Students of the historical record are ever mindful that for every significant catastrophe there typically will be at least one, and more often several bizarre conspiracy theories that spring up around it. “The CIA killed Bob Marley“, “The Pope had John Lennon whacked”, “Hitler was half space alien,” etc. The larger the event, the more ridiculous and numerous are the conspiracy rantings which circulate in relation to it.

So it’s not surprising at all that the events of September 11th, 2001 have precipitated their fair share of these ludicrous fairy tales. And as always, there is – sadly – a small but gullible percentage of the population eager to lap up these tall tales, regardless of facts or rational analysis.

But alas, the incessant 9/11 conspiracy theory bleating is slowly and thankfully grinding to a halt. Other than the fundamental incoherence of their loony theories, the downfall of the “9/11 denier” juggernaut was good old-fashioned skepticism at its best, the kind that conjures visions of James Randi challenging psychics and faith healers on their home turfs and winning.

Staking their fortunes almost solely on Internet-based content may have been the 9/11 deniers’ biggest mistake — the Internet is un-edited, without fact-checkers or minimum publishing standards of any kind — also became a perfect place for a rapid-response system of blogs and forums to fight back. Drawing on the freely available technical information from the NIST, FEMA, and academic journals which most colleges let their students access for free.

It is with the above observations in mind we provide this insightful video from the Corbett Report. Enjoy and Wake Up, America!  Stop indulging in loony wingnut batsh*t conspiracy theories.  Case closed!

(Read more…)

The ineffable John Oliver slammed into the uber corrupt practices of the ‘Big Pharma’ industry in a 15-minute rant last week that really takes the cake!.

It’s a great video exposes just how deeply invested Big Pharma is in luring MDs to prescribe their drugs to millions of people, regardless of the efficacy. In fact, Oliver reveals, that Big Pharma spends much more on marketing to doctors than it does on research, or to marketing to us in television advertising.

Why? Because we trust our doctors.
And if they say here take this pill, we usually will.

Among the really alarming facts in Oliver’s careful dissection of the issue are some pretty hilarious lines. At one point the Oliver compares drug companies to high school boyfriends: “They’re much more interested in getting inside you than in being effective once they are there.”

There have been tiny glimmers of reform in Big Pharma’s dishonest practices: Pharmaceutical reps are not allowed to take doctors out for lavish meals all the time, now. And the Affordable Care Act has helped set up a website which enables you to look up whose money your doctor is taking.

(Read more…)

Original post found here: Arun Gandhi

Salaam alaikum!  Good Morning friends!

Is Gandhi Thriving More in India or America? 

Dr. Abdul Malik Mujahid host of Radio Islam engages Arun Gandhi in a conversation this week:  Malik welcomes Arun noting that he is a true friend of humanity.  In this intimate interview Malik and Arun cover a wide range of topics from India and South African politics, MK Gandhi’s politics, and who is responsible for bringing about Gandhian social, economic and political change today in India.  

Malik asks Arun about the Gandhi Legacy Tours, why they were started, and the upcoming inaugural Satyagraha Tour of South Africa he will be personally leading this May.  Arun stated that the new educational tour through South Africa, will lead us to better understand the philosophy of nonviolence and its application within the violent 21st century: “If this world is to be saved from self-destruction, nonviolence is inevitable.”  Arun not only personally leads the travel groups every year but also participates in dialogues and discussions throughout the tour.  He noted, “As President Nelson Mandela famously said: India sent a man to South Africa and we sent back a Mahatma.”

The conversation segues into Nelson Mandela’s legacy, democracy, and they acknowledge how Americans gets stereotyped by foreigners.   Arun talks about his father Manilal Gandhi’s struggle in South Africa and how the US, India and South Africa can learn from each other.  Arun shares a beautiful leela about his grandmother Kasturba and “The Forgotten Woman” a book he and his late wife Sunanda co-authored about her untold story. 

Malik continues raising questions like Is Gandhi Thriving More in India or America? What is non-violence? How can non violence be used in social economic issues?To find out more listen in…

 Related Post:  Arun Gandhi Joins Council for Parliament of World Religions

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Original Post: Gandhi Legacy Tour

Another remarkable person, Arun Gandhi’s son and co-leader of the Gandhi Legacy Tours, Tushar Gandhi, was on the air with Dr. Gary Null, Null’s ‘Conversations With Remarkable Minds series. Tushar is a controversial, irreverent and passionate activist known by millions in and out of India.  Tushar is also my fellow director at Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute where he and his Mahatma Gandhi Foundation have provided major support and guidance.

1996 Tushar discovered an urn containing the ashes from Gandhi’s funeral pyre, forgotten in the strong room of the State Bank of India, Cuttack. He secured permission from the Supreme Court and immersed them in the Triveni Sangam on 30 January 1997.The same year he founded the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, of which he is currently the managing trustee.

Tushar Gandhi commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Dandi Kooch (Gandhi’s famous Salt March protest), by organizing a re-enactment of the 241-mile long walk. He walked the entire stretch and was instrumental in getting the prime minister to declare the route from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi a historic heritage route.

He is also the chairman for the Australian-Indian Rural Development Foundation, is involved in projects to prevent child trafficking, and is an ambassador of an intergovernmental institution to promote the use of micro-algae spirulina as a nutritional source to fight malnutrition.

A celebrated author and artist to boot, Tushar wrote the exhaustively researched and hotly debated “Lets Kill Gandhi: A Chronicle of His Last Days, the Conspiracy, Murder, Investigation and Trial.”

He currently lives in Mumbai with his wife Sonal and children Vivan and Kasturi.

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THE COURAGE TO BECOME

Here I am

Approaching eighty

And I remain

Perfectly incomplete,

Facing my angels and demons,

Trudging and soaring

Through the uncharted

Times and throes

Of my own existence.

What will it take to

Graduate beyond

“looking into the glass darkly?”

What will it take to

Reside consistently

In Nirvana,

“See things face to face”

 and

Be completely at peace

With myself

In all circumstances?

Oh, I keep waiting for,

Looking for,

The Golden Ring,

The ring of power

And Wisdom,

And presence,

And perfection.

  (Read more…)

January 31, 2014 | Two remarkable modern heroes, were on the air with Dr. Gary Null. Null’s ‘Conversations With Remarkable Minds series. Both on this same hour show, a great listen. Was happy and honored to help arrange these interviews between Vandana Shiva and Arun Gandhi with Gary Null, one of my early holistic health influencers, also known as a take-no-prisoners health activist and author of several books including the recently published Reverse Arthritis & Pain Naturally.

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a renown environmental and social activist, and formerly one of India’s top nuclear physicists. She is regarded as the leading pioneer behind India’s ecological and ecofeminism movement. In 1982 Dr. Shiva founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, which led to the creation of Navdanya – an organization dedicated to the restoration of organic farming across India and the preservation of indigenous knowledge and culture.

> LISTEN TO BROADCAST AT PODBEAN

(Read more…)

We caught up with our old friend and client Elmore Warren, president of Fresh TV in Bermuda, recently. Fresh TV is Bermuda’s only independent community TV system, on the air since 2000.

Elmore had just finished a successful inaugural Bermuda Music Video Awards, honoring Bermuda’s top musical talent. The Awards included live performances and video mixing, Skype and Cable TV shout outs as well as the awards ceremony itself.

As Elmore explained:  

“It was about having a celebration of our local Bermuda music industry — that’s the most important thing — to show an appreciation of our artists. Many of the awards are attached to some of Bermuda’s cultural icons, past and present, including tributes to Bermuda born jazz great Lance Hayward, beloved Bermuda entertainment impresario, the late Eddy DeMello and balladeer Hubert Smith — some of the greatest in the industry. It is important to connect our young entertainers with the cultural icons of years gone by.”

Those striving and thriving in Bermuda’s entertainment industry that were recognized at the inaugural Fresh TV Awards, included…

Female rapper Imari Wade was named the Sally Bassett Best Female Artist of 2013 in a year that has seen her win Best Overall Rapper at the HOTT 1075 Hip Hop Challenge Awards.

Returning to Bermuda following a harrowing experience caught up in the Westgate Shopping Mall shoot out in Nairobi, dancer-singer-author Joanne Ball-Burgess is now in the news on a happier note picking up The Mary Prince International World Cross-over Artist of 2013.

(Read more…)

Wishing you a very happy and awakened new year 2014. 

Light means something holy, something Divine. . . . Light is fundamental in human experience and aspiration and meaning. Because of this, it is suitable to be associated with a universal celebration every year.   — Adi Da Samraj

“Light-in-Everybody” —a season, that is “essentially about Light, and about that Light in everybody. It is about acknowledging the characteristic of Light in everybody you know and meet, rather than darkness. It is about love rather than its opposite.” — Adi Da Samraj

Editorial Note: Originally posted to Arun Gandhi’s website: Farewell Madiba.  RIP Nelson Mandela, thank you for all you did for humanity. We lost an icon today, our condolences to your family! “It always seems impossible until it’s done” – We love you!

Farewell, Madiba

By Arun Gandhi

As the world mourns the death of President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, affectionately known as Madiba, it is important that we don’t get too embroiled  in sentiments and, in our grief, make the mistake of consecrating his message with his physical body.  Like the thousands whom we revere as great people, Madiba was not great by birth, but became great through commitment and dedication to moral values.  All of us are endowed with the same measure of commitment and dedication but we tend to use it more for material aggrandizement rather than to enhance our moral and ethical values.

An Indian Government official reportedly said in his condolence message that if the apartheid government had not incarcerated President Mandela for 27 years he would have changed the face of Africa long ago.  Implying that those 27 years were wasted.  Perhaps some of those years were excessive, but there is no escaping the fact that it was the incarceration that gave Madiba the opportunity to do some soul-searching and turned him from a revolutionary to a revered leader. 

Through his life Madiba showed the world that adversity can be good if we use it with understanding.  Many a leader who have gone through the same kind of adversity as President Mandela has come out more bitter and violent than ever because they wallow in self-pity.  Madiba and others like him used adversity to make a positive change in themselves and their thinking.  In a very true sense Madiba became the change he wished to see in the world, to use Gandhi’s famous quotation. 

Madiba loved his country more than he loved himself.  He was determined to do what was right and good for the country and not be filled with hate and vengeance against those who oppressed him.  He had a vision for South Africa where all human beings could live in peace and harmony.  It was a vision that has been shared by many leaders of the world, including Gandhi, but it is a vision that has not been realized quite simply because we have chosen the path of materialism rather than moral values.  Gandhi warned us that materialism and morality have an inverse relationship. When one increases the other tends to decrease. In a highly materialistic world there is ample evidence today of declining morality.  In fact the decay is so  overwhelming that it denigrates the very concept of civilization.  Is a civilization measured by its material achievements or by its moral integrity?  If Madiba could change from being a revolutionary to becoming a revered world leader can we not change from being selfish to being selfless in the service of the world?        

Adi Da Samraj, a spiritual master, writer, and artist of international renown, passed away in his hermitage in Fiji, on November 27, 2008 of natural causes. He was 69 years old. He founded an entirely new way of spiritual practice, to which he gave the name “Adidam“.

Adi Da was a prolific writer and artist with over sixty published books and hundreds of thousands of works of art. The book that Adi Da designated as his most important work is The Aletheon, which he worked on intensively for the final two years of his earthly incarnation, bringing all of his most essential spiritual and philosophical communications into a final form. He completed his work on The Aletheon on the morning of his passing. 

In the early 1970s, Alan Watts, philosopher and author of numerous books on religion and philosophy, acknowledged Adi Da as “a rare being,” adding, “It is obvious, from all sorts of subtle details, that he knows what IT’s all about.”

In the 1980s, Wittgenstein scholar Henry Leroy Finch wrote: “If there is a man today who is God-illumined, that man is Avatar Adi Da Samraj. There exists nowhere in the world, among Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or any other groups, anyone who has so much to teach. Avatar Adi Da is a force to be reckoned with, a Pole around which the world can get its bearings.” 

From his birth (on Long Island, New York, in 1939), Adi Da manifested unique signs of spiritual illumination. He described his early years as being focused in two fundamental activities. His first focus was to discover the process by which any human being can realize the Truth of “Reality Itself”. His second focus was to develop his own ability to communicate the Truth of “Reality Itself”–through verbal means and also through artistic means.

(Read more…)

Anuradha Bhosale is a highly cherished hero to thousands of impoverished children and their families. Ms Bhosale is a renowned grassroots women’s rights and anti-child labor activist based in Kolhapur, India where more than 35,000 children are involved in daily labor for local industries. A former child-laborer herself at the age of six, she has spent the past 20 years fighting for the prevention of child exploitation, labor, trafficking, and female infanticide.

[note: This interview was first published at www.gandhiforchildren.org]

Owning to her heroism and accomplishments Anuradha has been called the ‘Bandit Queen of India’s Social Movement’, likened to India’s legendary ‘Bandit Queen’, Phoolan Devi who went from ordinary village woman to seasoned bandit of northern India and finally an elected member of Indian Parliament before being gunned down by unknown assassins.

As founder of the WCRC (Women and Child Rights Campaign), Anuradha has educated, trained and empowered thousands of widowed, divorced and deprived women in the rural areas of India to stand up and fight for their rights as allowed by the Indian constitution. 52,000 of them now receive some $714,000 in monthly government pension checks ro which they were previously unaware of being entitled.

(Read more…)

On this auspicious day November 3, 1939 the Great Sage Adi DA Samraj was born, the conscious descent of Avataric Light, existing in a Condition of continual Radiance and Joy. And when, as an infant, He acquired the capability of language, He gave a name to this Condition, calling it simply “the ‘Bright’”. His naming of the “Bright” was the beginning of His Work of Teaching, Truth and Reality.

This year beloved Adi DA’s ‘Jayanti’  (divine birthday) is especially auspicious  as it synchronizes with the start of the Hindu Diwali and New Year, and a unique solar eclipse as well.

Diwali, which starts the New Year for many, is the largest and the brightest of all Hindu festivals. Known as the festival of LIGHT, it’s marked by four days of celebration that literally illuminates India and the world with its brilliance.

(Read more…)

Originally published at Gandhi Legacy Tours

How did M.K. Gandhi die and who killed him? These questions have never been adequately answered when looking at the life and biography of Mahatma Gandhi.  

Arun Gandhi’s son, Tushar Gandhi, collaborated on the new film, based on his book Let’s Kill Gandhi. Tushar Gandhi is available for speaking engagements via Catalyst House.

Who Killed Gandhi? is the definitive documentary film inquiry into a deeply entrenched conspiracy that has remained only a footnote in history.  It reveals an epic battle of clashing religious and political ideologies through interviews with historians, journalists, eyewitnesses and unprecedented access to the families of Mahatma Gandhi, his assassin Nathuram Godse, and the conspiracy that precipitated it.

(Enjoy this short trailer featuring commentary from Gandhi Tour leader 
and great grandson Tushar Gandhi, author of Let’s Kill Gandhi!)

Narrated by Canadian star Gordon Pinsent, the investigative documentary Who Killed Gandhi? resurfaces rare archives, including the discovery of the All India Radio broadcast from January 20th 1948, where a gang of assassins is heard interrupting Gandhi’s prayer meeting in a botched assassination attempt a mere ten days before the fateful final act.

(Read more…)

“World War I.” That title should rightly go to the first true global conflict, Europe’s genocidal invasion of other regions that began in the final decade of the 15th century after Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492. While European historians have often downplayed the ferocity, extent and significance of that earlier conflict by treating it as a diffuse historical process, but if we accept that view it disables our understanding of everything that has happened since then.

Columbus never set foot in the land that would become the United States of America. In fact, he never even saw it. As few are likely to know much about what really happened, I will recount some salient points…

His four voyages took him to the Caribbean, a small detour to Central America, and a hop to the north-east coast of Venezuela. He had no idea the continent of North America existed, or that he had even stumbled into a “New World”. He thought he had found China, Japan, and the region of King Solomon’s fabled gold mines.

What he had categorically not done was “discover” anything, as somewhere between 50 to 100 million people already lived there quite happily, just as they had done for tens of thousands of years. On the other hand, what he did was to start a brutal slave trade in American Indians, and usher in four centuries of genocide that culled them to virtual extinction. Within a generation of Columbus landing, perhaps only 5-10 per cent of the entire American Indian population remained.

Ten years after Columbus landed on Hispaniola its indigenous people were extinct. Columbus in correspondance to his royal sponsors in Spain said they were “loving, uncovetous people,” with “good features and beautiful eyes,” who “neither carried weapons nor understood the use of such things.” Yet many were tortured to death in a vain attempt to get them to reveal non-existent hoards of gold and others worked to death or driven to suicide. Such gratuitous violence continued as Europeans extended their domains in the “New World.” (The Real First World War)

Many of the smaller tribes followed the Arawak of Hispaniola into extinction while the populations of larger groups fell by as much as 85 percent, victims not only of indiscriminate violence but of induced famines and new diseases to which they had no immunity. The spread of smallpox through blankets distributed free to Native Americans and the wanton slaughter of the great herds of bison on which the “Plains Indians” depended for food, clothing and shelter were the most outrageous cases of genocide. Estimates of the numbers killed range up to 100 million.

(Read more…)

Unless you were one of the 150+ thousand people living close to the Fukushima disaster who were evacuated in 2011, Japan’s nuclear crisis might seem far away.  Remember, though, that radioactive waste spewing from the plant by the ton has been working its way into the Pacific Ocean, and from there, on to the rest of the planet. According to new research from the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, the radioactive ocean plume from the original disaster will reach the west coast of the U.S. by early 2014.

And then there’s San Onofre

As if Fukushima wasn’t enough, electricity generation at SCE San Onofre ceased in January 2012 due to leaks in its steam generator, reportedly “without any release of radioactive isotopes.”  More than a year later, rescue centers from Long Beach to San Clemente were overwhelmed with starving sea lion pups, which soon totaled more than 3,000 cases.

(Read more…)

Original Post Source: Gandhi Legacy Tour Blog 

Today, October 2nd, is Gandhi’s Birthday…

To all my personal friends and friends of my late grandfather Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi I send warm regards and best wishes from my home in Rochester, New York.  I have been encouraged by many to continue writing an annual message on the day of Grandfather’s birthday, October 2nd (1869 – 1948). This date is now know as the United Nations International Day of Nonviolence which was designated by the U.N. to acknowledge Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi each year. 

I continue to write this annual message and I now share this with you and those who hold dear the wisdom, and benefit from the philosophy and message of Mahatma Gandhi.

[Editor’s note: The Gandhi Legacy Tour 2013-14 led by Arun Gandhi still has only a few remaining openings that will be available for a very short time – less than 14 days from this publication.  Don’t miss out!]

Bapu, we still love you!

On a previous Gandhi birthday I received a letter from an Indian friend who lived for many years in Britain and San Diego and recently decided to go back to India to take back home the Gandhi legacy “Become the change you wish to see in the world.” Like millions before him he is disillusioned. He has not been able to find Gandhi in the new India. Of course, Gandhi’s image adorns all the currency notes, there are statues in town squares and every city and town has a “Mahatma Gandhi Road.” Lip service is paid to Gandhiji’s memory on his birthday and his death anniversary.

>> Continue reading at Arun Gandhi’s blog

Original Post Source: Gandhi Legacy Tour

I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of the city of Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were well within the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I always look forward being able to go to town to visit friends or go to the movies. One day my father asked me to take him to the city to attend a conference that lasted the whole day and I jumped at the chance.

As he went to town, my mother gave me a grocery list of things I needed and my father asked me to take care of some outstanding things like taking the car serviced. When I left my father, he told me: See you here at 5 pm and we will go home together.

After quickly completing all the assignments, I went to the nearest cinema. I focused so much with the film, a John Wayne movie, I forgot the time. It was 5:30 pm when I remembered. I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting. It was nearly 6 pm.

He anxiously asked: Why are you late? I felt bad about it and I could not say I was watching a John Wayne movie in Durban. Then I told him the car was not ready and had to wait. I said this without knowing that my father had already called the garage.

> Continue reading at Gandhi Legacy Tour

Awareness is more fundamental than body, than emotion, than mind.

Most fundamental is not what we are aware of—but that we are always aware.

That constant reality of awareness is what Adi Da Samraj calls “Consciousness Itself“.

The TEDx Talks that began on the concept of spreading great ideas, has degenerated to a new priesthood of status quo dogma. “The TED organization doesn’t want you to hear the really important, breakthrough advancements in scientific thinking, and to enforce that intellectual ignorance, it has resorted to censoring and suppressing two of the most important scientists our world has ever produced,” opines Mike Adams at his NaturalNews blog.

Does TED Talks now have an anonymous board of “scientific advisors” who wield increasing control of the TED Talks from behind a veil of secrecy.

Has TED become just another vehicle of idea suppression?

Perhaps the most prominent victim of TED censorship and idea suppression to date is Graham Hancock, author of the now-censored TED Talk ironically titled, “The War on Consciousness.”

As one can see in this talk, the idea that humans “might” have this nebulous underpinning called consciousness was apparently so offensive to the TED Talks high priests that they suppressed and “removed it from circulation.”

TED Talks responds:

“Some speakers use the language of science to promote views that are simply incompatible with all reasonable understanding of the world.  Giving them a platform is counterproductive. [So] we’ve appointed a board of scientific advisers. They are (deliberately) anonymous, for obvious reasons.”

Keep in mind that, throughout history, “scientific advisors” once insisted the Earth was flat. “Scientific advisors” claimed inhaling mercury would cure the flu. “Scientific advisors” once thought there were only four vitamins necessary for complete human nutrition, etc.

(Read more…)

This is the planet we exist on and in, yet we continually avoid the truth about atomic weapons; we close our minds to their monstrous reality – 100s of 1000s or even millions of innocent civilians incinerated in a sudden flash and many more to die slower.  Nuclear weaponry is a reflection of our nightmare-shadow side.  It must be faced head-on and discharged.  The atomic bomb lies within us all.

According to the Great Sage Adi Da Samraj, “ … the explosion of great nuclear bombs merely represents the archetype of anger itself. And it is for this reason that the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, in the extreme moment of the now rising political confrontations, is an irrational—and, therefore, entirely possible, if not inevitable—event.”

Never Forget Hiroshima & The “World’s Greatest Bomb”

Most Americans 68 years ago on August 6, 1945, got their news from the radio, which transmitted the copy from Truman’s statement shortly after the historic first atomic war event.  Immediately after the radio announcements, newspapers’ banners proclaimed:

“America’s Atom Bomb, World’s Greatest, Hits Japs!”

Greg Mitchell at HuffPost notes: “Hiroshima did contain an important military base, used as a staging area for Southeast Asia, where perhaps 25,000 troops might be quartered. But the bomb had been aimed not at the “Army base” but at the very center of a city of 350,000, with the vast majority women and children and elderly males…. Indeed, a U.S. survey of the damage, not released to the press, found that residential areas bore the brunt of the bomb, with less than 10 percent of the city’s manufacturing, transportation, and storage facilities damaged.”

President Truman’s first words on the subject set the narrative:

“Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. …The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold….It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe.”

Takapart.com’s Oliver Lee debunks the 3 overriding myths of U.S. justification for such a heinous act of barberism –  (Read more…)

The Buddha said, “Of all relationships, the best is trust.”  But recent NSA revelations have demonstrated that we are attempting to build a world of distrust in a mistaken search for security. Let us begin by dismantling that premise.  Where do we start?

On this day, July 23, 2006, World Friend Adi Da declared a decisive moment in human history for the sake of global cooperation, tolerance, and peace. In His book, Not-Two Is Peace, Adi Da Samraj, speaks to our planet’s violent human situation with a clarion call for global change in the form of a “Global Cooperative Forum”, a unique global institution founded in the inherent truth of prior unity.  

From His essay “723:  The Free Declaration of The Universal Moral, Social, and Political Laws of True and Necessary Civilization” (pp 251 in Not-Two Is Peace):

This Free Declaration is the Seed-Utterance of that new and necessary true and right (and truly globally, totally, and universally cooperative) order.

This moment in human-time—July 23, 2006—is the precise and decisive moment of the uniquely new human necessity for all of humankind.

One and all, consider this Free Declaration of your possibility on Earth.

One and all, Be of this Free Wisdom Blessed and made all right—together and at once.

Something new must emerge ….. A new mode of social contract …. an ego-less mode …… based on cooperation, tolerance and universal participation and accountability.

Peace is not only about encouraging peace between nations and governments but is also about you and me and nonviolence in our homes, communities and schools, hence – “Be the change you wish to see in the world!”

You are invited to participate in the initiation of the Global Cooperative Forum, the universal representative body for all of humanity via global conference on Tuesday July 23rd 2013 @ 6:30PM.

(Read more…)

Original post at Cloud9RealTime

While the U.S. economy sluggishly climbs back up (fingers crossed), many or most of America’s small business operators are toiling harder than ever. In fact, business owners typically spend so much time managing their companies, there’s scant time left to grow their companies, let alone achieve an optimal work-life balance.

The Challenge of Growth

Growing a small enterprise is a hefty challenge and, sadly speaking, other elements of life often take a backseat; recreation, relationships, even family are left with less attention as the company takes on a most demanding life of its own.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is U.S. females managing small businesses who will create 1/3rd of the 16 million new employment jobs projected by 2018. Yet, women also carry the bulk of weight on their home front. Locating the right balance between work and life can feel overwhelming, even unbearable.

Take heart, there’s good news. Today’s technologies can streamline many aspects of our daily lives, and businesses are not different. Technology can simplify the functions of a business and provide owners the opportunity to recover a big chunk of their private lives by decreasing hours spent on core time-depleting responsibilities, while gaining increased business insight and oversight.

(Read more…)

Mahatma Gandhi once observed that, “moral authority is never retained by an attempt to hold onto it.” A decline in moral authority and increasing disenchantment is witnessed daily whether with our government or our economy. Once lost it becomes difficult to regain. July 4th, and in light of the recent Orwellian U.S. Government citizen spying revelations, it seems timely to examine examples from our nation’s and Gandhi’s history.

On July 4th 1934 the Sydney Herald reported that Gandhi’s campaign for the emancipation of the untouchable classes, had fomented attacks and assassination attempts on him, and had revealed evidence of powerful growing hostility on the part of Hindus, who particularly resented Gandhi’s attempt to secure for the untouchables the right to enter Hindu temples, draw water from wells and wash in pools, all of which had previously been exclusively reserved for the use of orthodox Hindus.*

……..*See Let’s Kill Gandhi by Tushar Gandhi

On July 4th, 1776 the colonies which would later become the United States of America issued a Declaration of Independence from the mother country England.  For this small group of independent entities with no means of power to challenge the greatest power on earth it was quite an undertaking as their great strength was derived not through power but moral authority.  

It is often overlooked that within England the colonies enjoyed widespread support as the result of their moral authority. 

The real meaning of July 4th is not fireworks, picnics and barbecues – Its America’s Declaration of Independence – the instigating document of our democracy – it gives us the true meaning of a patriot, one who supports our nation’s ideals, while not necessarily its government.

(Read more…)

Nearly decade ago Michael Jackson performed his most controversial single, “They Don’t Care About Us,” for music video. The video remains one of the most talked about and socially active pieces Jackson ever composed and performed. 

The video was shot by director Spike Lee in two locations in Brazil, a “favela” or “shanty town” in Rio de Janeiro called Dona Marta and in Salvador da Bahia.

Salvador authorities tried to ban all production over fears the video would damage their image, the area and prospects of staging the 2004 Olympics. Still, the residents of the area were happy to see Jackson, and hoped that their problems would be made visible to a worldwide audience.

At the beginning of the video, a Brazilian woman proclaims “Michael, eles não ligam pra gente” which means “Michael, they don’t care about us.”

Performing with Jackson is Olodum (pronounced oh-lo-doon), a cultural group based in the Afro-Brazilian community of Salvador da Bahia. It was founded by percussionist, Neguinho do Samba.  Olodum runs an inner-city school for Salvador’s underprivileged children in which they teach a full array of academic and arts courses in order to build self-esteem and encourage economic ascension among Salvador’s younger generation. 

From Lynnea Bylund’s unpublished memoirs June 1998 –  (Read more…)

News reports in December 2005 first revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans’ phone calls and Internet communications. Those news reports, combined with a USA Today story in May 2006 and the statements of several members of Congress, revealed that the NSA is also receiving wholesale copies of American’s telephone and other communications records.

All of these surveillance activities are in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the US Constitution.*

*Source: Electronic Freedom Foundation

A new organization formed to oppose the broad surveillance activities of the NSA’s PRISM program is calling on Congress to stop spying on Americans and reveal the full truth. Already the petition circulated by the Stop Watching Us! group has exceeded 485,000 signatures. (read the letter)

“Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government is doing to us, in our name.” – Bruce Schneier at The Atlantic

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Founding father Benjamin Franklin

“The revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights,” the organization’s open letter reads. “We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA’s spying programs.”

(Read more…)

……Horace Silver by George Underwood

Horace Silver, a major contributor to and influencer of 20th century jazz,  tended not to play up that he was proficient in Portuguese, nor draw directly on his rich Portuguese musical upbringing. Song For My Father was his most famous jazz creation and reflects both his Portuguese and Brazilian influences.  Several versions of the song are offered here interspaced with the lyrics, including Silver’s own fully instrumental version from 1976, second in line …

 … Happy Fathers’ Day, enjoy!

If there was ever a man
Who was generous, gracious and good
That is my dad
The man
A human being so true
He could live like a king
‘Cause he knew
The real pleasure in life

LEON THOMAS PERFORMING

To be devoted to
And always stand by me
So I’d be unafraid and free

(Read more…)

Dolphin jumping for joy upon hearing news of India’s Cetacean Emancipation

Cetaceans Granted Unprecedented ‘Non-Human Persons’ Rights in India

The nation of India has become the first country to officially recognize dolphins and whales as “non-human persons,” whose rights to life and liberty “must be respected.”  Dolphin sea parks that were being built across the country will instead be shut down.

India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests has advised state governments to ban ‘dolphinariums’ and other commercial entertainment that involves the capture and confinement of cetacean species such as orcas and bottlenose dolphins. In a statement, the government said research had clearly established cetaceans are highly intelligent and sensitive, and that dolphins “should be seen as ‘non-human persons’ and as such should have their own specific rights.”

(Read more…)

“A new generation of insect larvae is eating the roots of genetically-engineered corn intended to be resistant to such pests. The failure of Monsanto’s genetically-modified corn (GMO Frankencorn) could be the most serious threat ever to a genetically-modified crop in the U.S.,” says natural health advocate Dr. Joe Mercola in a recent HuffPost Blog

And the economic impact could be huge. Billions of dollars are at stake, as GMO Frankencorn accounts for 65 percent of all corn grown in the U.S. What’s worse is that in addition to the growing dangers of ingesting GMO foods, GMO Frankencorn has been shown conclusively to be bereft of nutritional value in this stunning assessment presented by Lance Devon at Mike Adams’ NaturalNews.

Hungary recently destoyed all of its GMO corn fields, and China, itself oft criticized for food health scandals, has recently rejected multiple huge shipments of U.S. GMO Frankencorn despite that country’s urgent need for agricultural consumables. 

(Read more…)

……………(Click image to enlarge)

— – Repost Via: Scott Kafora Gandhi Worldwide

To commemorate Gandhi’s first civil resistance 120th anniversary we are happy to make the following exciting announcement…

After three years of intensive research, architectural programming, design, development and budgeting by GWEI and AVANI (see Catalyst House October 22 2012 and January 5 2013) the first two of up to 16 Superadobe earthen-based dome structures take shape on a five acre plot of rural farmland just south of Kolhapur, India.

The Times of India (The largest English language newspaper) featured an article on our work on Saturday, June 1, 2013.

A group of four volunteers specialists in both permaculture and Superadobe construction techniques have spent the past six months educating, training and constructing the new landscape and dome structures.

(Read more…)

This video was inspired by a RV Adventure road trip back in 2007.  Sierra’s love of traveling, ancient architecture, and nature was the motivating factor in becoming a full time solo RV explorer.  During her adventures on the road she came across many ancient settlements and was fascinated by the agelessness and simplicity of Earthen Architecture. She started researching all types of Natural Building techniques and decided to focus on Earthbag Building and the timeless genius of the Cal-Earth SuperAdobe earthbag method. She  is currently involved in a large dome earthbag project in Canada.

On Wednesday, The US Department of Homeland Security seized a payment processing account belonging to Mt. Gox, the largest international Bitcoin trader over claims the monetary exchange service had falsified financial documents, as reported at Ars Technica.

Bitcoin threatens both the financial elite’s monopoly over the economy and the online web of payment systems which have been used as a tool to crack down on free speech on the Internet, Amir Taaki, a bitcoin software developer, told RT.com in this interview.

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Lynnea Bylund is managing director of Gandhi Legacy Tours, Director of Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, founder of Catalyst House and has nearly three decades of experience in administration, marketing and business development. She was a nationally recognized spokeswoman for the emerging alternative video and information delivery industries. She has a degree in holistic health-nutrition from the legendary and controversial health educator and activist Dr. Kurt Donsbach, she is the founder of two not-for-profit small business-based wireless trade associations and has lobbied on Capitol Hill and at the FCC where she has spoken out strongly against the cable TV monopoly, illegal spectrum warehousing and ill-conceived congressional schemes to auction our nation’s precious airwaves to the highest bidder.

Ms. Bylund is a founder and former CEO of a Washington DC telecommunications consulting and management company with holdings in several operating and developmental wireless communications systems and companies. In 1995 Lynnea became the first female in the world to be awarded a Broadband PCS operating permit – she was one of only 18 winners, along with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon in the biggest cash auction in world history, raising a whopping $7.7 billion. Lynnea also spear-headed the successful effort to launch the first cable TV network in the South Pacific islands.
… > Follow Lynnea on:  +LynneaBylund – Twitter – LinkedIn – FaceBook – Pinterest & YouTube