August 1975 to present
some milestones
Aug 1975, Berkeley Earliest description and discussions of Alan Dechert’s idea for a re-set of the modern world civilization, to a new age
1976 – 1986, Alan Dechert reaches out to people in environmental groups, peace groups, authors, and political activists in the San Francisco Bay Area, with letters, group meetings, and one-on-one meetings.
October 5th, 1986, Dechert representing his group, Campaign for a Sustainable Society, gives a speech, Green World or Eco-catastrophe, at the Fellowship of Humanity in Oakland California, attended by members of the East Bay Green Alliance (before there was a green party in California), members of the state democratic party, and local political staff members, among many others. His main message was that Greens and Democrats should work together to overcome incumbent forces. Dechert also advocated converting the US economy to be run entirely on renewable energy.
13 November 1986 letter from congressman Ron Dellums praising materials he received from Dechert’s Oct 5th presentation, saying “I wish you the very best in your efforts to promote the concept of multi-national governance and an end to the maintneance of military establishments by nations.”
June 1996, Dechert publishes his idea for a calendar reset (2000 = 0000) in the Oregonian newspaper. This becomes a subject for many newspaper articles, blog posts, discussion lists, and radio talk shows around the world for several years. Year Zero calendar goes on sale at Amazon. Example of one of the 1996 articles in print:
https://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.21.96/polis-rpt-9647.html What to call the new era? “Solar Era” beats out “Global Era.”
December 2000, inspired by the apparent need to update the voting system in the USA, Alan Dechert, a computer consultant to Sacramento County, gets involved with his idea of using open source software along with inexpensive hardware. He demonstrates his first simple voting system to election officials and legislative staff members in Sacramento California and around the state.
January 2002, Dechert starts a discussion list on the Internet with other computer programmers
December 31st 2001, John Jurgenson of the Associated Press writes a full page article, referring to 2001 as “Year One” and 2002 as “Year Two,” carried in many newspapers around the world. They explain that 01/01/2001 wasn’t celebrated as the new millennium because, instead, “most of the world chose the year before to celebrate a fresh chapter in time.”
June 2002, at a planning meeting for the Human Federation attended virtually by activists in Europe, Africa, and the USA, the question of where would the headquarters be located came up. The consensus was clear on one point: not the USA. Dechert said he would ask some of his contacts around the world to see if there was any interest in hosting the proposed body.
August 6th, 2002 Dechert received a response from City of Perth regarding a possible home for the Human Federation. According to the Lord Mayor of Perth, “If the Australian and Western Australian Governments agree to your proposal and providing your organization operates in a responsible manner and observes the laws of Australia, I am sure you will be welcome.”
October 26, 2003, first appearance of OVC in a public forum, UC Santa Cruz https://news.ucsc.edu/2003/10/411.html
December 2003, Dechert files incorporation papers for Open Voting Consortium (OVC).
1st of April, 2004, OVC gives its first press conference, which includes a live demo of its prototype voting system utilizing free open source software and common commodity components, resulting in very good publicity in newspapers, television, radio and magazines across the USA.
September 2005, the US GAO cites the work of Open Voting Consortium in their report to consgress about “Efforts to Improve Security and
Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems.” OVC was one of two non-governmental groups cited, the other being the Caltech-MIT voting project.
August 2008, Linuxworld conference grants 900 sq feet of floor space to OVC so it could set up a voting demonstration. The OVC booth is well-publicized and well-received during this 4-day conference. Forty volunteers and approximately $30,000 in expenditures for 17 voting booths, and other equipment.
October 2010, Dechert article on Peak Oil
February 2011, Safe Energy Association incorporated with Alan Dechert as president, Michael Seaman Secretary, Karen Hansen treasurer. Dechert and Seaman present their Safe Energy Roadmap resolution draft to CA state government officials and members of the legislature.
2015, Drafts for are made for the constitutions for the Human Federation and the United States Constitution for the Solar Era
2015, Safe Energy Association (SEA) disbanded. Most everything SEA was pushing for was eventually included in CA Senate bill 100 in 2018; no need for the proposed SEA resolution presented to law makers in 2011.
2017, Dechert spent most of year on his contest entry for the Global Challenges Foundation New Shape Prize Contest. For many years, Dechert had been talking about and writing about practically every element of his proposal that would go into his contest entry. According to their contest rules, the entry could not refer to groups or names previously published, and was limited to 9250 words. The name Open Source Global Governance (OSGG) was used for the first time as part of this proposal.
July 22, 2017, first posts made to the hf.discuss facebook page, a.k.a., “People’s Constitution” kept separate from the Global Challenges Foundation contest.
February 2018, Dechert did not win any money from the Global Challenges Foundation contest but retained his proposal and formed a new unincorporated group called Committee for Open Source Global Governance.
July 2018, first version of Dechert’s peace-as-a-human right manifesto posted to YouTube
2018, unrelated, VotingWorks Partners with the Center for Democracy and Technology and becomes the first and so-far only organization, a 501(c)(3) registered nonprofit organization, a with an open source voting system certified for use in public elections (Mississippi). Their system uses open source GPL software and inexpensive hardware, with an overall cost of about half of what proprietary vendors charge.
2024, March 7, MIT Technology Review article says, “How open source voting machines could boost trust in US elections” and cites VotingWorks and their CEO Ben Adida
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/03/07/1089524/open-source-voting-machines-us-elections/?fbclid=IwAR0g3hyJWiPHvxtDoHNEPTu71Nf2DrVasiO2IzokczVwCGnkC98zg75v4jM
Feb 2024, videos posted on the web show many people around the world urging, first, a nuclear ban (10-second video); second, a pledge request (approx 25 seconds) from a citizen to their head of state (nation or state in the USA) urging participation in completion of the new constitutions; and thirdly a two-minute explanation of the OSGG idea given by a three person team. These videos are being aggregated at the US4P web site
May 2024, the Constitutional Convention for the Solar Era opened by Alan Dechert and the Committee for Open Source Global Governance (OSGG). New web sites established at
www.opensourceglobalgovernance.org/ OSGG
www.us4p.org/ for United Students 4 Peace
previous domains about open source voting and renewable energy conversion updated with some current information
www.openvotingconsortium.org
www.safeenergyassociation.org
ANTICIPATED MILESTONES, 2025 and beyond
————————
2025, first state in the USA agrees to participate, and first country outside the USA agrees to participate; Many federalist papers for the solar era are posted to the OSGG website
2026, President of the Constitutional Convention elected; many more agree to participate in the Constitutional Convention
2027, enough nations and states (approximately 40 each from the USA and 40 from around the world), reach agreement on the wording of the two constitutions. Details of the transition plan are settled.
2028, final phase of the constitutional convention organized where the states and countries will meet at a convention center, location to be determined, announced by the Convention President, to formally adopt the constitutions and the transition plan and make the new governments active
The Constitutional Convention opened by OSGG in May of 2024 expects to see four phases.
PHASE ONE
Phase one began in May of 2024 when opened by OSGG Chairman Alan Dechert. In this initial phase, the actions are almost entirely grassroots. There is little effort to engage academia and no effort to engage incumbents in government. This phase focuses on spreading the word by Internet, conventional media, and word-of-mouth. We expect many press conferences to announce developments such as new participants.
PHASE TWO (tentatively 2025)
We will begin to engage some staff people or elected representatives in national governments and state governments in the USA. The objective of these contacts will be to get a written agreement that the government is willing to participate the OSGG process for improving the content and wording of the two constitutions. As with phase one, the content of the current drafts of the consititions and the transistion plan will be freely available on the Internet and discussions will be opened on pages owned and moderated by OSGG.
PHASE THREE (tentatively 2026)
Phase three begins when there are an adequate number of nations and states in the USA participating in finalizing the wording of the two constitutions. Approximately 40 states of the USA and 40 countries around the world will be needed to ensure success. At some point during phase three, a president of the constituional convention will be elected. The wording of the two constitutions and the transition plan will be finalized.
PHASE FOUR (tentatively 2027-2028)
The president of the constitutional convention will call for the convening of this final phase, which will take place at a convention center location to be determined by the convention president.
Conclusion
———–
The first three phases will be coordinated by the Committee for Open Source Global Governance (OSGG). OSGG will allow for wide-ranging views in discussions carried on their pages. In some cases, as OSGG has done for years, it may be necessary to delete spam, offensive, or off-topic posts. And it many be necessary to ban posts from offenders. The president of the convention will direct the actions of phase four. Once both constitutions and the transition plan are adopted, OSGG will be disbanded.
NUCLEAR POWER AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS, CONTINUED.
We are claiming the paper on Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons, written nearly 28 years ago, by the late and great Theodore B. Taylor, as Federalist Paper number one for this new era.
My current essay is a capstone of the first, which we designate as the second federalist paper of this era.
As comprehensive and authoritative as the work of Theodore B. Taylor, the work is not finished. He concludes with a section titled Global Nuclear Abolition The idea is of course correct, and necessary. However, there is no indication of how such a ban can be achieved.
To be successful, this ban will require establishment of an international sovereign with sufficient authority to enforce it.
The ban will require oversight and planning. Nuclear materials must be handled carefully and disposed of properly.
A time table needs to be put in place so investments in nuclear power are not wasted. We won’t need nuclear power in the Solar Era, but complete eradication of nonrenewable energy sources will take some time.
Alan Dechert
a vice president of the constitutional convention organized by OSGG
