IT MUST BE A CRUSADE

 

‘There is nothing like a dream to create the future.’ – Victor Hugo 

‘You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.’ – Abraham Lincoln 

‘Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.’ – William Jennings Bryan 

‘Our human compassion binds us one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.’ – Nelson Mandela 

‘There is nothing we can do about the past; there is everything we can do about the future.’ – Phil Sutton

 

On September 17, 1978, I left my hometown of Bozeman, Montana, USA, for college. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had the most peculiar contrast of emotions. Part of me could not wait to get out on my own; the other was a fear of cutting the tether of security I had known all my life.

 

I remember saying good-bye to my Family and telling them I loved them. I had just turned 19 and that was the first time anyone had ever said, “I love you”; and it was me. Later, I heard that my parents believed that I would flunk out and then they wouldn’t know what to do with me. I did not hail from the best of families.

 

When I arrived at the University of Montana in Missoula, I checked in at Aber Hall and began moving in. Any fear I had that I could handle being independent quickly vanished. Someone reminded us that we had better get over and have dinner. Over a dozen of us left to have our first meal as College Students.  Three of those who I broke bread with that night are still my friends all these years later.

 

Something also happened that day that would change the world and me forever. U.S. President Jimmy Carter; Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin; and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Peace Accords. I remembered how President Sadat had flown to Jerusalem the previous November seeking Peace after spending the previous three decades doing whatever he could to destroy modern Israel.  It was truly a momentous occasion and touched us all deeply. It was not the first time, nor the last time, major events in the nation and the world would closely parallel significant events in my own life.  Eventually, they would become one and the same.

 

President Carter never has received the credit he deserved for what is without question one of the most important Foreign Policy achievements by any American President in our history! He brokered the deal himself.

 

It is ironic that Joe Biden set the date for President Carter’s State Funeral for January 9^th; it is Richard Nixon’s Birthday. All three Presidents acted as their own Secretaries of State. Rogers Morton, Cyrus Vance and Antony Blinken were space holders at the State Department, having little to do with the actual conduct of American Foreign Policy.

 

Most of the obits I have read concerning President Carter note that he was a Sunday School Teacher, which came in handy negotiating a Middle East Peace Agreement. This is something we often discussed in the Sutton Viewpoint Center’s visits to the Carter Center.

 

I too have been a Sunday School Teacher. I spent almost two years of my life living in the Middle East as member of the U.S. Navy and acting as America’s Liaison Officer with our Persian Gulf War Allies in 1991. Jimmy and I shared a deep and abiding Faith in our Creator. It is/was the primary source and inspiration for the lives we have led. We have often been associated with our support for the two-State Solution between Israel and the Palestinians. That too comes from our study of the Holy Bible.

 

My own interest in Foreign Policy began with the Iranian Hostage Crisis that started in 1979. It was very unsettling to see our fellow Americans taken hostage by a band of students who were acting out of their own angst against the “Great Satan”, the United States.

 

As it turned out, the embassy takeover was orchestrated by the theocratic government in Tehran. The hostages were taken on November 4, 1979, one year exactly before the next U.S. Presidential Election on November 4, 1980. Just as the Iranians had planned, Americans woke-up on Election Day being informed by the Mass Media that the hostages had been held exactly a year and the ineptitude of the Carter Administration was responsible. This and high inflation and unemployment led to Ronald Reagan’s huge landslide and the Republicans winning a majority in the U. S. Senate for the first time in 26 years. This constitutes the severest foreign incursion into American Politics and probably will never be topped.

 

I had my first courses in Foreign Policy in the Winter and Spring quarters of 1980, right in the middle of the Hostage Crisis. My Professor, Dr. Don Spencer, wrote, “The Carter Implosion” detailing the failures of the Carter Administration. Don taught us that Historians believe there is a certain inevitability of events in Human History and that Political Scientists look at Foreign Policy through the lenses of models.

 

Academia approaches the study of Foreign Policy primarily through four academic disciplines: Business, Economics, History, and Political Science. I have degrees in every area but History, but my viewpoint will always be that of Historian.

 

During that same Spring quarter when I became Student Body President and Mount Helens blew, I had a course in Interpersonal Conflict from Dr. Joyce Hocker. She and her Husband Dr. Bill Wilmot’s work had risen the Communication Department at UM to #1 in the country of 150 departments and UM became known as “Harvard West”. I have never felt I have had to apologize for my K-MBA education in Montana because of it.

 

That fall when I met my first Wife and ARCO shutdown operations in Butte and Anaconda creating 30% unemployment in Montana, I took a General Semantics course from Dr. Wes Shellen. I still consider it the best college course I ever have taken and it profoundly altered my viewpoint of the world.

 

These four courses alongside my MBA Internship at the Great Falls Job Service and work with the city’s Economic Incubator Project became the impetus for my theories involving the Four Universal Thematic Principles of The American Dream; The Independence Instinct; the General Semantics of History; The Inevitable March of History; Economic Democracy; the Sutton Doctrine and my No Tolerance Terrorism Policy.  (See: https://www.svctrailblazerpublications.com/trailblazer-to-revival-of-the-american-dream-1)

 

My first published book, REVIVAL OF THE AMERICAN DREAM (2002) was the first to have all these theories incapsulated in one volume and it was only the beginning of the impact my books would have on International Law and World Diplomacy. The publication date was postponed by a year because of 9/11.

 

My only book never published, THE ARENA: A GUIDE TO AMERICA’S FUTURE, was scheduled to go to press on 9/14, but never did because U.S. President George W. Bush utilized my No Tolerance Terrorism Policy that night in his speech to the American People. It would become the Bush Doctrine and basis for the War On Terror.

 

The timing of REVIVAL OF THE AMERICAN DREAM becoming an International Bestselling in 2003 could not have been better. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was seeking a way that the International Community could remove despot regimes and replace them with some semblance of Democracy.

 

At the same time, the Rome Statutes were adopted and the International Criminal Court was created.  Kofi asked me to make the Sutton Doctrine the basis for the International Responsibility To Protect Statutes, now simply Principle.

 

By 2007 when Kofi went off as Secretary General and Tony Blair resigned as British Prime Minister and became the Quartet Representative, Angelina Jolie, Tony and I started the Africa Project because the source of the greatest injustices in the world at the time were in Africa, particularly the regime of Omar Bashir of Sudan. In addition, Former South African President Nelson Mandela started his The Elders group, which Jimmy Carter has been the only American Member. The Carter Administration was the first in U.S. History to make Human Rights the focus of its Foreign Policy.

 

Along SVC’s DreamWeaver Plexus and Trailblazer Programs, the Africa Project have become the chief sources for Education and Training for Economic Development in what was known as the Third World and enjoy local operations and control.

 

While on our Annual Africa Tour in December 2022, it was announced that ratification of the Rome Statutes and/or having a Veto on the UN Security Council would not save National Leaders or their subordinates from International Prosecution or other Sanctions. Every World Citizen must follow International Law. There will be no exceptions.

 

History’s Most Inspiring Lesson: It Must Be A Crusade

 

When we think of a crusade, we generally think of the Christian Crusades to the Holy Land in the 12th and 13th centuries. Crusades are usually military campaigns, at least that is what we are led to believe.

 

Interestingly, the word “crusade” actually derives from the middle French word “cross.” Christian tradition holds Jesus was crucified on a cross. Both the words “cross” and “crucify” derive their meaning from the root “crux”, meaning a difficult point or passage.

 

We often utilize this term crux to denote a focal point of a case in a judicial proceeding or business briefing. This is the definition I am discussing here. The crux of this guideline to decision-making, if you will, is that in order to do what is right one must commit to the concept that the solution that will help the most people is the correct decision and that it cannot and must not be anything else. Revert back to Napoleon Hill’s discovery regarding success. The service to others was the most important element found in successful lives. This type of crusade is by its very nature nonviolent and are charitable in nature.

 

Most of Chapter Three in my newest book, TRAILBLAZER TO REVIVAL OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, focused upon how to determine the significance of a decision made by an individual or set of individuals. To the extent that events such as the Hebrew Exodus, Jesus’ Resurrection, the Battle of Hastings, the invention of the movable-type press and the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, et. al., have had in our lives today is a testimony to the how long-ranging effects such events can have upon history. (https://www.svctrailblazerpublications.com/hope-of-the-world-trailblazer-to-revival-of-the-american-dream)

 

The decisions made today may also, and often do, have long-ranging effects upon future generations. This is the incredible and magnificent power the Creator has given to each individual if we choose to follow these three guidelines I set in  TRAILBLAZER TO REVIVAL OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, in our decision making, accomplish the goals our Creator has for us and declare our greatness! We should never lose sight of the lessons of history, particularly when it comes to their long-range consequences! We often forget the extraordinary power that our decisions have today upon our future and upon those of future generations not yet unborn. We sacrifice the future for short-term gain. Something we dare not do.

 

This is why this discourse on how to decide to do what is right is so very salient in our lives. We could implement all of these recommendations in this book–and those recommendations inspired by this book–to make better and generate different changes in our world viewpoint, but if we do so with dispatch and do not do so correctly, with our minds focused upon these three guidelines, we probably will not reap the full extent of the rewards that these recommendations will engender and could even make matters worse! 

 

Put together, by pursuing the option that is the most difficult to achieve; internalizing that what’s right is not always popular and what’s popular is rarely right; therefore, the least popular option is probably the correct choice; and that history’s most inspiring lesson is that “it must be a crusade”, a cause greater than our ourselves, and that the option that helps the most people is invariably the right choice, will lead us to making better decisions. The fate of millions, if not billions, yet unborn is in our hands with every decision we make. Yes, you have the power to declare whatever you want and potentially alter history, hopefully in ways which will achieve our Divine destinies!

 

A legacy of lasting and promising change is what is being sought through my books. Not one recommendation found therein failed to go through the above screening process that these guidelines suggest. I am thoroughly convinced that these recommendations, if properly implemented, are the best for our nation and its future, let alone for the rest of the world.

 

The good news is that if one chooses to serve their own selfish interests, they cannot hope to win; if, on the other hand, one chooses to serve our Creator and others, then you cannot lose!

 

This is why the crusade to enforce International Law and bring the World to a Peaceful conclusion is so crucial. If despotic regimes are allowed to stay in power and organized terrorism continues to exist, there will be a serious drag on the world economy, everyone’s future and eventually lead to Armageddon.  Will you be active in this Crusade or not?

 

PHIL SUTTON

SVC PRESIDENT/CEO

SPECIAL PRESENTATION TO SVC INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH COMMITTEE

4 JANUARY 2025