Newsletter from Storm Cloud Media, Katie Teague, Money & Life movie

Dear Storm Cloud Media Friends, It's been a long time since you've heard from me.  I received a few emails over the summer from people asking what's up with Money & Life.  So I wanted to give quick review of the notables:  I went to Japan in late May for an outstanding screening at Impact Hub Kyoto. The amazing folks there posted this sweet little video about the screening. Films for action listed M&L as one the "Top 100 Documentaries We Can Use To Change The World." Free Speech TV just acquired M&L for our first national television broadcast. Gaiam TV also just acquired M&L and it should be available there in the next month. I'm in conversation with a colleague about a deep engagement screening in Los Angeles in December (will keep you posted). Independent screenings continue happening worldwide. ANNOUNCING: THE NEW STORM CLOUD MEDIA WEBSITE   I spent the summer dreaming and developing a new website for my emerging visual storytelling that I am very excited about.  This is a container for new short films, photography and digital art, dedicated to our collective creation of a more regenerative, thrivable world.   I will be sending out newsletter notification of new original content once or twice per month.  If you are already subscribed to the SCM newsletter, no need to sign up. Check out the site and please share: http://www.stormcloud.media/ WHERE HEAVEN AND EARTH MEET Lastly I wanted to mention a great opportunity coming up called the Resilient Living School.  It's an 8-week residency program in the beautiful ancient mountains of Asheville, North Carolina running from from April 2 to May 26, 2016.  With an all-star teaching team (including M&L friend Charles Eisenstein) you'll learn earth skills, herbal medicine, food preservation, organic gardening, transformational community living and much more. I had the opportunity to meet and learn from many of the teachers this past summer and can attest to their immense capacity and knowledge-base. Sign-up now for the early bird discount.  Read here for more information.   Stay tuned.  I've got some short films that I'll be working on over the next several weeks. In Beauty, Katie Facebook Instagram Twitter Website Email This work by Storm Cloud Media is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

[Rethinking] The need for making international trade non-critical to survival

The originating argument for having global inter-country trade was never about survival; the survival of each country was obviously presumed to be well taken care of by the natural  and human resources of that country by itself.

The rationale for the trade, then, was thriving. Getting that little extra. Making MORE wealth. Not surviving, but thriving. An add-on. A bonus. That's what trade was always supposed to be about.

If then we reach a point where this trading has become so interlocked and so inter-dependent that one domino falling risks the whole board,

If we have reached a point where SURVIVAL itself is threatened by unpredictability in what's happening outside the country, many times on the other side of the planet,

Then that means that the original rationale for having inter-country trade in the first place, has been violated. It has shifted from optional thriving to compulsory surviving.

And with this context in mind, people who say that we need the inter-country trading, FDI, derivatives trading, etc for the sake of our survival, "or else,,".. need to pipe down and remember what that trade was originally meant for. When a pundit regurgitates the "wisdom" that international trade is crucial for everybody's survival, we need to think critically and not accept that rhetoric. A system that is SO prone to collapse, where it's acceptable to send one or two countries down the tube and cause immense suffering, and also to risk the planet's biosphere itself but the trading and economic order is supposed to be sacrosanct, where one country depends on the other guys buying their stuff for survival : is simply not sustainable and is inherently programmed for inevitable collapse.

We need to work towards an international trading system that, while not turning its back to trading and exchange entirely, does stay loyal to the original pact and where each country's for-survival needs are met in-house. Trade internationally for thriving, for the bonus, for the add-on. Not for survival. And don't lose your survival mechanism in the blind dash for the add-on.

[Rethinking] assumptions underlying the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Hi friends,

Here is a collection of articles that question the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and challenge the SDGs' core assumption that infinite material growth on an already over-exploited finite planet is the only way to tackle global poverty, by bringing back the context in which poverty has come about : it is not a naturally occurring phenomenon like some disease to be eradicated, but a result of historic injustices, unfair debts (and continuing interest payments from poor countries to rich!), unfair trade practices and a rigged global economic system that is in operation since at least 4 centuries. Also challenging the assumption that only materialistic over-consumption can give a happy and healthy life.

The links below are from some excellent alternative news sources, so to everyone who's been asking for them, do bookmark/subscribe to these sites. Many of them operate on volunteership or reader contributions

What if everything the SDGs are premised on is just wrong? by Martin Kirk on AfricanArguments

The problem of growth in the SDGs by Jason Hickel in The Guardian

The SDGs represent a failure of imagination in international development by Joe Brewer on TruthOut

Sustainable Development: Something New or More of the Same - by Charles Eisenstein on Huff Po

The UNs sustainability plan is doomed - by Nafeez Ahmed on Motherboard

What if Everything the SDGs are premise on is just wrong - a reprint of the FastCo article by African Arguments 

5 Reasons to question the SDGs - a blog on the LSE site, also by Jason H

The UN mistakes the poison for the cure - a Conversation that picks up on our basic critique

Are the UN Sustainable Development Goals Doomed? - a write up of our analysis in Triple Pundit

A fantastic new report from GPF: "Fit for Whose Purpose? Private funding and corporate influence in the United Nations"

Another great report on corporate influence by The People's Goals

We have also just started the release of a short series of blogs from NGO insiders - When It Clicked: Challenging the Narrative of International Development to help provide some "you are not alone" social proofing for other insiders. 

Thanks to Manish Jain, Shikshantar, Udaipur for sharing these.

An excerpt:

As Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying: "We cannot solve our problems with the same kinds of thinking that caused them." Unfortunately, by championing sustained economic growth as the path to sustainable development, the United Nations is committing precisely this error, mistaking the poison for the cure.

Another article, holding the SDGs in contrast with Pope Francis's encyclical :

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/jun/23/the-pope-united-nations-encyclical-sdgs

Excerpt:

The pope, by contrast, has struck at the systemic nature of the issue. "It cannot be emphasised enough how everything is connected," he says. "To seek only a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system."

.. Thanks to Ashish Kothari, Kalpavriksh, Pune for sharing

If you are sharing any of these on social media, suggesting using these hashtags:

#unga

#globalgoals

#2030NOW

#sdgs

Why do we hate love-birds so?

Why do we hate love-birds so? Is it because we're afraid that if everyone finds salvation, a reason to live, and unity with the divine through each other then they'll stop giving power to the priestly classes?

Things that India needs for being a better democracy

Things that India needs for being a better democracy:

1. Jury in judiciary. We need juries in our courtrooms : Not just
judges. The British didn't install the function of a jury when they
created India's present court system, because they didn't want
citizens to decide anything. That reasoning is no longer valid. To
hammer in the irony, UK itself has jury in their court system! We need
to get back to honoring the authority of the group of anonymous
citizens.

2. Petitions to create bills or call referendums : Figure out how many
people we need at municipal level, state level, national level. And
have a provision such that even if no lawmaker is bringing it, people
can force introductions of bills. And on decisions made by government,
a high enough number of people petitioning against it can force a
referendum on the issue.

Open questions for those looking for love

Open questions for those looking for love. These are some things I'm
asking myself right now.. sharing them with you.

1. What qualities would you look for in a potential girlfriend / boyfriend?

2. What qualities would you look for in a potential life partner?

3. Do your answers to questions 1 and 2 have consistency between them?

4. Which qualities are you attracted to in a girlfriend / boyfriend,
which you definitely do NOT want your life partner to have? Why?

5. How have popular entertainment, peer group, family values,
experiences in failed relationships, others' experiences etc shaped
your desires regarding both questions 1 and 2? Which has been more
affected?

6. As long as the answer to question 4 is non-zero, do you think
you're going to have success in converting short term romance to long
term life partnership?

(Disclaimer: This questionnaire is not for those who aren't looking for love)

Examples of informal conversations on networks

Examples of informal chit chat!

I was doing some free-writing and trying to brainstorm all the kinds of stuff that might be shared on a more formal network that go off-topic but which are still important for building a local community. So here!

1. Urgently required B+ donor, contact XYZ, 99xxxxx at Sancheti Hospital. #ICanSaveLife
   
2. Hi friends, we're organizing a trek to Sinhgad next weekend. Would anyone like to join...
   
3. Play-date! We're 6 kids meeting up at Empress Gardens this Sunday, contact if your kids would like to join..
   
4. Hi friends, I need help in choosing the best laptop buy for my cousin who's starting second year at XYZ college...
   
5. Invitation to event that has something to do with social causes but the exact potential of open data in this is a bit fuzzy right now. Ex: Invitation to plantation drive...
   
6. Thought for the day : "It's not about .... It's about ..."
   
7. [DMer from another city] Friends, looking for accommodation for 2 nights, I'm attending a training in your city...
   
8. Does anybody have all the episodes of Full Metal Alchemist : Brotherhood...
   
9. Riddle: What did the open data enthusiast say to the...
   
10. Does anybody know a good but cheap carpenter in Kondhwa area? For making...
    
11. Where in Baner area can I find trusted organic vegetables and fruits at economical rate, I don't care about USDA certification or anything like that...
    
12. FYI, List of toll-free numbers for basic services in Pune: ....
    
13. Looking for room mate... Looking for PG accommodation...
    
14. Can someone help me with bus routes, I want to get from X to Y...
    
15. Hi All. Sharing my two cents on the ongoing XYZ political debate right now. Do read and let me know your thoughts on the matter. http://...
    

on Transportation, cycling

From Vinay Nair, shared over Vikal Sangam mailing list. Check out the links.. amazing resources and some very surprising truths

Perhaps this is an opportunity to begin to talk about cycling as a healthier and a more socially & environmentally responsible form of personal transport, and wonder why cyclists are treated as second-class citizens in this country?

 

Electric carts may well be a viable short-term solution, especially for school-going kids, but it side-steps fundamental flaws in city design. At present Indian cities are far too car-centric with infrastructure projects focused on road-widening (that eat into walkways) or building flyovers. There is no evidence that flyovers actually reduce congestion over the medium-to-long term because 1)they do no accommodate for sheer number of cars on roads and 2)they also fail to consider yearly car sales in a society drenched with car commercials. In the outer suburbs of Bangalore such as Whitefield for example, new building projects are 1000-home apartment complexes that will add at least 700 new cars as new middle and upper middle-class tenants move in. 700 new cars in a neighbourhood that is already creaking is no small number. And that is from just one single apartment complex.

 

Talk of massive investments in public transportation such as a metro network usually begins when a city is saturated with cars and wants to shift some of that away. But again, as with flyovers, nobody knows at what number that some becomes sufficient to reduce congestion. The Delhi metro is generally put up as the shining example of a modern efficient system that connects all of the city's corners and transports huge amounts of people every day. And for the most part, it is. Yet Delhi's roads are still as clogged as ever and its air is one of the most polluted in the country. Why? Because nobody thought of thinking how many people would choose to drive anyway.

 

Flyovers, metros and even electric vehicles are classic examples of the technocratic mindset - to invent itself out of problems in the short term. Whichever way we toss and turn it, a car-centric city either has to add more concrete to itself or spread out in search of new land, or both. And we are yet to consider the impact on rural areas where that concrete is found at the expense of forests, agriculture, people etc ..

 

But this is Vikalp Sangam and what can we do about it? How do we end our love affair with the automobile? How do we make cycling or walking to work or school safe, and more pleasant given our climate? Clearly there are two aspects to it - the technical and the psychological. I believe the technical bit is the easy bit, and that the real challenge lies in people's perceptions on cars, walking, cycling, and modernity.

 

Some links that document how change was brought to the Netherlands and why myths and perceptions are important (the website is a fantastic resource):

 

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/beforeandafter (before and after conditions in cities after shifts in policy)

 

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses-in-one-post.html (myths and excuses about cycling)

 

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/who-cycles-in-netherlands.html (can children and old people cycle?)

 

 

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2013/08/this-is-your-stop-child-murder-moment.html (child safety)

And finally something funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W-3Mnu3Ovo

These are from the west, and undoubtedly for India, solutions will have to be tailored. But I think the lessons and the principles are essentially the same.

Vinay.

Who’s developing who? Open letter to UN

Sign the Open Letter. View this email in your browser Hi Nikhil, With one week to go before the UN Summit in New York to formally sign the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it's more important than ever to let them know that they won't end global poverty by 2030, because they can't. Global leaders and institutions have prioritised economic growth at all costs and a few technical fixes like mosquito nets for decades, but today a full 60% of humanity are impoverished - the environment is being destroyed, and only the rich are getting richer. To tell the UN that their plans do not represent the best interests of the world's majority we need to ramp up our efforts while they are under the media spotlight – spreading the word as far and wide as possible to demand other ways of thinking beyond business as usual. Let the UN know we want answers by joining Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and Anuradha Mittal in signing an open letter to the UN and global decision makers before 20th September, which will be published shortly before the summit. http://therules.org/petition/sdg-open-letter/ If enough of us sign this letter, our powerful words will be read by Heads of State and be heard and retold by the world's media – forcing our leaders to address the real issues of income inequality and endless material growth. Everyone loves the idea of a world without poverty, but what the UN is proposing for the next 15 years with their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can't work. We know this because between 1990 and 2010 global GDP increased by 217%, but the number of people living in hunger and poverty actually increased. It is possible to overcome poverty in a way that respects the Earth and helps tackle climate change. The planet is abundant and its people infinitely resourceful. In order to do so, however, we must be prepared to challenge the logic of endless growth, greed and destruction that defines neoliberal capitalism. It is a time for a new global system, based on social justice and harmony with the natural world. As they currently stand, the SDGs simply distract us from making plans that will truly address the scale of the challenges we face. Join us in signing this letter as a community before 20th September, so that together with international experts on development; our voices will be heard at the heart of the UN. Tell world leaders we want answers to some BIG questions: How is poverty created? Why is growth the only answer? Who's developing who? http://therules.org/petition/sdg-open-letter/ Onwards! /The Rules team Sign the Open Letter Facebook Twitter Website Copyright © 2015 The Rules, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website www.therules.org or one of our campaign websites: www.ourlandourbusiness.org Our mailing address is: The Rules 115 Fifth Avenue, 6th Floor New York, NY 10003

Setting up Mobile based Field Surveys for Dummies

Edit: Ona.io has changed a bit since when I wrote this. Will update it in some days.

I'm going to lay out what works, and no, it's not the proper way. But
it works, and it's about as difficult as setting up a facebook
account.

## GETTING STARTED WITH MOBILE BASED FIELD SURVEYS, FOR DUMMIES ##

1. Go to http://ona.io and sign up, create an account.

2. Start by duplicating existing stuff. Go to https://ona.io/forms/,
search for "nikhil", grab one of those excels.

3. Login on http://ona.io, upload one of the excels which is an XLSForm.

4. On your phone, install ODK Collect :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.odk.collect.android

5. On your profile / dashboard at ona.io (ie, the first place you see
after logging in), read and follow the instructions at the bottom to
hook your ODK Collect app with your stuff. Basically it's about
setting the server as https://ona.io/[your usename]

6. in ODK Collect app, "Get Blank Form", you'll see the form you
uploaded in step 3.

7. Now "Fill Blank Form", fill it up, and after completion, "Send
Finalized Form"

8. From the computer, on your dashboard,
https://ona.io/[your usename], you'll see the form has gotten an entry. You can see the
data in a table, if you geo-tagged it then you can see it on a map.
You can even see any photo you submitted in the form.

9. To use the data collected in your own programming, like a map or a
data visualization, go to this URL :
https://ona.io/api/v1/data?owner=[your usename]
..and follow your way through. (you might need to set the form's data
as public by going into the form's profile page)

10. And then many things you can do depending on how you want to apply
the data. HERE you would need a programmer who understands Javascript,
JSON and HTML. Till this point, you didn't really need any
programmer.. it was all point and click.

11. Open up the excels you downloaded, understand the way it's
structured, look up on http://xlsform.org/ for full documentation, and
reverse-engineer it to create your own surveys.

चावल कुकर में पक रहे हैं

Regarding the concept of keeping continuous track of students' progress in education, through some-month-ly tests, assessments, exams:

नमस्कार | चावल कुकर में पक रहे हैं | आपसे विनंती है की कृपया process tracking की खातिर बार बार कुकर को खोलके अन्दर देखना बंद करें. यदि आप ये करते रहें तोह चावल कभी नहीं पकेगा | कुकर के अन्दर सही pressure को build up होने में वक्त लगेगा | उसको अपना वक़्त लेने दीजिये | जल्दबाजी की तोह चावल कच्चे रह जायेंगे | quick results प्राप्त करने के चक्कर में आंच भाडा दी तो चावक जल जायेंगे | अलग अलग प्रकार के चावल के पकने की गति अलग हो सकती है, इस बात का कृपया चावल को अपनी गति से पकने दें, कृपया अपने और दूसरों के शिष्य को अपनी गति से बढ़ने दें.|

सुनने के लिए धन्यवाद |

ISIS's fake roots, and how it is being deliberately allowed to have internet outreach and to recruit fighters

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/popular-australian-online-persona-outed-florida-man-891541918
(please read the article in full before reading below)

Please don't treat me like I was born yesterday. This is no lone wolf,
this is NOT a person pulling pranks. Rather, I suspect this boy (20
yrs old, please!) is being made a scapegoat. All the activities
attributed to him don't make sense.. it's the handiwork of an expert
team tasked specifically with spreading hatred and disinformation in
addition to recruiting for ISIS, not some teenager's ramblings.

My hypothesis is that all the fake online postings : ISIS recuiter,
white supremacist, feminist, Palestine hater.. all were traced back
and found to be coming from the same source. Up till here the findings
are true. There IS an agency at work doing the ideological equivalent
of supplying weapons to all sides of the conflict in this information
war. But the next step : identifying that source : that's where
they've failed. They likely traced it to a spoofed IP address and so
this boy has been set up, or is only one of the larger team doing it.
I'm inclined to think he's been set up. The case at hand is the
handiwork of seasoned experts.

This is one crucial piece of evidence pointing to the possibility that
ISIS is a creation of the very people who want to go to war against
it. For justifying their war and saving their sinking economy.

With the NSA practically owning the internet, having clearly exhibited
its powers to shut down, censor and hound anyone as in Wikileaks'
example, knowing all the revelations made by the Snowden leaks, there
is no way ISIS's internet outreach would have been allowed to get to
its present proportions without the NSA deliberately letting it
happen. I was previously under the assumption that they're only using
underground networks and cannot be traced and that the people visiting
their sites, forums must be religiously (pls forgive the pun!) doing
so through Tor network and other proxies and avoiding leaking their
original IP addresses etc. But Twitter and Facebook pages? Are you
freakin' kidding me?? That's above-ground territory! Instantly
traceable! These guys should have been picked up after the very first
round of posts! The people visiting them, pressing Like / retweet /
reply, would also be instantaneously identified.

Someone "likes" an adverse comment about a bandh called upon the
passing away of a deceased Indian leader, and they can get arrested by
Indian police immediately. And you're telling me that the most
sophisticated police and military powers on the planet are not able to
do anything about ISIS's open online presence?

And videos >> Youtube >> also under full governmental control! Please!
Their automated systems can flag me if I post a filming of a college
dance on a bollywood song, identifying the exact song that was
playing. Are you seriously telling me they can't identify ISIS's
videos and cut them off? Hello ?!

Curiously, the movie Iron Man 3 depicted this very idea before ISIS
arose. Did the scriptwriters catch a meme from an ongoing scripting
process?


Then, coming to all the reportage in the mainstream media about
children of Muslims immigrants living in Western countries, in India
etc being lured and brainwashed by ISIS. Now, the vast majority of
these idiots don't even know about how to browse the internet's
underground undetected. They're presumably checking out these things
in completely identifiable ways, through their genuine facebook,
twitter etc accounts, traceable right back to their homes.

Besides, if they knew how to browse the internet's underground, they
would have stumbled upon ISIS's real motives by now. If they cannot
figure out that ISIS is being funded and controlled by vested central
powers who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks in their name and then used it
as justification to cause all the carnage in the middle east, if they
cannot see through that ISIS is not a genuine Islamist movement; if
they have not seen even one of the 100s of underground indie
documentaries exposing the western imperialist agenda through the
rigged war on terror, then I'm sorry, they're idiots.

Which means : The governments of all the countries crying hoarse about
ISIS recruiting their migrant muslims' kids, know full well that those
kids are being courted by ISIS. If they wanted to, they could detect
and stop them and reform them after literally the first click. At the
vert least, they could easily place them under house arrest without
access to internet and provide counselling. Which means these
governments are ALLOWING misguided Muslim youths to get brainwashed
and then join ISIS as recruits. This is Entrapment.


And then we come to strategy. Now whether you agree or disagree about
what the reality behind ISIS is, you will have to agree with this :
Looking at the situation on the ground, the best, most effective way
on this planet to stop ISIS from getting more recruits, to stop this
insurgency from getting out of hand, to fail them in their quest, is
by spreading the idea far and wide that ISIS is a US sponsored CIA
front and is deliberately doing what it's doing to provide
justification to USA and allies for doing more war that will only kill
more Muslims. This meme, irrespective of accuracy, would dry ISIS up
faster than anything else. If any country was genuinely serious about
stopping ISIS, they would have been spreading this idea wildly by now.
But they're not (apart from Russia who are promoting this over RT).
Not because they're honest-to-goodness, but because they WANT a war.

Role of Intuition

Intuition exists, and its role is in helping you figure out the
difference between fact and falsehood, between right and wrong.
Evidence, peer reviewed research, logic etc can help us in our
judgement or cloud it, but cannot replace the role of intuition.

Osho was bang-on right about this one.

http://www.osho.com/shop/in/intuition-391

http://www.oshoviha.org/p-723-intuition-knowing-beyond-logic

https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Intuition.html?id=zyBfk5V5HRkC&hl=en

Why did Winston Churchill say "perverted science" in his Finest Hour speech?

Have you ever wondered what exactly was Winston Churchill referring to when he said "perverted science" in his Finest Hour speech?

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/their-finest-hour

...But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties,...

Well, now I know.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Atheist-Threat-Dangerous-Extremists/dp/1908675349/ref=cjwe02-20

Industry should stop outsourcing their selection process to education

Outsourcing talent-filtering to education was a bad idea. Education is
supposed to be like driving licenses: everyone can qualify.

My take on FTII students strike

http://thewire.in/2015/09/11/must-everyone-starve-to-ask-for-their-due-10558/

These issues aren't isolated to FTII alone. Students across the nation
need to heed Gandhi's 1940 call, walk out of the defunct
living-in-the-past institutions and start people's universities where
there is more autonomy and innovation. Here's one:
http://www.swarajuniversity.org .

Also, we need to start curing ourselves out of the Diploma / Degree
disease. See: http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/healingdiplomadisease.pdf
So for FTII, I really think the students need to recognize their
innate talent and power and start a people's FTII rather than
continuing to respect the now-corrupted institution. Film making is
like the last thing that needs certification : you can easily show
proof of your excellence. Please invest your energies in creating
something new and better in this world.

Ashley Madison outing : upset couples need to take a pause and rethink, check out Tamera

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/more-misery-ashley-madison-group-claims-have-cracked-11-million-passwords-1519446
Big questions coming to mind about the extremisation of the issue.
What has happened has even led to some suicides.

People are going out of whack over this. Suicides! There'll be revenge
murders happening too soon. This needs to be seen as systemic issue
where cheaters are victims, and not individual cheating crimes.

I want to appeal to all the people who have been "outed" and who are
finding out about their spouse being listed here. Please just pause
for some time.

Please check out http://www.tamera.org/basic-thoughts/what-is-free-love/

[Rethinking] Talking about 9/11

I've known since 2009 about the doubts surrounding the official 9/11
story. Watching one underground documentary opened up a rabbit hole,
and subsequently I found a lot more things leading one to another
which ultimately booted me out of the status quo life I'd been living
and started me on a journey to find out more about what's happening in
the world. Over the past 6 years, more and more evidence has emerged,
and grassroots movements have emerged for getting the truth out, most
notably groups comprising the kin of the people who died in the 9/11
attacks or those who were at the scene and witnessed it all, who are
not buying the official story and want to know what really happened.

While the mainstream has been religiously debunking anyone who dares
to raise questions, there's mounting details that the debunkers are
not being able to satisfactorily explain away. Let's just say that the
idea of so many coincidences happening randomly at the exact same
moment is quickly losing crediblity. And combined with global
geopolitical events from the attacks till present day, seeing the
events that have unfolded in hindsight, things are converging and
re-affirming that there is something amiss with the official 9/11
story as has been put forward by the governments and the mainstream.
So, here's an email welcoming you to explore some inconvenient
possibilities.


I'll share some links with you that I found quite dedicated in
bringing forth the details.
http://rethink911.org/
http://rethink911.org/evidence-building-7-twin-towers/#pagecontent

Here are some videos, short followed by long, which open up the case:

A tongue-in-cheek 5-min intro:
https://www.corbettreport.com/911-a-conspiracy-theory/

Going a bit more into detail, this 12 min video was the first time a
major TV news channel aired something about the issue aside from
debunkings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ugCIjzHptA


And for the long haul, here is "September 11 : The New Pearl Harbor" :
the most comprehensive documentary I have seen on the topic yet,
laying out the details and solidly countering all the debunkings so
far. It's in 3 parts, 5 hours in total.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_IlIlrxhtPM1E-yzT61Ex4lREHJTpXcE


Going into intricate text and image details, here is a 567-slide
slideshow which for me was most important in understanding about this
issue (it came long before the documentary I mentioned just earlier).
http://www.ae911truth.net/ppt_web/slideshow.php

The same slideshow is walked through in this video with narration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NZwPqXRu_I

And if it helps, I'll just share that I've seen all of these, as well
as many debunking arguments, and I've shared with you whatever in my
personal quest I've found legit as of now.

There are a LOT more valuable links as well as sources going into
deeper details that I won't share here as I don't want to overload
readers of this email.

This is also an invitation to put down the "conspiracy theory" labels
for a while so that you can really take in arguments from the
non-status-quo side without feeling scared or guilty about it, after
which you can decide for yourself.

On the wider meta level, some messages that have stood out for me are:
1. Do not let fear control you.
2. Never give up your liberties in exchange for more security.
3. Religions or any particular religion, have not caused the major
problems in the world. They're the decoys. Gandhi was bang-on right
about there being good in all the faiths. It's the same old greed and
the desire to control everything that's causing these problems : the
same stuff that's causing environmental degradation too btw. So the
outputs vary but the inputs to our many problems are the same.
4. The real enemy will never be the one banging at the gates.. those
are the diversions. It will be the one creeping up from the inside and
offering to protect you if you agree to hand over your agency to it.
5. Over-centralization of structures and concentration of decision
making powers is what has hijacked the mainstream media and made them,
the supposed messengers of truth for the world, become the
representatives and agents of our oppression. Ask any
journalist/editor friend of yours about the culture of silence on
selected topics in their organization. The solution is to decentralize
and sacrifice efficiency for humanity.
6. It IS important to challenge the conventional models of how the
world works and how people's minds work. Misunderstanding of these
have gotten us into these troubles.
7. Our reality is neither 100% fixed nor 100% variable.. it's a bit of both.
8. Truth does exist and is worth searching for; and intuition,
connecting with the inner self, plays a very important role in this.


On the immediate geopolitical context, I think that the Muslims of the
world deserve to know that it wasn't really "their people" who
committed these attacks and nor is it their religion that has some
fundamental flaw in it; that their motherlands have in fact been raped
for no genuine reason, that the guilt collectively imposed on them is
fake, and crucially, that the ISIS which is recruiting their young by
exploiting these hurts has also been funded, organized and unleashed
by the same people who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks : the same people
who have benefited from over a decade of nonstop war and who want to
keep the wars going on as long as possible. From what all I've learnt
about human nature, I diverge from the standard western models of
revenge-as-default-attitude, and believe that Truth when it finally
comes out has always led to peace and reconciliation.


Moreover, whether one can actually make any difference at the macro
scale or not (and yes, it is being made), expanding one's perspectives
and an exposure to how coverups could work and how governments could
behave when they want to grab more power, builds up our resistance to
further trickery, identify historically repeating patterns, brings new
insights not commonly got, and empowers us to see through things that
might otherwise fool the uninformed. (like, say, knowing better than
to fall for a glitzy high-expense corporate-funded election campaign)


So, inviting you to check out this rabbit hole!


And about the forthcoming REPLIES (being the reason why so many of
your friends despite knowing about this all privately, are still
afraid share openly about this):
This subject has already seen arguably the largest volume of ridicule,
debunking, character assassinations, name-calling, social isolations,
threats, career destructions, real assassinations, etc in all of
modern human history. So if you want to repeat the same things again
as the self-appointed policeman defending an already all-powerful
status quo that honestly doesn't need your help, then please feel free
to do so; but I won't waste my time on replying, as the answers are
already well-documented and out there as well as probably fully
covered in the documentary I have linked if only you cared to see it.
I might just ask you to continue reading/watching where you left off.

But if you want to have a real and respectful conversation about this
topic, then I'll be happy to talk further. I'm in Pune.. maybe we
could organize a shared viewing or discussion or something. Personally
I like to take my time and pause documentaries every few minutes and
watch them in privacy, so I'm not a big fan of screenings right now.

regarding GMOs and universities

Awesome storm on twitter around a univ prof in USA who just got
exposed to be taking money from Monsanto. He had been attacking
FoodBabe, a famous (or maybe infamous in biotech circles!) food
blogger.

http://foodbabe.com/2015/09/08/proof-monsanto-pays-public-scientists-discredit-movement-submitting-foia-request/comment-page-5/#comment-2794176

http://www.naturalnews.com/051129_Kevin_Folta_false_claims_violence.html

Identifying a solution (draft)

Just a working hypothesis.. might be able to share as a fully written
piece later on. But here are the main points.

1. For most issues, there are two opposing arguments, and entities
opposite to each other advancing their argument.

2. The opposing sides, repelled by each other, tend to go to the
farthest extremes of the spectrum. One on this side, the other on that
side.

3. They usually see things as this-or-that, not recognizing that there
is a whole spectrum of possibilities between them.

4. So to everyone coming along, they see them as either being on their
side, or on the other side.

5. Both sides are too extreme in their positions, which is why the
issue at hand has till date never been solved. Both have gotten
different aspects right and different aspects wrong. But each sees
themselves as being completely right and the other as being completely
wrong.

6. Given this context, if and when a real solution to the issue does
emerged, odds are that it will not originate from any of the opposing
sides. Instead, it will emerge somewhere in the spectrum between the
extremes.

7. And because the already established opposing sides cannot
comprehend anything happening in the middle, when they see the
solution for the first time, each side will think that this is coming
from the other side.

8. People who were on the fence and not completely sure of being on
one extreme bastion or another : these are the people from whom the
solution will emerge. And when it does, they will gravitate to it, in
the process earning the title of "deserter" from their peers who are
in one of the extreme bastions.

9. Hence, a defining characteristic of a real solution, or alternative
: it will manage to piss off both sides of the divide at the exact
same time.

Is the Delhi government really only picking fights and not doing any work?

Hi Friends,
Following some renewed questions-cum-allegations, here are two blogs
you can see and follow if you want to test the mainstream's (and
perhaps your own) working hypothesis that the Delhi State govt (I'm
referring to the elected one, not the LG who has recently officially
declared that he himself is the government of Delhi) is only picking
fights with the Centre and not really doing any work.

https://indianpoliticsandpolicy.wordpress.com/
http://aapdelhidiary.wordpress.com/

While it's not a fair substitute, still, if you prefer videos to text,
then subscribe to these:
https://www.youtube.com/user/indiACor2010
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAapNews

And if there's a question about the lack of outreach, do remember that
political leaders don't typically talk on TV for over 12 hours a day..
they say a few things and then the media is supposed to convey it to
us with timely repetitions. That crucial link in the chain appears to
be lacking a bit here. Despite there being ample footage of
considerable length and having highly detailed in-depth content,
despite it being freely available online, on our channels it seems
we're only seeing other people talking about what this guy or that guy
spoke at a very superficial level and then launching into their own
speculations; even newspapers it seems aren't bothering to carry
transcripts of interviews that have since long been in public domain.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=arvind+kejriwal+interview

(after which we complain about there not being much real content in
news channels or papers these days.. well guess why that is!)

Again, important to note that anyone actually bothering to check for
the facts before repeating the common allegations of inaction or only
fights-picking or absence of communication would have easily found all
this stuff.. the only thing stopping us from finding out what's
happening is our indoctrinated conviction that nothing is happening.


After we're done going through a few of the top posts in the blogs, it
might be a nice thing to think aloud and ask, "Why am I not
reading/watching about most of this in the regular news?". That's a
very good question to be asking. Yet another good question might be
"Why is my own state's govt that recently got elected on a poll
promise of drastically improving governance.. not doing even the most
basic no-brainer of these measures even when they have full control
over land and police, considerably greater finances and resources,
etc?" And maybe, just maybe, these two open questions might answer
each other.