World, You Have the Chance to Save Us All

We Need Action, Not Impotent Words

Thanks to Donald Trump, the world stands at a dangerous crossroads. He has insanely removed the U.S.A. from nearly all international organs, has continually condemned the United Nations (UN) for false reasons, has repeatedly abused the veto power by himself, and has totally ceased paying dues by himself.

Now, there are real actions the other 96 percent of the world can and should take:

1. Right away, it must move all UN meetings to the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

2. It must immediately start expanding the Palais, home of the UN Office at Geneva since 1946, informing the U.S. that the UN Headquarters in New York will no longer be used. Geneva already hosts numerous UN agencies and has the infrastructure necessary to support a rapid expansion of global diplomatic activity.

3. U.S. officials, if they wish to participate, must denounce Donald Trump’s actions and apply for Swiss visas, as the U.S. has required other nationals to do from the start.

4. The UN General Assembly should declare that the great majority of the world wants the U.S. as well as Israel suspended. Nations conducting illegal wars, genocides, and holocausts, defying or disempowering international courts, and unilaterally starting World War III must be suspended if any international cooperation is to survive. This action is important for symbolism, even if the U.S., the U.K., and France are likely to veto it at the UN Security Council. It signals that the international World Order takes precedence over lawless, rogue states—no matter who they are. Once this is done, all countries that have voted for this should suspend all diplomatic contact with U.S. and Israeli officials.

5. In association with the above, even before its full coordination, nations should quickly announce that they are boycotting the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics in the U.S.

It is now time for the UN not only to leave the U.S. but for the international community writ large to find a way to reconstitute the UN, not only in another location, but to restructure it, so it can indeed fulfill the reasons for its founding.

The international system intended to ensure that international law prevails over raw force, unfortunately, did not build in safeguards for when one of its most powerful members would unilaterally undermine its mission. The international community faces a stark choice: whether to continue in subservience to a single power that is paralyzing its institutions, or to take decisive steps to relocate and revive those institutions.

Here is some historical context:

At the end of World War I, “the War to End All Wars”, the Paris Peace Conference of 1918/19 miserably failed. Key persons involved resigned, refusing even to attend the signing. Woodrow Wilson’s talk about democracy and self-determination deteriorated into a very weak, colonialist-endorsing, designed-to-fail League of Nations. Even that the United States refused to join, unwilling to give up total sovereignty without limits or international controls of any kind. Wilson literally died, traveling throughout the country by train, desperately attempting to build support for the League.

Rather than ending wars, the Conference that gave birth to the League of Nations fractured Europe, instigating and hastening World War II, which erupted less than two decades later. American historian David Fromkin immortalized the phrase, “the Peace to End All Peace,” in recounting what happened.

In the even more destructive World War II, the erosion of the once-basic distinction between military and civilian targets, and the development of atomic weapons, brought on even more urgent calls to end catastrophic warfare. Many of the key scientists and statesmen of the time agreed that unchecked “national sovereignty” threatened human civilization. Visionary junior member of the American Delegation, Cord Meyer, stated as the goal of the UN Founding Conference in San Francisco:

a genuine federation of the nations so they would not be free to make war, but would be subordinate to a higher law.

In 1947, Albert Einstein wrote a remarkably bold, public open letter to the UN General Assembly:

As I see it, this is the way for the nations of the world to break the vicious circle which threatens the continued existence of mankind…. Because of our inability to solve the problem of international organization, it has actually contributed to the dangers which threaten peace.

Still, the nuclear arms race immediately accelerated, and “the Cold War” escalated. Our world was lucky to survive it—although it never really ended, and what is happening in the world today is reminiscent of what happened in Europe in the years after the Paris Conference. Now, a horrendous new World War is well underway in many forms in many places.

Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs agrees:

An international organization dedicated to the peaceful settlement of disputes cannot credibly operate from a country that wages illegal wars, threatens member states with annihilation, and treats the UN Security Council resolutions as disposable instruments of convenience. For the UN to survive, and we need it to survive, it will need several homes around the world—in Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and others—honoring the true multipolarity of our world.

Yet, just as the corporate media have banned mental health experts in a time of a mentally-impaired president unilaterally igniting World War III, they have banned Sachs, despite his tremendous accomplishments, experiences, and knowledge of global affairs! Therefore, I urge everyone to listen to: “Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Did Trump Just Start WWIII?”

At the same time, we must urgently recognize that we require far more than articles, podcasts, and mere critiques of Donald Trump. We need action and intervention. We need courage and imagination. There should now be no doubt that my psychiatric colleagues and I were pushed out in 2017/18 because, acting on our conscience, we were extremely close to removing Donald Trump from office, for the very existential danger to humankind that we are experiencing today. In fact, if not for the artificial silencing and aggressive disinformation, I am convinced we would have succeeded.

Surely, Donald Trump is a symptom, but he is also a cause. Certainly, there was cultural decay before him, but he accelerated its demise. And undoubtedly there was a tinderbox ripe for ignition, but he became the spark.

We must cease making excuses and recognize that a spread of malignancy must be stopped at the source, but also contained at every level, including where the threat is most imminent. It is a task that demands every individual, every nation, and every institution to drop everything to meet this urgent goal—without which all other efforts will be in vain.

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee is in the process of establishing SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. Please use the contact form to join and to help make this unprecedented effort successful. She is also leading a public course series with Preventing Violence Now, about which you can find out more and register here.

Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist, president of the World Mental Health Coalition, cofounder of Preventing Violence Now, and a long-term consultant to the World Health Organization and other United Nations bodies on scientific approaches to violence prevention. She became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that alerted against dangerous leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on dangerous leadership that has recently been expanded, in addition to a volume on how dangerous signs in a leader spreads and two critical statements on dangerous leadership. As many of the dangers she warned against unfolded—including millions of unnecessary pandemic deaths, the propagation of political violence, the exacerbation of economic inequality, the destruction of democracy, the devastation of the climate, the replacement of international collaboration with hostile confrontation, a renewed and accelerated nuclear arms race, a global emboldening of dictators leading to brutal warfare and genocide, and growing state-sanctioned cruelty and human rights violations—she has advocated for another way. Now, the author of the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; 17 scholarly books and journal special issues; and over 300 opinion editorials, introduces her curriculum on rising above the current destructive course to embrace an awareness of, “One World or None.”