Monsanto according to Source Watch

Image found at SourceWatch.org
(A highly-respected analysis group)
go here

I wonder if the White House and the White House gardeners read this report - even the small excerpt below before allowing (inviting?)such a cozy relationship with this increasingly octopus-like corporation with tentacles around the world?

According to Source Watch:

"...Monsanto has become symbolic of the greed, arrogance, scandal and hardball business practices of many multinational corporations.

'Less well known is that Monsanto was heavily involved in the creation of the first nuclear bomb for the Manhattan Project during WWII via its facilities in Dayton, Ohio.

'The Dayton Project was headed by Charlie Thomas, Director of Monsanto's Central Research Department. He later became the company's president.

'Monsanto also operated a nuclear facility for the federal government in Miamisburg, Ohio, called the Mound Project, until the 1980s."...

"In 1967, Monsanto entered into a joint venture with IG Farben. (The) German chemical firm that was the financial core of the Hitler regime, and was the main supplier of Zyklon-B to the German government during the extermination phase of the Holocaust."

"...IG Farben was not dissolved until 2003." (quotes indicate direct wording from Source Watch) End excerpt

PRESS RELEASE: The Pakistan Peace Coalition

(PPC) condemns NATO attack inside Pakistan borders; demands withdrawal of NATO forces from the region KARACHI,

Nov 27, 2011: The Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC) has condemned the NATO forces’ deadly attack on the two military checkpoints inside Pakistan’s territory along the Pak-Afghan border, killing 25 Pakistani soldiers and injuring 13 others. The latest NATO attack is a part of a series of offensives by the NATO forces in Pakistan which has been going on since 2010. These attacks have targeted civilians as well as military personnel.

In a statement on Sunday, the PPC termed the latest aggression by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as uncalled for and a clear violation of international laws and treaties. The Coalition demanded immediate withdrawal of the NATO forces from the region while calling for an investigation into the incident by the United Nations Security Council.

“Pakistan does not fall under the ambit of the operational territory of the North
Atlantic forces and the NATO does not have the right to operate here. NATO forces’ presence in the area is a threat to the security and sovereignty of the countries of the South Asian and the Middle Eastern regions,” the statement said adding that the NATO forces have illegally occupied areas in Afghanistan and have also been interfering in the affairs of independent countries like Libya.

“Whether the NATO attack in Pakistan’s territory was intentional or accidental,
on both the conditions it is condemnable. We see it as no different from the drone attacks that have been illegally targeting our citizens for around seven years now while the perpetrators remain unaccountable and unpunished. Both these types of attacks need to be stopped and the terms of reference between various participants in the so called war on terror need to be made transparent and brought under the ambit of public accountability,” the PPC statement said. The Coalition also demanded
the US and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to pay
compensation to the deceased families.

The Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC) is a civil society initiative comprising
numerous pro-peace organizations, groups and individuals from across Pakistan to promote the common goal for de-nuclearisation and peace in South Asia.
Ends

Released by:
Shujauddin Qureshi

Senior Research Associate

Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER)

Gulshan-e-Maymar, Karachi-75340

Ph: +(92-21) 36351145-7

Fax: +(92-21) 36350345

Cell: +(92)300-3929788

URL: www.piler.org.pk

Two US practices which MUST end: Killer Drones and GMO/Monsanto "Mischief"

This photo by AFP end of January, 2011 is indicative of growing anger toward US activities in Pakistan. The following was found under this photo in Pakistan Today January 24, 2011:

PESHAWAR - Over 10,000 people held an anti-US protest in Peshawar on Sunday, calling for an immediate stop to American drone attacks in the Tribal Areas. Activists from the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) blocked a main road and staged a six-hour sit-in outside the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly.
The demonstrators chanted anti-US slogans and carried banners and placards reading "Death for America", "Stop drone attacks in Pakistan" and "No to American interference in Pakistan". One banner read: "Listen Obama, do not kill innocent Muslims". Addressing the gathering, JI chief Munawar Hassan said, "Why is the government silent on US drone attacks? These attacks are against Pakistan's interests."

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Just a quick comment for now by which to preface the following post:
Sadly, all too many in the US and elsewhere will hear, read or care about these two abhorrent involvements. Both significantly affect US lives - our relationships with nations abroad and many many innocent people in other places. There is absoultely NO reasonable humane excuse for either of these acts from hell.

So I'm posting a few key notices. ALL of us who can need to take heed and to do our small or large part to end these games of death with practices of LIFE before they end much of the good left in the world if not us, our families and our progeny (as we know existence in our shared world today.)

This is NOT at all the kind of post I like to make these days but I can't ignore recent warnings coming to me from folk I highly trust.

I predict some kind of parallel "occupation" whether virtual or nonviolently in person with groups that have caved in if not Monsanto operations themselves. After all, it is a kind of EMPIRE in cooperation with all who still want to think like an empire - whether a receiving nation being "bought out" or semi-decent companies and farmers working semi-naively merely for the sake of profit and sustainability of their own "turf".

Let's reflect on the kind of legacy we truly want to leave behind.

DRONES across the world

Congratulations to ALL nations who say to US (and other drones: NO MORE!)

Pakistan Demands US vacate Suspected Drones here

Also see the work of Kathy Kelly and other longtime peacemakers here

MONSANTO manipulates leaders around the world
internet cache

(US along with other suspected corporations and now formerly-respected groups are in bed with MONSANTO)

Research to come yet sounds like even Whole Foods (and possibly other less profitable organic-oriented groups)may be in bed with this monstrous organization!

Monsanto given absolute power over all farms and food in the US according to some SEE here

See Greg Palest on Truthout here Why is Obama deregulating GMO Crops Despite Supreme Court Injunction? see Wednesday, 23 November 2011 / TRUTH-OUT.ORG

Also find "The Unholy Alliance: Monsanto, Dupont & Obama?" /see November 2011 Huff Post and CounterPunch (also "Obama’s Big Mistake")

Instead of writing letters to Obama, maybe we should write them to his gardening wife, Michelle? Perhaps we should OCCUPY WHOLE FOODS and any other groups who succomb to such tentacles of abuse?

Anyway, problems of such magnatuve require plenty of "thinking out of the box"...

A Weaver - A Weaving (a student poem)

*
This is a poem written by a Brevard College Student - published in "Chiaroscuro"*
a collection of small pieces of art, poetry, short story, photography - just out. I found the booklet and poem in the Brevard College Library where I sometimes work.

Here it is:

I am the Weaver, I am the Woven One

By Harmony Blue Whitt

I am not white.
I am not a woman.
I am not a North Carolinian.
I am not an American.
I am not "better."

I am no one.
I am everyone.

I am human.
I am flesh.
I am bone and blood.

And I cry like you,
laugh like you,
breathe, and bleed like you.

There are no lines that physically
keep us where we are.

This is my world.
This is our world.

Our fellow humans, brothers and sisters,
are hurting.
Crying out for our hand, for our voice,
to lift up,
to heal.

I have just destroyed,
torn down,
the invisible wall
that has kept us separated
keeping us in our blissful ignorance.

There are no lines now.
No borders.

We are a Circle of holding hands.
We see all.
We feel all.
We are beautiful, dynamic, and strong.

We are One.

(photo of oriental weaving found on hubpages.com)

* CHIAROSCURO - The name of the art booklet this poem is in - is pronounced KE-AR-UH-SKYOOR-O and means: The treatment of light and shade in art to produce the illusion of depth.

Flowing Rumi Connections from South Asia

"come with me ...on a moonlit night or in a soaked Asarh monsoon...hundreds and thousands of souls...searching their lost abode from where they have been displaced...the disciples dance whole night and only sound heard is HU HUHU meaning Allahu..." (this quote is from the speech condensed below)

Blogger's Note: Most the poets mentioned here so briefly are new to me. Yet, seeing links between these great painters - with their brushes of words and soul - and other beloved poet-guides is familiar water.

My deepest understanding says, 'Yes', here again - the same journey through a sea voyage...

I am still a happy newcomer to Rumi as well. Thus, I certainly invite and hope for comments with more references and poems.

******************************

Jibananda's "Today"

Always another path you seek: today I seek no more.

I found in that void on the far shore something to hold at last --

In my own heart, own mind...

Following Jibanananda's tragic death, Kolkata's leading Bengali daily newspapers carried this above poem, a fitting epitaph for one who spent a lifetime largely in service to the arts - while searching for truth and beauty. He has been mentioned as a major Bengladeshi poet inspired by Rumi. (translation credited to poet, professor A.K. Ramanujan)

===================
RUMI VIEWED IN BENGALI SUFISTIC TRADITION
A paper/speech -- by MUSTAFA ZAMAN ABBASI begins:

"I thank Allah...,the hosts of this symposium, the UNESCO ,for this lifetime opportunity to visit beautiful Turkey for the first time and pay my respects to Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi in Konya, where he is resting for more than seven hundred years...a pilgrimage for me. (on behalf of 140 million people of Bangladesh, who regard Rumi with high esteem, as his Masnawi is read in 200000 mosques of Bangladesh.)" *

The following is a condensation of the core of this paper - which I find to be a clarifying understanding of the universal yet particular. (As well as of the other poets influenced by him. Reading this, I got a glimpse into how a lover of Rumi can be - via Rumi - a lover of birthplace yet also so wide open to others around the world.

RUMI:

He is more than a great poet, one of our pathfinders.

Mowlana can be studied from various angles by scholars assembled from far and near. As folklorist and translator of Rumi to Bengali, spoken by 230 million I may let the audience know how his message is “spread over from California to Bangladesh,” to quote a line from Anna Maria Schimmel. I chose eight poets out of hundreds to prove my point.

RUMI CLAIMED BY ALL: Rumi runs in the blood of my people. Majority who live in villages having little or no access to literacy may not have read Masnawi or diwans , but stories and teachings imparted in mosques and khanqas become so deep routed in their psyche that they easily stream down to folk traditions in such a way as Afghans would like to own Jalaluddin as Balkhi and people in and west of Turkey as Rumi...

Nazrul Islam, the rebel poet of Bengal brought Ghazal style of poetry into our literature. He eulogized Rumi, Sadi and Hafiz and brought the breeze of Tabrez in to the lush green soil of Bengal, which was already abode of a thousand rural sufi poets...

(The scholars, writers, poets and those who paraphrase are then mentioned in this paper. Some of these are: R A Nicholson, A J Arberry, Anna Marie Schimmel, William Chittick, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Coleman Barks ,Ibrahim Ganard, John Moyne, Michael Green, Philip and Manuella Dunn,Camille and Kabir Helminski and many more...)

...To me, Rumi is remembrance. To me, Rumi is living every moment, a living of joy unto giving others the joy of breath...Take any of his couplets from Dewan or Discourses or Masnawi and one could ponder on or write a volume on each one...

...Any couplet of Rumi is sweet and has the capacity to enkindle a soul willing to give it a try. MACHER TELE MACH BHAJA, a Bengali idiom meaning frying fish with oil of the fish is true of any research on Rumi. It is a sure way to a simple man to see the way of Allah. Rumi was not a prophet, he had a book though...

...If you want to know what I mean, you will come with me to a mosque in rural haor area of Sunamganj where you cannot see anything but water and the small mosque or on bank of the river Padma in Sureswar mela or in mangrove forest of the Sunderbans or in the remote maiz bhandar darbar, on a moonlit night or in a soaked Asarh monsoon . The hundreds and thousands of souls assembled here on urs melas are frantically searching their lost abode from where they have been displaced. These dances are different. With long bamboos in hand, the disciples dance whole night and only sound heard is HU HUHU meaning Allahu...

...No where in the world I have seen such exotic movements by thousand participants .

The beauty of this scenario lies further in the acceptability of all faiths in same platform, the Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims all in one forum. I do not recall any other place in the world where this sufi view of life has gained so much momentum .

Being neither an Emre, (Yunus Emre), spending forty years in devoted seclusion, nor a darbesh in a chilla for forty days,(like some present here today incognito),I did not have the opportunity to have meditation in a cave for forty years in Himalayan mountains with the sadhus, though born in that area.

But only a week of Sohbat(company) with Rumi one can be awakened.. Tawajjuh’ or gaze by the Shaikh scene changes dramatically . It is happening even today...

Hundreds of folk poets whom I met in seven decades of living in the folk festivals Melas, as they are called, recited profoundly meaningful songs with accompaniment of DOTARA and sometimes SARINDA ( an instrument of West Asian descent) and violin...

...Rumi says,I am not the author, I am the pen. Whatever he realized, mused upon, penned through, were from the Source. We sometimes run after picture presentations, sugarcoated short cut presentations, poeticity, real thing is breeze coming from Him...

One who witnessed the whirling darbesh dance, has seen only the incredible whirling, the dresses, the beautiful cap, the music, but could he enter the dance? Often not, that’s my guess. The ‘tourist’ thing has the outward Rumi. The inside thing is the Suhbat e Rumi...

Eight out of eight hundred

Fascination with Sufi spirituality of professional scholars as well as public has heightened to such an extent to produce breathtaking studies in the west. Eight out of around 800 sufi poets has been chosen to trace linkage with Rumi.

1. Shitalong Shah Fakir [1800-1889]

2. Fakir Lalon Shah [1774-1890]

3. Hasan Raja [1855-1922]

4. Jalaluddin Khan [1894-1972]

5. Abdul Halim Bayati [1930-2007]

6. Qazi Nazrul Islam [1898-1976]

7. Mansur ali [1855-1985]

8. Panju shah[1851-1914]

In translating and presenting these songs, mostly folk, I attempt to convey my deep admiration and involvement. These are poetries resembling the colored landscape with paddy fields oven like embroidered quilt, like the clouds of various shades in the monsoon sky, the bamboo flute of lost love under a kadam tree, suddenly flashes with the inner meaning of lost flutes inner cry as heard in Rumi. The folksongs of great rivers like The Padma, the Meghna, and the Jamuna merging with age long tears, sorrow and the melancholia of the Bengali people are the finest expressions of their spirituality hitherto unknown to any in the West...

Tagore’s Gitanjali’ (also connected) was a translation of 23 poems sent by W B Yeats and his friends to the Nobel Committee to fetch a Nobel Prize for literature for Tagore in 1941...(blogger, I am not sure of the connection quite yet.)...

Rumi's messages are for the ordinary. It is,simple, from beginning to the end, never complicated as someone would like to relate it now. In Masnawi we found him to be a great story teller. In the same traditions there are hundreds of Bayati (from the Russian word ‘bayat ‘meaning storyteller) in Bangladesh who have been addressing millions of rural population with simple stories. I have come across performers of ‘bichar’songs.The Bichar is evaualation or judging between two extremes like Marefat and Shariat, like War and Peace and so on...

Main theme of Rumis philosophical doctrine is Union with God. Rumi often refers to the following hadith qudsi: Neither My earth nor my heavens contain Me, but I an contained in the heart of My faithful servant. In the following passages he comments on this theme:

I gazed into my own heart

There I saw Him; He was nowhere else(diwan,p73)

O heart! we have searched from end to end: I saw in thee naught

Save the beloved..." (Diwan,p250)

========
The painting above is by one of my favorite painters Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910). A Light on the Sea, 1897. Oil on canvas. © Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

For more on the above condensed notes and poetry, dip into the following:

* Find more as I did in an intro to Bangal Poetry & Arts (as for decades celebrated both in Bangali and in the US) It's a somewhat "older paper" still popular - perhaps in need of some correction? Yet it touches upon the connection between these four poets see these notations here

JALAL UDDIN KHAN: exponent of Bhatiali from Brahmaputra

Jalaluddin Khan a famous Bhatiali singer and mystic from Brahmaputra river basin in Mymensingh, composed 2500 folksongs, some of which survived in published form namely,” Jalal geetika samagra” with 1200 Bhatiali and Murshidi songs, one is more beautiful than the other. Rumis reference is : SEARCH. As we open a computer it asks us to SEARCH. The same earning and search for Him is to be seen in this beautiful song.

TALASH KORGA AGE TARE

What are you meditating on?

Search first when you are still here .

When you are deeply in meditation (namaz),

Your body is purity

When bird inside call you to come in

...You are a pilgrim

Know hearts kaaba first

...on your heart riverbed

Six madina already exist, why do you go far?

Open your eyes and watch angels already prostrating

Jalal gives good news, water of abehayat

Is inside...go to your eternal home

======
Last yet NOT at all least, get acquainted with Allama Iqbal. What a poet - what a human being! (and so much more.)

For just a bit of introduction and links to much more, go to my other blogsite, No More Crusades for a small post in honor of Allama Iqbal here

Here's just an excerpt from some Wikipedia history notes:

The Pas Cheh Bayed Kard ai Aqwam-e-Sharq (What are we to do, O Nations of the East?) includes the poem Musafir (Traveler). Again, Iqbal depicts Rumi as a character and an exposition of the mysteries of Islamic laws and Sufi perceptions is given.

Musafir is an account of one of Iqbal's journeys to Afghanistan, in which the Pashtun people are counseled to learn the "secret of Islam" and to "build up the self" within themselves.

Iqbal's final work was the Armughan-e-Hijaz (The Gift of Hijaz), published posthumously in 1938. The first part contains quatrains in Persian, and the second part contains some poems and epigrams in Urdu. The Persian quatrains convey the impression as though the poet is travelling through the Hijaz in his imagination. Profundity of ideas and intensity of passion are the salient features of these short poems. The Urdu portion of the book contains some categorical criticism of some of the intellectual and other movements...of the modern age. (At that time.)

Talking Through the Door

Paraphrase from Rumi (largely via Coleman Barks)

You say, Who is at the door?

I say, Your servant.

You say, What do you want?

I say, To see You and bow.

You say, How long will you wait?

I say, Until you call.

We talk through the door. I claim a great love...

You say, Such claims require a witness.

I say, This longing, these tears...

You say, Who did you come with?

I say, This majestic imagination that you gave me...

What is your intention?

Friendship.

What do you want from me?

Grace...

Where can you live safely...?

In Surrender.

What will this bring you?

A peace that saves us...

Celebrate: Hundreds Escape Ferry Fire

Eid Mubarak (Arabic: عيد مبارك‎),

Persian/Urdu: عید مُبارک, Malayalam: ഈദ്‌ മുബാറക്‌, Bengali: ঈদ মোবারক)"Bayramınız mübarek olsun" Turky "Bayramınız kutlu olsun", Pashto: Akhtar de nekmregha sha, "may your festival be blessed", "kul 'am wantum bikhair", "[May] you be well every year". Taqabbalallâhu minnâ wa minkum ("[May] God accept from us and you [our fasts and deeds]"

Thursday 3rd November, 2011

Since we often hear such terrible news, we surely need to celebrate the good. In this case, it's fantastic news to hear of so many people and their families with the opportunity to serve humanity a little while longer on this beautiful planet.

Just think of ALL the people who were on that ship and their loved ones/neighbors/communities who will be able to observe with cheer this sacred time of the year! * See more below...

"Pella's passengers were mostly Egyptian expatriate workers returning home for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which starts on Sunday.:

Posted from Al Jazeera English 12:30 pm EST (New York Time)

One passenger dies while more than 1,200 reach Egyptian port unharmed on lifeboats after being rescued, officials say.

(So far) almost all of the passengers who were onboard a ferry that caught fire while sailing from the Jordanian port of Aqaba have reached the Egyptian port of Nuweiba unharmed on lifeboats, Egyptian officials say.

One unidentified Jordanian passenger died after jumping into the water in an attempt to escape the fire, while the other more than 1,200 onboard were rescued by authorities, Farid al-Sharaa, Jordanian Civil Defense spokesman, said.

Al-Sharaa said 12 passengers suffered from smoke inhalation and were taken to a Jordanian hospital. The remaining passengers were placed aboard life rafts that subsequently sailed off to Egypt, he said.

Al-Sharaa told the Associated Press news agency that the captain and his three crew members were also rescued and were on their way back to Egypt.

An Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said Pella's passengers were mostly Egyptian expatriate workers returning home for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which starts on Sunday.

Hassan Falah, deputy of director of Red Sea ports authority, told Egyptian state TV that military aircraft and ships were involved in the rescue effort and hadcontinued to try to extinguish the ferry's fire.

The vessel was about 15 nautical miles off Aqaba when the blaze erupted on Thursday, the sources said.Owned by AB maritime, Pella was also carrying five trucks.Passengers were ordered to take to life rafts, and a tug and a second ferry were dispatched from Nuweiba to join the rescue, they added.

Falah said there was extensive damage to the ferry.

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/MiddleEast or click here

* Id ul-Adha (‘Īd al-’Aḍḥá - various spellings)(Festivity after the Hajj) Arabic: عيد الأضحى‎ ‘Īd al-’Aḍḥá Also called Festival of Sacrifice, Sacrifice Feast = Observed by Muslims around the world. Islamic Commemoration of Ibrahim's (Abraham's) willingness to sacrifice his eldest son Ishmael in obedience to a command from Allah - and Ishmael's acceptance of this command. Marks the end of the Pilgrimage to sundown, and ask God for forgiveness. 2011 date November 6 to November 9 A special time for celebration, cleansing and offering gifts to the poor.