Hard Rain Journal 4-30-07: Climate Crisis Update -- Media Matters in the Struggle Against Global Warming

Image: An Inconvenient Truth

Hard Rain Journal 4-30-07: Climate Crisis Update -- Media Matters in the Struggle Against Global Warming

By Richard Power

Study after study highlights the profound impact that global warming on every aspect of human life:

Deaths and injuries from climate change are set to more than double in the next 25 years, according to estimates to be published soon.
The World Health Organisation is finalising data forecasting that deaths linked to even a very narrow number of causes most closely connected to shifting weather patterns will reach more than 300,000 a year by 2030.
The number of disease-adjusted life years (Dalys) lost – a measure of injury and earlier death – linked to warming will rise in the period to more than 11m.
The data, set to be submitted to an academic journal for publication over the summer, focus on the impact of temperature change on diarrhoea-related disease, malaria and malnutrition, which will be greatest in the developing world. … The new WHO estimates build on research by Tony McMichael at the Australian National University, which calculated that in 2000 there were already 166,000 deaths and 5.5m Dalys caused by warming that had taken place since the 1970s.
Scientists say his estimates and the new forecasts represent a necessary and serious attempt to quantify the impact of climate change on human health, but underestimate the true impact. … Financial Times, 4-24-07

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study entitled Climate Change: Financial Risks to Federal and Private Insurers in Coming Decades are Potentially Significant (GAO-07-285) highlights the “absolute failure” of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) to account for increased peril from global warming risk.
David Tuft of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) remarks: “Not only has our federal government thus far failed to take action to prevent the worst consequences of unchecked global warming pollution, but it has failed fundamentally to take reasonable precautions against global warming-induced storms and drought, and the high costs that will be borne by families, businesses and ultimately, taxpayers.” National Resources Defense Council, 4-19-07

Yet the US mainstream news media still promote the false frame of serious debate concerning global warming and climate change, and much of the US political establishment still clings to this false frame. Why?

Because the common good is not the primary concern of either grouping.

Consider the example of Frank Luntz.

David Sirota explains.

[PBS Frontline] Reporter Deborah Amos interviews, among others, top Republican pollster Frank Luntz about his famous memo in the mid-1990s that told Republicans to deliberately distort scientific facts about global warming. Frontline notes that the memo is still being used by ExxonMobil as a way to build Republican congressional opposition to measures that would curtail global warming. So what does Luntz have to say for himself? Well, he both admits his memo advocating lying, and then he goes on to effusively brag about his talent for coming up with language that makes brazen lies seem mildly truthful.
"Look, you want me to say it? It was a great memo. It was great language. I busted my ass for that memo. I have spent many sleepless nights going over focus group tapes, writing exercises, trying to figure out what language would work. And in the end, for that time, I think I found good language." David Sirota, 4-25-07

Now contrast the case of Frank Luntz with that of David Brock.

In the 1990s, Brock, like Luntz, was a propagandist for the Cult-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party, but conscience overtook him and changed the course of his life.

First, Brock wrote Blinded by The Right, an extraordinary insider expose on the "vast right-wing conspiracy," then he established Media Matters, a vital resource in the ongoing struggle to bring down Big Brother.

Now Brock and Media Matters have launched a Global Warming Misinformation Action Center to counteract the spin, false frames and outright lies foisted on the public.

Among the common conservative myths and falsehoods advanced in the media about global warming are unsubstantiated claims that human activity is not a substantial cause of global warming; Antarctic ice is increasing, not decreasing; former Vice President Al Gore is exaggerating; and carbon dioxide is not bad for the environment. Worse yet, over the past few years, coverage on the global warming issue has regularly:
Presented global warming skeptics without noting their relationships with the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Given global warming skeptics the same prominence as those within the large scientific consensus on the issue, thus elevating their opinions to a position nearly equal to those among the vast majority of experts.
Cited cold regional weather as evidence that global warming does not exist.
In an effort to stem the tide of conservative misinformation in global warming media coverage, Media Matters for America has embarked on a campaign to educate and inform members of the media and the American people with the facts. Media Matters Global Warming Misinformation Action Center

Want to wake people up to the US mainstream news media's complicity in misinforming the public on global warming and climate change? Click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".

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

There is a powerful magic in personal commitment.

FIVE MOST RECENT RELATED POSTS:

Hard Rain Journal 4-22-07: Climate Crisis -- Sheryl Crow Confronts Karl Rove, Mother Nature Confronts John Howard; This Earth Day is The Turning Point

Hard Rain Journal 4-15-07 -- Climate Crisis Update: Eleven Retired Admirals and Generals Concur -- Global Warming IS A National Security Issue

Hard Rain Journal 4-10-07: Climate Crisis Update -- April could be the Turning Point for the USA -- Step It Up to Save the Planet

Hard Rain Journal 4-4-07: The Twisted Link Between Peak Oil and Global Warming

Hard Rain Journal 4-1-07: Hartmann & Gelbspan Debunk the Swindle that is "The Great Global Warming Swindle"

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Weather, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, David Brock, Frank Luntz, Stop Global Warming!, WHO, GAO, NFIP, FCIC, David Sirota, Media Matters, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Alanis Morissette -- Thank You (1998)

Alanis Morissette -- Thank You (1998)

Thank you India
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence



Alanis Morissette, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal 4-28-07: Giuliani, McCain, Romney and the Nightmare Beyond Bush, Is This Our Prague Spring?

Image: Soviet tanks enter Prague, August 1968.



Hard Rain Journal 4-28-07: Giuliani, McCain, Romney and the Nightmare Beyond Bush, Is This Our Prague Spring?

By Richard Power

On the night of the Millennium celebration, throngs of people throughout the world glimpsed a planetary vision of green and open societies, networked for collective peace and prosperity.

But over the past seven years, we have been driven away from that great vision, and drawn down into a maelstrom of fear, forged from the interaction of delusional geopolitics (e.g., PNAC), religious extremism, predatory corporatism and other toxic substances.

The world is growing very dangerous.

Unless the White House is liberated from the Cult-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party and the narrow corporatist interests it serves, the elation and the promise brought by Democratic victories in the 2006 mid-term elections may be short-lived.

If events turn against us here in the USA, this period could an as abrubtly and as violently as the Prague spring.

And if that happens, then we will all be looking into the abyss.

The nightmare beyond Bush is a global lapse of conscience and sanity.

The warning signs are everywhere.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons. It also has at least 13,000 madrassas (unofficial estimates say perhaps as many as 25,000 or more), with at least 1.5 million students enrolled. These "seminaries" have so far resisted the Musharraf regime's alleged attempts to regulate and reform them.

Yes, with their shared fantasy of "holy war," Bush and Bin Laden have filled them to overflowing.

Currently, Asia Times reports, a gruesome video of a 12-year-old boy slashing a man's throat is circulating in the country: "the fanatical intensity with which the child - egged on by a group of adults chanting 'Allah hu akbar' - demonstrates the tremendous dangers of the kind of psychological indoctrination to which Pakistan's children are being subjected. (Asia Times, 4-25-07)

Meanwhile, Der Speigel reports that a monstrous dam being built on the Indus river will soon submerge 35,000 petroglyphs, i.e., "stone messages and images from Buddhist times, whose loss is fully comparable to that of the famous Buddhas of Bomyan, which were demolished with explosives by the Taliban." (Der Speigel, 4-26-07)

Bad juju.

Farther east, Kim Jong-Il and the Burmese military junta have struck up a dangerous strategic alliance: "North Korea, which has a large domestic arms industry and a willingness to accept barter trade for weapons, was a good alternative source. ... There have also been frequent unexplained visits by North Korean freighters to [Burma] ports in recent years, which have been shrouded in secrecy and tight security. ... North Korea is world-renowned for its expertise in building underground military installations and it appears to be passing these capabilities to the [Burmese junta]. ... There has also been diplomatic speculation that North Korea is involved in the building of a nuclear test reactor in central [Burma]. (Asia Times, 4-28-07)

In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to UN statistics, millions of people are "surviving on less than 2 US dollars a day despite healthy economic growth in the region ... Half of the populations of five countries: Uzbekistan, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were caught below the 2-dollar line ... Every year around 212,000 children died before their fifth birthday in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 4-27-07)

In Africa, World Health Organization research reports, "25 countries are expected to experience water scarcity or water stress in the next 20 to 30 years. This translates into 16 percent or 230 million of Africa's population facing water scarcity by 2025, and 32 percent or 460 million people living in water-stressed countries by that time. ... Signs of climate change can be seen in decreasing rainfall and severe droughts in Africa, environmentalists warned at the conference. River levels are dropping. In extreme cases, rivers are drying up."(Inter Press Service, 4-26-07)

Half the world away, indigenous leader Julio Cusirichi Palacios, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, struggles to protect 15 or so uncontacted tribes in the Peruvian Amazon that live in the most remote regions of the rainforest. Survival International reports that Palacios is currently involved in a legal struggle against the US government and three US timber importers in an attempt to halt illegal logging in a reserve set aside for the uncontacted tribes: "Highly vulnerable to any form of contact because of lack of immunity to outsiders’ diseases, their territories are under huge threat from oil exploration and illegal mahogany logging. 90% of the mahogany is exported to the USA." (Survival International, 4-26-07)

Very bad juju.

Meanwhile, in the USA, the middle class is being crushed from above; and in turn, those democratic institutions that depend on a healthy middle class are being debased and subverted.

Naomi Wolf draws on examples from the history of Germany, Spain and Chile; and citing their corollaries in the contemporary USA, Wolf articulates the path to Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens’ groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

And as Wolf remarks, we are already well down the road:

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration. ... It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable ... (Guardian, 4-24-07)

Within this context, consider these recent utterances -- all made within a 72-hour period -- by the three front-runners for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination:

Giuliani on 9/11: In a stunning politicization of national security, Rudy Giuliani said today that “if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.” (Think Progress, 4-14-07)

John McCain on Iran: Sen. John McCain thinks his “bomb bomb Iran” joke last week to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann” is hurting him, he’s sure not letting on. He’s campaigning in South Carolina today and at both events, the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann” was played over the sound system as he was coming on stage. (Think Progress, 4-26-07)

Mitt Romney on Osama Bin Laden: "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person." (TPM Cafe, 4-26-07)

What's most disturbing about these three ugly statements?

That they were said at all?

That they were said within a 72 hour period?

That none of the three would-be leaders of the free world distanced themselves from their statements or qualified them in any way after the fact?

Although all of these elements are indeed disturbing, what is most disturbing is that Giuliani, McCain and Romney are just auditioning to be strong man, and that the thinking is whoever presents himself as the most convincing strong man will be installed as the new maximum leader in 2008.

What could so drastically alter the current political landscape of the USA between now and 2008 as to place any of these people in the Oval Office?

Let's lay aside the issue of election security itself for the sake of argument -- yes, it is still unresolved, and yes the system is still rife with dangerous vulnerabilities -- because even without the theft of an election, all that would be required to ensure a President McCain, a President Guiliani or a President Romney would be the convergence of two plausible occurrences with a third force, which we can count on as a constant:

A Democratic presidential nominee who runs into trouble (e.g., a former First Lady with high negative polling numbers who must challenge the nation's sexism, or a young African-American man with only two years experience in the US Senate who must challenge the nation's racism);

A terrorist attack with catastrophic impact in the USA, Israel or Europe, i.e., a second 9/11 (or in PNAC parlance, a third Pearl Harbor);

And, of course, the complicity of the corporatist news media, which is determined to thwart media reform and any other potential threat to the interlocking monopolies that dominate the air waves.

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Naomi Wolf,Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain,, Kim Jong-Il, Burma, Pakistan, Africa,Peru, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Korea, Bush,Osama Bin Laden, Cheney, Goldman Environmental Prize, Julio Cusirichi Palacios, DoJ, David Sirota, Richard Power, Words of Power


Hard Rain Late Night: John Lennon, Instant Karma

John Lennon, Instant Karma

Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin'
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin' at fools like me
Who in the hell d'you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are



John Lennon, Instant Karma, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal 4-26-07: Edwards & Kucinich Show Bold Leadership; Clinton & Obama Seem Not to Have Learned the Lessons of the Last 7 Years

Image: Salvador Dali, Premonition of Civil War

Hard Rain Journal 4-26-07: Edwards & Kucinich Show Bold Leadership; Meanwhile, Clinton & Obama Seem Not to Have Learned the Lessons of the Last 7 Years

By Richard Power

In Hard Rain Journal 2-2-07: Forget about 2008, the Fate of the Republic could be Decided in the Next Six Months, I wrote that handicapping the 2008 presidential campaign was a luxury that we could not afford, and that the fate of the Republic would likely be decided in the next six months.

Well, here we are, three months in --

Monica Goodling, the young woman who declared she would plead her 5th Amendment rights when she found herself at the center of the DoJ scandal, has been granted immunity by the Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and the House Judiciary Committee. (Think Progress, 4-25-07)

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have issued subpeonas to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (concerning the forged Niger yellow cake documents) and two RNC officials (concerning deleted e-mails from White House user accounts). (Raw Story, 4-25-07)

Raw Story also reports that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and the Senate Judiciary Committee have "approved - but did not issue - a subpoena on the prosecutors’ matter to Sara Taylor, deputy to ... Karl Rove.”

In the struggle to extricate the US military from the Mega-Mogadishu of Iraq, several retired generals have endorsed Congress’ Iraq withdrawal legislation. Maj. Gen. John Batiste called it "important legislation [that] sets a new direction in Iraq," while Lt. Gen. William Odom said it will "re-orient US strategy to achieve regional stability, and win help from many other countries - the only way peace will eventually be achieved." (The Gavel, 4-24-07)

Nothing is more important than these efforts to expose the Bush-Cheney regime's abuse of power and roll back its military adventurism, but recent developments compel me to comment on the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Going into tonight's first face to face debate, the two DLC-annointed frontrunners, Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL), are looking increasingly overwhelmed by events. They seem not to have learned the lessons of the last seven years. Their words and deeds do not reflect the state of national emergency that grips us. They are triangulating with a political center that no longer exists.

Meanwhile, two other candidates, former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), are once again demonstrating boldness, passion and clarity of mind.

At the Michigan Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner on Saturday night, John Edwards boldly broke with Beltwayistan's "conventional wisdom" on so-called "free trade," and announced his opposition to the pending South Korea trade deal.

David Sirota offers some cogent analysis: "Will the other Democratic candidates join Edwards' call, or will they stay silent in deference to K Street and Wall Street? I ask this question honestly, and it is one Edwards is certainly going to start pressing. He knows that, for instance, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are surrounding themselves with and relying on Citigroup executive Bob Rubin's Wall Street machine - a machine that exchanges massive amounts of campaign cash for candidates' complicity in a trade policy that includes stringent protections for corporate profits, but no protections for human rights, labor rights or the environment." David Sirota, Working for Change, 4-22-07

And, as this message from David Bonior declares, Edwards is also calling for Karl Rove's termination:

There is a trail of rot making its way through our government—and it leads straight to Karl Rove.
New evidence shows that Rove has been methodically working to twist even the most impartial branches of the federal government—including the Justice Department—to serve the Republican Party at the expense of the American people.
Enough is enough. Impartial justice must be protected. Integrity in government must be defended. Karl Rove must be fired.
Tomorrow, John Edwards is going on national television to take part in the first presidential debate. And that night, he's going to call on George Bush to fire Karl Rove.
Will Bush listen? Not to John alone. Not to you or me alone. But if thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of us speak out together to demand accountability for Karl Rove and end their era of cynical, destructive, partisan government—we cannot be ignored.
Please add your name, so when John speaks out at tomorrow's debate it's clear that he's speaking for thousands. We'll keep a signature counter online to show how many have joined the call.
www.johnedwards.com/fire-rove

For his part, in an act of conscience and political courage, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has filed three articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney (H Res 333):

Resolved, That Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and mis demeanors.
Article I
In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, to wit:
(1) Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Vice President actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction...
(2) Preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq the Vice President was fully informed that no legitimate evidence existed of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Vice President pressured the intelligence community to change their findings to enable the deception of the citizens and Congress of the United States.
(3) The Vice President’s actions corrupted or attempted to corrupt the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, an intelligence document issued on October 1, 2002 and carefully considered by Congress prior to the October 10, 2002 vote to authorize the use of force. The Vice President’s actions prevented the necessary reconciliation of facts for the National Intelligence Estimate which resulted in a high number of dissenting opinions from technical experts in two Federal agencies.
The Vice President subverted the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 3300 United States service members; the loss of 650,000 Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq. In all of this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Vice President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States.Wherefore, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.
Article II
In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, to wit:
(1) Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Vice President actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and the Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda...
(2) Preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq the Vice President was fully informed that no credible evidence existed of a working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, a fact articulated in several official documents, including...
Article III
In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and done so with the United States proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security of the United States, to wit:
(1) Despite no evidence that Iran has the intention or the capability of attacking the United States and despite the turmoil created by United States invasion of Iraq, the Vice President has openly threatened aggression against Iran as evidenced by the following:
(2) The Vice President, who repeatedly and falsely claimed to have had specific, detailed knowledge of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction capabilities, is no doubt fully aware of evidence that demonstrates Iran poses no real threat to the United States as evidenced by the following:
(3) The Vice President is fully aware of the actions taken by the United States towards Iran that are further destabilizing the world as evidenced by the following...
(4) In the last three years the Vice President has repeatedly threatened Iran. However, the Vice President is legally bound by the U.S Constitution’s adherence to international law that prohibits threats of use of force..
Wherefore Richard B. Cheney, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

The full text and extensive supporting documents are available at Rep. Kucinich's official web site.

I urge you to sign the Edwards petition; I also urge you to contact your elected representatives and demand that they relentessly pursue the investigations of the DoJ scandal and the fabicration of pre-invasion intelligence on Iraq, and also that they sign on to Rep. Kucinich's articles of impeachment.

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

John Edwards, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Hillary Clinton,, Sen. Barack Obama, Monica Goodling, Condoleeza Rice, Rep. Henry Waxman,Rep. John Conyers, Bush, Cheney, Karl Rove, Sen. Patrick Leahy, DoJ, David Sirota, Richard Power, Words of Power


Hard Rain Late Night: Sade, Your Love is King

Hard Rain Late Night: Sade, Your Love is King (1984)



Sade, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal 4-24-07: DoJ Scandal Primer -- Your Guide to the Long Hot Summer; RFK, Jr. and Mike Papantonio Break It Down on Air America

Image: Themis, Goddess of Justice



Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [warns] that the Justice Department faces "a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled in its 137 year history ..." Raw Story, 4-19-07

Leahy: "Investigations have already pulled back the curtain to reveal unbridled political meddling, Katrina style cronyism, and unfettered White House unilateralism that is directed at one of our most precious national assets. Our law enforcement - our legal system. ... We need the facts to pursue the facts until we get the truth." Crooks and Liars, 4-19-07

Hard Rain Journal 4-24-07: DoJ Scandal Primer -- Your Guide to the Long Hot Summer; RFK, Jr. and Mike Papantonio Break It Down on Air America

By Richard Power

Karl Rove hasn't testified yet. Harriet Miers hasn't testified yet. The fate of the "five million e-mails" that were "lost" has yet to be determined.

But the US mainstream news media wants you to put the DoJ scandal behind you. Despite his "critics," it says, Gonzalez will "survive."

Meanwhile, the Cult-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party is grandstanding, beating its collective chest, and calling for Gonzalez's resignation over his "mishandling" of the eight US attorney firings.

Of course, both the US mainstream news media and the Cult-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party want you to know that "there is no evidence of any laws being broken."

But this scandal isn't about Alberto Gonzalez, or the mishandling of the firing of eight US attorneys, or even the impropriety of firing those eight attorneys in and of itself, this scandal is about the systematic politicization of the DoJ and the manipulation of the federal criminal justice system to a) thwart investigations into Bush-Cheney crony corruption, and b) provide cover for the Rove machine's efforts to manipulate elections, both directly and indirectly.

We already know that one person was falsely imprisoned in Wisconsin (where the US Attorney kept his job). (TPM Muckraker, 4-4-07)

We already know that the firing of at least one US attorney was linked directly to Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and _resident George W. Bush (Albuquerque Journal, 4-15-07).

We already know that the whole idea of purging the US Attorneys originated with Karl Rove (Daily Kos, 4-13-07).

We already know that US attorneys were ranked on whether or not they were loyal "Bushies" (McClatchy, 1-26-07) and that one of the indicators was membership in the Federalist Society (Think Progess, 4-13-07).

We already know that young graduates of Pat Robertson's Christian fundamenalist, right-wing ideologue law school were put in positions of high authority within the DoJ (Carpetbaggers, 4-9-07). We already know that one of them, Monica Goodling, has threatened to take plead the fifth amendment. We already know that four career prosecutors in Minnesota took voluntary demotions to get away from Goodling's overbearing and Bible-thumping friend, Rachel Paulose (Think Progess, 4-6-07).

We already know that "since 2005 ... Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division when it was rolling back long-standing voting rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters." (Raw Story, 3-23-07)

We already know that investigations were either thwarted or trumped up in states considered vital to electoral college victory margins (e.g., Missouri, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Arkansas, California, Washington and Michigan). (Firedoglake, 3-21-07)

Think back to the year leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections, the word on the street in Beltwayistan was that there were as many as seven or eight members of Congress, including one Senator (Conrad Burns), and one Democrat (William Jefferson), who were going to get indicted.

The fallout from the Abramoff and Cunningham scandals were going to take down others.

Tom Delay was going to go down. Remember, indeed, he resigned from the leadership and then from his seat itself. Not just because of the state indictment in Texas, but because of a federal criminal investigation.

There were similar stories about Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), then Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and others.

But lo and behold all of it went away.

Only the Dukster and Bob Nye went down, and they went down fast.

What happened? Duh.

And then there was Rove's imminent indictment in the Fitzgerald investigation of the Plame affair. Five trips to the Grand Jury, and no indictment?

And then there was the mysterious sealed envelope Fitzgerald was supposed to have come away from the Grand Jury with? Does it exist? If it does, whose name is in it?

CREW's Melanie Sloan has called on Fitzgerald to reopen his investigation, based on the revelations concerning Rove's "lost" and/or "deleted" e-mail. (Raw Story, 4-13-07) Do not bet against CREW or Melanie Sloan.

And, if it is confirmed that inappropriate influence was exerted on other US attorneys throughout the country, then the question must be asked, and it must be asked of Fitzgerald directly and under oath -- what influence, if any, was exercised on his investigation into the betrayal of US secret agent Valerie Plame's identity?

My friends, it is going to be a long hot summer. It better be a long hot summer. If it isn't, we are all going to be in hell soon enough, because if this initiative to politicize the DoJ is not reversed and avenged, no one will be safe to utter any political opinion or challenge any official impropriety. Abuse of power and obstruction of justice will have been institutionalized, and established as the norm.

To follow fast-breaking events and escape the mind-warping disinformation being pumped out by GE, Disney, Sony Viacom, Murdoch, Time-Warner, etc., use Buzzflash as your portal into the prioritized and unspun flow of headlines, consult Think Progress for the reality-based timeline of unfolding events within the scandal, consult Talking Points Memo for real-time, in-depth analysis, and tune in Air America for the big picture. (Words of Power will weigh in from time to time to provide context and continuity.)

Here is a marvelous dialogue between Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papantonio on the 4-21-07 edition of their Air America show, Ring of Fire. Imagine how different the USA's political culture would be today if this kind of analysis was available on TV network and cable news.

Papantonio: Patrick Leahy has compared these missing e-mails to that eighteen minute gap on the Nixon Watergate tapes. It's stonewalling, there is no other way to put it. Because -- and this is what everyone is missing, I do not know why they do not connect these dots -- if you assume that Karl Rove and Gonzalez and George Bush and Dick Cheney make decisions to get rid of people like Carole Lam, Daniel Bogden, Bud Cummins and those people, they were making a decision to interfere with the investigations of Republicans and Republican cronies. So they say, "Let's get rid of them." If we assume that they got rid of those people because there were going to be ongoing investigations into Republicans and their cronies, if they did it with that intent, then they have some real problems. If you then destroy the records that surround that decision, I mean it is obstruction of justice, it is no different than the [John] Mitchell, [H.R.] Haldeman, John Erlichman days when they destroyed documents. How could you see it as anything different?

RFK, Jr.: Well, you are right. Carole Lam, who was out in San Diego, earned the Republican ire by investigating and prosecuting successfully Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Daniel Bogden, the US Attorney for Nevada, was investigating whether or not Republican Governor Jim Gibbons had accepted unreported gifts and payments from a company that then was awarded secret military contracts. Bud Cummins, the US Attorney for Arkansas, was investigating conflict of interest [involving] ...

Papantonio: Matt Blount, Missouri Governor, Republican.

RFK, Jr.: Right. Paul Charleton, US Attorney in Arizona, was investigating Republican Rep. Rick Renzi for corrupt land deals.

Papantonio: Carole Lam got Duke Cunningham, but what about Brent Wilkes, Dusty Foggo and Rep. Jerry Lewis [R-CA]? The investigation was not really over.

RFK, Jr.: And then there is this larger issue that these are the same people that refused to take on these phony cases that the White House was ginning up against Democrats and black people who had supposedly engaged in voter fraud. It turned out that none of those cases had any basis. And yet, these US Attorneys were ordered to find cases and prosecute them, in order to manufacture this kind of national fear that this was actually an issue. And they refused to do it, and then they put in place the guys who would. The scary thing, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, is that OK, it is scary that they fired these guys for political reasons, for failing to prosecute Democrats, but what happened to the other guys, the ones who didn't get fired? They were doing what they were told.

Papantonio: Let me point something out here. If you listen to the talking heads -- and it is always the same talking heads, with the same speeches, because it all emanates from Grover Norquist -- they're all saying the same thing, "What's the big deal? There has been no showing that there has been any law broken here." Well, that is just absolutely wrong. If you show that Carole Lam has an ongoing investigation, Daniel Bogden wasn't done with his investigation, Bud Cummins wasn't done with his investigation, and then you add to it that this bottom-feeding Karl Rove directed that the e-mails be destroyed -- this is serious stuff. Let me tell you what the RNC thinks about Karl Rove, their own guy -- the RNC actually shut off Rove's ability to delete his own e-mails, because they were so concerned about what a crook he was. The RNC did that. They said Karl Rove may not have permission to delete his own e-mails. I can promise you, those e-mails are still in existence somewhere. You do not just get rid of e-mail, it is somewhere on the server. There are other places these e-mails are stored. They can take that server and go back and figure out what was said in those e-mails. So what do you do? You put Karl Rove in front of the Congress or the Senate, you have Karl Rove testify. You know he is going to lie, he can't help himself, it is what he does. And after he lies, you have these e-mails surface, and then you are going to have an obstruction of justice case. Section 1503, Title 18, USC is built for Karl Rove and his attempt to obstruct justice here. This story is about the e-mails that are missing.

FIVE RELATED POSTS

Hard Rain Journal 4-13-07: Imus is Offered as a Sacrificial Goat, Meanwhile the Bush-Cheney Stonewall Implodes -- It is Going to be a Long, Hot Summer

Hard Rain Journal 3-25-07: DoJ Purge Update: Four Blockbusters that Have Not Hit -- YET

Hard Rain Journal 3-7-07: Justice Not Just Blindfolded, But Bound and Gagged?

Hard Rain Journal 2-16-07: What Happens When a Whole Nation is Dragged into Room 101? Remember, 2+2=4

Hard Rain Journal 2-13-07: Is the Mainstream News Media Ignoring the Biggest Obstruction of Justice in US History?

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Rep. Jerry Lewis, Rep. Rick Renzi,, Duke Cunningham, Daniel Bogden, Bud Cummins, Patrick Fitzgerald,David Iglesias, Carole Lam, Paul Charelton, Bush, Cheney, Karl Rove CREW, Rachel Paulose, Pat Robertson, Monica Goodling, Sen. Patrick Leahy, DoJ, Richard Power, Words of Power


Hard Rain Late Night: George Harrison, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Concert for Bangladesh, 1971

Hard Rain Late Night: George Harrison, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Concert for Bangladesh, 1971

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps ...
I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.



George Harrison, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal 4-22-07: Climate Crisis -- Sheryl Crow Confronts Karl Rove, Mother Nature Confronts John Howard; This Earth Day is The Turning Point

Image: Sheryl Crow, Stop Global Warming Tour, April 2007


"I feel this is the most important Earth Day that will take place in our lives," Crow said last week from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "This is a real turning point."

The nine-time Grammy Award-winning artist met Laurie David in November at a birthday party David threw for a mutual friend. Hitting it off, the two followed up with a lunch, at which they hatched the idea of the college tour.

 ... "It's interesting -- nine months ago, even six months ago, you weren't seeing even a small percentage of what's being written on the environment like you are now. It's front-page stuff, and magazines have devoted whole issues to it -- from Elle to Vanity Fair [both current issues, with Laurie David having guest-edited Elle], Newsweek and Time, even Sports Illustrated had an issue on it. It's everywhere, and I feel it's our responsibility to educate ourselves and become part of the movement because we live on a living organism. We depend on the Earth's health, and it's becoming sick, and it's going to affect how we live our lives."

 Washington Post, 4-20-07

Hard Rain Journal 4-22-07: Climate Crisis -- Sheryl Crow Confronts Karl Rove, Mother Nature Confronts John Howard; This Earth Day is The Turning Point

By Richard Power

Sheryl Crow and Laurie David are winding up a consciousness-raising bio-deisel bus tour of college campuses throughout Southeastern USA, in Washington, D.C. today. They got themselves introduced to Karl Rove at the annual White House Correspondents dinner last night, and then they did some powerful juju on him:

We asked Mr. Rove if he would consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming. Much to our dismay, he immediately got combative. And it went downhill from there.
We reminded the senior White House advisor that the US leads the world in global warming pollution and we are doing the least about it. Anger flaring, Mr. Rove immediately regurgitated the official Administration position on global warming which is that the US spends more on researching the causes than any other country.
We felt compelled to remind him that the research is done and the results are in (www.IPCC.ch). Mr. Rove exploded with even more venom. Like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, Mr. Rove launched into a series of illogical arguments regarding China not doing enough thus neither should we. (Since when do we follow China's lead?) ...
In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unphased, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people." Huffington Post, 4-22-07

Meanwhile, one of the Bush-Cheney cabal's capos, Aussie PM John Howard was confronted by another caring, beautiful woman, i.e., Mother Nature Herself:

“Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent’s food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation.”
The Prime Minister, John Howard, a hardened climate-change sceptic, delivered dire tidings to the nation’s farmers yesterday. Unless there is significant rainfall in the next six to eight weeks, irrigation will be banned in the principal agricultural area. Crops such as rice, cotton and wine grapes will fail, citrus, olive and almond trees will die, along with livestock.
A ban on irrigation, which would remain in place until May next year, spells possible ruin for thousands of farmers, already debt-laden and in despair after six straight years of drought.
Australia is the only major industrialized country other than the U.S. to reject the Kyoto Protocol. Think Progress, 4-22-07

Politically and spiritually, this Earth Day may be a turning point.

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

There is a powerful magic in personal commitment.

FIVE MOST RECENT RELATED POSTS:

Hard Rain Journal 4-15-07 -- Climate Crisis Update: Eleven Retired Admirals and Generals Concur -- Global Warming IS A National Security Issue

Hard Rain Journal 4-10-07: Climate Crisis Update -- April could be the Turning Point for the USA -- Step It Up to Save the Planet

Hard Rain Journal 4-4-07: The Twisted Link Between Peak Oil and Global Warming

Hard Rain Journal 4-1-07: Hartmann & Gelbspan Debunk the Swindle that is "The Great Global Warming Swindle"

Hard Rain Journal 3-28-07: Climate Crisis Update -- -- The Greatest Climate Crisis Challenges are Spiritual and Psychological

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Weather, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Sheryl Crow, Karl Rove, Stop Global Warming!, John Howard, Laurie David, Australia, IPCC, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Angelique Kidjo -- Voodoo Child

Hard Rain Late Night: Angelique Kidjo -- Voodoo Child

Well I stand up next to a mountain
Chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well I stand up next to a mountain
Chop it down with the edge of my hand
Pick up the pieces and make an island
Might even raise a little sand

'Cause I'm a voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child



Visit www.kidjo.com for more information on the incredible Angelique Kidjo.

Angelique Kidjo, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal 4-21-07: Human Rights Update -- In War and Poverty, Children Forsaken on a Planetary Scale

Image: Participants listen during the Ibero American Meeting on the Rights of Indigenous Children and Adolescents in Madrid, 8 July 2005. PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP/Getty


MENENDEZ: Do you consider the ongoing situation in Darfur a genocide, yes or no? […]
NATSIOS: There is very little violence in Darfur right now.
MENENDEZ: I asked you to answer my question.
NATSIOS: I just answered your question.
MENENDEZ: Is the circumstances in Darfur today a continuing genocide? Yes or no?
NATSIOS: There is very little fighting between rebels and the government and very few civilian casualties going on in Darfur right now. Think Progress, 4-12-07

Hard Rain Journal 4-21-07: Human Rights Update -- In War and Poverty, Children Forsaken on a Planetary Scale

By Richard Power

The Bush-Cheney regime is delusional, at both the political and geopolitical levels, so it should not surprise us that its so-called "Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan" Andrew Natsios denied the truth when Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) confronted him with it during a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

The children in Darfur suffer unspeakably, because of the failure of the great nations to lead an intervention:

Children in Darfur are enduring "unspeakable acts of violence and abuse" from killing and rape to abduction, torture and recruitment as fighters in the escalating four-year conflict in Sudan's vast western region, a report said.
The Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict report released Wednesday accused the Sudanese government of "apparent deliberate efforts ... to suppress information and prevent agencies from collecting and disseminating details on attacks against children and their protection needs, particularly in Darfur" and eastern Sudan.
The report said humanitarian agencies have documented cases of armed groups shooting, mutilating and torturing children, abducting and gang-raping girls, and recruiting and using youngsters as combatants. ...
In addition to killings and maimings by armed groups, it said, "Sudanese girls have been trafficked within and out of Sudan to serve as commercial sexual workers while others have been trafficked to work as domestic servants." EDITH M. LEDERER, Report: Darfur Kids Endure Horrors, Time, 4-19-07

But Darfur is not the only incinerator of childhood. In Iraq, a whole generation is being brutalized, as a direct result of the Bush-Cheney regime's foolish and catastrophic military adventure:

In a rare study published last week, the Association of Iraqi Psychologists (API) said the violence had affected millions of children, raising serious concerns for future generations. It urged the international community to help establish child psychology units and mental health programmes. "Children in Iraq are seriously suffering psychologically with all the insecurity, especially with the fear of kidnapping and explosions," the API's Marwan Abdullah told IRIN, the UN-funded news agency. "In some cases, they're found to be suffering extreme stress," he said.
Sherif Karachatani, a psychology professor at the University of Sulaymaniya, said: "Every day another innocent child is orphaned or sees terrible things children should never see. Who is taking care of the potentially enormous damage being done to a generation of children?" Michael Howard, Children of War: The Generation Traumatised by Violence in Iraq, Guardian, 2-6-07

Of course, armed conflict is not the only activating element for the psychological and physical horrors visited upon children throughout the world. There is much evil perpetrated in the midst of the general dysfunction and denial of human society, and this general dysfunction and denial provides cover for great evils committed in silence and anonymity -- across the street, down the hall and up the stairs, and as always, children living in poverty are the most vulnerable.

Casa Alianza, which works with homeless children in several Central American countries, estimates that between 35,000 and 50,000 children are forced into prostitution in the region, and says that one of the driving forces behind the abuses is, in fact, tourism.
As for Mexico, the End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) network said it has become the major sex tourism destination in the Americas. The number of children subjected to this form of exploitation is estimated here at between 16,000 and 20,000. ... A survey of 8,767 people from Central American countries, sponsored by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and carried out in mid-2005, indicated that knowledge of actual places where children were sexually exploited was fairly widespread.
About 30 percent of interviewees from El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua knew of such places. So did about 20 percent of respondents in Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. Diego Cevallos, Child Sex Abuse - Everybody Knows, Nobody Says, Inter Press Service, 3-9-07

Thai police charged one Briton of raping an underage girl and another of attempted rape of a girl under 15, investigators said on Monday.

 They said an American and a Finn were also charged with sex offences with underage girls in the eastern beach resort town of Pattaya, notorious for its sex tourism industry. 

All four were charged with sexual molestation of children aged under 15, police said in a statement. They face up to 15 years in jail if convicted.

Londoner Stephen James Ellison, 54, was charged with raping a girl under the age of 15. He faces up to 20 years' jail if found guilty.

 Maurice John Praill, 76, also from London, was charged with attempting to rape a girl aged under 15 in Pattaya, a small fishing village until used for "rest and recreation" by American servicemen during the Vietnam War.

American Glenn Richard Allen, 60, from Seattle and Ilkka Ylikolola, 63, from Finland, were charged with molestation.

 The two Londoners had pornographic photos and VCDs they recorded with girls they had sex with, Colonel Jaruwat Waisaya told Reuters. Britons and American arrested in Thai paedophile raid, Reuters, 3-19-07

Here, in the first decade of the 21st Century, there is no greater priority than to rescue childhood itself. It is both a painful acknowledgement and a compelling challenge.

Amnesty International has articulated a ten-step plan for the governments of the world: Ten Steps for Implementing Children's Rights, Amnesty International

If you want to help save Darfur, here are some sites that offer suggestions on how to participate:

Mia Farrow

Save Darfur!

Genocide Intervention Network

Some Related Posts

GS(3) Thunderbolt 4-3-07: Darfur Crisis Update -- Enough Articulates The Answer

GS(3) Thunderbolt 3-29-07: Update on Darfur Crisis -- Mia Farrow Calls for Olympics Boycott, Demands Spielberg Not "Sanitize" Beijing's Image

Hard Rain Journal 12-4-06: Human Rights Update -- Unless You Protect Women, Children and Indigenous Peoples, You Cannot Achieve Real Security

Words of Power #17: Harry Potter and the Night Commuters

Words of Power #3: Gangstas = Child Soldiers Without A Country

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Sen. Robert Menendez, Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Iraq, Humanitarian Crisus, Sudan, Darfur, ECPAT, ILO, Sudan Divestment, Association of Iraqi Psychologists, Refugees, Child Abuse, Central America, Mexico, Human Rights, Genocide, Andrew Natsios,

Hard Rain Late Night: John Coltrane, Alabama, 1963 -- "A Profound Meditation"

Hard Rain Late Night: John Coltrane, Alabama, 1963 -- "A Profound Meditation"

"On September 15, 1953 ... in Birmingham, Alabama ... the Klu Klux Klan blew up a church and killed four little black girls ... In its aftermath, John Coltrane wrote and recorded 'Alabama,' a Coltrane masterpiece ... a profound meditation on the death of innocence and the seemingly endless tragedy of inhumanity." Eric Nisenson, Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest, Da Capo Press, 1995



John Coltrane, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal 4-19-07: Sustainability Update -- Simple Truths

Image: The first turn of the Yangtze (Changjiang) at Shigu (石鼓), Yunnan Province, where the river turns 180 degrees from south- to north-bound.

Hard Rain Journal 4-19-07: Sustainability Update -- Simple Truths

By Richard Power

In the 21st Century, energy security, environmental security and economic security have become wholly interdependent; and they are all now also synonymous with national security.

Furthermore, in the 21st Century, national security is synonymous with global security, because now more than ever before in human history, it is painfully clear that all life is one and that we are all dependent upon each other.

There are some simple, but powerful truths, e.g., we need water, we need forests, we need energy that is clean, affordable and renewable, and we need family planning.

This selection of recent news and analysis from China, the Congo, Uganda, Malawi, Indonesia, Brazil and the UK underscores each of these simple truths, and highlights some of the complexities involved in being true to them.

We need water.

China's massive Yangtze River, a lifeline for tens of millions of people, is seriously polluted and the damage is almost irreversible, a state-run newspaper said ...More than 370 miles of the river are in critical condition and almost 30 percent of its major tributaries are seriously polluted, the China Daily said, citing a report by the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Associated Press, 4-15-07

We need forests. And deforestation is driven by poverty as well as by greed. It is not enough to thwart the greedy, we must lift up the poor by achieving the UN Millennium Goals.

According to a report from environmental campaigning group Greenpeace, Carving up the Congo, corporations are offering gifts worth as little as $100 to local people in exchange for permission to cut down wood worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The report argues that a forestry code and a World Bank-backed moratorium on new logging contracts, introduced in 2002, have done little to stop foreign and Congolese companies sealing unfair deals. Reuters Alternet, 4-12-07

While Uganda suffers violent protests over plans to turn a big chunk of its rainforest into sugarcane, Ugandans are destroying eight times as much forest every year due to poverty, a minister said on Wednesday. Reuters Alternet, 4-18-07

Year by year, the figures have increased relentlessly. While some 600,000 tonnes of wood were transported to the Malian capital of Bamako in 1994, according to official figures, 750,000 tonnes were sent in 1997. This year, the city is projected to consume 900,000 tonnes -- and the country as a whole, seven million tonnes. Inter Press Service, 4-13-07

We need energy that is clean, affordable and renewable. But an uninformed haste to produce bio-fuels can lead to further deforestation, hunger and exploitation. The electric car is looking better and better.

The Bush administration’s plans to increase biofuel imports could add to the suffering of millions of impoverished peasants in Brazil and other developing countries, food rights and environmental groups say. ”The benefits of biofuels cannot be achieved at the expense of food shortages and environmental degradation,” says Celso Marcatto, an activist associated with the U.S.-based anti-poverty organization, ActionAid, in Brazil. OneWorld.net, 4-4-07

The numbers are damning. Within 15 years 98% of the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia will be gone, little more than a footnote in history. With them will disappear some of the world’s most important wildlife species, victims of the rapacious destruction of their habitat in what conservationists see as a lost cause.
Yet this gloomy script was supposed to have included a small but significant glimmer of hope. Oil palm for biofuel was to have been one of the best solutions in saving the planet from greenhouse gases and global warming. Instead the forests are being torn down in the headlong rush to boost palm oil production.
More startling is that conservationists believe the move to clear land for this “green fuel” is often little more than a conspiracy, providing cover to strip out the last stands of timber not already lost to illegal loggers. In one corner of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, a mere 250,000 hectares or 1,000 sq miles - almost twice the size of Greater London - of the 6m hectares of forest allocated for palm oil by the government have actually been planted. Guardian/UK, 4-4-07

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are the best way to achieve a drastic reduction in greenhouse gases produced by vehicle exhaust fumes, until hydrogen-powered models become viable. They are even more environmentally-friendly than the use of biofuels.… Automotive engineering professor Marcelo Massarani at the Polytechnic School of Sao Paulo University told IPS that HEVs can cut pollution caused by vehicles powered by fossil fuels by 80 percent, "and sometimes by up to 90 percent." ...
The advantages of HEVs are recognised, but "there is a lack of political will" to take measures to promote their production, Massarani said. In Brazil, an obvious means of stimulating their use would be tax incentives. Inter Press Service, 4-17-07

Why? Why would a string of corporations turn down cash and scrap a potentially extremely profitable technology? Isn’t that contrary to everything we are taught about how market economies work?
The oil companies had an obvious interest in stopping an alternative to fossil fuels. There is $100 trillion of oil left in the earth, and they plan to mine it - even if doing so will make the planet uninhabitable. Anything that could divert that cash away from them is a threat to be crushed.
But why did the car companies collaborate? Electric cars have no combustion engine - and it is in maintaining and replacing those engines that makes up a hefty chunk of Detroit’s profits. A transition to batteries, which require little maintenance, would be a disaster for their balance sheets. ...
Thatcho-Reaganites are always lecturing about how unregulated markets are the best way to stimulate innovation. The story of the electric car is a parable about how, to the contrary, unregulated markets often quickly descend into a corporate oligopoly that smothers new technologies in their cot. Independent/UK, 4-7-07

We need family planning. But even political leaders willing to confront the energy industry oligarchs dare not confront the theocrats on the issue of over-population.

In the time it takes you to get to the end of this sentence, seven people have been added to the population of the world. At this rate, the United Nations estimates the number of people on the planet will nearly double by the middle of this century. Even with significant reductions in birth rates, the population is expected to increase from 6.7 billion now to 9.2 billion by 2050.
These figures are staggering. Yet there was hardly a mention of them in a major story last week: the announcement by Britain's two main political parties of how they will tackle what is commonly agreed to be the biggest threat facing the planet, global warming and ensuing climate change ...
Put simply, if governments want to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent, and the world's population rises to the mid-range forecast of 9.2 billion, each person would in fact have to slash their emissions by 72 per cent. Observer, 3-18-07

FIVE RECENT RELATED POSTS:

Hard Rain Journal 3-22-07: Sustainability Update -- World Water Day -- What Would You Do With Your Last Seven Drops of Water?

Hard Rain Journal 1-13-07: UN Millennium Goals and Sustainability Update -- Does Burkina-Faso Offer a Glimpse into Our Urban Future?

Hard Rain Journal 11-10-06: Sustainability and Climate Change Update -- Water, Its Unhealthiness and Its Increasing Scarcity, Demands Urgent Attention

Hard Rain Journal 9-29-06: Sustainability Update -- Freedom to Flourish and Water to Survive, Both are Vanishing...What Will You Do?

Hard Rain Journal 9-18-06: Update on Sustainability -- There is Peril Ahead, Whether Water is Privatized, Militarized or Simply Ignored for Too Long

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Global Warming, Water Crisis, Sustainability, Rivers, Yangzte, China, Millennium Goal, Climate Change Environmental Security Congo Malawi Uganda, Population, Brazil, Indonesia, Deforestation, Electric Cars, Bio-Fuels, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Mary J. Blige and U2 -- "Love is a Temple, Love is a Higher Law ..."

Mary J. Blige w/ U2 singing "One" (The Breakthrough, 2005)



Mary J. Blige, U2, Bono, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Journal 4-18-07: India and the Dark Side of Globalization -- Thomas Friedman's Fairy Tales versus Arundhati Roy's Reality Tour

You don’t have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrializing Western countries, which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labor to feed this process, we have to colonize ourselves, our own nether parts. We’ve begun to eat our own limbs. Arundhati Roy on India, 3-25-07

Hard Rain Journal 4-18-07: India and the Dark Side of Globalization -- Thomas Friedman's Fairy Tales versus Arundhati Roy's Reality Tour

By Richard Power

Geopolitics and globalization are deep waters, with treacherous undercurrents. If you just listen to what you want to hear, you will drown.

Thomas Friedman was farcically deluded about the invasion and occupation of Iraq; and he is farcically deluded about what is going on India. I do not know if Friedman’s delusions are the result of a frightening naivety or a chilling cynicism. But either way they are dangerous. (For more on debunking Friedman, reading David Sirota's Billionaire Scion Tom Friedman and Open Letter to Tom Friedman is an excellent start.)

Arundathi Roy, on the other hand, saw the Bush-Cheney regime’s pre-emptive war in Iraq for what it was and where it would lead us all, and she has recently shared some troubling insights on where India really is and where it is really going.

I have not read much poetry or fiction in over the last two decades.

My early life was steeped in literature, but since the early 1990s, I have read only non-fiction, history and biography.

I have been engaging in a dynamic meditation on the nature of human suffering and ignorance, I have been exploring how the Four Noble Truths are mirrored in the contemporary world, and mapping out how the Eightfold Path winds through the great issues of our time.

So I didn’t attune to the voice of Arundhati Roy by way of her prize-winning, best-selling first novel, The God of Small Things.

I first heard the voice of Arundhati Roy in the furnace of post-9/11 dissent:

Now Bush and Bin Laden have even begun to borrow each other's rhetoric. Each refers to the other as "the head of the snake". Both invoke God and use the loose millenarian currency of good and evil as their terms of reference. Both are engaged in unequivocal political crimes. Both are dangerously armed - one with the nuclear arsenal of the obscenely powerful, the other with the incandescent, destructive power of the utterly hopeless. The fireball and the ice pick. The bludgeon and the axe. The important thing to keep in mind is that neither is an acceptable alternative to the other. Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, Guardian, 9-29-01

In recent interviews with Tehelka (India’s on-line “People’s Paper”) and the Sydney Morning Herald, Roy, who is working on her second novel, exposes the dark side of globalization and its impact on India.

A clue about where Roy is heading may be gleaned from her current reading. On her coffee table rests a book by Bono, while at her bedside are works by the radical American founding father Thomas Paine and Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. What these two writers share is their defence of the French Revolution, and an empathy with the lower classes who pulled down the ruling elite. "In so many ways Paris then could be Delhi now. It is a conceit to think that all that we say is new and original."
Roy says India today, like pre-revolutionary France, is poised "on the edge of violence". As she sees it, the country of her birth is not coming together but coming apart - convulsed by "corporate globalisation" at an unprecedented, unacceptable velocity. "The inequalities become untenable." . . .
Unlike other Indian-born writers who have relocated to the US and Europe, Roy is determined to remain a thorn in the side of the establishment in India. "Here you see what's happening. People are driven out of villages, driven out of the cities, there's a kind of insanity in the air and all of it held down by our mesmeric, pelvic-thrusting Bollywood movies. The Indian middle class has just embarked on this orgy of consumerism."
But she admits that the kinds of non-violent protests she has taken part in for a decade have failed in India, a republic founded on the Gandhi-ite principles of peaceful resistance. "I am not such an uninhibited fan of Gandhi. After all, Gandhi was a superstar. When he went on a hunger strike he was a superstar on a hunger strike. But I don't believe in superstar politics. If people in a slum are on a hunger strike, no one gives a shit." Randeep Ramesh. The Sydney Morning Herald, 3-9-07

There is an atmosphere of growing violence across the country. How do you read the signs? In what context should it be read?
You don’t have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrializing Western countries, which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labor to feed this process, we have to colonize ourselves, our own nether parts. We’ve begun to eat our own limbs. The greed that is being generated (and marketed as a value interchangeable with nationalism) can only be sated by grabbing land, water and resources from the vulnerable. What we’re witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in independent India — the secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country. It’s a vertical secession, not a lateral one. They’re fighting for the right to merge with the world’s elite somewhere up there in the stratosphere. They’ve managed to commandeer the resources, the coal, the minerals, the bauxite, the water and electricity. Now they want the land to make more cars, more bombs, more mines — supertoys for the new supercitizens of the new superpower. So it’s outright war, and people on both sides are choosing their weapons. The government and the corporations reach for structural adjustment, the World Bank, the ADB, FDI, friendly court orders, friendly policy makers, help from the ‘friendly’ corporate media and a police force that will ram all this down people’s throats. Those who want to resist this process have, until now, reached for dharnas, hunger strikes, satyagraha, the courts and what they thought was friendly media. But now more and more are reaching for guns. Will the violence grow? If the ‘growth rate’ and the Sensex are going to be the only barometers the government uses to measure progress and the well-being of people, then of course it will. How do I read the signs? It isn’t hard to read sky-writing. What it says up there, in big letters, is this: the shit has hit the fan, folks. Shoma Chaudhury interviews Arundhati Roy, Tehelka, 3-25-07

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

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