World Vision Dialogue - What YOU CAN DO TODAY

TAKING ACTION: Doing YOUR PART

Message from Costa Rica from Joshua Peace Seeker

Dear friends,

I have witnessed the world I want to live in.

I have seen what people can do to work together.

I have felt community.

It is time to follow your heart people. It is time to do what you know needs to be done to empower yourself and your community. I have taken the leap myself with this project in Coats Rica. We all have a different role to play in the revolution. So lets all make sure we do our part the way we can. Start today in fact.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
If you want to stop playing in the George Bush game, STOP. Get active right now with some local food production. This summer with the cost of food and fuel so high is a great time to start. Look into a Community Supported Agriculture project in your town. Buy a share of a farm and help the farmers produce local, organic foods. Just one step, but a huge step, towards freeing yourself.

Anyone who wants to learn and or teach how to get back to a better balance, please come visit our farm in Costa Rica.

Help us rebuild the forests.

www.verdenergia.org

Peace,

Joshua Hughes
VerdEnergia Pacifica de Lanas Kai
Costa Rica

IRAN: How can we allow another WAR?

Message from Costa Rica from Joshua Peace Seeker

Dear Friends,

The U.S. government is gearing up to attack Iran.

We simply cannot allow them destroy another sovereign country that has done nothing to harm the U.S.
This video came out about 9 months ago. You may have seen it, but take another look. (Unfortunately, the statistics it quoted back then are sadly have greatly increased.

http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html?

Please also review some updated statistics below. We need to take every action we can and speak to everyone we know to stop the horror and terror our country is inflicting.

No time to hope it will not happen.
The train is leaving the station.?  All aboard.

2,974 people died from attacks on 9-11
since then...

Numbers with a human face and human impact to consider...

In Iraq and Afghanistan:
4,858 American and coalition soldiers killed
55,840 American and coalition soldiers seriously wounded
30,000 Iraqi soldiers killed
90,000 seriously wounded
785,957 IRAQI CIVILIANS KILLED
1,414,723 IRAQI CIVILIANS SERIOUSLY INJURED

Source:
http://icasualties.org/oif
http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html

War cost in Afghanistan, Iraq - $2.4 trillion in next decade
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/331905.htm

$8,000.00 for every man, woman, child and infant in the U.S.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html

War Costing $720 Million Each Day - $500,000.00 a minute.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102074.html

Peace,

Joshua Hughes

VerdEnergia Pacifica de Lanas Kai
Costa Rica

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.

~Rosa Luxemburg

Re-foresting and Carbon Trading Program: Changing the world one action at a time

Message from COSTA RICA from Joshua Peace Seeker

Hola,
I hope all is well with you and your families. I have a few minutes in town were I can get online and I excited to share with you. We have come a long way at our farm in a short time. We have finished one house and we are starting to set up our organic gardens now. A LOT OF WORK. But it is very rewarding. The hardest part of this change is being far from so many loved ones. However we are making great friends with our whole new community here. I am learning Spanish quickly. My daughter is doing wonderful with this culture. She is rapidly learning Spanish.

We have planted over 300 trees in our re-foresting and carbon trading program. As people come to visit, we are having the best connections with everyone one of them.We are sowing the seeds of peace on a deep level with people. Without the noise of the U.S.A. for a few days people can really think.

Three LESSONS LEARNED SO FAR...
1. One must feel the world. Seeing it on TV or reading about other cultures is not enough.
2. Build something! From a desk to a garden, it is very rewarding to feel even a little self sufficient in todays world.
3. We are connected. All peoples are similar when you try to communicate on a heart level.

...almost forgot, there is a fourth lession, roosters are loud, EARLY!

I wish you all well and I will write again soon. If you want information; leave comments here. I will respond.

Peace,

Joshua Hughes

VerdEnergia Pacifica de Lanas Kai
Costa Rica

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.

~Rosa Luxemburg

ECO FARMING-REFORESTING: LIFE in a NEW DIRECTION

Coming to you from rom Costa Rica...

As I stepped on a plane to leave The USA for a while I felt very sad. I found myself crying on and off for most of the flight to Costa Rica. I realized that my desire to do something new and different in a new country is a big step. I really struggle each day while I am participating in the war machine. However I truly love the people in my tribe. I truly love my neighbors in the USA.

My life is leading me into a new direction, one of planting seeds. Both in the ground and in peoples hearts. Many people I am meeting want to chat about why I left. As I try to explain I feel the need to not be negative about things. Their are so many reasons I am here but I am trying to talk and walk into light, not away from darkness.

I just started reading a new book by Thich Nhat Hanh called Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community and the World. I hope you find time to read it. He says both negative and positive feelings are just seeds planted deep in our hearts. What I feel for me is that the culture in the USA was watering and tending to the negative seeds. The weeds can overtake the fruit trees when they get all of the water.

The world is a small place and I know that each person must find how they can make it more peaceful. All I ask of anyone is to try and create peace, right now and every minute from now on. I have been blown away daily at how manifestation works in my life. After Burningman this year my tribe put ourselves into action. This eco farm and reforesting project has been molded from dreams. All you have to do is start doing what you have a passion for and things will come out good.

I read this quote today and it made me smile:

"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains."
~Rosa Luxemburg

Lets start moving and motivating ourselves to break those chains.

Peace and Love,

JoshuaPeaceSeeker

FOOD and OIL: Do Your Part!

The first --- and what seems to be the hardest step in my actions to help people --- is just to open peoples' hearts to the truth about most of the common everyday things people do to work against the poor. Several thoughts come to mind:

Feeding people through homeless programs, food drives and other avenues is great, but to me, it is like putting a band-aid over your oil light in your car.

You still need to change the oil!

When we can truly stop being such a part of the problem with our personal choices, we WILL be making a huge difference. Oh, I love to help those who need food get it. Dealing with the systems this society creates is necessary while you are trying to cure the sickness.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY? Do more!

In all of the talk about what we can do to help. What have you done lately to help feed people that need it? I got my company to donate some of their services to the public for donation to the food bank. We raised thousands of pounds of food two weeks ago. And last month we raised $1,400.00 in one afternoon!

You can make a big difference in changing your behavior and using your creativity to find ways to help others, while we work to change the systems that work against the good of all.

Joshua Peace Seeker

France Shows the Way

I wanted to share this with you. It is a wake-up call for all of us to rethink and re-evaluate the world we live in and demonstrates how our actions can be a catalyst for change.

Joshua Peace Seeker

France Shows the Way

In a recent Newsweek column economist Robert Samuelson mocked the protests by French workers and youth against the proposed youth employment law known as the CPE or (what the protesters prefer to call) the Kleenex law. Samuelson, who seems to accept the aforementioned supremacy of the neoliberal marketplace (and its inevitable victory over all), wrote: "the student protesters in France think that if they march long enough...they can make the future go away. No such luck." He continued, enumerating the various global capitalist arguments against the so-called welfare state and its economic inviability in today's modern world. According to this mindset. the decision by many governments to dismantle their systems of national health care, public education, subsidized housing, and old age security is not a matter of choice, but one of necessity. If such cuts are not made, say the cuts' proponents, there will be no future.

Of course, this is simply not true. What this mindset's adherents really mean is that maintaining the current systems of health, education and general welfare for the general population would require bucking the system of international capitalist accumulation and profiteering. It would mean that all of that money being made by so very few corporations and banks would have to be put back into the various national economies from which it has been taken. The entire international economic system of the past sixty years would have to be re-examined and redesigned. In short, new choices would have to be made. Choices that put people, not profit first. Choices that would provide decent work for all of those wishing to work. This is what the French youth and workers are telling their government and the corporations that it kowtows to. This is what the last decade of protests against the WTO and the rest of the international economic system have been about. Poverty and war are not inevitable. Indeed, they are part of the reason why people leave their countries in the southern hemisphere to work in the northern one. On the other side of that coin, they are also underneath the reason nativist elements want to send immigrants back to their home countries and lock down the borders. The economics of neo-imperialism force the logic of the dollar on them all., causing the breakup of families and the growth of unreasonable fears. Fears that serve the interests of the financial masters behind it all. While immigration is certainly part of the natural evolution of human history, the economics of global capital have certainly forced many to leave the places they prefer to live. A system thtat pur people first would either leave those people alone or create good jobs where they live, not where capital goes.

The protests against the job law, the WTO and IMF, and totalitarian immigration laws are the results of conscious choices made by a relatively small number of the earth's inhabitants. The protests in France are a wake up call to all of us. It's time we started making our own choices. Because they are bound by their need for profit, the masters of capital have proven that they are incapable of doing so. A French student in Paris stated the situation quite clearly: "You can't treat people like slaves. Giving all the power to the bosses is going too far." (Reuters 3/28/06)

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso.

What is my role?

The spin on the news from the U.S. government is always trying to sound positive.  When I counter peoples take on the policy decisions Bush makes, I am told I am just trying to find the negative.  When 30,000 children die each day from preventable issues I don’t care if I sound “negative”.  It is not negative to see and accept reality.  If it seems negative, we should fix the problems, not kill the messanger.

Unraveling the mess of information can be a daunting task.  Each and every one of us does not have the time to even begin to learn everything that needs to be done to heal our society and planet.  Change requires each of us doing what we can.  From a construction worker to an executive we each play a roll.  Make the best environmental decision you can with each project.  Push your management to end unfair or unclean acts.  If you are in mangament, stop letting profit be the only thing you think about.  Building a strong community is worth a lot more than your next year end bonus.

I have found myself compromising my beliefs more the older  I get, but each day I am trying to  reinvent myself.  You can do it too.  It is all just a decision. 

Joshuapeaceseeker Hughes

A Year to Change Your Consciousness

There are several things on my mind that I would like to talk with you about again. First, I feel a momentum in peace movement that I not only want to happen, but is necessary to sustain our lives. Secondly, I believe helping people learn how to economically convert their cars to bio diesel or how to sustain community farms are progressive steps in the right direction. What I’ve learned is that with everyday actions, education and honesty in business practices, we can start the healing process the planet needs. I look forward to continuing to talk with you about practical ideas for WHAT YOU CAN DO as an individual.

Here are three ideas to stimulate your thinking:

1. Recently, I had an opportunity to participate in a personal conversation with John Perkins, author of the bestselling book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. This book really touched me. Last year, after reading his book, I wrote, "Personal responsibility is my theme this year. I love how Mr. Perkins takes the blame. I take the blame as well. Everything I do to feed the machine has to stop. I have recently pulled all of my retirement from any companies that have to do with war or oil. I have also been investing in my home to reduce my own dependence on resources." I've made many changes in my life since then. Several members of the Global Dialogue Center community had a chance to talk with John Perkins about issues that were on our minds now a year later. Two things --- I hope you'll listen and be inspired to read the book and share it with your friends. It is truly a wake-up call for everyone. http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/johnperkins

2. I personally try to break down the walls of country or family or next door. When I over-identified with my country it got me into trouble. I started to fear others. I wanted my side to"win". The only way any of us win is if all of us win.

3. One of the ways I try to help change things is by changing my desires. I do not need the next greatest T.V. or car. I do not need to keep filling my life with debt and plastic! The getting arrested part is just a way to help open others eyes.

Peace,

Joshuapeaceseeker Hughes

My vision of cities is one that is green and edible

My family is part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Project. We buy a share of a 40 acre organic farm in the spring. Each Saturday from June through November we get a huge box of fresh veggies. Over 40 different kinds of fruits and veggies through out the year. It was a great deal, it averaged $21.50 per week for what would have cost $60.00 at a organic store. The farmers are protected financially when we come togather and fund them. They can focus on the farming this way and we can help harvest any time we want. Which also saves us money on the CSA total cost. Check it out here: http://www.gatheringtogetherfarm.com

Peace,
Joshua

Stop the War

What can we do to stop this war?  I met with Congressman Brian Baird from Washington State recently.  He is just as wishy washy about what the causes of the war are as Bush and co.  Our leaders are not going to stop this war.  They are all beholden to war because they take money from the corporations that build the war machine. 

I am going to spend a lot more energy this election year helping The Green party.  We must reach out to our friends about what their vote does mean.  I know many think that casting a vote does not matter, and they may be right, but we can show the major parties that they can not count on us to keep voting for the lesser of two evils.  Or as I like to call them, the evil of two lessers.

Please donate some time or money to a independent or progressive party candidate.  Any ideas on how to help?  Anything anyone has done to help local candidates win please let me know.