Obama will nominate Sri Srinivasan to the Supreme Court, screw the Idiots among republicans.

I had posted the appended article in on April 9, 2013, in which it said, "The stakes in this nomination are clear: if Srinivasan passes this test and wins confirmation, he’ll be on the Supreme Court before President Obama’s term ends."

Lo and behold, the untimely death of Justice Scalia's has brought that thought to reality.   Now, Obama is going to nominate Srinivasan to the Bench, let the rotten few among Republicans screw themselves over for saying they will not confirm any nominee by Obama.

Either they confirm Srinivasan or the Indian Republican Coalition must re-consider their support for Republicans, why throw good money in to dustbin?  

Obama has done a lot of good, he appointed another Indian to Surgeon General and now Srinivasan, and Modi was desperate for some sort of legitimacy from the United States, Obama gave that to him. Bush is the one who declined repeatedly.

I was a republican for 30 some years, and chose to go independent two years ago. Republican party is a good party, but it is run over by the extremists. No one running for President's office are immature, and are loaded with hate for others. If Cruz and Rubio can betray their own heritage, like Jindal has done, they will not spare others.  I am not sure about Bush though, but he is not strong enough to stand up against Trump. 

Nikki Haley is the only shining star of Indian heritage at this time and she will straighten the Republicans if they nominate her as a running mate to the the Republican Presidential Nominee,  and I hope they do to save their own party. She speaks like a sensible Indian and not the right wing republican or right wing BJP guys.  We need some cleaning done among the Republicans, and she can do it. 

Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouseforIndia.blogspot.com
http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2013/04/sri-srinivasan-supreme-court-nominee-in.html

Sri Srinivasan - The Supreme Court Nominee-in-Waiting

This is one hell of happy news for us; it’s an expression of integration, that Indians are fully participating and contributing members of the society at large. Despite the flaws in our democracies (American and Indian), we are the most inclusive societies.


The New Yorker reports this great news: "The next Supreme Court confirmation hearing begins on Wednesday afternoon, April 10th. Technically, Sri Srinivasan is just a candidate for the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but few are misled. The stakes in this nomination are clear: if Srinivasan passes this test and wins confirmation, he’ll be on the Supreme Court before President Obama’s term ends."

We have a lot more work to do in India and the United States to truly make it a society, where every individual is honored for his or her contributions to the nation building without regards to his or her religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and nationality.

We do have bigots in both nations and we need to continue to have a dialogue with them to treat every American (USA) or Indian (India) as an individual to be treated with full dignity without prejudice.

When a Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, Dalit, Muslim and Hindu achieves success, and if each one of us can celebrate that success by draining sewerage out of our hearts that he is a Christian, Muslim or Sikh... then we have achieved Moksha, Mukti and freedom, and congratulations to all those who have achieved that, and those who have not, please do not miss out that opportunity in your life time.

 Mike Ghouse is an Indian American speaker, thinker, writer and a pluralist committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day – details at www.MikeGhouse.net and his daily writings are atwww.TheGhousediary.com

URL - http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2013/04/sri-srinivasan-supreme-court-nominee-in.html  

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Anti-Muslim and Anti-Christian Frisco meeting by Global Hindu Heritage Forum in Dallas, Texas

The Title should have been opposite of Anti-Muslim or Anti-Christian, as it turned out to be not-anti-at all. But since it is a continum of the letter, we kept the same title.

http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2014/06/anti-muslim-and-anti-christian-friscy.html


An Alarming letter was posted by Global Hindu Heritage Foundation and held an anti-Muslim and anti-Christian rally in Frisco, Texas - so I went to the meeting. The agenda was not the same as it was in the letter.

I think Indians in general and Muslims in particular need to hear Madhu Kishwar, she will be in town through Thursday in New York. She threw me off with her perspectives, with a grain of salt and skepticism, I did hear her full one hour talk. A critique turned defender of Modi. A few notes for your to ponder upon. 

An alarming letter was posted by the Global Hindu Heritage Foundation at our forum, DallasIndians@yahoogroups.com . The letter was outright discriminatory, tearing India apart kind of letter, and was sent to India's newly elected Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. The letter was insane, and it was hard to believe that Indians living in America want to discriminate and deny equal rights to Christians and Muslims in India. I just could not fathom that most of the men on the list were Medical Doctors and PhD's.  The letter and my response to the letter is at: http://foundationforpluralism.blogspot.com/2014/06/tearing-india-apart-hatefilled-mindset.html  
 

The occasion  was the 7th Annual Hindu Unity Day in Frisco. Unity of each community and Unity of communities must be appreciated.  By the way, the first Hindu Unity day in Dallas was organized by the Foundation for Pluralism on June 17, 2005 in Dallas.

I wanted to attend the event to understand what goes on. A few years ago they had organized a summit on Islam – and I had asked them if there was any Muslim on the panel, there was none, and they ignored my request and perhaps passed judgments on Muslims without the presence of Muslims. It is always good to be engaged and hear each other’s point of view; when it is about the each other.

The speakers were Madhu Kishwar and Dr. Graham Schweig. The first session before lunch included several Dallas based organization heads talking about their efforts in campaigning for Mr. Narendra Modi, and I missed the first speaker Kalyan Viswanathan, who might have delivered a negative speech. I did not hear Dr. Schweig’s speech as I had to leave.

Madhu Kishwar delivered a full hour’s speech “Modi and the Media – setting the record Straight” – it was a pleasant surprise, there was no hatred spewing out for Muslims or Christians. Usually fund raisers get people riled up against something or someone to get people to open their check books, and a lot of people fall prey for that. I have been to the fund raisers of right wing Jews, Christians and Muslims as well, and have spoken up against their rhetoric.

Madhu Kishwar was rather inclusive in her approach.

Whenever she mentioned a positive statement about inclusion of Muslims – people clapped out of their hearts. I have always believed that humans instantaneously react with goodness, it’s only when they deliberate they get corrupted.   Indeed, in my response to GHHF letter I had mentioned that a majority of the signatories on that letter probably did not even read the contents and had simply signed it, for a few to carry forward. It is hard for me to believe that so many people in a group could subscribe to such vitriolic pronouncements,  and most of them would not have signed it, had they read it.

It was refreshing to hear her. She threw in a lot of information that I need to verify and absorb.  It is always good to verify before you believe, when the information is different than what we have heard it all along.  I ran into her again at the Sonu Nigam Show, and she assured me that her reports are legitimate and said the Nanavati Report was accurate.

Some of her points:

She was bashing the media for not agreeing to the clean chit by SIT - to me democracy exists because of the press, good, bad and ugly. There are some great statements by Jefferson and others on the topic.

Do you realize, both the left and right have exactly same complaint? That the media in on other's side.

She thinks - BJP was not convinced that Modi was not involved in the riots as accused, that hesitancy was reflected in the talks and acts of BJP.

Per her Modi has done a lot of good things, but never flaunted it.

50% of Muslims Voted for Modi in Gujarat on February 24^th 2002 results.

The hell broke loose within a couple of days – she asks, why would Modi initiate riots when Muslims voted him so overwhelmingly?

28 Muslim Organizations headed by Kader Bhai in Rajkot had asked for a cemetery plot which Modi had granted, and Modi never claimed or flaunted about it.

He is not divisive as claimed. Sab Ka Sath; sab ka Vikas has been his slogan from the very beginning.

I really liked when she spoke my language – that is she will not accuse any one exclusively without seeing the same mistake in others.  Referring to Togadia, she said, Muslims are no exception; we have our own share of Danga-ee (trouble makers).  It was not Modi that needed the riots, but it was the Congress who needed it. (we have to assess this).

She claimed Army was called in immediately. And deployed on 3/1 – George Fernandez, the then Defense Minister apparently toured the riot torn place on 2/28 while the riots were still going on.  

I bought the book - but wont't be able to read it, as I have to wrap up my book without any excuse.

Because of the differences or dominance of Hindus, most  of  the Muslims, Christians, Dalits and Sikhs have stayed away from being a part of India based organizations.

All I ask Indian Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others to be involved with Indian organizations, we have to be a part of the society, and all others have to be a part of our lives. Otherwise, all of us would remain in shells not knowing what goes on, we will be harming ourselves and our nation by not being a part of each other. We have to live together, at least our relatives have to live together in India and we need to care for all.

Mike Ghouse is an Indian American Public Speaker, thinker and a writer committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.

Anti-Islam emails and my response

This is in response to one of the fellow Indians who keeps attacking Islam and demands that I answer his questions, and when I do that, he does not read a word, but continues to attack.

The role of a religious person is to mitigate conflicts and nurture good will, and as a Pluralist and a Muslim, I will continue to do that. Here is my response in the most simplistic terms:

FOOD

We don't eat cholesterol loaded stuff or the food that is harmful to our blood pressure, intestines or the health. We don't drink the stuff that is injurious to our health.

However, not all people eat healthy food and drink healthy drinks.

SPRITUALITY

If we nurture hate, malice, arrogance, anger and ill-will in our hearts and minds, we are contaminating the purity of our spirit, which is meant to be kept good, with that stuff in us, we don't feel good about ourselves and some times act weird. Whether I am a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or whatever, I will bear the burden of what I allow in my heart to grow, and as a consequence,  anxiety becomes the way of life for me, do I have a choice?

However, not all people follow their religion and do the right thing. 

ISLAM

You have a choice to find the truth about Islam, or you can live with seething anger and hate and live in tension every moment of your day.  You will not find the truth in the Front page Magazine and their likes, whose sole businesses is to sell hate and fear and make money. This scheme has generated them $42 Million dollars, at least they make the money, and what do you make with your hate for Muslims? A few claps from your friends?  

If you want to learn Islam, do it yourselves, it is your responsibility for your spiritual health and living a tension free life, but don't judge Islam by meeting a handful of bad guys. If you personally meet 100 Muslims, you are sure to find three or four  bad ones, that is the case with any group, isn't it? Let your sample be statistically significant to prevent you from falling in to the trap of stereotyping.  Don't do it for Islam, do it  for you own spiritual health.

You don’t have to live in anxieties my friend, find the truth on your own. Islam is as good a religion as any religion out there, if you have the will to see it.

MY LIST

I have a list of 36,000 people from Atheist to Zoroastrians and every one in between including the Native Americans. My work (rather service, as I have not received a pay check thus far) is pluralism and part of the work is removing the myths and falsities slapped on every religion including Islam and Hinduism. I am not teaching to Hindus as you claim, I am sharing with the humanity, and Hindus are part of that humanity and hope you are a part of the whole.

Venkat, you don't have to read my material, as simple as that.
Delete it, I will be happy, you and I both will save our time.

Take a look at my work:

STANDING UP FOR HINDUS  

In the following compilation, I will highlight some of the work I have done with and for Hindus and Hinduism. It is not just Hinduism, it is all people. If we are not willing to stand up for others, why should others stand up for us?

http://standingupforothers.blogspot.com/2012/04/standing-with-hindus.html

Go to Dallas Morning News - Texas Faith - I have written over 80 articles, 70 of them mention about Hinduism among other religions, and you can read some comments how people appreciate learning about Hinduism, go to my daily site www.TheGhousediary.com and just plug in Hindu in the search box. Go to Huffington post, there are another 40 pieces there...you see the pattern of inclusiveness, and its been there since 1993 when I entered public life. 

I was in a party last night, thanks to Satyan, who came up and shared the good things he is doing. When people talk ill about Muslims, he said, he will tell his personal stories and experiences and tell them that stereotyping is not good for anyone in the long run. Can you do that? Not as a favor to Muslims, but as the right thing to do. He always asks, until 9/11- everything was fine, wasn't it?

Its shame that it happened, and it is one of the reasons including praischit (repentance), that I have dedicated my life to Unite people. Take a look at www.Unitydayusa.com . I was on the radio that shameful day for 8 hours getting the entire DFW community on the air with me and making an effort to make sense out of the senselessness,  and at the end of the day we did; restored faith in our system and removed the fears. The Unity day continues.

I hope you can be a teacher of Hinduism, where people see you as a Model Hindu who is about the goodness. Hinduism is all about goodness and not the hate, anger and ill will that you exhibit in your emails. Seriously think about it, you can be a good ally to me in our efforts in removing myths about others. 

If you care, take a look at these two videos, I have credited Bhagvad Gita for my being a Muslim as I have learned from it, that finding the truth is my own responsibility - it’s in the video and in my writings.

Mike Ghouse Challenges Quraan Translation with Pastor Robert Jeffress - 1 of 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMN8Zy1kc64&feature=relmfu

Mike Ghouse Challenges Quraan Translation with Pastor Robert Jeffress - 2 of 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZOFLQSAOhA

It is your responsibility to promote what is good, or believe in whatever is dished out to you. Choose mukti or bondage. 

Satyameva Jayate.

Mike Ghouse

- - - - -
Mike Ghouse is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a professional speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, civic affairs, Islam, India, Israel, peace and justice. Mike is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he writes weekly at Dallas Morning News and regularly at Huffington post,and several other periodicals. www.TheGhousediary.com is Mike's daily blog.