Tuesday, November 4, 2008

President Obama choked me with tears

I was listening to NPR this morning and around 7:20 some one said that he drove quite a distance to South Carolina to witness history in making; listening to Obama on the eve of the Election Day.

I choked and I felt the tears in my eyes, the tears of Joy, I was happy to think of the prospect of America becoming a great nation once again, in those few bare seconds I was imagining prosperity knocking on every American door fulfilling the dream of millions of Americans with a Job, health and education for their children.

A sense of safety permeated through my body, getting the chills to know in a few hours the Obama presidency would be a reality. America once again will be a strong, healthy and a prosperous nation.

I was still groping to understand my feelings of joy; some one came back on NPR and said it was like “birthing”. Wow! That was my feeling, when my son Jeff and daughter Jazzie were born; holding them in my hands moments after they were born was very joyous feeling. Then a chain of events passed through my eyes, I was still driving.

I remember that very same choking when Nelson Mandela was released from Prison, as a proud Immigrant American, I cherish freedom above everything else in my life. I felt the same in November 2006 when the public rejected and purged the extremists members of my good old Republican party.


I know everything is going to be alright.

Our Nation will become the strongest nation in the world under Obama administration, our strength would come from not kicking the beehive to gather honey, when we threaten to bomb other nations, our security is compromised, the more bullying we do, the weaker we get. Thank God for Obama who believes in live and let live. The more nations we threaten the less safe we become. A stronger America is when we have fewer enemies and more friends to rally with us. Obama's approach will have us raving fans from among the community of Nations.

Our Nation will see an unprecedented focus on health; we can aspire to become the healthiest nation by making health care affordable and available to every American. It is an investment in our health my friends and not a charity as the few upside down capitalist think, when we are healthy we become productive and produce more tax revenues to our government, and our children will have greater number of school days of learning and become smarter kids. A healthy America should be our priority; it is an investment in our human capital, like the other factors of production that brings prosperity to all of us.

Our Nation's prosperity has to be sustainable. Because of our free market policy, when other nations trick us to make our products less conducive to their markets, we have to seek a balance of trade, let us sell you as much as you want, and we will buy the same from you, at least in terms of the purchasing power parity. Obama will be a tough negotiator and bring a fair balance of trade.

Our Nation will be fiscally conservative and would reflect the values of American family; living within the budget. Spend what you got and not stretching beyond our means. Bill Clinton had brought a surplus and Obama will work on rebuilding it. It was a Republican ideal once, not any more.

Our Nation had earned the respect in the community of nations for our generosity, our moral strength to stand up for the weaker nations from getting run over by the bullies. Our nation was in the forefront to do good things. We let our Administration destroy that good will, no wonder they hate our admin, I know they don’t hate us the Americans, just as we don’t hate people of other nations. Obama is going to restore all the lost love and put us on a moral high ground.


I am living in euphoria today; 

and I can relate the joy that I am feeling with so much in my life, if you do, please share with me in the comments section below.

I felt that serene joy when my Dad kissed on my forehead to say farewell when I left home

I felt that peacefulness in my mind when my wife Najma and I looked at each other in Kauai and said in unison, we need to move here, something we had never wanted to, to move;

I felt the same bliss when two hundred fifty people at the Unity Day on September 7th, 2008 pledged to speak up whenever they see a wrong in the society;

I felt awesome when Mahatma Gandhi appeared in my dream and said “son you have a lot of work to do”;

I felt faith in humanity when 39 individuals agreed to step up on the stage and wear a different faith for 15 minutes, not knowing what faith will be assigned to them; some of them were clergy;

I felt in heavens when MaryAnn spoke to me about building a campus for interfaith inquiry in Dallas;

I felt pureness of the gratitude when my Mom passed away, I was smiling and admiring sitting next to her body for giving the greatest lesson of my life - tying the loose ends of life and leaving the world with joy and leaving nothing for others to worry about;

I felt that joy when I greeted Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and felt the humility of this great man;

I felt sad when my Mom did not let me read the book “Eichman Killer of 6 million Jews” to protect me, and when I finally saw the Schindler’s list and felt a sense of completeness when my Muslim, Jewish and friends from 13 faiths joined me in commemorating the Holocaust to understand and share the suffering of a people, whose only fault was to believe in God in a different way”

I express my sense of gratitude at every thanksgiving day towards my first wife Ella who raised our kids with great values;

I felt very hopeful when my friend Dr. Shariff was appointed by the Prime Minister of India to study the status of minorities in India and felt the joy when his report "Sachar Report" became the standard across the world for such studies;

I felt a sense of gratitude when a limbless and armless man told me how grateful he was that he had the eyes to see, nose to smell, a tongue to taste and the ears to listen and enjoys the fresh smell of rain from the dirt.

I felt a sense of goodness in life when my daughter Jazzie returned $5 from $20 I gave her for her grades, she quietly returned with a note that she had a B and not all were A's.

I felt a sense of oneness of humanity when I hugged a man, my age, who was weeping for the loss of his parents in Holocaust;

I feel good every time when a conflict between people is mitigated and good will emerges.

Please get out and Vote for Obama.

The country has everything to gain by having this transformational catalyst that will make our nation and the world a better place to live.

One nation under God needs to be understood, it means a nation with least conflicts among her people. It is co-existence and living in harmony with different people, cultures, faiths, practices, races and ethnicities.  

Obama is the catalyst to achieve this.

Enjoy this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaibPD0658c
Farshid Amin is the first Iranian -American singer ever to perform on election night.

Enjoy this clip and pass it to all your friends who want a positive change.
This song is as old as me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF3zHvryCHo


This song is for the Subcontinentians -aka Desi's. Those who understand Urdu and Hindi and related languages.

Please share your moments when you felt this joyful or complete
God Bless America

 
SHARE YOUR BLISSFUL MOMENTS  

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer.  His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com 

Sunday, November 2, 2008

A-Z Singers of America

This is cool ! just click on the name and it will take u to the music video ..

Abba
AcDc
A rosmithAhaAir supplyAlain Barri reAlain SouchonAlanis MorissetteAlice CooperAlliageAll JareautAllman BrothersAl MartinoAmericaAmy GrantAndy WilliamsAnne MurreyAnne Ren Annie CordyAnnie lenoxArretha FranklinAve Maria

B
Bachman Turne OverdriverBarbara StreisandBeau DommageBee GeesBelleBette MidlerBilly JoelBing CrosbyBill HaleyBill IdolBlack SabbathBlue BrothersBobby DarinBobby VeeBobby VintonBob DylanBob MarleyBob SegerBoney MBon JoviBostonBreadBrenda LeeBrian AdamsBritney SpearBrooks And DunnBruce SpringteenBruno PelletierBuddy Holly

C
Carly SimonCarole KingCarpentersCat StevensC. C. R.Celine DionCesar et les romainsChantale ParyCharles AznavourCharles TrenetChicagoChristina AguiliraChristopheChuck BerryClaire LepageClaude BarzottiClaude DuboisClaude FrancoisClif RichardCompagnie CreoleConnie FrancisCranberriesCream

D
DalidaDaniel BelangerDaniel LavoieDany AubeDavid BowieDean MartinDef LeppardDepeche ModDiane DufresneDiane TellDick RiversDinah ShoreDion And The BelmontsDionne WarwickDire StraitsDixie ChicksDolly PartonDominique MichelDonald LautrecDoobie BrothersDoris DayDouble TalentDr HookDuran Duran

EEddy MitchellEdith PiafElectric LightElton JohnElvis StoryElvis PresleyEngelbert HumperdinckEnrique EglisiasEnyaErasureEric ClaptonEric LapointeEurythmicEverly Brothers
FFaith HillFats DominoFelix LeclercFernand GignacFleetwood MacFlorent PagnyFrance DamourFrance GallFrancis CabrelFrancoise HardyFrank AlamoFrank SinatraFaryl Smith
GGarouGenesisGeorges BrassensGeorges StraitG rard LeNormanGerry BouletGilbert BecaudGilles BrownGinette RenoGlen MillerGuns Nroses
HHerman HermitsHerve VillardHugues Aufray
IIron MaidenIsabelle BoulayIrvin Blais
JJacques BrelJacques DutroncJacques SalvailJames TaylorJannis JoplinJean FerratJean NicholJean Pierre FerlandJ.F. MichaelJim ReevesJimi HendrixJimmy Buffet Joe DassinJoel DenisJohn DenverJohn LenonJohnny CashJohnny FaragoJohnny HallydayJohnny MathisJohn RowlesJulie MasseJulien Clerc
KKenny RogersKevin ParentKissKool And The Gang
LLaurence JalbertLed ZeppelinLee Ann RimesLenny KravitsLes AristosLes Bel CantosLes ClasselsLes ColocsLes CompagnonsLes HoulopsLesley GoreLes LutinsLes RespectablesLes SinnersLes SultansLinda LemayLinda RonstadtLionel RichieLittle RichardLuc DeLaRocheliereLuce DufaultLuis Mariano
MMamas PapasMarcHamiltonMarie CarmenMarie Denise PelletierMarie Elaine ThibertMario PelchatMarjoMeat LoafMetallicaMichel DelpecheMichele RichardMichele TorrMichel FugainMichel LouvainMichel PagliaroMichel PolnareffMichel SardouMichel StaxMike BrantMireille MathieuMitsou
NNana MouskouriNatalie BaillargeonNat King ColeNei DiamondNeil YoungNicole MartinNino FerrerNirvanaNormand Roussy
OOasisOlivia Newton Jones
PPatricia KaasPatrick BruelPaul And PaulaPaul AnkaPaul PichePeggy LeePeter Paul MaryPetShop BoysPetula ClarkPhil CollinsPierre LalondePink Floyd
RRay CharlesRenee MartelRichard AnthonyRichard SeguinRighthouse BrothersRobbie WilliamsRobert CharleboisRock VoisineRod StewartRoger WittakerRolling StonesRosita SalvadorRoxette
SSacha DistelSalvatore AdamoSamanta FoxSantanaSerge LamaShania TwainSheilaSimon GarfunkleSonny And CherSpice GirlsStephaneSteppenwolfStingStivie WonderSupertrampSylvain CossetteSylvie Vartan
TTex LecorThe AnimalsThe BeachBoysThe Beau BrumelsThe ByrdsThe CorrsThe DriftersThe EaglesThe Four SeasonsThe HolliesThe KingsThe PlattersThe QueenThe SupremesThe WhoTino RossiTom JonesTony BennetTony Roman
U
VVanessa ParadisVan MorrissonVenga BoysVideo special
WWillie LamotheWilson PicketWithney Houston
YYesYves Montand
ZZachary RichardZz Top

50 State Flowers

http://mikeghouseforamerica.blogspot.com/2008/11/50-state-flowers.html

Be sure to watch this to the end when all the state flowers come together as one.
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=1221321706636&source=jl999

Monday, October 27, 2008

Happy Diwali - the festival of lights

http://mikeghouseforamerica.blogspot.com/2008/10/happy-diwali-festival-of-lights.html

Happy Diwali - the Festival of lights 11:32am

May this Diwali open our hearts and minds towards fellow beings, there is a real joy and freedom in it. Lighting the lamps and candles symbolically represent turning the switch of the the mind on to remove darkness and lighten up the mind to see a lot more, and to open oneself up to possibilities and embrace a whole lot more than visible. All Festivals, regardless of the religion they are affiliated with have an universal message - of oneness of humankind. Let's celebrate to that. I hope to attend many Diwali events in town, including Dinners. Next year, it will be celebrated in my home and all are welcome.

May this Diwali open our hearts and minds towards fellow beings. Happy Diwali to all. http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2008/09/spirit-of-navaratri.html

I hope to recieve blessings from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in person here in Dallas.
Maha Diwali Yagna on Diwali day 28th Oct at the Dallas convention Center.

For the first time in the USA, the Diwali Yagna will be performed in the presence of His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Yagna is an ancient method for purifying the atmosphere and enlivening the subtle laws of nature, connecting the individuals to nature in such a way that the benefits and goodwill are extended both to people there and around the world. They bring prosperity, purity, peace and harmony- the whole environment becomes lively …

The energy and vibrations emanating from all will be 1000...times more powerful. In the words of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar "The rituals will be felt in waves around the world".

This yagna is open to all, bring your friends and family and be blessed on this auspicious day of Diwali. Come and be part of this phenomenal celebration to deepen the peace in our lives and bring prosperity and abudance to all.

To find out more, visit http://www.txdiwali.org/

Contact Phone : 1-888-TX-DIWALI
Contact Email: txdiwali@aol.com
Registration url :
http://secure.artofliving.org/event_details.aspx?event_id=1758
Venue: DALLAS CONVENTION CENTER
Address: 650 S. Griffin St., Dallas, TX 75202 Map
Date & Time: Oct 28, 2008 6:00 PM

_________________________________________________--

Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouse.net
www.FirstCityHomes.net
www.FoundationforPluralism.com

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Saving the Republican Party

As Americans, we have an obligation to maintain the checks and balance in our governing system. If not, we will be re-paving the way for the mistakes we have made in the past; Putting all governance in one basket; the Republican Party.
.
Our loyalty should be to America and our Democracy first, and then perhaps to the party. Together, let's work on getting the Republican Majority at the Senate, even though some of them are ugly Republicans who supported the destruction of American economy and did not have the guts to speak out against their party, they put their Party first and America next. It will be a mistake to give all the three branches to one single party. Continue

Joel Osteen; A life changing Message

http://mikeghouseforamerica.blogspot.com/2008/10/joel-osteen-life-changing-message.html

Joel Osteen; A life changing Message

Dear friends;

I care about you and wanted you to spend thirty minutes of your time on this inspirational message.

Click this link : http://www.joelosteen.com/Pages/Index.aspx
On the left of the screen there is a picture of Joel Osteen with a message to Click a video to play.. Click # 401 Living a no excuse Life.

May you be inspired to be the best you can be. Each one of you is our own model, God created each one of you to be a unique being among the 6.5 Billion of us and you should be yourselves and not worry about being someone else. You should build on being yourselves with all the potentials you have. Be yourselves and see the difference it would make in your life in accepting and respecting the uniqueness gifted to you.

By the way Joel quotes from the Bible as that is his reference. You have the same message in your own faith. God has given his message to every one through one book or the other, or through Oral traditions. God cannot be discriminatory or partial. God wanted to make sure he did not miss any one whether you are a theist or not, you have the message to be the best you can be.

You are welcome to share the message from your tradition below in the comments.

Love ya’ll
Mike

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama


On this particular blog, I usually post my own writings. However, this particular essay is a compelling reading. With the attitudes McCain and Palin are displaying, you have to declare them losers, i.e., LOOSERS. They know they are losers and have got nothing to lose further, instead tear the other one down. When you corner some one, and when they do not have any choices, they are inclined to destroy everything while going down. Republican party needs to guard themselves from this Maverick making a mess out of their party.

I wrote the following piece warnig the Republicans, of their consequneces if they don't reign in on McCain and Palin. I hope they care and take the action. The party needs to rid of the extremists from them. http://www.mikeghouse.net/Articles/Republicans-Please-put-America-First.asp

Mike Ghouse

Op-Ed Columnist
The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama
By FRANK RICH
Published: October 11, 2008

IF you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him.

Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007, some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.

“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.

Until now. At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.

All’s fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is minor, even if Ayers’s Weather Underground history dates back to Obama’s childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational reform. But it’s not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-association game, however spurious, that’s going on here. Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.

We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.

Obama can hardly be held accountable for Ayers’s behavior 40 years ago, but at least McCain and Palin can try to take some responsibility for the behavior of their own supporters in 2008. What’s troubling here is not only the candidates’ loose inflammatory talk but also their refusal to step in promptly and strongly when someone responds to it with bloodthirsty threats in a crowded arena.

Joe Biden had it exactly right when he expressed concern last week that “a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop midsentence and turn and condemn that.” To stay silent is to pour gas on the fires.

It wasn’t always thus with McCain. In February he loudly disassociated himself from a speaker who brayed “Barack Hussein Obama” when introducing him at a rally in Ohio. Now McCain either backpedals with tardy, pro forma expressions of respect for his opponent or lets second-tier campaign underlings release boilerplate disavowals after ugly incidents like the chilling Jim Crow-era flashback last week when a Florida sheriff ranted about “Barack Hussein Obama” at a Palin rally while in full uniform.

From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.

McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani’s mocking dismissal of Obama as an “only in America” affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.

No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”

This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.

The operatives who would have Palin quote Pegler have been at it ever since. A key indicator came two weeks after the convention, when the McCain campaign ran its first ad tying Obama to the mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Rather than make its case by using a legitimate link between Fannie and Obama (or other Democratic leaders), the McCain forces chose a former Fannie executive who had no real tie to Obama or his campaign but did have a black face that could dominate the ad’s visuals.

There are no black faces high in the McCain hierarchy to object to these tactics. There hasn’t been a single black Republican governor, senator or House member in six years. This is a campaign where Palin can repeatedly declare that Alaska is “a microcosm of America” without anyone even wondering how that might be so for a state whose tiny black and Hispanic populations are each roughly one-third the national average. There are indeed so few people of color at McCain events that a black senior writer from The Tallahassee Democrat was mistakenly ejected by the Secret Service from a campaign rally in Panama City in August, even though he was standing with other reporters and showed his credentials. His only apparent infraction was to look glaringly out of place.

Could the old racial politics still be determinative? I’ve long been skeptical of the incessant press prognostications (and liberal panic) that this election will be decided by racist white men in the Rust Belt. Now even the dimmest bloviators have figured out that Americans are riveted by the color green, not black — as in money, not energy. Voters are looking for a leader who might help rescue them, not a reckless gambler whose lurching responses to the economic meltdown (a campaign “suspension,” a mortgage-buyout stunt that changes daily) are as unhinged as his wanderings around the debate stage.

To see how fast the tide is moving, just look at North Carolina. On July 4 this year — the day that the godfather of modern G.O.P. racial politics, Jesse Helms, died — The Charlotte Observer reported that strategists of both parties agreed Obama’s chances to win the state fell “between slim and none.” Today, as Charlotte reels from the implosion of Wachovia, the McCain-Obama race is a dead heat in North Carolina and Helms’s Republican successor in the Senate, Elizabeth Dole, is looking like a goner.

But we’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Columbus day-Overseas trade-religion-spices-greed

http://mikeghouseforamerica.blogspot.com/2008/10/columbus-day-overseas-trade-religion.html
Columbus Day, international trade, religion greed and spices

It was this day, some 516 years ago, Columbus (formally) found this land and the people; the Red Indians. I am pondering bits and pieces of history in a random order on this occasion. I have a few questions for us to ponder over.

It probably is a mourning day for the Native Americans whose land was robbed and cultures annihilated.

It is a day of shame in human history. All Columbus wanted to find was an alternate route to Spices in India, what followed him was individual greed to snatch the land from the natives and force their way of life opon them. The arrogance of the Europeans of that time, most of whom are civilized now, led them to force their beliefs on the natives. Jesus would not have authorized any of that violence, yet, the world allowed those missionaries to butcher the natives in the name of Jesus. Even today, it is happening, doing evil things in the name of God, these are criminal acts of over zealous individuals that need to be punished.

Columbus was commissioned to discover a new sea route in 1492, which led to formal discovery of America. At the same time, under the reign of the individual terrorists Isabella and Fernando, the Jews and Muslims were thrown into cauldrons if they refused to convert to Christianity. How ironic it is, that the evil acts were done in the name of Jesus, who preached non-voilence and love thy neighbor. why did not the clergy stop them? One should be accorded the title of clergy, Imam, Rabbi, Holiness, Pastor or Pundit when they have cleaned their hearts from hate, anger, insecurity, revenge and ill-will, if not strip the title from them, they are not fit to represent any religion.

Some of the forced conversions were also done by individual Muslims against Hindus and Individual Christians against native tribes around the world, all in the name of God, as if God had given them an authority to act in his (her or it) behalf. There is no such permission. Neither Christianity nor Islam allows any one to induce or force others to convert, you cannot make one believe against their will. The insecure individual guardians of religions have done it in the name of religion. Both Muslims and Christians need to push the "refresh button" and read their holy books, their books like all other holy books are about co-existence and living in harmony with nature and people and not creating copy cats. Individuals pretending to represent a major (that is the problem) faith have done this to others. India at one time was Buddhist; they are a tiny minority now. You can find criminal individuals representing every possible faith. No one should gloat or be arrogant that their faith is clean, which it is, but some individual in their faith have messed up somewhere.

When Holocaust was happening in the heartland of Germany in the thirties, where were the good Christians, why did they not stop them? It was not Christianity, it was individual greed and hate for the others labeled with religion or natioanlism. I assert, Religion is never the problem, it is the individual criminals who brand their acts with a religion label, and we the ugly majority of the people, allow them to label their crimes with a religion or nationalism. We need to consciously stop people from blaming religion for the acts of individuals. If we boldly punish the individuals, instead of blaming an intangible religion, we will bring justice to the world. You cannot punish a religion, it is not a body. Think about it.

Coming to this decade, if it was not for three individuals, millions of people in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been alive today. Are we, the Americans paying for our economic consequences caused by deficits through funding the war and cavalier attitudes towards not regulating the rogues? Are we to blame this on ourselves? We had a choice to stop the war that is draingin us, had we protested it strongly we would have saved millions of lives and our own collapse. May God uplift us from our present situation and give us the wisdom to punish all the individuals who inflicted this disaster on all of us.

A strong America is not the goofy idea of threatenening every one in the world and spreading ourselves thin and weak. A strong America is the wisdom of not shedding any blood, American and others, and have the nations willingly cooperate with us. What is good for America has got to be good for the world and vice-versa to make it work and make it sustainable for generations to come.

For over a millennium of recorded history till 1500 AD, "Spices" were the major commodity of trade, they called it overseas trade, now we call International trade. Prior to that Silk was a commodity traded globally, nay the word Globe did not exist then, it was flat land.

Even the Airplanes were initially used to travel "overseas". Indeed, the BA, the British Airways was called British Overseas Airways Corporation. Then there was TWA, PanAm....remember that?

The value of an item is consequently determined by its supply and demand, much of it is driven by what we want rather than our needs. Who would have thought that the Portuguese, French, English and Spaniards would have fought for spices? These were the original predominant colonizers, later on the Dutch, Belgium and others joined the quest. This generation can understand that by the wars caused for Energy resources with Oil being at its center.

Just think of the commodities that have been at the center of overseas trade and causes for destructions and wars.

Silk and spices were the original commodities after the traditional land annexations. Then Cotton became staple, Sugar was next, tobacco after that... what are the items between Tobacco and Oil?

Each one of these commodities are at the center of genocides, killings, annihilation of cultures, wars, domination, colonization and other evils primarily motivated by individual greed. Religion and business are merely labels. There is an individual behind every crime and genocide right from Abel and Cain days to today. There is an individual behind every good that happens. Should we as individual consciously contribute towards the goodness? Should be allow evil to let it ride and ultimately wrap us all in it? Should we speak up when there is injustice?

A ponderous Columbus day to ya’ll.

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing Pluralism, Interfaith, political and civic issues. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@AOL.com

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Republicans, please put America first

A majority of the Republicans are like you and I, capable of seeing another point of view, but the ones who run the party do not see the need to enlighten themselves, only God can help them. I am addressing to those principled Republicans in this essay, who are a majority. I am a Republican in my heart supporting Obama, the only hope for America. It is time for you, the good principled Republican senators, congressmen and women and all those committed to the principles of the party to wake up and rescue the party from being hijacked again by those extremists who want power devoid of republicanism. Continue