The World Peace Diet

Newspaper Article: "Speakers coming to town with message about peace, diet"

By STEPHANIE FOSNIGHT Contributor

Will and Madeleine Tuttle spend their life slowly touring the country in a house on wheels so that they can offer people a vision.

"It's a beautiful vision," said Will Tuttle, pianist, Zen master and author of the vegan book The World Peace Diet. "Too often we think we're always going to have wars and violence and that we're just miserable people -- it's not true."

For Tuttle, finding inner peace is what leads to outer peace, and, if he can just reach one person at a time, this is what will finally lead to world peace. Now he and his wife are pulling their 5th wheel trailer into the Oak Park neighborhood for awhile so they can spread the word here.

"Once we authentically connect with ourselves and live in a way that reflects that, we start to feel happier and more at peace," said Tuttle. He's the guest speaker and musician at a series of special events running at Unity of Oak Park this weekend that are based around the twin themes of food choices and rediscovering inner wisdom.

"The basic idea is about human potential," Tuttle said. "We humans have so much more potential than we are actually using, because we're born into a culture that forces us from the time we're little children to ignore what we're actually doing to animals. Routine mistreatment of animals for food in this culture has created this sense of disconnectedness from our wisdom."

Through his talks and concerts, Tuttle urges people to live in a more peaceful manner, especially when it comes to food. He uses techniques built on meditation, his music and his wife Madeleine's painting to help audiences rediscover their own creativity.

"We all have this inner wisdom that will help us live our lives creatively and authentically and to find the unique contribution that we are each here on this earth to live," Tuttle said. "It doesn't mean life will be easy, but it will be fulfilling and our lives will be an adventure that we love."

It's been 14 years since the Tuttles went on the road full-time, leaving their home in California's wine country for a life spent speaking three or four times a week in churches and meeting halls across America.

"A lot of the events have maybe only 25 people at them, or maybe a few hundred," Tuttle said. "But it's a very good way to meet people in a grassroots fashion."

They don't actually put that many miles on the pick-up truck that pulls the trailer -- only about 20,000 a year. No, the Tuttles make their way slowly across the country. It takes them about 12 months, for example, to go from the East Coast to the West Coast.

"We've been working our way north from Florida and Washington, D.C. the past couple of weeks," he said. "Chicago is the next stop."

Although Tuttle is driven by a mission, he's not a militant, in-your-face type. Rather Tuttle is friendly and enthusiastic about his book and the connection he sees between veganism and a peaceful life that makes a difference. He quite often finds himself giving the book out to new friends he's made while getting his car serviced or eating at a restaurant.

"If we're really serious about creating a culture where peace, sustainability and justice are actually possible, we have to look at our food choices," Tuttle said. "It's very challenging. But it's very liberating. I get a lot of e-mails from people saying that not only have they lost weight and have more energy but they're just much happier."

All events take place at Unity of Oak Park, 405 N. Euclid Ave, (708) 848-0960 or www.unityoakpark.org. A free will offering will be taken during these events.

Awakening Your Inner Genius -- Sunday, June 14, at 9 and 11 a.m. Tuttle will discuss ways to develop your own creativity and intuition. He will perform original piano music throughout the service.

Creating a New Culture of Peace -- Sunday, June 14, from 1 to 3:30 pm. At this workshop, Tuttle will present the main ideas of his book about how food choices affect our lives and also the world around us.

Piano Passion Concert -- Monday, June 15, at 7:30 pm. This concert of piano music is composed and performed by Tuttle as an affirmative musical prayer for world peace.

Individual Sessions for Personal Music and Art -- Monday, June 15, times available by appointment. Tuttle will create a CD of original piano music and his wife Madeleine will create a watercolor painting for you both inspired by your essence. Sessions last about 45 minutes and are available by appointment only. Suggested donation is $135.

Swine Flu or FACTORY FARM FLU?

Vegans say swine flu would be more appropriately names factory farm flu. In fact, for the last several thousand years, epidemiologists have established that virtually all the plagues and many of the diseases afflicting humans have been caused by "zoonosis" - the transmittal of diseases from animals to humans. By keeping and herding animals unnaturally, we fall prey to viruses and bacteria that we would normally never be exposed to and by hyperconfining animals for food in factory farms, we compound the problem.



Some examples of these animal-sourced diseases: AIDS, bubonic plague, cholera, diphtheria, Ebola, measles, SARS, smallpox, West Nile virus, swine flu and avian flu. We do not catch diseases from plants! Do you know anyone who has come down with Dutch Elm Disease? The reason that native American people were wiped out by diseases brought by European settlers was that they had not built up the immunities that Europeans had over their centuries of herding and living with livestock. 

There is ultimately only one solution to plagues and pandemics, and it is the same solution to virtually all our human-caused problems and disasters: go vegan. Do it now and be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Season For Nonviolence

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, the Season For Nonviolence begins on January 30, anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, and runs for 64 days, to the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination on April 4. It is a time to commemorate the teachings and example of these two great human beings. There will be many events in cities throughout  North America during this time to educate, inspire, and celebrate nonviolence, and I hope that we can all begin to realize and reduce the immense violence we commit towards animals used for food, and help raise consciousness in our culture that nonviolence begins on our plates. As I discuss in The World Peace Diet, if we yearn to contribute to peace, a terrific opportunity for all of us is to move ever closer to a vegan way of being in the world, and spread the word to others through our efforts and example. Veganism is radical inclusion--including all sentient beings within the sphere of our compassion.  King said, "Violence anywhere hurts everyone everywhere," and Gandhi's basic entreaty was to "Be the change you want to see in the world." These two teachings point to the interconnectedness of all of us, and to the necessity for an awakening to this truth at the daily life level.

With the new administration of Barack Obama, there is still a palpable sense of relief and optimism in the air, even in the midst of what everyone recognizes are enormous challenges. We must never forget that all change comes from the grass roots, and that Presidents are under enormous pressure from the plutocracy to divide, exploit, and confuse. As we insist on peace, justice, sustainability, and equality, and live these values in our lives and communicate them as best we can through all levels of our culture, we will see our leaders responding. I highly recommend boycotting not only the meat,dairy, egg, and other animal abuse industries, but also the pharmaceutical-medical complex and the mass media. Getting news from alternative sources is empowering and illuminating! There are so many, and they are proliferating!

Some good news! A colleague who lives in Chicago and works out in the same gym where Obama also used to exercise, saw him on the last day he was in the gym in late December, and gave him a copy of The World Peace Diet! I had signed it specifically to Obama, and she was able to put it right into his hands, as he smiled and graciously received it! The next day, he and his family left for their Hawaii vacation, and from there went to Washington, DC and the inauguration. Thanks to the angels for this minor miracle, and please, if you have time, write to Barack Obama and Michelle Obama and recommend that they read The World Peace Diet and go vegan as an example of the "Yes We Can" and "Change" themes we have been hearing so much.

A few days ago, a film crew from Supreme Master Television (www.suprememasterTV.com) came down to our rolling home by the edge of the Atlantic here in the Florida Keys and filmed an appeal that I made, urging President Obama and all leaders to switch to an organic, whole foods vegan diet to exemplify their willingness to be the change, and to encourage others to do the same.  It is gratifying to see that there are leaders at various levels of government who are courageously urging people to switch to plant-based eating, and are doing it themselves. Please thank them and encourage others also! Also, if you are involved with or interested in the Unity movement, there is an interesting new video that Supreme Master TV has created about the Unity Movement and vegetarianism, entitled, "The Unity School of Christianity and Spiritual Vegetarianism," Part 1 and Part 2. It is eye-opening and encouraging, and is internationally translated and televised, like all SMTV content. Here's the link:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/co6dnm

Some more good news! Sales of The World Peace Diet broke new records in 2008, and it was again, for the second year in a row, the #1 best selling book of New York's Lantern Books (out of 150 books). It will be going into its fifth printing soon, which will include the long-missed index! In the meantime, you can always download the index for free from our website. The book is still $20, signed, including a free CD and Madeleine's Intuitive Cooking, and there are also several quantity discounts available as well. We also have the book available as an audio book for $20 (physical) or just $15 to download to your computer. Before too long, it'll be available as an audio book on iTunes as well. See http://worldpeacediet.org for details.

There's even more good news! Increasing numbers of people are facilitating study courses and book study groups on The World Peace Diet in cities around North America - and our two leading facilitators, Mark Stroud and Anna Ferguson in Cincinnati are working with a new 501(c)3 non-profit called A.P.E. - Animals, People, Earth -to promote the World Peace Diet in Cincinnati and beyond by encouraging book study groups nationwide, opening a vegan restaurant in Cincinnati, developing a line of vegan foods, and sponsoring a vegan yoga conference in Cincinnati in October of 2009 called, you guessed it, the World Peace Yoga Conference - see you there! For more information on all this, go to: www.worldpeacediet.org/APE.htm.The conference will feature Gabriel Cousens, Andrew Harvey, Sharon Gannon, and many other leaders in the yoga, spirituality, and vegan movements.

And one more thing! Please consider joining us on the vegan Caribbean cruise called the Taste of Health Cruise, leaving from Fort Lauderdale on March 1 until March 8, featuring T. Colin Campbell, Neal Barnard, Christina Pirello, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and others. For more information, http://www.atasteofhealth.org/events/presenters.htm. That same week if you're in L.A., Gabriel Cousens & Michael Beckwith are putting on an 8-day vegan juice fast for peace. See http://www.juicefastforpeace.com.

Finally, please join the forums and discussion groups at www.worldpeacediet.net, and feel free to sign up for our free daily "Veg Inspiration For The Day" at www.worldpeacediet.org and/or the Worldwide Prayer Circle For Animals at www.circleofcompassion.org. Also please remember that our continuously updated tour schedule is posted on our website: www.willtuttle.com/schedule.htm. If you would like to host us in your community, please let us know! Some upcoming highlights are speaking in W. Palm Beach at Hippocrates Health Institute in February, in Los Angeles at the Green Lifestyle Film Festival in March, and in London for the International Veggie Show and the Jain Convention in April. There are many other upcoming events planned in Florida and the eastern U.S., including my piano concerts with Madeleine's art exhibits, intuition workshops, Sunday morning services, individual sessions for music & art, etc.

A big thank-you to all of you who are working diligently to raise consciousness on this Earth. You are making a difference! We are all connected. Bless you all!

That's it for now.
Love and peace,

Will & Madeleine

Appoint a Secretary of the Arts

Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Elect Obama to
appoint a Secretary of the Arts.  While many other countries have had
Ministers of Art or Culture for centuries, the United States has never
created such a position.  We in the arts need this and the country
needs the arts--now more than ever.  Please take a moment to sign this
important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

It's quick and easy to sign, if you feel so inclined:

www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

Dr. Will Tuttle on World Awakened Talk Radio

Join Dr. Will Tuttle as he is interviewed by Bryan Miller and Kerri Kannan for an all new World Awakened Talk Radio tomorrow night, December 14th at 8:00 pm. You can set up a reminder on the website here.

Read more about the tomorrow nights interview and an excerpt from the book on WorldAwakened.com

Summertime News

Dear friends,

"To have better heads of our states, we must improve the states of our heads."

As we go through these summer months, people are increasingly realizing the importance of raising our collective consciousness. We are seeing it's essential to take responsibility for our ecological and spiritual footprints. How can we reduce our negative impact on the ecosystems here, and contribute to the regeneration and transformation of humanity's wounded but aspiring consciousness?

Here in Michigan, we just completed the first training retreat on exploring and disseminating the main ideas in my book, The World Peace Diet. I am happy to report that it was a terrific experience. In the words of one of the participants, "It was an emotional, informative, and inspiring weekend. There was lots of sharing of ideas and feelings. All left with the optimistic feeling that 40 more people would be out there actively sharing the message through the vehicle of Will’s book."

I am delighted that there are now more people who are inspired to contribute their unique and substantial talents and energy to the transformation of our culture. They will be facilitating courses on The World Peace Diet through local churches, colleges, and community groups, and in other ways helping to build a new world that reflects the vegan values of respect, kindness, sustainability, justice, freedom, and harmony with all life. If you would like to have me present a week-end World Peace Diet retreat in your area, or come and present a lecture or workshop in your community, please let me know. Madeleine and I are here to serve, and we are still, after 13 years full-time on the road, enjoying life in our rolling home.

I am also delighted to inform you that The World Peace Diet's missing index is now available as a free download at http://worldpeacediet.org. (Thanks to Amy, a vegetarian indexer in Alabama!) Lantern Books, the publisher, originally thought that including the index would make the book too bulky and expensive, but that has now been remedied. The book is now in its fourth printing! We have assurances that in the next printing, the new index will be included.

I would also like to let you know that on Saturday, July 26, I'll be flying to Los Angeles to speak at the Green Technology Institute's S.O.S. Climate Change International Conference being held at the Silver Screen Theater in W. Hollywood. The event will feature environmentalists and scientists as well as vegan activists and spiritual teachers to help raise consciousness about the connections between sustainability, compassion, and spiritual health. It will be televised live on http://suprememastertv.com, and will feature Howard Lyman, Dr. Elliot Katz, Dr. Gabriel Cousens, and surprise celebrities. See http://greentechnologyinstitute.org/ for more information.

After that, I'll be speaking at "The Power of Natural Healing" Conference (http://www.thepowerofnaturalhealing.org) in Wellesley, MA, outside Boston, and at The Peace Abbey (http://peaceabbey.org) there also, and then presenting several lectures and concerts in the Ann Arbor/Detroit area. Our late summer/fall tour schedule will take us through Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, with a side trip to San Francisco to speak at the S.F. Vegetarian Festival in early October. There are more events and further details on our Tour Schedule, at:

http://willtuttle.com/schedule.htm.

I'd like to thank everyone who has worked so hard to help make the events successful over the last two months -- in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and recently in Lincolnshire, IL, site of the uplifting and hip Young Jains Conference where I was blessed to present the keynote lecture.

I have posted a new 6-minute musical slideshow I made called "Our Fellow Mortals" on YouTube -- please sit back, relax, and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Qgb5R4-s4

I must also strongly recommend watching, when you have a spare 11 minutes, a great new video that is both uplifting and informative:

http://www.nonviolenceunited.org/veganvideo.html

Finally, we have been sending out our free daily "Veg Inspiration For The Day" since May 1st, so if you'd like to begin receiving that every morning, you can sign up on The World Peace Diet website:

http://worldpeacediet.org

That's it for now. The audio-book version of The World Peace Diet is not far off; it's almost finished!

Thanks for all your efforts!

Enjoy the summer,

Will & Madeleine

A new Oprah-tunity!

Dear friends,

More signs of progress - Oprah is now on a 21-day vegan "cleanse". This is potentially great news because multitudes will be participating with her, and hopefully learning about the plight of animals in our food production system, and of the enormous benefits of a plant-based diet for our health and the health of the Earth and for future generations. And that it's dee-licious, too!

Over the past 2 years since my book, The World Peace Diet, was published, so many people have told me that I "need to be on Oprah." After her hugely successful class with Eckhart Tolle, I've been hearing this from people even more. It seems that we humans are ripening spiritually, and I believe that there is nothing more important at this stage of our spiritual evolution than developing compassion for all living beings, and transforming our eating habits to reflect more compassion and awareness.

The World Peace Diet, of all the books out there, presents the spiritual, cultural, and psycho-social dimensions of our meals and would provide a solid foundation for Oprah's (and the world's) transition to a plant-based way of eating. We have to understand the "big picture" in order to make major changes in our lives, and when we do, it's easy to make the changes. So many people have told me that they've gone vegan after reading The World Peace Diet, and I think this is why.

So, people have asked me to encourage all of us to go to Oprah's website and suggest that she read The World Peace Diet. I hope you'll take a few minutes to do this! Use your own words and speak from your heart. The window of opportunity over the next 3 weeks days is beckoning! If Oprah reads The World Peace Diet and "gets it," we will have hundreds of thousands more people "getting it" also, which could lead to amazing and rapid improvements in the lives of all of us -- people, animals, and future generations. And if there are other vegan speakers, writers, chefs that you feel would illuminate, please let Oprah know of them as well!

Please do it now, if possible. The link is:
http://www2.oprah.com/email/reach/email_reach_fromu.jhtml

The link to the discussion message board:
http://www.oprah.com/community/thread/64750

The link to her show with Kathy Freston on the Pillars of Wellness:
http://www2.oprah.com/spiritself/slide/20080520/slide_20080520_350_201.jhtml


Upcoming retreat: "Creating A New Culture Of Peace:"

We are delighted to report that on our upcoming World Peace Diet weekend retreat, July 18-20 in southeastern Michigan, we will be joined by Mark Stroud of Cincinnati! Mark will help facilitate the retreat, and he is a dedicated advocate for compassion. Mark has already taught 2 classes on The World Peace Diet through the New Thought Unity Church in Cincinnati, and he has created an excellent Study Guide for facilitators of The World Peace Diet. So, if you are feeling an inner pull to help our world by facilitating a class or study group on The World Peace Diet in your area, I hope you will be able to join us on this retreat. While it is especially designed for people who would like to become certified facilitators of The World Peace Diet, it is open to anyone who would like to deepen their connection with and experience of the transformative ideas in the book. Mark is an award-winning chef, restaurateur, and educator.

Celebrity chefs! We are thrilled to have on the retreat the services of Deer and Justice Fields, who will be preparing the organic vegan meals that we'll be savoring. Deer and Justice are legendary, world-traveling vegan chefs who have prepared scrumptious feasts in their own restaurants in Maui and San Diego, as well as cooked for countless conferences, expos, Rainbow gatherings, and events throughout North America and New Zealand.

For more information on this July retreat, and to register for it:
http://worldpeacediet.org/retreat.htm

We are now in Virginia Beach, heading north and then west for the summer - you can see details of our tour on our website at: http://willtuttle.com/schedule.htm. We do over 150 events per year, and have been traveling full-time in our "rolling home" now for over 12 years. It just keeps getting better! We have added some more events to our schedule, including a second lecture in New York City in June.

Finally, we have been sending out our free daily "Veg Inspiration For The Day" since May 1st, so if you'd like to begin receiving that every morning, you can sign up on The World Peace Diet website:
http://worldpeacediet.org

Deepest thanks to all of you who are blessing our world with your efforts to build a new society of kindness, peace, and harmony. We hope our paths will cross with you and people you know, so please check our tour schedule from time to time, as well as our Worldwide Prayer Circle for Animals: http://circleofcompassion.org.

Hope to see you all on Oprah! And at the July retreat! And in your area when we come through...

That's it for now. Thanks for being the blessing you are!

Will & Madeleine

April is Earth Awareness Month

--are we finally awakening to the profound interconnectedness of all living beings here on this beautiful planet? In spite of cultural programming and corporate agendas that promote consumerism and disconnectedness, there is progress! The grassroots benevolent revolution that we are all a part of is unfolding every day. Thanks for your efforts!

Madeleine and I would like to alert you to a few new developments that you may be interested in.

1. --  You are invited to attend a weekend retreat on The World Peace Diet that I will be facilitating in southeastern Michigan on the weekend of July 18-20, 2008, at a beautiful nature sanctuary. The enrollment is limited to about 40 people so if you are interested, please go to our website to find out more and register for this event. We hope you can join us! The direct link is here at WorldPeaceDiet.org.

2. -- The Study Course for The World Peace Diet is complete and is available through our website. The direct link is here on WorldPeaceDiet.org. This Study Course was created by Mark Stroud, facilitator of WPD classes, who is also available to help you if you have questions about how to go about setting up a World Peace Diet group in your community or area. It is an excellent tool for anyone interested in effectively raising awareness and making a practical and positive change in our world.

3.-- Now you can download all my CDs directly to your computer and iPod from our website. Please see our website HERE for more information on that.

We have spent several terrific months in Florida this past winter, and are now in Georgia, heading north on our ongoing music, art, and education ministry through progressive churches. We were able to present lectures on The World Peace Diet in Sarasota, Key West, Miami, West Palm Beach, Tampa, St. Augustine, and Gainesville, as well as intuition workshops, concerts, and art exhibits in many other cities. We are heading now to Asheville, Charlotte, Roanoke, Raleigh-Durham, Virginia Beach, Washington DC, New Jersey, New York City, Harrisburg, and Chicago over the next few months. I'll be presenting lectures and radio interviews on The World Peace Diet in these places; please go to our tour schedule for more details: Some highlights for this summer: Vegetarian Summerfest; also the Young Jain Convention; and  "The Power of Natural Healing" Conference.

Besides the July retreat and the World Peace Diet study guide, we have more things coming soon, including Veg Inspiration For The Day, and the entire World Peace Diet book will be available as an audio book also. Our website will have the details. I am doing a monthly internet radio program called Food For Thought with Meria Heller who a provides revelatory daily radio program that I highly recommend.

Deepest thanks to each and every one of you for your efforts to bless others and build a new society of kindness, peace, and harmony. We hope our paths will cross with you and people you know, so please check our Tour Schedule from time to time.

And during this Earth Day season, let’s especially remember the animals who suffer so extremely behind the curtain of our culture's denial. Please go to our Worldwide Prayer Circle For Animals at CircleofCompassion.org and put yourself on our improved world map, and find out more about joining us in creating a consciousness of kindness for all living beings.

That's it for now. Thanks for being the blessing you are!

Will & Madeleine

Dr. Will Tuttle
willtuttle@earthlink.net
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress may be seen by the way its animals are treated." Mahatma Gandhi
Visit WorldPeaceDiet.org to find out more about The World Peace Diet. 
Visit WillTuttle.com for our original music and art.
Visit CircleofCompassion to participate in The Prayer Circle for Animals.

Click here to see just one small recent example of the suffering caused by fishing and send a blessing:
NotBorntoDie.org

1083 Vine St., Healdsburg, CA 95448

U.S. Prison Population Explodes

So interesting how U.S. has only 5% of world population and yet creates 25% of the world's pollution, uses 25% of the world's energy, eats 25% of the world's meat, and now this - has 25% of the world prison population!

By Larry Hales
Published Mar 9, 2008 8:18 PM

On Feb. 28 the Pew Center on the States released a report detailing that 1 in 99.1 adults in the U.S. is locked up. That comes to 2,319,258 prisoners for a population of 230,000,000.

The growth of the prison population has skyrocketed, nearly tripling from 1987 to 2007. The total U.S. prison population is higher than the 26 European nations with the highest prison populations, yet these nations combined have two-and-a-half times the total population of the U.S.

All told there are 750 prisoners per 100,000 people in the U.S.—the highest incarceration rate in the world. This prison population accounts for 25 percent of the world’s prison population.

Although crime has dropped 25 percent from 1987 to 2007 (New York Times, Feb. 28), incarceration continues to climb. The lowest level of violent crime was reached in 2005, according to the Bureau of Justice.

The climb in incarceration rates is mostly due to the explosion in arrests attributed to drug offenses. In those same 20 years, arrests for drug offenses have increased by 50 percent. In addition, according to the Bureau of Justice, more than 17 percent of people locked up in local jails and state and federal prisons committed a crime to obtain drugs.

To filter the total number of prisoners through race, ethnicity and class, and to look at the incarceration rates based on the same factors, illuminates the effects of national oppression and the criminalization of poor and dispossessed workers.

Official data on the poverty of individuals who commit crimes are difficult to come by, yet it is easy to infer since the Bureau of Justice reports that depressed urban areas account for the highest percentage of crimes and arrests.

One in nine Black males between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, compared to one in 30 for the general population; one in 100 Black women in their 30s is incarcerated, versus 1 in 265 for all women.

The rate of imprisonment for all men above age 18 is one in 54; for Latinos it is one in 36; and for Blacks it is one in 15.

Since the late 1970s urban centers have been faced with deindustrialization, white flight, underfunded schools, the dismantling of welfare and a general decline in social services. While the needs of people have not been met, the police forces have been bolstered.

Inner city areas are faced with a neoliberal form of ethnic cleansing that has generally become known as gentrification. From San Diego to Los Angeles and San Francisco, to Harlem and New Orleans, inner city areas are being gobbled up by developers. Katrina was the excuse in New Orleans, “blight” in Detroit and other cities.

To pull it off, city administrators beef up police forces in poor, oppressed neighborhoods and institute “zero tolerance” or “broken window” ordinances, such as that in New York under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The theory of “broken windows” was authored by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. Wilson, a right-wing policy advisor under Reagan and the first Bush, also believes in dismantling Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and further privatizing public schools.

The “broken windows” theory is classic: blame the victim for the ravages of the capitalist system. It postulates that ignoring a broken window invites more windows to be broken; in other words, cracking down on petty offenses “decreases crime” and “cleans up the neighborhood.”

In general, most cops placed in oppressed communities are not people from the community, and many times are white.

The inhabitants of the community do not dictate the conditions of the community; the conditions are forced on the inhabitants. Poverty, joblessness, homelessness, the lack of health care, underfunded public education, the lack of after-school activities, poor housing choices, slum lords and the history of racist oppression in the U.S. are to blame.

It is capitalism and the culture that comes with it that are the culprits when it comes to “broken windows;” in fact the imperialist U.S. ruling class is constantly, actively engaged in breaking windows all over the world.

Prisoners super exploited

As prisons are warehouses for the poor and disposed, they are also depositories of a reserve of superexploitable labor.

Not only does the prison industry provide money and jobs to impoverished areas, but it also provide opportunities for industries to take advantage of the prisoners by putting them to work at superlow wages. In turn, the money prisoners earn is shuffled back into the prison system as prisoners purchase necessities and pay exorbitant fees for telephone usage.

Private prison companies house more than 100,000 U.S. prisoners. According to a Centre for Research on Globalization report in 2001, prisoners make on the average $.22 per hour and can work up to 40 hours per week.

The growth of prison labor continues, along with growth in the prison industrial complex as a whole, which is more and more privatized. This crime is perpetrated against workers and oppressed nationalities at alarming rates, and in an era of capitalist decline it will only grow worse.

 

Technorati Tags: U.S. Prison Population, consumption, meat eating, 25 percent, pollution, population stats

Teaching Peace, Giving Peace

The spirit underlying the holiday season is beautiful—celebrating the sense of gratitude, generosity, abundance, and relatedness that give our lives meaning and joy. It is a good time to reflect and think about how we can help bring peace and compassion to our world.

Many of you who have read my book, The World Peace Diet, have said you’d like to help spread the message and we are putting together a way for you to do so. We have a dream, and the dream is already beginning to materialize. The dream is of a growing network of people who are putting on classes on The World Peace Diet through their local churches, community organizations, colleges, veg societies, continuing education institutions, and peace, environmental, and social justice groups. One six-week class in Cincinnati has been successfully completed, and we see many more unfolding throughout North America and the world. Ideally, the classes allow for discussion and sharing of the main ideas in The World Peace Diet, together with teaching basic ways of preparing healthy and nutritious plant-based meals. Emphasizing both the theory and practice of the World Peace Diet, we see that we can build a movement that can transform our culture from the grass-roots level, furthering the benevolent revolution our culture yearns for.

If you would like to find out more about this opportunity, please contact us. We are putting together a course outline and can provide books at a discount and help with ideas to encourage people to sign up for the class. We suggest that you be paid for facilitating the class, through course fees or donations. Please contact us if you have ideas or questions about these opportunities, and if you’d like to facilitate a class in your area. The time for a grass-roots educational movement to spread the message of the World Peace Diet is upon us. It addresses the roots of all our dilemmas: global warming, world hunger, pollution, disease, water shortages, deforestation, species extinction, war, domination of women, terrorism, drug addiction, and the pervasive mentality of reductionism and exploitation that drives our problems. By presenting both the underlying understanding of why plant-based eating is essential with some practical tips, the classes can contribute to the transformation of our world. Thankfulness is not just words, but actions. Can we build a movement that future generations will be thankful for? I believe we can.

The last couple of months have been amazing! In addition to the beautiful 4-day retreat on developing spiritual intuition that we were privileged to facilitate at Unity Village in Missouri, and our ongoing music, art, and education ministry through progressive churches, we were able to present multiple lectures on The World Peace Diet in the following cities: Cleveland, Canton, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Madison, Cedar Rapids, Fairfield, Lawrence, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Boston/Concord, and Nashville. Quite a few Radio Interviews for audio files of these. Madeleine and I are deeply grateful to all the enthusiastic and caring people in all these cities for your creativity, dedication, and selfless giving to the cause of peace and kindness. Your splendid efforts are transforming lives and bringing blessings to our world. Our schedule continues to Atlanta, Gainesville, and on into Florida for the winter months in our trusty rolling home, with a trip to San Francisco and Ann Arbor in January. See our tour schedule for details, and please let us know if you'd like us to put on an event in your area.

We have some more good news as well.

1. We have decided to make The World Peace Diet available as Free download. The entire book is now available on our website, and as a free printable PDF file so anyone can download and read the book and help transform our world.

2. In addition, we have also decided to make the companion audio CD, Living In Harmony With All Life, available as a Free download as well. Again, by going to the website, anyone can download the entire 75-minute discourse on The World Peace Diet as an MP3 file, and share it with friends and family. And don’t forget we have another free download: the delicious meals of Madeleine’s “Intuitive Cooking”  available at World Peace Diet.

3. Madeleine has created another painting which is available as signed and numbered museum-quality prints. It is entitled, “The Wedding” and is a beautiful watercolor Painting of Two Zebras.

 

4. Sales for The World Peace Diet continue to increase every month as the word of its powerful transformative message spreads. Many people feel that one of the most powerful ways they can help the world is to spread the word by giving books and/or CDs to others, or promoting or selling it themselves. The World Peace Diet makes a terrific holiday gift, and toward that end, we have Quantity Discounts available. The books are signed and include “Intuitive Cooking” by Madeleine and for 5 books, 5 free CDs ($78 postpaid), and for 10 books, one free CD ($133 postpaid). The book is in its third printing now, and also, we’re delighted to say, is being translated into Chinese and will be available in China as well before long.

The music and art also make great holiday gifts – there are 7 CDs of original piano music to choose from, as well as Madeleine’s artcard sets, art prints, and hand-made lace. All the music is available through iTunes and other download services now, as well as through CD Baby and through our website, http://willtuttle.com. And for the special person or couple in your life, we can create an Individualized Music & Art Portrait (a custom CD of original piano music with a watercolor painting by Madeleine) if you send us by mail or e-mail a photo of the recipient(s).  Send us an email for more information.

Deepest thanks to each and every one of you for your efforts to bless others and build a new society of kindness, peace, and harmony. We hope our paths will cross with you and people you know, so please check our Tour Schedule from time to time.

And during this holiday season, let’s especially remember the animals who suffer so extremely behind the curtain of our culture’s denial. Please go to our Worldwide Prayer Circle For Animals at  Circle of Compassion and put yourself on our improved world map, and find out more about joining us in creating a consciousness of kindness for all living beings.

That's it for now. Thanks for being the blessing you are!

Will & Madeleine

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress may be seen by the way its animals are treated." Mahatma Gandhi

"At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society." --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle