Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Burma Crisis Update: Perhaps Chevron Should Re-Name the Yadana Pipeline After Condolezza Rice?

Image: Aung San Suu Kyi, TIME 100


Burma Crisis Update: Perhaps Chevron should Re-Name the Yadana Pipeline after Condolezza Rice?

By Richard Power


Remember Frank Herbert's extraordinary Dune series?

"The spice must flow ..."

Yes, but there was no alternative to spice in that legend; there are alternatives to oil and gas, and yet, the oil and gas giants and the governments they have co-opted refuse to adapt to the 21st Century.

"The oil must flow ..."
And with it, the blood of US soldiers flows in the desert quagmire.

"The oil must flow ..."
And with it, the last few dollars flow from the wallets of the US middle class.

"The oil must flow ..."
And with it, the life flows from the planet's poorest people.

"The oil must flow ..."
And with it, the planetary climate itself flows into a harsh unknown.

"The oil must flow ..."
Even though its peak production has come and gone.

Once upon a time, Chevron named an oil tanker after Condolezza Rice, perhaps now they should re-name the Yadana gas pipiline after her, since she has looked the other way, instead of taking the most meaningful action she could, i.e., demanding Chevron cease empowering the Burmese thugocracy.

The ugly truth about Chevron in Burma is told in a new report: The Human Cost of Energy: Chevron’s Continuing Role in Financing Oppression and Profiting From Human Rights Abuses in Military-Ruled Burma (Myanmar).

According to the report, The Human Cost of Energy: Chevron’s Continuing Role in Financing Oppression and Profiting From Human Rights Abuses in Military-Ruled Burma (Myanmar), Chevron relies on the brutal Burmese military for pipeline security. The pipeline security soldiers conscript forced labor (including forced sentry duty along the pipeline route) and commit other serious human rights abuses in the course of their operations. As revealed by original field data collected by ERI between 2003-2008 in Burma and along the Thai-Burma border, abuses in the pipeline region include murder and rape by pipeline security soldiers, forced conscription of porters for security patrols, land confiscations, forced plantation programs, and general predation including widespread theft of goods by soldiers. Earth Rights International, 4-29-08

For the full report, click here.

Some Burma-Related Words of Power Posts

Why Protecting the People of Darfur, Tibet & Burma is in Our Own Self-Interest; & What These Crises Tell Us about Our Own Slide into the Pit

Don't Forget Darfur, Tibet or Burma This Summer, Don't Forget Men & Women of US Military Either; Reflections On Speaker Pelosi's Visit to Dharmsala

Burma Crisis Update: Non-Violent, Democratic Resistance of Burmese People Offers Stark Contrast to US Political Scene

Burma Crisis Update: Talk is Cheap, Business as Usual; On Martin Luther King Day -- Remember Aung San Suu Kyi

In Burma & Sudan, Business As Usual -- What Must & Can Be Done Now!

Burma Crisis Update 11-10-07: Amnesty International on "Grave & Ongoing Human Rights Violations"; Alternate Media Vital to Resistance

Burma Crisis Update: An Open Letter to the Executives of Chevron

Burma Crisis Update: Two Weeks Into the Crackdown, China Has Not Tempered the Thugocracy's Hand; Chevron Has Not Even Slapped Its Wrist

Human Rights Update 10-6-07: Chevron, Condoleeza Rice & the Burmese Thugocracy

Human Rights Update: Blackwater, Burma, Darfur & You

Human Rights Watch to Business: "Keeping quiet while monks & other peaceful protesters are murdered & jailed is not ... constructive engagement."

Human Rights Update: Blackwater, Burma, Darfur & You

Hard Rain Journal 9-27-07: Aung San Suu Kyi was Elected in 1990, Al Gore was Elected in 2000 -- Consider What Has Befallen Both Countries Since

For a directory of Words of Power Human Rights Updates, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Hard Rain Late Night: Emmylou Harris -- For No One

Hard Rain Late Night: Emmylou Harris -- For No One



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

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Friday, April 25, 2008

Torture, Destruction of Evidence, Lying about GI Suicide Rate -- Helen Thomas to WH Press Corp: "Where is everybody? For God's sake." --Where are You?

Image: George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four

Room 101 - The final punishment for thought criminals in the Ministry of Love.
"The thing in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world....The worst thing in the world varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths....."
Newspeak Dictionary

Helen Thomas to Her Colleagues in the White House Press Corp: "Where is everybody? For God's sake."

By Richard Power


The White House denies that the US tortures prisoners (in violation of the Geneva Accords as well as our own laws and military traditions) even though Bush has boasted about it.

Helen Thomas: The President has said publicly several times, in two consecutive news conferences a few months ago, and you have said over and over again, we do not torture. Now he has admitted that he did sign off on torture, he did know about it. So how do you reconcile this credibility gap?
MS. PERINO: Helen, you're taking liberties with what the President said. The United States has not, is not torturing any detainees in the global war on terror. And General Hayden, amongst others, has spoken on Capitol Hill fully in this regard, and it is -- I'll leave it where it is. The President is accurate in saying what he said.
...Helen Thomas: You're denying, in this room, that we torture and we have tortured?
MS. PERINO: Yes, I am denying that.
Helen then turned in her seat, looked at her colleagues, shook her head in disgust, and asked sadly: "Where is everybody? For God's sakes!"
Eric Brewer, Raw Story, 4-24-08

Millions of e-mails are "missing" from the period in which the covert identity of US secret agent Valerie Plame was betrayed as well as the period in which several US attorneys were fired for political reasons.

Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola of the U.S. District Court ordered the White House to once and for all provide "precise information" about its e-mail system. The order stems from a lawsuit by the National Security Archive, filed on September 5, 2007 against the Executive Office of the President and the National Archives and Records Administration, claiming that a possible 5-to-10 million e-mails were either improperly preserved as Presidential records, as required by law, or lost entirely. Nick Langewis, Raw Story, 4-24-08

Why is the White House stiffing the Federal court's demand for clarity and accountability?

Consider what some e-mail from Bush's Veterans Administration reveals, and then imagine what is in the missing White House e-mails:

In one email message titled “Not for the CBS News…,” the VA’s head of mental health Dr. Ira Katz wrote "Shh!" and then claimed there were 1,000 suicide attempts per month by veterans under the care of the agency. The e-mail was written last February when CBS News was questioning the VA about the number of veterans who have tried to kill themselves.
After a public records request, the VA provided CBS News with data that showed there were a total of 790 attempted suicides by VA patients in the entire year of 2007. This number was nowhere near what Katz was saying privately in his email.
CBS News, 4-23-08

Indeed, where is everybody?

Perhaps you tell yourself it is almost over, and that whoever is sworn into office in January 2009 will end the lawlessness and the indifference to human suffering.

You may well be proven wrong in two out of the three possible outcomes of the US presidential election.

If so, then what will you do?

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Climate Crisis & Sustainability Update: "If uncontrolled, climate change will have security implications of similar magnitude to the World Wars."

Image: Earth at Night, NASA


Climate Crisis & Sustainability Update: "If uncontrolled, climate change will have security implications of similar magnitude to the World Wars."

By Richard Power


On the cover of this week's Economist: The Silent Tsunami

On the cover of this week's Time Magazine: How to Win the War on Global Warming.

Too little too late?

Does the Bali road map lead anywhere?

Agreement on a new climate change treaty could run the risk of failure at talks in Copenhagen next year if governments do not narrow their differences, a top UN environmental official said Tuesday.
The result of this month's talks in Bangkok to discuss commitments to a road map for battling global warming did not bode well in the run-up to the 2009 meeting, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)...
Steiner warned there was as much a risk of failure in Copenhagen as success.
The meeting could lead to "one of the greatest failures of public policy consensus in the history of mankind" but it could also reach "an extraordinary agreement" among nations, he said.
Steiner called on the business community to play a bigger role in giving momentum to the process, which faces lacklustre political will.
Agence France Press, 4-22-08

When will climate change and sustainability be dealt with as what they are -- the greatest national security threat?

The two headed monster of climate crisis and sustainability is, indeed, a global security threat, i.e., one that all nations share in a common.

The report for Britain's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) by environment expert Nick Mabey said the response had been "slow and inadequate" and to rectify it spending needed to surge to levels comparable to sums spent on counter-terrorism.
"If climate change is not slowed and critical environmental thresholds are exceeded, then it will become a primary driver of conflicts between and within states," said the report "Delivering Climate Security: International Security Responses to a Climate-Changed World".
"In the next decades, climate change will drive as significant a change in the strategic security environment as the end of the Cold War," said Mabey.
"If uncontrolled, climate change will have security implications of similar magnitude to the World Wars, but which will last for centuries," he added in the report for the RUSI, a leading forum for defence and security issues.
Experts in the sector should identify and analyse climate-induced security hot spots and communicate these findings to world leaders and the public at large.
The report said conflicts over natural resources had been a regular feature of history, but that the changing climatic conditions would exacerbate the problems with hundreds of millions of people displaced by droughts, floods and famines.
Reuters, 4-22-08

Will one of the smallest nations, which is also happens to be one of the most environmentally-aware nations, be among the first and hardest hit?

Isn't it ironic?

A land of breathtaking vistas, little pollution and great biodiversity, Bhutan regards conservation as one of its most important public-policy goals -- an anchor of "gross national happiness," the quirky measure of development concocted by the former king and upheld by his son, the current occupant of the throne.
Sustainable development is the official mantra. By law, the country's forest cover, including blue pine, cypress, spruce and hemlock, must never drop below 60%. Snow leopards, Himalayan black bears, barking deer and red pandas roam unmolested in the national parks and wildlife reserves that account for a quarter of Bhutan's territory. A sanctuary in the east is famous as the only one in the world set aside for the yeti -- or migoi, the mythical Abominable Snowman.
"This country is committed to being conducive to environmental sustainability and not to be harmful to the world, but the impact of climate change is coming anyway," said Doley Tshering of the United Nations Development Program office in Thimphu, the capital. "You know you haven't created the problem, [yet] you know you're probably having the worst of it."
Some shifting weather patterns are already being felt. ...
But possibly the most dramatic effect of global warming on Bhutan can be seen in its glaciers -- or, perhaps more accurately, not seen. ...
Experts estimate that Bhutan's glaciers are retreating by as much as 100 feet annually. The loss has grave consequences for the country's long-term development: Bhutan relies heavily on selling hydroelectric power, which accounts for about a third of national revenue.
"In the short run, we'll have increased summer flows, but after 40 years, it'll dry up," said Thinley Namgyel, a senior officer at Bhutan's National Environment Commission.
Of more immediate concern is the risk of floods from fast-filling glacial lakes.
Los Angeles Times, 4-20-8

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

Click here for access to great promotional tools available on The Eleventh Hour action page.

To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.

For analysis of the US mainstream news media's failure to treat global warming and climate change with accuracy or appropriae urgency, click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".

Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"

Want to join over one people on the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now? Click here.

Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio has released a witty and compelling compilation on the Top 100 Effects of Global Warming, organized into sections like "Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun" (e.g., "Goodbye to Pinot Noir," "Goodbye to Baseball," "Goodbye to Salmon Dinners," "Goodbye to Ski Vacations," etc.), "Global Warming Kills the Animals" (e.g., "Death March of the Penguins," "Dying Grey Whales," "Farewell to Frogs," etc.) and yes, "Global Warming Threatens Our National Security" (e.g., "Famine," "Drought," "Large-Scale Migrations," "The World's Checkbook," etc.) I urge you to utilize Top 100 Effects of Global Warming in your dialogues with friends, family and colleagues.

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Hard Rain Late Night: U2 -- Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Hard Rain Late Night: U2 -- Sunday, Bloody Sunday



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Can the US Mainstream News Media be Reformed Through Legislation? Or Revitalized from Within? I Don't Know. But It May Rapidly Become Irrelevant.


Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph des Willens (1935)

According to the Associated Press, nearly 17,000 comments were posted on ABC News’s website by Thursday evening, the tone overwhelmingly negative. Tom Shales of the Washington Post said Gibson and Stephanopoulos “turned in shoddy, despicable performances.” The media critic Greg Mitchell said it was “perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years.” Salon.com said, “I’m not sure if we’ve seen anything quite as train-wreck, cover-your-eyes bad as the spectacle on ABC last night.” Will Bunch, a Philadelphia Daily News writer, posted an open letter to Gibson and Stephanopoulos on his blog telling them, “you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself.” And the group MoveOn said it would air an ad protesting ABC if 100,000 people signed their petition. Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, 4-18-08

Can the US Mainstream News Media be Reformed Through Legislation? Or Revitalized from Within? I Don't Know. But It May Rapidly Become Irrelevant.

By Richard Power


Years ago, many of us took to the blogosphere to establish bastions of the information rebellion.

Digital enclaves like Buzzflash, Crooks and Liars, firedoglake, the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, etc., have established an informal alliance with progressive talk radio (e.g., Thom Hartmann and Ring of Fire), a handful of institutions like Center for American Progress and Media Matters and grassroots organizations like MoveOn.org, to become hubs of citizen journalism and clearing houses of inconvenient truths.

Over the last eight years, this loose confederation of new media, new politics and new wonkery has provided context and continuity on vital issues such as the theft of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the false pretenses on which the invasion of Iraq was launched, the official campaign of denial and disinformation about global warming, the pre-9/11 indifference to numerous warnings of an impending attack, the post-9/11 failure to bring us the head of Osama bin Laden, the assault on the Bill of Rights, the institutionalization of torture, and yes, the complicity of the US mainstream news media in these and other tragic wrongs, etc.

The abasement of journalism that stirred this personal dedication has never been more apparent than during a recent presidential debate sponsored by ABC News and moderated by George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson.

Unfortunately, however, even though the uproar in the aftermath of the ABC News debacle indicates that there is a growing unrest in the body politic, the US mainstream news media’s complicity will likely get worse (particularly in this election year) before it gets better.

Consider the latest developments in the boardroom of Associated Press:

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp., is joining its board of directors. Three other media moguls are also joining the board, including Sam Zell, who recently “took control of Tribune Co. after leading a buyout that resulted in the publicly traded company becoming private.” Think Progress, 4-14-08

(Incredibly, Zell recently blamed the US's economic woes on Democratic presidential candidates Clinton and Obama: "Obviously what we have going on is an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy," Zell declared. "We have two Democratic candidates who are vying with each other to describe the economic situation worse." , Raw Story, 2-27-08.)

There is so much that cries out for attention.

That’s what is so offensive about the craven choices that Stephanopoulos and Gibson made in the Philadelphia debate.

It is not just that they either ignored or gave short shrift to the military crisis, the health care crisis, the debt crisis and the global warming crisis. It is also that the world view they share is so feeble and short-sighted.

Here is just a little slice of what was going on in world during the same news cycle.

In Japan, Zenkoji temple announced that it would not participate in the Olympic torch relay, citing both security issues and concern for the Tibetan monks: "As a place of Buddhism and religion, we took into account [China's] human rights violations against Tibet," he said. "We're concerned about the oppression directed toward religious figures in Tibet." Daily Yomiuri, 4-19-08

In Burma, the brutal crackdown continues: Burmese authorities have arrested popular rap and hip-hop performer Yan Yan Chan in a continuing round-up of celebrities who support the pro-democracy movement. ... Musician Win Maw, leader of the Shwe Thansin group, was arrested last November 27 in a Rangoon teashop. He had already been sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1997 for writing songs in support of Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
In January this year, the authorities arrested one of Burma’s best known bloggers, Nay Phone Latt, whose Internet sites were a major source of information about the protests and the regime’s brutal crackdown.
Irrawaddy, 4-18-08

In Darfur, the chaos and despair deepen: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today that it will have to cut rations to the strife-torn Darfur region of Sudan by half because attacks on its trucks are preventing vital relief supplies from getting through. So far this year 60 WFP-contracted trucks have been hijacked in Darfur – where the agency is feeding over two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees – with 39 trucks still missing and 26 drivers unaccounted for. One driver was killed in Darfur last month. UN New Center, 4-17-08
The United Nations has moved 5,400 Darfuris who fled a government offensive in February to refugee camps in eastern Chad, but 8,000 others remain scattered in the area, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) ... About 90 percent of the new refugees were women and children. Reuters, 4-19-08

In the USA, the Government Accountability Office revealed the absence of any US plans to attack Al Qaeda's safe havens in Pakistan: The Government Accountability Office released a report today concluding that the United States has no plan to combat al Qaeda and other terrorist threats in Pakistan. The GAO found that “[t]errorists are still operating freely in Pakistan along the country’s Afghanistan border, despite the U.S. giving Pakistan more than $10.5 billion in military and economic aid.” In a glaring rebuke of President Bush’s terrorism policy, the report says that there is “no comprehensive plan” to “destroy the terrorist threat and close the safe haven in Pakistan,” and “al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack” the United States. Think Progress, 4-17-08

And the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a statement calling for reform of US nuclear weapons policy, it was signed by ninety-five scientists with twenty-three Nobel Prizes and ten National Science Medals among them: The statement includes several unilateral policy initiatives that would strengthen U.S. security by lowering the risk of nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, or a Russian nuclear attack. These include declaring a no first-use policy; rejecting and replacing current "hair-trigger" rapid-launch options; ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 1,000 warheads, including deployed and reserve warheads; committing the United States to reducing its number of nuclear weapons below 1,000 on a negotiated and verified bilateral or multilateral basis; and reaffirming the U.S. commitment to pursue nuclear disarmament as required under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Union of Concerned Scientists, 4-17-08

The analysis of Glenn Greenwald and the reporting of Amy Goodman personify the strengths of the alternative media.

In this excerpt from a recent interview with Goodman, Greenwald offers insightful remarks on the significance of Stephanopoulos and Gibson.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve been blogging a great deal about this debate. Can you talk about what happened on Wednesday night in Pennsylvania?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, in one sense, it was an extreme and rather transparent act of journalistic malfeasance. I mean, that’s just obvious. Take a look at just some of the stories that you reported on in the prior segment, virtually all of which were completely absent from the debate. Instead, the first half of the debate focused almost exclusively on the type of petty, insipid personality-based attacks that dominate our political discourse and determine our national elections.
But in another sense, I think it’s important to note that this debate is not in any way aberrational. I mean, in heaping all this scorn on what George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson have done, I think it’s important to acknowledge the fact that really all they’re doing is what is done continuously throughout our election cycles for decades now. This was sort of a more transparent act, because all of these vapid questions were bunched together at the beginning.
But it’s worth recalling that over the past couple of weeks, the news cycle was dominated by the scandal that Barack Obama wants to be president of the United States even though he doesn’t bowl very well, which was followed by the comments that he made in San Francisco, what Maureen Dowd in the New York Times called the capital of elitism. And prior to that, there was the lapel pin controversy, the never-ending fixation on Jeremiah Wright’s video, the comments made by Barack Obama’s wife Michelle, all of this culminating in this theme that Barack Obama is this exotic, bizarre elitist, out of touch with mainstream American values, subversive, anti-American.
And these are the themes which over and over and over and over again are used to demolish and destroy the character and personality of Democrats and progressives, going all the way back to Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and on and on, to the point where none of the substantive issues and the weighty crises that our country faces in every realm are really a part of our national elections. And I think Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, though a bit more extreme and really more transparent, I would say, in just how vapid they are, were really doing what the establishment media does pretty much without exception, in terms of how it covers our political culture.
Democracy Now! Interviews Glenn Greenwald, 4-18-08

See also Hard Rain Journal 12-3-07: David Gregory Meet I.F. Stone and Tom Paine x 10,000

For Words of Power's archive of posts on Corporate News Media Complicity, Power of Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Darfur Crisis Update: Blame is Irrelevant, So Are Alibis & Excuses, There is So Much More that Could Be Done

For More Compelling Photos from Mia Farrow's Journeys, click here.

Darfur Crisis Update: Blame is Irrelevant, So are Alibis & Excuses, There is So Much More that Could Be Done

By Richard Power


Think of all bizarre utterances of CNN's resident whack-job, Glenn Beck. (For example, CNN's Beck: "If you're an ugly woman, you're probably a progressive as well".) And yet, CNN doesn't apologize to anyone for his on-air antics.

Well then, why did CNN feel compelled to apologize to China for the remarks of Jack Cafferty, a decent man who delivers common sense commentary and just got a little carried away? (See CNN apologises to China over 'thugs and goons' comment by Jack Cafferty, Times Online, 4-16-08)

Ah, yes, it is all about money isn't it? The Chinese money that floats the US debt, the corporate sponsor money that underwrites the Olympics, etc.

Look here is the ugly truth, China and the thugocracy in Karthoum have a special relationship. It is unambiguous. China imports most of the thugocracy's oil, China sells it most of its weapons, China provides it with cover in the UN Security Council.

Blame is irrelavent. It does not matter that there are two sides to the conflict in Darfur. Alibis and excuses are ineffectual. It doesn't matter that the International Olympic Committee has other obligations. It doesn't matter that Coca Cola, one of the Olympic sponsors, has donated millions for water in Darfur.

China's sponsorship of the thugocracy in Khartoum would be reason enough to challenge Western corporations' sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics. But then Burma, another thugocracy with a special relationship to China, was added to the mix; and then Tibet, where China's own security forces are doing the dirty work.

Now the Beijings Olympics is at the center of a great awareness-raising campaign.

Again, blame is irrelevant, so are alibis and excuses. It doesn't matter that there is injustice elsewhere, it doesn't matter that there is hypocrisy everywhere.

All that matter is that something get done.

It is unfortunate that the Olympics must be dragged into this struggle for hearts and minds, but it is an opportunity that cannot be passed up -- for the people of Darfur, for the people of Tibet, for the people of Burma.

Dream for Darfur has issued a report on the IOC.

Here are some remarks from Mia Farrow.

This Report Card documents how the IOC has shirked the messy and difficult business of the genocide in Darfur. Yet the IOC, whose headquarters sit safely in the lovely Swiss town of Lausanne, could have done so much. The IOC has contacts at the United Nations. It has this special Olympic Truce in its own charter which promotes “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” and was signed by hundreds of prominent individuals including Nelson Mandela. The IOC enjoys relationships with Olympic corporate sponsors worldwide, including some of the most powerful transnational companies on the globe. Further, the IOC has a network of 200 national Olympic Committees -- each boasting prominent members. The IOC has young athletes at its beck and call, role models and potential spokespeople for humanitarian causes.
And above all, the IOC has the Olympic Games. This is an organization with global reach, and great potential power.
The crisis in Darfur is, after all, a genocide being underwritten by the IOC’s chosen Olympic host. What has the IOC done to end the first genocide of the 21st century?
Nothing -- despite the fact that when it awarded the Games to China seven years ago, the world knew then that there would be human rights issues to confront now. The IOC has had nearly a decade to plan for human rights contingencies. But when I traveled to Switzerland to discuss with them what they might do to help bring peace to Darfur, they did not offer a single idea. They did not have a clue. ...
Reuters, 4-16-08

For the Dream for Darfur report on the IOC, click here.

Of course, it is not only the IOC which is trying to run away from our responsibilities to each other, it is also the corporate sponsors of the Beijings Olympics.

On the same day Coca-Cola Co. executives issued earnings and met with shareholders, a human rights group Wednesday blasted the Atlanta-based beverage company and other Olympic sponsors for not doing enough to stop abuses in Darfur.
"The Olympics are not about billions of dollars from sponsors," said Jill Savitt , executive director of Dream for Dafur, which has been pressuring Coke and other sponsors since last year to stop ongoing violence in Darfur and Tibet. "The corporate sponsors have been silent about Darfur, and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) has been silent as well."...
In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Savitt said Dream for Darfur plans to issue a report card on Olympic corporate sponsors in the next two weeks. Companies that receive a "C" grade or lower will be greeted with demonstrations at their corporate headquarters, she said.
They also will be targets of the group's "Turn if off" campaign, calling for Olympic television viewers to change the channel or turn off their TV sets when the sponsor's commercials air.
Atlanta Journal Constitution, 4-16-08

See also Why Protecting the People of Darfur, Tibet & Burma is in Our Own Self-Interest; & What These Crises Tell Us about Our Own Slide into the Pit and Wangari Maathai Will Not Carry Olympic Torch, In "Solidarity with Other People on the Issues of Human Rights in ... Darfur, Tibet & Burma ..."

I encourage you to follow events in Darfur on Mia Farrow's site, it is the real-time journal of a humanitarian at work; the content is compelling, insightful and fiercely independent.

Click here to sign the TURN OFF/TUNE IN Pledge.

For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Hard Rain Late Night: Emmylou Harris -- Boulder to Birmingham (Two Versions -- 2006 & 1977)

Hard Rain Late Night: Emmylou Harris -- Boulder to Birmingham (Two Versions -- 2006 & 1977)





Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Monstrous, Two-Headed Crisis of Climate Change & Sustainability is Devouring the World's Food Before It Is Produced

Source: Der Spiegel.


The Monstrous, Two-Headed Crisis of Climate Change & Sustainability is Devouring the World's Food Before It is Produced

By Richard Power


UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is calling for both "short-term emergency measures" and a "significant increase in long-term productivity" in order to come to grips with the planet's "rapidly escalating crisis of food availability."

“The rapidly escalating crisis of food availability around the world has reached emergency proportions,” [UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon] told a joint meeting in New York of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
“We need not only short-term emergency measures to meet urgent critical needs and avert starvation in many regions across the world, but also a significant increase in long-term productivity in food grain production, he said, citing the recent steep rise in prices and World Bank warnings that the crisis could mean “seven lost years” in the fight against global poverty.
“The international community will also need to take urgent and concerted action in order to avert the larger political and security implications of this growing crisis. The UN needs to examine ways to lead a process for the immediate and longer-term responses to this global problem,” he added.
UN News Center, 4-14-08

A recent Der Spiegel story provides insight on this dire situation:

Should we be surprised that despair often turns into violence? The food crisis afflicts the world's poor -- in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East -- like a biblical plague. Prices for staples like rice, corn and wheat, which were relatively stable for years, have skyrocketed by over 180 percent in the last three years. A bottleneck is developing whose consequences are potentially more severe than the global crisis in the financial markets. With nothing left to lose, people on the brink of starvation are more likely to react with boundless fury.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) addressed this global crisis at a joint meeting last weekend. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned that exploding food prices threaten to cause instability in at least 33 countries, including regional powers like Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan, where the army has had to be brought in to protect flour transports. The crisis is helping radical Islamic movements gain strength in North Africa. There has been unrest in recent weeks in Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Cameroon, where the violence has already claimed about 100 lives.
There are several reasons for the food crisis:
The world population is growing constantly, while the amount of arable land is declining.
Climate change is causing a loss of agricultural land, irreversible in some cases, as a result of droughts, floods, storms and erosion.
Because of changing eating habits, more and more arable land and virgin forests are being turned into pasture for livestock. The yield per acre in calories of land given over to pasture is substantially lower than that of arable land.
The World Bank wants developing countries to introduce market reforms, including the abolition of protective tariffs, a move that often causes massive damage to local agriculture.
Speculators are driving up the prices of raw materials. The resulting high oil price leads to "energy crops" being cultivated instead of grain for food or animal feed.
Millions of people displaced by civil wars need food, and yet they themselves are no longer capable of producing food.
What we are beginning to face is not just an acute bottleneck, but a worldwide, fundamental food crisis. It affects most of all the poor, who spend a disproportionately large share of their income on food and water. The crisis is so dire that it is obliterating any progress made in recent years in fighting disease and starvation


See also Madness of Pursuing Last Drop of Peak Oil, Instead of 21st Century Renewable Energy Model, has Caught Up w/ Us -- the Food Security Fuse has Been Lit and More on How Our Climate & Sustainability Crises Impact Food Security: “Once the oceans are gone, we’re gone. The oceans sustain the planet.”

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Saturday, April 12, 2008

Wangari Maathai Will Not Carry Olympic Torch, In "Solidarity with Other People on the Issues of Human Rights in ... Darfur, Tibet & Burma ..."

Wangari Maathai


Wangari Maathai Will Not Carry Olympic Torch, In "Solidarity with Other People on the Issues of Human Rights in ... Darfur, Tibet & Burma ..."; Meanwhile, Leading Marketers are Getting Very Concerned

By Richard Power


Like Al Gore and the IPCC scientists who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, the 2004 Nobel laureate, Wangari Maathai, received the award for working to save the environmment of the planet.

Like Gore and the IPCC, Maathai understands that in the 21st Century, human rights and environmental security are interdependent, and that you cannot achieve peace without the cultivation of both.

Kenya's Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai told AFP Thursday she had pulled out from the Olympic torch relay in which she was due to take part over the weekend in Tanzania, citing concerns for worldwide human rights.
"Yes, I have pulled out," Maathai told AFP by telephone from the Tanzanian commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
"I have decided to show solidarity with other people on the issues of human rights in Sudan's Darfur region, Tibet and Burma." ...
The torch's relay has been dogged by protests in London and Paris, and in San Francisco where on Wednesday a massive police presence and sudden route change made the torch all but invisible to the public. ..
"China has tried to address these issues of human rights. But these issues, especially the situation in Tibet, seem to be escalating even though the Dalai Lama has offered to talk," she said.
Agence France Press, 4-11-08

Meanwhile, Mia Farrow reports that the business community has good reason to be concerned -- there is no doubt that sponsors will suffer in the marketplace:

Tony Chapman, Founder and CEO of Capital C, one of Canada's leading marketing firms, today cautioned Canadian marketers to carefully consider the dangers in fulfilling their Beijing Olympic marketing programs, noting, "Olympic sponsors are getting caught in an ever tightening vice from which there may be no escape."
Chapman believes that despite the enormous market potential the Beijing Olympics opened up to sponsors, the impact and dominance of consumer driven, viral campaigns and their ability to affect global consumer behaviours far outweigh the market burst which sponsors expected from their Olympic sponsorship.
"Indeed," says Chapman, "the Tibet controversy currently interrupting the torch journey is inspiring a reaction of global proportions. It is becoming deafening as it is digitally enabled and swirls around the world, collecting images, commentary, evidence and an ever growing community of supporters.
"Conversations which started with Tibet and Darfur will cross over to China's environmental record, its treatment of workers, its foreign policy and every other cause imaginable, ultimately becoming an unstoppable force impenetrable
by spin doctors, brand managers, or even the most elaborate marketing
campaigns."
CNW, 4-10-08

See also Why Protecting the People of Darfur, Tibet & Burma is in Our Own Self-Interest; & What These Crises Tell Us about Our Own Slide into the Pit.

I encourage you to follow events in Darfur on Mia Farrow's site, it is the real-time journal of a humanitarian at work; the content is compelling, insightful and fiercely independent.

Click here to sign the TURN OFF/TUNE IN Pledge.

For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

For a directory of Words of Power Human Rights Updates, click here.

For Words of Power's archive of posts on Corporate News Media Complicity, Power of Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom, click here.

Some Tibet-Related Words of Power Posts

How About Making Hypocrisy An Olympic Competition?

Human Rights Update: H.H. Dalai Lama to the World -- "Please investigate ... cultural genocide is taking place"

Human Rights Update: H.H. Dalai Lama to the Chinese -- "address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people"

Global Press Freedom Update: China Tightens Screws on Press in Preparation for 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; Take A Look At Your Future

Words of Power #29: The Dalai Lama and The Blade Runner, Spiritual Challenges of the 21st Century Security Crisis, Part III

GS(3) Thunderbolt: Statement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the Forty-Eighth Anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day

Words of Power #20: Cusco, Kyoto and The Yellow Sand Storm

Some Burma-Related Words of Power Posts

Burma Crisis Update: Non-Violent, Democratic Resistance of Burmese People Offers Stark Contrast to US Political Scene

Burma Crisis Update: Talk is Cheap, Business as Usual; On Martin Luther King Day -- Remember Aung San Suu Kyi

In Burma & Sudan, Business As Usual -- What Must & Can Be Done Now!

Burma Crisis Update 11-10-07: Amnesty International on "Grave & Ongoing Human Rights Violations"; Alternate Media Vital to Resistance

Burma Crisis Update: An Open Letter to the Executives of Chevron

Burma Crisis Update: Two Weeks Into the Crackdown, China Has Not Tempered the Thugocracy's Hand; Chevron Has Not Even Slapped Its Wrist

Human Rights Update 10-6-07: Chevron, Condoleeza Rice & the Burmese Thugocracy

Human Rights Update: Blackwater, Burma, Darfur & You

Human Rights Watch to Business: "Keeping quiet while monks & other peaceful protesters are murdered & jailed is not ... constructive engagement."

Human Rights Update: Blackwater, Burma, Darfur & You

Hard Rain Journal 9-27-07: Aung San Suu Kyi was Elected in 1990, Al Gore was Elected in 2000 -- Consider What Has Befallen Both Countries Since

For a directory of Words of Power Human Rights Updates, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Hard Rain Late Night: Fairport Convention -- Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Hard Rain Late Night: Fairport Convention -- Who Knows Where the Time Goes?



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

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Friday, April 11, 2008

More on How Our Climate & Sustainability Crises Impact Food Security: “Once the oceans are gone, we’re gone. The oceans sustain the planet.”


Image: An Inconvenient Truth

Climate Crisis & Sustainability Update: More on How Our Climate & Sustainability Crises Impact Food Security: “Once the oceans are gone, we’re gone. The oceans sustain the planet.”

By Richard Power


There are numerous factors:

Food security is threatened by soaring fuel costs, as well as by the commandeering of land for growing bio-fuel instead of food;

Food security is threatened by the melting of the glaciers, the drying up of the rivers and the desertification of the soil;

Food security is threatened by the fragility of the distribution chain (as with any chain, it is only as strong as its weakest link);

And, as the Agence France Press news story cited in this post highlights, food security is also threatened by the warming of the seas and by unrestrained fishing.

The future food security of millions of people is at risk because over-fishing, climate change and pollution are inflicting massive damage on the world’s oceans, marine scientists warned this week.
The two-thirds of the planet covered by seas provide one fifth of the world’s protein — but 75 percent of fish stocks are now fully exploited or depleted, a Hanoi conference that ended Friday was told.
Warming seas are bleaching corals, feeding algal blooms and changing ocean currents that impact the weather, and rising sea levels could in future threaten coastal areas from Bangladesh to New York, experts said. ... Marine ecosystems and food security were key concerns at the Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands, an international meeting of hundreds of experts from governments, environmental groups and universities. ... The current plunder is risking long-term sustainability with “too many fishing boats taking too many fish and not allowing the stocks to regenerate,” said Frazer McGilvray of Conservation International.
“Once the oceans are gone, we’re gone. The oceans sustain the planet.”
Agence France Press, 4-11-08

See Also Climate Crisis & Sustainability Update: Madness of Pursuing Last Drop of Peak Oil, Instead of 21st Century Renewable Energy Model, has Caught Up w/ Us -- the Food Security Fuse has Been Lit

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

Click here for access to great promotional tools available on The Eleventh Hour action page.

To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.

For analysis of the US mainstream news media's failure to treat global warming and climate change with accuracy or appropriae urgency, click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".

Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"

Want to join hundreds of thousands of people on the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now? Click here.

Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio has released a witty and compelling compilation on the Top 100 Effects of Global Warming, organized into sections like "Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun" (e.g., "Goodbye to Pinot Noir," "Goodbye to Baseball," "Goodbye to Salmon Dinners," "Goodbye to Ski Vacations," etc.), "Global Warming Kills the Animals" (e.g., "Death March of the Penguins," "Dying Grey Whales," "Farewell to Frogs," etc.) and yes, "Global Warming Threatens Our National Security" (e.g., "Famine," "Drought," "Large-Scale Migrations," "The World's Checkbook," etc.) I urge you to utilize Top 100 Effects of Global Warming in your dialogues with friends, family and colleagues.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Madness of Pursuing Last Drop of Peak Oil, Instead of 21st Century Renewable Energy Model, has Caught Up w/ Us -- the Food Security Fuse has Been Lit

See The Eleventh Hour and Spread the Message to Your Friends and Colleagues


Climate Crisis & Sustainability Update: The Madness of Pursuing the Last Drop of Peak Oil, Instead of Transitioning to a 21st Century Renewable Energy Model, has Caught Up with the Human Race -- the Food Security Fuse has Been Lit

By Richard Power


What is it that so many government and business leaders do not seem to understand?

Do they really think that we can isolate ourselves and somehow remain above the chaos that will come?

And chaos and tribulation are surely coming unless we radically and urgently change our energy models and green our economies.

Consider recent warnings from Oxfam and UN officials:

Oxfam's Elizabeth Stuart: "Global economic uncertainty, high food prices, more frequent floods, drought and other impacts of climate change all pose a serious threat to vulnerable people in developing countries. The situation requires urgent action and more money from rich countries and yet, aid levels are falling for a second straight year." Oxfam calls for immediate action to be taken by donors and national governments to ensure that the poorest consumers are protected against high food prices and price volatility on food markets worldwide. OXFAM, 4-8-08

Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN’s top humanitarian official warned yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world. ... [Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN’s emergency relief coordinator] added that the biggest challenge to humanitarian work is climate change, which has doubled the number of disasters from an average of 200 a year to 400 a year in the past two decades.
As well as this week’s violence in Egypt, the rising cost and scarcity of food has been blamed for:
· Riots in Haiti last week that killed four people
· Violent protests in Ivory Coast
· Price riots in Cameroon in February that left 40 people dead
· Heated demonstrations in Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal
· Protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia
Guardian, 4-9-08

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

Click here for access to great promotional tools available on The Eleventh Hour action page.

To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.

For analysis of the US mainstream news media's failure to treat global warming and climate change with accuracy or appropriae urgency, click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".

Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"

Want to join hundreds of thousands of people on the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now? Click here.

Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio has released a witty and compelling compilation on the Top 100 Effects of Global Warming, organized into sections like "Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun" (e.g., "Goodbye to Pinot Noir," "Goodbye to Baseball," "Goodbye to Salmon Dinners," "Goodbye to Ski Vacations," etc.), "Global Warming Kills the Animals" (e.g., "Death March of the Penguins," "Dying Grey Whales," "Farewell to Frogs," etc.) and yes, "Global Warming Threatens Our National Security" (e.g., "Famine," "Drought," "Large-Scale Migrations," "The World's Checkbook," etc.) I urge you to utilize Top 100 Effects of Global Warming in your dialogues with friends, family and colleagues.

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Saturday, April 05, 2008

Why Protecting the People of Darfur, Tibet & Burma is in Our Own Self-Interest; & What These Crises Tell Us about Our Own Slide into the Pit

Edvard Munch's The Scream


Pro-democracy activists continue to be attacked by thugs in Rangoon as Burmese authorities tighten control on opposition groups ahead of the constitutional referendum in May ... Tin Yu, a member of the NLD ... was attacked ... by thugs carrying batons as he walked home from a bus stop. He was admitted to hospital where he received 50 stitches in the face. Irawaddy, 4-4-08

Chinese paramilitary police killed eight people and wounded dozens more when they fired on a protest by several hundred Tibetan monks and villagers ... They searched the room of every monk, confiscating all mobile phones as well as the pictures. ...
When the officials had removed the photographs, a 74-year-old monk, identified as Cicheng Danzeng, tried to stop police from throwing the images on the ground ... A young man working in the monastery, Cicheng Pingcuo, 25, also made a stand and both were arrested. The team of officials then demanded that all the monks denounce the Dalai Lama ...
David Gray, Reuters, 4-5-08

Sudan's National Islamic Front regime has begun its sixth year of genocidal counterinsurgency warfare in the vast western region of Darfur ... Without significant improvement in security on the ground -- for civilians and the humanitarians upon whom they increasingly depend -- deaths in the coming months will reach a staggering total. What Khartoum was unable to accomplish with the massive violence of 2003-04, entailing wholesale destruction of African villages, will be achieved through a "genocide by attrition." Civilians displaced into camps or surviving precariously in rural areas will face unprecedented shortfalls in humanitarian assistance, primarily food and potable water. Eric Reeves, "Genocide by Attrition in Sudan", Washington Post, 4-6-08

Why Protecting the People of Darfur, Tibet & Burma is in Our Own Self-Interest; & What These Crises Tell Us about Our Own Slide into the Pit

By Richard Power


Can you still hear the terrified scream emanating from Munch's dried brushstrokes on that 19th century canvas? Or have you become too desensitized over these last few traumatic years?

Every day that you and I wake up fortunate enough to have our physical health relatively intact, and our freedom of speech and right of redress still alive, albeit under assault, we must endeavor to know, speak out and act.

What does the genocide in Darfur tell us about life in the West and the USA in particular? There are powerful messages for us.

What do the brutal crackdowns in Burma and Tibet tell us about democratic institutions in the West in general and the US in particular? There are powerful messages for us.

We are fat, insulated, morally immature, intellectually malnourished, lazy, distracted and misled; if it were not so, the US populace as a whole would demand more action from its government.

We do not understand that the people of Darfur are not only victims of the world's failure to enforce its own laws on crimes against humanity; they are also among the first victims of the world's monstrous, two-headed climate and sustainability crisis.

There is great self-interest in recognizing the urgent need to save Darfur; today it is Darfur, the day after tomorrow it could be the people of some region of the USA who are displaced by environmental or economic collapse, and/or natural disaster. And if we fail to rise to the challenge of helping Darfur now, why should anyone else rise to the challenge of helping us if (and probably when) our time of tribulation comes?

There is also great self-interest in recognizing the urgent need to stand up for the people of Burma and Tibet -- in meaningful ways; today it is their right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" that is being savagely oppressed, the day after tomorrow it will be those of our own populations unless certain debilitating trends are reversed.

What does Darfur tell us about the deepening of poverty in the USA? What does it tell us about the assault on the economic rights of the the US middle class, and, in particular, about our health care crisis?

What do Burma and Tibet tell us about the sanctity and security of our own democratic process? What do they tell us about the malign power of monopolized news media as a propaganda tool? What do they tell us about what happens when governments become beholden to corporate power instead of "we, the people"?

We were once a people of incredible wealth and freedom. Today, much of our wealth has been looted and most of our freedoms are in serious jeopardy. We are sliding downward, and at the bottom of the slide is a place as desperate as any refugee camp in the Sudan.

The suffering in Darfur, Burma and Tibet are not only opportunities to act altruistically as defenders of the human race and its higher nature; they should also be understood as stark warnings about what are own future could look like if we fail to act both globally and locally in support of a 21st Century agenda:

Promote the health of democratic institutions, particularly secure voting processes and a free, independent press

Protect human rights, particularly those of women, children and indigenous peoples

Embrace sustainability, in particular, ending dependence on the burning of fossil fuels by adopting green-powered economic models.

Strengthen the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

Meanwhile, the visionaries cry out like voices in the wilderness, and the dim-witted and malicious are rewarded with their own hour-long shows on cable news networks.

Consider these recent remarks by Ted Turner, who founded CNN way back when there was much more hope in the world and a much greater appreciation of the need for global action and global perspective. That was before he was forced out by other business interests, which in turn dumbed the network down, and swapped out its principled journalism for empty calories and corporatist water-carrying:

Unchecked global warming and an exploding population could result in cannibalism, controversial U.S. former media mogul Ted Turner says.
If global warming isn't stemmed, "we'll be 8 degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow," Turner said during PBS' "Charlie Rose."
"Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals," said Turner, 69. "Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state ... living conditions will be intolerable."
Population control can help combat global warming he said. People should voluntarily pledge to have only one or two children, the founder of CNN in Atlanta said.
"We're too many people; that's why we have global warming," he said.
UPI, 4-3-08

Now contrast Turner's compelling Jeremiah-like concern for the future of the planet with recent remarks of Glenn Beck, who personifies the post-Turner debasement of CNN:

Last night on his CNN Headline News show, right-wing pundit Glenn Beck hosted global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). Beck allowed Inhofe to rant about how — with “all the liberals” running the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — he was forced to sit through hearings on “that nice white fuzzy polar bear.” ... Beck then jumped in and claimed that, in fact, the extinction of polar bears may be a good thing:
They eat people! For the love of Pete, they’re big, angry bears. They eat people. Not that I say we go out and kill all of them, but I mean, it doesn’t seem to be a problem here. Senator, I can’t take the — I can’t take the lies anymore.
Think Progress, 4-4-08

Both Beck and Inhofe are just shamlessly shilling for the oil companies who want to drill where the ice is melting and do not want the possible extinction of the polar bear to get in their way. That is a simple, naked fact

And, yes, CNN is providing them the platform on which to shill. That too is a simple, naked fact.

Why is Beck on the air? He is not funny. He is not brilliant. He is not attractive. He is not even popular. So why is he on the air? Perhaps he is on the air because he dumbs down the audience, he numbs it, he eats up the time and fill the air waves with his demented rantings so that it is safe from real controversy, honest debate and vital information?

Spare yourself from Beck's nonsense, and spend some time instead reading Jan Egeland's A Billion Lives: An Eyewitness Report from the Frontlines of Humanity. It is an extraordinary offering, and it will give you a strong foundation on which to understand what must get done that is not getting done.

Here is some excerpts from a recent Democracy Now! interview with Egeland:

As former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the former UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland spent years working with the world’s neediest and in conflict zones including Darfur, Colombia, Gaza, Lebanon, Uganda, the Congo and Iraq. ... He now serves as the Director-General of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. He is the author of the new book A Billion Lives: An Eyewitness Report from the Frontlines of Humanity.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s very good to have you with us. What do you think is the single worst crisis right now in the world?
JAN EGELAND: Today, it’s—I would mention perhaps three. One is still eastern Congo, catastrophically neglected. It was the biggest loss of lives on our watch these last fifteen years: five million people died. Darfur has spread as a conflict and as a catastrophe to Chad and the Central African Republic. But certainly Iraq and Afghanistan is still unfolding as a hemorrhage of human life.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And in terms of the catastrophe in the Congo—as you say, five million people since about 1998—why has there been so little attention by the rest of the world to this crisis? And where is it right now in terms of the possibility for people in the Congo to be able to resume relatively normal lives?
JAN EGELAND: Well, it was one of the biggest mysteries when I had this job as the Global Emergency Relief Coordinator that we could not get enough attention to Africa, in general, and especially not to French-speaking, Portuguese-speaking Africa. The Congo was an enormous war, an enormous catastrophe, and it didn’t reach even the lowest levels of attention. We did a survey in my office in the UN, and in—I think in 2003, when it was at its worst, there were like six items on main US and network news. There were 1,900 of the Michael Jackson case. And it was the biggest war of our time. ...

AMY GOODMAN: ... This, Jan Egeland, is what you had to say during your visit to the Congo in September of 2006.
JAN EGELAND: This is the epicenter, really, of the humanitarian tragedy of the Congo, perhaps the worst in the world for this last decade. These women and children have been abused, have been raped, have lost everything. Some humanitarian assistance is now coming for the first time to this area to really help them. Our hope is, from the UN, to massively increase assistance and, more than anything, help them provide the peace in this area so they can return to their fertile land.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Jan Egeland in 2006 in the Congo. You remember that moment?
JAN EGELAND: Yeah, I remember vividly. I was at the hospital called the Panzi Hospital, and around me were 1,200 physically and mentally destroyed women due to sexual violence. The sexual violence of the Congo, but also in other conflicts like in Darfur, in northern Uganda, is rampant, and it’s not reported on, really. Sexual abuse, mass rape of women, is not a side effect of war; it is the war. It is the way they destroy the social fabric of the people they want to fight.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think has to be done?
JAN EGELAND: Much more attention, but, number two, the leaders have to be held accountable. So I met with President Kabila of the Congo and said, “I know you cannot have a lot of courts set up in no time, but you could fire these generals, these governors, these political leaders, who let this happen on their watch.”
AMY GOODMAN: His response?
JAN EGELAND: His response was, “If I am elected, I will do that.” He was elected, and he didn’t do it.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And the responsibility and the role of the Western powers in this, of France and Belgium, the United States and others, who have long had interests, especially in the mineral wealth of the Congo?
JAN EGELAND: Well, the history is as black as it can get for the European colonialists in the Congo, in Central Africa, as it is for the West, generally, in Africa, I would say. Now, I would give credit, actually, to the European Union and the United Nations, supported by the US, for the operation in the Congo, because there was little interest in it, there was little reporting, and still the UN force was built up, and it is—it’s bad now in Congo, but it is infinitely better than when I came on my first visit in 2003 and they were fighting all across this tremendous continent, which is Congo. Now, it is more confined to the eastern strip of the Kivu provinces. ...
AMY GOODMAN: What about the fact that the US has not signed on to the International Criminal Court?
JAN EGELAND: Well, it is puzzling to me, because the US has, through its history, been a leader in fighting for human rights. I mean, my constitution, the Norwegian one, was in a way patterned after your Declaration of Independence. And it is now strange that the US would not ratify several of these international agreements, which is to further the whole fight for human rights. And, of course, it’s a good thing that Milosevic of Yugoslavia is now facing justice, Charles Taylor of Liberia is facing justice, the genocide responsible of Rwanda are facing justice. Why not join it? I mean, it seems to be some irrational fear in Washington that the US will someday be having people facing that. Well, if you don’t do genocide, which I don’t think you will do, you will not have anybody facing it.
Democracy Now, 3-28-8

I encourage you to follow events in Darfur on Mia Farrow's site, it is the real-time journal of a humanitarian at work; the content is compelling, insightful and fiercely independent.

Click here to sign the TURN OFF/TUNE IN Pledge.

For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

For a directory of Words of Power Human Rights Updates, click here.

For Words of Power's archive of posts on Corporate News Media Complicity, Power of Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom, click here.

Some Tibet-Related Posts

How About Making Hypocrisy An Olympic Competition?

Human Rights Update: H.H. Dalai Lama to the World -- "Please investigate ... cultural genocide is taking place"

Human Rights Update: H.H. Dalai Lama to the Chinese -- "address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people"

Global Press Freedom Update: China Tightens Screws on Press in Preparation for 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; Take A Look At Your Future

Words of Power #29: The Dalai Lama and The Blade Runner, Spiritual Challenges of the 21st Century Security Crisis, Part III

GS(3) Thunderbolt: Statement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the Forty-Eighth Anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day

Words of Power #20: Cusco, Kyoto and The Yellow Sand Storm

Some Burma-Related Words of Power Posts

Burma Crisis Update: Non-Violent, Democratic Resistance of Burmese People Offers Stark Contrast to US Political Scene

Burma Crisis Update: Talk is Cheap, Business as Usual; On Martin Luther King Day -- Remember Aung San Suu Kyi

In Burma & Sudan, Business As Usual -- What Must & Can Be Done Now!

Burma Crisis Update 11-10-07: Amnesty International on "Grave & Ongoing Human Rights Violations"; Alternate Media Vital to Resistance

Burma Crisis Update: An Open Letter to the Executives of Chevron

Burma Crisis Update: Two Weeks Into the Crackdown, China Has Not Tempered the Thugocracy's Hand; Chevron Has Not Even Slapped Its Wrist

Human Rights Update 10-6-07: Chevron, Condoleeza Rice & the Burmese Thugocracy

Human Rights Update: Blackwater, Burma, Darfur & You

Human Rights Watch to Business: "Keeping quiet while monks & other peaceful protesters are murdered & jailed is not ... constructive engagement."

Human Rights Update: Blackwater, Burma, Darfur & You

Hard Rain Journal 9-27-07: Aung San Suu Kyi was Elected in 1990, Al Gore was Elected in 2000 -- Consider What Has Befallen Both Countries Since

For a directory of Words of Power Human Rights Updates, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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