• A call for sanity, by the Master —
• Questions and answers
• Letters to the editor
• Signs of the time
• A watchdog for US elections
  • Interview by Monte Leach
• US policies causing global crises 
  • Interview by Monte Leach
• The voice of the people
• Facts and forecasts
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• Next update 17 October 2004
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Master's article:

A call for sanity

by the Master —, through Benjamin Creme

The citizens of the United States of America are approaching a time of critical decision. On their decision, in November, this year, may depend the future happiness of many millions, not alone American, but of many other countries. One would have thought that this decision would not be difficult to make, that the choice was surely obvious to all who treasure peace and right relationship.
However, it appears that there are those who think otherwise, who reserve for themselves the right to invade other countries on the pretext that they might be plotting harm for them. Such pre-emptive action, one would have assumed, was long ago abandoned by modern, civilized states, and relegated to man’s illegal past.
Not so, sadly, we are assured. The present American administration, far from showing remorse for their unjust and cruel invasion of Iraq, proudly assert, if re-elected, their firm resolve to continue their programme of pillage in their ‘war on terror’.

A phantom
To fight a ‘war on terror’ is to fight a phantom, a useless, costly and dangerous exercise. Terror is the Hydra, a many-headed monster: each head severed, as Hercules discovered, is replaced by two. This US administration, in its arrogance and ignorance, has fallen blindly into the trap. Those who suffer are the American people, their victims, and the world as a whole.
There is but one way to deal with terror, to end, forever, this canker in our midst: to seek its cause.
There are, of course, several causes of terrorism, but above all in importance is the unbalanced distribution of the world’s resources. This creates the dangerous gulf between the nations which drives men to use terror to realize their dreams. They are desperate men, who feel they have nothing to lose. There is an immense, untapped army of such desperate people ready to die, if necessary, for the justice they long for which, rightly, they see as theirs.
No ‘war on terror’ can defeat such an army. No arrogant posturing can drive them away from the bastions of the Western world.
No nation, however strong, can by itself defeat terrorism. It is born of the injustice which disfigures this world.

Share
Only when men learn to share will we see the end of terrorism. Only through sharing can the goal of justice and freedom be realized. Our appeal to you, citizens of the great and blessed United States of America, is to think carefully, and from the heart, as is your wont, when you deliver your vote. Cast your vote for peace, justice and the rule of Law.

(Read more articles by the Master)

Questions & Answers:

Q. Was there any involvement of Al-Qaeda in the Beslan school tragedy or were the hostage-takers all Chechans?
A. No. They were mostly Chechen but a number were from neighbouring areas.

Q. On 7 September 2004 thousands of people spontaneously congregated in Red Square, Moscow, to show solidarity with the people of Beslan, call the government into question over its handling of the school tragedy and to denounce terrorism. It was an unprecedented display of Russian ‘people power’. Can your Master say how many gathered there?
A. Roughly 300,000.

Q. How should Russia deal with its erstwhile Soviet Republics? Is Chechen independence (and that of other countries in a similar relationship to Moscow) part of the divine plan?
A. It is part of the divine Plan that all peoples should be free agents of their own evolution and destiny. Russia should have long ago acceded to Chechnya’s demands for some form of autonomy.

Q. Is Maitreya still marching with demonstrators, for example in the latest marches in Venezuela, Berlin, or New York?
A. Yes, indeed. He took part in the marches in Berlin and New York while the Master Jesus marched in Venezuela.

Q. Spiritual teachers of the past that we know of were not associated with politics but focused on spiritual development. I am puzzled by your focus on politics. Please explain.
A. Because I am interested in love, in justice and freedom for everyone. Politics, economics, that is reality. That is spiritual. Where do you stop being spiritual? When do you stop being spiritual? How do you measure the degree of spirituality in a person? Everything in life is spiritual — we live in a spiritual universe. It could not be otherwise. The trouble is, we do not make it spiritual. We have the most corrupt politics that have ever been devised, the most corrupt economic structures ever devised by man. They are not spiritual but they should be, and must be, spiritual.
What I am talking about is spiritual politics, spiritual economics, and you will find that the Christ Himself, the Lord Maitreya Himself, the World Teacher, will concentrate in the beginning on politics and on economics. What I am saying comes from Him. These are His thoughts, His ideas. Politics, economics, should be the most spiritual things. Politics is about how people live together and economics is about how we distribute the world’s resources. If you are not spiritual, you do it badly, like today. Who is spiritual — these spiritual teachers you are talking about, or me, who is interested in how people live? You cannot talk about spiritual development to people who have to work 16 hours a day for a dollar a day, to keep their family from starving. The crisis today is a spiritual one, is focused in the political and economic fields, and can only be resolved in these fields.

Q. You said you heard not one mention of sharing at the US Democratic Party national convention in July 2004. How are the Democrats going to be any different than the Republicans? Sharing doesn’t seem to be a concept of either party.
A. And you will certainly hear even less mention of sharing during the Republican convention. It is true, sharing does not seem to be a concept of either party, which means sharing is not a concept in the minds and hearts of the American people. All the more reason, therefore, for those who do believe in sharing as the only way to go forward into the future to make it known and change the present attitude. It has to start somewhere, and, of course, despite appearances, there are many American people who recognize this truth.

Q. I was shocked to hear you mention Israel as a point of evil. What’s that about?
A. I am surprised the questioner was shocked, given the callous oppression of the Palestinian people by Israel. Israel justifies its action as part of the ‘war on terrorism’ as advocated by Mr Bush, who attacked Iraq, which was not terrorist and certainly not a threat to the US. After the defeat of the Axis powers by the Allies in 1945, the ‘forces of evil’, as we call them — ‘the Lords of Materiality’ as they are known by the Hierarchy of Light — were being gradually sealed off to their own domain: the upholding of the Matter aspect of the planet. With the creation of the state of Israel, in 1948, by terrorist action against the British Mandatory Power and the people of Palestine, it was, according to the Master DK, “as if the forces of evil got a foot in the door again”. Israel is the central point of a triangle of evil which works through Israel, the Pentagon in the US and certain states in Eastern Europe. What we are witnessing now is an explosion of this evil force which must be countered and resolved by humanity with the aid of the Hierarchy of Light — Maitreya and His group of Masters of the Wisdom.

Q. (1) I wonder if you saw the film Fahrenheit 9/11? (2) What did you think were its strong moments? (3) Do you think it is making a difference in how Americans see themselves?
A. (1) I was very impressed by much of the film which I thought was very well made, cogent, original, funny and moving. (2) The all-American patriotic mother, who turned against the government when her son was killed in Iraq, was particularly powerful as a symbol of American self-deception (such a potent aspect of America’s 6th-ray personality). (3) I think it is having a profound effect on open-minded Americans who have had the opportunity to see it.

(More questions and answers)

Letters to the editor:

Over a number of years, some of the Masters, in particular Maitreya and the Master Jesus, have appeared, in different guises, to large numbers of people around the world. They also appear at Benjamin Creme's lectures and meditations, giving people in the audience the opportunity to intuitively recognise Them. Some people recount their experiences to Share International magazine. If the encounters are authenticated by Benjamin Creme's Master, the letters are published. These experiences are given to inspire, to guide or teach, often to heal and uplift. Very often, too, the Masters draw attention to, or comment on, in an amusing way, some fixed intolerance (for example against smoking or drinking). Many times They act as saving 'angels' in accidents, during wartime, earthquakes and other disasters. The following letters, previously published in Share International magazine, are examples of this means of communication by the Masters.

Deceptive appearance

Dear Editor,
On 12 August 2004 after a weekly Transmission Meditation in Lucerne I was taking a bus home to Baar. As I got on I saw my usual seat was occupied by a huge woman, dressed in shorts like myself making me wonder where in the world you might get shorts of such an enormous size. I seated myself diagonally across. She had a round, open, friendly face and tried to make friends with a little girl sitting on the other side of the gangway by pulling faces.
More people entered. A couple with two boys aged about nine and 11 were looking for seats. I shifted to be face to face with the fat lady, making sure that our knees did not touch, and the man sat next to me. His wife had a seat across the gangway and the fat lady made room for one of the boys. The other boy stayed standing. The fat lady tried to make conversation but most people had little desire for this as the rain had taken them by surprise. The boy explained they had returned from Titlis, a mountain 3,000 metres high south of Lucerne. After a while the standing boy decided it was his turn now to sit down and wanted to change with his brother. The fat lady moved closer to the window so that both of the boys could sit beside her. I could not believe my eyes. There sat the lady who would normally need two seats, and two boys were sitting at her side — it was like a miracle.
Now she focussed on me and wanted to know whether everything was OK with me. Long and thin as I am, we must have looked like Laurel and Hardy. Wasn’t I a little ill? I answered I felt fairly good and with a sly hint at her I mentioned it was my view to carry along with me as little as was needed, that for more than 30 years I had now and then done without eating for a few weeks, just drinking half a litre of fruit juice and a couple of litres of water a day, a good way to feel real healthy afterwards — and that I even had done without food and drink for seven days just to see how it feels. She was not impressed at all. She seemed to look at herself as the embodiment of health and wealth and saw me as representing hunger and illness.
Having arrived in Baar many passengers left the bus, including the fat lady. I was surprised how easily she got up and left the bus — no Japanese sumo wrestler could have done better.
Only a day and a half later, at 3.30am — my time for personal meditation — did I have an outbreak of cheerfulness when it suddenly occurred to me that I obviously had had a confrontation with our humorous dear friend and teacher Maitreya and that the sly hints were meant to go in the opposite direction. He probably wanted to show that my view of “underweight = health” and “overweight = illness” is relative, by representing a healthy and cheerful overweight person able to move as fast as a weasel.
Was I correct in assuming that the fat lady was Maitreya?
AN, Baar, Switzerland.
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirms that the ‘fat lady’ was, indeed, Maitreya.)

Wise comfort

Dear Editor,
A couple of weeks ago (July 2004) I was at work and I was having a difficult time in my personal life. I work in a small metaphysical bookshop which is a nurturing environment. On this day, however, I was having difficulty being anywhere. Each hour seemed to go on for an eternity. I was checking my watch to see whether I could begin packing up for the day and I had almost 15 minutes to go, when a woman walked into the shop. She went directly to the back of the shop and browsed among the books for several minutes. Then on her way out she approached the counter where I was sitting and looked at me directly, making eye contact. Then she asked, as if she really did want to know: “How are you?” To my surprise I couldn’t reply, and instead dissolved into tears.
She came around to the back of the counter and hugged me warmly, holding me until I stopped crying. I had been unable to cry up to that point, although I knew I needed to. She said something to me along the lines of: “This is a good place to come when you need a lift or some support. I often come in here. The people in here are good but they don’t know me. You can see me, can’t you? You can see me?” I nodded and thought it was an odd thing to say.
She spoke to me for a little while longer, then she said: “Deep in your Being you know you will be alright don’t you!” Her words entered into my heart and brought me reassurance and comfort. She suggested I needed to go home. “Look, there is no one about and it’s freezing out there. Why don’t you shut up 10 minutes early?”
I thanked her for her kindness and apologized, but she brushed my apology aside as unnecessary and indicated there was nothing unusual in her kindness. I was deeply grateful for the help that came to me at a time of need.
Would you please tell me if this woman was a truly good neighbourly Samaritan or maybe one of the Masters?
JB, NSW, Australia.
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirms that the ‘woman’ was Maitreya.)

Fruitful sign

Dear Editor,
The story of the apple begins in Tesco supermarket car park, Southend-on-Sea [July 2004]. My husband Anthony spotted a stray apple on the ground. It looked as though it had just fallen out of a bag. I picked it up and noticed it was brand new and looked too good to waste, so I kept it.
It was stored in the front of my fridge for a week. On Monday morning (2 August) I opened the fridge to get some milk. I looked at the apple and there it was — a cross marked on the apple. I thought it was strange how it should suddenly appear like that, so I checked inside the fridge to see if anything could have marked the apple, but I couldn’t find anything. I remembered Essy’s story of her apples* (I am in the same Transmission Meditation group) so I took this picture hoping for some further insight.
AC, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, UK.
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirms that the cross was manifested by Maitreya.)

In the blink of an eye

Dear Editor,
On 26 June 2004 I was having lunch with my mum and sister in a cafe in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. I was getting married on that day at 6pm, and I was very stressed out about the whole thing. It was a mixed wedding, my husband is Jewish and I am a Catholic, and I was very worried about how certain people were going to react.
As we were having lunch, a man came to our table selling watches. I told him that we didn’t want any and I thanked him; it was then that he winked at me. I looked at him and he had a very deep sparkle in his eyes. After that, I felt much more relaxed and knew that everything was going to be OK. Was this man Maitreya or the Master Jesus?
EC, London, UK.
(Benjamin Creme confirms that the ‘watch seller’ was the Master Jesus.)

Goddess of Aquarius

On Sunday 29 August 2004 we ran a Share International stall at a holistic fair in Islington, London, talking all day to a constant stream of interested people.
At 5pm the tannoy announced the event was closing. We were tidying up when a stocky, middle-aged woman came to our stand, busily picking up free leaflets and a magazine. Sarah thought she recognised her from a previous fair, went up to her and said: “I think you already know the story?” The woman nodded: “Yes, I know it.” She carried on picking up leaflets and Sarah mentioned that we have to charge for the magazines. Seeing her so close-up Sarah was totally surprised by the beauty and purity of her face.
Standing further away I was transfixed by her appearance. She wore a woolly hat under a denim, puffy, peaked cap that reminded me of Benjamin Creme’s cap. The style was feminine and the puffiness raised it up like a dome, but the shade of denim and the rust-coloured aging marks were identical. She wore a pristine, shiny housecoat covered in a seashell and seahorse print, making me think of the Aquarian Age. On the front of her coat was a brand new nurse’s fob watch and underneath were several layers of clothing. It was sunny outside. By her side was a large chequered shopping trolley just like in Maitreya’s appearance as ‘Egon’.
I asked her if she would like a carrier bag as she had so many leaflets, and she said yes. Then Sarah asked if she’d be attending the fair the next day. “Yes, I’ll be here tomorrow,” she said. We said our goodbyes and watched as she trundled off to the stand opposite where she started looking through the clothes-rails of exotic shawls and sequinned tops — just as we had done earlier!
Sarah and I felt very perky after her visit and the more we thought of her beautiful face and that cap — we wondered if she might have been Maitreya?
Sarah McDaid and Gill Fry, London, UK.
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirms that the ‘woman’ was Maitreya.)

Master surgeon

Dear Editor,
My Mother recently went into hospital for an operation on her heart. She is 80 years old and I was obviously very worried about her, but in my prayers I handed her over to Jesus and waited. She came through the operation famously and was home within five days. On the day I brought her home she told me that the surgeon who operated on her was not the original consultant but a very thin man with a wonderful face. I didn’t take much notice, but the next morning she said to me that she had been thinking about this new surgeon all night long, his face was so kind and the feeling he emitted was so wonderful that if someone had told her it was Jesus she wouldn’t have been at all surprised.
Can you please tell me, was this just one of the wonderful surgeons or was it one of the Masters?
PF, Colchester, Essex, UK.
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirms that the ‘new surgeon’ was the Master Jesus.)

SIGNS OF THE TIME:

Weeping icon in Ohio

Parishioners at St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Cleveland, Ohio, report that an icon at the church is weeping holy oil. The congregation say an image of the Madonna on the altar began weeping on 28 August 2004 at about 2.30pm. Moisture marks, said to be from oil, are visible on the statue. “You can still see the shiny area,” said Father Mikhail E. Mikhail, priest at the church. He calls the event a sign from God, and a miracle.
The same phenomenon occurred with a Jesus icon in the church in September 1990. Moisture stains can still be seen on the icon from that event, which about 60,000 pilgrims came to view.
(Source: News Channel 5, Cleveland, USA)
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirms these to be miracles manifested by the Master Jesus.)

Portrait of Jesus weeps

A portrait of Jesus which is weeping a constant stream of tears is attracting thousands of visitors to the home of Gloria Fino just outside Corpus Christi, Texas, USA.
Gloria first noticed the tears on 7 May 2004 when she was praying for her grandson, Frank, who has been fighting for his life since he was born in January 2004 with his organs outside his body. Since she first saw the tears, they have not stopped.
Visitors find themselves touched by the phenomenon. “I couldn’t help my tears,” said Sylvia Perez. “I don’t usually cry for anything.” Rachel Delgado said: “I feel His presence. I could feel it as soon as I reached the door.... I truly believe in miracles. And this is one today!” (Source: ABC News, Houston Chronicle, USA)
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirms this to be a miracle manifested by the Master Jesus.)

Church locks away miraculous statues

In May 2004 churchgoers at the Vietnamese community church, St Mark’s, in the Inala suburb of Brisbane, Australia, noticed rose-scented oil leaking from a statue of the Madonna and a crucifix. A few days later, during mass, blood was seen to flow from statues and a crucifix above the altar. The following evening worshippers saw blood flowing from a crucifix in the hand of another statue. Father Joseph Liem said: “Everyday there has been a constant flow of people. I have counted thousands. Some come at 4pm and stay until midnight.” He believed the event was not a miracle but a sign of peace. Visitor Mark Power said: “It looks genuine enough ... I’d like to believe, but I’ll wait and see what the church says.”
After a two-month investigation using X-rays and mass spectroscopy, the church announced that the weeping statues appeared to be a marvellous event but were not a miracle. The church also reported that much of the $41,000 collected in donations from the visitors would go into a poverty fund to help people in Vietnam and Africa.
On 29 July, following the investigation, Archbishop Bathersby ordered that the statues and icons be removed from public veneration: the statue of the Madonna was locked in a cabinet in the hall instead of the glass cabinet on the chapel altar. However, many parishioners still believed the weeping and bleeding were miracles. “I don’t care about the report,” one parishioner said. “With my eyes I saw that. I believe it in my heart.” Truong Phan, 29, of Melbourne, came to see the statue and also dismissed the church’s report: “I think it’s genuine,” he said. “We’ve seen a lot of this.”
At a service attended by about 200 people Father Thu Nguyen told worshippers to respect the church’s findings but he later said that people would “believe what they believe”. He also said he had witnessed three separate weeping Madonna statues at homes around Inala.
Church member Trung Nguen said: “I saw it, it’s a miracle. No one knows what happened but it’s a sign from God.”
(Source: The Guardian, UK;
www.religionnewsblog.com;
www.catholicweb.com)
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirms that these phenomena are indeed miracles created by Maitreya and the Master Jesus.)

A watchdog for US elections

An interview with Andy Stephenson, associate director of Black Box Voting by Monte Leac

In the upcoming US elections in November 2004, about 80 per cent of the voting will take place on computerized electronic voting machines. The three major manufacturers of these machines — Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S — are private corporations whose technology has been criticized as lacking adequate safeguards against tampering and technical glitches.
Bev Harris, a 52-year-old grandmother, came across secret programming instructions for Diebold’s voting machines while surfing on the internet last year, and made the instructions publicly available. Computer experts who examined the code said Diebold’s electronic voting software contained “stunning flaws”, which have yet to be adequately remedied. Harris also discovered a folder called ‘rob-Georgia’ containing instructions to replace Georgia’s computerized voting files just before the November 2002 elections. As it turned out, in an unexpected upset that year, the Republican Party candidate for the US Senate in Georgia won the election, tipping control of the Senate to the Republicans.
Bev Harris, director of the nonprofit group Black Box Voting, and the group’s associate director, Andy Stephenson, act as watchdogs of electronic voting in the United States — investigating flaws in voting systems, providing computer security tutorials to election officials, and making known as widely as possible the problems and solutions regarding electronic voting. Andy Stephenson was interviewed for Share International.

Share International: What are some of the problems you have discovered with electronic voting in the US?
Andy Stephenson: The touch screen voting machines, which will be used by millions of voters in November, are definitely a problem. They do not produce any physical record of the vote, so voters really have no idea if their vote was counted the way it was cast. But even more worrisome, we have discovered during investigations that the software code used by Diebold is very vulnerable to attack. Diebold’s touch screen and optical scan voting machines will be counting about 30 per cent of the votes this fall. With their software, the central tabulator — the computer where all the votes are accumulated and counted — is extremely vulnerable. Votes can literally be changed in under 90 seconds.

SI: How would that work?
AS: As an example, in King County, Washington state, where I live, we use an optical scan ballot. The voter fills in a bubble next to the candidate’s name, and the ballot is sent through a computerized reader that counts the vote. At the end of the day, all the votes are sent via modem to the central computer where they are accumulated. In King County, there are 48 modems that attach to the back of the central computer, so that’s 48 openings for somebody with the proper phone number to dial in and get into the system.
We have more than 500 polling places in this county, and in each one of those polling places you have an average of 1 to 2 county employees who have the phone number to the central count computer. That’s about 1,000 people just in King County alone who can dial into the computer. If they are so inclined, they can get into the computer with a laptop and a dialtone, or a laptop and a cell phone. When they dial in, they have full access to the system and can make any changes they want. They can run a five-line computer programming script, called a Visual Basic script, which is inherent in the Windows system. Anybody with a modicum of programming knowledge can change that voting system. We have estimated there are at least 100,000 people in the country with the knowledge to do that.
Why would somebody mess with 4,000 or 5,000 voting machines when all they have to do is go to the central count computer and change the results without any trace? And if you do leave a trace, that’s OK. You just go in and erase the fact that you were there.

SI: How many electronic voting machines are vulnerable to this problem?
AS: As I said, 30 per cent of the nation’s votes will be counted by Diebold equipment.

SI: Is there anything that can be done to prevent this problem at this point?
AS: There are safeguards available. But we were in California recently, and told election officials about the problem. We gave them some simple procedures that would help mitigate the threat, but they said: “We’re not going to do anything until after the election.”

SI: What safeguards would you recommend?
AS: We do not want any type of communication hooked up to the central server. No phone lines, no modems, no wireless, no internet. No communication to that central machine should be allowed at all. All the votes should be brought in from the polling places to the central count computer and counted in central count. That way, there is no one with outside access to that machine.
Also, all voting systems should produce a voter verified — not a voter verifiable — paper ballot. That is a printout of a person’s votes, which the voter has an opportunity to look at and say: “Yes, that’s who I voted for.” That piece of paper should be held as the absolute final record of the election. It should be the final arbiter.
In addition, totals from the machines should be printed twice at the end of the day. One tally is left in the precinct so that the public can look at the numbers and be able to go to the county and say: “Yes, the numbers that you say came from my precinct match the tape at the polling site.”

SI: Are there problems with the voting machines made by companies other than Diebold?
AS: Yes. The ballot on Sequoia’s machines was developed using a system called ‘Visio’, a Microsoft product. You can put a Visual Basic script in it that will reverse the mappings. So, for example, if you are touching “yes” on the screen, in the system it is tabulating “no”. The computer programmers at Sequoia, or anyone who has access to the system prior to the election, could make that change.

SI: Is there anything that people can do to help?
AS: People should be signing up to be poll workers, poll inspectors and poll judges. If they’re at polling places on election day and something doesn’t look quite right, then it probably isn’t. They should contact our organization. We’re going to have 800 members available, and lists of people you can contact if something is looking funny. Then by all means get in touch with us and we’ll take the appropriate action, whether it’s getting the press out there or making phone calls ourselves, whatever needs to be done.

SI: If people did sign up as volunteers, what kinds of things would they be looking for?
AS: If you see a Diebold employee set up a laptop and hook it up to a voting machine, that could be a problem. Or, for example, in Riverside County, California, in the 2nd March 2004 primary, a Sequoia employee was seen outside the county offices, talking with another Sequoia employee. He said: “Here’s my own personal card. We’ll take it in and see if it works.” He went in and they stopped the vote count. He put in his card, did something on the database, pulled his card out, got in his car, went to the airport, and went back to Colorado. That was a clear violation of California law.

SI: Are there efforts going on in the states and nationally to try to change things?
AS: In addition to Black Box Voting, there are groups throughout the country working on this issue. The national nonprofit group True Majority has been working on paper trails.

SI: Is there anything else that should be mentioned to inform people in advance of the national elections?
AS: Get registered and vote. If readers want more information, visit our web site, www.blackboxvoting.org.

US policies causing global crises

An interview with Kevin Danaher by Monte Leach

Kevin Danaher is co-founder of Global Exchange, an international human rights group dedicated to promoting environmental, political and social justice. He is the author and/or editor of 11 books, including his latest, Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power.

Share International: What do you see as the major dangers now facing the world, given the policies of the current US administration?
Kevin Danaher: There are three crises that characterize our current situation. One is a social crisis of growing inequality. The US population is less than 5 per cent of the world’s people, and yet we are consuming over 25 per cent of the world’s resources. Going back many decades, US foreign policy has basically been structured around maintaining that inequality. This is behind a lot of the world’s animosity toward the United States.
If you look at the governments that were overthrown — Mossadeq in Iran in 1953, Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Lamumba in the Congo, etc. — the problem that the US had with those regimes was not that they were communist. In fact, most of them were not communist. They were elected by their own people. It was that they were economic nationalists. They wanted the resources of their own country to benefit their people, rather than British Petroleum, Exxon, Chiquita Banana, etc. The main focus of US foreign policy, in both Democratic and Republican administrations, has been to keep Third World countries open to penetration by transnational corporations that want to get access to two things — the natural resources of those countries, and the labor force. Hence, the sweatshops, the opposition to trade unions, and the lack of democracy in most of the regimes that are aligned with the US government.
The second crisis is a crisis of the environment. Every biological system is in a state of either breakdown or outright collapse: the polar icecaps are melting, ocean levels are rising, our groundwater is being polluted, the topsoil is being depleted. There are many ways in which Mother Nature is saying: “No, you can’t continue doing this anymore.”
The third crisis is an emotional, moral, spiritual crisis of some people thinking that money values are more important than life values. They put greater stock in money and profit-making than in human rights and the environment. What we see on a global level is a shift away from the old paradigm that has dominated the planet for 500 years — money values, violence, “God is on my side” — to a paradigm of life values and non-violence. We are in a profound period of crisis, or opportunity. We are in a transitional phase from an old set of values that has brought us to the brink of species destruction — not just our own but hundreds of other species — to an economy and society that can be truly sustainable.

SI: How much do you attribute these crises to the current US administration’s policies? Or are these just systemic problems that are getting worse?
KD: It is both. Preceding the Bush administration, there were decades of Republican and Democratic administrations. There are significant differences between the two parties. I do not want to minimize the differences on women’s rights, freedom of speech, the environment, etc. But they are both corporate parties. They are both beholden to the same transnational corporations that have polluted the environment, moved our factories abroad, outsourced high tech jobs to Asia.
Bush has exacerbated the situation. We are killing people by the thousands in Iraq. That is a supreme act of irresponsibility. And we will be held accountable by history and by the people in the rest of the world. If one-hundreth of 1 per cent of the Muslims in the world get so angry that they decide to come here and do some violent act, that is quite a few people. The US has been shooting rockets into the cemetery in Najaf, which is one of the most sacred cemeteries in all of Shiite Islam. You cannot do that and not pay a price down the road. What the Bush administration is doing is very dangerous.

SI: And these policies also cause an increase in terrorism.
KD: Most certainly. My main area of research and writing over the past 25 years has been US foreign policy. It has been central to US foreign policy to prevent any form of economic nationalism. If you block nonviolent forms of nationalism, eventually people will go to violent forms. If you look at the Vietnamese revolution, the struggle of the ANC in South Africa, these movements did not go to violence right away. It took them decades of peaceful protest being suppressed, often with US weapons, by military trained by the US, when then they finally said: “There’s no other alternative.” If you look at the Palestinians, Hamas started as a social welfare organization running healthcare and daycare centers. They did not go to violence right away. They eventually went to violence out of frustration. I do not think there is any excuse for violence, but it explains the reason why. If you study the history of these movements, the constant US opposition to them, and the US funding in support of dictatorships, you understand the genesis of these violent policies.
Also, look at the structure of US military power. We have 14 aircraft carrier task forces. And they are not parked in Boston harbor. An aircraft carrier is not a defensive weapon. It is about power projection. The overwhelming majority of US military forces are not based in the US; they are abroad. We have over 300 major military bases outside this country. If everybody operated like that, the world would be destroyed. And, in fact, the US economy is being destroyed because, as with all previous empires, in the ascendant phase you can perhaps justify spending all this money on the military because you are taking in money. Now, it is costing us more than it brings in and it is bankrupting the nation economically and politically. Everybody hates us in the world. And morally, we are not legitimate anymore in the world.

SI: What dangers do the current administration’s policies have for the US?
KD: They have bankrupted our country. The budget deficit this year will be about $400 billion. It is roughly equal to the Pentagon’s budget. The US federal debt, the accumulation of each year’s budget deficit, is over $7 trillion. That is more than three times the size of all Third World government debt combined. It amounts to spending our grandchildren’s money. We have reached into the future to pull money back to the present and spend it. There is going to be a crisis in 10, 20, or 30 years down the road, maybe even sooner, when the economy is going to collapse. An increasing portion of the federal government debt is owned by the Chinese government, the Japanese government, British corporations, Dutch corporations. If they all of a sudden decide that the US economy and the US dollar are not a good bet and start dumping that debt, we could see a collapse of the dollar and a serious financial crisis in the US economy.

SI: What do we do to get back on track? What do you recommend in terms of moving us in the right direction?
KD: You hear people say: “I’m only one person. What can I do?” We are all only one person, and that is why it is only when we work together that we can change these things. That is why women have the right to vote in the US. It is why we overcame slavery. It is because people realize the common vision and unite. We have to get out of the individualist notion that each of us is an isolated bag of skin. We need to reach out to each other, combine forces, and carry out this paradigm shift which is going to happen. It is just a question of how soon we can make it happen and how much we can minimize the suffering in the meantime.
As an example, whether you look at corruption of government, pollution of the environment, the take-over of the public airways, you find corporate power behind it. It is only when the citizens, the workers, mass themselves in mobilizing campaigns to pressure these companies, that we can force them to change their policies. We also need a constitutional amendment that says a corporation is not a human being. We need separation of corporations and the state, just like we have separation of church and state. We need the end of corporate welfare and campaign financing by corporations.
If you want to do something to help your community and at the same time fight imperialism, focus on the local green economy. The transnational corporations are not rooted in place. That is the source of their economic muscle. They can move their jobs abroad to a low-wage country, and they also destroy the environment. The opposite of that is the locally rooted, locally grown, green economy, an economy based on trying to make our economic operations in harmony with nature instead of destroying nature.

SI: Which means purchasing goods from the local green economy whenever possible?
KD: Exactly. And looking for the fair trade certified label. Buying fair trade products allows us to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to the farmers in the global south.
Every section on our website and in our newsletter has a section letting you know what you can do, a very simple act that you can take, combined with thousands of other people, that will have an impact.

For more information: www.globalexchange.org

The voice of the people

In this section Share International focuses on the rising tide of people power which will continue to swell until, under Maitreya’s wise guidance, the people will lead their leaders into the creation of a just society in which the rights and needs of all are recognized and met.

Germany protests over “legalized poverty”

Tens of thousands of Germans have been demonstrating against cuts in social benefits for the unemployed and those reliant on state funding.
The protests, modelled on the 1989 “Monday demonstrations” in the former East Germany which helped to bring down the Berlin Wall, began in August in Magdeburg, in eastern Germany where unemployment is running at 18.5 per cent. Protests have expanded to include tens of thousands in major cities and more than 140 towns across the country.
Long-term unemployment benefits are to be reduced to the level of social welfare payments — a drastic cut in income for many families — and the unemployed will be forced to take any job.
The government plans to create 600,000 public sector ‘one-euro-jobs’ paying one euro per hour, which the long-term unemployed will be forced to take, supplementing the low income by cashing in life insurance policies and savings.
Organisers of the demonstrations — a loose alliance of citizens’ groups calling themselves a “social forum” — hope to force the government to rescind the new law. The government has made some concessions over the timing of the introduction of the scheme, but insists there will be no further changes.
The protesters represent a cross-section of the population — young people, pensioners and the unemployed, many workers, self-employed people and entire families vulnerable to the new legislation have joined the outcry. Marching under banners proclaiming “We are the people”, many are angry at what they see as Chancellor Schröder’s betrayal of his promises to provide jobs and social justice, and accuse the government of “legalizing poverty”.
Christa Czech, an elderly woman from Leipzig who in 2003 lodged a formal complaint with the federal government, was the last to address the Leipzig rally. “One-quarter of all Germans share three-quarters of all financial means. Three-quarters of all Germans, on the other hand, have to share between themselves the remaining quarter. Before the last national elections, the SPD promised us more social justice. What remains of that? Empty phrases!” Warning that the reduced benefits would drive people into bitter poverty and despair, she said that top earners, “without exception”, should be forced to help finance Germany’s welfare system.
(Source: The Telegraph, BBC, UK; www.wsws.org)

US rallies against Bush Agenda

Opposition to the Bush Agenda and the war on Iraq has prompted the largest-ever protest to be held during a political convention in the USA. On 29 August 2004, while protest rallies were held in 50 cities and towns across the US, over half-a-million demonstrators from across America converged on New York City to march past Madison Square Garden where the Republican National Convention was being held.
People had come “from every sector of society and every possible background”, said Leslie Cagan, national co-ordinator of march organizers United for Peace and Justice, a non-partisan anti-war coalition of more that 800 groups. “We had to shine a spotlight on the issues that the Republicans won’t bring to the stage at their convention — the ongoing chaos and violence in Iraq, the unprecedented roll-back of environmental protections, the assault on a woman’s right to choose and so many other issues that Americans deeply care about.”
Actors, activists, film-makers, political figures and community leaders headed the march alongside Iraq war veterans, September 11 families and military families displaying photographs of sons and daughters lost in the war. Anti-war groups, young people, unions, immigrants’ rights groups and civil rights organizations carried banners declaring “NO!” from Union Square to Central Park, where thousands continued their peaceful and festive demonstration, transforming the area into a ‘People’s Park’ despite the denial of a rally permit by Republican Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg.
Tanya Mayo, 36, national organizer of anti-war group Not In Our Name, said that the protest had shown that not all Americans agree with Bush, and underlined the need for dissenters to speak out. “People are recognizing they need to vote with their feet,” she said. “They need to be out in the streets.”
Activists and attorneys criticized the New York City police and Secret Service for acting with unnecessary violence and carrying out mass arrests — more than 1,800 people were arrested during the protests. New York college student Kim Sue, 19, described her 24 hours in custody as “utter hell”, but added: “I would do it again in a heartbeat, because 8,000 people a day are dying and they don’t have the same access to the media. Their voices are silent, and it’s my responsibility.” (Source: www.notinourname.net; USA Today, USA)

Palestine announces peaceful intifada

Palestinian leaders have announced a three-point programme of non-violent resistance to Israel’s domination of the regional agenda.
PLO and Fatah leaders, in consultation with Islamist groups, plan to make Israel allow Palestinian elections, to lead mass protests against the separation barrier, and take Israel to the international courts. Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority, has agreed to municipal elections as a precursor to national elections.
“Israel acts as if there is no international community and no Palestinian people. I don’t believe they can sustain that,” said Kadoua Fares, member of the Palestinian legislative council. “I believe the Palestinians should work towards a massive popular intifada.”
A campaign to register voters — including in East Jerusalem, where resistance to Palestinian elections is anticipated from the Israeli authorities — is expected to end on 7 October 2004. If necessary, the Palestinians will use clandestine methods to register voters, and will challenge in the international arena any Israeli attempts to block the Palestinian democratic process.
Leading figures say municipal elections would be relatively easy to run, but national elections would require agreement from Israel. A minimum of freedom of movement for candidates, to allow voting and collecting votes and an Israeli pull-out, even if temporary, is needed. They also appealed to the international community to help.
Alongside the election strategy, peaceful mass demonstrations will continue to focus attention on Israel’s separation barrier, recently condemned as illegal by the International Court of Justice. Following this success, the Palestinians will soon be petitioning the Court on Israel’s maltreatment of prisoners.
(Source: The Guardian, BBC, UK)

Arafat “brave enough to admit mistakes”

Following a month of demonstrations against corruption in the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat has admitted he has made mistakes, and vowed to end corruption.
Israeli attacks and the closure of areas within the Palestinian Authority’s control have weakened authority in the region and allowed corruption and inefficiency to thrive. Protests which began in Gaza with kidnappings and demonstrations against Mr Arafat’s appointees spread to the West Bank, with protestors ranging from gunmen to elite Palestinian politicians.
In a long speech to the Palestinian legislative council, Mr Arafat admitted personal and institutional failures, and offered his support to Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, who has recently threatened to resign over his inability to achieve anything due to being allowed insufficient powers.
“We have to be brave enough to admit mistakes,” said Mr Arafat. “There were wrong practices in some institutions, and some misused their positions. There were not enough efforts to strengthen the rule of law, the independence of the judicial institutions ... But we have begun measures to solve this. There is nobody immune from mistakes, starting from me on down. Even prophets committed mistakes.” He added: “We must open the doors wide for our young generation to seize the opportunity to serve our people.”
(Source: The Guardian, UK)

Facts and forecasts

Over the years, Share International has printed articles outlining Maitreya’s expectations concerning political, social, environmental and spiritual changes in the world, as presented to us by one of Maitreya’s associates in the London community in which He lives. From time to time, both Benjamin Creme and his Master have shared their prognosis of future developments. In this section, “Facts and forecasts”, our staff monitors recent news, events and comments bearing on these insights.

Cold fusion reviewed

“There is a new technology — the cold fusion process — that is in the offing. I would say that in a very few years from now cold
fusion will produce a rather large proportion of the earth’s energy needs. But after that there is another technology which Maitreya calls the Technology of Light which will provide unlimited energy for all our needs.” (Maitreya’s Mission, Volume Three)
Despite being dismissed as unfeasible and a non-starter, cold fusion has been reviewed recently. A small group of scientists has continued work on cold fusion since it was rejected some years ago, and they say their figures unambiguously verify the results of the original experiment in 1989, showing that energy can be generated simply by running an electrical current through a jar of water.
In 2003 the scientists requested a review of their work and brought it to the attention of the US Department of Energy (DOE). Now, a year on, the department has agreed to investigate their claims.
The fusion process works by releasing energy as a by-product of combining hydrogen atoms. In March 1989, two chemists at the University of Utah, B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, announced the successful generation of fusion in a tabletop experiment using two palladium electrodes and a jar of heavy water, where the water molecules contain deuterium, a heavier version of hydrogen. Other scientists tried to reproduce the experiment, but found the effects unreliable. With current theories unable to explain cold fusion, these early inconsistent results convinced most scientists that cold fusion had not occurred.
Research is at too early a stage to determine whether cold fusion will provide a cheap and abundant source of energy, said Peter Hagelstein, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but nevertheless he believes cold fusion has the potential for commercial energy production.
(Source: The New York Times, USA; International Herald Tribune, France)

Sun power a reality in seven years

A team of Australian scientists predict that we are only seven years away from being able to harness the sun’s power to provide almost unlimited energy supplies. The team is thought to be the most advanced in developing the technology, and plan to use a technique which will harvest energy from the sun’s rays to produce hydrogen fuel from water. It would then be a simple engineering procedure to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants.
The energy source would be the cheapest, cleanest and most abundant ever developed, the main by-products being oxygen and water. Professor Janusz Nowotny, who with professor Chris Sorrell is leading a solar hydrogen research project at the University of New South Wales Centre for Materials and Energy Conversion, claims: “This is potentially huge, with a market the size of all the existing markets for coal, oil and gas combined.... It’s been a dream of many people for a long time to develop it and it’s exciting to know that is now within such close reach.”
(Source: www.spacedaily.com; The Guardian, UK)