Words of Power

Yes, Your Leaders Went to Davos, 3 Bare-Breasted Ukrainian Women; & Why You Will Soon Miss the Words, "I'm from the Government & I'm Here to Help You"

2012-01-29T19:26:00.000-08:00

More than 1 million children in the Sahel are at risk of severe malnutrition and urgent action is needed to avert starvation akin to that in Somalia, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday. Reuters, 1-27-11

More intense heat waves due to global warming could diminish wheat crop yields around the world through premature ageing, according to a study published Sunday in Nature Climate Change. Current projections based on computer models underestimate the extent to which hotter weather in the future will accelerate this process, the researchers warned. Marlowe Hood, Climate-driven heat peaks may shrink wheat crops, Physorg.com, 1-29-11

“We love peace and we hope for peace,” the monk said, adding that mandatory “re-education” classes, often dominated by political and patriotic indoctrination, have been forced on his monastery. The government has said two Tibetans were killed in clashes in the towns of Seda and Luhuo ... Another Tibeten protester was shot dead in Rangtang county, rights groups said ... Agence France Press, 1-29-12

Yes, Your Leaders Went to Davos, Three Bare-Breasted Ukrainian Women; & Why You Will Soon Miss the Words, "I'm from the Government & I'm Here to Help You"

By Richard Power

The women of Femen are serious, and brave.

And if you doubt either, you do not understand the vital role of women in the massive, global non-violent evolution that must come; nor do you understand how profoundly exploited women are in the grips of predatory capitalism, particularly in Eastern European and the former Soviet Union.

Three topless Ukrainian protesters were detained Saturday while trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders to call attention to the needs of the world's poor ... After a complicated journey to reach the heavily guarded Swiss resort town of Davos, the Ukrainians arrived at the entrance to the complex where the World Economic Forum takes place every year. With temperatures around freezing in the snow-filled town, they took off their tops and tried to climb a fence before being detained. "Crisis! Made in Davos," read one message painted across a protester's torso, while others held banners that said "Poor, because of you" and "Gangsters party in Davos." Women of FEMEN Crash "Gangsters Party in Davos" Common Dreams, 1-28-12

(Videos embedded below.)

Imagine where we would be if we hadn't allowed Bush to gut the surplus with his tax cuts for the wealthiest (or simply not extended them when they were due to expire). Imagine where we would be if we hadn't spent the three trillion plus squandered on Iraq and Afghanistan, and instead, poured it into high-speed rail cross-crossing the country, and a new, smarter grid fed with solar power from the Southwest and wind power from the Midwest.

Oh yes, BTW, have you ever added up the externalities of fossil fuels? Oil, gas and coal are not cheap energy sources; and they haven't been for a long time, assuming you add in the real costs in terms of the destruction of the environment and the negative impact on public health (not to mention decade after decade of those tax-payer funded subsidies). And now they are threatening to cost us our world itself, i.e., civilization as we know it, and the global climate balance it has been predicated on for millennia. And yet the Chamber of Horrors and its Renfields in both major political parties just want more, and more, at whatever the cost; and so, instead of a Marshall Plan to turn our own economy green, we pursue mountain top removal, fracking and the tar sands pipeline. Madness.

Governments’ failure to regulate business effectively is having a devastating impact on the rights of society’s most vulnerable people, Amnesty International warned today, ahead of this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos. “The economic crisis, and how governments have chosen to address it, poses a clear and unambiguous risk to the rights of people in many countries,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty. “Davos cannot afford to be a congratulatory club for the rich and powerful. We must use this opportunity to challenge the orthodoxy of the policies being pursued and ensure governments meet their responsibilities.” Davos: World Leaders Protecting Business Over Rights in Economic Crisis, Amnesty International, 7-24-12

Do you remember how we fell into these circumstances? Do you understand? Here is all the history you need.

Despite Newt Gingrich's claim that "supply-side" economic theories have "worked," the truth is that America's three-decade experiment with low tax rates on the rich, lax regulation of corporations and "free trade" has been a catastrophic failure, creating massive federal debt, devastating the middle class and off-shoring millions of American jobs. It has "worked" almost exclusively for the very rich, yet the former House speaker and the three other Republican presidential hopefuls are urging the country to double-down on this losing gamble, often to the cheers of their audiences — like one Florida woman who said she had lost her job and medical insurance but still applauded the idea of more "free-market" solutions. Robert Parry, Selling the 'Supply-Side' Myth, 1-28-12

Flawed and conflicted as it was, ours WAS "a government of the people, for the people, by the people," otherwise they would not have been so desperate to demonize and destroy it from within. We will all have reason to rue the day, and many will not live much longer than that, as the Sixth Great Extinction overtakes the planet.

In the face of an unraveling climate system, there is no way that private enterprise alone will meet the threat. And though small “d” democracy and “community” may be key parts of a strong, functional, and fair society, volunteerism and “self-organization” alone will prove as incapable as private enterprise in responding to the massive challenges now beginning to unfold. To adapt to climate change will mean coming together on a large scale and mobilizing society’s full range of resources. In other words, Big Storms require Big Government. Who else will save stranded climate refugees, or protect and rebuild infrastructure, or coordinate rescue efforts and plan out the flow and allocation of resources? It will be government that does these tasks or they will not be done at all. Christian Parenti, Why Climate Change Will Make You Love Big Government; A Secret History of Free Enterprise and the Government That Made It Possible, Tom Dispatch, 2-26-12

But remember, this great duel was fought and WON not so long ago, in the land that the wood for the U.N. General Assembly came from (isn't it good, Norwegian wood?"), and the land that Lisbeth Salander and the Nobel Peace Prize came from too ...

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different. George Lakey, How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’ Waging Non-Violence, 1-26-12

We need MASSIVE, GLOBAL NON-VIOLENT EVOLUTION now.

Our first step in the USA is to declare that CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE, AND MONEY IS NOT SPEECH, and to rid ourselves of this abomination. Go to Move to Amend for more information.

Historic Effort to Recall Wisconsin Gov. Walker Reveals "People Power" After 1 Million Sign Petition

Three Very Short Videos (All Less than One Minute) of Femen at Davis

Stop Davis 1

Stop Davos! 2 from FEMEN Video on Vimeo.

Stop Davis 2

Stop Davos! 1 from FEMEN Video on Vimeo.

Stop Davis 3

Stop Davos! 3 from FEMEN Video on Vimeo.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

In This Fractured Society, Lashed Together in Deep Denial, the Day After the Day After MLK Day is More Important

2012-01-16T20:20:00.001-08:00

Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964 (Dick DeMarsico, World Telegram Staff Photographer, Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection)

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” - Martin Luther King, Jr., Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, April 4, 1967

In This Fractured Society, Lashed Together in Deep Denial, the Day After the Day After MLK Day is More Important

By Richard Power

MLK came from the future, and brought with him a message so powerful that its delivery cost the messenger his life.

No monument could ever contain the greatness he conjured, but your radiant mind can mirror it, and your overflowing heart can pour it forth. Choose to live this truth. Choose to live from the future into the now. Choose indomitable compassion and dauntless courage.

"I agree with Dante, that the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who at a time of moral crisis maintain their neutrality ..." -Martin Luther King, Jr., Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, April 30, 1967

The goddesses of love and justice call to you from the within your psyche.

‎"And of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with resignation of power, and power with the denial of love ... Now we have got to get this thing right. What is needed is the realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on." - Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go From Here?, August 16, 1967

The journey is just beginning.

Remember that the visionary power of MLK's dream did not spring from some naive idealism, but from a profound grasp of reality and an extraordinary willingness to embrace any and all consequences of living a truthful live. Yes, and like him, each of us must approach tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, as if it were our "Last Battle on Earth" ...

"So I am happy tonight, I am not worried about anything, i am not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory ..." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 3, 1968

If MLK were alive today, he would have stood at the threshold of the corridors of power, and declared that corporations are not people, and money is not speech. No more efficacious cause could be rallied around on the day after MLK Day 2012, or the day after the day after, or the day after that ...

The Constitution of this country has served us well, but when the Supreme Court says that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger. That is why I have introduced a resolution in the Senate calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Saving Our Democracy, Huffington Post, 12-8-12

Unlike the mainstream media, the political establishment, and the corporatist overlords that both serve, MLK would not have avoided the grave dangers of the Climate Crisis. Unlike the most of the progressive movement, he would not have allowed the Climate Crisis to be just one among numerous causes. Yes, my friend, accept it, the Climate Crisis is of another magnitude than Don't Ask, Don't Tell, or Iraq and Afghanistan, or just about anything else you could imagine. Food shortages, water scarcity and massive population displacements, that's what the Climate Crisis threatens us with.

MLK would have clearly understood both the challenges and the opportunities of the Climate Crisis - in the their proper context, i.e. economic and moral, and he would have seen Climate Action as a banner under which to unite yellow, brown, red, black and white, he would have recognized it as the penultimate moment, the crescendo of every battle for human rights and environmental protection from the dawn of civilization, and he would not have let this penultimate moment pass without seizing it.

Instead, from Kyoto to Copenhagen to Durbin, we have seen the greatest failure of governance in human history.

Naomi Klein: Personally, I think the greatest possibility lies in bringing together the ecological crisis and the economic crisis. I see climate change as the ultimate expression of the violence of capitalism: this economic model that fetishizes greed above all else is not just making lives miserable in the short term, it is on the road to making the planet uninhabitable in the medium term ... I think climate change is the strongest argument we’ve ever had against corporate capitalism, as well as the strongest argument we’ve ever had for the need for alternatives to it. And the science puts us on a deadline: we need to have begun to radically reduce our emissions by the end of the decade ...Naomi Klein and Yotam Marom, Occupy Wall Street: Why Now? What's Next?, The Nation, 1-10-12

Oh yes, and although he would have marveled at Occupy Wall Street, and all that it has already accomplished in terms of awakening the national psyche, MLK would be relentlessly reminding its participants that this economic injustice did not start with a war on the middle class and its children, no, it started with the war on the poor that replaced the war on poverty.

AMY GOODMAN: ... you have talked about how there are more African Americans percentage-wise imprisoned in the United States, more black people, than were at the height of apartheid South Africa.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: ... we’ve become blind in this country to the ways in which we’ve managed to reinvent a caste-like system here in the United States, one that functions in a manner that is as oppressive, in many respects, as the one that existed in South Africa under apartheid and that existed under Jim Crow here in the United States ... Through the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement, millions of poor people, overwhelmingly poor people of color, have been swept into our nation’s prisons and jails, branded criminals and felons, primarily for nonviolent and drug-related crimes ... and then are ushered into a permanent second-class status, where they’re stripped of the many rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement ... On Eve of MLK Day, Michelle Alexander & Randall Robinson on the Mass Incarceration of Black America, Democracy Now, 1-13-12

In the decades since his martyrdom, *they* allowed for the establishment of a national holiday in his name, the erection of a monument to him on the mall, and even the ascendancy of an African American to the Oval Office (albeit an Impossible Presidency) and yet, all the while *they* were dismantling everything that truly mattered, brick by brick and tear by tear.

MLK would have seen through it all. But he is long gone.

And you and I are standing here alone, and it is the day after the day after ...

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

I Am A Man: Dr. King & the Memphis Sanitation Strike

MLK's Last Speech

On Eve of MLK Day, Michelle Alexander & Randall Robinson on the Mass Incarceration of Black America (Democracy Now)

The Revolutionary MLK

See Also

Welcome to the Anthropocene Age; A Monument to MLK Now Stands on the Mall, Like Kubrick's Obelisk, Mysterious & Otherworldly

MLK Day 2007 -- A Call to Conscience in the Corridors of State and Media Power

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

Ron Paul Serves the 1%, & In His Thralldom to Them He Throws Some Juicy Scraps to the Ugliest Anti-Social Elements Among Us

2012-01-08T02:34:00.000-08:00

Salvador Dali - Leda Atomica (1949)

Ron Paul Serves the 1%, & In His Thralldom to Them He Throws Some Juicy Scraps to the Ugliest Anti-Social Elements Among Us - Ron Paul Would Have Protected Jim Crow, Wants to Free You from "Slavery" to Social Security & Medicare, & Of Course Revoke a Woman's Right to Choose

By Richard Power

If Ron Paul runs as a third-party candidate, it will not be to defeat the one-percenter Mitt Romney, it will be to ensure Romney's victory in a few critical battleground states by shaving off a few thousand votes from POTUS (or perhaps by offering cover for the shaving off of those votes by other more nefarious means).

Make no mistake about it, Ron Paul serves the 1%, and in his thralldom to them he throws juicy scraps of hate to some the ugliest anti-social elements among us.

If you are flirting with support for Ron Paul, as some kind of powerful statement on the threat to civil liberties, you are profoundly deluded.

Ron Paul has stated unequivocally that he believes the state should be able to dictate what a woman can or cannot do with her own body.

Ron Paul
You say you want to repeal Roe v Wade.
What makes you think the state has the right to control a woman's reproductive decisions?
You say you want every child to have a chance to live. How will those children eat when you eliminate essential programs like WIC and food assistance?
Where will those children live when you eliminate subsidized housing?
How will those children receive healthcare when you eliminate Medicaid?
How will those children get an education when you eliminate student aid?
Mr. Paul, you do not care about the children of the 99 percent. You do not care about the rights of women. You are a servant of the Patriarchy. You are a servant of the 1 percent. Ron Paul Event Interrupted in Iowa, Huffington Post, 12-28-11

Paul has also stated unequivocally that the state should not be able to forbid a business from refusing service to a someone based solely on their race or ethnicity.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked the Texas congressman, “The ‘64 civil rights bill, do you think an employer, a guy who runs his shop down in Texas or anywhere has a right to say, ‘If you’re black, you don’t come in my store’?” And with that, Paul explained he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act, adding, “I wouldn’t vote against getting rid of the Jim Crow laws.” Steve Benen, Washington Monthly, 5-14-11

So you are a progressive, and you insist that Ron Paul has some moral high ground? Tell me, how does it feel to lie in bed with the denizens of Stromfront?

You are also seriously deluded if you are flirting with support for Ron Paul, as some kind of powerful statement of protest in regard to our foolish military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ron Paul's anti-war views are not grounded in altruism or even common sense; they are grounded in a crude, unthinking isolationism. Indeed, it is not far-fetched to surmise that the tale of Anne Frank's diary would have likely fallen on deaf ears in Ron Paul's house. Can't you hear him saying, "It's none of our business." (Think I am taking a cheap shot? Really? Some Republicans of the 1930s were not just isolationists, they were Nazi-sympathizers.)

After all, in Ron Paul’s warped mind, caring for strangers is just a way to enslave them.

Earlier this year, in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Paul declared both Social Security and Medicare to be unconstitutional, essentially saying they should be abolished for the great evil that they are -- just like slavery. Adele Stan, 5 Reasons Progressives Should Treat Ron Paul with Extreme Caution -- 'Cuddly' Libertarian Has Some Very Dark Politics, AlterNet, 8-26-11

But perhaps the most damning evidence of all is that Ron Paul named his son after the sociopathic cult leader, Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society....To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.— Gore Vidal, 1961 Bruce E. Levine, How Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation, Reuters AlterNet, 12-15-11

His adoration of Ayn Rand, BTW, is something he shares with Alan Greenspan. (Yes, the former Chairman of the Fed.)

Ron Paul is either a profoundly confused individual, or an utter hypocrite. So where does that leave you if you are considering supporting him?

Megan Carpentier and Joe Conason provide some context

In fact, many of Ron Paul's newest supporters on the left look strikingly like the majority of the ones on the right who have been following him for years: the kinds of people whose lives won't be directly affected by all those pesky social conservative policies Paul would seek to enact as president, either due to their race, class, gender or sexual orientation. Megan Carpentier, Guardian, 1-6-12

The Nader supporters of 2000, a fraction of the liberal electorate, didn’t get the policies they so urgently desired, of course. They didn’t even get a viable Green Party or a lasting movement for change. Instead, they helped to inflict a political disaster from which America has scarcely begun to emerge. In the new year, we may discover whether they wish to revive that nightmare. Joe Conason, Could Ron Paul Be the Next Ralph Nader? Truthdig, 1-1-12

Not a Political Crisis, Not an Economic Crisis, Not an Environmental Crisis; No, a Mental Health Crisis

2011-12-17T11:58:00.000-08:00

Edward Curtis, Apache Girl (1906)

Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society....To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.— Gore Vidal, 1961 Bruce E. Levine, How Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation, Reuters AlterNet, 12-15-11

Not a Political Crisis, Not an Economic Crisis, Not an Environmental Crisis; No, a Mental Health Crisis

By Richard Power

A week has now passed since the greatest failure of governance in human history reached its culmination at the Durbin climate summit. And no, I am not indulging in hyperbole.

The UN climate talks in Durban were a failure and take the world a significant step back by further undermining an already flawed, inadequate multilateral system that is supposed to address the climate crisis ... Friends of the Earth, Disastrous "Durban Package" Accelerates Onset of Climate Catastrophe, 12-31-11

"Delaying real action till 2020 is a crime of global proportions. "This means the world is on track to a 4C temperature rise, a death sentence for Africa ... The richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%."John Vidal and Fiona Harvey, Durban Climate Deal Struck after Tense All-Night Session, Guardian, 12-12-11

They bailed out the banks in days. But even deciding to bail out the planet is taking decades. George Monbiot, Why is it so easy to save the banks – but so hard to save the biosphere? Independent, 12- 16-11

Yes, a week has now passed since the greatest failure of governance in human history reached its culmination at the Durbin climate summit, and there has been almost no debate about it in the US body politic or even mention of it on US air waves. (Instead, chillingly, the national discussion this week has been an utterly delusional one about whether "we achieved our goals" in Iraq, and whether or not "it is the right time" to leave.)

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street has brilliantly framed our current predicament as the co-opting of US economic and political power by 1% at the expense of the 99%. Of course, if the contrast were not so stark between the current circumstances and trajectories of the 99% versus the 1%, the framing would not seem so brilliant.

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and everyone in between in slipping downward toward the abyss into which the poor are already falling.

The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are owners of their countries. The elections which give them power have – through the gutlessness and collusion of governments – become as false as the polls to which the Arabs were forced to troop decade after decade to anoint their own national property owners. Robert Fisk, Bankers are the Dictators of the West, Independent, 12-11-11

Yes, we are at a moment in history when the reality of our economic and environmental challenges have become inescapable. And yet, there is nothing much more than escapism being proffered from either our political establishment or mainstream news media; both are unabashedly propping up false memes of a 1% world-view.

Have we ever been so badly served by the press? We face multiple crises – economic, environmental, democratic – but most newspapers represent them neither clearly nor fairly. The industry that should reveal and expose instead tries to contain and baffle, to foil questions and shut down dissent. The men who own the corporate press are fighting a class war, seeking, even now, to defend the 1% to which they belong against its challengers. But because they control much of the conversation, we seldom see it in these terms. Our press re-frames major issues so effectively, it often recruits its readers to mobilise against their own interests. George Monbiot, Britain's press are fighting a class war, defending the elite they belong to, Guardian, 12-12-11

We do not have a political crisis, or an economic crisis, or an environmental crisis, as much as we have a mental health crisis, a moral crisis, and a spiritual crisis.

Scientific research is revealing that 21st century financial institutions with a high rate of turnover and expanding global power have become highly attractive to psychopathic individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and the companies they work for. A peer-reviewed theoretical paper titled “The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis” details how highly placed psychopaths in the banking sector may have nearly brought down the world economy through their own inherent inability to care about the consequences of their actions ... Scientists believe about 1% of the general population is psychopathic ... There is emerging evidence that this frequency increases within the upper management of modern corporations." Mitchell Anderson, Weeding Out Corporate Psychopaths, Toronto Star, 11-24-11

As I have said since I started writing and speaking about these issues over a decade ago, our environmental and economic crises are inextricably bound up, and so are the solutions. Either our future is green, and altruistic, and grounded in declarations of human rights and Gaia's rights, or it will be a horrific one. The choice really is ours.

Remember, there are many mysteries about the pyramids, but the source of their strength is not one of them, the strength of all pyramids flows from the base, the broad bottom, and not from the pinnacle. That is a geometric truth.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

Mic Check Mic Check We Are We Are On Our Own On Our Own The Future The Future Is Being Abandoned Is Being Abandoned In Durbin In Durbin

2011-12-07T05:33:00.000-08:00

John William Waterhouse, Mermaid, 1901

If the British chancellor won't take responsibility, most other political leaders in developed countries won't either ... Some say we need a miracle to save the eurozone and the banks. We need a far bigger one to save the planet. According to the World Bank's 2010 world development report, if all coal-fired plants scheduled to be built in the next 25 years come into operation, their lifetime CO2 emissions will equal those of all coal burning since the industrial revolution. Peter Wilby, Guardian, 12-2-11

Between 15,000 and 20,000 farmers, unionists, teachers, peasants, students, garbage pickers, transport workers and other indignant citizens gathered outside the U.N. consultation chambers in Durban on Saturday calling for "system change, not climate change". Many of these protestors marched to the U.S. embassy, demanding that the "world's biggest polluter" start supporting climate solutions that benefit the 99 percent. Kanya D'Almeida, US Inaction on Climate is "Criminal", Activists Say, IPS, 12-4-11

And this battle demands that the world see that, at some stage, as the water tables are dropping and the minerals that remain in the mountains are being taken out, we are going to confront a crisis from which we cannot return. The people who created the crisis in the first place will not be the ones that come up with a solution.Arundhati Roy, Guardian, 11-30-11

Mic Check Mic Check We Are We Are On Our Own On Our Own The Future The Future Is Being Abandoned Is Being Abandoned In Durbin In Durbin

By Richard Power

So POTUS finally delivered a powerful and long overdue Roosevelt-style speech about economic injustice; but, of course, true to his predilections, it was a Teddy Roosevelt speech not an F.D.R. speech. Because, after all, no matter what fellow community organizer Saul Alinsky meant to him in the past, or still means to him in the solitude of his own mind, POTUS is, practically speaking, the ideological equivalent of what was once known as a progressive Republican.

And on the same day as POTUS' Teddy Roosevelt speech, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also delivering a powerful speech; one in which she called on the governments of the world to cease discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Well, I would love to indulge in revelry, and I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news (again), but ...

The Obama administration's actions in Durbin this week and last cancel out the positive benefit of both laudable speeches.

The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban. "The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius of warming, which will be devastating for the poor of the world," said Celine Charveriat of Oxfam International. "They are proposing a 10-year time out with no new targets to lower emissions until after 2020," Charveriat said. Stephen Leahy, IPS, 12-6-11

Don't you understand? Even if we were to succeed in establishing a new baseline of economic justice in the USA (POTUS flirted with it in his speech), while bringing gay marriage to bastions of homophobia like Uganda and Saudia Arabia (which would be the logical extension of the principled position Hillary Clinton outlined in hers), it would all likely be for naught.

If you live in the Southwest or just about anywhere in the American West, you or your children and grandchildren could soon enough be facing the Age of Thirst, which may also prove to be the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization. No kidding ... Just think of the coming Age of Thirst in the American Southwest and West as a three-act tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions. William deBuys, Coming to a Theater Near You: The Greatest Water Crisis in the History of Civilization, Tom Dispatch, 12-5-1

Severe drought has hit Europe's second largest river, the Danube, turning it into a navigation nightmare for shipping companies all the way from Germany to Bulgaria ... "There is just no water! The situation is critical not only here on the lower Danube but also upriver in Hungary, Austria, Germany," Ivan Ivanov, deputy chief of Bulgarian River Shipping (BRP), told AFP. Agence France Press, 12-4-11

Storms and droughts that have unleashed dangerous surges in food prices could be a “grim foretaste” of what lies ahead when climate change bites more deeply, Oxfam said ... “This will only get worse as climate change gathers pace and agriculture feels the heat,” said Oxfam’s Kelly Dent. Agence France Press, 11-28-11

The U.S.A. government has indeed led the world - into the greatest failure of governance in human history.

But it is not just our political leadership that is responsible for these dire circumstances.

The Climate talks in Durbin are well into the second week. And yet, the U.S. mainstream news media has spent the last few days and nights doting on the madness of Cain, Trump and Gingrich, and then, in turn, analyzing POTUS' new-found populism.

Sadly, so have progressive cable news sources, e.g., Maddow, Schultz, O'Donnell, even Olbermann (although K.O, to his credit has been in-depth and relentless on Occupy Wall Street). Likewise, progressive talk radio hosts have also been AWOL on the Climate Crisis this last week and last, first obsessing over Cain, Gingrich and Trump, and then fawning over POTUS' speech (only Thom Hartmann consistently deals with the Climate Crisis in any meaningful way).

None of these sources (as of this post) have provided coverage worthy of what is at stake in Durbin.

Only Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! have provided coverage worthy of what is at stake in Durbin. Day after day, this week and last, we have been reminded of how much Democracy Now! does with so little, as opposed to how little CNN does with so much. (See some examples in the embedded videos below.)

Yes, we know Durbin is a lost cause; but honestly that it is a lost cause (and why) is even a bigger story than if a meaningful agreement were to come out of it. Madness. Madness. Madness. We are on our own. But you knew that, didn't you? For thousands of years, human civilization has been hurtling toward the impossible situation in which you and I find ourselves. All that is blessed has been fused with all that is wicked. What will come of this singularity? Emergence or extinction?

Choose to meet this unprecedented moment with unconditional love, simple awareness and bold creativity. There is no other way forward. If you look ahead and see no one in front of you, well, that's because you are leading the way.

You think OWS is radical? You think 350.org was radical for helping organize mass civil disobedience in DC in August against the Keystone Pipeline? We’re not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history ... 2011 showed we could fight back. 2012 would be a good year to step up the pressure. Because this time next year the Global Carbon Project will release another number. And I’m betting it will be grim. Bill McKibben, The Most Important News Story of the Day/Millennium, Common Dreams, 12-5-11

Oh, and while I have your attention ... let us share some insights on what is really happening to the European Union:

Fundamentally, this is a struggle to take a crisis, caused by the business community and the governments they support, and make the mass of people pay for it. That’s what austerity means. And the test here is whether the mass of people will absorb it and accept it. And I think what’s happening is that they didn’t accept it in Greece, they’re not accepting it in Italy, and so they’re trying to make it a continental austerity program, led by the powerful countries. And I don’t think that’s going to work any better than what has been done in the individual countries. Richard Wolff: Eurozone Woes Result from Mating of Our "Dysfunctional" Political, Economic Systems, Democracy Now! 12-2-11

How did things go so wrong? The answer you hear all the time is that the euro crisis was caused by fiscal irresponsibility ... But the truth is nearly the opposite. Although Europe’s leaders continue to insist that the problem is too much spending in debtor nations, the real problem is too little spending in Europe as a whole. And their efforts to fix matters by demanding ever harsher austerity have played a major role in making the situation worse. Paul Krugman, Killing the Euro, NYT, 12-1-11

Greenpeace Director Kumi Naidoo, from Anti-Apartheid Activist to Leading Voice for Climate Justice

At Durban Summit, Leading African Activist Calls U.S. Emissions Stance "A Death Sentence for Africa"

Nobel-Winning IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri Urges Obama to "Listen to Science" on Global Warming

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs athttp://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

Massive Non-Violent Evolution Holds a Mirror Up to Plutocracy on the Streets and in the Corridors of Power

2011-11-17T03:33:00.000-08:00

El Greco, Scourging the Moneychangers from the Temple, also known as Purification of the Temple (c. 1600)

Massive Non-Violent Evolution Holds a Mirror Up to Plutocracy on the Streets and in the Corridors of Power

By Richard Power

So let me get this straight, corporate money is political speech but citizen's tents and sleeping bags aren't? Yeah, right.

On the night NYPD moved into Occupy Wall Street encampment, the First Amendment (i.e., freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly to petition for the redress of grievances) was hauled to the land fill in a garbage truck by order of a billionaire who bought himself a third term as Mayor in defiance of a term limit law.

Meanwhile, Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky slept safe and snug in their own beds.

This is what plutocracy looks like.

Not only did the police, at the orders of billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg, abruptly move on the protesters, they are alleged to have deliberately kept the press away, which is clearly unconstitutional if true. The US constitution prohibits Congress from restricting the right of citizens to assemble peacefully and to petition for redress of grievances ... The government is also forbidden to interfere with the workings of the free press ... Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 11- 15-11

As police swooped on the park in the early hours of Tuesday, the city closed airspace in lower Manhattan to prevent news helicopters taking aerial shots of the scene. Vans were used to obscure views of the park and a police cordon effectively blocked accredited media from reaching the site. Some of those members of the press who were in the park or were able to get there say they were arrested, pepper sprayed or treated aggressively. Occupy Wall Street: NYPD attempt media blackout at Zuccotti Park, Guardian, 11-15-11

Massive, NON-VIOLENT Evolution holds a mirror up to the Plutocracy; the Plutocracy does not like what it sees, so it smashes the mirror.

Remember those thinkers, like Fukuyama, who declared that "history" had ended back in the 1990s? Ha, ha. No history is still spiraling out from the shadows of the human psyche. It is "time" that has ended (linear time, i.e. an orderly procession from past to future). It was finished with the Mayan Calendar sometime in what we know as October 2011. We are in a quantum universe. We always were, and the shaman have always known it, but all humanity is being made inescapably aware of it now.

That marvelous date 11/11/11 has come and gone. This is a moment of extraordinary opportunity. Choose unbearable beauty. Choose unspeakable truth. Choose invincible love. Choose indefatigable justice. Choose indomitable peace. Of course, this choice is not a choice, it is a choiceless recognition of the primal reality.

Massive, NON-VIOLENT Evolution is manifesting on a planetary level; and one vital aspect, although not the only one, is political struggle.

Here are some beacons in the night that the U.S.A. has lost itself in since the Reagan counter-revolution.

Eighty-four-year-old activist Dorli Rainey spoke to Countdown host Keith Olbermann on Wednesday night after being pepper sprayed by police the previous night during an “Occupy Seattle” protest ... She said a “wonderful” young Iraq veteran protected her during the scuffle with police, preventing her from falling on the ground. Rainey, who grew up in Nazi Germany, expressed her displeasure with the mainstream American media ... “It would be so easy to say, ‘Well I’m going to retire, I’m going to sit around, watch television or eat bonbons,’ but somebody’s got to keep ’em awake and let ’em know what is really going on in this world,” Rainey said. Raw Story, 11-16-11

A popular Hawaiian recording artist turned a top-security dinner of Pacific Rim leaders hosted by President Barack Obama into a subtle protest with a song in support of the “Occupy” movement ... in the midst of the dinner on the resort strip Waikiki Beach, he pulled open his jacket to reveal a T-shirt that read “Occupy with Aloha,” using the Hawaiian word whose various meanings include love and peace. He then sang a marathon version of his new song ... “We’ll occupy the streets, we’ll occupy the courts, we’ll occupy the offices of you, till you do the bidding of the many, not the few.” Agence France Press, Hawaiian singer surprises Obama summit with ‘Occupy’ song, 11-13-11

Occupy Wall Street protesters disrupted a U.S. Chamber of Commerce luncheon featuring the President and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield ... The Occupy demonstrators, using a call-and-repeat method of speaking, complained about Serota’s $2.5 million annual salary, and said that he “is an example of the 1 percent in the healthcare industry.” Common Dreams, 11-14-11

Former Bush political adviser Karl Rove seemed a bit flustered Tuesday night after his speech to Johns Hopkins University was interrupted by a group of about 15 protesters connected to “Occupy Baltimore” ... a woman shouted out, “Mic check?” A chorus of voices replied, “Mic check!” “Karl Rove! Is the architect!” they shouted. “The architect of Occupy Iraq! The architect of Occupy Afghanistan!”
Raw Story, 11-15-11

“I’ll be staying here tonight,” the former whistleblower [Daniel Ellsberg] told filmmaker John Hamilton. “I’ve never seen a group process like the general assembly tonight. They actually were voting here, thousands of people. It was an inspiring sight. I wouldn’t have thought it could happen.”
“This Occupy movement is an invention,” he continued. “Actually it came right from Egypt and from Tunisia. And actually, an inspiring thought to me is that the man who is accused of putting out the State Department cables to WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, who is sitting in Leavenworth right now, one of his cables was a major inspiration the uprising in Tunisia. So, one person speaking out can make a major difference.”
Ellsberg added: “Frankly, it’s been a while since I felt as much hope as I feel tonight. … The young people are recreating the youth movement of the 60s. And the youth movement changed the country.” Dave Edwards, Daniel Ellsberg joins protest at UC Berkeley, Raw Story, 11-17-11

Here are embedded videos for each of these compelling tales of resistance. Please view them, and share them with others.

Occupy Seattle: Octogenarian activist Dorli Rainey on being pepper-sprayed by Seattle police, importance of activism

Occupy Honolulu: Hawaiian Musician Makana Performs Protest Song to World Leaders at APEC Summit

Occupiers Interrupt Chamber of Commerce Speech by Health Insurance CEO

#occupybaltimore Mic Checks Karl Rove

Daniel Ellsberg Joins UC-Berkeley's "Occupy Cal" Encampment

from John Hamilton on Vimeo.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs athttp://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

This Time the Whole World Can't Just Be Watching, It Must Be In the Streets, & At the Ballot Box

2011-11-09T04:45:00.000-08:00

Kay Sage - Tomorrow is Never (1955)

In May, I went to the site of the Tunisian protests; in July, I talked to Spain's indignados; from there, I went to meet the young Egyptian revolutionaries in Cairo's Tahrir Square; and, a few weeks ago, I talked with Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York. There is a common theme ... On one level, today's protesters are asking for little: a chance to use their skills, the right to decent work at decent pay, a fairer economy and society. Their hope is evolutionary, not revolutionary. But, on another level, they are asking for a great deal: a democracy where people, not dollars, matter, and a market economy that delivers on what it is supposed to do. The two are related ... Joseph Stiglitz, The Globalization of Protest, 11-7-11

This Time the Whole World Can't Just Be Watching, It Must Be In the Streets, & At the Ballot Box

By Richard Power

Not Yet Ten Days That Shook the World, But ...

No, it wasn't ten days that shook the world, but it may well prove to have been ten days that caused a few serious cracks and fissures in the edifice of greed and misanthropy.

First, in the wake of an Oakland police riot, during which Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen suffered a fractured skull, the Occupy phenomenon seized the narrative for several days. The outrage led to a day of General Strike and a temporary port shutdown. It also resulted in an extraordinary march on Wall Street by Olsen's fellow Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

In uniform and formation, scores of veterans joined Occupy Wall Street marchers Wednesday, proclaiming "We are veterans and we are the 99%." ... "My name is Joseph Carter. I am a two-time Iraq War vet, and this is the only occupation I believe in." Abby Zimet, Veterans Occupy: I Am Still Serving My Country, 11-3-11

Next, many thousands of engaged citizens surrounded the White House to deliver a powerful message to POTUS regarding what is perhaps the single most meaningful, unilateral action that he could take before November 2012.

Within 40 minutes a text had been sent out by the organizers saying, “We are completely circling the White House!” It ended up taking far less than 12,000 people to encircle the White House. One organizer said there were enough people that the lines around the White House were “four deep.” Bryan Farrell, Waging Nonviolence, 11-7-11

And finally, the electorate got a chance to return to the ballot box for the first time since November 2010, when it forfeited its responsibilities by staying home and allowing the Zombie Cult to gain even more power; this time, the electorate did not fail itself ...

The electorate successfully rolled back attacks on collective bargaining, and fighting for the jobs of teachers and fire fighters:

Advocates for labor, women’s and immigration rights are celebrating a number of key victories in Tuesday’s state elections. In Ohio, voters defeated Republican Gov. John Kasich’s controversial limits on the collective bargaining rights of state employees ... Election Day 2011: In State After State, "Remarkable Wins for Progressive Politics," Democracy Now! 11-9-11

The electorate successfully rolled back attacks on women's reproductive rights:

A constitutional amendment that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person failed on the ballot in Mississippi on Tuesday, dealing the so-called “personhood” movement another blow. Washington Post, 11-9-11

But do not underestimate our predicament. Our circumstances are grave, nationally and globally. Economic and environmental pressures are threatening the world with implosion.

Buddy, Can You Spare A Krugerrand?

By making Wall Street its symbolic target, and branding itself as a movement of the 99%, OWS has redirected public attention to the issue of extreme inequality, which it has recast as, essentially, a moral problem. Only a short time ago, the “morals” issue in politics meant the propriety of sexual preferences, reproductive behavior, or the personal behavior of presidents. Economic policy, including tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and government protection for insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and financial deregulation, was shrouded in clouds of propaganda or simply considered too complex for ordinary Americans to grasp. Francis Fox Pivens, Tim Dispatch, 11-7-11

Remember Martin Niemöller's legendary litany, "First they came for ..."? The Middle Class is screaming now, because it is being squeezed so hard. But since the 1970s, the Middle Class has lived in deep denial about the extent of hard-core poverty in the USA. It has simply looked the other way. The Middle Class didn't speak out when the banksters, the faux drug warriors and the prison industrialists came for the poor. (The War on Poverty was replaced by the self-deceit of "Welfare Reform.") The Middle Class didn't speak out when the oil, gas and coal men (yes, men) came for the climate. ("The spice must flow.") The Middle Class didn't speak out when the Fortune 500 came for our industrial base, and shipped it lock, stock and barrel to the corporatist's paradise that is the new China. (Quite the contrary, the Middle Class foolishly embraced the "free trade" nonsense of Thomas Friedman as if somehow he spoke for them too.) Well, who is left standing to speak up for the Middle Class now that the Reagan Counter-Revolution has finally arrived at the well-insulated walls of its fantasy castle?

As I follow the Occupy phenomenon (and exhort it on), I keep remembering the tragedies of the 1992 uprising in South Central, and also how the nation's inner cities burned in the 1960s; and I keep wondering how long it will be before something truly earth-shaking occurs here? How will the most egregiously wronged and long-suffering among us respond to this quickening confrontation between the reactionary forces and the evolutionary forces? After all, the marches, demonstrations and occupations that have sprung up in the U.S.A. this year are, to date, significantly smaller than similar protests in countries with significantly smaller populations, such as Chile, Spain, Israel and Egypt.

From 20,000 Years Down to 5 Years

Meanwhile ...

So begins the news release for a recent study, “Current global warming appears anomalous in relation to the climate of the last 20,000 years.” That study finds clear evidence recent human-caused global warming is unprecedented in the past 20 millennia. Climate Progress, 11-8-11

"If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door will be closed forever," IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol warned today. Environmental News Service, 11-9-11

We have five years left. Five years.

The failure to act on the Climate Crisis is the greatest failure of governance in human history.

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide has jumped by a record amount, according to the US department of energy, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming. The figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. Guardian, 11-3-11

What Happens Now May Not Be Up to Us But We Better Assume It Is

This is a time to get engaged and stay in engaged. Don't surrender the streets. Don't abandon the ballot boxes. As Thom Hartmann says, we need an inside game and an outside game.

If you think that meaningful change will occur without radical action as exemplified by Occupy and the Tar Sands Action, than you don't know where you are or how you got here or what is going to happen next.

Conversely, if you think that meaningful change will occur while abandoning the ballot box in November 2010, as many of you did in 2010, than you don't know where you are or how you got here or what is going to happen next.

Appendix - Noam Chomsky Traces the Arc of the Moral Universe

Here is an excerpt from a long talk by Chomsky, followed by a Q and A with the Occupiers. It is a vital document, both for its analysis of where we are, and its insights into what to do and how to be. I urge you to follow the link to the full transcription and read it in its entirety.

The 1970s set off a kind of a vicious cycle that led to a concentration of wealth increasingly in the hands of the financial sector, which doesn’t benefit the economy. Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power, which, in turn, arrives to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle. The physical policies such as tax changes, rules of corporate governance, deregulation were essentially bipartisan. Alongside of this began a very sharp rise in the costs of elections, which drives the political parties even deeper than before into the pockets of the corporate sector.
A couple years later started a different process. The parties dissolved, essentially. It used to be if you were a person in Congress and hoped for a position of committee chair or a position of responsibility, you got it mainly through seniority and service. Within a couple of years, you started to have to put money into the party coffers in order to get ahead. That just drove the whole system even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector and increasingly the financial sector--a tremendous concentration of wealth, mainly in the literally top 1/10th of 1 percent of the population.
Meanwhile, for the general population it began an open period of pretty much stagnation, or decline for the majority. People got by through pretty artificial means -- like borrowing, so a lot of debt. Longer working hours for many. There was a period of stagnation and a higher concentration of wealth. The political system began to dissolve. There’s always been a gap between public policy and the public will, but it just grew kind of astronomically ... Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy, 11-1-11

Covering Occupy Wall Street, Current TV's Countdown with Keith Olbermann Interviews Joshua Shepherd Links Vets’ Issues With Larger Movement and Reads a Text from Scott Olsen

Democracy Now Interviews Bill McKibben: 10,000 Surround White House to Protest Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs athttp://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

Occupational Hazards on the Path to Massive, Non-Violent Evolution

2011-10-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

Occupational Hazards on the Path to Massive, Non-Violent Evolution

By Richard Power

This is a note to the Occupiers. From a committed evolutionary, who has survived many decades in this wilderness and carries the timeline within him like an illuminated manuscript.

Occupy your heart. With love. Occupy your mind. With truth. Occupy your streets. With conscience and courage.

Beware of arrogance. (The "New Left" got old fast). Beware of naivety. (You have almost nothing in common with "Tea-baggers" or Libertarians.) Beware of resentment. (Do not scorn the broader progressive movement. You could be the tip of the spearhead, but there is no spear without a shaft.) Beware of bitterness. (Winter is descending. Spring may lead elsewhere. Mandela spent 27 years in prison, and yet he still emerged a peacemaker.)

Establish the proper context.

Education, employment, healthcare and retirement are human rights, as established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 The "Occupy" phenomenon is an acknowledgement that what we have in the U.S.A. today is a human rights crisis, not a fight over political ideologies.

Rely on the simplest of messages.

Corporations are not people, and money is not speech.

If it were true that money were speech then the logical conclusion would be that some people (e.g., billionaires, millionaires, and the imaginary "corporate persons" they hide behind) have a right to far more speech than the rest of the population, which is of course absurd and contrary to not only the First Amendment, and the Bill of Rights as a whole, but also to the Declaration of Independence: i.e., all are "created equal."

Corporations are not people, but they do control the world.

147 companies control 40% of the total economic value of all transnational corporations; and 45 out of the top 50 of those 147 companies are in the financial sector. (See Catherine McLean, It’s True, Bankers Really Do Control the World: Study, Globe and Mall, 10-25-11)

The class war started with the Reagan counter-revolution.

The wealthy one percent of the US population saw its average after-tax household income grow by 275% between 1979 and 2007. During that period, the middle class' average after-tax household income grew only 40%, and poorest 20%'s average after-tax household income grew only 18%. (See Agence France Press, US Income Disparity, Economic Anxiety Grow: Studies, 10-26-11)

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

Meanwhile, no attempt to overcome the oligarchy's grip on our political and economic systems will succeed unless it includes moving urgently and radically away from fossil fuels and deep into green power. And even if the oligarchy could be beaten back without a 21st Century energy model, the celebration would be short-lived.

The window to limit global warming to less than two degrees C is closing so fast it can be measured in months, a new scientific analysis revealed Sunday. Without putting the brakes on carbon emissions very soon, large parts of Africa, most of Russia and northern China will be two degrees C warmer in less than 10 years. Canada and Alaska will soon follow, the regional study shows. Stephen Leahy, Durban May Be Last Chance to Stabilize Climate Under Two Degrees, IPS, 10-24-11

Hundreds of millions of people may be trapped in inhospitable environments as they attempt to flee from the effects of global warming, worsening the likely death toll from severe changes to the climate, a UK government committee has found. Refugees forced to leave their homes because of floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves and other effects of climate change are likely to be one of the biggest visible effects of the warming that scientists warn will result from the untrammelled use of fossil fuels, according to the UK government's Foresight group, part of the Office for Science. Fiona Harvey, Climate change could trap hundreds of millions in disaster areas, report claims, Guardian, 10-20-11

Don't make the mistake of Beltwayistan, Infotainmentstan, the Zombie Cult formerly known as the Republican Party, and yes, even most of the progressive movement, i.e., pretending that the Climate Crisis is just another issue. It is not. The Climate Crisis, and the numerous sustainability meltdowns interwoven with it (e.g., water, food security, population, ocean acidification, mass extinction of species) pose the gravest threat of all. indeed, it is both our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity.

There is no time left to waste, and there will be no place left to hide.

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

Countdown with Keith Olbermann (Current TV): Adam Knight of Occupy Nashville (10-28-11)

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

Occupy Wall Street, MoveOn, 2012, Tuvalu and Why Lao-Tzu Went Beyond the Wall

2011-10-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

Statue of Lao Tzu (Laozi) in Quanzhou, 2008, Photo Credit: Tom@HK

The problem is that it interferes with the most profitable industry the world has ever seen. Exxon made more money last year than in the history of money. And it doesn't take much in politics to stop things from happening. Their only goal is to delay action. It took 20 years to work round the delaying efforts of the tobacco industry. And the tobacco industry is a mere pimple on the butt of the oil industry. It is the most profitable enterprise that humans have every engaged in. Bill McKibben on tar sands, Obama, geoengineering and population growth, Guardian, 10-6-11

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

The point is, today everyone can see that the system is deeply unjust and careening out of control. Unfettered greed has trashed the global economy. And we are trashing the natural world ... The task of our time is to turn this round ... What climate change means is that we have to do this on a deadline. This time our movement cannot get distracted, divided, burned out or swept away by events. This time we have to succeed. Naomi A. Klein, The fight against climate change is down to us – the 99%, Guardian, 10-7-11

Occupy Wall Street, MoveOn, 2012, Tuvalu and Why Lao-Tzu Went Beyond the Wall

By Richard Power

Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching has exercised a profound influence over my life. Lately I have been contemplating a legend concerning the circumstances under which the ancient sage wrote it down.

Lao-Tzu was a keeper of the Imperial Library. He looked around him, and saw that government corruption was pervasive and the social order was disintegrating, and so he slipped away and headed for the mountains. But a a sentry at the guard post recognized the great sage, and realized that the old man was not going to leave a trail; so he compelled Lao-Tzu to write down his philosophy, which he did, in the equivalent of two thousand or so words.

Lao-Tzu did not leave the imperial city for his own survival. Nor did Lao-Tzu leave because he feared some adversary or another. Lao-Tzu lived from a perspective beyond both of these small frames.

So I have been wondering if perhaps Lao-Tzu left because he could not bare to hear how the good would defeat itself.

Do Not Allow POTUS' Failure to Lead to Enable Your Own

Consider these two unfortunate glimpses into the character of some players in the Shakespearian drama of the coming election:

During the speech [to the Congressional Black Caucus], Obama struck somewhat of an authoritative tone to the audience. “Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” he said. “Shake it off. Stop complaining. Stop grumblin’. Stop crying. We are going to press on. We have work to do.” Obama to CBC awards crowd: ‘Stop complaining’ Raw Story, 9-25-11

POTUS' comments to the CBC were arrogant, insulting, but worst of all, STUPID.

"Take off your bedroom slippers, and put on your marching boots," seriously, POTUS? Madison, Wisconsin went marching. Where were you? Moving the Planet went marching. Where were you been? Occupy Wall Street went marching. Where were you? Tars Sands Action marched to your house, but you weren't home. Where were you? Playing golf with Boehner? Oh, sorry, Martha's Vineyard. Well, they will be back in November.

A few weeks after the CBC speech, while POTUS was speechifying at the ceremonial opening of a stone monument on the mall, Dr. Cornel West was offering a flesh and blood celebration of MLK's legacy by being arrested in an act of non-violent protest.

Dr. Cornel West climbed on the steps of the Supreme Court and denounced court decisions that have produced money-based elections that empower corporations. Dr. West was holding a sign that said ‘Poverty is the Greatest Violence of All.’ He was arrested because holding political signs on the Supreme Court steps is illegal.” Cornel West arrested protesting at Supreme Court, Raw Story, 10-16-11

POTUS, it is a lovely stroll from the Mall to the steps of SCOTUS, but it is a very long way to the beating heart of this movement from the corner you and your advisers painted you into.

(Nor is Dr. West the only prominent person who has felt the pulse of this moment. Read this remarkable story from Naomi Wolf: How I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street. Arresting a middle-aged writer in an evening gown for peaceable conduct is a far cry from when America was a free republic, Guardian, 10-19-11)

Well, of course, POTUS' CBC speech was just before Labor Day. POTUS was feeling the heat and perhaps looking to set-up a scapegoat in case his re-election chances started to crater. (Of course, he wouldn't think to pin the blame on Emmanuel, Axelrod, Geithner or Holder. Yes, all men.) He is singing a different tune now.

But that's because at least until winter descends, the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon has seized the narrative. So it is this phenomenon's chance to show whether it will lead or limit, whether it will embrace or exclude. Which will it choose?

Ah, consider this ...

Top MoveOn leaders/executives are all over national television speaking for the movement. fully appreciate the help and support of MoveOn, but the MSM is clearly using them as the spokespeople for OWS. This is an blatant attempt to fracture the 99% into a Democratic Party organization. The leadership of MoveON are Democratic Party operatives. they are divide and conquer pawns. For years they ignored Wall Street protests to keep complete focus on the Republicans, in favor of Goldman’s Obama and Wall Street’s Democratic leadership. If anyone at Move On or Daily Kos would like to have a public debate about these comments, we invite it. Move On Tries to Take Over Occupy Wall Street Protests, Washington Blog, 10-14-11

So was David DeGraw just having a bad day, or is this arrogant, insulting and worse yet STUPID statement a warning sign of a fatal blind spot in the vision of those behind Occupy Wall Street?

Bluntly, simply, my friend, MoveOn.org deserves more respect (even though they pull their punches occasionally), so does the Daily Kos, and it is both a strategic blunder and a tactical blunder not to welcome them. Paraphrasing what Thom Hartmann told a listener this a.m., don't worry about them changing you, you change them.

The message you must bring is that the time for incremental change has passed; it is a luxury we can no longer afford, it is now or never. And yet, at the same time, understand that whatever government is elected in 2012 will be corporatist. If it is a "D" dominated government, it will be susceptible to pressure, if it is an "R" dominated government, it will be as if blind, deaf and dumb to our petitioning, and it will bury what is left of our democratic institutions.

IF the people who had voted in 2008 had not stayed home in 2010, thousands of more jobs would have been saved (because a "D" Congress would have moved BEFORE the initial stimulus ran out, and millions of more jobs would be on the way (because a "D" Congress would have passed Obama's current jobs bill); furthermore, POTUS would not have been able to allow the Bush tax cut extension, nor would he have been in a position to start babbling about "austerity"and giving everybody "hair-cuts." There would be no "Super Committee" now. And whether or not those who didn't vote in 2010 are sleeping in a park tonight as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, they are just as responsible for our current circumstances as the most disingenuous of corporatist "Democrats."

Anyone who did not vote against the Zombie Cult in 2010 has not taken personal responsibility. It is not POTUS' failure that led you not to vote, it is you who allowed POTUS' failure to enable your own.

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

I have no doubt that these remarks will lead to some "unsubscribes." Unfortunate, but so be it.

I support Occupy Wall Street, and I urge them to relentlessly, NON-VIOLENTLY confront the whole of Beltwayistan, Infotainmentstan, the Chamber of Horrors and the rest of the corrupted edifice, as some of us have been doing for over a decade, in our own ways, and at a high price. But to nurture a movement, you must expand your heart and mind enough to reach beyond your differences with those who stand along side of you and are facing in the same direction you are. To flow in a true, deep, history-bending movement, you must be able to operate in multiple dimensions at once.

I am not an Obama apologist. I have excoriated POTUS for his failure to lead on economic crisis, on healthcare reform, on the Climate Crisis, on Darfur, on accountability for Bush-Cheney, Goldman Sachs, BP and others. NEVERTHELESS, in 2012 I will also vote for the "D" candidates and against the candidates of the Zombie Cult formerly known as the Republican Party at every level, including the Presidency of the U.S.

From my perspective, anyone who does not embrace both of these positions is attempting to make progress with one hand while undoing it with the other.

The alternative is unthinkable.

Consider these three statements from the top three candidates for the Zombie Cult nomination:

Republican presidential candidate and Texas governor Rick Perry said Tuesday that "it's time for us to have a serious discussion about defunding the United Nations." CBS, 10-18-11

Mitt Romney came to the state with the highest foreclosure rate in the nation and said he wants to allow home foreclosures to "hit the bottom" to help the housing industry recover. AP, 10-19-11

Herman Cain recently criticized the Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying, "Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself." At Tuesday night's CNN debate, Cain stood by his comments -- to loud cheers from the audience. "I still stand by my statement," he said. Amanda Terkel, Huffington Post, 1-18-11

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

If you don't know the difference between a Sotomayor and a Roberts or a Kagan and an Alito than you don't know the difference between Bush v. Gore and an election or the difference between Citizens United and the First Amendment.

George W. Bush was not elected President of the U.S. in 2001 (or 2004).

Corporations are not people, and money is not speech.

2 + 2 = 4.

Meanwhile ...

Can You Die of Thirst While You Are Drowning?

Although I have written to you about the Climate Crisis, day after day, month after month, year after year, I have mentioned very little about the plight of the small island nations. Why? Because I know the mentality of the decision-makers, and of the public that hides behind them: just as China's crimes against Tibet are tolerated for the sake of trade, and Karthoum's crimes against Darfur are tolerated for the sake of the insane war IN OF and BY terror, the loss of the small islands nations will be tolerated for the sake of fossil fuel industry profits and the deep denial required to sustain them.

But this story is such a poignant example of the bitter, paradoxical nature of this planetary emergency that far too few of us (right OR left) have come to grips with, I must cite it here:

The drought in the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, which declared a state of emergency this month because of a severe shortage of fresh water, is likely to last until January, the government says. Tuvalu normally receives 8-16 inches of rainfall each month but hasn't had significant rain in six months ... Amid its water shortages, the tiny archipelago of nine islands, with a combined land mass of just 10 square miles, also faces being inundated by rising sea levels linked to climate change. Tuvalu grapples with drought , UPI, 10-18-11

Yes, Tuvalu, an island nature facing near-future extinction from rising sea levels, due to human-induced runaway climate change, is currently facing crippling drought, due to human-induced runaway climate change ...

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

And then, of course, there is the story of what it going on in Thailand.

Thailand Suffers Most Expensive Flood in History, Destroying More Than 10% of Rice Farms in World’s Top Exporter, Climate Progress, 10-14-11

Hello?

Ah, someone answered ... with courage and clarity of mind from the floor of the U.S. Senate ...

Another name to scrawl on the wall of heroes; that invisible memorial to those who work, with urgency, to bring MASSIVE NON-VIOLENT EVOLUTION to our world. Perhaps the names on that wall will be the beginning of something new; perhaps they will be all that is left of something that is lost.

Mr. President, I am here to speak about what is currently an unpopular topic in this town. It has become no longer politically correct in certain circles in Washington to speak about climate change or carbon pollution or how carbon pollution is causing our climate to change. This is a peculiar condition of Washington. If you go out into, say, our military and intelligence communities, they understand and are planning for the effects of carbon pollution on climate change. They see it as a national security risk. If you go out into our nonpolluting business and financial communities, they see this as a real and important problem. And, of course, it goes without saying our scientific community is all over this concern. But as I said, Washington is a peculiar place, and here it is getting very little traction. Here in Washington we feel the dark hand of the polluters tapping so many shoulders. And where there is power and money behind that dark hand, therefore, a lot of attention is paid to that little tap on the shoulder. What we overlook is that nature — God’s Earth — is also tapping us all on the shoulder, with messages we ignore at our peril. We ignore the messages of nature of God’s Earthand we ignore the laws of nature of God’s Earth at our very grave peril. Senator Whitehouse’s Must-See Climate Speech: “We Ignore the Laws of Nature of God’s Earth at Our Very Grave Peril” Climate Progress, 10-19-11

Occupy San Francisco, 2011, Photo Credit: Richard Power

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Bill McKibben at Occupy Wall Street Rally 10/8/2011

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

Burning Man 2011: Primal Culture and Core Civilization as a Moveable Feast

2011-10-12T16:31:00.000-07:00

All photo credits in this post: Richard Power/Burning Man 2011

[NOTE: I am honored that this piece is cross-posted at Buzzflash/Truthout (See Burning Man 2011: Primal Culture and Core Civilization as a Moveable Feast). Buzzflash/Truthout is one of the great bastions of alternative, progressive media in the USA. Furthermore, I am delighted that the publishing of this piece is concurrent with the phenomena known as Occupy Wall Street; because before this planetary crisis (economic, political and environmental) is over, citizens will likely be called on not only to occupy symbolically important squares and parks within their cities, but indeed to move whole cities. -- Richard Power]

Burning Man 2011: Primal Culture and Core Civilization as a Moveable Feast

By Richard Power

Burning Man isn’t what you think it is. Well, OK, Burning Man is more than you think it is. Much more. There is a powerful, new narrative developing within the legend of Burning Man, one that moves beyond Black Rock City and into the daily lives of some dedicated Burners. What is this new narrative? And what does it offer those working to overcome the challenges of this troubled era?
To answer these questions, I visited the offices of the Burning Man Project, on Market Street in downtown San Francisco, conducted numerous interviews, and yes, drove up into the Nevada desert to immerse myself in Burning Man 2011.

Ethos and Pathos
As 50,000 burners headed to Black Rock City, the National Guard was airlifting food and water to the citizens of thirteen Vermont towns cut-off for days, without electricity or potable water, in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. (NYT, 9-1-11) With four months to go in 2011, the U.S.A. has experienced a record 10 weather disasters causing at least $1 billion each in damages. (AP, 9-3-11)
As 50,000 burners headed to Black Rock City, James Hansen, the NASA’s leading climate scientist was getting himself arrested outside the White House, in an act of civil disobedience aimed at urging President Obama to block the XL tar sands oil pipeline. Hansen says that the project would translate into “game over” for the climate upon which human civilization has been predicated for millennia. (Climate Progress, 6-25-11) Shouldn’t NASA’s leading climate scientist be inside the White House advising the President, rather than outside the White House, with thousands of other citizens, trying to get the President’s attention?
Within the dominant culture of “the default world” (a term many burners use to refer to the world beyond Black Rock City), the cable news networks recently offered 24 hour coverage of Hurricane Irene as it hit NYC, but did not mention climate change once; similarly, earlier this year, U.S. President Barack Obama dared not even mention it once in his 2011 State of the Union address.
Friends, we are on our own.
So what is the Burning Man ethos? What does it speak to the pathos of our time? What does it offer us at this perilous crossroads?
Do you remember the 1985 Australian film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? Max, portrayed by Mel Gibson, comes to Bartertown, which is run on energy drawn from pig feces, and ruled over by the ruthless and beautiful Aunt Entity, portrayed by Tina Turner. The dystopian premise behind this and the other films in the Mad Max series is that our obsession with oil, and our refusal to develop alternate fuel resources, would lead to the collapse of civilization. It is does not require much of a stretch of the imagination to envision a dystopian post-Climate-collapse world, similar in its environmental harshness and its social barbarism. But what if, instead of a cruel world-view predicated on brute force and self-survival, we approached the collapse of it all as a call for a synergy of self-reliance and collectivity? What if we approached the collapse as a celebration of life instead of a fight to the death?

Welcome Home
Burning Man is held in northern Nevada, on the Playa of the Black Rock Desert, a remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Lahontan.
The Playa is a wasteland, and as such it is an apt venue for these musings. After all, deforestation is one of the major contributing factors to human-induced Climate Crisis; and desertification is one of its major impacts. Both are advancing rapidly, and on a global scale.
At the entrance gate to Burning Man, a security officer took my ticket and inspected my car for contraband, and greeted me with a heart-felt “Welcome home” and a genuine embrace.

There is powerful magic and deep meaning in greeting 50,000 people in this manner. To be welcomed “home” into a nomad city on the desolation of the Playa. Yes, the truth is that culture and civilization if they are to survive must be a moveable feast, and as the movers of that feast, we must be adaptive, adventurous, expansive and inclusive. The Playa itself greeted me with an intense sand storm that led to several white-outs on the long drive from the entrance gate into Black Rock City.

A Zone of Freedom
At Burning Man, 50,000 people come together to build a city and life in it for a week, and then disband again. A month or so before Burning Man there is no sign of it on the Playa; a week or so after it, there is no trace of it left behind.
But in the course of that brief time, many burners report transformative experiences that re-define their life-journeys, and they return again and again to deepen the process. How is this possible?
What happens at Burning Man is that a zone of freedom is established; but it is not a platitudinous freedom, it is willful, conscious freedom: a freedom from routine and inhibition, a freedom for creative expression and self-discovery. On the Playa, there is both personal responsibility (not only to take care of oneself but to be part of the whole) and a radical acceptance (something more than tolerance) of the creative expression and self-discovery of others; and there is space for self-elected ambassadors of a range of human interests from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the sacred to the blasphemous, from the beauteous to the obscene, and every combination thereof.
Asked about her “biggest life lesson learned” from the Burning Man experience, Marian Goodell, Burning Man’s Director of Business and Communications (one of the principle figures in its growth and success over the years) responded: “The power of creativity to change the way you feel about yourself and the way you interact with other people. And through that I learned about the importance of finding ways to communicate and connect with people, because once we do, there is a lot we can do together.”

Truth is Not Written on Stone Tablets
The framework of this Zone of Freedom is best epitomized in Burning Man’s Ten Principles:
• Radical Inclusion 
• Gifting 
• Decommodification 
• Radical Self-reliance 
• Radical Self-expression 
• Communal Effort 
• Civic Responsibility 
• Leaving No Trace 
• Participation
• Immediacy
The “Ten Principles” are meant to be “descriptive, not prescriptive,” as Burning Man founder Larry Harvey remarked at a Playa press conference.
They evolved organically, from the nature of the shared experience, and they serve to describe the community to itself.
For Ria Megnin, burner, and freelance journalist, the “Ten Principles” are “what makes Burning Man stand out.”
“This is not a bunch of happy hippies or random ravers playing around with sparklies,” Ria told me, “this is an organization of people who know how to Get Stuff Done … we're able to return to the default world with a new sense of empowerment and possibility … it’s about making the world tangibly, lastingly better for each other and for future generations.”
In a pre-Playa interview, Goddell recounted the origins of the document.
“The group grew bigger and the questions grew more and more imposing … it became clear that there were certain types of questions that were coming from these regional contacts, as they were trying to develop their communities … guidance on a party or a gathering, and also some questions that grew up around personal dramas … [Larry] went to Mazatlan for a holiday [in 2004], having digested all of the exasperation that Andie Grace and I had been delivering to him … and he came back with this document, and Andie and I swooned, it was nine bullet points, and we teased him, ‘Well, gee, Larry, why would you not want ten.’ So he disappeared and came back a day later and had added a tenth, which he said was he favorite, although I can’t remember which one it was, he has played with the sequence a bit since …”
Burning Man’s "Ten Principles" shares a fundamental realization with the philosophy of anarchism: truth is not written on stone tablets, it evolves organically from the human heart/mind through direct experience.
Anarchy is misunderstood as a political ideology. It is not nihilism. "Conventional wisdom" (which I translate into "convenient cliche") projects the image of a masked bomb-throwing provocateur as the prototypical anarchist, but actually the face of Noam Chomsky would be more representative.
“As I understand the term ‘anarchism,’ it is based on the hope (in our state of ignorance, we cannot go beyond that),” Chomsky has said, “that core elements of human nature include sentiments of solidarity, mutual support, sympathy, concern for others, and so on.”
During the grim first decade of the 21st Century, I dived deeply into the history of the Spanish Civil War, looking for lessons learned and unlearned; I re-read George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway and Arturo Barea for a cross-section of bold, direct perspectives. One common theme in all that I read was that among the diverse factions within the popular front that stood against Franco and the Fascists, the anarchists were the most trustworthy, the most efficient, the fiercest, and yes, the most well-organized.

The Playa as Anti-Museum
How many times a year can you escape to the museum to see the art imprisoned there? And when you do you typically pre-purchase a ticket, and wait on a long line to get in, only to be rushed through the exhibit.
Well, at Burning Man, huge, audacious art installations are spread across the Playa. After dark, they are illuminated by rainbow LEDs powered by a solar array. Night and day, throughout the event, these installations are caressed by billowing sand storms and circled ceaselessly by burners on bicycles and mutant vehicles (which are art works in and of themselves, duly registered with the BRC Department of Mutant Vehicles).
“At Burning Man, the art is so sensational that it draws people to gather together and share an experience of curiosity, awe and wonder,” Josie Schimke of the Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) explained. “Visiting works of art becomes the highlight of one’s day, and social interactions, connections and inspirations naturally grow out of the experience.”
What if life affirming, psyche-stimulating art that invited interaction and empowered your own creative expression, or that of your children or your parents, were being created on your downtown boulevards, in your parks, and in the courtyards of your neighborhoods?
That’s what BRAF was established to fund in world beyond the Playa
“Every year’s crop of grantees astonishes us with their diversity, both in their chosen media and strategies of bringing art into their communities,” Schimke remarked, “Each project responds to a community’s culture, needs and environment in an innovative and unique way.”
The BRAF web site documents many examples of BRAF funded art projects.

Burn Down the Borders
At a café on Valencia in the Mission, several weeks prior to Burning Man 2011, I sat down with Carmen Mauk, Executive Director of Burners Without Borders.
“When Katrina happened, and we Burners got involved after Burning Man 2005, I said ‘Whoa…’ I had been working in human rights and with people in poverty my whole life. The creativity we brought to the Gulf Coast was completely different than the other groups who were there. We were taking debris from the surrounding areas and creating beautiful art, and inviting the community to do the same, and then burning it on Saturday night. We had not done it before in a disaster zone, but it was something we knew to do as a community, but we weren’t just doing it for us, it was Radical Inclusion … So in addition to a million dollars worth of debris removal and reconstruction work, we contributed a real sense of culture and community.”
Since Katrina, Burners Without Borders has been working on the ground in the aftermath of catastrophes in Peru, Haiti, Joplin, Missouri and elsewhere.
“What we try to do is fill in the gaps as an organization, or create a new organization when needed,” Mauk explained, “so that things that wouldn’t ordinarily happen can happen.”
But Burners Without Borders are limited to disaster relief efforts.
“A woman in Detroit, doxie (little “d”), was upset about the homeless situation, and noticed some marginalized people who didn’t seem to be getting services, and so rather than become like a social worker about it, and blame and fight, she just started to getting materials that they might need for harsh winters and putting them in backpacks. She is been going on three years now, and has an entire community that supports her, she has so many donations … the city loves it …”

The Sun Delivers a Sustainable Burn
Black Rock Solar is another example of how burners are taking the inner fire lit on the Playa and using it to energize and illuminate their communities (in this instance, quite literally).
“We installing solar for non-profits, and tribes, and schools in northern Nevada, and basically giving it away to them, charging them a very small portion of the actual cost, Patrick McCully, Executive Director of Black Rock Solar explained.
“We’re saving money for our clients, who are all worthy entities, and we’re sticking more clean energy on to the grid, and hopefully reducing carbon emissions. We are funded mainly with rebates from NV Energy.”
Like Burners Without Borders, Black Rock Solar sprung directly from the Playa.
“In 2007, the theme was the Green Man, so there was an attempt to green the festival, and there was a pretty sizable array donated to power the Man, recalled McCully, “you don’t want to leave it sitting out in the desert or in a shipping container somewhere …” So some burners installed the panels on a building in nearby Gerlach, and with the rebate, bought more panels for another array.
Meanwhile, back in Black Rock City, the drive to green Burning Man continues.
“We have both solar models out here on the Playa,” Marnee Benson, Deputy Director of Black RockSolar reported. “At the Snow Cone Solar camp, they have two large systems providing power to a grid they create for their camp mates, and in the Alternative Energy Zone (AEZ), it’s more that each camp has their own system [no generators allowed].”
But as Benson, who hosted a Sustainability Summit during Burning Man 2011, also noted, most camps are still using generators.
“Someone wanting to put solar panels on their RV is faced with similar decisions to someone wanting to put solar panels on their house [i.e., the cost]. I hope what we are doing out here on the Playa is helping them get over that initial hurtle.”

Red Lightening in the Desert
There is music everywhere at Burning Man, it blares 24x7, and merges with the sound of the burner multitude and a fleet of engines, into one glorious cacophony. Nevertheless, there are spaces steeped in silence and serenity.
For example, Red Lightening camp has a Medicine Wheel, with four tipis (north, south, east and west) and a sacred fire at its center, “holding energy and intention for the camp and the Red Lightening family.”
Ria Megnin, who belongs to Red Lightening, shared some background.
“What makes Red Lightning so unique is its focus on collective evolution and healing. Our programming is super-diverse, but all of our workshops support personal growth that connects us with community, Mama Gaia and the cosmos. We started with visions drawn from Plains Indians traditions about how to honor our planet and ourselves, woven with new visions of balancing and empowering the feminine and masculine powers in all of us.”
Out on the Esplanade, Samantha Sweetwater, founder of Dancing Freedom, is leading a journey in a canopied pavilion.
“Yesterday was Wednesday, we don’t know what that means anymore. Today is Thursday, in case you were wondering. Mid-burn. That means it is going to get juicy … We are about to work with medicine. The medicine is your biochemistry in motion. The medicine is our community in motion … This one blessed, profane, fucked up, perfect heart, how does it feel right now? These blessed, profane, fucked up, perfect fingers, hands, elbows, knees, genitals, bellies, shoulders, jaw-bones, how do they feel right now? Anchoring into the Earth, the mystery of this life is going to be our material …”

The Temple
In the beginning, there was the Man, and the powerful magic of burning him year after year. In that burning, great archetypal power is released, and great archetypal fear is banished. But the Man alone was not whole, not full, not balanced, there was something missing, and so the Temple came into being, and now each year, like the Man, it is built and then burned.
All around the Temple, there is an aura of sacredness; it is palpable in the atmosphere. It is burned the day after the Man. It turns the straight line of the arrow into a circle. It completes the ceremony. It is the Yin to the Yang, the Apollonian to the Dionysian, and it embodies the Divine Feminine.
Burning Man invested $80,000 in the 2011 Temple; $80,000 just to circumambulate it, use it as a crucible of memories, dreams, and losses, and then to burn it; a truly, profoundly communal experience of the sacred.

Leaning into Change
In 2007, James Hanusa was at his second Burning Man, and volunteering in Media Relations, telling the story of greening the Burn. (He described his first Burn as “the greatest party” he had ever experienced.) But it was at the Temple on that second year, that Hanusa had a transformative experience.
“I was alone, among 20,000 people who were silent in the middle of nowhere, offering respect to those that had passed on. Walking back from the Temple, in the dark, I heard a women crying behind me. She told me she had been honoring an addicted friend who had died. As his addiction worsened, he had continued to lose friends until she was the last person communicating with him. At that moment, something in my life opened up, and I understood, at the cellular level what I had often read about in books, the Buddhist concept of impermanence. Leaning into change became my mantra from that point forward.”
Today, Hanusa is responsible for New Initiatives at the Burning Man Project. These “New Initiatives” include an Economic Development & Civic Engagement program, partnership with the City of San Francisco to develop an Arts & Innovation Zone in the Market Street area, as well as a showcase for sustainability, technology, social enterprise and interactive urban art forms. Other partnerships in development include collaborations with neighbors in the Tenderloin, to work toward a cohesive community prepared for any disaster, a citizen-based, special forces group for disasters in other cities, and special plan for the city of San Francisco, involving a Burner-assisted disaster recovery.

Changing Culture
“When the economic collapse began, I was talking to my brother on the telephone,” said Larry Harvey at the Playa press conference, “and my brother said, ‘Larry, isn’t capitalism sort of a Ponzi scheme?’ The market system of course is almost cognate with civilization in many ways, but this notion that it is all predicated on endlessly increasing amounts of consumption doesn’t really work anymore, which makes for a paralyzing … we have just reached a state of cognitive dissonance. Everybody knows that almost everything we do is unsustainable now. If the Chinese consume at the rate that we have the world’s got a problem; the 21st Century is going to be about resource wars. One thing that could mitigate that is using the resources that inhere in communities, which can lead to remarkable economies … if you look at a theme camp and where they acquire their resources, projects out here tend to create these ever-enlarging gifting networks, and doing things that way it is possible to recycle, reuse, repurpose … I do not think the economic system is going to change until we change the culture that we have concocted in the last several decades, and in that way, I think what we are doing here is an inspiring model that could be applied as yet un-thought of ways …”

Time Travel
Approaching the Temple on my first night at Burning Man, I vividly remembered the Central Park Be-In on the night humankind walked on the Moon; that “giant step for [human]kind” was televised on a huge TV screen to our massive tribal gathering. I also was taken back to Jimi Hendrix playing the Star-Spangled Banner at dawn in Woodstock, as well as the wild magic of attempting to levitate the Pentagon two years earlier. It is not as if these memories had been buried in my psyche; but out on the Playa, I experienced them in a new way. There, it occurred to me that there was a continuity in all of these events, and that an evolutionary spiral was underway, and that although the thread sometimes seemed lost or broken, it never was or would be, and that one day (or night) hopefully sooner but probably later, the tapestry of a better, truer more humane society will be revealed. Meanwhile, primal culture (i.e., expressing, celebrating, sharing, loving, educating) and core civilization (i.e., food, water, shelter, clothing and security) would have to continue to be a moveable feast.

Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

Burning Man 2011: Rites of Passage ~ The Temple of Transition Burn

Wangari Maathai Occupies Wall Street

2011-10-01T22:25:00.000-07:00

Wangari Maathai at Press Conference and book launch for Unbowed in Nyeri, Kenya (9-29-06). Photo by Wanjira Mathai

“Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.” -- Wangari Maathai, Unbowed: A Memoir

Wangari Maathai Occupies Wall Street

By Richard Power

In degrading the environment, therefore, we degrade ourselves

I don't do obituaries. I don't read them, I don't write them, I don't post them. But the news that Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai had shucked the mortal coil hit me harder than any other death in a very long time; and I have not been able to move beyond it.

Since there is no U.S. mainstream news source worthy of telling her story, here is a brief excerpt from the BBC obit:

The Green Belt Movement, which she founded in 1977, has planted an estimated 45 million trees around Kenya. The straightforward environmental benefits of that would have been important enough on their own in a country whose population has grown more than 10-fold over the last century, creating huge pressure on land and water. But what made the movement more remarkable was that it was also conceived as a source of employment in rural areas, and a way to give new skills to women who regularly came second to men in terms of power, education, nutrition and much else. Wangari Maathai: Death of a visionary, BBC, 9-26-11

Of course, Wangari Maathai's powerful presence will live on, rising from the roots of the countless trees she planted, as well as countless more she inspired others to plant. The way to honor her memory is strive to save this planet from the impact of human ignorance, epitomized as it is by climate change denialism, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and other abominations.

You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them. The Passing of Nobelist Wangari Maathai: “You Cannot Protect the Environment Unless You Empower People” Climate Progress, 9-26-11

Likewise, you cannot empower people unless you protect the environment. Human rights and environmental security are interdependent. Maathai understood this. So does Gore. And they were the first and second to win the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to further environmental justice and security. The Climate Crisis, and the Sustainability Meltdown with which it is interwoven, are the greatest challenges of our age, they are both our greatest threats and our greatest opportunities.

In degrading the environment, therefore, we degrade ourselves. The reverse is also true. In the process of helping the earth to heal, we help ourselves. If we see the earth bleeding from the loss of topsoil, biodiversity, or drought and desertification, and if we help reclaim or save what is lost—for instance, through regeneration of degraded forests—the planet will help us in our self-healing and indeed survival. Wangari Maathai, Spiritual Environmentalism: Healing Ourselves by Replenishing the Earth, Yes! Magazine, 9-26-11

As One People, United, We Acknowledge the Reality

For several days and nights, I confess, it is as if I have been following Wangari Maathai's shroud step by step through the Bardo, as she planted tree after tree, down a long row into infinity ...

Meanwhile, in the world of light, sound and movement, the struggle for the victory of love and awareness raged on.

“I am so blessed to be here,” West said. “You got me spiritually break-dancing on the way here. Because when you bring folk together, of all colors, of all cultures, of all genders, of all sexual orientations the elite will tremble in their boots. And we will send a message that this is the U.S. Autumn, responding to the Arab Spring.” Cornel West at ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest: The elite will tremble, Raw Story, 9-27-11

Witnesses said they saw three stunned women collapse on the ground screaming after they were sprayed in the face ... "I saw a girl get slammed on the ground. I turned around and started screaming," said Chelsea Elliott, 25, from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who said she was sprayed. "I turned around and a cop was coming ... we were on the sidewalk and we weren't doing anything illegal." Wall Street protesters cuffed, pepper-sprayed during 'inequality' march, N.Y. Daily News, 9-25-11

A new generation has gone to the scene of the crimes committed against our future. The time has come for all people of good will to give our full-throated backing to the young people of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Van Jones and Max Berger, Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On? Rebuild the Dream, 10-1-11'

Labor unions and liberal activist groups plan to throw their weight behind the “Occupy Wall Street” protest in New York City that has now lasted 13 straight days ... Among unions, the United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 have said they will participate in the protest next Wednesday. The Working Families Party, MoveOn.org, Make the Road New York, the Coalition for the Homeless, the Alliance for Quality Education, Community Voices Heard, United New York and Strong Economy For All also plan to support the demonstration.
Unions and liberal groups to join ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest, Raw Story, 9-29-11

A few hours prior to my posting this Words of Power, "New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square" issued its first statement. I include it here, in its entirety, in the hope that it not be lost in time. May these seedlings take root, and may a great forest break through the walls and floors of that tomb. The struggles for environmental justice and economic justice are utterly interdependent. You cannot achieve one without the other; and there will be no meaningful peace without achieving both.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive. First official statement from Occupy Wall Street, Daily Kos, 10-1-11
Cornel West on Occupy Wall Street: It’s the Makings of a U.S. Autumn Responding to the Arab Spring

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

The USA's Reality Check has Bounced; Embrace the Autumnal Equinox, & Prepare for Electoral Madness in 2012, Oh Yeah, & the Collapse of the Climate

2011-09-21T03:33:00.000-07:00

John Everett Millais, Autumn Leaves, 1856

Noam Chomsky: I mean, as you mentioned before, I just came back from Europe, where people just can’t believe what they’re seeing here, what people are saying. I mean, take one of the really crucial issues for the human species: doing something about environmental catastrophe. Well, you know, every single one of the Republican candidates—maybe not Huntsman, but every major one—is a climate change denier. It’s kind of ironic in the case of Perry. He says there’s no global warming, while Texas is burning up with the highest temperatures on record, fire all over the place, and so on. But it doesn’t matter, it’s just not happening. In fact, the one who has conceded that maybe global warming has taken place is Michele Bachmann. I heard a statement of hers in which she said, "Well, yes, maybe it’s happening. It’s God’s punishment for allowing gay marriage," or some comment like that. I mean, this—what’s going on there is just off the international spectrum of sane behavior. Noam Chomsky: 2012 GOP Candidates Views are "Off the International Spectrum of Sane Behavior" Democracy Now, 9-19-11

The USA's Reality Check has Bounced; Embrace the Autumnal Equinox, & Prepare for Electoral Madness in 2012, Oh Yeah, & the Collapse of the Climate

By Richard Power

Welcome the Equinox. Embrace it, and celebrate it.

This Equinox (Autumnal in the Northern Hemisphere, Vernal in the Southern Hemisphere) is one of the four great hash marks in the Earth's annual journey around the Sun. It offers hope, it provides an opportunity for both ends and beginnings. It represents perpetual change, and perpetual order. Yes, welcome that divine change, and embrace that divine order. We are in need of both.

Tragically, in the U.S.A., the only change we seem to bring about is a rapid deterioration (economic, environmental and cultural); and the only order currently in place consists of a brutal lockdown of our democratic institutions, a brazen co-opting of our news media, and a stranglehold on our body politic.

Consider some recent news items, and their implications.

Al Gore treated the globe to “24 Hours of Reality” Wednesday and Thursday, but before the finale, Mother Nature stepped in with a show of her own. As Hour Six opened from the Hilo, Hawaii offices of the Mauna Loa CO2 observatory, Hawaii Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz warned ominously that Hawaii is “particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.” The Lieutenant Governor didn’t mention “summer snow”, but that is exactly what Hawaii received. By sunrise, the crown of Mauna Kea--clearly visible across the saddle from the CO2 observatory on Mauna Loa--was dusted with about an inch of the white stuff ...If this year’s trends continue, Hawaii will soon have snow during July and August... Summer Snow Falls on Mauna Kea after Al Gore’s “24-Hours of Reality” broadcasts, Hawaii Free Press, 9-16-11

Words of Power enthusiastically participated in the global event organized by Nobel-peace prize winner, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and his Climate Project; I made the USTREAM available from this site, and I tweeted almost every hour (yes, I took a nap).

It was a poignant and powerful testimony; twenty-four presenters (scientists, citizen activists, educators, officials) in twenty-four countries (both great and small), one every hour, moving sequentially across twenty-two time zones - one message, developed by Gore himself, and delivered in 13 languages, with expert panels sessions in between.

Poignant, and powerful, indeed, and yes, sad too. Over 8.5 million human beings viewed the event on-line. Wonderful. But imagine the impact if POTUS had participated, imagine the impact if one of the major cable news networks had devoted some time to simulcast or even provide periodic updates throughout the event? Why should the fate of "civilization" be left up to you, me and Renee Zellweger?

Remember, the Climate and Sustainability Crisis is not just one among many issues; it is the overarching issue of our era, and the greatest national security threat, the greatest economic threat, the greatest health threat ... Nor is it a political issue, however frantically the deniers try to frame it as such, it is a human issue, it is a moral imperative, and a survival imperative.

More than 30 million people were displaced last year by environmental and weather-related disasters across Asia ... Tens of millions more people are likely to be similarly displaced in the future by the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels, floods, droughts and reduced agricultural productivity. Guardian, 9-19-11

While this climate change calamity gains momentum, the U.S. and most of the industrialized world have been distracted by the relatively trivial threat of terrorism and have spent trillions of dollars on defence and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. could generate 100 percent of its electricity from wind, solar, tidal and geothermal for much less than it has spent on defence and wars in the last decade ... Stephen Leahy, IPS, 9-15-11

But, regrettably, the U.S.A. has lost its way.

Government seems to be unwilling to stop itself from executing people even when their guilt has been seriously challenged, or even disproved. (Read Bianca Jagger's A Day of Shame for the State of Georgia and the Justice System, Huffington Post, 9-20-11) Mainstream news media seems unwilling to get a story right, if getting it wrong means hurting the renewable energy sector and stoking attack ads for 201. (Read Media Matters' What the Press is Getting Wrong About Solyndra, Climate Progress, 9-20-11) The body politic seems indolent and bewildered. Despite stirring examples from the streets of Cairo, Madrid, Tel Aviv and elsewhere, and despite having given the banksters $700 billion with no strings attached, only to be told that ordinary citizens will have to get a "haircut" re: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, only a thousand or so youth could be mustered to establish a protest camp on Wall Street. (Read Allison Kilkenny's Wall Street Occupation Continues, The Nation, 9-21-11) (Well, at least Roseanne Barr showed up to exhort them on).

Incredibly, Barack Obama's four years are almost up. Will he get a second shot? With a Congress less kowtowed to the corporatist agenda? Will Elizabeth Warren liberate Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat from the Playgirl model who sits in it now? Will the Speaker's gavel be wrested away from John Boehner or whoever the Zombie Cult replaces him with after they eat his brains? And if POTUS does get a second shot, will he take aim at the monster's vital organs, or continue his attempt to give it a pedicure? If he surprises us, and he is inclined to take his best shot, would he be allowed to do so?

Every indicator points to an utterly insane election cycle, that has even less to do with reality than in previous years.

Though CNN insisted that it maintained its journalistic independence in its Tea Party collaboration , the network widely promoted the debate with banners linking CNN to the Tea Party Express and fashioned the debate as something of a Tea Party rally. CNN coordinated with Tea Party activists to frame questions and arranged live satellite feeds from Tea Party gatherings in Arizona, Virginia and Ohio, the Times reported, adding that “even the graphics on the video screens behind the stage flashed flags that are often seen at Tea Party rallies.” Robert Parry, CNN Panders to the Tea Party, Consortium News, 9-13-11

As Robert Reich articulates in his insightful analysis, The Election of 2012: Why the Most Important Issues May Be Off the Table (But Should Be On It), the campaign ahead will not do much to foster mental health in the body politic.

Don’t expect an argument for resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act, thereby separating commercial from investment banking and stopping Wall Street’s most lucrative and dangerous practices. You won’t hear there’s no reason to cut Medicare and Medicaid – that a better means of taming health-care costs is to use these programs’ bargaining clout with drug companies and hospitals to obtain better deals and to shift from fee-for-services to fee for healthy outcomes. Nor will you hear why we must move toward Medicare for all. Nor why the best approach to assuring Social Security’s long-term solvency is to lift the ceiling on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes. Don’t expect any reference to the absurdity of spending more on the military than do all other countries put together, and the waste and futility of an unending and undeclared war against Islamic extremism – especially when we have so much to do at home. Nor are you likely to hear proposals for ending the corruption of our democracy by big money. Although proposals like these are more important and relevant than ever, they won’t be part of the upcoming presidential election. Robert Reich, The Election of 2012: Why the Most Important Issues May Be Off the Table (But Should Be On It), 9-18-11

In his 24 Hours of Reality presentation (embedded below) Gore urges us to fight on, offers suggestions on how to do so: "act now, speak up, win the conversation, choose reality." So does Reich in his Election of 2012 piece, reminding us that it isn't just a presidential election, it is, perhaps most importantly, a struggle for control of both houses of Congress. Remember Thom Hartmann's sage admonition: "Despair is not an option."

However you choose to respond to our current and future circumstance, I encourage you to welcome the Equonix. Yes, embrace it and celebrate it. And then the Solstice in turn, and after that, the next Equinox, and the next Solstice, and the next and the next and the next. And fight for this life, and this planet, as if you would fight for your own parent or child or lover, because it is, it is all of them.

On Saturday, 9/24/11, there will be another opportunity to "not go gentle into that goodnight." Bill McKibben and 350.org are organizing Moving Planet: "We will put our demands for climate action into motion—marching, biking, skating—calling for the world to go beyond fossil fuels." Join us.

Final Hour of the Climate Reality Project's 24 Hours of Reality (including Al Gore's presentation):

Video streaming by Ustream

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

9/11/11: Harvest Time?

2011-09-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

Harvest Moon, September 11-12, 2011, NOAA

Was there an alternative? There is every likelihood that the Jihadi movement, much of it highly critical of bin Laden, could have been split and undermined after 9/11. The “crime against humanity”, as it was rightly called, could have been approached as a crime, with an international operation to apprehend the likely suspects. That was recognised at the time, but no such idea was even considered. Noam Chomsky, 9/11 - Was There An Alternative? Al-Jazeera, 9-7-11

9/11/11: Harvest Time?

By Richard Power

There is a harvest moon in the sky this weekend. Find a hillside or a rooftop, and let the lunar luminousness permeate your being.

Embrace this universe of wonder. Celebrate the opportunity to experience it. The nightmares that haunt the human mind will not leave a trace in the vast journey that is all life.

Only love abides everlastingly. Only love imbues and envelopes the totality. Whether acknowledged or not, whether perceived or not, love pervades.

Allow this incomprehensible truth to comprehend you.

And now, for the news ...

UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon recently said countries like New Zealand & Solomon Islands are on the "front-lines of climate change." (New Zealand Herald, 9-6-11) Uh, excuse me, Mr. Secretary General, so are Texas (Climate Progress, 7-15-11) and Vermont (IBT, 8-30-11), and Somalia (HuffPo, 8-19-11) and Darfur (CSM, 7-27-07) ...

It's not just the rising of sea levels, Mr. General Secretary, it's extreme weather, it's wild fires, it's desertification, it's famine, it's resource wars ...

Meanwhile, 1,253 people who are awake to the reality of life on this planet submitted to arrest in front of the White House in what some say was the largest act of civil disobedience in the U.S.A. since 1977. The action was intended to encourage POTUS to reject the XL tars sands pipeline (the decision is in his hands alone). Of course, were POTUS to heed them, it would be a surprise.

But the struggle didn't end with the 1,253 arrests at the White House; it was followed up by an open letter from nine Nobel Peace Prize winners, including Shirin Ebadi (2003), Rigoberta Menchú Tum of Guatemala (1992) and His Holiness the Dalai Lama (1989), calling on POTUS to "do the right thing."

"We urge you to say no" to the pipeline and "turn your attention back to supporting renewable sources of energy and clean transportation solutions," says the letter ... "This will be your legacy to Americans and the global community: energy that sustains the lives and livelihoods of future generations." Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Urge Obama: Reject Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline: Media Release, 9-7-11

Remember that Peace Prize that you received in October 2009, POTUS? It was as you said at the time, a call to action.

The Nobel Committee, in its worldly wisdom, knew the kind of forces that you would be confronted with from day one of your administration. So they gave you the Peace Prize as a gesture of encouragement, and a promise that you would not be alone (although it would probably feel like it) if you could somehow find a way to stand your ground. But most us, including you, underestimate just how lost this nation really is at this point, don't we?

Consider the astonishing implications of remarks made by UC Berkeley Law School Dean Chris Edley at a recent panel on 9/11:

"Dean Chris Edley volunteered that he'd been party to very high level discussions during Obama's transition about prosecuting the criminals. He said they decided against it. I asked why. Two reasons: 1) it was thought that the CIA, NSA, and military would revolt, and 2) it was thought the Repugnants would retaliate by blocking every piece of legislation they tried to move (which, of course, they've done anyhow). Afterwards I told him that CIA friends confirmed that Obama would have been in danger, but I added that he bent over backwards to protect the criminals, and gave as an example the DoJ's defense (state secrets) of Jeppesen (the rendition arm of Boeing) a few days after his inauguration. He shrugged and said they will never be prosecuted, and that sometimes politics trumps rule of law. "It must not, I said. "It shouldn't, he said, and walked off. This is the Dean of the Berkeley School of Law." David Swanson, Obama Transition Team Member Explains Why Administration Chose Not to Prosecute Torture, Truthout, 9-6-11

And yes, this stream of consciousness has brought us to the 10th anniversary of the slaughter of the innocents on 9/11.

Several weeks after the atrocity, I took a walk on the beach, with my friend and colleague, foreign correspondent Dunston Woods (yes, it's a pseudonym). We wanted to think out loud about whether or not there was any way to hold off the avalanche that had just been triggered. We asked ourselves who could tell the nation that at the very least the Bush-Cheney White House should be investigated for criminal negligence pre-9/11 and even worse post-9/11? Who could demand such accountability and survive the ensuing firestorm? We assumed it would have to be a Republican, aligned with the military.

Perhaps Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)? (He was still John McCain then, he hadn't become the shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-John-McCain, who would ingratiate himself to the _resident, and later allow Sarah Palin to be appointed as his running mate.) Perhaps Secretary of Stone Colin Powell? But as you know, McCain lost his soul (or at least his mind), and Powell went down with the ship.

The avalanche buried us all.

Well, at least Bin Laden is dead. Yes, he is dead and, yes, he was killed by a U.S. Navy SEAL team on 5/1/11. However, the men (yes, all Neo-Con men, Rice was a trophy) who lead us into the trap that Bin Laden laid for us are still enjoying comfortable and profitable lives, protected by the very government they so terribly abused.

Although Powell did not speak out forcefully or forthrightly, his Chief of Staff did, with the ferocity of a true patriot and a true national security professional. And he still is, as is evident in this Democracy Now interview in which Amy Goodman asked Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (U.S. Army retired) and Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com for their views on former VICE _resident Dick Cheney's new book.

AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Wilkerson, do you think the Bush administration officials should be held accountable in the way that Glenn Greenwald is talking about?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON: I certainly do. And I’d be willing to testify, and I’d be willing to take any punishment I’m due. And I have to say, I agree with almost everything he just said. And I think that explains the aggressiveness, to a large extent, of the Cheney attack and of the words like "exploding heads all over Washington." This is a book written out of fear, fear that one day someone will "Pinochet" Dick Cheney. Ex-Bush Official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: "I am Willing to Testify" If Dick Cheney is Put on Trial, Democracy Now, 8-30-11

Somehow someday there must be accountability for the eight years of Bush-Cheney's illegitimate regime, and crimes committed in our names. There must be. Otherwise, neither our national psyche nor this system of government will ever recover. It might not be the first step taken (undoing Citizens United might make the most sense), but it certainly needs to be done.

Consider the costs. The human costs of the wars alone are incalculable. And then on top of that you could add in the global financial meltdown, the ten years lost in the struggle mitigate change change, and so much more.

Indeed, when Linda Bilmes and I calculated America’s war costs three years ago, the conservative tally was $3-5 trillion. Since then, the costs have mounted further. With almost 50% of returning troops eligible to receive some level of disability payment, and more than 600,000 treated so far in veterans’ medical facilities, we now estimate that future disability payments and health-care costs will total $600-900 billion. But the social costs, reflected in veteran suicides (which have topped 18 per day in recent years) and family breakups, are incalculable.
Even if Bush could be forgiven for taking America, and much of the rest of the world, to war on false pretenses, and for misrepresenting the cost of the venture, there is no excuse for how he chose to finance it. His was the first war in history paid for entirely on credit. As America went into battle, with deficits already soaring from his 2001 tax cut, Bush decided to plunge ahead with yet another round of tax “relief” for the wealthy. Joseph Stiglitz, The Price of 9/11, 9/1/11

Ah, well ...

Feel the moon. Feel it revolving, as it orbits the Earth. Feel the Earth revolving, as it orbits the Sun.

Feel the truth, it is vast, and indescribable. All lies are small, and all liars too.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Welcome to the Anthropocene Age; A Monument to MLK Now Stands on the Mall, Like Kubrick's Obelisk, Mysterious & Otherworldly

2011-08-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

Stanley Kubrick, 2001: Space Odyssey

King’s response to our crisis can be put in one word - revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a re-evaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens." Cornel West, Dr. King Weeps From His Grave, NYT, 8-26-11

Welcome to the Anthropocene Age; A Monument to MLK Now Stands on the Mall, Like Kubrick's Obelisk, Mysterious & Otherworldly

By Richard Power

Ponder this moment.

I suggest that it is a turning point in American history.

Not because of any great deed we have marshaled our collective will to accomplish (we haven't and it is unlikely we will), but because of what we have collectively chosen to lie about, even to ourselves.

This week had promised to be a strange one from the beginning, two events were unfolding in stark contrast to the debilitating, amoral kulchur of our political establishment: one was the opening of the Dr. Martin Luther King Monument on the National Mall, and the other was a sustained and significant campaign of civil disobedience in front of the White House (meant to encourage POTUS to decide against the tars sands XL pipeline). But then it got even stranger.

First, on Tuesday, there was an earthquake, a shallow 5.9 that had its epicenter near Richmond, but was felt from Chapel Hill to Martha's Vineyard. The White House was temporarily evacuated. The National Cathedral suffered damage to three of the four pinnacles of its main tower. And perhaps most poignantly, the Washington Memorial was closed indefinitely.

The earthquake that rattled much of the East Coast last week is sparking angry calls from elected officials seeking an immediate reevaluation of seismic risks at two dozen or so commercial nuclear plants around the country, including two in California. Los Angeles Times, 8-27-11

Remember friend, this is the Anthropocene Age, and although we apparently choose to lie to ourselves, the human race now has a hand in the generation of earthquakes.

1. Human activity can cause earthquakes ... 2. Seismic activity has been linked to the injection of waste water from the unconventional production of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) ... 3. The petroleum industry is resistant to taking into account scientific and historical data ... 4. Nuclear plants which lie on fault lines intensify the risks of earthquakes ... 5. Industry often seeks to keep information and historical data private ... Nora Eisenberg, Raw Story, 5 things the media isn’t telling you about human activity and earthquakes, 8-24-11

As I write this post, on Saturday night, MSNBC and CNN are offering wall to wall coverage of Hurricane Irene, as it moves into the densely populated metropolises of the Northeast, including New York City, the financial capital of the nation and arguably of the world.

The cable news network coverage has gone on hour after hour, without any mention of the actual context in which this potential disaster is unfolding; that's right, not one word about the Climate Crisis, i.e., the greatest existential threat of our age.

I would dismiss them as fools, but their foolishness is willful, which makes them cowards at best, and quite literally complicit in crimes against nature and humanity.

Hurricane Irene is only a category 1 as it enters New York City, it will not destroy New York, it may not even cause extensive damage there, but that is not the point; the point is this is not going to be the last hurricane that hits New York City head on in the next few years, it is only the first of many, there will be one after another, year after year, as the oceans heat up, and one day probably sooner than later, it will be a category 3 or worse ...

More than a dozen nuclear reactors along the U.S. East Coast are being prepared for potential loss of power and damage from high winds and storm surges as Hurricane Irene bears down on the region. San Francisco Chronicle, Nuclear Reactors on East Coast Brace for Hurricane Irene's Wrath, 8-26-11

... in a city like New York, hurricane-force winds could break windows en masse, especially in the taller buildings ... If the subways were flooded with salt water rather than just rainwater, the salt "would corrode the switches and cripple the system for months or years, and disable much of the communications infrastructure in Lower Manhattan ... The Financial District ... could be inundated ... not only is it full of people who could be killed by a storm surge, but it is also the epicenter of the city, national, and international financial systems ... International Business Times, Hurricane Irene New York: Top 5 Dangers of a Hurricane in the City, 8-24-11

Meanwhile, the official ceremony for the opening of the MLK Monument was postponed; and it is probably just as well.

The message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has no resonance in Beltwayistan; it is as alien to the current political establishment as the obelisk was to the apes in the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey. I am excluding, of course, those who remember and choose not to lie to themselves or their fellow citizens, e.g., the Progressive Caucus, the Black Caucus, and a very few Senators, and a handful of others.

And yes, I exclude POTUS too. He remembers. No matter how ferverently he pretends that he has just as much in common with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles as he has with us, he doesn't.

He still belongs down here, with the garbage men of Memphis, and those four little girls in Birmingham, and the Kennedy family that gave him a leg up, and the Solidarity movement in Wisconsin, and FDR, who said of the reactionaries and the corporatists, "I welcome their hatred," and ACORN, and Planned Parenthood, and Van Jones and Elizabeth Warren. Yes, he belongs with us. Whether he ever comes to grips with it or not.

I don't know what to say about him anymore, except that I will defend him to the end against the shameless racism of the reactionaries; while at the same time, excoriating him for his tragic choice not to lead.

I keep asking myself what Ralph Ellison, the author of The invisible Man might say about the psychological mystery of Barack Obama's White House years; I keep asking myself what James Baldwin or Nina Simone might say. Surely, they would have a profound insight into where he lives inside himself.

POTUS may be morphing into the Invisible Man, but beloved brother Cornel West has published a powerful OP-ED piece in the NYT, Dr. King Weeps From His Grave, New York Times, 8-26-11:

Militarism is an imperial catastrophe that has produced a military-industrial complex and national security state and warped the country’s priorities and stature ... Materialism is a spiritual catastrophe, promoted by a corporate media multiplex and a culture industry that have hardened the hearts of hard-core consumers and coarsened the consciences of would-be citizens. Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists ... Cornel West, Dr. King Weeps From His Grave, NYT, 8-26-11

Meanwhile, back at the White House, a throbbing, dynamic, flesh and blood embodiment of Dr. King's message: protester after protester submitted to arrest, in acts of non-violent civil disobedience. They are hoping to raise the stakes high enough that POTUS might be forced into the right decision -- for a change.

Bill McKibben: ... this is one place where President Obama has no obstacles to acting. Congress isn’t in the way. He has no obstacles to acting and no excuse for not acting. It will be the biggest test for him, environmentally, between now and the next election. It’s emerged as the single, premier environmental issue right now, that people from every organization and every group are coming to Washington to help with. Amy Goodman Interviews Bill McKibben, Over 160 Arrested in Ongoing Civil Disobedience Against Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline, Democracy Now, 8-23-11

But even before Hurricane Irene started hurtling toward NYC, the U.S. State Department (Hillary, hello?) issued its recommendation to POTUS that there was "no evidence the pipeline will significantly impact the six U.S. states in its path." Ah. Another brazen self-deceit. The pipeline will "significantly impact" not only the "six U.S. states in its path" but the entire planet. POTUS is yet to make (or at least to announce his decision). Of course, we could only be pleasantly surprised at this point.

As a child, I laid in the dark, and clutched a little transistor radio, and wept as I listened to Dr. King's words of power; I wept with tears of JOY. And I tell you, as surely as night follows day, just as Dr. King added economic injustice to his portfolio, and also added the Vietnam war (and the profit-driven militarism it epitomized), if he had survived the black ops of 1968, he would have added crimes against nature to his portfolio too. He would not have viewed the Climate Crisis as an inconvenient truth; he would have understood it as an unavoidable moral challenge, inextricably bound together with the others that were so sacred to him.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Plutocracy Does Not "Promote the General Welfare." Foolish Military Adventures Do Not "Provide for the Common Defense."

2011-08-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

Are We Human? One Pissed Off Liberal, Daily Kos, 4-26-09

Cornel West: ... The Heritage Foundation has been spreading lies to justify indifference toward poor people for three decades as part of the right-wing intellectual assault on working and poor people ... The Heritage Foundation supports the counter-revolution in the name of oligarchs and plutocrats. We want to be part of the fightback, and there’s millions out there who want to be part of the fightback, as the oligarchs and plutocrats attempt to squeeze all of the democratic juices out of the American social experiment ... So black folk find themselves in a dilemma: how do we protect [President Barack Obama] against the right-wing attacks and at the same time keep him accountable, especially when it comes to poor and working people? Unfortunately, Tim Geithner and [the Obama] economic team have nothing to do with the legacy of Martin King, have indifference toward poor and working people. [POTUS] listens to them, hence he’s rightly associated much more with the oligarchs than with poor people. We hope he changes his mind. We hope he gets a progressive economic team ..."A Declaration of War on the Poor": Cornel West and Tavis Smiley on the Debt Ceiling Agreement, Democracy Now, 8-9-10

Plutocracy Does Not "Promote the General Welfare." Foolish Military Adventures Do Not "Provide for the Common Defense."

By Richard Power

Consider our current dysfunction.

The Ayn Rand/Aryan Christ Cult formerly known as the Republican Party distorts POTUS into what they want him to be, i.e., a radical, anti-American, leftist; meanwhile, POTUS contorts himself into what Wall St wants him to be, i.e., what used to be called a moderate Republican in the 1990s. And so REALITY, with its legendary liberal bias, has been marginalized, along with the majority of the American people, who favor raising taxes on the rich and protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from corporatist raiders.

Listen, corporations are not people, and money is not speech. (Go to Move to Amend to act!)

It is not "austerity" that we need, it is sustainability.

Robert Reich who has been talking to people in the administration, says that there has been a deliberate decision to focus on the wrong issues, knowing that they’re the wrong issues ... And in Europe, says Kantoos Economics, a low inflation target has become a sacred icon even though all evidence – including the experience under the gold standard! — says that this will be fatal ... I’m still trying to make sense of this global intellectual failure. But the results are not in question: we are making a total mess of a solvable problem, with consequences that will haunt us for decades to come ... Paul Krugman, Economists Agree: Failed Policies 'Making a Total Mess of a Solvable Problem', New York Times, 8-10-11

If not spent on the good, "wealth" creates nothing but misery for all (including the wealthy in the end). Plutocracy does not "promote the General Welfare." Foolish military adventures do not ""provide for the Common Defense."

While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90 percent of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts.
In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population. David DeGraw, Meet the Global Financial Elites Controlling $46 Trillion In Wealth, AlterNet, 8-11-11

The human race can either choose to consciously evolve away from these absurd notions and harmful behaviors, or Gaia will choose to consciously evolve away from us.

But we continue to drive our "civilization" with fossil fuels instead of clean, renewable resources (e.g., sun, wind, tides, geothermal); in the process, we are destroying the planetary climate on which we depend. Likewise, we continue to predicate our political and economic life on the barbarism of corporatism and predatory capitalism.

A true civilization would be predicated on the oneness of all life and fueled by green energy. This is the future to articulate, and to live toward, collectively and individually.

Canada and the United States are now the center of Bizarro World. This is where leaders promise to reduce carbon emissions but ensure a new, super-sized oil pipeline called Keystone XL is built, guaranteeing further expansion of the Alberta tar sands that produce the world's most carbon-laden oil. "It's imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy - and that we leave the tar sands in the ground," the U.S.'s leading climate scientists urged President Barack Obama in an open letter Aug. 3. "As scientists... we can say categorically that it's [the Keystone XL pipeline] not only not in the national interest, it's also not in the planet's best interest." The letter was signed by 20 world-renowned scientists, including NASA's James Hansen, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and George Woodwell, founder of the Woods Hole Research Center. Stephen Leahy, Welcome to Bizarro World, Inter Press Service, 8-11-11

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

VIDEO: "A Declaration of War on the Poor": Cornel West and Tavis Smiley on the Debt Ceiling Agreement, Democracy Now, 8-9-10

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

In Forgetting the Lessons of Vietnam, Watergate & the Great Depression, America has Forgotten Herself; Maybe She Will Remember This Song

2011-08-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Frida Kahlo, Love Embrace of the Universe (1949)

Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away Gimme Shelter (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards)

In Forgetting the Lessons of Vietnam, Watergate & the Great Depression, America has Forgotten Herself; Maybe She Will Remember This Song

By Richard Power

Can't you feel it?

A few weeks ago, around nine million were facing starvation in the Horn of Africa. Now it is approaching 13 million. The number going hungry is bigger than the entire population of Belgium – with some two million children under five malnourished, and, says the UN, at least 30,000 dead. Two million East African infants are now starving, Independent, 8-7-11

It is not as far away as you tell yourself. Ooh, see the fire is sweepin' / Our very street today / Burns like a red coal carpet Mad bull lost its way ...

Because I choose to live in reality (lower case "r"), I do not turn away from the sorrow and horror of the world; I bear witness, & I act, even if the only action open to me is witnessing with my consciousness and voice. This witnessing changes the world, and even if that change is imperceptible, it is powerful. Because I also choose to live in Reality (upper case "R"), I do not allow the sorrow and horror to steal my joy or defeat my love. Without love, the witnessing would have no courage; without joy, it would have no clarity.

I didn't think the USA could forget the lessons of Vietnam or Watergate, but it did.

The 38 deaths in Saturday’s helicopter crash in Afghanistan include 31 Americans, making this the deadliest day for U.S. forces since the war began. The tragic loss of American lives might be worth the sacrifice if it was making America safer, or if our presence was significantly improving the well-being of the Afghan people. But neither of these is true. Medea Benjamin, Common Dreams, 8-6-11

The spectacle is even coming to frighten the sponsors of the charade. Corporate power is now concerned that the extremists they helped put in office may in fact bring down the edifice on which their own wealth and privilege relies, the powerful nanny state that caters to their interests. Corporate power’s ascendancy over politics and society—by now mostly financial—has reached the point that both political organizations, which at this stage barely resemble traditional parties, are far to the right of the population on the major issues under debate. Noam Chomsky, In These Times, 8-5-11

Rape, murder! / It's just a shot away / It's just a shot away"

So it should not surprise me that the USA has also forgotten the lessons of the Great Depression.

Since Reagan, Republicans have been on a “starve the beast” campaign – by which they mean eviscerate the government by taking away as much revenue as they can. Starving the beast has been the biggest bait and switch con game that has ever been perpetrated on the American people. And the most tragic. John Atchenson, The Beast Is Starved: Welcome to the Next Great Depression, Common Dreams, 8-4-11

The floods is threat'ning / My very life today / Gimme, gimme shelter / Or I'm gonna fade away

How could the USA have forgotten these painful and important lessons? How could this have happened?

America has forgotten herself. Oh, the goddess still stands in the harbor, holding aloft her torch. But because the hollow men are blind to her presence and deaf to her message, it is as if she were not there.

And unless she finds Herself again, not even "36 Earths" could save us.

Even if areas dedicated to conserving plants, animals, and other species that provide Earth's life support system increased tenfold, it would not be enough without dealing with the big issues of the 21st century: population, overconsumption and inefficient resource use. Without dealing with those big issues, humanity will need 27 planet Earths by 2050, a new study estimates. Stephen Leahy, AL-jazeera English, 8-4-11

I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away / It's just a kiss away

Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter (1969)

Keith Urban & Alicia Keys - Gimme Shelter (LIVE EARTH 2007)

Angélique Kidjo w/ Joss Stone - Gimme Shelter

Patti Smith - Gimme Shelter (2007)

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

On the Express Train to Dis, with Transfers at Beltwayistan and Oslo; Can the Power of the Word Turn Us Around?

2011-07-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

Edvard Munch, The Lady from the Sea (1896)

On the Express Train to Dis, with Transfers at Beltwayistan and Oslo; Can the Power of the Word Turn Us Around?

By Richard Power

From whatever angle you view it, the Climate Crisis, the Antropocene Age, the Sixth Great Extinction, we are on an express train to Dis, this last week it made stops in Beltwayistan and Oslo.

Here are some of my own reflections, and those of a few others whose voices should not be lost in the cacophony.

Beltwayistan

There has been no leadership from POTUS on the Zombie Cult's hostage-taking of the nation's economic future. None.

Why is Obama not using the bully pulpit? Perhaps he’s too embroiled in the tactical maneuvers that pass for policy making in Washington, or too intent on preserving political capital for the next skirmish ... A more disturbing explanation is that he simply lacks the courage to tell the truth. He wants most of all to be seen as a responsible adult rather than a fighter. As such, he allows himself to be trapped by situations — the debt-ceiling imbroglio most recently — within which he tries to offer reasonable responses, rather than be the leader who shapes the circumstances from the start. Obama cannot mobilize America around the truth, in other words, because he is continuously adapting to the prevailing view. This is not leadership. Robert Reich, American Prospect, 7-27-11

Instead of making hostage-taking the issue, from the beginning, POTUS has pushed for his "Grand Bargain" and embraced the false memes on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as "entitlements" and "austerity" as the medicine for what ails us. Therefore, he is, in effect, attempting to negotiate a ransom, which in his view the hostage-takers are partly owed.

POTUS says we are all supposed to be debt and deficit hawks now. In his Tuesday night address to the nation, he urged us all to call Congress and plea for some version of this "Grand Bargain."

Sorry, POTUS, I am not calling Congress to tell them I want a deal predicated on lies and advancing a corporatist agenda that has gutted the economic base, left the infrastructure to rot, crushed the middle class, and written a death sentence for the poor. I do not know what will happen now, but whatever happens, we must continue to insist that two plus two still equals four.

Think about what’s happening right now. We have a crisis in which the right is making insane demands, while the president and Democrats in Congress are bending over backward to be accommodating — offering plans that are all spending cuts and no taxes, plans that are far to the right of public opinion. So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that. And we have influential pundits calling out for a new centrist party, a new centrist president, to get us away from the evils of partisanship. The reality, of course, is that we already have a centrist president — actually a moderate conservative president. Paul Krugman, Cult of Centrism, New York Times, 7-26-11

Of course, POTUS could prove us wrong and exercise the 14th Amendment before next Tuesday, to avoid making some deal that places the burden of all of this madness on the backs of the middle class and the poor. Stiff the Zombie Cult, POTUS, push them into a corner, then shove SCOTUS on to the hot seat, and there would be a multitude behind you overnight. You could, but you won't will you?

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Oslo

Now Europe has its Timothy McVeigh.

For me this particular horror, like 9/11, was personal. 9/11 was personal for me, because even though I have lived in California for most of my life, I will always be a New Yorker. Oslo is personal for me because of several beautiful threads woven into life's tapestry.

In 2000, I was flown to Oslo as a guest of OKOKRIM, Norway's special police unit for economic and environment crime to keynote at an international cyber crime conference they were hosting. It was a particularly poignant journey for me.

Odin, the Wayfarer, is my Sky-God.

Norwegian is the only significant strain of blood other than Irish that flows in my veins. One of my paternal great grandfathers (my father's mother's father) was a Norwegian whaler. His rusty whaling knife was one of the treasures of my childhood.

Walking around Oslo, in the twilight. at 3 a.m., was a beautiful experience.

In the aftermath of the atrocity, Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) twitted some meaningful perspective: Proportionate to population, Norway massacre nearly twice as big as 9/11 was in US.

Likewise Yoko Ono (@yokoono) tweeted some profound advice: Write down everything you fear in life. Burn it. Pour herbal oil with a sweet scent on the ashes.

And, of course, madmen flinched, and squirmed, but could not control their vileness.

Glenn Beck remarked that the Labor Party Youth Camp were Breivik slaughtered most of his victims "sounds a little like the Hitler Youth." (Media Matters, 7-25-11) Patrick Buchanan wrote that Breivik's vision of a grand conflict between European Muslims and Christians "may be right." Media Matters, 7-26-11.

BTW, as of this post, Beck still has a radio show, and Buchanan stills warms a commentator's seat at MSNBC.

Meanwhile, in another compelling illustration of how much Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! do with so little, in contrast to how little CNN does with so much, the Democracy Now! coverage included an interview with Eva Gabrielsson, author of a recently published memoir, There Are Things I Want You to Know about Stieg Larsson and Me. She is the partner of the late Stieg Larsson, author of the international bestselling Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the work that you and your partner, Stieg Larsson ... Talk about what spurred Stieg to begin his research into the right wing. You talk about it in your book, the wave of racist violence in Sweden in the ’80s, after which the extreme right became increasingly active in Sweden. EVA GABRIELSSON: Well, he started being more openly active already in 1983, when he started to write for the British anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, which is based in London, and just because they needed somebody who could cover Scandinavia at the time ... His last article in Searchlight was published the same month as he died. That was November 2004. So he never gave up, and he continuously tried to explain that these groups aren’t deluded youth. You can’t say its their psychology or their social background which make them do these things. You have to understand that they do have a message and they do have a goal. And you have to regard their politics and take it seriously and see where they are going.

Gabrielsson also offered a glimpse into the price that writers and their loved ones pay for the power of the word.

AMY GOODMAN: There is—you’re involved in an ongoing legal dispute with Stieg’s father and brother over the estate, which really—you know, it was after he died that these books became such massive blockbusters. But one of the issues you’ve raised and talked about was the reason that you, together with Stieg, for what, some three decades, didn’t get married, and it had to do with registering your location. Can you talk about that? EVA GABRIELSSON: Well, we wanted to marry. I even—we even got the rings in 1983, and I still wear them. But we had to keep Stieg safe, and he wanted to keep me safe, by making sure that he was registered as unmarried in the Swedish public records, because we knew that they then, and still do, use the public records to make up lists of enemies of all kinds. These enemies are journalists. They are political activists. They are policemen. They are lawyers. They are politicians and so on. And Stieg was on that list from 1990 to '93, when the first list was revealed in a court case. And they continued to build on that list. So by not marrying—it was, of course, possible to find his address in the public records, but it wasn't possible to find behind which door he was living, because his name wasn’t on the door. He never paid any electricity bills. He never paid any gas bills. He never paid any insurance, anything like that. It was all in my name. So, that’s why we did not marry. And it worked. It worked fine. Amy Goodman Interviews Eva Gabrielsson, Democracy Now, 7-27-11 (See embedded video below.)

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Word

Gabrielsson's remarkable tale of her life with Larsen and their dedication to investigative journalism on the re-emergence of Fascism in the West leads to further reflection on the power of the word.

Two more recent stories nudged me to be included in this post, one is sad, the other encouraging.

Writing in the New York Times on the 50th anniversary of Hemingway's death, AE Hotchner, author of Papa Hemingway and Hemingway and His World, said he believed that the FBI's surveillance "substantially contributed to his anguish and his suicide", adding that he had "regretfully misjudged" his friend's fear of the organisation. [Hemingway's FBI file released in the 1980s through FOIA] demonstrated a keen interest in Hemingway, including his wartime attempts to set up an anti-fascist spy network called the Crook Factory, and the interest persisted until he entered the Mayo Clinic in 1960 ... That file, running to more than 120 pages, 15 of them largely blacked out for national security reasons, also demonstrates quite how close an interest Hoover and his organisation took in Hemingway. Fresh claim over role the FBI played in suicide of Ernest Hemingway, Guardian, 7-3-11

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke to a forum at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in Queensland Friday, saying that the current generation was “burning the mass media to the ground.” “We are becoming the agents of perspective,” he said. “This generation is burning the mass media to the ground.” Assange continued: “We are reclaiming our rights to world history. We are ripping open secret archives from Washington to Cairo. We don’t know yet exactly where we are. But we can see where we are going. The change in perspective that has happened over the last year is what this generation is going to use to find our lighthouse. And when we get there, we’ll turn the fucking spotlight on.” Assange speaks about ‘burning mass media to the ground’ Raw Story, 7-29-11 (See embedded video below.)

Noomi Rapace in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Democracy Now: Before Death, Acclaimed "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Author Stieg Larsson Lamented Right-Wing Extremism, 7-27-11

Julian Assange Splendour Forum Address 2011

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

No, POTUS, There are No Grown-Ups in That Room, Not Even You; If By "Grown-Up" You Mean One Willing to Take On (or Even Articulate) Our Worst Problems

2011-07-20T03:33:00.000-07:00

Chang Si (circa 1156-1161), roll painting. Beijing Palace Museum

At a time when the wealthiest people and the largest corporations ... are doing phenomenally well and in many cases have never had it so good, while the middle class is disappearing and poverty is increasing, it is absolutely imperative that any deficit-reduction package that passes this Congress not include the horrendous cuts, the cruel cuts in programs that working people desperately need that are utilized every day by the elderly, by the sick, by our children, and by the lowest income people in our country, that the Republicans ... dominated by their extreme rightwing, are demanding. America is not about giving tax breaks to billionaires and attacking the most vulnerable people in our country. We must not allow that to happen. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 6-28-11

The question before us now is not whether the natural disasters making headlines across the United States are somehow connected, but why we are so reluctant to connect them. My theory is that it's just too scary. If we admit that these extreme weather events have something to do with a global system, it feels too complicated to do anything about or prepare ourselves for. If we accept that climate change is something caused by the way we consume and produce everything from food to fuel, then we also have to admit that we need to fundamentally change the way our economy works. Janet Redmond, Connecting Extreme Weather Dots Across the Map, Other Worlds, 7-18-11

No, POTUS, There are No Grown-Ups in That Room; If By "Grown-Up" You Mean One Willing to Take On (or Even Articulate) Our Worst Problems

By Richard Power

POTUS wants us all to think of him as "the grown-up in the room" in his struggle with the Zombie Cult formerly known as the Republican Party. The problem is that the issue at hand is not maturity at all, it is sanity. Now, he is "the sanest man in the room," assuming you mean to only contrast him with those on the "R" side of the aisle.

However, even agreeing that POTUS is the sanest man in the room, overall, he still isn't the sanest person in the room, assuming Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is also at the table. If the Democratically controlled Senate had said yes to even half of the four hundred or so powerful pieces of progressive legislation (including ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE) that Pelosi got passed while she was Speaker, we would be living in a different country. (Furthermore, Pelosi is not only the sanest person in the room, she also counts as the "grown-up" too, if you measure it in terms of maturity.)

Of course, POTUS and his men (yes, men) are also likely to be the "smartest guys in the room," but that doesn't mean all that much anymore. The bar has been set very low in contemporary politics. And you would certainly want to add the caveat that even if they are "the smartest guys in the room," POTUS and his brain-trust might not be as smart as they assume themselves to be, especially since they have him flirting with undercutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in pursuit of chimerical votes in the clueless center.

James K. Gaibraith and Robert Kuttner explain.

President Obama’s proposed debt ceiling deal is a disastrous solution to an imaginary fiscal crisis, but the pain it causes will be all too real. News reports hold that President Obama scored a political victory by agreeing to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block ... To which one can only say: how nice for him. James K. Galbraith, Hawk Nation: A Guide to the Catastrophic Debt Ceiling Debate, New Deal 2.0, 7-12-11

Obama and his advisers, weirdly, believe that his stance as "the only grownup in the room" who forces his own party to abandon its core principles for the sake of an austerity program will somehow win the gratitude of voters struggling with declining incomes and rising joblessness. The unemployment may be stuck near ten percent, but good old Obama brokered a deal to balance the budget in 2021. So re-elect this man. On which planet is this? Robert Kuttner, The End Game: Saving Obama From Himself, Demos, 7-18-11

Yet even if the smartest man in the room, the grown-up in the room, the sanest man in the room, were to embrace GENUINE economic medicine, like e.g., the People's Budget proposed by the Progressive Caucus (not even granted lip service let alone a seat at the table), it still wouldn't be evidence of the leadership required of us all at this moment in human history.

An Experiment Run Amok

When I close my eyes and allow myself to open up to the life of the universe, I feel the solar system whirling in my chest, and from the third orb I hear the cacophony of an experiment run amok, "human civilization" seemingly drowning in its own ignorance, which appears to be the only renewable resource it is seriously invested in.

A huge oil spill off the Chinese coast has now contaminated an area around six times the size of Singapore. Agence France Press, 7-15-11

East Africa's worst drought in 60 years is putting 11 million lives at risk, many of them in war-torn Somalia, where thousands of hungry families are making the dangerous trek across parched, violent territory ... and the hunger that now stalks the land may become famine. Global Post, 7-17-11

Climate change is speeding up the rate at which animals and plants are becoming extinct. By the end of the century, one in 10 species could be on the verge of extinction because of the effects of global warming, a study has found. Steve Conner, Independent/UK, 7-12-11

The health of the world's oceans is much worse than is widely believed, but it is not too late to change tack and help this critical ecosystem recover, at least in part, experts say ... If the current course of damage continues, marine species are at high risk of entering a phase of extinction unprecedented in human history. Inter Press Service, 7-13-11

If you could burn all the oil in those tar sands, you'd run the atmosphere's concentration of carbon dioxide from its current 390 parts per million (enough to cause the climate havoc we're currently seeing) to nearly 600 parts per million, which would mean if not hell, then at least a world with a similar temperature.Bill McKibben, North America's Tar Sands: The New Middle East, Mother Jones, 7-14-11

Lying Awake, Late At Night

And if there were a gathering of “grown-ups, ” the “sanest people,” the “smartest people,” those at the apex of power, what would they discuss? And what message would come from that room?

Well, they would start by acknowledging that although it was truly sane, truly, smart, truly “grown-up,” in other words, truly human, to consider the impact of every decision as far into the future as the seventh generation, this tradition, ignored as it has been for two millennia by the dominant kulchurs, is now irrelevant and unless we act decisively, urgently and meaningfully it will never be relevant again. Because what we have to come to grips with now, what we have to get our minds and hearts around now is the impact of ignoring this tradition for so very long. What we have to do now is consider the impact on this generation and on the next and on the next, because only the blind can imagine they see farther than that from this dark place, and that if we ever again get to consider the impact of our decisions unto the seventh generation, it will be a luxury, and something of a miracle. USA, you think you are not going to be touched, you think there are too many people in the world anyway, you think that the Climate Crisis will devastate Africa, Asia and Latin America, and that you will somehow be fat and happy here, safe and sound with your air-conditioning, your central heating, your hot and cold running water, your light at the flick of a switch, your gasoline at the pump 24x7, and of course your ever-flowing food distribution system, but you are so wrong.

Late one night, recently, I was lying awake, listening to Green 960, and Alex Smith of Radio Eco-Shock was re-playing an excerpt from a February 2007 talk Gwynne Dyer, military expert, historian and author of Climate Wars. (Yes, you can download the podcast, and many others, from the Radio Eco-Shock archive.)

Dyer was talking like a "grown-up."

When most people think of the Climate Crisis (if they think of it at all), they think of the poles melting, and the sea level rising. And that is indeed underway, and it will wreak havoc with not just with the little island nations, but also with Shanghai and New York, and many of the other great cities of the world. But, as Dyer pointed out, long before the rising sea level does that worst of its damage, our access to food and water will be severely compromised – everywhere, directly in some regions, indirectly in others, but everywhere nevertheless. And yes, it can and will happen here. America's “Heartland,” America's "Bread Basket" (i.e., Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, etc.) will dry up, and when its water sources, e.g., the Ogallala Aquifer run out, and it will cease to produce the food they are relied on to produce. (This will also probably occur in California’s vital “Central Valley.”)

To the south, Dyer goes on, Mexico and Central America are going to be utterly devastated. And one of the planet’s great population displacements will take place on the southern border of the U.S. These climate refugees will not be coming north to look for work, they will be coming north to avoid starvation. Those who rant and rave about “illegal immigration” today don’t have a clue about the kind of world they are living in. You say you want to secure your southern border? That would be funny, if it weren’t so terribly sad. Go ahead. Build a real wall. Electrify it. Put cameras and sensors on it. But, Dyer observes, you are going to have to be willing to kill people, to shoot them, men, women and children trying to escape a climatic holocaust. Are you capable of that? And even if you are capable of that kind of violence, what will your fellow citizens of Mexican and Central American descent do when you start gunning down their brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and fathers, and cousins, and aunts and uncles? What will happen to the fabric of this society under such circumstances?

Meanwhile, all across the planet, extraordinary pressures will create multiple geopolitical crises, and some of them will involve weapons of mass destruction. For example, as the glaciers of the Himalayas vanish and cease to melt into the Indus, there will likely be a serious confrontation between nuclear-armed Pakistan and nuclear-armed India, Dyer warns. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is utterly dependent upon the Indus, which flows through nuclear-armed India before it gets to Pakistan; and how much of the Indus’ water India can take before it gets to Pakistan was established by treaty decades ago. The terms of that treaty are fixed; they do not adjust according to the volume of water. What will happen then?

Do I have your attention yet?

And look, we're not talking about 2100 or even 2050; we're talking about the next decade or two ...

Bearing this in mind, let us return to that room, in which POTUS is allegedly the "grown-up."

"You Leaders, Be Fair to Your People."

So, let me see if I’ve got this straight.

We are in the middle of what is at best a deep recession (indeed, already a depression for many), and instead of infusing the economy with further stimulus to create employment and rescue infrastructure, the made-men of Beltwayistan want to squeeze it even further, in the name of “austerity.”

Meanwhile, you are ignoring the greatest existential crisis in two thousand years of human civilization, even though coming to grips with this crisis that could as a by product create both a profoundly different and profoundly healthier energy model and a new robust economy that could provide bright future to our people, yes, unto the seventh generation.

No, POTUS, there are no “grown-ups” in that room you’re in (except, of course, for Pelosi).

I don't care about politics anymore, or ideology. These writings are my prayer, my meditation, my drum beat. My only concerns are relieving the suffering of sentient life, and exposing that sentient life, as much as possible, to the most profound truths.

Again, I ask if there were a gathering of “grown-ups, ” the “sanest people,” the “smartest people,” those at the apex of power, what would they discuss? And what message would come from that room?

Here is another example, also from a talk given in 2007 (plenty of time for this wisdom to have caught up with our so-called leaders). These are the words of Chief Oren Lyons of the Onondaga spoke on Climate Change at a Seventh Generation Fund event for the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at U.N. HG in NYC:

"The fire it's here now. The wind, it's just beginning. The water, you want more? You're gonna get it, and those that need it won't get it. These are the prophecies, this is what we have heard, this is what we know. We have been told, again and again. We hear this in the long house, for two hundred years we have been listening to this prophecy ... People have to change, directions have to change, values have to change. Otherwise ... There is no mercy in Nature, none. No mercy. Nature has none. Only law, only rule. You don't abide by the rule, you suffer the result. No habeas corpus here ... In 1950, there were 2.5 billion people in the world. Today, how many is there? 6.4 or 6.5 billion, depends on who you ask. Took 400 hundred million years to get to 2.5 billion, it took 57 years to get to 6.5 billion. There's your problem, that's your problem. It's a tough one. If you look at that graph, it is going straight up. Population ... Peacemaker said to the people build your nation on these principles: First principle was peace, peace, and with peace is health. Second principle was justice, equity, equity for the people, be fair. You leaders, be fair to your people, and with that will come justice. Third principle was power, the power of being united, the power of the Good Mind, the power of the One Mind."

[NOTE: You can view the video of Chief Oren Lyons' talk at Gabrielle Price's great blog, The Refreshment Center. The original You Tube post embedded on Price's site inaccurately describes Chief Oren Lyons as Lakota, but Price has him properly identified as Onondaga.]

A hawksbill turtle, Black Hills dive site, Útila, Honduras.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant - These Are The Days

2011-07-19T03:39:00.000-07:00

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant - These Are The Days

"Government by Organized Money is Just as Dangerous as Government by Organized Mob," FDR Declared. Embrace Reality. Re-Affirm Truth. Two + Two = Four

2011-07-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

George Grosz - Eclipse of Sun (1926)

We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred. I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master. Franklin Delanor Roosevelt Re-Election Campaign Speech, Madison Square Garden, 1936 (Embedded video below)

I was among those who hoped that, somehow, the financial crisis would teach Americans (and others) a lesson about the need for greater equality, stronger regulation, and a better balance between the market and government. Alas, that has not been the case. On the contrary, a resurgence of right-wing economics, driven, as always, by ideology and special interests, once again threatens the global economy .Joe Stiglitz, The Ideological Crisis of Western Capitalism, 7-6-11

"Government by Organized Money is Just as Dangerous as Government by Organized Mob," FDR Declared. Embrace Reality. Re-Affirm Truth. Two + Two = Four

By Richard Power

As Words of Power reported in 2009 (see the "I Told You So" list of posts below), the stimulus package was too small, and too much of it was taken up with economically useless tax cuts. The stimulus, as predicted by Krugman, Reich, Stiglitz and others quoted in these posts, succeeded in barely staving off free-fall; but did not succeed in pulling us safely away from the precipice.

The stimulus' effectiveness was further blunted by willful sabotage from a bevy of psycho Zombie cult governors (e.g., Walker in Wisconsin and Kasich in Ohio) who refused stimulus-funded high-speed rail projects, forced massive lay-offs of government workers, etc.

Can't you see what's happening here?

And now POTUS is in "negotiations" with the Zombie cult over a deficit reduction package that will *allow* the debt ceiling to be raised. You realize, of course, that these same Zombie cult leaders, Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, et al, voted SEVEN TIMES to raise the debt ceiling under Bush-Cheney, SEVEN times in EIGHT years, without debate let alone "negotiations."

I say "you realize, of course," but I should probably say "you realize, I hope" -- because POTUS never mentions this rank hypocrisy; and who else after all is in a better position to "catapult the propaganda"?

In his recent remarks related to these "negotiations," POTUS reminded me of "Tania" Hearst in those bank robbery photos. Remember? After being kidnapped by the "SLA" (a deranged, boutique terrorist group) she succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome, and "joined" them until her capture and de-programming.

Will POTUS betray the legacy of FDR? Will he sign on for inflicting deep wounds in Social Security and Medicare? Hopefully not. But even if he doesn't, he is nonetheless participating in the perpetration of a great fraud, by promoting this false meme about debt, deficit and "austerity."

Debt and deficit are not THE problem, and "austerity" is not THE cure.

No, as serious as the national debt and the federal budget deficit are, they are NOT the greatest immediate threat economically. The greatest immediate threat economically is rising joblessness and an ever flimsier social safety net, and every woe that flows from that lethal combination.

Who would have thought that POTUS would have more in common, morally and ideologically, with David Brooks than Bob Herbert? Oh well. I have no more interest in reading POTUS' books than he has in reading mine. Yes, I voted for him, and I defend him against the racist hatred of the right (which has resulted in an unprecedented number of threats against his life). But I stand w/ brother Cornel West, I confront POTUS, and I challenge him, and pray for better from him before it is too late for us all.

And yet even if POTUS were huddled in "negotiations" on the greatest immediate economic threat (i.e., joblessness, the ever flimsier social safety net and all the woes that flow from this combination), he and those made-men (and women) of Beltwayistan would still not be dealing with the big picture, the century-warping and millennium-shaping challenges before us.

Yes, one of those century-warping and millennium-shaping challenges is the Climate and Sustainability Crisis.

The other century-warping and millennium-shaping challenge is what to do now that we have arrived at the terminal stage in the illness that is predatory capitalism.

At the end of the Cold War, we witnessed the collapse of a system which claimed to be collectivist but wasn't, now we are on the death watch for a system that claims to be "free market" but isn't.

There is another way. But we seem doomed to ignore it.

Gautama Buddha in his wisdom articulated "the Middle Way," and Lao-Tzu in his wisdom articulated the Tao as a flow with two opposing, complementing currents, Yin and Yang. Our governance, however, does not reflect either of these deep wisdom teachings; and it does not look like it will arrive at such clarity of mind any time soon.

Of course, as you may have noticed, we are almost out of time.

Regrettably, the financial markets and right-wing economists have gotten the problem exactly backwards: they believe that austerity produces confidence, and that confidence will produce growth. But austerity undermines growth, worsening the government’s fiscal position, or at least yielding less improvement than austerity’s advocates promise. On both counts, confidence is undermined, and a downward spiral is set in motion. Joe Stiglitz, The Ideological Crisis of Western Capitalism, 7-6-11

When even those leaders who, like POTUS, are decent and intelligent humans, feel compelled to dance cheek to cheek with madness (i.e., 2 + 2 = 5), it is vital that you and I embrace the truth ever more passionately, ever more boldly.

Social Security is currently solvent, and requires only that the rich pay the same % of their income as the poor and middle class do, and it would be solvent FOREVER. It has nothing to do w/ the federal budget deficit.

Dealing with the deficit is as simple as repealing the Bush tax cuts, and ending our foolish (and counter-productive) military adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

Hauling the U.S. economy back from the abyss it is about to plunge into could be done w/ one massive jobs program focusing on building critical infrastructure and undertaking a radical shift to green energy

Universal health care is a basic human right, as established by the Declaration of Universal Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. So are education, employment, and retirement.

Corporations are not people, and money is not speech. What we are confronted with in the USA today is a human rights crisis. Our circumstances demand massive, non-violent EVOLUTION.

Ma Yuan (1160–1225) - Clouds Rising from the Green Sea

A Sampling of Related Posts ("I Told You So") from the Early Days of the Obama Administration

Ayn Rand's Fingerprints, Tom Paine's Shadow and the Fall of Weimar, 4-25-10

Three Inconvenient Truths from Three Leading Economists Who Have Earned Respect as Dissidents; If We Ignore Them, We Do So At Our Collective Peril, 3-13-10

While the Economic Royalists, & Their Enforcers in Politics & Media, Live the High Life, Will "We, the People" Fade into Oblivion? 7-18-9=09

In the Near Future, the Global Economy will be Dominated by China & the Biosphere will be Turned Hostile by Global Warming, Unless ... 6-7-09

Beyond the Swells of Geithner's Credibility & the AIG Bonus Babies, There is a Global Storm Moving in Fast, Do Not Be Distracted, 3-24-09

The Delusional Opposition to the Economic Stimulus Package is a Precursor of What will Come When it is Time to Move on Climate Change Later This Year, 2-14-09

Economic Insecurity Update: Of Obama & Sullenberger; Meanwhile, Stiglitz says "Nationalization is the only answer. These banks are ... bankrupt." 2-7-09

FDR: I Welcome Their Hatred

Thom Hartmann & Van Jones: How do we expand and protect the middle class?

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

A Burden Borne on the Fourth of July. "Oh Say, Can You See By The Dawn's Early Light ...?" No, I Can't. Can You?

2011-07-03T00:24:00.000-07:00

Andy Warhol, Mao Tse-Tung

A Burden Borne on the Fourth of July. "Oh Say, Can You See By The Dawn's Early Light ...?" No, I Can't. Can You?

By Richard Power

Despite being shackled at birth to the abomination of slavery, crippled and malformed by the subjugation of women, and cursed with a heinous program of genocide; for over two centuries, the USA somehow offered humanity an audacious hope that the social contract could evolve, however painfully, however haltingly, into a true reflection of love's wisdom and reason's beauty.

From the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 to Glass-Stegall in 1933, from creation of the Social Security system in 1935 to Civil Rights Act of 1964, to the establishment of Medicare in 1965 and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, the USA lurched forward.

But here on July 4, 2011, it is difficult not to conclude that the best of it all is behind us, that the US body politic is terminally ill, and that we have succumbed to the worst in ourselves; since we are allowing much if not all of this genuine, hard-won progress to die by a thousand cuts while our political debate drifts farther and farther from the realities of our circumstances.

Made in China, Made in USA

If the USA had any of its mojo left, you would not have to hear either of these disturbing stories from Words of Power, or from Democracy Now, or from the foreign press:

Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court to face charges of genocide in Darfur, has been warmly welcomed by China with the full pomp of a state reception. Telegraph/UK, 6-29-11

Myanmar's government has told pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi that her political party was acting "against the law" and warned her to stop its activity the same day she expressed "envy" for the Arab uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Asia Times, 7-1-11

Yes, the thugocracies in Karthoum and Naypyidaw have "Made in China" embossed on their posteriors. But our once great nation has no moral authority with which to denounce these products of "Red State" China, even if it were inclined to. After all, China ascended to global economic power on the broken backs of U.S. workers, courtesy of U.S. business executives and the U.S. political establishment, which does the bidding of those business executives.

There is, of course, something of significance that still bears the moniker, "Made in the USA" -- the tear gas canisters hurled against pro-democracy masses assembled in public squares in Cairo and Athens.

Climate of Fear, Consequences of Denial

Just as the USA has failed to lead the world on human rights, it has failed to lead the world on the Climate Crisis.

The Climate Crisis is our gravest threat, i.e., our #1 national security issue. I have been writing and speaking about this for over a decade. And it has apparently been a futile effort. The USA is still going in the wrong direction, even though study after study emphasizes the challenges and opportunities. (Yes, I said opportunities, because the Climate Crisis not only presents us with our greatest danger, it also presents us with our only hope -- to rescue our environment; and in the process, rescue our economy.)

Consider the Institute for Policy Studies' Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States.

The report, released annually since 2004 and supported by a task force of prominent military and civilian experts, claims that "The Defense Department has begun to recognize climate change as a major security threat even as federal government funding to address the issue has begun to be cut in FY 2012." ... The overall budget dedicated to tackling climate change dropped from 33.2 billion dollars for FY 2011 to 27.6 billion dollars in FY 2012 – a nearly 17 percent decline in federal support, at a time when "substantially more support is needed", the report said. Pam Johnson, Climate Change May Pose Biggest Security Threat, Inter Press Service, 7-2-11

The facts on the ground are only going to deteriorate, across the expanse of the planet, failed state by failed state ...

AMY GOODMAN: Award winning author, journalist Christian Parenti has just come out with a book ... Let’s start with the title, Tropic of Chaos.
CHRISTIAN PARENTI: Well, it refers to the space between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, the countries where you see the most extreme effects of climate change kicking in, but where you find vulnerable populations, people who live close to the land or the sea and have a minimal margin of error when bad weather strikes. But also these are countries and economies that have been ravaged by the Cold War and neoliberal economic restructuring ... And now the weather associated with climate change, extreme weather such as the drought, punctuated by flooding in East Africa, is adding to this. And there’s this catastrophic convergence and climate change, the argument of the book is that climate change is very often, doesn’t just look like bad weather, it looks like ethnic violence or religious violence or banditry or civil war. Democracy Now Interviews Christian Parenti, 6-30-11

But we do not have to wait for the blowback from those failed states and their displaced populations. The grim realities AND unforeseen consequences of the Climate Crisis are already upon us, whether we choose to come to grips with them or not. In the past weeks I have written to you about tornadoes that devastated Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Joplin, Missouri; now you can add the potential impact of the mega-fire lapping at Los Alamos Weapons Lab and the flood waters lapping at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant to our list of climate-related woes.

And it is only going to get worse.

Scientists are to end their 20-year reluctance to link climate change with extreme weather – the heavy storms, floods and droughts which often fill news bulletins – as part of a radical departure from a previous equivocal position that many now see as increasingly untenable ... They believe that it is no longer plausible merely to claim that extreme weather is “consistent” with climate change. Instead, they intend to assess each unusual event in terms of the probability that it has been exacerbated or even caused by the global temperature increase seen over the past century. Independent/UK, 7-1-11

Humankind is now threatened by the simultaneous implosion, explosion, incineration, courtroom contempt and drowning of its most lethal industry. We know only two things for certain: worse is yet to come, and those in charge are lying about it---at least to the extent of what they actually know, which is nowhere near enough. Harvey Wasserman, Fukushima Spews, Los Alamos Burns, Vermont Rages and We’ve Almost Lost Nebraska, Common Dreams, 6-29-11

Default Lies Within Ourselves

Meanwhile, the public discourse is preoccupied with the so-called Debt and Deficit Crisis and the Zombie Cult's terrorist threat to allow the country to go into default if we do not agree to the gutting of social services and the looting of social security and medicare, and other ways to further weaken the power of government, a power originally intended to protect people against predatory corporatism.

Here are some numbers about our foolish military adventures, our failure to double-down on science and our refusal to go green. These are numbers that are NOT being thrown around by the made-men (and women) of Beltwayisytan or the propapunditgandists of Infotainamentstan:

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. Reuters, 6-29-11

The United States spends $20.2 billion annually on air conditioning for troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan — more than NASA's entire budget, NPR reported Raw Story, 6-26-11

Web giant Google said Tuesday that the United States stands to lose up to $3.2 trillion in potential gross domestic product (GDP) growth if it further delays policies that encourage renewable energy technology Raw Story, 6-28-11

"Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light ...?"

No, I can't. Anymore.

Can you?

We have already defaulted - on the American Dream.

Conversations with Great Minds, pt.1 - Lester Brown - Is the global civilization failing?

Conversations with Great Minds, pt. 2 - Lester Brown - Is the global civilization failing?

Papantonio: Heartland Institute Kicks Off Climate Change Denial-a-Palooza

Our circumstances call for massive, non-violent EVOLUTION.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Hard Rain Late Night: Jimi Hendrix - Star-Spangled Banner (Woodstock, 1969)

2011-07-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hard Rain Late Night: Jimi Hendrix - Star-Spangled Banner (Woodstock, 1969)

What Do POTUS, Rep. Kucinich and Chris Matthews Have in Common? They Are All Failing A Vital Test of Leadership Right Here, Right Now.

2011-06-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

Mississippi Delta Children (Dorothea Lange, 1936)

Pollution and global warming are pushing the world's oceans to the brink of a mass extinction of marine life unseen for tens of millions of years, a consortium of scientists warned ...Agence France Press, 6-20-11

The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years -- and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level. Science Daily, 6-21-11

The world's largest rainforest is ravaged by deforestation and two recent droughts. If they continue, says one expert, the Amazon risks entering a period where it can no longer be relied upon to absorb more greenhouse gas emissions than it produces ... The Ecologist, 5-27-11

Jared Diamond: There are so many societies in which the elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run and ruined themselves and societies in the long run ... Climate Progress, 6-19-11

What Do POTUS, Rep. Kucinich and Chris Matthews Have in Common? They Are All Failing A Vital Test of Leadership Right Here, Right Now

by Richard Power

Did you see the news story reporting that only five out of fifty one Ms. America contestants were willing to state that evolution should be taught in public schools? (Ms. California won, BTW; one of the five, and yes, they were all from Blue States.)

Do you remember the significance of "2 x 2 = 4" in George Orwell's 1984? It was the arithmetic with which the Thought Police sought to break Winston Smith. Two plus two equals five, IF the Big Brother says so, Smith was told. His choice was to either accept the falsehood or be tortured until he did.

Well, what are the consequences in a society so far gone that even an overwhelming majority of its beauty contest participants are willing to say the intellectual equivalent of either "two plus two equals five" or "it is not yet decided whether two plus two equals four or five"? There are many consequences. NONE of them are healthy.

Of course, the Ms. American Pageant was not the only recent "beauty contest" in which the loss of our national sanity was on display. Have you read the transcript of the Republican Party 2011 Presidential Debate in New Hampshire? Seven would-be presidential nominees stepping over each other, twisting themselves into little knots, all striving to out-crazy their opponents.

What they said had NOTHING to do with reality, NOTHING. All of it, the policies they proposed, the analysis they offered, all of it was utterly out of touch with REALITY.

(And no, I don't give a damn that Romney acknowledged the truth of human-induced climate change. We are so very far beyond any point at which that would be an appropriate response for a person in a position of leadership.)

One after another, these presidential hopefuls contradicted established SCIENCE, the laws of ECONOMICS and even the facts of HISTORY. That should have been the story. The headlines should have read "One of America's Two Major Political Parties has Lost Its Mind." Instead, the bizarre agenda of this Zombie Party is allowed to frame the public debate.

Consider the fate of Barack Obama and his Impossible Presidency.

While his name was being booed at Netroots Nation, POTUS was playing golf with John Boehner, working on a deal that will (whatever else it does) prop up the false pretense that our economic woes are due to Social Security, Medicare and numerous other programs that benefits poor and working class citizens, and I am certain that in that confidential conversation, the Climate Crisis was never mentioned.

Yes, our nation is in imminent danger of sliding off a cliff and into an abyss of woe. Our species itself is threatened. The planet we rely on for our sustenance is rapidly changing into something that we will not be able to rely on or even recognize.

And even if we were not facing environmental catastrophe, we would be facing economic catastrophe. Our nation has fallen victim to a predatory corporatism; which is rapaciously undermining our democratic institutions, dismantling our industrial base, and disenfranchising our people.

And still, POTUS made a golf date with Boehner.

Migrant, Destitute Mother, Pea-Picker in the Dust Bowl (Dorothea Lange, 1936)

But POTUS is not alone in his failure to confront our true peril. This moment of profound despair has brought the worse out in many of us.

Consider the examples of Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Hardball host Chris Matthews.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has been a dauntless champion of the progressive agenda in some of the darkest days of our history, and yet, once in awhile he offers a painfully illustrative lesson in how to be ineffective and irrelevant. The latest is his decision to join up with nine House members (including seven with "R" after their name) to sue POTUS over, gulp, yes, our involvement in the NATO military action in Libya.

Now, before you hyperventilate, let me assure you the right or wrong our involvement is NOT germane to my point. We are, indeed, living in a time of runaway illegality when it comes to the foreign military adventures, and related Constitutional issues; and we have been for quite awhile. I do not dismiss this fact. I simply suggest that Libya is not the place to draw a line in the sand, and seven members of the Zombie Cult formerly known as the Republican Party are not the allies with whom to make such a stand. It is a fool's errand, it is a waste of time, it is a distraction. Why it's almost as silly as suing the Capitol Hill cafeteria over an olive pit. Oh wait a minute, Rep. Kucinich recently did that too, didn't he?

Of course, Kucinich is not the only progressive to have skewed priorities. As Brendan Smith and Jeremy Brecher wrote in a recent op-ed piece for Common Dreams: ... climate change is not just another “issue.” The earth is in the midst of a radical shift that will affect our country and society more severely than other great upheavals such as the Civil War, the Great Depression, or World War II. It represents an existential threat to every human and every community on the planet. It threatens every job, every economy in the world ... Smith and Breche, Are Progressives in Denial About Climate Change? 6-12-11

But no one, not those who drink the Chamber of Horrors' kool-aid of climate change denialism, not those who play golf with the Renfields of the kool-aid purveyors, not those earnest progressives struggling futilely outside the mainstream, NO ONE bears greater responsibility for our dire circumstances than the propapunditgandists of Infotainmentstan.

Which brings us at last to Hardball host Chris Matthews (who, at this point, is little more than a parody of himself).

Al Gore just wrote a brilliant, hard-hitting piece on the Climate Crisis, harshly criticizing both POTUS and the US mainstream news media for their silence and inaction.

This triggered an extraordinary response in Matthews. Climate change made it to Hardball. Of course, it wasn't the lead story, but he did give it a whole segment. Salon's Joan Walsh did a great job, as per usual, articulating a caring, insightful and yet pragmatic view of the political realities and progressive imperatives that Gore's piece highlighted. But Matthews' performance was verging on the hysterical.

And what was he so distraught about?

Not that we have done NOTHING meaningful to change the direction of this nation on the grave threat of Climate Crisis. No. Matthews felt compelled to defend POTUS from Al Gore's "attack."

Matthews said that Gore should be attacking Beck, Limbaugh and the Chamber of Commerce, not POTUS. They're the fire, he said. POTUS is the fire brigade. Don't attack the fire brigade, attack the fire.

Oh really? Well, Tweetie Bird, Gore has been attacking Limbaugh, Beck and the Chamber of Horrors for years; but you have not spent one segment on any of these attacks, or on the true scope of the Climate Crisis itself. It was Gore's critique on Obama that got you off the dime, and when you did, it was to attack the messenger for bringing a message that is worse than inconvenient.

If Barack Obama is the fire brigade, Tweetie Bird, why is the fire brigade playing golf with the fire?

And as for POTUS, Gore is not asking for "Superman," he is not asking for a being that could reverse the rotation of the planet to go backward in time and prevent the worst from happening, no, he is simply asking for MORAL LEADERSHIP from a President who has now given three SOTU, and hardly mentioned the Climate Crisis at all; he is simply asking the man billed as the most powerful man in the world, with all the power of the Executive Branch of the U.S. federal government under his sway, to at the very least use his bully pulpit to tell the sheeple that this is no longer a debate about whether or not climate change is real, it is a debate on whether or not we will survive what we have done to ourselves and our world.

The reality is that economic and environmental catastrophes are unfolding before us. The reality is that the antidote to both is the same: a green economy, modeled on sustainable growth and renewable energy, and predicated on human rights (e.g., universal health care, and free wi-fi from sea to shining sea).

Here is are brief excerpts Gore's great piece in Rolling Stone. It includes scathing critiques of POTUS and the US mainstream news media, as well as Gore's list of "five basic ways" that "individuals can make a difference." I urge you to read the whole of it, and spread it far and wide.

President Obama has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change. After successfully passing his green stimulus package, he did nothing to defend it when Congress decimated its funding. After the House passed cap and trade, he did little to make passage in the Senate a priority. Senate advocates — including one Republican — felt abandoned when the president made concessions to oil and coal companies without asking for anything in return. He has also called for a massive expansion of oil drilling in the United States….
During the final years of the Bush-Cheney administration, the rest of the world was waiting for a new president who would aggressively tackle the climate crisis — and when it became clear that there would be no real change from the Bush era, the agenda at Copenhagen changed from “How do we complete this historic breakthrough?” to “How can we paper over this embarrassing disappointment?”
… Yet without presidential leadership that focuses intensely on making the public aware of the reality we face, nothing will change. The real power of any president, as Richard Neustadt wrote, is “the power to persuade.” Yet President Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis ...
Continuing on our current course would be suicidal for global civilization. But the key question is: How do we drive home that fact in a democratic society when questions of truth have been converted into questions of power? When the distinction between what is true and what is false is being attacked relentlessly, and when the referee in the contest between truth and falsehood has become an entertainer selling tickets to a phony wrestling match? Al Gore slams Obama for Failing to Take on “the Merchants of Poison,” Compares Media to Pro Wrestling Referees, Climate Progress, 6-22-11

Want to hear the message that could be coming from the Obama administration?

Van Jones: Now is the Time to Protect the American Dream - "It's time for the deep patriots to stand up to the cheap patriots." Van Jones' address to Netroots Nation 2011.

theuptake2 on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Our circumstances call for massive, non-violent EVOLUTION.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Governance Meant to Protect You from Predatory Corporatists Has Been Perverted to Protect Predatory Corporatists from You

2011-06-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

Edward Curtis, Geronimo Apache (1905)

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike ... Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others ... For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Cleveland City Club, April 5 1968

Edward Curtis, Hopi Mother (1922)

Governance Meant to Protect You from Predatory Corporatists Has Been Perverted to Protect Predatory Corporatists from You

By Richard Power

From the Tar Sands to the Congo, from the Gulf Ecocide to the Triple Meltdown in Fukushima; the choice is simple - evolution or devolution?

Fukushima? Oh yes, the open wound continues to fester.

Fukushima Reactor #1 more radioactive than ever, Raw Story, 6-4-11

Nuclear fuel has melted through base of Fukushima plant, Telegraph/UK, 6-11-11

Japan Admits 3 Nuclear Meltdowns, More Radiation Leaked into Sea; U.S. Nuclear Waste Poses Deadly Risks, Democracy Now, 6-10-11

But you won't hear much about it here in the US mainstream news media, or from the US political establishment.

Beltwayistan and Infotainmentstan want you preoccupied with the debt crisis, but without any introspection on its true causes (e.g., the 2.5 trillion dollar tragedy of the Bush-Cheney tax cuts) or any genuine cure (e.g., the People's Budget).

And why do Beltwayistan and Infotainmentstan want you to think that government is not only broken, but also broke?

Ah, now the answer to that question leads to some painful, but necessary revelations.

The U.S.A was predicated on protecting the individual, and the populace as a whole, from the predatory inclinations of the wealthiest and most powerful (e.g., King George and the East India Trading Company). But this great principle has been almost wholly subverted, and the perverse shell of our government, as well as the international institutions it so heavily influences, are now predicated on the opposite, i.e., protecting the wealthiest and most powerful (e.g., BP, Goldman Sachs, etc.) from the individual, and the populace as a whole. The governance intended to promote our "general welfare" has been turned inside out.

Consider our national response to the greatest crisis of our age.

When Obama took office, he appointed some of the country’s most knowledgeable climate scientists ... it seemed for a time as if he might take his responsibility to lead ... That hope has faded. The President sat on the sidelines in 2009 and 2010 ... Since the midterm elections, Obama has barely mentioned climate change, and just about every decision ... on energy, and the environment has been wrong. New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert Slams President Obama for Fiddling While the Planet Burns, Climate Progress, 6-6-11

Media Matters analyzed television news guests who discussed the Environmental Protection Agency's role in regulating greenhouse gas emissions from December 2009 through April 2011. Driven largely by Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, results show that in 76 percent of those appearances, the guest was opposed to EPA regulations while 18 percent were in favor. Of the appearances by elected officials, 86 percent were Republican. Only one guest in 17 months of coverage across nine news outlets was a climate scientist -- industry-funded Patrick Michaels. Opponents Of EPA Climate Action Dominate TV News Airwaves, Media Matters, 6-7-11

Consider the man POTUS appointed to distribute the $20 billion in BP funds designated for victims of the ongoing Gulf Coast ecocide.

[Kenneth] Feinberg's downplay of chemical illnesses and other medical issues stemming from the BP oil disaster -- with full knowledge of the parallel court proceedings -- shows that he and his boss, BP, have no intention of "making it right" for people in the Gulf ... This inherent conflict of interest means Feinberg is nothing more than a well-paid sock puppet for BP ... Further, the federal laws and regulations designed to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment from oil and chemical poisoning are so riddled with exemptions that they cannot deliver their promise of protection ... Similarly, the federal government is also in denial ... Riki Ott, Lots of Inconvenient Truths - Chemical Illness Epidemic in the Wake of the BP Blowout, Huffington Post, 6-9-11

Consider the man the USA backs for a second term as UN General Secretary, in particular consider his performance in regard to the slow-motion GENOCIDE in Darfur.

... this is a decision that will be made largely by three wary members of the Security Council: China, Russia, and the United States. And their criteria for assessing job performance reflect nothing so much as their own geostrategic interests, which are often directly in conflict. This has the effect of producing a "lowest common denominator" candidate, a competition in which Ban Ki-moon excels. ... Since Ban assumed his position on January 1, 2007, more than 1 million civilians in Darfur have been newly displaced—more than 600,000 in his first two years in office ... During his entire tenure, security has continued to deteriorate, both for humanitarians and civilians. Ban and his disastrous special representative to UNAMID, Ibrahim Gambari, have had no success in pressuring Khartoum ... Eric Reeves, Sudan Research, 6-10-11

These circumstances no longer constitute a simple moral dilemma about the plight of some other people, or some other species, they now constitute a question of our very own survival. Sustainability and human rights are inextricably bound together in the 21st Century; and no one will have any lasting security (political or economic) without a sweeping and unshakable commitment to both. Our circumstances demand MASSIVE, NON-VIOLENT EVOLUTION. Such magic is dependent upon the courage and common sense of each individual.

The U.S. Department of State seems likely to approve a huge pipeline, known as Keystone XL to carry tar sands oil (about 830,000 barrels per day) to Texas refineries unless sufficient objections are raised. The scientific community needs to get involved in this fray now. If this project gains approval, it will become exceedingly difficult to control the tar sands monster ... An overwhelming objection is that exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts.James Hansen, Silence Is Deadly: I’m Speaking Out Against Canada-U.S. Tar Sands Pipeline, ClimateStorytellers.org, 6-4-11

EVE ENSLER: The women of Congo are the center of my heart. They’re in the heart of the world, the heart of Africa. If you rape the center of the world, if you exploit the center of the world, you destroy the heart of the world! Today, we are about taking back the heart. Jambo Mamas, you are the strongest women. And I promise you, City of Joy will be the place where the women of Congo turn their pain to power. There is a Women’s Spring Beginning: Playwright Eve Ensler and Congolese Activist Christine Schuler Deschryver on Gender Violence in Congo, Democracy Now!, 6-7-11

If there is hope, and there has to be, it flows from human beings standing in their own power. Like James Hansen and Eve Ensler. And yes, like you and me.

I am grateful for this heart that pumps the blood-wine, & for these lungs that circulate the breath of life. I am grateful I do not live in denial about our planetary peril or the utter failure of our governance. I am grateful that my embrace of these painful truths does not warp my love for creation or my hope for our future. I am grateful that the Wheel grinds on inexorably, & that I choose to move with it rather than against it.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Thom Hartmann Interviews Dr. James Hansen on "Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe

“There is a Women’s Spring Beginning”: Playwright Eve Ensler and Congolese Activist Christine Schuler Deschryver on Gender Violence in Congo, Democracy Now, 6-7-11

Hard Rain Late Night: Loreena McKennitt - Dante's Prayer

2011-06-11T04:12:00.000-07:00

Hard Rain Late Night: Loreena McKennitt - Dante's Prayer

Carbon Output Highest in Human History; USA, Russia & Japan Prepare to Reject A Binding Agreement. Meanwhile, Medicine Pervades the Earth We So Abuse

2011-05-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Cate Blanchett as Galadriel in Lord of the Rings

CATE BLANCHETT has dismissed attacks by Tony Abbott and other opponents of a carbon price, saying she will continue to do all she can to tackle climate change. ... Blanchett said she was undeterred. "Everyone will benefit if we protect the environment. There is a societal cost of increased pollution and that's what I'm passionate about as a mother. That's where it gets me in the gut," she said. "I can't look my children in the face if I'm not trying to do something in my small way and to urge other people." Cate Blanchett: I want to be able to look my children in the face, Sydney Morning Herald, 5-31-11

Carbon Output Highest in Human History; USA, Russia & Japan Prepare to Reject A Binding Agreement ... Meanwhile, Medicine Pervades the Earth We So Abuse

By Richard Power

This post to Words of Power is my one thousand and tenth. Several hundred of them have focused on the Climate Crisis. Here is yet another. "Despair," as Thom Hartmann says, "is not an option."

It is love we call out from, and love we must call out to; however it all unfolds.

Grateful for love, which like the Sun, only seems to rise and set; but does indeed shine uninterruptedly - inconceivably powerful, incomprehensibly ancient, unspeakably vast, utterly vital to all life. Grateful for love, which like the Moon, only seems to wax and wane; but which, in truth, leads all life in an exquisitely beautiful tango. Grateful for love, which like Space itself, simply abides, singing in its timelessness.

The United States, Russia, Japan and Canada will reject a binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at November's UN climate summit in South Africa, European diplomats said ... Agence France Press, 5-27-11

Yes, and in doing so, officials for the governments of the USA, Russia, Japan, and some of the other great nations, will engage in convoluted, disassembling prevarication. They certainly won't be rejecting an agreement just because it is insufficient or unenforceable. They will simply be rejecting it to protect the short-sight interests of the corporatist overlords who they serve. But consider yourself forewarned, if the great nations fail the future; the future will reciprocate.

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency ... The shocking rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" – is likely to be just "a nice Utopia" ... Guardian, 5-30-11

The years ahead will require degrees of both self-reliance and collectivity unprecedented in this so-called "developed world." We have little understanding of just how much we have taken for granted, and how deep in denial our societies have become mired. But within your lifetime, and the lifetimes of your children, we will become acutely aware of it all.

The three worst direct impacts to humans from our unsustainable use of energy will, I think, be Dust-Bowlification, sea level rise and ocean poisoning: Hell and High Water. But another impact — far more difficult to project quantitatively because there is no paleoclimate analog — may well affect far more people both directly and indirectly: war, conflict, competition for arable and/or habit. Joseph Romm, Memorial Day, 2030, Climate Progress, 5-27-11

There is powerful medicine for this ailment. It is all around us. It pervades the very Earth we are so badly abusing, it pours down on us from the vastness of the universe.

Solar power may be cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuels and nuclear reactors within three to five years because of innovations, said Mark M. Little, the global research director for General Electric Co. (GE) ... Climate Progress, 5-26-11

Desertec is a multi-billion-dollar energy initiative that hopes to meet Europe's energy needs with solar power from the Sahara. The recent upheavals in North Africa have put the project in question. But many experts argue that the Arab Spring will actually help Desertec's grand vision become reality. Der Spiegel, 5-26-11

But however powerful the medicine, if it is not taken, it cannot heal; however powerful the medicine, if the stricken one does not have the will to embrace life, or the honesty to face the truth, the medicine cannot work its magic.

Of course, many among us are incapable of making a wise choice. They are what I call informationally malnourished. Oh, they are consuming a lot of informational calories, but those calories are quite empty, and also contain spiritually and psychologically carcenogenic elements.

Consider this recent reminder of how much Democracy Now! does with so little, versus how little CNN does with so much.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill McKibben is founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org and author of many books, including Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet ... Bill, your state [Vermont] is making history today, about to pass single-payer healthcare, and you’ve been doing that quite a while on the issue of the environment, as you travel the world to bring attention to two words that we don’t see screaming across our TV screens. We see "severe weather." We see "extreme weather." We see the horrible scenes of destruction. But we don’t see the words "climate change." Talk about these connections.

BILL McKIBBEN: Sure. Look, what’s happening is we’re making the earth a more dynamic and violent place. That’s, in essence, what global warming is about. We’re trapping more of the sun’s energy in this narrow envelope of atmosphere, and that’s now expressing itself in many way. We don’t know for sure that any particular tornado comes from climate change. There have always been tornadoes. We do know that we’re seeing epic levels of thunderstorm activity, of flooding, of drought, of all the things that climatologists have been warning us about. And of course they’re not confined just to our continent. You know, even in the last week, the Chinese have pointed out that they’re suffering through the worst drought in the center of the country that they have on record. In Colombia, the president went on TV last week to say, "We’ve gotten so much rain in the last year, it’s washed away so much of our infrastructure that it’s as if we haven’t been doing any development work for the last 10 or 20 or 25 years."
The scale of this stuff is immense. And as long as we just think about it as just a series of one-off, isolated disasters, we probably are not asking ourselves the most important questions. What can we do to stop this destabilization before it gets much worse? Democracy Now! Interviews Bill McKibben: From Storms to Droughts, Devastating Extreme Weather Linked to Human-Caused Climate Change, 5-26-11

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Joplin and Tuscaloosa Lie in Ruins; But the Edifice of Denial Still Stands. Our Circumstances Call for Massive, Non-Violent EVOLUTION

2011-05-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

Durga slaying Mahisasur (Chittaranjan Park, Delhi, Oct 22, 2004)

Human-induced climate change is contributing to the recent heavy rain and ongoing record flooding along the Mississippi River, and we can expect more extreme weather events in the future, according to scientists and adaptation experts on a teleconference held by the Union of Concerned Scientists. ENS, 5-20-11

A combination of climate change, overfishing, pollution and other threats is changing the world’s oceans at an “unprecedented” rate, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday. Climate Progress, 5-19-11

A sharp increase in forest destruction in March and April in the Amazon has led Brazil to announce the creation of an emergency task force to fight against deforestation. Agence France Press, 5-19-11

Joplin and Tuscaloosa Lie in Ruins; But the Edifice of Denial Still Stands. Our Circumstances Call for Massive, Non-Violent EVOLUTION

By Richard Power

Joplin devastated; 75% of its buildings destroyed. Recently, Tuscaloosa was demolished. Whole towns. Not terrorism. Tornadoes. In the next few days, you will hear a lot about FEMA; but not much (if anything) about NASA or EPA.

As with Tuscaloosa, the US political establishment and mainstream news media are responding to the tragedy, but neither responds to the teachable moment.

Do not be dissuaded by denials issued by overly-cautious officials answering the wrong questions. This is the savage face of the Climate Crisis. Just as surely the floods in Pakistan and the fires in Russia. Our failure to meet the Climate Crisis early and head-on is more than anything a failure of governance in Beltwayistan and Infotainmentstan.

The Obama administration does not deny the reality of Climate Change; that is a meaningful difference from the rule of the Zombie Cult formerly known as the Republican Party; and anyone who says it isn't is being foolish. But unfortunately, the Obama administration has NOT made a passionate effort to educate the populace or taken bold strides to lead the world; and these short-sighted choices are not only moral failures, they are political miscalculations.

None of this should be any surprise, of course. The failure of governance is systemic and apparently terminal. The BP Gulf Ecocide came and did not go, but Beltwayistan and Infotainmentstan still have not changed their self-deceiving consensus on deep sea drilling. Fukushima came and did not go, but Beltwayistan and Infotainmentstan still have not changed their self-deceiving consensus on nuclear power plant safety.

It’s far smarter to repeat to yourself, over and over, the comforting mantra that no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change. There have been tornadoes before, and floods—that’s the important thing. Just be careful to make sure you don’t let yourself wonder why all these records are happening at once: why we’ve had unprecedented megafloods from Australia to Pakistan in the last year. Why it’s just now that the Arctic has melted for the first time in thousands of years. Focus on the immediate casualties, watch the videotape from the store cameras as the shelves are blown over. Look at the anchorman up to the chest of his waders in the rising river. Bill McKibben, Making Connections, Washington Post, 5-24-11

It is not only the argument against human-induced Climate Change that is false; the very premise that there is any reasonable debate at all anymore is also false. Those who indulge in it or pander to those who do, simply want to continue to live within the edifice of denial. They will be trapped inside when it collapses of its own weight.

The truth is that despite current official caution, the relationship between Climate Change and these tornadoes, the Mississippi flooding, the Texas fires, etc., are far more substantial and far less speculative than the premises (mostly false) that underlie our war IN, OF, FOR and BY terrorism.

Bob Dylan is 70 years old. Amnesty International is 50 years old.

Where are we going? What difference has any of it made? These are worthwhile questions. But there are no answers. Only more questions.

There is wonder in this life. Indeed, wonder defines this life, wonder establishes the parameters of this life, wonder epitomizes this life.

Two UK astronomers have found that the giant black holes in the centre of galaxies are on average spinning faster than at any time in the history of the Universe. Science Daily, 5-23-11

The inner core of the Earth is simultaneously melting and freezing due to circulation of heat in the overlying rocky mantle, according to new research ... Terra Daily, 5-23-11

Tests given to an Amazonian tribe called the Mundurucu suggest that our intuitions about geometry are innate. Researchers examined how the Mundurucu think about lines, points and angles, comparing the results with equivalent tests on French and US schoolchildren. BBC News, 5-24-11

Science serves wonder, and so does our global heritage of sacred myth.

Durga has been calling to me.

The blue and green bounty of Gaia, the savage, purple-tongued dance of Kali Ma, the warm, radiant welcoming of Our Lady of Gaudalupe, the flowing red magma and black volcanic rock of Pele, the compassionate rainbow medicines of Tara - all are emanations of a mystery beyond all others, an incomprehensible, unspeakable presence that is, at once, beyond the universe and yet permeating the whole of it.

Perhaps Durga is closest to this greatest of mysteries.

According to legend, Mahishasura, a powerful demon was wreaking havoc throughout the three worlds. All the gods went to Brahma, the Creator, who could not slay what he made, so he led them all to Vishnu, the Sustainer, and Shiva, the Destroyer.

In their anger, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, along with all the other gods, emitted powerful rays of light, which coalesced into a sea of blinding light ...

Durga emerged from this sea of light, and told the assembled gods that she was the One who had created them all. She was supreme even over the triumvirate of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva. It was simply her lila to emerge from the sea of blinding light that their collective anger had brought forth.

Riding a great lion (in some versions of the tale it is a great tiger) into battle, she slayed Mahishasura and rescued the three worlds.

Remember, it was the collective light of all those individual consciousnesses that brought Durga from beyond the veil.

These are not the "End Times," these are "Beginning Times." Our circumstances call for massive, non-violent EVOLUTION.

Thousands of protesters in Madrid furious over soaring unemployment staged a silent protest and then erupted in cheers of joy as a 48-hour ban on their demonstration took effect on Saturday. 'Now we are all illegal' and 'the people united will never be defeated,' were among the chants of the protesters who crammed Madrid's Puerta del Sol square and spilled onto side streets. 'From Tahrir to Madrid to the world, world revolution,' said one of the placards, referring to Tahrir Square in Cairo which was the focal point of the Egyptian revolution earlier this year. Agence France Press, 5-20-11

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Durga Mantra (Om Dum Durgayei Namaha)

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Hard Rain Late Night: Sandy Denny - The Quiet Land Of Erin

2011-05-24T02:29:00.000-07:00

Hard Rain Late Night: Sandy Denny - The Quiet Land Of Erin

The Circle of Life, the Takedown of Bin Laden, & Why Bush Didn't Return to the Scene of the Crime

2011-05-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

Salvador Dali, Colossus (1954)

A middle-aged nonentity, a political failure outstripped by history – by the millions of Arabs demanding freedom and democracy in the Middle East – died in Pakistan yesterday. And then the world went mad. Robert Fisk, Pakistan knew Bin Laden's hiding place all along, The Independent, 5-3-11

I applaud the extraordinary bravery of those American military personnel who participated in this highly-effective operation, the intelligence operation that made it possible and the leadership of President Obama ... It is impossible to predict the future, but I hope the death of Osama bin Laden and the growth of democratic movements in the Muslim world marks a momentous turning point, which leads the region toward peace and prosperity and away from terrorism, death and destruction." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Statement on Osama Bin Laden, 5-2-11

If we as citizens challenge the 'war' framing, if we refuse, a decade after the savagery of 9/11’s attacks, to allow 'war' framing to define the national psyche and our politics, if we demand our representatives stop couching virtually all foreign policy discussion in terms of terrorism, we have a chance to build a new and more effective security template. Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation, 5-2-11

The Circle of Life, the Takedown of Bin Laden, & Why Bush Didn't Return to the Scene of the Crime

By Richard Power

I did not want to write about Osama Bin Laden again. But under the circumstance it would be irresponsible not to, after all that has happened, and after all that I have written about him over the years. I am trying as best as I can to tend to the Circle of Life. But to mend a tear in fabric of that web, sometimes you have to remove the object that has caused the tear.

If I seem to contradict myself in the course of this post, well, that's because I do. Truth is paradoxical. The greater the truth, the greater the paradox. Writing about Bin Laden is thankless, because I end up disagreeing with those that are wrong for the right reasons, and agreeing with those that are right for the wrong reasons.

For example, the great Noam Chomsky (whose clarity of mind and depth of conscience has been a beacon for so many of us in this long night) recently wrote: We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. (Guernica Magazine, 5-7-11) Reading this challenging statement, I confess, my initial response was (jokingly), "Hmm, let me think about that for a moment."

Shattering the Looking Glass, Instead of Looking Back Through It

The legend of Bin Laden is composed of sorry facts and insipid falsehoods, but at least it ends here. Yes, Bin Laden *is* dead, freshly dead. Dead once and once only, in reality, and forever. Shot in the head by U.S. Navy Seals, in an operation ordered by POTUS; his corpse consigned to Davy Jones' locker. And my response is "Bravo."

Alex Jones is a buffoon. And poor Benazir Bhutto, who told David Frost that Bin Laden had been killed some years ago, was misled. Even I knew Bin Laden was alive, not dead, and living in a villa in Pakistan, and not in the tribal regions. Ask yourself why Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, and Robert Fisk are not talking about Bhutto's story. Bhutto was on Frost's show because she was going back to Pakistan to take power, and that is why she was killed, because she went back to Pakistan to take power. The people that misled her, the people that killed her, they are the same people that protected Bin Laden.

Bush-Cheney, in effect, protected Bin Laden too. They looked the other way before 9/11. They looked the other way after 9/11. The Bin Ladens were Bush-Cheney family friends and business associates. Bin Laden fit perfectly into PNAC, he gave Bush-Cheney their rationale for the foolish military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

They looked the other way. They ignored warning after warning, not only from the previous administration, but from friendly governments, from the best of allied intelligence services, and from their own national security council staff. They looked the other way. It is hard to assume that they let it happen. The least they should be held accountable for is criminal negligence. Words of Power has chronicled this over the years. It is a matter of public record. People simply won't deal with it.

IF Bush-Cheney had wanted Bin Laden, they would have gone after him; but his sick plots served their purposes. However, when POTUS took office in 2008, he refocused assets onto him, and took him out within months of determining his exact location.

Once Bin Laden has escaped from Tora Bora, it should have taken at the most two or three years to track him down, determine the likely consequences of any action, weigh all the options available, develop a good plan of attack, and take him out. Well, that is what happened. As soon as someone sat in the Oval Office who understood the symbolic importance of capturing or killing Bin Laden, someone who saw Bin Laden's capture or death as a necessary grammatical punctuation with which to end a sentence and turn a page, someone who was not conflicted, someone who was not complicit.

POTUS took over in 2008, Bin Laden was killed in 2011.

Bitter Pill After Bitter Pill

I am deeply disappointed in many (if not most) of POTUS' actions (and inactions), e.g., his failure to lead on Climate Change, the disgraceful treatment of U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning, his White House's abandonment of the public option in the struggle for healthcare reform, the two-year extension of the Bush-Cheney tax cuts for the rich, his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, etc., etc. etc. Nevertheless, the takedown of Bin Laden, is one of his worthiest accomplishments, along with ending of the "pre-existing condition" scam of the health insurance racketeers, and appointing Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Yes, it is slim pickings, but it is NOT Bush-Cheney or McCain-Palin, and while he is in office there is still hope.

To those who say Bin Laden should have been captured and brought trial, instead of killed on the spot, I say this: assuming that it was not the kind of split-second decision that a commando must be allowed to make in a fire-fight, assuming that taking him alive was an option, I ask you, why would we want to? To feel better about ourselves? It is too late for that.

Remember, POTUS attempted to hold a trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Manhattan, in criminal court. The political blowback from the ignorant and the cowardly (apparently predominant in our political kulchur) was too intense. Likewise, POTUS ordered Guantanamo shutdown as soon as he took office, but the procedural pushback and political blowback have proven too intense; the blight lingers on, though the worst of what happened there is over.

So I suggest to you that bringing Bin Laden back would have been a foolish move, at this point. If nothing else, POTUS' time in office has proven that our circumstances are much worse than most people have really come to grips with, and that the "Imperial Presidency" is just another false meme, unless, of course, the will of that "President" happens to be in sync with that of those at true apex of power in what Gore Vidal aptly calls the National Security State.

The War IN, OF, FOR and BY Terror

As much as I respect him, in this instance, I do not agree with Michael Moore: the U.S.A. has not "lost part of its soul" in this action. Although over the last decade, we have indeed lost large chunks of our soul in wreaking havoc and mayhem on millions of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on the bodies, psyches and families of our own military and intelligence personnel, who after all were sent to battle chimeras and scarecrows in those cursed countries, when in reality, the enemy looked over our shoulder, sat at our table, and were trained in the use of our weapons; yes, elements within the governments of Saudia Arabia and Pakistan, "our strong allies in the war on terror."

But it isn't really a "war on terrorism" anyway, that term was not only a misnomer, reflective of our ignorance of what we have stumbled into, it was also a lie, reflective of a self-deceit at the core of so much of our agenda. Over and over for a decade, I have written that this was not a "war on terror" but a "war IN, OF, FOR and BY terror."

This "war" has not been a success, it never could be a success, it was not even designed to be a success, it was not even meant to ever end. From the beginning, it was an excuse to seize strategic position and establish bases in the Middle East and Central Asia, and to break the bones of the face of our republic and re-shape it into something hideous.

It has been a war on ourselves as much as it has been a war on anyone else.

Nevertheless, there were and are madmen who want to blow up our cities, and slaughter our innocents. Unfortunately, the means chosen to move against them serve the purposes of those madmen better than our own. Furthermore, precious little reflection on how this all came to be, and what its true causes are, is allowed to break through the insulation of ignorance that has plunged the corridors of power into darkness.

Bin Laden and 9/11

Over the years, another recurring refrain in my writing on Bin Laden, 9/11, etc. was "Bring me the head of Osama Bin Laden."

Because for so much of that bloody decade, U.S. blood and treasure was committed to foolish military adventures that had little or NOTHING to do with bringing Bin Laden to justice. Iraq had NOTHING to do it, as many millions of us knew, and demonstrated we knew, by protesting the invasion and occupation of Iraq in those desperate months BEFORE it was undertaken. And Afghanistan had little to do with it, after Bin Laden was allowed to escape from Tora Bora when Bush-Cheney denied a C.I.A. request for the green light, and the U.S. Marines, to run him down.

Was "9/11 an inside job"? I don't go there. I don't embrace it, nor do I refute it. I know enough from what is available in the public record to insist unequivocally that Bush-Cheney looked the other way. Were there demolition teams? Was the collapse of the towers a controlled demolition? I don't care. I know all that I need to know. The _resident and VICE _resident of the U.S.A. ignored warning after warning in the months preceding the event; they not only did nothing, they did less than nothing, they undid the good that Clinton-Gore had done in the 1990s and leading up to the Millennium.

Whether or not Bin Laden received help, coordinated or not, from dark extra-governmental elements within the military-industrial complex, it was Bin Laden's Zombies that commandeered those planes and fly them into the World Trade Center. (And U.S. citizens too often forget that, over the years, Bin Laden's operations also led to the slaughter of many innocents in London, Madrid, Jakarta, Bali, Mumbai, Istanbul, and elsewhere.)

The Real Reason George W. Bush Didn't Return to the Scene of the Crime?

So why didn't George W. Bush join POTUS at Ground Zero? It was not that because, as the official story goes, "his family believes we only have one President at a time" nor was it because, as the off-the-record story goes, he was put off by POTUS "beating his chest." Perhaps George W. Bush did not join POTUS at Ground Zero out of fear and shame.

Perhaps, like Lady Macbeth, he cannot wash the stains from his hands. Perhaps shame pursues him even if the U.S. Justice Department does not. Millions have been displaced because of the foolish military adventures of Bush-Cheney. Over a million have died. Furthermore, the fear must be intense. The action that POTUS ordered, and those U.S. Navy Seals carried out, was not supposed to happen. Bin Laden was not supposed to be caught, and the treasure trove of his personal files and communications was not supposed to fail into our hands.

The camel's nose has peeked under the tent within which some of the most ghastly of secrets have been hidden for years. But don't hold your breath. The truth does not come to light easily in the U.S.A., even in its healthiest eras, and this is one of its sickest. So it is not likely that too many of those ghastly secrets will show up in the media, or in congressional hearings, or in Grand Jury proceedings, but they will now have a life of their own. The U.S. Navy consigned Bin Laden's corpse to Davy Jones' locker; they flew his papers and computer files to Beltwayistan.

A Grim Fairy Tale

The U.S. body politic chooses not to feed on reality, it chooses to feed on fairy tales. "Once upon a time there was an evil man who killed thousands of our citizens, and now he is dead, and we all live happily ever after."

Unfortunately, a "happy ending" is impossible; there is, however, some hope for a better day.

Consider these brief excerpts from the commentaries of Pepe Escobar, Ray McGovern and Robert Parry:

So to symbolically kill the "war on terror" - which was invented because of 9/11 - Obama had to (literally) kill the (alleged) perpetrator, be it real or not, guilty or not, a clone or not. Thus the hit, the swift disposal of the body, no photos, end of the movie, no credits rolling; a tight cinematic narrative. The obvious holes in the plot, as in any Hollywood blockbuster, are deemed irrelevant; what matters is success at the box-office - and we move on.
Like a basketball-playing Freudian, Obama went for the kill, the reason of the whole trauma. He identified it as the only way to start anew - as in trying to end the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq and start concentrating on what really matters for the US; investments in education and infrastructure, the dire state of the economy. Pepe Escobar, Welcome to the post-Osama world, Asia Times, 5-6-11

Yet, despite the future risks for the United States and the Muslim world – and the fact that the U.S. assault was a fairly clear violation of international law – the killing of bin Laden paradoxically does offer a possible route back from the institutionalization of American lawlessness ... The first step in that journey would be a serious attempt to negotiate a political settlement in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of American and NATO troops. If enough public pressure is brought to bear, there could even be a full-scale reassessment of U.S. priorities, pulling back from the expensive garrison state that bin Laden helped create. Ray McGovern, What Has Bin Laden's Killing Wrought?, Consortium News, 5-5-11

Though it remains unclear what the long-term consequences of this action will be, Obama’s success – after years of Bush’s failure – does suggest one important lesson: U.S. officials would be well advised to ignore the special pleadings of the neocons who remain highly influential inside Official Washington. The neocons, along with other Bush advisers, exploited the 9/11 tragedy to justify a policy of inserting U.S. military forces into the heart of the Arab world to the detriment of bringing the masterminds of 9/11 to justice. That miscalculation did horrendous damage to both the United States and the people of the Middle East. It also allowed Osama bin Laden to remain at large for more than nine years, until Sunday. Robert Parry, Finishing a Job, Obama Gets Osama, Consortium News, 5-2-11

A Profound Ignorance

Just as a bitter reminder of how far from reality we still are, as a nation, and a kulchur, consider the code-name given to the operation: Geronimo. An incomprehensible stupidity? Or a willful ugliness? Either way, an unforgivable blunder in propaganda.

Chomsky comments.

The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It's like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk ... It's as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes "Jew" and "Gypsy." Noam Chomsky, My Reaction to Osama Bin Laden's Death, Guernica Magazine, 5-7-11

How can a people as ignorant and unconcerned as we are with the truth of our past ever find our way to a better future?

Meanwhile, the Circle of Life is in Peril

Report: Arctic Warming May Raise Global Sea Levels Five Feet, Reuters, 5-3-11

Climate Change Analysis Predicts Increased Fatalities from Heat Waves, Terra Daily, 5-4-11

World population to pass 7 billion in October - UN, Reuters, 5-3-11

Climate change has spurred food prices: study, Reuters, 5-6-11

The greatest national security threat of all, the Climate Crisis, worsens by the day, not only in Bangladesh, the Sahel, Bolivia and the South Pacific, but in the so-called "Heartland" of the U.S.A., with hundreds of tornadoes in one weekend, and floods that threaten to devastate farms and towns along the Mississippi. One of the tornadoes, fifty miles wide, destroyed the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (See Top Climate Scientist On The Monster Tornadoes: ‘It Is Irresponsible Not To Mention Climate Change’)

Ironically, if Al Gore had been sworn into the office that he was elected to in 2000, the Climate Crisis would have been properly prioritized as our greatest national security threat, and as a by-product of coming to grips with it, we would have diffused the geopolitical and macro-economic time-bomb of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Excuse me, what did you say? Oh, oh, the tornadoes and the floods are not due to the Climate Crisis? They are only a result of La Nina? Oh, OK, sorry to disturb your slumber, you just go back to sleep now. Do you want me to tell you that Grim Fairy Tale again, the one about the bad man and how we got him in the end?

Papantonio: Dick Cheney Helped Pakistani Terrorists

Thom Hartmann: What is Alex Jones Smoking? Bin Laden mission...a fake?!

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

If You Don't Shift the Power, You are Going to Get the Shaft

2011-04-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

Georgia O'Keefe, Blue and Green Music, 1921

"The case for acknowledging the Rights of Nature cannot be understated”, says Maude Barlow ... “Every now and then in history, the human race takes a collective step forward in its evolution. Such a time is upon us now as we begin to understand the urgent need to protect the Earth ..." One Year After BP Oil Disaster, UN General Assembly to Debate Whether Nature Has Rights, Global Exchange/Council of Canadians, 4-18-11

The hard truth is that there are no shortcuts to correcting the imbalance that now exists in the U.S. political/media system ... But the consequences of the Right’s strategy – and the Left’s miscalculations – are apparent in the audacity of today’s congressional and statehouse Republicans in proposing the virtual repeal of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and even Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive era. Robert Parry, How I View thew American Crisis, Consortium News, 4-17-11

If You Don't Shift the Power, You are Going to Get the Shaft

By Richard Power

Mother Earth is close to turning hostile toward us, the climate that human "civilization" has based itself on for two millennia is collapsing, the most fundamental resources (i.e., fresh water, soil, forests and oceans teeming with biodiversity) are all being stressed to their breaking points; and the U.S.A., which was supposed to be the beacon of "liberty AND justice" for all is on the verge of losing itself in a madness it is not likely to emerge from whole.

The fact that neither the political establishment, nor the US mainstream news media, expend any hot air on either of these millennium-shaping crises, should be of great concern to the body politic. Unfortunately, hypnotized by the false memes of infotainmentstan and Beltwayistan, and traumatized by the thousand and one unnatural shocks that has been unleashed upon it, the body politic appears to be incapable of acting with any clarity or purpose. (Witness the 2010 mid-terms elections.)

Meanwhile, gangs of sociopaths and their Renfields are looting and pillaging, and terrorizing across the nation and the planet seemingly without the least accountability.

Here is some vital context and continuity on our circumstances.

Natural Born Killers

The U.S.A. is not in the throes of a struggle between two political ideologies, it is in the throes of a mental health crisis

One reason most countries don't find the time to embrace Ayn Rand's thinking is that she is a textbook sociopath. In her notebooks Ayn Rand worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of "ideal man" she promoted in her more famous books. These ideas were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe -- former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC Commissioner Chris Cox -- along with other notable right-wing Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Mark Ames, AlterNet, 2-26-11

Contours of the Global Order

In a brilliant analysis for Tom Dispatch, Noam Chomsky offers insight on the big picture.

I do not want to end without mentioning another externality that is dismissed in market systems: the fate of the species. Systemic risk in the financial system can be remedied by the taxpayer, but no one will come to the rescue if the environment is destroyed. That it must be destroyed is close to an institutional imperative ... If such things were happening in some small and remote country, we might laugh. Not when they are happening in the richest and most powerful country in the world. And before we laugh, we might also bear in mind that the current economic crisis is traceable in no small measure to the fanatic faith in such dogmas as the efficient market hypothesis, and in general to what Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, 15 years ago, called the "religion" that markets know best -- which prevented the central bank and the economics profession from taking notice of an $8 trillion housing bubble that had no basis at all in economic fundamentals, and that devastated the economy when it burst ... As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please Noam Chomsky, Is the World Too Big to Fail, Tom Dispatch, 4-21-11

"Shift the Power," Van Jones declared, "Shift the Conversation."

Recently, 10,000 young activists traveled to Beltwayistan to commit themselves to a profound Power Shift in the U.S. economic and political order; and strong, articulate leaders roused them with powerful, hard-hitting speeches. The event was a poignant convergence of generational passions.

While they’re stuck on stupid in DC," Jones went on, "your generation is rising. Brad Johnson, Think Progress, 4-17-11

But the US mainstream media chose instead to take you to Madison, WI. where Sarah Palin and Andrew Brietbart addressed a few hundred Teabaggers at a rally, a paltry gathering which was outnumbered and drowned out by thousands of pro-democracy, pro-union activists. And, of course, the corporatist coverage did not mention the overwhelming numerical superiority of the progressive counter-protesters.

Meanwhile, here is what you missed if you weren't tuned into to the alternative media:

Al Gore: It’s true that governments by and large have been politically paralyzed because the energy companies ... There are four anti-climate lobbyists ... for every single member of the House and ... Senate ... What is the answer for this? ... It has to come from you. It has to come at the grassroots level. It has to come from young people ... Gore to Young Advocates: Battle Industry Lobbyists to Turn the Tide on Climate, The Hill, 4-16-11

Van Jones: You have to make a decision not to wait your turn. Dr. King was 25 years old in Montgomery. The Freedom Riders were 19 and 20 years old. The founders themselves were in their twenties and in their thirties. You have to make a decision not to wait your turn. Don’t let anybody tell you you’re going to be the leaders of tomorrow. Tomorrow is not promised. You must be the leaders of today, Generation Power Shift. You’ve got to be the leaders today. Shift the power. Democracy Now, 4-22-11

Bill McKibben: Even the White House—two weeks ago, the Interior Secretary, who spoke here two years ago, Ken Salazar, signed a piece of paper opening 750 million tons of coal under federal land in Wyoming to mining. That’s like opening 300 new coal-fired power plants and running them for a year. That’s a disgrace. Democracy Now! 4-22-11

For insightful coverage of both the UN General Assembly debate on the Rights of Mother Earth and the Power Shift 2011 conference, I refer you to 4-22-11 edition of Democracy Now! (And as you view this real-world journalism, consider for a moment how much Amy Goodman and her team do with so little, and how little CNN does with so much.)

Here are embedded videos of Bill McKibben and Van Jones speeches.

Bill McKibben, Power Shift 2011 Keynote

"Hold Both Parties to High Standards": Van Jones, Obama’s Ex-Green Jobs Czar

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Hard Rain Late Night: Bob Marley - Buffalo Soldier

2011-04-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

Hard Rain Late Night: Bob Marley - Buffalo Soldier

Will Gaia Turn on the Human Race? For Her Survival, Yes. Will US Body Politic Turn on Beltwayistan & Infotainmentstan for Its Survival? Maybe, But ...

2011-04-15T02:12:00.000-07:00

Max Ernst - Totem & Tabu (1941)

The few creatures that remained alive, such as the crabs, were too listless to flee ... Her conclusion? "I think it is not beyond the imagination that 50% of the oil is still floating around out there." Guardian, Has BP Really Cleaned Up the Gulf Oil Spill?, 4-13-11

Radiation above the legal limit has been detected in fish and vegetables in the Fukushima Prefecture, according to Japan’s health ministry. Radiation 25 times the limit of radioactive cesium was found in lances, a small fish ... The health ministry detected high levels of radiation in 11 kinds of vegetables. Raw Story, High levels of radiation detected in Japanese fish, vegetables, 4-14-11

Young penguins in the Antarctic may be dying because they are having a tougher time finding food, as melting sea ice cuts back on the tiny fish they eat, US researchers suggested on Monday. Agence France Press, Young penguins dying due to lack of food: study, 4-11-11

Cities worldwide are failing to take necessary steps to protect residents from the likely impacts of climate change, even though billions of urban dwellers are vulnerable to heat waves, sea level rise and other changes associated with warming temperatures. Terra Daily, Climate Change Poses Major Risks For Unprepared Cities, 4-11-11

Will Gaia Turn on the Human Race? For Her Survival, Yes. Will US Body Politic Turn on Beltwayistan & Infotainmentstan for Its Survival? Maybe, But ...

By Richard Power

The spiritual verities of our species do not belong to any particular religious tradition, and, indeed, more often than not, they survive in spite of these traditions, not because of them: The macrocosm is within the microcosm. All life is a oneness. Everything, and everyone, everywhere, is connected. The harm you inflict on another you inflict on yourself. Cultivate a quiet mind and an open heart. Laughter heals. Love liberates.

Cherish these verities, you will have great need of them, as we go deeper and deeper into the second decade of the 21st Century ...

Will Gaia Turn on the Human Race?

For Her own survival, yes.

It’s not enough to think of Eaarth as an impotent casualty of humanity’s predations. It is also a complex organic system with many potent defenses against alien intervention -- defenses it is already wielding to devastating effect when it comes to human societies. And keep this in mind: we are only at the beginning of this process. Michael Klare, The Planet Strikes Back!, Tom Dispatch, 4-14-11

She is already is turning on us, in numerous ways, some seen, some unseen, some acknowledged, some denied, some only now being openly considered.

For example, I was asking about the relationship between the Climate Crisis and intensified seismic activity as far back as a decade ago. The scientific corroboration is emerging slowly, and deliberately (as it should); but from the shamanic perspective, this link is already known to exist.

Scientists have for the first time shown a link between intensifying climate events and tectonic plate movement in findings that could provide a valuable insight into why huge tremors occur. Agence France Press, Climate change affects tectonic plate movement, causing earthquakes: study, 4-13-11

The Climate Crisis continues to be ignored in Beltwayistan and Infotainmentstan.

It is not being ignored in La Paz.

Bolivia is preparing to pass a new law that could lead to citizens challenging environmental destruction in court. A Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra (The Law of Mother Earth) would grant nature the same rights as humans, according to The Guardian.
The country will establish 11 new rights for nature, including: the right to exist, the right to continue natural cycles, the right to clean water and air, the right to be free of pollution, and the right not to have cellular structures altered or genetically modified. The law will also give nature the right "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities." Raw Story, Bolivia to ‘make world history’ by granting rights to Mother Nature, 4-12-11

Among the developed nations, in those circles that do entertain serious talk of Climate Crisis, the emphasis has shifted from mitigation to adaptation. That translates into "we missed the window to mitigate radical climate change in any significant, now we must re-focus on adapting to radical climate change." What are the chances that they will heed this urgency and drastic nature of this imperative to adapt anymore than they heeded the urgency and drastic nature of the imperative to mitigate? Not good. And even if they do, remember what the rich call "adaptation" translates into "abandonment" for the poor, i.e., we have abandoned them, so they must abandon their humble homes, their meager livelihoods and their age-old communities. (See Bolivia: Where adaptation equals abandonment, Climate Progress, 4-13-11)

Will the US Body Politic Turn on Beltwayistan & Infotainmentstan for Its Survival? Maybe, But ...

If it does, will it turn right to embrace death or left to embrace life?

And if it turns left, will it be reported? And if it isn't reported, will it still have happened?

How woefully under-reported was the extraordinary non-violent siege of the State Capitol by democratic forces in Madison. How quickly did it disappear from your TV screens only to be replaced dog-wagging war in Libya.

And no, I have nothing to say about POTUS' deficit speech, except that he did not mention Madison in it, and although he went after Ayn Rand poster boy Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), which is good, he should have also gone after the Koch Brothers love child Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), and tied it all together.

But those who rail against POTUS as no better than Bush, etc., are acting foolishly, and so are those who defy reason in their blind defense of POTUS' indefensible compromises. (Of course, I still know the difference between Sonia Sotomayor and John Roberts, and between Elena Kagan and Samuel Alito. And that, if nothing else, is what will matter in 2012.)

The simple awful truth is that there is something very, very wrong in America, and unfortunately there is very little that one man (even wrapped as he is in the myth that he is the most powerful man in the world) can do about it, that is if he wants to live a long life.

Where should your strength be applied?

Fighting for the People's Budget, as proposed by the Progressive Caucus.

After all, the Progressive Caucus is larger than the Blue Dog Caucus was before it was decimated in 2010; and larger than the Teabaggers Caucus ever will be. Furthermore, the Progressive Caucus represents many more citizens (and therefore far more of the tax base) than both the Blue Dogs and the Teabaggers combined. But you will not hear the details of its budget proposals discussed seriously by Bob Schieffer or David Gergen or David Brooks or Juan Williams or David Gregory or any of the other Hollow Men whose false punditry frames the political debate on the air waves of Infotainmentstan.

[The Progressive Caucus'] simple solution: pull the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, install a public option for health care, raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations and voila, America is fixed. Talking Points Memo, House Progressives: End The Wars, Save The Economy, 4-13-11

It is painfully poignant that a mere three years after the Grant Park celebration in November 2008, tens of thousand citizens have been compelled to take up the one of the most radical acts of principled dissent, i.e., fasting.

So far, over 30,000 people are participating in a rolling fast to protest the immoral budget cuts Republicans are pushing in Washington. With some help from Grammy-nominated recording artist Moby, MoveOn.org Political Action has put together a short, powerful video about this fast. Please check it out and then help spread the message by passing it on ... MoveOn.org, Why 30,000 People Are Fasting, 4-12-11

Corporations are not persons. Money is not speech. Hand-counted paper ballots are the gold standard of democracies. Universal health care is a human right. Going true green (i.e., wind & solar) is our greatest national security imperative. War is a racket. We were not meant to be a government of the top 1% by the top 1% for the top 1%.

Oh yeah, and we are not broke.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

The Day -- Moby and MoveOn Protest Budget Cuts on the Poor

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Welcome to the Machine. Meanwhile, the Hands in the Cave Paintings are Reaching Out to Us; Their Touch Transmits a Message

2011-04-04T03:20:00.000-07:00

50,000 year old Abo cave paintings in Mutawintji National Park (130 km N.W. of Broken Hill, on the road to Tibooburra)

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
Where have you been?
It's alright we know where you've been.
You've been in the pipeline, filling in time ...
Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
What did you dream?
It's alright we told you what to dream. -- Roger Waters, Pink Floyd, 1975

The death toll from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill goes far beyond the animal corpses washing ashore, says a report that warns that whale and dolphin deaths may be 50 times higher than believed. Post Media News, 3-30-11

Following our first monitoring team’s radiation findings, we called on the Japanese government to evacuate the contaminated areas outside the official zone ... Staying in Iitate for just a few days could mean exposure to the annual allowable dose of radiation ... The government has yet to call for an evacuation. Greenpeace, 4-4-11

Welcome to the Machine. Meanwhile, the Hands in the Cave Paintings are Reaching Out to Us; Their Touch Transmits a Message

By Richard Power

The cave paintings are the most powerful of paintings, and the most powerful cave paintings are the hands. They appear in many places, notably in Australia and in Argentina. Even across ten millennia, even across fifty millennia, the meaning of the symbol is no mystery. "We were here. You are here. We are you. You were us. When we were afraid you are afraid, when you are hungry we were hungry. Time is a whirling hoop. Touch is the greatest power of this world, and second only to Mind to Mind, which is of course beyond this world. Feel the power of love in your hands. Touch informs, touch heals. It was given to us from the beginning, we celebrate it, we touch you in dream-time ..."

These hands touch us. For tens of thousands of years they have been open, for tens of thousands of years they have been reaching out, for tens of thousands of years they have been welcoming, for tens of thousands of years they have been feeling for the throbbing life of the universe. They are your hands. Feel them, use them. We need that contact now, we need the information that those hands can transmit to us; we need to understand somatically what we have otherwise failed to understand.

Welcome to the Anthropocene

Welcome to the Antropocene. That's what scientists are calling this cheap knock-off of "Brave New World."

350.org's Bill McKibben explains.

The Holocene – the 10,000 years through which we have just come – was by all accounts a period of calm and stability on Earth ... We're now moving into a new geological epoch, one scientists are calling the Anthropocene – a world remade by man, most obvious in his emissions of carbon dioxide ... We still have plenty of purely natural disasters – though scientists can posit reasons climate change might make the world more seismically active, tectonic and volcanic forces seem beyond our reach; the great wave that broke over Sendai really did come out of the blue. But even in Japan, of course, the disaster was not entirely "natural". The subsequent fallout was… fallout, the invisible plume streaming from one of our highest-tech marvels, a complex reduced in minutes into something almost elemental, a kind of utility-owned volcano Bill McKibben, Natural Disasters?, Guardian, 4-2-11

It's not going too well.

The Amazon has been hit by its second 'once in a century' drought in five years, scientists say. Daily Mail, 2-4-11

More than one billion urban residents will face serious water shortages by 2050 as climate change worsens effects of urbanization, with Indian cities among the worst hit ... Agence France Press, 3-29-11

Yes, welcome to the machine. Madness embracing madness; is this the new norm? Sadly, yes.

Remember, oceans are the life of this planet, right?

Now consider this latest evidence from the ongoing narrative of the the Gulf Ecocide:

The offshore drilling firm responsible for running the Deepwater Horizon rig has given its top executives bonuses for its "best year" for safety. BBC, 4-3-11

Oil giant BP plans to restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico this summer, just a year after an explosion on one of its rigs sparked the worst spill in history. The group hopes to start work on 10 wells in the Gulf after being granted permission by U.S. regulators to continue work ... Daily Mail, 4-3-11

Now consider this latest evidence from the developing story of the Fukushima Multiple Meltdown:

Workers tried Sunday to block the leakage of highly radioactive water into the sea from the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant by injecting polymeric water absorbent that can soak up 50 times its volume, but the water flow remains unaffected ... Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, meanwhile, told a press conference that it could take several months before radiation stops leaking from the plant ... Kyodo News, 4-3-11

The operator of the crippled Fukushima complex begins releasing 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific to make room in storage tanks for even more highly contaminated water. Los Angeles Times, 4-4-11

Yes, you read it correctly. They are desperately trying to plug a leak of highly radioactive water into the ocean; at the same time, they are dumping highly radioactive water into the ocean. And they have no choice. Madness embracing madness.

Ponder what the Gulf Ecocide story looks like a year out from the flashpoint, and ask yourself what the Fukushima Multiple Meltdown story will look like a year out?

Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina

Meanwhile, as I have written again and again over this last decade, the Climate Crisis is our greatest existential threat, on both the national and global levels; it trumps everything except the nuclear threat, with which it ends in a dead heat (no pun intended). And as I have also said over and over again, Darfur is our greatest test of conscience; simply because we have lived with it now, in plain sight, pregnant with another genocide, for almost a decade.

How are we doing in overcoming these two great challenges?

The Climate Crisis

Given control of the White House, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, with an opportunity to make up for a lost eight years under Bush-Cheney, the leadership of the Democratic Party tragically cowered and hide on the greatest challenge of our time, avoiding even the mention of it; and they did not have to do so.

Joe Romm of Climate Progress elucidates.

Some of the best pollsters have known for years that progressives can and should talk about climate change ... Ironically, many people think the failure of the climate bill proves that talking about climate change doesn’t work — because they don’t realize that the messaging campaign built around the climate bill was based on not talking about climate change! ... Nearly $200 million was spent by environmental, progressive, and business groups in 2009 and 2010 to sell a climate bill. The vast majority (but not all) of that messaging was built around ignoring the climate message and instead talking about clean energy jobs, energy security, and the threat from China. Worse, the progressive political leadership (again with exceptions, such as Sen. John Kerry) also generally either refused to talk about climate change or they seriously downplayed the subject. That includes, most importantly, President Obama and the entire White House communications team [see "The unbearable lameness of being (Rahm and Axelrod)"]. Joe Romm, Climate Progress, 4-3-11

Crisis in Darfur

No, I am not oblivious to the slaughter in Cote d'Ivoire and elsewhere; but I remain fixed laser-like on Darfur, because it has been with us for the most part of a decade now, ample time for the great nations to come to grips with the situation, especially if you consider POTUS' 2008 campaign rhetoric about U.S. Darfur policy.

But the truth is that the people of Darfur are in greater danger today than they were two years ago, and it did not have to be this way, as Eric Reeve's Open Letter to President Obama articulates:

General Gration is soon to leave his position, though I believe his appointment to be ambassador to Kenya is deeply mistaken, especially given the important challenges facing our diplomatic leadership in Nairobi. But the damage he leaves behind, the threats he leaves unaddressed, the dangers he has allowed to fester—all oblige on your part, Mr. President, a sober recognition of General Gration’s destructive legacy, and a near-term commitment to ensure that officials from the highest levels of your administration conduct an urgent review of the consequences of the past two years of our Sudan policy. It is far past time to re-set the U.S. course of action vis-à-vis Khartoum ... A strong and unambiguous signal is required, given the immediacy of dangers faced by many Sudanese populations—in the South, in Darfur, in the Nuba Mountains, and in southern Blue Nile. I believe you personally should send that signal, Mr. President. If your administration simply continues on the course set by General Gration, your administration will bear increasing moral responsibility for the many hundreds of thousands of lives presently acutely endangered by his actions and decisions of the past two years. Eric Reeves, An Open Letter to President Obama, 3-27-11

Welcome to the Machine.

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

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Hard Rain Late Night: Pink Floyd - Welcome to the Machine (Moscow, 1989)

2011-04-04T03:01:00.000-07:00

Hard Rain Late Night: Pink Floyd - Welcome to the Machine (Moscow, 1989)

Fukushima, Gulf Ecocide, Katrina, 9/11 ... 2012? Not Prophecy Fulfilled, But Pathology Fulfilled - Greatest Threat is Our Own Bad Governance

2011-03-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

Pyramid of the Magician (Western facade), Uxmal, Yucatan. Wolfgang Sauber, 12-3-08

Walk with awareness. Dance with joy ...
Today is the beginning and the foundation
Of our exciting, interesting and magical life ...
We make the right judgement, the right decision, the right move
At the right time, at the right place
For ourselves and others.
And make planet Earth an oasis for the Universe
For the highest good of all concerned, so be it. Yoko Ono, Spring Affirmation 2011

Fukushima, Gulf Ecocide, Katrina, 9/11 ... 2012? Not Prophecy Fulfilled, But Pathology Fulfilled - Greatest Threat is Our Own Bad Governance

By Richard Power

It is once again the March Equinox, Spring has come to the North, Fall has come to the South. In spite of our follies and woes, the great wheel turns inexorably onward in an endless circle; it cannot be broken by us, but we can be broken by it. Embrace it, and roll on; remembering, and yet letting go, letting go and yet remembering ...

Within this last year, we have exposed ourselves to both the BP Gulf Ecocide & the Fukushima Nuclear Nightmare. These are not signs and portents of Divine Wrath, these are signs and portents of Human Ignorance. They are not Prophecy Fulfilled, they are Pathology Fulfilled.

Of course, there is always an opportunity to learn from our greatest blunders, but it would be a surprise if we did so.

The U.S. Interior Department recently declared BP's Atlantis oil-rig "safe." It is not.

Kenneth Abbott, the whistle-blower who raised the Atlantis safety issue two years ago, said the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement is covering up for its inadequate oversight of Atlantis, when the agency was still known as the Minerals Management Service. "I'm disappointed but not really surprised," Abbott said. "My whole experience with the agency has been that their first job is to protect themselves, and then the oil companies. They may have changed their name, but not their way of operating. I'm certainly not giving up. I entered this fight to help prevent another catastrophe in the Gulf -- and that's still my mission." Times Picayune, 3-5-11

But whistle-blowers are not welcome along the banks of Denial, they are messengers bearing bad news (of catastrophes that could be avoided or could have been avoided), and we know what happens to the bearers of bad news.

Fukushima offers yet another poignant example.

We are now at this stage in the life of our country and our world: WikiLeaks revealed that the Japanese Government was warned three years ago that earthquake preparedness at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant was dangerously insufficient.
Naturally, the leaders of the world are – or wish to start – prosecuting WikiLeaks, and not the Japanese Government. Keith Olbermann, FOK News Channel, 3-16-11

It was not Wikileaks that endangered Japan's national security by revealing the IAEA cable; it was the government that endangered national security, by ignoring the warning. Another instance, like 9/11, and the Climate Crisis, in which a government denies an imminent threat to its own people, because meaningful action would conflict with its own hidden agenda, or prove inconvenient for its corporate overlords. Wikileaks isn't our real problem, our real problem is the nature of the governance that it reveals.

Rice said no one could have foreseen that terrorists would fly planes into buildings, but she had been REPEATEDLY warned, by her own National Security Council staff. Bush said no one could have foreseen the levees would fail in N.O, but he had been warned PRIOR to Katrina's landfall, and it is recorded on video-tape. Rumsfeld said no one could have foreseen the insurgency in Iraq, but he had been warned, by U.S. and allied military and intelligence professionals PRIOR to invasion and occupation. Now Rice is comfortably ensconced at Stanford, Bush will have his Presidential Library, and Rumsfeld even got to appear on Comedy Central with Jon Stewart.

Bad governance and a complicit news media are the greatest threat to our survival, even greater than the Climate Crisis itself; because bad governance renders us of incapable of mitigating all the others, and a complicit news media renders us incapable of evaluating the quality of our governance. We are in dire straits.

And no, America is not broke. It is mad. Two trillion for foolish military adventures in Afghanistan & Iraq. one trillion for Bush's tax cuts for rich, one more trillion for the extension of it after the Zombie cult victories in 2010 mid-term. another trillion for bankster bail-out. Madness ... Oh, we should be spending trillions, but on turning the planet to green energy and a sustainable civilization; one rooted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1947) and some version of the Universal Rights of Mother Earth (still to be refined and adopted).

We need to remind ourselves and those who we have empowered to govern in our name that it is the "general welfare" that is the goal, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Corporations are not people; and money is not speech. And anyone who adheres to such insane notions must be removed from office by vote, or impeachment, or forced resignation, and soon.

Otherwise ...

Ah, but NBC Meat the Press, CBS Fork the Nation, Wolf Bluster's CNN Lost Edition, and the rest of the U.S. mainstream news media will now do its best to distract you from whose responsible for the insane design of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, as well as 23 plants with the same design built in the U.S. (here's a hint: GE); and yes, they will attempt to distract you with military action. This time against the madman Gaddafi, who the world was quite happy to buy oil from and sell weapons to, until the people rose against him and almost overthrew him without any "help" (if it weren't for those damn weapons).

Don't get me wrong. I called for a no-fly zone in Libya. WEEKS AGO! That does not mean I am oblivious to the hypocrisy in which the political rhetoric and the media coverage is steeped.

Whatever Sarkozy et al say, what they mean is something more like "the Spice must flow, and the refugees must not."

Here is brilliant insight from the great Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk:

"It is all wearingly familiar. And now we are back at it again, banging our desks in spiritual unity. We don't have many options, do we, unless we want to see another Srebrenica? But hold on. Didn't that happen long after we had imposed our 'no-fly' zone over Bosnia?" Robert Fisk, Libya: The Wearingly Familiar Odor of Regime Change, Independent, 3-19-11

And we really don't even have look back to Bosnia, or even to the Gulf (e.g., Bahrain) to reveal the hypocrisy of the great nations, do we?

The displaced people in Zamzam Camp in North Darfur on Friday called on the Security Council and Western nations to intervene and take immediate measures in Darfur, as had happened in Libya, to protect civilians from aerial bombardment and ground attacks by the government. They noted that the number of dead who were killed recently by aerial bombardment in Darfur is more than the number who died in Libya. Mia Farrow, 3-20-11

Cultivate clarity of mind, radiate unconditional love. It is never too late. Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Mama Ayuḥ Punya Jñānā Puṣtiṃ Kuru Svāhā ...

Don Alejandro: Mayan Message to the World

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

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

White Tara Long Life Mantra

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.