main virtue of this plan is that there has been a complete void of
ideas for world peace, and this is an intriguing one. It is something which,
if adopted, would certainly make the planet less dangerous. It has its
liabilities, but they are outweighed by its advantages. Someone could,
perhaps, try to take over the central government and become a dictator, but
this would be pretty hard to do. Hitler failed to take over the world. True,
the International City arrangement does put all the political control in one
place, "but it also puts into that [place] a lot of wily guys." Not being able
to attain their political objectives by war, "they will try to attain them by
diplomacy, and they would welcome the proximity of other capitols and a large
legislature to lobby in.... They are not about to give this up [for] a
dictatorship." They wouldn't cooperate with such a dictator.

What about national revolts? Well, "that possibility would be equally
apparent to the head of every state in International City, and I think he
would tend to govern in such a way that it wouldn't happen."

The political government of International City itself would be
independent of the U.N. It would have enough force to balance any house
guards or bodyguards that might be around. The product of this city
government is the safety and security of individuals in International City.
It would be kept as itself by being made very profitable, not political.
International City would originally be financed "in such a way that it itself
becomes a property which becomes very profitable to some people, it doesn't
matter who. They would consider it a governmental responsibility because it
is profitable.

The Russians would hate this last bit, but then they are always goofing
up in that area anyway. "The way to have a calm International City is to make
sure that the ownership of the land and property of International City brings
in money to a small group who sit as a council in International City and make
sure that things remain nice and peaceful and profitable." No politics would
be involved. This makes International City a Hell of a piece of bait for some
construction company. "After it has built its buildings, it is going to draw
rent on [them] from here on out.... A member of that construction company is
going to sit on the governing board of that city with no government over its
head, and all it has to do is sit there and keep the peace in International
City.... You've put a very hard core of very hard-headed guys who want to
make awful sure that they keep dragging down the rent, you see, from the white
house!"

You are also splitting up political control. "If you want to see a lousy
capital, take a look at a capitol that is owned by the government.
Governments take very bad care of [things they own], because there's no profit
in it for anybody."

Our direct public interest in International City would be limited to
acting as a clearing house for information concerning it. Overtly, it is
something for scientologists to support, help out on, and talk about, just
like everybody else. Covertly, it is a training ground for the budding OT, a
nice exercise for him. It becomes very fruitful. It gives him something
useful to do.

Perhaps the main thing that this plan offers is some hope for people. It
gives the scientologist a town. It puts a piece of this planet into his hands
to be interested in. I chose the location I did because it is where the
oldest comm lines on the planet were located. There is a lot of coast and
country in the area between Tunis and Tripoli. Many old comm lines have gone
through that area. It should be fun for scientologists and OT's. It should
create a fantastic amount of new wealth in a desert. It is busy. "It's a
broad fourth dynamic method of de-dangerizing the environment -- as a
process." Just saying that a feasible plan does exist puts in some hope, and
to that degree, it de-dangerizes the environment. There is more future in
it. It is a method of disseminating to the heads of nations in one small
area, all at once.

We have had trouble with governments recently. They have been
disrespectful. We shouldn't stand for it. The way you can really upset a
government is to move its capitol. The fact that you are talking about moving
all the earth's capitols depowers the nations of earth with regard to
scientology. Even if they agree that it is a good thing to do, removing the nations' capitols from their positions makes the nations weak. A terminal is as powerful as it can hold its position. You are threatening them with not being able to hold their position. It puts scientology in a position of being of comparable magnitude the governments of earth, rather then just being of comparable magnitude to a single government, since it would be controlling the positions of all the governments of earth. They don't know the tech, so they couldn't explain the odd feeling that they would get at the idea of moving. They don't know that it is very important to hold a position if you want power. Just espousing such a plan would lead to a shift of relative power between you and the government. They would feel as though they were slipping.

If we hold to this as a central agreement, it will eventually come
about. It depends for its power on interest. There is no moneyed group
behind this, but there is "a huge vacuum provided ... that would pick up such
people and put them into it. [But] then they are not now, i.e. won't then
be, ... 'in back of' it, behind it. They're in it. We are in back of it."