TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL TOPS 118,000
The death toll from Sunday's tsunamis in Asia has jumped to over 118,000 with Indonesia reporting nearly 80,000 people killed in that country alone...
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food for thought from "The Buddhist Conception of Immanence"
by Christmas Humphreys
from an Address to the World Congress of Faith (October 1964)
"There is no death. There is only the dissolution of the form in which some aspect or ray of the one Life has until that moment manifested. Life outlives the form and breaks it by its very power. You must realize that we die, not from want of life but from too much of it, because the form can no longer contain the one, unbreakable, eternal, timeless Life. Life breaks that form and moves on. It can no longer use that form. That form is abandoned but Life goes on, and that Life or Spirit is the manifestation of the force which the Indians call just THAT or Para-Brahman, which the Buddhist calls the Unborn, Unoriginated, Unformed; all names are useless. But in every single 'thing' there is something of this Life, or that thing would not be there. When Life passes on to its own high purposes, to create and use and finally wear out still other forms, that form can be put into the dustbin or the incinerator or the crematorium. It is finished and has had its day. But Life goes on."
.....
the Chinese symbol for "Crisis" is composed of two symbols:
"Danger" & "Opportunity"
...
AID can be DANGEROUS when administered by the wrong hands...
Example #1:
For 30 years the Indonesian military has been waging a brutal war of suppression against the people of the Aceh region, where separatists have been attempting to secede from Indonesia and create their own state. The Aceh province was the hardest hit by the tsunamis this past week, and the Indonesian military has commandeered the relief effort in the province. Given the Indonesian military's history of conducting brutal campaigns against its own people, this is highly questionable... The Indonesian army is patently guilty of extra-judicial killings, the widespread use of torture, and has been linked to the selective assassination of politicians, subversive priests, as well as professors & teachers who resisted the oppressive policies of the Suhuarto government and its successors.
For more information:
http://acehnet.tripod.com/military.htm
For information on the GENOCIDE the Indonesian military conducted in East Timor:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Asia/GenocideEastTimor_Z.html
The nature of AID requires a brief discussion
You cannot just send money without understanding the REPERCUSSIONS...
WHO ARE YOU REALLY HELPING?
Example #2:
In 1991 in Bangladesh, a cyclone killed 138,000 people.
The international relief efforts were immense and elaborate.
Assorted Bengali con men immediately descended on afflicted scenes:
hankering for free food, homes, & cash from hapless US Marines...
this is no joke:
the beggar Kings & pimps from across the nation
organized their friends and went looking for hard donations
A fresh start from sympathetic but clueless international troops
Moral of the Story:
RELIEF that actually works comes from NGO's with ROOTS...
Organizations already established in the afflicted communities
are far better equipped to navigate the local criminals
who arrive sensing lucrative opportunities
Corruption plagues any endeavor
where vast sums of money are collected:
make sure your compassion is not misdirected...
every group has an Agenda...
Pick a charity:
http://www.interaction.org/sasia/index.html#Details
I choose CARE
Cooperative for Assistance & Relief Everywhere
they know what they're doing cause they've long been there...
