April-June 2003

deception

orissa

eerie similarities -- germany of 1930s and usa of today....

the joys of simple living

i have no words to describe this......

two positive developments & one insightful analysis

"a chill wind is blowing in this nation...."

profiles of bush administration's members & supporters

discussion

deception

June 2003

 

Belated realisation is better than none. I hope that it is followed by making the deceivers accountable.

 

Rajesh

  

 

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8089

 

The Dog Ate My WMD 
 

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times best-selling author of two books, War On Iraq (Context Books) and The Greatest Sedition is Silence (Pluto Press).

Editor's Note: This article was first published by TruthOut.org, and is reprinted with permission.

After several years teaching high school, I've heard all the excuses. I didn't get my homework done because my computer crashed, because my project partner didn't do their part, because I feel sick, because I left it on the bus, because I had a dance recital, because I was abducted by aliens and viciously probed. Houdini doesn't have as many tricks. No one on earth is more inventive than a high school sophomore backed into a corner and faced with a zero on an assignment.

No one, perhaps, except Bush administration officials forced now to account for their astounding claims made since September 2002 regarding Iraq's alleged weapons program.

After roughly 280 days worth of fearful descriptions of the formidable Iraqi arsenal, coming on the heels of seven years of UNSCOM weapons inspections, four years of surveillance, months of UNMOVIC weapons inspections, the investiture of an entire nation by American and British forces, after which said forces searched "everywhere" per the words of the Marine commander over there and "found nothing," after interrogating dozens of the scientists and officers who have nothing to hide anymore because Hussein is gone, after finding out that the dreaded "mobile labs" were weather balloon platforms sold to Iraq by the British, George W. Bush and his people suddenly have a few things to answer for.

You may recall this instance where a bombastic claim was made by Bush. During his constitutionally-mandated State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 2003, Mr. Bush said, "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." Nearly five months later, those 500 tons are nowhere to be found. A few seconds with a calculator can help us understand exactly what this means.

Five hundred tons of gas equals one million pounds. After UNSCOM, after UNMOVIC, after the war, after the U.S. Army inspectors, after all the satellite surveillance, it is difficult in the extreme to imagine how one million pounds of anything could refuse to be located. Bear in mind, also, that this one million pounds is but a part of the Iraqi weapons arsenal described by Bush and his administration.

Maybe the dog ate it. Or maybe it was never there to begin with, having been destroyed years ago by the first U.N. inspectors and by the Iraqis themselves. Maybe we went to war on a big lie, one that killed over 3,500 Iraqi civilians to date, one that killed some 170 American soldiers, one that has been costing us one American soldier's life per day thus far.

If you listen to the Republicans on Capitol Hill, however, this is all just about "politics." An in-depth investigation into how exactly we came to go to war on the WMD word of the Bush administration has been quashed by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Closed-door hearings by the Intelligence Committee are planned next week, but an open investigation has been shunted aside by Bush allies who control the gavel and the agenda. If there is nothing to hide, as the administration insists, if nothing was done wrong, one must wonder why they fear to have these questions asked in public.

The questions are being asked anyway. Thirty-five Representatives have signed H.R. 260, which demands with specificity that the administration back up it's oft-repeated claims about the Iraqi weapons arsenal with evidence and fact. The guts of the resolution are as follows:

Resolved, That the president is requested to transmit to the House of Representatives not later than four days after the date of the adoption of this resolution documents or other materials in the president's possession that provides specific evidence for the following claims relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction:

 

(1) On Aug. 26, 2002, the Vice President in a speech stated: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.... What he wants is time, and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons."

(2) On Sept. 12, 2002, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the president stated: "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon."

(3) On Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, the president stated: "It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons."

(4) On Jan. 7, 2003, the secretary of defense at a press briefing stated: "There is no doubt in my mind but that they currently have chemical and biological weapons."

(5) On Jan. 9, 2003, in his daily press briefing, the White House spokesperson stated: "We know for a fact that there are weapons there Iraq."

(6) On March 16, 2003, in an appearance on NBC's Meet The Press, the vice president stated: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. El Baradei frankly is wrong."

(7) On March 17, 2003, in an address to the nation, the President stated: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

(8) On March 21, 2003, in his daily press briefing the White House spokesperson stated: "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly. All this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."

(9) On March 24, 2003, in an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation, the secretary of defense stated: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established."

(10) On March 30, 2003, in an appearance on ABC's This Week, the secretary of defense stated: "We know where they are, they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."

On June 10, 2003, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) transmitted a letter to Condoleezza Rice demanding answers to a specific area of concern in this whole mess. His letter goes on to repeat, in scathing detail, the multi-faceted claims made by the Bush administration regarding an Iraqi nuclear weapons program, and deconstructs those claims with a fine scalpel. "What I want to know is the answer to a simple question: Why did the president use forged evidence in the State of the Union address?" the letter concludes. "This is a question that bears directly on the credibility of the United States, and it should be answered in a prompt and forthright manner, with full disclosure of all the relevant facts."

It is this aspect, the nuclear claims, that has led the Bush administration to do what many observers expected them to do for a while now: They have blamed it all on the CIA. A report in the June 12, 2003 edition of The Washington Post cites an unnamed Bush administration official who claims that the CIA knew the evidence of Iraqi nuclear plans had been forged, but that CIA failed to give this information to Bush. The Post story states, "A senior intelligence official said the CIA's action was the result of 'extremely sloppy' handling of a central piece of evidence in the administration's case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein."

Ergo, it wasn't the dog who ate the WMD. It was the CIA. Unfortunately for Bush and his people, this blame game will not hold water.

Early in October of 2002, Bush went before the American people and delivered yet another vat of nightmarish descriptions of what Saddam Hussein could do to America and the world with his vast array of weaponry. One week before this speech, however, the CIA had publicly stated that Hussein and Iraq were less of a threat than they had been for the last 10 years.

Columnist Robert Scheer reported on Oct. 9, 2002, that, "In its report, the CIA concludes that years of U.N. inspections combined with U.S. and British bombing of selected targets have left Iraq far weaker militarily than in the 1980s, when it was supported in its war against Iran by the United States. The CIA report also concedes that the agency has no evidence that Iraq possesses nuclear weapons."

Certainly, if citizen Scheer was able to read and understand the CIA report on Iraq's nuclear capabilities, the president of the United States could easily do so as well.

The scandal which laid Bill Clinton low centered around his lying under oath about sex. The scandal which took down Richard Nixon was certainly more profound, as he was accused of misusing the CIA and FBI to spy on political opponents while paying off people to lie about his actions. Lying under oath and misusing the intelligence community are both serious transgressions, to be sure. The matter of Iraq's weapons program, however, leaves both of these in deep shade.

George W. Bush and his people used the fear and terror that still roils within the American people in the aftermath of 9/11 to fob off an unnerving fiction about a faraway nation, and then used that fiction to justify a war that killed thousands and thousands of people.

Latter-day justifications about "liberating" the Iraqi people or demonstrating the strength of America to the world do not obscure this fact. They lied us into a war that, beyond the death toll, served as the greatest Al Qaeda recruiting drive in the history of the world. They lied about a war that cost billions of dollars which could have been better used to bolster America's amazingly substandard anti-terror defenses. They are attempting, in the aftermath, to misuse the CIA by blaming them for all of it.

Blaming the CIA will not solve this problem, for the CIA is well able to defend itself. Quashing investigations in the House will not stem the questions that come now at a fast and furious clip.

They lied. Period. Trust a teacher on this. We can spot liars who have not done their homework a mile away.

Scott Lowery contributed research to this report.

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Published: Jun 13 2003

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orissa

June 2003

Walk for food: activists rallying in Bhubaneswar for mid-day meal schemes in schools

The true working of the public distribution system can be gauged from the report which states that there are families in the border villages of Keonjhar, which have been denied BPL rations on the grounds that they came from outside the district. Strangely, local inquiry revealed that these poor people had been living there for more than two decades. According to Umi Daniel, regional manager of Action Aid Orissa, the state government should make sincere efforts to generate job opportunities, implement employment assurance schemes and, if possible, revive the existing employment guarantee schemes to ensure food availability, food accessibility and affordability.

"Unless and until we identify the vulnerable people of society with a proper yardstick, no social security programme will yield desired results," Daniel said. Public distribution system, as in other states of the country, is the prime medium working in Orissa to provide food security to the below-poverty-line (BPL) families. But surprisingly, the Dr NC Saxena Committee report mentions that many in the state did not possess ration cards till November 2002. As per the Supreme Court order issued on 28 November 2001, all states were to complete the identification of BPL families by 1 January 2002. The apex court also directed the state governments to ensure that all BPL families received their entitlement each month.

Investigations have revealed that grains supplied under Antodoya Anna Yojna are not reaching the beneficiaries of the scheme. The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) has met with the same fate. A number of ICDS centres have been found to be non-functional. The SC directed the state government to ensure that every ICDS centre in the country provides supplementary nutrition to infants and pregnant and lactating mothers. Children in the age group of zero to three were not cared for properly by the anganwadi worker and pregnant mothers were not given benefits due to them under the National Maternity Benefits Scheme.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reports of people from western Orissa dying of starvation, committing suicide and selling their children to manage a few morsels of food hit the headlines often.

Successive state governments in Orissa, instead of doing the needful to arrest poverty and hunger, have always utilised the situation to the best of their advantage. They have never failed to produce excuses whenever unpleasant reports of starvation deaths, child selling and migration have appeared in the press

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Studies conducted by various organisations have revealed that in Keonjhar district the backlog in the ICDS scheme is very large. The scheme of giving Rs 500 to each BPL pregnant mother is not running well. Bolangir district of Orissa has been in the news on more than one occasion for marginalisation of food security, migration of agricultural labourers and starvation deaths. It has got the dubious reputation of being the most backward and poor district, one that is most susceptible to drought.

The Supreme Court, while hearing a public interest litigation on food security on 17 September 2001, took strong exception to the failure of most of the state governments to comply with its earlier order relating to the identification of poor families. At many places, grains are not reaching anganwadi centres and there has been no feeding for several days. Anganwadi workers are also not being paid their honorarium on time. Investigations revealed that Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana, meant for providing food security, is also not being properly implemented; foodgrains and money provided under the scheme are not reaching in time, wage payments are lower than the prescribed limit; tractors are being used for earthworks.

In the face of acute food insecurity, the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation has taken the initiative of starting grain banks in the poverty-stricken districts of the state. In Koraput district, local people are aware of the importance of conserving traditional rice varieties. In addition to the cultural value placed on inherited varieties, there are also a number of other benefits of traditional varieties over high-yielding varieties.

The traditional varieties are superior in taste and nutritive value, resistant to pests and diseases, resistant to droughts and floods, suited to local farming conditions, economically practical, requiring less farm inputs such as chemicals and fertilisers and more environmentally sustainable.

Orissa was once the traditional home of the largest number of rice varieties of any state in India, with more than 1,750 different kinds. However, the number of local rice varieties is now only approximately 150. One of the biggest problems, according to Swaminathan Foundation, has been the introduction of high-yielding and hybrid varieties of rice. Together with non-availability of pure seeds of different crops, absence of records of the genetic heritage in successive generations of farm families and the consumption or destruction of seeds during periods of food scarcity or displacement, the genetic resources of the area have dwindled.

A large variety of tribal farming communities in the area have played a significant role in preserving and conserving traditional plant varieties. Tribal communities are knowledgeable about the kind of crops that can be cultivated in each type of land. Their use of the local resources and even their food habits reflect their knowledge of the environment. Tribal communities in the Koraput district of Orissa have revitalised in-situ or on-farm conservation traditions through participatory community farming.

Communities have been encouraged to support traditional varieties of rice and have established some seed banks in different villages to ensure food security and conserve biodiversity. The tribal communities of Koraput district have used their knowledge and experience of forest species and agro-biodiversity to revitalise on-farm conservation by promoting traditional varieties of rice and medicinal plants. Establishing a community seed bank has ensured the preservation of biodiversity and food security, enabled communities to obtain, store and manage vital seeds.

The tribal people have their own indigenous way of storing crop seeds and grains

Seed is collected from interested households in specific quantities and cleaned by the women of the village. Seeds are chosen based on the husk colour, grain size and by other physical characteristics. Seeds with impurities or mixtures of other varieties are not accepted. The seed quality is verified, purified, dried and monitored by both men and women members of the central village committee through traditional seed testing. Collected seeds are then properly weighed and recorded.

The tribal people in Koraput have their own indigenous way of storing crop seeds and grains. Before preservation, seeds are mixed up with dried powder leaves of Neem (Azadirachta indica) and Karanja (Pongamia pinnata), which helps keep pest and insects attack at bay. Rice seeds are stored in locally made structures called dhoosi and khaniki. The dhoosi is made of long straw rope twined spirally. After placing the seeds inside, the top is tied tightly. Khaniki is a pot-shaped bamboo basket plastered with cow dung paste. The cow dung paste acts as insect repellent.

After storing seeds or grains it is covered with a bamboo plate plastered with cow dung paste. It is airtight, allows for minimum moisture content and it does not get infected by insects. These are then stored in darkness within a community building. The impact of the grain bank project has enabled rural tribal villages to become less dependent on high-yielding varieties and on outside inputs like fertiliser and pesticides. Productivity and farmer-to-farmer seed exchange have increased within the communities, in addition to increasing independence from other villages. As a result, purified local seed varieties are available in each community seed bank and farmers are using the optimum amount of seed for sowing. Women now use a modern seed and grain measuring and weighing system that protects them from being exploited by middlemen. The concept of community seed banks is being adopted by several other non-government organisations in communities within the district. Through these initiatives, the remaining varieties of rice are being conserved and over-exploited medicinal plants are being cultivated in community gardens instead of from the region’s fragile forests. Market access allows communities to benefit financially from their conservation activities.

Partha Sarathi Jena is a Bhubaneswar based freelance journalist. He writes on socio-economic and other developmental issues. He can be contacted at parthajena@rediffmail.com

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eerie similarities -- germany of 1930s and usa of today....

May 2003

i pray that we, as a human race, learn the right lessons from history and do not repeat past
horrors....

rajesh


http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm
Published on Sunday, March 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History
by Thom Hartmann

The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate
media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They
commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all
across the world.
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an
imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous
buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services
knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether
or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research
implies they did not.)
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government
was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority
vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a
simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and
didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and
internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a
southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the
aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a
young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals
that involved skulls and human bones.
Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and
he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most
prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to
the scene and called a press conference.
"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front
of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling
with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to
declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced
their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.
Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the
first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's
flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.
Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through
legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it -
that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could
now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific
charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants
if the cases involved terrorism.
To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of
concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if
the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights
would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would
later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.
Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their
program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the
first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the
mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high
popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly
found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off
in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was
taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and
facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)
Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he
brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his
countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The
Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni
Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with
pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland,
citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the
only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in
other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.
Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing
militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best
interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the
League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with
Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.
His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious
man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival
of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his
rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of
them fervently believed it was true.
Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police
and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated
administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those
citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers,
and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to
protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent
police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.
He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central
Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major
departments.
His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are
at our disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising
questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central
security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious
neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon
being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and
celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled
through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.
To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to
industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations
into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight
the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare
for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and
other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious
people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got
the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of
the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.
But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within
and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the
White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric.
He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in
his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced
concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or
access to attorneys or family.
With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the
people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of
the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set
afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly
needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference
and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international
uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at
first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by
nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.
It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but,
after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the
military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that
giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler
annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in
times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to
Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.
In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have
said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop
lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I
crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never
experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."
To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors,
he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism
and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or
their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times
of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein
Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign
charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were
labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of
the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform.
It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most
of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.
Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and
peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of
news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace
and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the
growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews,
and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the
corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.
A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all
internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first
experiment with democracy.
As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.
February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful
firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler
to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action
to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular
leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of
The Year."
Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the
SS.
We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named
"lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a
highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996
book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.
Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us
this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close
alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power:
"fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right,
typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent
nationalism."
Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the
Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and
Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.
Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest
individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights,
and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed
minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of
corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social
Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure,
promote the arts, and replant forests.
To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.

(Thom Hartmann lived and worked in Germany during the 1980s, and is the author of over a dozen
books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is
copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web
media so long as this credit is attached.)

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the joys of simple living....

May 2003

1. powerful thoughts....beautifully expressed....and courageously followed....(an indian
perspective)

2. some more ways of conserving our earth's resources... (a british perspective)

in gratitude to our universal energy
rajesh

1]
http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/holistic-living/holistic-living/simple-living.asp
BACK TO BASICS

By Suma Varughese

Forsaking the pursuit of material pleasure, many people the world over are discovering joy and
happiness in living simply with the satisfaction that they are not harming the environment. Simple
living, of course, has a precedent in Indian tradition

Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not in the multiplication but in the
deliberate reduction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment.
—Mahatma Gandhi.

When Jayesh Shah quit stock broking in 1993, he said good-bye to a company he had built from staff
strength of two to 110 employees and 40 computers. As the owner of one of the top 10 stock broking
firms in India, Shah's life was opulent.

Today, as publisher of Humanscape, an Indian magazine dealing with social and political issues from
a humanistic angle, Shah, more often than not, travels by bus. Save for an occasional family dinner,
he rarely socializes, and the lifestyle his family maintains, though comfortable, is thrifty, and
free of frills. The changeover for him has meant "freedom to do what I really want to do".

Dr. Manesh L.Shrikant, 61, is another success story. At 30, the youngest general manager and then
chief executive of Mukand Ltd, he was living in a palatial apartment in Darsham, Bombay's most
prestigious high-rise, when it struck him that he would need a proportionate income to sustain his
life style. Sensing a threat to his freedom, he moved his family to a two-bed-room apartment, even
as his general manager stayed in a luxurious bungalow in Juhu.

"Neither the corporate power nor the affluence was of any use to me," he says. Today, his values are
derived from his childhood, when money was scarce. "Having experience poverty, I knew that simple
food tasted as good or better than a five-star meal. I tell my children their worst luck is that
they have a very rich father".

"The more I cut down,"Shrikant adds, "the more time I have to be happy." Today, he is honorary dean
of the S.P.Jain Institute of Management, where he is experimenting with synthesizing business
efficiency and humane values. "We make our students aware of the pitfalls of success and their
training projects are usually in slum areas, not air-conditioned multinational offices."

Another cameo. Derek Monteiro, a former student at IIT Bombay, he is a New Age
artist-singer-composer. His livelihood is precarious, but Monteiro is blissful. "I've given up
chasing ego-based goals," he says. "Life becomes simple when you realize that there is a creator who
creates us and sustains us. Life is complete." The American have an utterly unpoetic term for this
new romantic phenomenon: downshifting - a move away from materialism towards a simpler, more
fulfilling life. Downshifting, also known as "simple living" or "voluntary simplicity"' is a roaring
trend in the land of the shopping mall, provoking a flood of literature and a slew of action groups.
Books such a Voluntary Simplicity By Dune Elgin and Simplify Your Life:100 Ways to Slow Down and
Enjoy the Things That Really Matter by Elaine St Janes are runaway bestsellers.

A nationwide public opinion survey in the USA on consumption, materialism and the environment once
revealed that 28 per cent of the respondents had voluntarily taken steps to make less money in the
past few years. John Robbins, heir apparent to the Baskin Robbins ice-cream empire until he
renounced it at 21, says: "Among my parents' friend were some of the wealthiest people in the world,
and I must tell you in all honesty, they were also some of the most neurotic people in the world. So
I've had the opportunity to learn firsthand that acquiring things is a total distraction."

While the American Dream is being redefined in its home turf, its stock has never been higher in
India. Years after liberalization led to the flooding of the market with irresistible goodies
copiously promoted by the parallel satellite revolution, Uncle Sam struts through every small town,
chomping on a burger, sipping a cola, wearing denims and chasing money.

Yet, as a nation, we have never fully bought into the philosophical base of materialism, perhaps
insulted by our ancient culture of renunciation and our poverty-stricken masses. We remain deeply
suspicious of the phenomenon, and survivors or refuseniks of the consumerist culture routinely
surface every day.

Rajshekharan Nair, a talented journalist, would rather earn a pittance than leave his beloved
Kerala, a coastal state in southern India. At the opposite end of the scale, we have former
sybarites like Titoo Ahluwalia, chief of MARG, a leading Indian market research agency,
enthusiastically embracing the isolation and quiet of country life.

So how does a potential exodus to simplicity begin? Like all big truths, it radiates from an
infinite number of paths and possibilities. For Jayesh Shah, it derives from the humanist philosophy
of the Argentine, Silo, who defined all actions that ended with death as meaningless, thereby
excluding personal goals such as money, power, status or fame, in favor of goals larger than or
transcending the individual.

For Dr A.Sadanand, managing trustee of the Bharati Sanskrit Vidya Niketenam, an Indian institute
teaching Sanskrit, simple living is a function of individuality and freedom. "The source of joy and
happiness is to live life according to individual philosophical, emotional and psychological
molding, not according to the expectations of other." For Baiju Parthan, artist and writer,
simplicity is an existential stance, which enables him to lie in equilibrium with the universe. For
Vedanta teacher Acharya Ram Mohan, simplicity is a function of who you are: "Simple living emerges
from being a simple person. Developing trust in life, dropping survival attitudes leads to
simplicity."

Whether fuelled by intellectual conviction, philosophical stance or spiritual prompting, priorities
are recast away from money, power, position, and fame—what one might call tangible goals—towards a
more intangible fulfillment. Shrikant explains the movement succinctly: "For some people success is
not an eternal source, it is internal. It's a question of what I am, rather than what I have."

My own search for simplicity began, ironically enough, a year after I became editor of Society, an
elitist lifestyle-and-people Indian magazine. Those days I was unhappy, confused, godless—an
unlikely candidate for spiritual awakening. Nevertheless, to my astonishment and gratitude, that is
precisely what I underwent. In less than a moth, like a jigsaw puzzle coming together, I received a
series of insights that revealed the secret of happiness—indeed, of life itself.

I learnt that happiness could only be found through that of others; that universal welfare was a
conduit to one's own well being; that interconnectedness was the stuff of life. And conversely, that
any action in conflict with universal welfare led to suffering.

Using the larger good as a parameter clarified much of life for me both at the individual, and the
collective level. As much as it would keep a mother from bullying and browbeating her child, it
could make the political system shift from selfish power play to selfless service. As much as it
kept an employer focused on the employee's welfare, it could keeps the economic system focused on
the welfare of the environment. Husbands wouldn't beat their wives and nations wouldn't wage war
against nations. Caste, creed, community, wealth would cease to divide. Keeping our sights fixed
steadily on universal welfare as the means to our own welfare spells the end to all conflict, and
the reign of enduring harmony, for both ourselves and the world at large.

There is no convert as zealous as the atheist, no saint as ardent as a sinner. Having drunk deeply
of misery, I clutched at happiness with almost inhuman ferocity, determined not to let anything come
between it and me henceforth, no matter how high the price. Since then, my one abiding purpose in
life has been to reach that spot where focusing on universal happiness would be my natural state.

My journey has been both internal and external. Even as I looked within and embarked on the perilous
task of discovering and deactivating the factors that blocked my happiness, I was also widening my
sights, attempting to see not just the roots of our social, economic and political conflicts, but
also their possible solution based on universal welfare. In or out, both paths led to
simplification.

Internally, my pursuit of happiness simplified priorities, illuminating not just the futility of
such goals as fame, money, power or possession, but their potential danger as well. The broad
spectrum of human misery showed me how much unhappiness was caused by desire alone. Then I began to
understand that only by going beyond desire could I hope to truly secure happiness.

This idea has a time-honored place in our tradition; indeed, it may be said to be the central tenet
of the spiritual path. "The man who forsakes all desires and moves without longing, without the
thought of mine or I, attains peace" is the wise counsel of the Bhagavad Gita.

The process of elimination is not easy, especially as it is threefold: emotional, psychological and
physical. Emotional simplification is to let go of feelings that endanger happiness—feelings such as
anger, hate, greed, envy—the cardinal sins. Above all, it means letting go of the past. Says Kartik
Vyas, a personal growth trainer and yoga enthusiast: "Through yoga, I realized that thought can
cause both joy and stress."

Psychological simplifications entail going beyond ego gratification by power, status, dominion or
needs such as those of survival and security. According to Vyas, yoga identifies two attitudes that
hinder growth: asmita, identifying with feelings, and ashnivesh, resistance to change. Acharya Ram
Mohan points out the Gita's formula for simplification: adamvitam (dropping pride), and amanitvam
(humility).

At the physical level, the impact is on lifestyle, the life choices of career, marriage, food,
clothing and shelter. Baiju Parthan says astutely: "Most people don't live, they have lifestyles.
Not to have a lifestyle, in fact, is the true way of life."

For Parthan, that translates into vegetarianism, and a delicately balanced way of life: "It is said
that each of us is allotted a certain number of breaths after which we die. In the same way, each of
us has been allotted certain resources, which we must eke out over a lifetime. Overusing the
resources leads to scarcity later."

Parthan views simple living as an existential issue, a question of deserving the gift of existence.
"Whether it is food or water, I would feel that since I did not waste them yesterday, I am worthy of
receiving them today. Wasting would stop that flow between existence and me. Besides, limiting your
wants intensifies the experience. It keeps perception open .Too much food or fun satiates."

Elimination, however, is only half the exercise. The other half is to develop and cultivate opposite
tendencies. For Ram Mohan, "a sense of internal security "is crucial. For Vyas, it is developing
clarity about the value system. For me, the crucial question was self-esteem. My sense of self was
perilously shaky until I learnt through an insight that I was whole and perfect. The realization of
not needing to derive my confidence from an external source freed me of all psychological needs,
which, in turn reduced my emotional overload.

But nirvana was far from sighted because I still had to contend with 16 years of conditioning
wrought by depression and unhappiness. To rid myself of my absentmindedness, disorganization and
indifference, I had to venture deep within myself to embark on yet another process of elimination.

Every time my inner growth registered a notch, the aperture through which I viewed life widened. I
began to see even more clearly that only simplification could possibly safeguard universal welfare
by eliminating all conflicts.

Take the most obvious case—the conflict between capitalism and the environment. The conflict arises
out of capitalism's profit-orientation which leads it to see nature purely as an exploitable
resource base, man as either labor or consumer, and nations as markets. In its single-minded pursuit
of profits by generating and satisfying a potentially infinite number of wants, capitalism ignores
the fact that the Earth's resource base is limited, that technology pollutes, and that mankind's
spiritual quest is hampered by this proliferating satisfaction of the senses. The tottering
stockpile of complexity it unleashes is not just destructive—it is needless.

The only thing we can do to combat this is to reduce our own wants and cut loose from the
consumerist trap. What has already been seen to be the route to individual happiness also becomes
the route to that of the environment. Says Diana L.Eck in her book Encountering God: "Many think of
(Mahatma) Gandhi's personal austerity, including his food and dress, as one of his idiosyncrasies.
For Gandhi, however, what one eats and what one wears are the very first political decisions one
makes. The 'personal' is the 'political'."

With capitalism's underbelly so clearly exposed, I made up my mind two years ago to leave Society.
My desperate quest for integration, and through it happiness, militated against editing a magazine
that favored consumerism, capitalism's offspring.

It was a crucial crossroads for me. Departure from Society had meant letting go of an editor's power
and privileges. The issue was one of security, for along with the job I has to part with the company
house and car. But I had known ever since I first started the quest that no matter how rocky the
road, turning back was not the answer. Accordingly, with nothing in hand, and determined not to go
back into a journalistic system that thrived on advertising revenue and pursued bottomline
compulsions through sensationalism, I quit my job.

This is where the relationship between faith and letting go became clear to me. True, in the past
three years, I had relinquished almost all control over myself. I boomeranged back to the state of
mind that prevailed before my awakening. The painful task of acknowledging and releasing all my
inbuilt indifference, sloth, indiscipline without recourse to the motivations of guilt and fear that
had earlier served me, meant that I had to be willing to stand still, allowing life to do with me as
it pleased. It was faith that came to my rescue, telling me that all would be well in the end.

And, in the most miraculous manner, all was indeed well. A day after I left Society, I was offered a
job with Life Positive, out of the blue.

No one who wishes to walk along the path of simplicity can do so without faith. For faith alone
gives us the strength not to hold on to security, not to take insurance against an unknown tomorrow.
Only faith tells us that tomorrow will be taken care of.

Ram Mohan experienced this sense of a bountiful universe when he voluntarily became a bhikshu for
seven years in Hardwar. "It was a good experience because I not only realized how little you need,
but also that life takes care of you. Not only do you get what you want, but if you don't, you learn
how to do without it."

Some adopt the devotional approach. Nothing is ours, for all is God's. Says Shantanand Saraswati,
Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math in The Man Who Wanted to Meet God: "The Isha Upanishad says that the
universe is permeated by the Absolute. Whatever one sees in creation, whatever moves—one should use
it fully and enjoy this absolute everywhere, but one should enjoy it with renunciation. One should
not try to hold it or covet it. One need not try to possess it. Enjoy it and give it up."

With every step, I understand ever more clearly that my life is guided by a higher power, that not
just external circumstances, but even my thoughts and actions are in a sense "done " for me. I
believe that I am being prepared for the ultimate letting go of the sense of self itself.

The simple life is as much a necessity as a choice, but no less of a learning experience for that.
My aim upon entering it was to learn to value money 100 per cent and to adopt a way of life that was
need-based and rational, consonant with my lean budget. Instead of substituting money for time and
effort, I intended to reverse the equation.

Like Ram Mohan, I quickly realized how little I actually needed. Clothes my mother and I had enough
of. Shelter was temporarily provided by my sister, into whose empty flat we moved, for she lived in
a company house. However, when she left her company two months after we moved in, we were obliged to
think of a long-term solution, buying a house, for instance. No easy task in Bombay, but again I can
take no credit of having accomplished it—and in the last few months we have had the enormous joy and
satisfaction of having our own home. But loan repayment has imposed a severe limitation on our
budget, which has helped me hone our lifestyle to utter simplicity.

Food dwindled into rice, wheat flour and vegetables—not just affordable, but positively busting with
sattvic qualities, ideal for mental, physical and spiritual well-being. Being traditional
non-vegetarians, meat is an occasional indulgence, rare enough not to disturb the budget. We
divested the maid of her cooking duties, which were assumed by my mother, with me as undercook.
Today, the food tastes better, my cooking skills have improved, and we have saved a fortune in oil.
Convenience food has no place in our house, not even that urban catchall, white bread, which we have
replaced with delectable south Indian breakfast items.

Eating out is an indulgence, a sensuous experience, but fatal for digestion, complexion, figure,
health, and eventually, the environment. I am supported in my belief by one Joseph Addison who says:
"When I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and
dropsy, fevers and lethargy, with other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes.
Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet." The mystic-farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka, author of
The One -Straw Revolution, says:"When you no longer want to eat something tasty, you can taste the
real flavors of what ever your are eating."

Having surrendered the company car, travel is an expense, but I have no compunction about buying a
second-class railway pass rather than the usual first class. My logic is that working at home saves
me the rigors of daily commuting. I also travel by bus or just walk. Today, I am more in touch with
life and mobile, in contrast to the days when I commuted on a lumbering automobile, divorced from
the world around me, while busily adding to its pollution.

Straitened resources really unleash the creative juices. Take gifts: earlier, they were uninventive
and expedient; I simply gave away currency notes. Today, neither my budget nor my values will allow
me to practice that sort of careless generosity. I am now more discriminating not just about what to
give but why to give. I refuse to be railroaded by social customs, and I am, therefore, far more
zestful about my gift. Besides, scarce money must be made to yield maximum value.

However, I still have a lot to learn from my friend Mukta, a freelance journalist. She makes up in
terms of thought, time and effort, what she cannot in terms of money. Her gifts are sensitive,
practical, unusual and delightful. I recall the beautiful door handle she gave me at my housewarming
(her canny eyes had noted the absence of one), varnished to safeguard against the marsh air. It may
not have been the most valuable gift I received but it was certainly the most cherished.

I dream of the day when I will make my own gifts, calibrated to the taste, need and temperament of
the recipient, a testimony to the love and regard I hold for the person.

Giving my fantasies free wing, I think about stitching own clothes, and of gifting my friend's
bouquets of the beautiful dried grasses that grow so plentifully around my house instead of
expensive hothouse flowers. Unlike Man, whose products are both shoddy and expensive, nature charges
nothing for her perfect creations. I've kept my house relatively free of adornments. Over time, I'm
determined that nature alone shall have the charge of beautifying it. Take away your serves, your
Chippendale and your Belgium cut glass. I'll do with potted plants, birds' nests and dried flowers.

The more I streamlined my possessions, the more I learnt to give away. Today, I'm consumed with the
urge to divest myself of all save the bare necessities, and give the rest to those who need them.
Vimla Advani, a friend, feels similarly. Her deceased mother has left her a house in Colaba, Mumbai,
the contents of which she intends to give away. "I don't need anything," she says. "But the more I
give away, the more I get."

That is one of the paradoxes of the simple life. It is the route to plenty. Indu Kohli, a personal
growth trainer, began 1997 by giving away all her wardrobe disposable. "I've never hung on to what I
cannot use," she says," and I've noticed I always get more than I give."

Ours was a civilization that revolved around the concept of simple living: "want not" and "waste
not" were its two watchdogs. Nothing, not even what was in plenty, like coconuts in Kerala, was
allowed to be wastefully used. Clothes and footwear were severely rationed and expected to last,
like diamonds, forever.

Elud Sperling , head of the publishing house Inner Traditions, which specializes in publishing
spiritual texts, recalls his bemusement when he found that the extensive joint family of the friend
he was staying with disposed of no more than a handful of garbage daily. The West is currently going
overboard over recycling but we've been doing it for centuries. Our mud huts with their thatched
roofs and cow dung-treated floors were in tune with the needs of a tropical country. The natural
material had inbuilt climate control, while the cowdung was not just an antiseptic, it also warmed
the floor, making it safe to sleep on. Contrast it with the glass and concrete structures we call
home today. The alien material separates us from nature, the concrete floors strike us with lumbago
and rheumatism, the air conditioning damages our respiratory system, and the artificial lighting
hurts our eyes.

For Kartik Vyas, eating naturally available, lightly cooked food helped improve his digestion, his
mental equilibrium, and changed his lifestyle. Getting up early and going to bed early put him in
harmony with nature, which enhanced his harmony with people. Eventually, from being a lawyer, he
became a personal growth trainer. "Living simply has brought about a fundamental shift in seeing
that every aspect of life can take us to growth, "he says.

"Human being are the only animals who have to work, and I think this is the most ridiculous thing in
the world," says Fukuoka. His prescription for the good life is as radical as it is complete:
surrender to nature, for nature has ready-made all that we need. He argues that there would have
been no need for children to learn music if they had grown up among the natural sounds of nature.
And that local seasonal food is perfectly attuned to the bodily needs of that time and place.
Perfect harmony is in the nature of Nature.

Fukuoka's central principle, echoed by both Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism, is that God (or
nature) is all, and that man can neither conquer it nor understand it. The purpose of life is to
surrender to it, and live unafraid and free, for nature lives our life for us. Dr Manu Kothari,
professor of anatomy at the G.S.Medical College, Mumbai, and author of Dying Declaration of Mother
Earth: Gaia's Will, says: "Only food, water and air are your needs because they are you. The rest is
not you."

Jesus Christ had expounded on these same truths when he said: "Take no thought for your life, what
ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on…. Your heavenly
Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."

Contrast this with the contradictory complexities of modern life: capitalism, globalization,
liberalization, technology, the information revolution, every one of our institutions has
contributed to creating a network of wants and counter wants. Technology has freed us of the need
for physical exercise, but has not found a solution to the health problem it has foisted upon us,
compelling us to either work them out in gyms or excise them at the surgeon. To cope with
capitalism's compulsive need to generate wants and supply them, we have to work harder and harder,
make more to buy more and by paying more. Meanwhile, the stress and strain sends us spinning into
ill health or depression. Single incomes are laughable, dual incomes barely sufficient. Pedaling the
treadmill desperately to survive, we ignore relationships, family, children, life itself. Our
growing unhappiness, alienation and loneliness rob life of its very meaning and gradually everything
falls apart.

I believe that the root of the problem lies in the western approach to controlling life, through
controlling external circumstances, unlike the internal eastern approach that has always sought to
control life through controlling the self. Rather than attempting to satisfy limitless wants, we
would seek to limit our wants. Rather than inventing more and more complex computers, we would
develop our minds. It is the internal route that, eventually, has lasting answers.

This reasoning, of course, not only turns western civilization upside down, but our own as well.
From being the shame that dare not seek its name, poverty can actually be seen to be an elevating
state. The movement to simplicity is a process and it is evident in the very extremity of today's
complexity. As Parthan says: "The system is purging itself."

This is true even at the individual level. Simplicity cannot be forced. It is meant to be a response
to an inner urge. Depriving yourself of desires before outgrowing them will only further inflame the
mind. This explains the seeming discrepancy on the issue of renunciation, insisted upon by some
spiritual masters, and criticized with equal vigor by others like Osho. Parthan explains that point
of view: "As long as you don't possess possessions, you can have everything."

The New Age is often painted as a place where the material and the spiritual meet, where it is
possible to be both successful and happy. Wealth, like everything else, is value neutral. If one
makes and, more importantly, spends money keeping universal welfare at heart, it can be a
beneficial, not destructive force. The danger is that a narrow perspective will not pull this off,
rendering the slogan just another glib way of chasing money without having to feel guilty about it.
No harm in that, of course, but it will delay your transition to simplicity and the happiness that
lurks within.

Are you willing to wait?


Life Positive, March 1997


2]
http://www.lifestyle-movement.org.uk/str1/whatcando.htm
..........
We are encouraged to

    * Recognise that there is a connection between the affluence of some and the poverty of others;
    * Resist the social and economic pressures to buy what we do not need. Some may see this as
living simply that all may simply live, some as living responsibly, others as living an
Earth-friendly lifestyle.
    * Support other organisations with money, time or talents; not only those concerned with the
environment, justice and peace, but also those that help the poor and marginalised at home and
overseas;
    * Enjoy the natural world, show care for the environment and avoid wasteful use of resources;
    * Use non-renewable resources with care. Avoid unnecessary travel, especially by car or
aeroplane;
    * Encourage the repair, recycling and re-use of materials and products;
    * Challenge over-packaging, built-in obsolescence and bad workmanship;
    * Avoid overeating and find alternatives to food whose production or distribution involves
damage to the environment or exploitation of the poor or the oppressed;
    * Enjoy such good things as are compatible with our commitment to care for the planet and its
inhabitants.
    * Be generous without ostentation and hospitable without extravagance.
    * Make time to develop our personal skills and pleasures and share them with others.
    * Make time for reflection, for the deepening of our understanding of our planet and of the
people in it.
&nbs