The good news on this forest issue is that Alberto Fernandez, the chief of cabinet, decided that it is necessary to address the law to protect the forests in Parliament in February  due to the massive  e-mails and phone calls that he has received lately.  Yes! Thank you to all the ones who signed this petition for helping to push this forward. I cannot stress how important this is !!!! Making phone-calls, sending e-mails or signing petitions can have a great impact!
   However, this is just the start of the success. We still need to do more! You can write to those deputies by sending them the same message from that petition that you signed. Their e-mails are on my profile. Those deputies are the ones who will try to modify the law or will vote against it because of the greed of their own pockets at the expense of  the forests, the planet, the animals and , of course, the communities whose survival depends on the forest. It is REALLY important to pass this law ASAP in order to stop this destruction.

   I sent the petition I created to  a journalist  and she wrote an excellent article about a community who is going to be left homeless if they allow the destruction of the forests in that area because  the government does not ackowledge their rights over the land. This irresponsible destruction can go really far!
   
    Last but not least, I want to let you know that Greenpeace Argentina is organizing a virtual campaign, so we can send a picture of ourselves holding a  sign that says : forest law now! , and they will use all the pictures to hang on the walls where the deputies will be discussing the law. This is done to show our massve support !
    If you are interested in taking part I will give you the link to the Greenpeace website and you can take part!      
                              http://www.greenpeace.org.ar/guardianes/form.php

  Please, contact me if you need any help with this!

     Thanks and congratulations for what we have achieved together so far!
  
 The world is full of possibilities... just give yourself permission to create a new reality...

Galia

        
   

Namaste...

 I have this new idea of posting petitions under the ideas link, so if you are willling to help to make a difference in this crazy world it will not take too long! You can inspire others with your thoughts and make people get new perspectives of reality when signing some of those petitions! Be inspired! Be the change! Let me know of more petitions and actions!
  I will be adding many more soon. 
  By the way, did you know about this? You may be willing to  contact Amazon as well. I did today.
Please read!

Did you know that Amazon.com is peddling materials that are both illegal and cruel to animals? It's true: Amazon.com is selling materials that promote cockfighting and dogfighting, and The Humane Society of the United States has been pressuring the company to remove these materials for many months.

Yesterday, the online retail giant told us that two dogfighting DVDs would be pulled from the site. This is a win for the dogs abused and killed in dogfights, but in the past Amazon.com has removed similar videos only to offer them for sale again later.

Amazon.com must make a clear commitment to keeping all promotions of illegal animal fighting off their virtual shelves.

Now, Amazon.com must also cease its unsavory profiteering from The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior, magazines that sell illegal animal-fighting paraphernalia and call attention to cockfighting venues. These magazines are the glue that holds together the criminal cockfighting industry in this country, and Amazon.com is their main internet subscription tool.

Today, please join us in telling Amazon.com that it's time for a zero-tolerance policy against the violent spectacle of animal fighting for human amusement. Call Amazon.com right now at 206-266-1000 and demand that they stop collecting blood money from this exploitation of animals.

This is not an issue of freedom of speech or materials that are merely offensive, although they are that. The facts are clear: Interstate distribution of materials that promote animal fighting is a violation of federal law. This week, The HSUS filed suit against Amazon.com and its suppliers to uphold that law.

Tell Amazon that honorable retailers must refrain from profiting from criminal activities.

You can also use Amazon.com's web form to make your point. Then, please let us know you called and ask your friends and family to make the call against animal fighting, too.

Thank you for taking action and for all you do for animals.

Sincerely,

Wayne Pacelle
President & CEO
The Humane Society of the United States

It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects us all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

 Thank you for your inspirational, music, Artist X

I hope you will continue this marvellous work, bringing peace and happiness to whoever listens. As I said in your pod, I am enchanted by it!

   This week the deputies will address the law to protect forests, so I will let you know the outcome of this as soon as I know it myself!
    
   Anyone who did not sign this petition, consider doing so before it's too late, or copy and paste it amd e-mail the content to the list of deputies that appear in my profile.
     http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/227554852?z00m=9412446      

    Love, peace and inspiration ! I write all this while I listen to Artist''s X music... wow!It is just amazing! http://www.playmysongforward.com/
   
Galia

 Strength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from an indomitable will.   


 The best and the most solid work was done in the wilderness of minority.  
 
 In every great cause it is not the number of fighters that counts, but it is the quality of which they are made that becomes the deciding factor. The greatest prophets, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Mahommed-they all stood alone... But they had living faith in themselves and their God, and believing as they did that God was on their side, they never felt lonely.       

   A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.    

Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.    

To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.

    We have here (in Yerbada prison) learned to recognize friends among animals. We have a cat who is a revelation. And if we had vision enough, we should appreciate the language of trees and plants, and value their friendship.     

The example of a few true men and women if they have fully imbibed the spirit of non-violence is bound to infect the whole mass in the end. 

   Exploitation of the poor can be extinguished not by effecting the destruction of a few millionaires, but by removing the ignorance of the poor and teaching them to non-cooperate with their exploiters.That will convert the exploiters too.   

  There is no place on earth and no race, which is not capable of producing the finest types of humanity, given suitable opportunities and education. 

   We can only win over the opponent by love, never by hate. Hate is the subtlest form of violence.     

Hatred injures the hater, never the hated.    

  If light can come out of darkness, then alone can love emerge from hatred     

Mahatma Gandhi

" When I first took my position against the war in Vietnam almost every newspaper in the country criticized me. It was a low period in my life. I could hardly open a newspaper. It wasn't only White people either: it was Negroes.   As I went through this period one night I picked up an article entitled "the Children Of Vietnam" and I read it.  After reading it, I said to myself, "Never again will I be silent on an issue that is destroying the soul of our nation and destroying thousands of little children in Vietnam.

  Had I not commited myself to the principle that looking away from evil is, in effect, a condoning of it? Those who lynch, pull the trigger, point the cattle prod, or open the fire hoses, act in the name of the silent. I had to therefore speak out if I was to erase my name from the bombs which fall over North or South Vietnam, from the canisters of napalm.
  The time had come-indeed, it was past due- when I had to disavow and dissociate myself from those who in the name of peace burn, maim, kill... "  


" There is... a very obvious and facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago, there was a shining moment in that struggle . It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor-both black and white-through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the build-up in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds, or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men, and skills and money like some demonic, destruction suction tube.     So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such..."


  I remember a newsman coming to me one day and saying: "Dr King, don't you think you are going to have to change your position now because so many people are criticizing you ? And people who once had respect for you are going to lose respect for you?.And you are going to hurt the budget of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; people have cut off support. And don't you think that you have to move more in line with the administration's policy?" That was a good question, because he was asking me the question of whether I was going to think about what happens to me or what happens to truth and justice in this situation.

  On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?"  Expediency asks the questions, "Is it politic?", And Vanity comes along and asks. "Is it popular?".  But Conscience asks the question,"Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right."
Martin Luther King

 

When I say to you that greed and corporate power are a great obstacle for the protection of these argentinian forests I am not exaggerating at all.

     

  I have received an e-mail from Greenpeace stating that the deputies have POSTPONED the law to protect forests AGAIN. They did this last November and they are doing this now after our pressure.

   When I tell you that whatever we do does not seem to be enough, I don't exaggerate.

    When I tell you that these deputies are ready to respond to the interests of the corporations that benefit from this destruction even when we know that nobody benefits, I am not exaggerating.

      Communicating with politicians should be part of a healthy democracy, but when they ignore you, my question for you is: is this a true democracy?

    My guess is that we need massive pressure. We need to educate EVERYONE on this issue and they will have to listen.

   On the one hand I admit my frustration, but on the other hand I see this problem as a challenge to enhance my creativity in finding ways to ask these politicians that it is their duty to preserve these forests.

  Yes! These forests are not argentinian: these forests are part of mankind; they have to be taken care of for our future generations.

      I cannot believe that despite all the on-going devastation in Argentina , they fail to see what is causing it...

   I called the deputies who are responsible for making the decision to deal with this law ASAP.

  I had the chance to educate their secretaries, their colleagues. I talked to them and had a positive rapport... there was one deputy who had no answering machine and no person replying so that was the end of the story.

    Do not hesitate to write to them again if you can . We need to put as much pressure as possible. It can be a way of educating them and urging them to address the law tp protect the forests this month!

 However much I am at the mercy of the world I never let myself get lost by brooding over its misery. I hold firmly to the thought that each of us can do a little to bring some portion of that misery to an end...

Albert Schweitzer

(1875-1965) French philosopher and physician

My husband and I went to see this inspiring great movie this weekend: Amazing grace.

 This awesome movie shows the winding road of a stuggle towards justice: the passing of a law by the British Empire to end the slave trade.

  This is the story of a peaceful leader who helped to change the course of history. Yes, PEACEFUL! No wars were involved and he and his friends achieved the goal to change slavery into something illegal!  Was it easy? Of course not. There was intense opposition to end it from members of Parliament who were convinced that the stability of the British Empire depended on the slave trade...
  The name's hero was William Wilberforce .His best friend was William Pitt.

 This is a boost of hope. It is educational, it has a touch of humour and it is a reminder that change did not happen by chance. It happened because a group of conscientitious citizens worked to make it happen . I was able to feel their passion  and their enthusiasm, their frustrations, their whole struggle...
    I was moved when people decided to stop buying the sugar that was produced by slaves. I was outraged when the king admitted that "slavery was a disgrace for the human race but it would bring financial instability to end it abruptly" .
   William Wilberforce had to go through a lot of frustration but the outcome turned out to be good . Even after he succeeded in achieving the abolition of legal slavery  he did not stop his work  for health and education until he died in 1833.
  However, his job IS on-going. We are still working to end modern slavery...

The Amazing Change Campaign

William Wilberforce's work is far from finished. There are still an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today. Modern day slavery can come in many different forms. Entire families may work long days in rice-mills, brick kilns or on plantations. Children may be abducted and forced to fight in a rebel's army. All of the people in these examples are slaves-they cannot come and go as they please and are often beaten or threatened with violence. They have no autonomy in their day-to-day lives and deserve the right to be free.

In conjunction with the release of the film Amazing Grace, we have launched a campaign to abolish modern day slavery and allow children and adults around the world to live in freedom. Through this campaign we hope to motivate students and communities to make their mark on history by speaking out against modern day slavery.

At theamazingchange.com, you'll learn about the "two great objects" that were central to William Wilberforce's Life:

- The abolition of slavery

- The reformation of manners (society)

Visit The Amazing Change and learn more about what efforts you can take to make these two great objects a part of your life. Educate yourself by reading stories about modern day slavery, learn how to start your own Clapham Circle, and sign the petition to end modern day slavery. Here you will find all the tools you need to take action against social injustice.

 Even today we face the struggle between profits and human rights...


 
  http://www.amazinggracemovie.com/