Ridiculously inconsistent things about the Greece-EU crisis narrative being portrayed to us by the mainstream media

The most illogical things about the whole Greece-EU crisis, and what
is pointing to something suspicious in the matter:

1. If Greece leaves the EU, it is said that will severely harm the whole EU.

2. If that is true, then that would have put Greece in some commanding
position, from where they can dictate the terms.

3. But instead I see EU, Germany and co. being the commanders and
scolding an entire country and demanding that they pay through their
nose, that they take up "austerity measures" (meaning full-on
multi-generational burdensome taxation on everything that will
directly go out of the country to service debt, not help the country,
and that coupled with near-zero govt support, total slashing of
education, healthcare, poverty-alleviation, pensions, social security
etc.. which will obviously result in systemically induced mass poverty
and starvation and ZERO chances of any real recovery) .. measures that
Germany themselves would never ever impose upon their own citizens.

4. So on one end they're treating the Greeks as their slaves and as beggars,

5. And from the exact same sources describing and in many ways
sanctioning this attitude, I'm also seeing clamours that if Greece
refuses to comply with these basically bullet-swallow demands, and
leaves the EU, then all hell will break lose on Germany and all the EU
members doing the scolding.

6. So WHAT GIVES? With the kind of attitude towards Greece displayed,
one would be expecting the EU to be loudly threatening to KICK Greece
out of the EU and saying they'll be better off without the wretches.

7. On the other hand, if keeping Greece IN was so crucial, then one
would expect the EU/Germany/IMF etc to be not in a commanding, but
rather a grovelling position, begging Greece to not leave, and
agreeing to the demands that Greece is making, or exploring
alternatives at recovering all that debt, like, say, going after
people like the leaders of Goldman Sachs and other private entities
WHO ACTUALLY CAUSED THIS WHOLE MESS instead of extracting tribute from
Greek citizens who had no say in the matter.

8. So whichever way this goes, at least one of the sides should have
been seen threatening to either walk out of EU or kick the other out
of EU. But instead, we're not seeing this at all! And none of all
those ostensible experts in those TV newsrooms is even mentioning this
glaring flaw! It should have been either this or that.. how can there
be neither?

9. The behaviour we're seeing from the EU, is rather that of an Empire
talking down to its Colony. And in such a dialogue, there is always
implicit the ultimatum that the Empire will send in its forces of
death and destruction and lay the colony to waste if the Colony
doesn't comply with the orders. Is this what the EU/Germany/IMF have
in mind? They're definitely behaving that way.. not willing to forgive
and not even willing to let go. That's the attitude of someone who is
possessing you by sheer force. The attitude of an abuser.

10. So in this context, it's of course the most logical thing for
Greece to walk away from this abusive relationship. Why then am I
reading western journalists and leaders ACCUSING Greece's leaders of
'secretly' wanting to do that? That's like a wife beater accusing his
wife of plotting to get away from him. Why wouldn't she want to do
exactly that? What is there to accuse in that? It's something to be
proud of. "Oh, how can do this to your children?" "Oh, how can you do
this to your debt obligation?" Typical victim blaming going on here.
The people of Greece are the VICTIMS of a seriously flawed and
corrupted system of international finance that screwed their country.
They've been bearing all the consequences of this while its architects
remain swimming in luxury.

11. Any country on this planet is perfectly capable of producing
whatever its citizen's basic needs are. All this international trade
started as an EXTRA thing, for extra prosperity related things. Not
for bare essentials. International trade and exchange was never ever
supposed to be something that you'll die without. Why would anyone
bother to get into trade if it involved a 50% chance of death? Why is
it then being accorded that kind of criticality today? So what if
Greece suddenly becomes unable to make any dealings with other
countries? They're not going to die. Then why all the doomsday
apocalyptic narration? If international trade has really come to a
life-threatening state then maybe the time has come to take a call and
progress, with the benefit of decentralized modern technology, to days
of self-sufficiency? Maybe it's wiser to invest in things that
increase self-sufficiency, like education and healthcare and
sustainable agriculture and cottage industries and renewables and
sustainable construction, rather than things like FDI? Why don't we
see any mainstream reporter or "expert" talking about these measures
as the way forward for Greece and others like them? Why is there no
"forward" in their dictionary at all? They seem convinced like
everybody is going to die next week.


12. And of course, in all this we have the near-absolute censorship by
the mainstream media of another European country, Iceland, having done
back in 2008-9 exactly what they say Greece musn't do : Refuse to pay
the debts imposed on them. All hell didn't break lose.. in fact,
Iceland is way better off today than when it was complying with
"international obligations", and its citizens don't have
multi-generational extra taxes to pay just to service the debt that
they, like Greece, had no role and no say in getting. If Iceland got
through nicely, then why is Greece being painted in such a doomsday
scenario? Why is Iceland not even being mentioned by the media when it
is the most recent similar example?

--Nikhil

Delhi govt introduces peoples-satisfaction condition on contractor payment

# No contractor would get payment for their work unless people are
satisfied with the work done.

http://aamaadmiparty.org/highlights-of-swaraj-budget-presented-by-deputy-cm-sh-manish-sisodia

This itself takes care of a lot of things ;) . And note: while the
"how" is important and must follow in due course, one must never allow
it to come in the way of the "why-not!".


"Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex,
the solutions remain embarrassingly simple."
― Bill Mollison, permaculture pioneer

Why GREXIT should happen! (and WW3 should not)

Comment on http://www.politico.eu/article/will-grexit-happen-tsipras-varoufakis-graccident-athens-euro-eu/

Why did this author skip mentioning the simple fact that the austerity
(read: robbery) imposed on the citizens of Greece is not of their
making; that is an externalized debt imposed on them by private
profiteers that EU is allowing to get away. The case becomes quite
simple when you acknowledge that fact : it is all the investors' fault
that they blindly trusted frauds for the sake of high interest
returns; they have absolutely no right to extract their investments
from the citizens of a country who have nothing to do with the matter.
The investors who engaged in this risky, greedy behaviour must face
the consequences and lose their investments; it's as simple as that.
There's absolutely no need to involve any governments or citizens in
the matter. If Greece exits the EU, it's because the EU has been
behaving irrationally, irresponsibly, and IMPERIALLY.

And again, why is this author and several like him not at all
mentioning that ICELAND did pretty much the same thing (ie, refuse
imposing someone else's debts on their citizens) and they're much
better off now?

What is being written as a conspiracy/strategy (of exiting the EU), is
actually simple common sense. The conspiracy all this time was to loot
the people of Greece for the debts that private profiteers imposed on
them. Track them down, confiscate their properties, book the ex
government officials who illegally gave govt backing to them. That's
what investors need to do if they really want their money back. Not
loot the citizenry.

Related:
http://rt.com/business/233459-grexit-eu-euro-saxo/
http://www.politico.eu/article/welcome-greek-referendum-democracy-greece-grexit-vote/

More material to dig into:
http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Debt,_The_First_5000_Years
http://charleseisenstein.net/project/sacred-economics/


Also, a shouter for all those who believe cashless is great and all
money should get into banks : Do you have any idea about the
fiat-based currency system, how it generates money out of thin air and
puts a total debt always greater than the total amount of money in
circulation? Do you know that governments are now using banks to
directly take money out of people's accounts, that negative interest
rate is coming, ie, people will be charged for investing their money
with the bank? Do you know that the more money a country keeps in its
over-centralized banks, the more there is available to lend at low
interest to monopoly corporations to further increase their domination
and loot and pollution of the country? Do YOU have any say at all in
who your bank lends your money to? Do you think that you're really
being neutral by remaining blissfully unaware of it? Please do some
research; don't go around blindly advocating what the mainstream says.


Meanwhile, make no mistake about the co-inciding timing : The rise of
ISIS attacks is a clear provocation to more war and occupation in the
middle east ("aa bayl mujhe maar!"), and they're getting more and more
desperate to provoke war. More war is the only way the Western economy
can get out of the economic meltdown that is coming, and the people of
Greece were the ones taking the brunt and staving it off so far. What
a "heavenly" co-incidence, eh? If Greece exits, the warmongers are
going to get even more desperate to start full-scale war ASAP. What's
happening in the ISIS case is a near-perfect allegory to the politics
shown in the Star Wars prequels, and these patterns are common and
have been repeating since decades. Never forget : The funding and
weaponization of ISIS is coming from staunch Western allies who will
never be asked to stop it, for the simple reason that they're only
acting as conduits. You want to really stop terrorism? Then stop
funding it, simple!

-Nikhil

Jeevan Vidya Workshop at Dharwad, Karnataka, October 3-10, 2015.

Dharwad Sukhi Jeevan Group

invites you to 

a Workshop on Jeevan Vidya
 

Facilitated by Vinish Gupta 

from October 3-10, 2015

 at Dharwad, Karnataka

About the workshop:

A Jeevan Vidya workshop is an intensive 40-hour learning experience that seeks to bring one's attention to neglected and subtle facets of life; issues related to interpersonal relations, education, society, environment, aspirations, success are discussed and participants are provided critical tools to help them explore the rich web of connections between seemingly disparate aspects of life. It is a process of guided introspection, of 'doing philosophy' rather than studying it. There is no sermonizing; the facilitator presents sets of proposals, and helps participants bring their attention to bear on the inner workings of their thoughts, fears and aspirations. Gradually one begins to interrogate hidden assumptions and get a sharper, clearer view of the whole intricate fabric of life; one begins to see new possibilities for positive human action. The idea is to trigger an empowering, self-critical inner dialogue that begins with the workshop, but doesn't end with it…

This is a residential workshop hosted at Dharwad, Karnataka. There is only room for about 30 participants, so please register as early as possible. It is important that you attend the whole workshop from start to finish as each day builds on the previous one.

The Facilitator:
This workshop will be facilitated by Vinish Gupta, who leads the Centre for Holistic Learning. He has been involved with various social and environmental movements in the past. In his youth he spent over a decade as a Buddhist monk, exploring traditional Indian systems of thought and living. His current interests include value education, and design of environmentally sound systems and technologies.

What to bring:
Bring personal clothing, umbrella, water bottle, towel, toiletries, mosquito-net/repellent, and any interesting materials from your organization to share and anything creative that you like to do to share with others.

This event is run on gift culture. Participants are invited to contribute what they can (towards the cost of organising the workshop which is approximately Rs.3500 per person for food and stay); learning scholarships are available to those who need them. And if you can, your additional contribution will help to support other people's participation. No one will be refused due to money constraints.

यह कार्यशाला हिंदी में होगी . (This workshop will be conducted in Hindi).

To register for the workshop, please fill in the online form.

Participants from Dharwad may contact any of the following to participate:
1. Dr Sanjeev Kulkarni - 9448143100 (7 pm to 9 pm only)
2. Shri Santosh Oswal - 9880139840 (5 pm to 8 pm only)
3. Shri Sanjeevkumar Patil - 9448231960 (Email: info@tarangscientificinstruments.com )

Please note that the workshop is of an integrated nature and has to be attended in its entirety. It may not be attended partially.
Here is how to reach Dharwad. It is ideal for participants to arrive by the evening of the 2nd October itself; they may leave after lunch of 10th October 2015. If you intend to travel by train, please note that train bookings now open 4 months in advance of the travel date, so we advise you not to delay making the necessary bookings!

Best wishes,
Dharwad Sukhi Jeevan Group

धारवाड़ सुखी जीवन समूह ,

द्वारा आयोजित   

धारवाड़, कर्णाटक

में

जीवन विद्या शिविर

3-10 अक्टूबर 2015

शिविर के बारे में:

जीवन विद्या शिविर (करीब 40 घंटे की अवधि की) एक गहरे अध्ययन की प्रक्रिया है, जिसमे जीवन के मौलिक परन्तु प्रायः उपेक्षित पहलुओं पर ध्यान केंद्रित किया जाता है। आपसी सम्बन्ध, शिक्षा, समाज, प्रकृति, लक्ष्य, सफलता आदि पर एक गहरा संवाद होता है जिसके द्वारा प्रतिभागियों को ज़िन्दगी के भिन्न प्रतीत होने वाले पहलुओं के बीच की कड़ियाँ पहचानने व समझने का अवसर मिलता है। कोई प्रवचन या उपदेश नही होता। प्रबोधक द्वारा कुछ प्रस्ताव प्रस्तुत किये जाते हैं, और प्रतिभागियों को उनके आतंरिक विचारों, भयों, सम्भ्राँतियों, आकांक्षाओं आदि को जांचने में सहयोग किया जाता है।  क्रमशः ढेर सारी छिपी मान्यताएं उजागर होने लगती हैं और व्यक्ति को ज़िन्दगी के सूक्ष्म ताने बाने का एक नयी स्पष्टता से दर्शन होने लगता है; मानव में सकारात्मक सृजनशक्ति की नयी संभावनाओं का बोध होने लगता है।  एक सशक्त चिंतन-यात्रा का शिविर में प्रारम्भ तो होता है पर अंत नही …

यह 8-दिवसीय पूर्णकालिक आवासीय शिविर है। धारवाड़, कर्णाटक में आयोजित इस शिविर में कुल 30 प्रतिभागियों के लिए स्थान हैं, इस लिए पूर्व पंजीकरण करें।  

शिविर में पूर्णकालिक प्रतिभागिता अनिवार्य है, आंशिक प्रतिभागिता की अनुमति नही है।

शिविर के दौरान स्वैच्छिक श्रमदान करने का व व्यक्तिगत हुनरों के आदान-प्रदान का भी अवसर रहेगा।

प्रबोधक:

इस शिविर में प्रबोधन श्री विनीश गुप्ता करेंगे। वे लम्बे समय से विभिन्न सामाजिक व पर्यावरणीय अभियानों से जुड़े रहे हैं। करीब दस वर्ष तक वे बौद्ध परंपरा में भिक्षु भी रहे, जिस दौरान उन्हें भारतीय विचारधाराओं व तौर तरीकों को समझने का अवसर मिला।

विनीश को उनके कार्यों में सहयोग मिलता है उनकी पत्नी करुणा मुरारजी से। शिक्षा का मानव संभावनाओं व विकास के साथ सम्बन्ध समझने में लम्बे समय से करुणा की रूचि रही है। अन्य विषय जिनके अध्ययन में वे रूचि रखती हैं: आहार, फ़िल्में, प्रक्रिया/इतिहास विश्लेषण, और सीखने-सिखाने व जीने के सामूहिक तौर तरीके।

साथ लाएं:

निजी वस्त्र, पानी की बोतल, तौलिया, साबुन आदि निजी उपयोग का सामान, आपके संस्था / कार्य से सम्बंधित सामग्री, व कुछ भी रचनात्मक जो आप को दूसरों के साथ करना / बांटना अच्छा लगता है।

यह शिविर 'उपहार संस्कृति' पर आधारित है। यानि इस शिविर के लिए कोई निश्चित अनिवार्य शुल्क नही है।  हर प्रतिभागी पर करीब रुपए 3500 का खर्च आता है।  जिन्हे आवश्यकता हो उनके लिए छात्रवृत्तियां/सहयोग उपलब्ध हैं।  आप अधिक योगदान का सामर्थ्य रखते हों तो आपके योगदान से अन्य लोगों की प्रतिभागिता सुनिश्चित होने में सहयोग रहेगा।  

आर्थिक असमर्थता के कारण किसी की प्रतिभागिता बाधित नही होने दी जाएगी।  

इस शिविर में भाग लेने के लिए यह ऑनलाइन फॉर्म भरें। 

धारवाड़ से प्रतिभागी पंजीकरण हेतु इन से भी संपर्क कर सकते हैं:

1 . डॉ. संजीव कुलकर्णी - 9448143100 (सायं 7 से 9 बजे )

2 . श्री संतोष ओसवाल - 9880139840 (सायं 5 से 8 बजे )

3. श्री संजीवकुमार पाटिल - 9448231960 (इ-मेल : info@tarangscientificinstruments.com )

धारवाड़  पहुँचने के बारे में जानकारी यहाँ है। उत्तम होगा यदि प्रतिभागी 2 अक्टूबर की शाम तक ही पहुँच पाएं। वे 10 अक्टूबर को दोपहर के भोजन उपरांत वापस लौट सकते हैं।  यदि आप रेल से यात्रा करने वाले हैं तो ध्यान रहे कि टिकटें यात्रा तिथि के 4 महीने पूर्व मिलनी शुरू हो जाती हैं, इस लिए अपनी यात्रा की टिकटें बुक करवाने में विलम्ब न करें !

शुभ कामनाएं

धारवाड़ सुखी जीवन समूह

--

Centre for Holistic Learning
Jeevanshala Trust, "Nagalaxmi",
Hulekal Village, Sirsi-581336. Karnataka. India.
Tel: 08283-240147.
Cell: +91.8762071817

http://www.jeevanshala.org/

Things you can do in Pune

Hi friends,

I'd like to offer, in a slightly conventional way, some possible plans that get me totally excited. I'll be available to meet up and talk further about any of these if you're interested.

1. Map the trees in your locality: See http://trees.metastudio.org/. Use a rope and find the circumference, estimate the height, pin it using the map and get its latitude-longitude while doing so. Get some help and identify which species and family the tree is part of, what its characteristics are. Take pictures and learn how to take them such that someone seeing the pic can identify the species, guauge the location and height, etc. And all this becomes not something just for the sake of educating, but contributes something new to a collective knowledge base that can be part of something immensely valuable.

2. Participate in a ward infrastructure survey that we're doing. Take photos, record locations and map different aspects of your locality. Put your observations on the map (http://nikhilvj.techydudes.net/files/coep-planning-observations.html) (work in progress!) and make it part of a larger chain of events. Dig a little deeper into knowing why things are the way they are, link things up and find out several ways in which you can participate in the stuff that affects your life on a daily basis.

3. Participate in tree plantation and upkeep.. there's some wonderful groups doing great, well-thought-out and holistic work on the tekdis. Sunday mornings become great picnics and chances to meet and interact with lots of different people in a fun hands-on environment, if you can manage to wake up in time ;)

4. Go to Hasmukh Sapnawala's Sapna Ranch for a week or two, and do a whole lot of hands-on eco-friendly activities while playing with a lot of cats and dogs, sleeping in half-open geodomes and tents and all, learn a lot of things under "forgiving design" concept, learn freedom with responsibility. http://ebhle.com/

5. Get an Arduino Uno electronic board, look it up on the net, get into open-source hardware and programming and stuff.. start with blinking a light in a pattern of your choosing, and progress to making low-cost immensely valuable things like mini weather monitoring stations.

6. Map every bus stop in Pune, or do other kinds of things to help Pune get a world class public transport system.

-nikhil.js [at] gmail.com

Education : When simplistic models go against reality

Some exchanges over ways to teach students about trade and money, have
brought up a classical dilemma that I'm sure has been faced by a lot
of educators.

Our simplistic models we use to teach go completely against reality.
And reality is way too difficult for us to teach : we simply cannot
decide where to begin!

So we pick the easier route, and assume that censoring reality is a
good pedagogical strategy to teach students about real-life things as
critical as the money system. What evidence do we have of that? Will
doing so not make them as susceptible to the same issues of regular
economic meltdowns, unpayable debt, consumerism, infinite growth etc
that the current generation faces? Isn't there some possibility that
it was these unreal simplistic teachings that created these problems
to begin with?

What if by being exposed to reality instead, they'll get a far better
understanding of trade and money than the current generation has? What
if they'll become better at handling the next economic recession, if
they know that it's not an unexpected random event but a fundamental
property of the system? What if they'll avoid getting into the
consumerism paradigm and get a lot better at managing their needs and
not become a drain on their or their parents' finances? What if
they'll get better at seeing through things?

Worth a thought, eh? At least, that's how things have been for me.
What I needed was an exposure to various contradictory perspectives,
and the freedom to choose which one to take. Not teaching.

Pointers for a better understanding of economics and related history

The economists who wrote about how societies developed the money
system, were not in touch with any historians or anthropologists who
were then making first contact with indigenous people in Americas,
Africa, Asia, Austalia. They didn't bother checking with any of them.
They had no clue about how it actually came around. They merely
speculated, with their understanding of humanity limited to the urban
western humanity that they grew up around.

So the simplistic origins of money that we "know", that are taught in
textbooks and upon which our economic understandings are based .. are
stories created in some people's heads. Not reality. What the
historians and anthropologists have found is extremely different.

Some things emerging from what the historical and anthropological records tell:
Money system did not naturally evolve from barter system. Barter did
not precede money.. it succeeded it where the money-issuing mechanisms
went defunct. Credit systems (ie, keeping accounts of who owes whom
how much) did not succeed money.. they preceded it.
And "gift" economy system, where credit is informalized and made
non-binding and rather left to ethical compulsions and occasionally
forgiven as well as overpaid as per circumstances, seems to have
preceded them all, existing wherever there wasn't a centralized
bureacracy levying taxes/tributes, as well as in parallel with the
other systems as a more day-to-day system of local exchange whereas
money/credit was a periodic once-a-year or one-time-investment types
thing for most of humanity until very recently.

So it's entirely possible that the typical assumptions we have about
people in a village getting confounded with how to exchange eggs,
woodwork, grains and all.. it's possible that that typical story that
we impose onto their lives are merely a reflection of our own flawed,
simplistic and linear understanding of history and humanity.

Two sources that might shine further light in this direction:

http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Debt,_The_First_5000_Years (David Graeber, 2011)

http://charleseisenstein.net/ (Sacred Economics and other books)

Please put in some time to looking them up.. there are plenty of
related audio/video versions too that you can listen to comfortably.

Also, there is a collaboratively created and open-sourced alternative
economics syllabus made and released recently by a network of people
who saw the mainstream syllabus of most top-level economic colleges as
woefully out of date. I've read only the first few pages and it's been
amazing so far. Their tagline is "Teaching economics as if the last
three decades had happened".
http://www.core-econ.org

Crowdfunding for OpenStreetMap.org

Hi Friends,

http://donate.openstreetmap.org/server2015/#about

On OSM as an open-source, creative commons alternative to google maps:
Researchers cannot access aggregated data using google maps, like say all the traffic lights in a particular area. On OSM they can. Legally, people aren't allowed to use prints or high-res images from google maps in their work.. on OSM there's no such restriction. And, OSM has its data in vector format, which makes it possible for anyone to style maps in their own way, and even go totally creative with it. The default OpenStreetMap might seem a bit too ugly, but look at a few of its various flavours:
http://nikhilvj.techydudes.net/files/leaflet-layers.html (go to layers button on top right)

So it's pretty much spawned a revolution in mapping, quite similar to what Wikipedia did for encyclopedias.

All the mapping technologies I'm working on are possible because of this non-copyrighted, wikipedia-like user-generated map of the world. The fact that it's all being done on a shoestring budget while its only counterpart must be spending many times that, is pretty amazing.

Note: It seems taking money in INR isn't possible for them. It's UK-based, so best to get a contact of yours in UK/Europe to chip in.

Regards,

Nikhil, India

What the rich are upto

Interesting article:

http://www.infowars.com/why-the-elite-are-buying-secret-hideaways/

This week's revelation that the wealthy are purchasing secret hideaways in remote locations in order to escape social upheaval and possible riots is the culmination of Zbigniew Brzezinski's warning that a worldwide "political awakening" is serving to derail the move towards further global centralization of power.

Economist Robert Johnson made headlines at the recent Davos Economic Forum when he revealed that "hedge fund managers all over the world….are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway."

Johnson cited income inequality and the potential for civil unrest and riots as the reason for the panic.

"A lot of wealthy and powerful people are quite afraid right now – they see us on an unstable trajectory," said Johnson. "As the system doesn't have proper resources, as it doesn't represent people, things are getting more and more dangerous as say Ferguson, Missouri brings to bear."

However, Johnson's warning is nothing new – the super rich have been busy securing property in safe heavens for at least five years in anticipation of the next financial collapse.

In 2010, John Malone, billionaire chairman of Liberty Media, announced that he had bought a retreat on the Quebec border as an insurance policy to "have a place to go if things blow up here," adding that he was concerned about the survival of the dollar and whether or not "America (was) going to make it" through the economic crisis.

In 2012, Hollywood director James Cameron also announced his decision to leave America and move his entire family to a 1,067 hectare farm in New Zealand.

The Bush family also purchased 100,000 acres in Paraguay back as far back as 2006.

There are several reasons why the rich are preparing to flee, but the main factor is the rise of income inequality – a factor that Zbigniew Brzezinski blamed for the "global political awakening" that poses a direct threat to the elite's bid to further centralize power.

"For the first time in all of human history mankind is politically awakened – that's a total new reality – it has not been so for most of human history," said Brzezinski during a 2010 Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal, adding that the development was borne out of "global inequities, inequalities, lack of respect, exploitation".

Brzezinski made similar comments during a November 2012 speech in Poland, in which he admitted that a worldwide "resistance" movement to "external control" driven by "populist activism" is threatening to derail the move towards a new world order.

The former US National Security Advisor also noted that "persistent and highly motivated populist resistance of politically awakened and historically resentful peoples to external control has proven to be increasingly difficult to suppress."

It is important to note that Brzezinski was not championing this development. In his 1970 book Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technotronic Era, the former Obama advisor heralded the arrival of a technotronic era "dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values" under which citizens would be tightly controlled and manipulated.

The likelihood of widespread disenfranchisement and economic turbulence causing civil unrest has also been repeatedly invoked by economist Martin Armstrong, who correctly predicted the 1987 Black Monday crash as well as the 1998 Russian financial collapse.

"It looks more and more like a serious political uprising will erupt by 2016 once the economy turns down. That is the magic ingredient. Turn the economy down and you get civil unrest and revolution," wrote Armstrong.

With distrust in government and leadership in the United States and other western countries continuing to remain near historic lows, the toxic cocktail of increased corruption, social alienation, and lack of community (all contributory factors to the 2011 London riots), will heighten the risk of domestic disorder.

As real wages drop it will also become increasingly harder to pacify younger generations via consumer culture. With religion, family and social mobility all declining in influence, lifestyles built around the acquisition of products will become harder to maintain as the economic environment worsens and the wealth gap widens.

Police brutality and perceived widespread injustice will also lead to more unrest in poorer areas as unfolded in Ferguson, Missouri last year.

While the move on behalf of the wealthy to purchase property in safe heavens by no means signifies a relinquishing of power, it does indicate that the super rich are readying insurance policies in the form of secret getaways in case massive political unrest leads to sustained domestic turmoil.

[more Earth-specific than India-specific] Campaign to declassify 28 classified pages from 9/11 commission report

Something for those who love believing in the quaint and comforting notion that absolutely no human being or group of people on this entire planet can ever think of, plan or carry out a conspiracy, and that everyone who ever proposes that a conspiracy has taken place is a "conspiracy theorist" and shouldn't be listened to.


https://youtu.be/t6sodFTx8So?t=3m40s
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/02/rand-paul-urges-obama-to-declassify-28-pages-of-the-911-report
http://28pages.org/

Congressman Thomas Massie described the 28 pages as "shocking" and said, "I had to stop every couple pages and…try to rearrange my understanding of history. It challenges you to rethink everything."

And some more:

http://www.ae911truth.org/ (architects and engineers for 9/11 truth.. analyzing the factual details of the events that as per official theory, violated laws of physics)
http://torontohearings.org/ (organized by relatives of the 9/11 victims)
..and a 5 hour film for anyone really interested in looking at the evidence at hand and hearing the counterarguments to the most prominent debunkings: youtube.com/watch?v=O1GCeuSr3Mk

(it's this or some 1000-odd pages from several disparate sources.. these guys take a lot of pain to bring a lot of stuff together for you, so treat a documentary as a multimedia textbook and not a movie, eh?)

The positive thing from all this? Well, if there is some weight in this stuff, then it means that the zombie-apocalypse-style narrative of Islamic terrorism is mostly hot air, the world is a far better place than what it's made out to be, if the big guys would just stop bombing here and there and take their troops off and go home, then we WON'T have crazy brainless extremists running amock and ending all life as we know it. If all the illegal occupations end and the truth is brought out and reconciled, chances are the people being occupied will probably just go back to living their lives in peace rather than wanting to kill everybody as has been prophesized and then funded with billions of $s (ISIS) through the same people incriminated in those 28 pages to make everyone believe that it's true. Maybe the Muslims aren't born evil after all, maybe there isn't something fundamentally or genetically wrong with the whole thing, and this was all just the actions of a few greedy people wanting to maintain their death-grip on a planet quietly slipping away from their fingers (as revealed by scores of whistleblowers, esp the Wikileaks cables-leaks, Stratfor leaks, and the mass surveillance operations revealed by Snowden). Of course, we don't really need 9/11 truth to know all that, but it does screw the people who like to think that way and the media who likes to make you think that way.

Article: Our Great Saviour's war on Indian Environment

http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/2015/4/narendra-modis-war-on-the-indian-environment.html

You know what would be great? If everyone who supports this all pledges to accommodate one affected family in their own homes. Then I'll believe that they really mean well.

Swaraj University Admissions Open 2015-17

My "alma mater" ! Please forward to anyone between 18 and 30 who you know is searching for alternatives to the typical higher-ed path and wants to do things a bit more holistically!

Swaraj University admissions are now open for the 6th cohort of khoji-learners. The dates for upcoming orientation meet is 9th-11th July View this email in your browser Can you imagine a space where you experience the joy of learning, of creating your own path and working on your dreams and passions, beyond the realms of societal and academic pressure?  Such a space does exist - Swaraj University - A Unique 2 year self-designed learning program for youth that supports them to design and materialize livelihoods that are in line with their talents, dreams and values. Swaraj University also helps them step out of their comfort zones and build deeper perspectives towards self, environment and society. Learn More! Share Tweet Forward In the last 5 years, numerous khojis (Learners) of Swaraj University have gone through this process in a safe and nourishing environment. Are you ready to reclaim your learning and life into your own hands?  To know more about khojis and what khojis are up to, click the link below: http://www.swarajuniversity.org/khoji-stories.html Admissions have begun for 2015-17 Khoji cohort and prospective learners can begin applying for the program. Swaraj University admissions are now open for the 6th cohort of khoji-learners. Please mark the dates for upcoming orientation July 9 - July 11, 2015  For more details check out http://www.swarajuniversity.org/join.html.  You can also write to us at <swarajuni@gmail.com>

Swaraj University · 83, Adinath Nagar, old fatehpura · Udaipur 313004 · India

--

Swaraj University team
www.swarajuniversity.org
08764279302

Evaporation-based generator using bacteria expanding/contracting with humidity changes at room temperature

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a16045/evaporation-engine/

Amazing stuff.. Look at this GIF to get a quick clue to what its core component is.. this bacteria-on-plastic-strip "muscle" is expanding and contracting upon small humidity changes at room temperature! Bimetallic strip concept taken to new levels.

Article: Globalism and the push for mandatory universal vaccination

Sharing from a newsletter from http://nomorefakenews.com/, 

link to original post: https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/globalism-and-the-push-for-mandatory-universal-vaccination/

Lots of reference links there so I'm not going to copy-paste it here. Please click above and read.

[Pune] City firm takes plastic waste, converts it to genset fuel

Segregate the plastic and collect the plastic waste from the building in one bag . Once the bag is full, call 020-25448900. The Rudra Solutions team will collect it free of cost

http://goo.gl/87DylI, seen on Sakaal Times Pune front page, 5th June 2015

City firm takes plastic waste, converts it to genset fuel

Reporters Name | Bhagyashree Kulthe | Thursday, 4 June 2015 AT 11:11 PM IST

    

plastic waste, recycle, Rudra Solutions, poly fuel, garbage,

Pune: City-based Rudra Solutions collects plastic bottles, polythene bags, food packages, soiled plastic etc and turns it into fuel to run generators and boilers. 
The firm is presently collecting these waste products from around 1,300 households in various parts of the city. 
The firm's activities are a boon for the city as, despite a ban on plastic bags below 50 microns, their use is rampant. Besides this, there are other plastic products which are used in households and later thrown away. 
Rudra Solutions devised a mechanism to convert the plastic waste into poly fuel through a process called Gasolysis. 
A plant with the capacity to process around 200 kg of plastic every day has been set up at Jejuri. 
"We have been successful in the disintegration of all kinds of plastic like bottles, lower microns bags, food pouches, wrappers, cable covers and even tyres. We are collecting plastic waste from around 1,300 households in Aundh, Model Colony, Viman Nagar, Kothrud and Prabhat Road. We ask the residents to keep the plastic and we pick it up free of cost," said Medha Tadpatrikar. 
The poly fuel generated from the waste is used in gensets and can also light up local parks or street lights. 
"At present, we are selling the fuel to genset users and for boilers which are otherwise run on diesel etc. Poly fuel is cheaper compared to other fuels and can be used for other purposes as well and trials are on to test it," said Tadpatrikar. 

Accepted plastic waste
Milk and oil bags 
Plastic containers 
Laminate tubes (toothpaste, medicine etc) 
All types of carry bags 
Blister packing bubble wraps 
Plastic bottles, shampoo and powder bottles, empty sachets 
Food wrappers of wafers, farsan etc, 
Plastic articles 
Segregate the plastic and collect the plastic waste from the building in one bag . Once the bag is full, call 020-25448900. The Rudra Solutions team will collect it free of cost

More details about this project here: http://www.waste-management-world.com/articles/2010/08/waste-plastic-to-fuel-pilot-project-in-india.html

"We are also ready to buy plastic waste from rag pickers." -- Rudra Environment Solutions chairman Shirish Phadtare

Rudra Solutions website: http://rudraenvsolution.com/

Other links: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=plastic+to+oil

https://www.google.co.in/search?q=convert+plastic+to+fuel

The author...

Quoting from a published report :

---------

Acknowledgements:

The author would like to acknowledge [..] The author is grateful to [..] The author also appreciates [..]

--------

If the author of the report isn't an anonymous person and if it's not someone else writing on behalf of the author (and what would that even mean?)..

Then why can't we just use "I" like we do in everyday life? Why is the language of a published material deliberately removed from reality?

Just imagine, 5000 years from now, archaeologists will discover 1000s of texts like this from a rejuvenated pen drive, and what will they conclude?

"Boy, people in those times sure talked funny!"

How would it seem if I brought in the same style to regular conversation?

"The person speaking to you would appreciate it if you would pass him a tissue paper."

"The manager has decided to terminate your services" (and the guy saying this is the manager only)

"The husband would like to ask his wife if she has a headache tonight as well"

Is this yet another example of the rituals intellectuals dictate to distinguish themselves from the masses? Is it like, Oh if you use "I" in your report then you're not a good report-writer?

And on the technical end, look at how difficult it makes life! If I'm writing something sharing my own lived experience, and if I have to religiously avoid using "I" "me" etc, then I'm screwed! And why would I read a document that is impersonal.. where the author pretends to not have been part of the events that he/she is writing about, where all real personal experiences that would give SO much more insight into the matter, ultimately get omitted??

And of course the most obvious : The responsibility / accountability part. Don't know how you feel, but when I see language like this, I get the feeling that "the author" is escaping from any personal accountability in the matter. He/She becomes just a passive observer or a receiver, not a doer. So imagine how tough it would be for DOERS to write about what they did in this kind of official lingo. It basically cuts them out, or in other cases, empowers them to get away with things.

So here's a challenge to oncoming generations of official report etc writers :

Use the "I", "me", etc.

PS: If you feel like replying to this with a proper logical explanation and reference some published Oxford norms or so that justify this silly behaviour or credit it to some grandiose noble motive, then the author of this post would like to tell you to f**k off.

Why are private schools in Pune being allowed to use "Public" in their name?

Why are private schools in Pune being allowed to use "Public" in their name? 

Are they offering free education to all the kids in the locality?

Know when to stop using a technology

It is the moral responsibility of every technologist to stop using a technology when the work at hand can be more easily done, and possibly with better quality or with much lesser resource load or lesser harm, without it. Technology is merely a means to an end, not an end in itself. Don't get stuck in it.

Fwd: [datameet] Fallen documentary

I remember during my teen years, coming across the historical narratives of world ward 1 and 2, especially the second one, how much more aware it had made me about why all this democracy, liberty and respecting-peoples-choices business is so important, and what happens when we belittle it. Please make sure your child gets to know about this all, in full detail, before he/she reaches adulthood.

http://www.fallen.io/ww2/

The Fallen of World War II is an interactive documentary that examines the human cost of the second World War and the decline in battle deaths in the years since the war. The 15-minute data visualization uses cinematic storytelling techniques to provide viewers with a fresh and dramatic perspective of a pivotal moment in history.

The film follows a linear narration, but it allows viewers to pause during key moments to interact with the charts and dig deeper into the numbers.

-- from datameet group.

Article: Nonviolent Power in Action: An Interview with Dennis Dalton

https://csrc.asu.edu/news/nonviolent-power-action-interview-dennis-dalton

Dr. Dennis Dalton, one of the world's leading experts on Mahatma Gandhi, recently visited CSRC, meeting with students in the Center's Undergraduate Research Fellows program and in Hardt-Nickachos Peace Studies Chair Yasmin Saikia's HST 394 class, Gandhi and the Politics of Non-violence. Dalton, author of The Indian Idea of Freedom and Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action, as well as numerous other books and articles, is professor emeritus from Columbia University. During his visit, Dalton also sat down with the Center's communications assistant and former CSRC undergraduate research fellow, Richard Ricketts, for the following interview. Their talk reflects the depth and breadth of Dalton's interests, including classical and modern, Western, and Asian political theory; politics of South Asia, particularly the Indian nationalist movement; nonviolence and violence in society; and ideologies of modern political movements in Europe, India, China, and Africa. The interview was conducted, condensed and edited by Richard Ricketts.

What do you see as the resistance to peace studies as a field?

That is a hard question. You have at many universities, institutes and centers that incorporate the word "peace," such as the Institute of War and Peace studies at Columbia, but all they typically study is the war side. Peace is seen as passive, the absence of war, so it is thought that there is nothing there to study.

I suspect this line of thinking is encouraged, in part, by the large grants that are provided from the Department of Defense. Columbia, for example, has traditionally been funded very liberally by the Defense Department and, in line with my suspicions, the money is not there for peace studies. That is why I was really interested in this program at ASU. I met Ann Hardt yesterday and she was really committed. You need someone like that who can fund these types of programs.

In additional to that, when I went to the instruction/education board meetings [at Columbia], I was told the subject was academically soft, not rigorous enough. What they meant was that they just deemed pacifism as a soft weak effeminate subject.

What do you as some of the most important and influential intellectual/theoretical contributions from Gandhi?

I taught Gandhi in a political theory course for 39 years at Barnard. I struggled for almost as many years to get Columbia to include Gandhi, or King, in their core curriculum. They include Franz Fanon, for example, in their core curriculum, which goes all the way back to Homer. But they would not include Gandhi, not even consider it, because he was considered not to be rigorous or sophisticated enough in his theory, that he hadn't made a profound enough contribution to political thought. There is a very strong bias against him, I think this is so unjust and unfair to Gandhi.

The argument I make is that he develops distinct and original understandings in the context of, at the very least, two ideas, freedom and power. Swaraj, freedom, he argued, contrary to most political theorists in the West, must have both an external and internal quality. One is not free unless one is liberated in an external sense, that is, one must be politically and socially "free" from the British. Additionally, one is not free unless one is also liberated in an internal sense as well, one must be free of anger, of hatred, of all those obsessions and addictions that control us. Those forms of enslavement are with us and they must be expunged in order for a country/people to be truly and completely free. So Gandhi made the statement that India may well get its independence but that will be as nothing if they have not emancipated themselves from the exclusiveness of ideas such as untouchablity, the commitment and belief of the untouchable as an Other, or the prejudice of Hindu/Muslim enmity. Gandhi saw freedom as liberation in the most complete sense.

Secondly, satyagraha is an entirely original concept in the sense he used it. The word 'nonviolence' was originated by Gandhi, you can't find in the vocabulary before he started it 1920's. I think it is unfortunate that in the English language it has to be "non" something, that we don't have a positive statement about nonviolence. The closest we can come to it is compassion, but that doesn't convey the force and power that Gandhi wanted satyagraha to convey. Some historians have argued that he is one of the most original thinkers of our age, and it is especially true in terms of freedom and power. I think the proof is there that his work is academically sophisticated and rigorous.

How does Gandhi's work shed light on the relationship between religion, politics, and violence?

Gandhi said repeatedly from the first page of his autobiography that religion and politics are inextricably interwoven; we cannot understand one without the other. He was sometimes called a charlatan because of that, some felt he was using religion to promote his political causes, and that can be charged to any number of religious leaders throughout history. Gandhi was authentic, he was truly committed to his creed of Hinduism, and Hinduism in a very syncretic universal sense, not an exclusivist sense. He managed to combine his universality in politics with his universality in religion. The two words swaraj and satyagraha are examples of this. Swaraj is a vedic term, a term that Hindus used in the Vedanta to illustrate true emancipation, and emancipation was not merely political but there had to be a spiritual emancipation as well and spiritual freedom means freedom from ignorance, freedom to know the truths of the unity between all being. Now that is a religious perception, the same way with satyagraha, it can't be described as merely a political tool, it speaks to a creed of not killing another, holding on to a truth, and that truth is the unity of all being. So in both cases, and any number of other cases swadeshi for example, our own country, or sarvodaya, the uplift of all, these are terms that have deep roots in religion.

Now some have argued that Gandhi's use of Hindu terms alienated the Muslims and so made partition more likely. I don't see it that way. I see him more trying to find Hindu terms and practices that would appeal to the Muslims, for example the fast. The fast can be used in a political sense, such as a filibuster or a hunger strike, but Gandhi also used it in a religious sense, that is one of self sacrifice where one purged oneself of enmity and anger. So the Calcutta fast is a perfect example of the admixture of religion and politics being linked together.

The Muslims, when Gandhi fasted in Calcutta and Delhi, were in a minority. They were being butchered by the majority Hindu population in most cities. Gandhi chose the locations of his fast to protect the Muslims and he charged the Hindu majority with the responsibility to protect the Muslims, they must not allow this minority to perish, in relation to ideas of swaraj and satyagraha. That was a powerful message. He was assassinated largely for the unifying ideas and success of these fasts. His assassin stated in his trial that he shot Gandhi because of his soft stance on Islam. He was overly tolerant of Islam and that if Gandhi had his way the British Raj would not be replaced by a Hindu Raj but by a secular Raj which would allow the Muslims political power, he didn't want that at all.

Again I stress the intertwining of religion and politics. Think of the assassination itself, here is a political figure, who is also a religious figure, being assassinated for religious reasons, which also apply to political reasons, that is, that the Muslims would get more political power in this new state. And the assassin is a devout Brahmin orthodox Hindu, and Gandhi as well claiming to be an orthodox Hindu. So an orthodox Hindu kills an orthodox Hindu, except that the assassin's interpretation of Hinduism is one of exclusivism and the other inclusivist.

Why is it that students are taught so much about violent leaders and not as much about great nonviolent leaders?

I wish that we could have that compelling force behind nonviolence that we have for violence. As we all know violence is deemed newsworthy, violence is the show. People want video games and films and all the rest to see performances of violence. Gandhi knew that so well, and that is why when he went on the 1930 Salt March he intensely interviewed the people that would go on the march with him. He chose strictly from his ashram, which were people who had undergone the training of nonviolence for over two years living with him there…Now why did he say that was so important? Because these people would not strike back when they were beaten. And subsequently when they walked up to challenge the British salt monopoly, when line after line of British brutally beat them down they did not strike back. Gandhi knew that if there was a single incident of violence on the part of the protesters then the news would get a hold of it and give the British more validity and reasons to strike back. He was very sensitive to this dynamic, and it had to be absolute.

King showed another example of this intense dedication to nonviolence when after the bombing of his house he stood on his porch and preached to the crowd to "love thy enemy". The moral force behind that makes it become newsworthy, even when the appeal of violence is not present. That manipulation of the media is the trick or accomplishment that somehow made nonviolence more newsworthy or more readily captured the public's imagination.

To make nonviolence newsworthy is a challenge. Gandhi did it with the Dandi Salt March. It was a drama, the best that one could imagine and he pulled off every act perfectly. There was no lapse in terms of the way in which he performed. King pulled it off beautifully with the Montgomery bus boycott. King noted that "people would look back and say I pulled a rabbit out of the hat with the Montgomery bus boycott and they will be waiting for me to do it again and again and again and it isn't that easy to do". But he managed to capture the imagination of the news at that time. One has to make the media want this kind of story.

Can you speak to the process in which Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi became Mahatma Gandhi?

Gandhi was immensely fortunate to have lived a long life, and as such we can see his life divided up into different phases. He was born October 2, 1869 and died January 30, 1948 so he lived 79 years. That allowed him to live a long, what I call, inclusivist phase. Before that phase we wouldn't have recognized him. As a young man he quickly became enamored of the British and British culture, to such an extent that, as he says in his autobiography, he wants "above all to become a British general and adopt all manners of the British". He takes violin lessons, elocution lessons,…he spends money he shouldn't have spent as he didn't have much during his time in London…on the best clothes from Bond street. He becomes a lawyer and dresses and acts as a dandy. That stage of his life changed dramatically after he went to South Africa.

In South Africa, he spent 21 years there, the real transformation between Gandhi the dandy into Gandhi the civil disobedient occurred. It occurred after he had tried everything, newspapers, petitions, court trials, to redress the grievances of the Indian community there (in South Africa) who were appalled and humiliated by apartheid. So he comes to the point where he cannot accept apartheid any longer and at the suggestion of another Indian in September 1906 Gandhi tried a change in tactics. He and a few others took a pledge to go to prison unless the law of apartheid is changed. Apartheid was not relinquished and he was imprisoned. After his release he staged his first march in 1913.

He had changed dramatically, and that change came about as a result of the brutality of apartheid regime. He goes back to India, and what changed him in India, improbably and unpredictably, was the Amritsar Massacre. In 1919 after the massacre he decides the British have lost it and that non-cooperation has to be escalated into a massive disobedience campaign. He stages his first disobedience campaign against the empire and says "now I am a rebel I am committed to the end of the British Raj". By 1946-47 the country has achieved its independence through nonviolence.

Are great leaders like Gandhi necessary for nonviolent movments to be successful?

In Bosnia I don't think they needed one. In South Africa they did a great deal before Mandela was released from prison. He was a charismatic leader but was in prison for 27 years. The leaders I have known and have studied have happened to be great charismatic leaders. I like the way in which Max Weber talks about charisma as value-neutral. Hitler was certainly among the most charismatic leaders that we have seen. Did Germany need that kind of charismatic leader in order to create the World War II/Holocaust? Some write persuasively that that could not have been done without Hitler, that he was absolutely crucial. That is not to say that Hitler was not the product of a number of circumstances, but the particular chemistry of the individual just lit up.

Martha Nussbaum makes the point that within every civilization there are clashes, contrary to Huntington's clash between civilizations, clashes between what she calls inclusivists and exclusivists, code words for the universalist/humanist versus the separatist/partisan. She also says that there is a clash within you and within me. That is we have our own forces to resolve. That was Gandhi's point; unless you resolve those forces you will have no capacity to be the kind of leader that is necessary for nonviolent revolution. Eric Ericson has written how Gandhi has struggled to overcome these. Gandhi would always say that his most difficult satyagrahas were within his own family.

Gandhi has been criticized for his treatment of women, can you talk a bit about your understandings of his views on women?

There are two schools of thought. One concerns Gandhi's treatment of his wife. In his autobiography he says he was a "cruel but kind husband" and makes comments about how his wife taught him satyagraha in the process of a pretty cruel and jealous interaction when they were kids—they both married at age 13. He comes across in the autobiography as negative in his attitudes toward women. This school also says that Gandhi tended to regard women as best in the home, not in the political scene.

Despite that, [the second school] says the empowerment and politicization of women was overwhelming in India during his campaigns. He managed to bring the women, during these campaigns, out of the home and to the political field. He did not object to this and they went to prison along with the men. Every time he spoke of women he said that they made better satayagris, practitioners of civil disobedience, than men because they have infinite patience and, this is where he gets in trouble, infinite capacity to suffer. These feelings were greatly inspired by his relationship with his own mother. It is understandable in the way we view it today, to see why seeing worth in women's capacity to suffer is going to arouse questions about sexism.

One of the best texts on this is by Sue Rudolf, who wrote on Gandhi's ability to mobilize women, especially how his feminine style of politics managed to bring Gandhi into the theater of real power. That feminine style of politics was characterized by self-sacrifice, patience, compassion, qualities that we do often associate, stereotypically or not, with women. He saw the masculine macho model as set forth by the British, but also by Indian political groups, as a real obstacle. He wanted to get across the image of compassion that he had seen in his mother. He will continually refer to the influence of his mother. Should he be called a feminist? On one hand this is problematic; on the other hand one of the great feminists in India, Madhu Purnima Kishwar, says he was "a champion of women because he brought them out of the home and into the political theater".

How is Gandhi relevant to the world today, why should we read him?

As Nussbaum says there is a clash within everyone. We read Gandhi to see how nonviolence has power. We read him to reinforce that element within ourselves that is nonviolent, which speaks to compassion, speaks to non-domination, patience, understanding, empathy. When I teach Gandhi I try to convey this above all, that we take him as a political theorist for his practice of nonviolence. If it were not for his practice, for his demonstration of the power of nonviolence then he would be nowhere. He says that himself, "If you want to learn from me look to my life experience my example. My teachings will vary, I may contradict myself but my commitment to nonviolence is steady and sure, consistent".

This culture is fraught with violence, we are bombarded with violent images, language, symbols. We don't have people today leading nonviolent movements. It is only in education that we can nurture the forces of nonviolence within us, to try to elicit the qualities of empathy and understanding that we want to see in our students, children, and people all around us.