Big Sur is Burning

The "Primitivist" Henri Rousseau painted "The Dream" in 1910. It hangs in Manhattan's MOMA


…the greatest beauty is organic wholeness
the wholeness of life and things.
the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man apart from that… -- Robinson Jeffers

Big Sur is Burning

By Richard Power

Big Sur is burning.

I followed the voices of Jack Kerouac, Robinson Jeffers and Henry Miller to Big Sur.

Their muses were waiting for me.

The place is sacred. Like Shasta, Yosemite, Hot Creek and Death Valley, it is one of the power spots of the Western Paradise.

I tell people that Big Sur is where the Greek Gods went after they quit the scene.

Some of my most joyful moments in this life were spent there, including staring into the calm but wild eyes of a huge white wolf in the mist at dawn.

I do not have much else to say.

Just two stories from this week that you do not want to lose:

First, as I have written and said often and loudly for the last SEVEN years -- in briefings, blog posts, and articles -- global warming is a serious national security issue, one that not only brings its own perils, but exacerbates all the others, now it has been documented in a National Intelligence Assessment --

Climate change will have sweeping consequences for US national security by 2030 aggravating global poverty and destabilizing fragile countries, a US intelligence report said Wednesday.
"We judge global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for US national security interests over the next 20 years," Thomas Fingar, deputy director of National Intelligence for Analysis, told US lawmakers. ...
He presented the findings of 16 US intelligence agencies gathered in a National Intelligence Assessment, based primarily on research done by the United Nations inter-governmental panel on climate change.
Global warming will exacerbate existing problems such as poverty and social tension, damage the environment and weaken political institutions, while triggering increased economic emigration, the report warns. Agence France Press, 6-25-08

Second, lost in the important dust-up between Glenn Greenwald, one of the people I respect most in the blogosphere, and Keith Olbermann, the only person to respect on cable news (both are right, BTW, remember, the truth is paradoxical), is this important interview with Jonathan Turley concerning the latest revelations in the scandalous, likely criminal politicization of the DoJ by the Bush-Cheney regime --

OLBERMANN: The Justice Department‘s own watchdog, the inspector general, finding clear evidence now that fully qualified job and internship applicants were deliberately rejected, in clear violation of DOJ policy and of anti-discrimination laws, because they were Democrats, liberals or simply had affiliations with so-called liberal causes. ...
OLBERMANN: Do we know that previous administrations did not do this? That this isn‘t like those thousands of U.S. post master jobs that used to go from Democratic to Republican to Democratic each time there was a different president was elected?
TURLEY: There‘s a very big difference. The honors program is jealously protected by the Department of Justice. It is one of the proudest and longest standing programs in the legal profession. It has always transcended politics. It is the way the Justice Department has shown that they take truly the best and the brightest. And for the Bush administration to invade even that program and to apply a political litmus test is really abhorrent to many lawyers.
And this is not a conservative or liberal issue. There are many conservatives in this town that began in the honors program under Democratic administration. Their politics were not considered. So it‘s a very fundamental betrayal on the part of Gonzalez and his staff and unfortunately it‘s not unique. It is part of a pattern of politicizing that department.
OLBERMANN: To that pattern, fit this into the bigger scheme of things. A, Karl Rove prophesized a permanent Republican majority. B, the DOJ starts to prosecute Democrats for voting crimes whenever possible. C, the DOJ fires U.S. attorneys who will not prosecute those kinds of cases, whether they have merit or they don‘t, more likely the latter. And D, the DOJ tries to reduce the number of entry level jobs and internships that don‘t go to conservatives. Put those letters together and what do they spell?
TURLEY: Well, they don‘t read anything that we would want to see in our government. And I think that the real problem here is that people need to understand the Justice Department‘s neutrality and independence is the sort of grout that holds together the other departments. We were supposed to rely on the Justice Department to transcend politics, to enforce the law. And the invasion of politics by the Bush administration into that department has been so extensive and so severe, I expect the Justice Department will be the one that is the most difficult to put back together.
But this just shows how deep the damage is. It‘s well below the water line. And it‘s going to take some real effort to try to bring it back. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC Countdown, 6-24-08

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

Big Sur, Robinson Jeffers, Thomas Fingar, Jonathan Turley, Keith Olbermann, Glenn Greenwald, Global Warming, Energy Security, DoJ, Climate Change, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth,Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!, The Eleventh Hour, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Lucinda Williams -- Passionate Kisses (Town Hall, NYC. 10-4-07)

Hard Rain Late Night: Lucinda Williams -- Passionate Kisses (Town Hall, NYC. 10-4-07)



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On Global Security, Stand w/ Hansen and El-Baradei Against the Disinforming and Delusional

Celtic Triple Spiral/Triple Goddess Symbol


On Global Security, Stand w/ Hansen and El-Baradei Against the Disinforming and Delusional

By Richard Power

NASA's Dr. James Hansen spoke out on climate change twenty years ago, and he was right.

And despite the worst efforts of the Bush-Cheney regime's political commissars over the last seven years, Hansen is still speaking out on climate change, and he is still right.

On this anniversary of his first landmark testimony, Hansen once again appeared before Congress today. This afternoon, he told the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Climate Change that the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies should be put on trial for crimes against humanity and nature. He argued that global warming science has been corrupted in the same way that tobacco companies once attempted to blur the links between smoking and cancer, and he called for government investments in alternative energy to help end our dependence. He also asserted that because we haven't done anything yet to curb our emissions, he is certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is already beyond the safe level – we're already at 385 parts per million of carbon dioxide, and it's increasing at a rate of 2ppm a year. The "safe" level, according to Hansen, is 350.. Kate Shepherd, Guardian, 6-23-08

Mohamed El-Baradei, Director General of the UN IAEA, was right about Iraq in the run-up to the Bush-Cheney regime's invasion and occupation.

And he is right now about Iran.

The UN atomic watchdog chief warned on Saturday that an attack on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme would turn the region into a fireball, as Tehran rejected any Israeli strike as "impossible."
Mohamed ElBaradei also warned that he would not be able to continue in his role as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general if the Islamic republic were attacked. ... "A military strike (against Iran) would in my opinion be worse than anything else ... It would transform the Middle East region into a ball of fire," ElBaradei said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television. Agence France Press, 6-20-08

Hansen was and is right, El-Baradei was and is right.

Therefore, you will not hear much from either man on your TV.

The sponsors wouldn't like it.

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

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

For an archive of Words of Power posts on 9/11, Terrorism, etc., click here.

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

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

To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.

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

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

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

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

James Hansen, Mohamed El-Baradei,IAEA, NASA, Iraq, Iran, Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Human Rights, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth,Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!, The Eleventh Hour, Organic Gardening, Richard Power, Words of Power

1,000 Tibetans Disappeared, Almost 100% of Darfur Refugee Women Raped, Volunteer Grave-Diggers Arrested By Burma's Junta; Still Going to the Olympics?

Image: Frida Kahlo, Love Embrace of the Universe


1,000 Tibetans Have Been Disappeared, Almost 100% of Darfur Refugee Women Raped, Volunteer Grave-Diggers Arrested By Burma's Junta; Still Going to the Olympics?

By Richard Power

1,000 Tibetans have been disappeared in the aftermath of China's brutal crackdown earlier this year.(Associated Press, 6-18-08)

Almost 100% of the women in the Darfur refugee camps have been raped. (CNN, 6-20-08)

In recent days, the Burmese thugocracy has arrested seven citizens who had volunteered to bury the dead that the government has left to rot in the rivers, in the fields and on the roads. (Irrawaddy, 6-19-08)

Dwell with these facts for a moment, and ask yourself whether or not you will sit down later this summer to watch the Beijing Olympics, and ask yourself how you feel now about the corporate sponsors of this anguish-drenched spectacle.

Do not confuse the issue of these outrages with the horrific tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake, or the obscenity of 1 million plus deaths attributed to the Bush-Cheney regime's foolish military adventure in Iraq, or the thousands of people the Bush-Cheney regime has illegally detained, tortured and rendered since 9/11, or even the deservedness of the Olympics athletes, some of who have trained their whole lives for this event.

The Chinese don't get a pass on their oppression in Tibet because of the suffering of the people in Sichuan.

Nor does the USA's abominable forfeit of conscience and common sense in its war FOR, OF, IN, and BY terror somehow give cover to China's smashing of its own moral compass.

Nor do the aspirations of athletes, who have already been fortunate in so many ways, somehow offer escape from the dictates of your own conscience.

No, the Olympics (and its sponsors) cannot simply proceed without repercussions.

The circumstances of these 1,000 Tibetans must be kept in the faces of the hosts and the sponsors, so should the plight of the people of Darfur and the people of Burma, persecuted as they are by thugocracies that the Chinese protect and empower.

Where are these 1,000 Tibetans?

Let us see their circumstances.

Let them be visited by the International Red Cross.

This is nothing less than what some of us have demanded of our own government in regard to those detained in Guantanimo in violation of the Geneva Accords and now in defiance of the US Supreme Court.

Just dwell on this disappearance of 1,000 Tibetans for a moment, and then make plans to use that time this summer researching how to green your home, or further the work of Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, or how to make your own personal life richer and more fulfilling in the challenging days ahead.

But whatever you do, unless there is significant movement on Tibet, Darfur and Burma, when you see the Olympics logo or those of its sponsors, change the channel or shut it off, and make a mental list of the sponsors and do not reward them with your consumerism.

Yes, I know the Dalai Lama is not calling for a boycott. Neither am I, I am just saying I am not going to participate, and I am calling on you not to participate.

Of course, the Olympics will proceed. I hope that the leaders of the great nations confront the Chinese publicly during the festivities. I hope that the athletes use every means at their disposal to raise the issue of these 1,000 Tibetans, as well as the GENOCIDE in Darfur and the crimes against humanity in Burma. I hope banners are unfurled as medals are bestowed. I hope flags are held aloft by runners. I hope the ugly facts of what is going on in Darfur, Burma and Tibet are interjected into live network TV interviews, etc. But it is unlikely.

I suppose we must rely on the power of the water, as Lao-Tzu exhorts us to; it wears away the stone inevitably. However long it takes, the water wins in the end. But remember, you are not a passive by-stander, you are either the water or the stone.

Here are excerpts from the three news stories I referenced, with links to the full text:

Humanitarian group Refugees International in a report last year said rape was "an integral part of the pattern of violence that the government of Sudan is inflicting upon the targeted ethnic groups in Darfur."
Some relief workers say almost 100 percent of women living in aid camps have been raped or become victims of gender-based violence, with many teenagers forced by militiamen to have sex multiple times while running regular errands such as collecting firewood. Nic Robertson, CNN, 6-20-08

Seven Burmese civilian volunteer aid workers, members of a team known as “The Group that Buries the Dead,” were arrested on June 14, following their efforts to bury victims of Cyclone Nargis.
Among those arrested are Lin Htet Naing, Hnin Pwint Wei, Hein Yazar Tun and Aung Kyaw San, the group’s leader, according to Tun Myint Aung, a member of the 88 Generation Students Group. Three unidentified volunteers in the group were also arrested. ...
The bodies, which had badly decomposed since the cyclone struck on May 2-3, were given simple cremation or burial rites.
“They worked to clean up the bodies around Bogalay,” an aid worker close to the group told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. "The authorities have not done much about the corpses. They volunteered to do the government's job on their own.” Irrawaddy, 6-19-08

More than 1,000 protesters detained during anti-government riots in Tibet three months ago have not been accounted for, a human rights group said Wednesday.
Amnesty International said a quarter of about 4,000 people detained by police during the riots in Tibet in March are unaccounted for. The others have been either released or placed under formal arrest.
The Olympic torch will pass through the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on Saturday, and Amnesty's Asia-Pacific director, Sam Zarifi, said the event should draw attention to the missing and those in prison. Associated Press, 6-18-08

I encourage you to follow events in Burma on Irrawaddy.

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

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

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

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

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

Darfur,
Tibet, Burma, Genocide, Mia Farrow, Dream for Darfur, China, Sudan, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Steve Nicks -- Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win), Two Versions -- 1975 & 1981

Hard Rain Late Night: Steve Nicks -- Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win), Two Version -- 1975 & 1981





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Iglesias and Taguba Reflect A Brilliant Ray of Hope

Gen. George Washington in Battle During the Revolutionary War


After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account. U.S. Army General Antonio Taguba (Ret.), Common Dreams, 6/18/08

“I thought I was working with the Jedi Knights and I was working for the Sith Lords,” Iglesias acknowledged, as the audience broke into applause. Former US Attorney David Iglesias, Raw Story, 6/17/08

Iglesias and Taguba Reflect A Brilliant Ray of Hope

By Richard Power

It has been a grim and agonizing eight years, starting with the Supreme Injustice of the Bush v. Gore ruling, which was handed down in December 2000, in an eerie atmosphere of unnatural darkness.

But now there is a brilliant ray of hope that the nightmare might end in January 2008, that the balance might somehow be restored, and that there will be some legal, financial, political, social and spiritual reckoning for those who have betrayed this nation in so many ways.

Valerie Plame deserves such a reckoning.

Don Siegelman deserves such a reckoning.

Pat Tillman deserves such a reckoning.

So many more known and unknown deserve such a reckoning -- e.g., the innocents slaughtered on 9/11, the men and women of the US military who perished in the foolish military adventure in Iraq, and the poor who perished in the flood waters of New Orleans while Bush and McCain cavorted in Arizona.

Strangely, even after all that has happened, and worse yet, all that has not happened, I love my country more than I ever have.

Yes, the US mainstream media failed. Yes, the political establishment failed. Yes, the electorate itself failed; no, not by how it voted in 2000 or 2004, but for not rising up after its will was thwarted, first in Florida and then in Ohio.

If we survive this terrible plunge into national psychosis, it will be due in large part, not only to the alternate media, including the blogosphere and progressive talk radio, not only to the grassroots organizers, including MoveOn, not only to cultural warriors like Michael Moore and true statesmen like Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, but perhaps most of all to the "revolt of the professionals," i.e., the principled resistance of career intelligence, military and national security professionals (mostly Republicans) who understood that their oath was to protect and defend the US Constitution against all enemies whether foreign AND domestic.

There is a litany of names:

Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.)

Former National Security Council officials Richard Clarke and Rand Beers

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson

Major Gen. John Batiste (Ret.)

Major Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.)

Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold (Ret.)

US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski (Ret.) ...

There are many more.

If it were not for the "revolt of the professionals," you would not know about the lies that led to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, or the violatons of the Geneva Accords, or the violations of FISA, FOIA and the Bill of Rights, or the failure to heed the pre-9/11 warnings, or the failure to finish off Bin Laden in Tora Bora, etc., etc., etc.

It is their courage and their conscience that has led to this strange stirring.

Here are two recent statements that are worthy of your attention. Take them to heart, and share them with others. They reflect the brilliant ray of hope.

Writing in his preface to Broken Laws, Broken Lives, a remarkable report by Physicians for Human Rights,Major General Antonio Taguba, USA (Ret.), makes a profound statement:

In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.
After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account. Common Dreams, 6/18/08

In an interview with Jon Stewart (that's right, it is the US mainstream news media that is a joke, not Comedy Central's Daily Show), David Iglesias, one of the US attorneys (all Republicans) who were fired by Bush-Cheney, also spoke with bold and principled directness:

“They wanted us to file politically oriented prosecutions instead of just doing what our normal job is, which is enforce Federal law, to file voter fraud prosecutions when the evidence wasn’t there beyond a reasonable doubt. It wasn’t just me. It was a guy in Missouri and it was a guy in Seattle, Washington.” ...
Iglesias then suggested it might be possible to go after the Justice Department officials who were ultimately responsible by “using the model we used against the Mob in the 60’s. You find a small fish, you threaten prosecution, you roll them, they give up the bigger fish.” ...
Stewart ended by asking Igleaias, “Is the greatest disappointment for you that you were a guy who believed in what they were doing? … Do you feel betrayed in that sense?”
“I thought I was working with the Jedi Knights and I was working for the Sith Lords,” Iglesias acknowledged, as the audience broke into applause. Raw Story, 6/17/08

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

Antonio Taguba, David Iglesias, Richard Power, Words of Power

The Climate Crisis is Getting Ugly Early, Not Just in Africa, But in the US Heartland; Some of the Choices Made, & to be Made, are Even Uglier

Image: Earth at Night, NASA


The Climate Crisis is Getting Ugly Early, Not Just in Africa, But in the US Heartland; Some of the Choices Made, & to be Made, are Even Uglier

By Richard Power

Fire in the West, drought across much of the country, tornadoes across much of the country, devastating floods in the heartland; it has begun, not just in Africa, or in Asia, or in Latin America, but here, where the few people who were talking about the climate crisis spent much of the time saying "Africa would be hit early, Africa would be hit first, Africa would be hit hardest." Well, all of that was true, but if you blinked then you missed it -- "early" is over, "first" is over, we are into it now. The US populace and the US economy is being hit hard and will continue to be hit hard deep into this century.

Yes, we have always had fires in the West, tornadoes across the plains, and flooding along the Mississippi, yes, we have had droughts before; but there will be more of it all, with greater frequency, greater intensity and greater range. (No, I am not a scientist, and I would be delighted to be proved wrong by events, but I wouldn't bet on it, if I were you.)

In recent days, four hundred city blocks in Cedar Rapids, Iowa were inundated with flood waters. 24,000 citizens were evacuated. It was the culmination of several weeks of extreme weather. (Hurricane Katrina was not an anomaly.)

"At least four people were killed and about 40 injured when a tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa on Wednesday night"; "two people are dead in northern Kansas after tornadoes cut a diagonal path across the state"; "[t]wo Maryland men with heart conditions died this week" from the East Coast heat wave. These eight deaths come on top of reports earlier this week that the heat wave "claimed the lives of 17 people" and the wave of deadly storms killed 11 more: "six in Michigan, two in Indiana and one each in Iowa and Connecticut," as well as one man in New York. Tornadoes this year are being reported at record levels. States of emergency have been declared in Minnesota, California, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Michigan because of floods and wildfires. Counties in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota, and Wisconsin have been declared disaster areas due to the historic flooding that has breached dams, inundated towns, and caused major crop damage, sending commodity futures to new records. ...
This tragic, deadly, and destructive weather -- not to mention the droughts in Georgia, California, Kansas, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, North Dakota, and elsewhere across the country -- are consistent with the changes scientists predicted would come with global warming. American Progress, 6/12/08

The total cost of it all? Certainly, many hundred of millions of dollars, perhaps billions of dollars. And we are only half way through this year. We have not even hit the hurricane season yet.

Against this backdrop of misery, I want you to consider two very ugly choices associated with the climate crisis. One is being forced upon us by the inaction of government and business, the other has its source in something very sick in the psyches of some among us.

The one being forced upon us concerns nuclear energy.

The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study released Friday.
The report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency envisions a "energy revolution" that would greatly reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels while maintaining steady economic growth.
"Meeting this target of 50 percent cut in emissions represents a formidable challenge, and we would require immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said. Associated Press, 6/6/08

If government and business had seized the time way back when, even as recently as eight years ago, or better yet, had heeded Jimmy Carter's warnings about energy security in the late 1970s, we could reject nuclear energy without too much thought.

But because government and business failed to act responsibly either on energy security over the last few decades or on climate change over the last few years, we must have another debate about nuclear energy.

Is it true, as James Lovelock postulates, that there is no choice at all, and that if civilization is to survive this growing crisis, we must unequivocally embrace nuclear power? Or is true, as Helen Caldicott postulates, that embracing nuclear energy is further madness, and it will actually only contribute to our woes? (See Hard Rain Journal 9-26-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Global Warming & The Nuclear Option, A Convergence of National Security Issues.)

This choice requires a risk analysis exercise of the most profound nature.

On one hand, both the scientist and the shaman know that there is no turning back on the Climate Crisis, either we do something NOW, or our way of life as a species goes away, and instead of working to bring one billion people out of poverty, we will be preoccupied with keeping eight billion people at a basic survival level; the most important and urgent challenge is to stop burning coal, and the facile response to that important and urgent need is to replace coal-burning plants with nuclear power plants.

On the other hand, no matter what any industry champion tells you, no one has yet solved the greatest concern regarding nuclear energy, i.e., what to do with the waste. Furthermore, in an increasingly unstable world, both economically and geopolitically, the security issues raised by bringing 1,400 new nuclear power plants into operation most be of serious concern: every one of them will be susceptible to catastrophic events whether caused by accident, insider sabotage or terrorist attack. That is just a fact. Has anything like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island happened again? Not yet. But only a fool would think that odds would remain the same if the number of nuclear power plants were significantly increased.

So there is the choice, the certainty of global catastrophe if we do not do something radical about the Climate Crisis vs. increased likelihood of multiple regional catastrophes if the proliferation of nuclear power plants is factored in as a significant element of the plan to mitigate the Climate Crisis.

I do not know what the answer is, but I do know that anyone who does not see this as an ugly choice -- or has no hesitation in making it one way or the other -- is in denial either about the Climate Crisis or the dangers of nuclear energy.

Indeed, it is an ugly choice, but is it a false choice?

On a recent Rsdio Nation broadcast, Laura Flanders interviewed Mark Hertsgaard, the Nation's environmental correspondent:

Flanders: They have always been people who supported nuclear power, but what is startling now is how many environmentalists, and it is still not an enormous number, but there are some key members of the environmental community, who faced with the kind of urgency that [James] Hansen has laid out in terms of global warming, are beginning to argue that maybe we need to review our attitude toward nuclear power. Lay out the arguments for us ...
Hertsgaard: I think I did the first book on the nuclear power industry back in 1983, even back then the executives of the nuclear industry were -- this was right after Three Mile Island, when many activists thought that the industry was dead -- and the executives were telling me, "No, we're going to come back around the turn of the century, and one of the reasons we are going to come back is because people are going to be worried about climate change. They saw this coming 25+ years ago. ... The argument against [nuclear energy as way to replace coal and drasticaly reduce greenhouse gas emissions] is that -- separate from any safety or nuclear proliferation concerns, which are substantial -- the main point at this juncture is that nuclear is just wildly expensive and not going to be supported in the marketplace. In fact, economically speaking, if you go nuclear, you make climat change worse, because you can get seven times greater reduction if instead you invest in energy efficiency above all. That is the quickest, cheapest and above all the fastest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And per dollar of investment, you get seven times more reduction in greenhouse gas emission with energy efficiency. So really you if you go nuclear you are making the problem worse because in the real world there is a scarcity of capital, there is only so much to go around, and if you invest it in nuclear, that means you are not going to be investing it in things that are going to be delivering a bigger bang for the buck. Radio Nation, 6/7/08

Of course, there is another open question -- who will make these choices? In a democratic republic, the electorate chooses those who will choose, i.e., its national legislature and its national executive.

Recent history has revealed that if those in power are sick-minded, they are capable of using the Climate Crisis as a sort of pogrom by proxy.

Consider Christopher Brauchli's brilliant comparative analysis of Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina and the Burmese Thugocracy's response to Typhoon Nargis:

... both Mr. Bush and Mr. Than knew in advance of the approaching disasters. On May 6, 2008, a spokesman for the Indian Meteorological Department said Burmese agencies had been given 48 hours’ notice of the cyclone’s advent, including its point of crossing, its severity and all related issues. ... Mr. Bush was told the Sunday before the Monday Katrina struck that the city’s flood defenses could fail in such a storm. The National Weather Service issued a special hurricane warning saying most of New Orleans would be uninhabitable for weeks and “water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards.” Unlike Mr. Than, Mr. Bush acknowledged these warnings. He said the government was fully prepared to help. He was wrong, of course, but not on purpose.
Monday morning Mr. Bush was again warned about the potential devastation of Katrina and was told the government might lack the capacity to deal with it. He did not let that interfere with the day’s planned activities. Mr. Bush talked about immigration issues with the head of the Department of Homeland Security. He then shared a birthday cake photo-op with his old friend, Senator John McCain, and, after learning that the 17th Canal levee in New Orleans had breached, went off to Arizona to promote Medicare Drug benefits. By late afternoon he was at a California senior center where he discussed the Medicare drug benefit. At 8 that night the governor of Louisiana told the president she needed everything Mr. Bush could provide to deal with the emergency. Mr. Bush said nothing. He went to bed.
Tuesday afternoon Mr. Bush joined country singer, Mark Willis, for a photo op, Mr. Bush holding a guitar and the singer smiling at the playful president. Mr. Bush then returned to Texas to finish up his vacation. He let it be known that he would begin work the following day with a task force to coordinate relief efforts.
It took Mr. Than two weeks to meet victims and see the destruction for himself. As soon as Mr. Bush finished his vacation Wednesday, he flew back to Washington, making a detour, however, to fly over New Orleans so he could see for himself how bad things were. A picture was taken of him looking out the airplane window at the devastation below, the sort of picture that could not be published of Mr. Than since he never did that. Christopher Brauchli, Common Dreams, 6-7-08

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

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

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Laura Flanders, Christopher Brauchli,Mark Hertsgaard, Nuclear Energy,Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Human Rights, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth,Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!, The Eleventh Hour, Organic Gardening, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Leonard Cohen -- Bird On A Wire (1979)

Hard Rain Late Night: Leonard Cohen -- Hard Rain Late Night: Leonard Cohen -- Bird On A Wire (1979)



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Leonard Cohen,You Tube, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Kucinich, Obama & Pelosi -- Three Very Different Tasks, One Shared Goal

Jefferson Memorial at Sunset


Kucinich, Obama & Pelosi -- Three Very Different Tasks, One Shared Goal

By Richard Power

Those who speak derisively or dismissively of Rep. Dennis Kucinich for bringing forth 35 articles of impeachment do not understand the true significance of his action.

Kucinich is paying forward a debt owed to Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, George Washington and the others whose vision and courage gave life to the dream of this democratic republic.

He is paying forward a debt owed to Abraham Lincoln who rescued this democratic republic and set it on the road to recovery from its greatest sin.

He is paying forward a debt owed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt who led this democratic republic to the victory in great war against fascism.

Indeed, he is paying forward a debt owed to every man and woman who shed blood in the name of this democratic republic in all three conflicts, i.e., the revolutionary war, the civil war and WWII.

Why bother to throw off one tyrant only to look the other way some time later when another tyrant openly and repeatedly dismisses the US Constitution?

Why bother to wrestle the Union free from the ugliness at the soul of the Confederacy if that ugliness inherits all power in the Union some time later?

Why bother to crush fascism and take leadership of the free world if some time later the intellectual and psychological heirs of those very fascists are allowed to walk in the front door and decree that two plus two suddenly equals five?

You and I must pay forward too.

Something must be done -- legally, politically, socially, culturally -- about the Bush-Cheney regime and its legacy.

There must be accountability.

If what has happened here since the stolen election of 2000 is not rolled back and somehow paid for, at least in fortunes and reputations, then every noble deed from Jefferson to Lincoln to Roosevelt will have been in vain.

And yet, when Rep. Dennis Kucinich stood on the floor of the US House of Representatives late into the night, reading his 35 articles of impeachment, along with the corroborating evidence into the congressional record, he stood alone.

Why? How is this possible?

Bill Moyers gave the answer the weekend before Kucinich's extraordinary act of political conscience. "In many respects," Moyers told thousands of attendees at the Fourth Annual National Media Reform Conference, "the Fourth Estate has become the fifth column of democracy, colluding with the powers that be in a culture of deception that subverts the thing most necessary to freedom, and that is the truth." (Bill Moyers, Fourth Annual National Conference for Media Reform, June 2008)

Generations of television and decades of media monopolization have turned much of the populace into a pliant, distracted, informationally malnourished and traumatized mass.

Do you remember T.S. Elliot's poem about "the hollow men"?

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

You and I have one last, real chance to prevent that from happening here.

But it requires -- as great truths often do -- embracing paradoxes.

Impeachment is just an aspect of one of three vital objectives in this life or death struggle:

#1. Making certain that, sooner or later, one way or another, Bush, Cheney and the other principles are independently investigated and tried for the crimes it seems painfully clear that they have committed, and then held duly accountable for what they are found guilty of.

#2. Getting Barack Obama elected President of the USA in November 2008, and sworn into office in January 2009.

#3. Mitigating the further destructive impact of the Bush-Cheney regime (e.g., an unauthorized military campaign against Iran, etc.) between now and when it is compelled to turn over power, and furthermore, ensuring that there are increased Democratic majorities to work with in both houses of Congress.

Three very different tasks, one shared goal: the restoration of the republic.

In regard to accountability, Rep. Kucinich, with his 35 articles of impeachment, former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, with his argument that Bush should be charged with murder in criminal court, and former National Security Advisor, Richard Clarke, with his notion of a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission (ala post-apartheid South Africa), have all offered compelling models of how to force accountability. The alternative media, i.e., the blogosphere and progressive talk radio, must keep launching these models as conscious objects into the psyche of the body politic until there is an opening for one or the other of them to be actualized.

In regard to winning in November 2008, Obama, in my view, should be allowed to run his race the way he wants to. He has earned it. He has shown incredible strength, discipline and clarity of mind. It is enough that he is the first African-American on the national ticket of either major party. He does not have to prove himself on the issue of impeachment. Elect him, and you will have a President who has taught constitutional law. He will know what to do if he gets into the Oval Office.

In regard to limiting the damage that Bush-Cheney can do in these last few months, I suggest to you that speaking derisively of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), e.g., impugning their motives, questioning their moral courage, etc. -- because they have not advanced the issue of impeachment -- is both naive and destructive.

The situation in Beltwayistan is worst than you think, and it could be worse than it is. Pelosi and Conyers should be looked at as hostage negotiators who are themselves hostages. They are doing what they believe they should do to get the nation -- in one piece -- to this next election and beyond that to the swearing in of a new Congress and a new President and Vice President.

By my count, a military campaign against Iran has been thwarted at least three times over the last three years, and even now Bush-Cheney is making another run at it. There are many forces at play in the effort to prevent Bush and Cheney from being successful in doing their worst. We do not know the threats that have been made behind closed doors. We do not know what alliances have been made to thwart the worst of the worst, and what promises sealed them. What if you were in their position and you knew you didn't have the votes for impeachment, and even if you did you knew they would get acquitted in the Senate; but on the other hand, you did have the institutional support to hold the line on opening up a new war, and you would lose it if you went for impeachment (or cut-off the funding for the occupation prior to regime change here), what would you do?

Yes, I am saying I believe in Pelosi and Conyers, because of who they are and what they have done with their careers, and if I cannot understand their motives, I am willing to extend to them the benefit of the doubt, while I push for accountability (whether impeachment now or criminal prosecution later) as forcefully as I can.

If we tear each other apart, this window of opportunity will close, and soon there won't be anymore windows. Instead, there will just be a great wall.

Keep your eyes on the prize, or we will all hit the wall.

Here are some excerpts from Kucinich's indictment, with a link to the full text:

Article I: Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.
Article II: Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.
Article III: Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.
Article IV: Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States. ...
Article XIV: Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency
Article XVII: Illegal Detention -- Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives
Article
XVIII: Torture -- Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy ...
Article XXIV: Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment ...
Article XXV: Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens ...
Article XXVII: Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply
Article XXVIII: Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice
Article XXIX: Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ...
Article XXXI: Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency
Article XXXII: Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change
Article XXXIII: Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.
Article XXXIV: Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001
Excerpts from the 35 Articles of Impeachment Submitted by Rep. Dennis Kucinch (D-OH). For the full text, click here.

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

Dennis Kucinich, Vincent Bugliosi, Richard Clarke, Bill Moyers, Barack Obama,Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers,, Fourth Estate, News Media, Blogosphere,Alternate Media, Richard Power, Words of Power

Bill Moyers: "This leaves you with a heavy burden. It is up to you to fight for the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible."

George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm, was also a BBC journalist


Sadly, in many respects, the Fourth Estate has become the fifth column of democracy, colluding with the powers that be in a culture of deception that subverts the thing most necessary to freedom, and that is the truth. ... So it’s up to you to tell the truth about this country we love. It’s up to you to tell the truth about what’s happening to ordinary people. It’s up to you to remind us that democracy only works when ordinary people claim it as their own. It’s up to you to write the story of America that leaves no one out. And it’s up to you to rekindle the patriot’s dream. Bill Moyers, Fourth Annual National Conference for Media Reform, June 2008

Bill Moyers: "This leaves you with a heavy burden. It is up to you to fight for the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible."

Here are some excerpts from Bill Moyers' powerful keynote address, courtesy of Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! For the full text, click here. Past it on. Better yet, download the podcast, and pass it on. Click here. No further comment from me is necessary. -- Richard Power

AMY GOODMAN: More than 3,500 people gathered this weekend in Minneapolis for the fourth annual National Conference for Media Reform. The thousands of participants took part in panel discussions and strategized about efforts to fight media consolidation and democratize the airwaves. The three-day event was organized by the media reform group Free Press.
The highlight of the weekend was the keynote address by legendary broadcaster, Bill Moyers, host of the weekly PBS program Bill Moyers Journal. Moyers was one of the founding organizers of the Peace Corps, press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson, publisher of Newsday, senior correspondent for CBS News and a producer of many groundbreaking series on public television. He won more than thirty Emmys and is the author of four bestselling books. His latest, just out, is called Moyers on Democracy. On Saturday morning, Bill Moyers took to the stage and addressed the packed convention auditorium.

BILL MOYERS: You represent millions of Americans who see media consolidation as a corrosive social force. It robs them of their voice in public affairs, pollutes the political culture and turns the debate over profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists who trivialize democracy while refusing to speak the truth about how our country is being plundered. ...
I heard this story a long time ago, growing up in Choctaw County in Oklahoma before we moved to Texas, of the tribal elder who was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging within himself. He said, "It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: anger, envy, sorrow, greed, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The boy took this in for a few minutes and then said to his father—to his grandfather, “Which wolf won?” The old Cherokee replied simply, “The one I feed.” Democracy is that way. The wolf that wins is the one we feed. And media provides the fodder.
So it is that democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent while enhancing the power of the state and the privileged interests protected by it. Democracy without accountability creates the illusion of popular control while offering ordinary Americans only cheap tickets to the balcony, too far away to see that the public stage has become just a reality TV set. Nothing more characterizes corporate media today, mainstream and partisan, than disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.
This leaves you with a heavy burden. It is up to you to fight for the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible. In fact, I want to ask you to do something right now. I want you to stand up just a moment. Please, stand up. Now, turn to a neighbor to your left or neighbor to your right. Look that person in the eye. Shake hands. Shake hands, come on. Now turn to the person on the other side. Look that person in the eye. Shake hands. Now, see? Keep standing. You’re surrounded by kindred spirits. Remember—remember this when you go home and continue the fight. Hold your neighbors’ presence and this moment in your heart, and keep reminding yourself, “I’m not alone in this movement.” ...
Be vigilant. Be vigilant. The fate of the cyber-commons is up for grabs here, the future of the mobile web and the benefits of the internet as open architecture. We’ll lose that fight without you, because the antidote, the only antidote, to the power of organized money in Washington is the power of organized people at the net roots. ...
But it’s going to take more than just hopes that the new media will deliver up what we have never fully realized with the old. And the clock is ticking. By 2011, the market analysts tell us, the internet will surpass newspapers in advertising revenues. With MySpace and Dow Jones controlled by Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft determined to acquire Yahoo!, and with advertisers already telling some bloggers, “Your content is unacceptable,” we could see the potential loss of what’s now considered an unstoppable long tail of content offering abundant, new, credible and sustainable sources of news and information.
Advertisers have already aggressively seized the new online world to go back into the programming business themselves, creating what’s called branded content. Imagine the Camel News Caravan revived, but this time online as a sponsored YouTube channel. Already, newspapers and magazines, and soon television, are encouraged to sell keywords to advertisers in the online versions of stories. Can you imagine advertisers going for stories with keywords such as “healthcare reform,” “environmental degradation,” “Iraqi casualties,” “contracting fraud” or “K Street lobbyists”? I don’t think so.
So what will happen to news in the future, as the already tattered boundaries between journalism and advertising is dispensed with entirely and as content programming, commerce and online communities are rolled into one profitably attractive package? Last year, the investment firm of Piper Jaffray predicted that much of the business model for new media would be just that kind of hybrid. They called it “communitainment.” “Communitainment.” O, George Orwell, where are you now that we need you? ...
Now, you know as well as I that all across the media landscape the health of our democracy is imperiled. Buffeted by gale force winds of technological, political and demographic forces, without a truly free and independent press, this 250-year-old experiment in self-government will not make it. I am no romantic about journalism. Some of my best friends are journalists. We are all fallen creatures, like everyone else. But I believe more fervently than ever that as journalism goes, so goes democracy.
Yet as mergers and buyouts change both old and new media, bring a frenzied focus on cost-cutting, while fattening the pockets of the new owners and their investors, we are seeing journalism degraded through the layoffs and buyouts of legions of reporters and editors. Advertising Age reports that US media employment has fallen to a fifteen-year low. The Los Angeles Times alone has experienced a withering series of resignations by editors who refused to turn a red pencil into an editorial scalpel.
The new owner of the Tribune Company, the real estate mogul Sam Zell, recently toured his new property, the Los Angeles Times newsroom, telling employees that the challenge is: how do we get somebody 126 years old to get it up? “Well,” said Zell, “I’m your Viagra.” I’m not making this up. He told his journalists that he didn’t have an editorial agenda or a perspective about newspapers’ roles as civic institutions. “I’m a businessman,” he said. “All that matters in the end is the bottom line.” Just this week, Zell told Wall Street analysts that to save money he intends to eliminate 500 pages of news a week across all of the company’s twelve papers. That can mean eliminating some eighty-two pages every week just from the Los Angeles Times. What will he use to replace reporters and editors? He says to the Wall Street analysts, “I’ll use maps, graphics, lists, rankings and stats.” Sounds to me as if Sam has confused Viagra with Lunesta. ...
Sadly, in many respects, the Fourth Estate has become the fifth column of democracy, colluding with the powers that be in a culture of deception that subverts the thing most necessary to freedom, and that is the truth. ...
So it’s up to you to tell the truth about this country we love. It’s up to you to tell the truth about what’s happening to ordinary people. It’s up to you to remind us that democracy only works when ordinary people claim it as their own. It’s up to you to write the story of America that leaves no one out. And it’s up to you to rekindle the patriot’s dream. ... Democracy Now!, 6-9-08

See also Can the US Mainstream News Media be Reformed Through Legislation? Or Revitalized from Within? I Don't Know. But It May Rapidly Become Irrelevant and Hard Rain Journal 12-3-07: David Gregory Meet I.F. Stone and Tom Paine x 10,000

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

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

Bill Moyers, Fourth Estate, News Media, Blogosphere,Alternate Media, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Leonard Cohen w/ Sonny Rollins -- Who By Fire

Hard Rain Late Night: Leonard Cohen -- Hard Rain Late Night: Leonard Cohen w/ Sonny Rollins -- Who By Fire



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

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

From Katmandu to Karthoum, from Burma to Beltwayistan, the Conscience of the World Seems Cut-Off from Action; Here's How to Break the Spell

Image: Salvador Dali, Geopoliticus child watching the birth of the new man

From Katmandu to Karthoum, from Burma to Beltwayistan, the Conscience of the World Seems Cut-Off from the Path of Action; Here's How to Break the Spell

By Richard Power

Cruel irony in Katmandu.

The Nepalese, who are undergoing the profound transformation of their own society, from a stifling, feudalistic monarchy to something more democratic and egalitarian, have arrested at least 450 Tibetans, who were protesting the Chinese government's oppression control of their country. Some of the protesters, who included many Buddhist monks and nuns. were beaten by Nepalese police in riot gear. (Associated Press, 6-7-08)

Government perpetuated misery in Burma.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPP), the Burmese thugocracy is feeding "moldy, foul and inedible rice" to political prisoners in its infamous Insein Prison, and causing these inmates diarrhea, dysentary, etc. -- despite the fact that the International Committee of the Red Cross had replaced the rice ruined when Cyclone Nargis blew the lid off of the storage silo. (Irrawaddy, 6-6-08)

In eastern Chad, Darfuri children are being sold into soldiering in plain sight of the entire world community.

Waging Peace reports that children as young as nine years old are being "kidnapped in broad daylight," then sold to rebel groups and forced back into Darfur as child soldiers. (Agence France Press, 6-7-08)

In Karthoum, the Sudanese thugocracy still refuses to turn over Ahmed Harun and Ali Kushayb. One is a cabinet minister, the other is a militia commander. They are wanted by the International Criminal Court, on charges of crimes against humanity. (Associated Press 6-7-08)

Meanwhile, in Beltwayistan, despite the powerful one-two punch of Scott McClellan's book, and the US Senate Intelligence Committee's report on how the Bush-Cheney regime abused, disregarded and misrepresented US intelligence analysis in the run-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the two men most responsible for this foolish military adventure remain in power and under no immediate threat of investigation or prosecution.

Somewhere, somehow, in one of these wretched circumstances, if conscience were heeded, and justice were done, then there would be a similar reversal of fortunes in the others.

Let's start here.

Richard Clarke, one of the heroes of the last seven tragic years of US history, has made some insightful remarks.

Noting that “prominent Democrats” had ruled out impeachment, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann asked former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke on his show last night, what “remedy” there could be for the lies and misinformation highlighted in the new Senate Intelligence Committee reports on the Bush administration’s misuse of pre-war Iraq intelligence. ... CLARKE: Well, there may be some other kind of remedy. There may be some sort of truth and reconciliation commission process that’s been tried in other countries, South Africa, Salvador and what not, where if you come forward and admit that you were in error or admit that you lied, admit that you did something, then you’re forgiven. Otherwise, you are censured in some way.
Now, I just don’t think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let them pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 Americans dead and 25,000 Americans grieviously wounded, and they’ll carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives. Think Progress, 6-6-08

The impeachment process was despoiled in the 1990s by the Cult formerly known as the Republican Party. Perhaps it is best to give it a rest.

If the US electorate chooses reason over madness in the 2008 election, and Obama is sworn in along with a filibuster-proof US Senate majority, the establishment of a "truth and reconciliation committee" could turn this country around, and with it the world.

Yes, the community of nations would find its moral compass again, and its will to act collectively, and in accordance with its highest principles.

You may think this an impossibility.

But most people on the planet did not see the fall of the Berlin Wall coming even a year or two before it came down.

A year or two before the collapse of the Soviet Union, you probably would not have believed me if I had told you that the Baltic nations would not only soon be free but belong to the EU.

The whole world is watching.

Perhaps the USA will astonish it.

And if that happens, then I assure there will another astonishment on the way, i.e., Tibet will be free in this lifetime. (I have a few decades left, hopefully.)

Why?

What is unhealthy in Beltwayistan is nourishing what is unhealthy in Beijing, and vice versa, one illusion cannot last long without the other.

Imagine a geopolitical world-view shaped by altruism instead of greed.

I encourage you to follow events in Burma on Irrawaddy.

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

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

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

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

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

Darfur,
Tibet, Burma, Genocide, Mia Farrow, Dream for Darfur, China, Sudan, Richard Power, Words of Power

The Rescue of the Planet, The Restoration of the Republic, and Some Unfinished Business

Image: White Buffalo Calf Woman and the Sacred Pipe (Marcine Quenzer)


The Rescue of the Planet, the Restoration of the Republic, and Some Unfinished Business

By Richard Power

Barack Obama understands something about magic.

He chose to declare victory on the very spot where his Republican rival will be nominated in the late summer.

As he entered the hall, U2's Beautiful Day was playing. ("It's a beautiful day, don't let it slip away.")

And standing there, toward the end of his speech, he took this campaign to the level at which it must be waged, i.e., nothing short of the rescue of the planet and the restoration of the republic: The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Barack Obama's Nomination Victory Speech, Huffington Post, 6-3-08

Yes, the planet must be rescued and the republic must be restored.

Cruel deadlines loom before us.

Will the governments of the world reach a meaningful accord on the climate crisis in 2009?

Half of Papua New Guinea's forests will be lost or damaged in just over a decade, speeding up local climate change, unless logging is dramatically reduced, a study released Monday found. The University of Papua New Guinea report, which used satellite images to show the loss in forest cover between 1972 and 2002, found that at current rates, 53 percent of forest was at risk of being destroyed by 2021. Agence France Press, 6-2-08

Will the UN Millennium Development Goals be achieved by 2015?

One in five countries in the world have used girls as child soldiers, and 100,000 are currently fighting in conflicts around the world, a new report by Plan International shows. ‘Because I am a Girl: Special Focus- in the Shadow of War’ reveals why and how girls’ rights are being violated in countries at risk of, in the midst of, or emerging from armed conflict. It shows clearly what is lost when girls’ voices are ignored and their capacities and skills go un-recognized and under-developed. …
Figures in the report reveal:
* 38 countries have used girl soldiers in armed conflict in the last two decades
* 200 million girls live in countries that are at risk of, in the midst of or emerging from armed conflict
* 90 per cent of victims of modern warfare are civilian with more and more women and children
* An estimated 20 million girls are out of school in war zones One World, 6-1-08

Meanwhile, there is unfinished business in this republic, and unless the pressure to deal with it is kept up, then the republic will probably not be restored, and if the republic is not restored, the planet probably cannot be rescued.

More evidence and eye-witness accounts of what should be investigated as treason and war crimes bubble up every day.

Consider Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez's Wiser in Battle, A Soldier's Story: Getting lost in the media furor over McClellan's memoir is the new autobiography of retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the onetime commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, who is scathing in his assessment that the Bush administration "led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions."
Among the anecdotes in "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in Fallujah in 2004, triggering a fierce U.S. response that was reportedly egged on by the president.
During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a "confused" pep talk:
"Kick ass!" he quotes the president as saying. "If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."
"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!" Huffington Post, 6-2-08

And, of course, there's Scott McClellan's What Happened: U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, who has relentlessly pushed for impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney, says former White House press secretary Scott McClellan should be compelled to testify before a congressional committee regarding the allegations made in McClellan's tell-all book about the Bush administration.
"The admissions made by Scott McClellan in his new book are earth-shattering and allege facts to establish that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--and possibly Vice President Cheney--conspired to obstruct justice by lying about their role in the Plame Wilson matter and that the Bush administration deliberately lied to the American people in order to take us to war in Iraq," Wexler said in a statement.
"Scott McClellan must now appear before the House Judiciary Committee under oath to tell Congress and the American people how President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and White House officials deliberately orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people. News from the Underground, 5-28-08

Some people have demonstrated the moral courage and clarity of mind that such unfinished business demands.

There is the example of former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi: For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did. ... If Bush, in fact, intentionally misled this nation into war, what is the proper punishment for him? Since many Americans routinely want criminal defendants to be executed for murdering only one person, if we weren't speaking of the president of the United States as the defendant here, to discuss anything less than the death penalty for someone responsible for over 100,000 deaths would on its face seem ludicrous. But we are dealing with the president of the United States here. ... In any event, if an American jury were to find Bush guilty of first degree murder, it would be up to them to decide what the appropriate punishment should be, one of their options being the imposition of the death penalty. Vincent Bugliosi, Huffington Post, 5-19-08

There is the example of British journalist George Monbiot: I had almost reached the stage when two of the biggest gorillas I have ever seen swept me up and carried me out of the tent. ... I knew that I was more likely to be arrested and charged than Mr Bolton. I had no intention of harming him, or of acting in any way that could be interpreted as aggressive, but had I sought only to steer him gently towards the police I might have faced a range of exotic charges, from false imprisonment to aggravated assault. I was prepared to take this risk. It is not enough to demand that other people act, knowing that they will not. If the police, the courts and the state fail to prosecute what the Nuremberg tribunal described as “the supreme international crime”, I believe we have a duty to seek to advance the process.
The Nuremberg principles, which arose from the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, define as an international crime the “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances”. Bolton appears to have “participated in a common plan” to prepare for the war (also defined by the principles as a crime) by inserting the false claim that Iraq was seeking to procure uranium from Niger into a state department factsheet. He also organised the sacking of José Bustani, the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, accusing him of bad management. Bustani had tried to broker a peaceful resolution of the dispute over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. George Monbiot, Guardian, 6-3-08

There is the example of the Brattleboro, Vermont electorate: Voters in two southern Vermont towns passed articles ... calling for the indictment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for violating the Constitution. More symbolic than substantive, the items sought to have police arrest Bush and Cheney if they ever visit Brattleboro or nearby Marlboro or to extradite them for prosecution elsewhere -- if they're not impeached first. Associated Press, 3-4-08

There is the example of human rights activist Michael Ratner: US embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six years.
Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French soil. Indy Media, 10-28-07

Will the USA choose reason over madness in 2008?

Furthermore, if it chooses reason, as it did in 2000 (Gore won Florida) and in 2004 (Ohio was stolen), will the results be subverted once again?

And if the results are subverted once again, what will happen here?

This republic's unfinished business must be kept at the forefront of the news.

Some Recent Related Posts

The Crow Nation Understands, So Do Joe Biden & Mike Papantonio, It is Time to Find the "Impeccable Warrior" Within

Let's Prove Gore Vidal Wrong; He Deserves That Precious Gift for His Long Life of Truth-Telling

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

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

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

Sen. Barack Obama, Ricardo Sanchez, Scott McClellan George Monbiot, Vincent Bugliosi, 2008 Presidential Campaign, Richard Power, Words of Power