Saturday, August 30, 2008

Weigh the Coverage of Sarah Palin's Ascension Against the Coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi's Hunger Strike & Ask Yourself What Happened to Your Culture?

Image: Aung San Suu Kyi, TIME 100


Burma Crisis Update: Weigh the Coverage of Sarah Palin's Ascension Against the Coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi's Hunger Strike & Ask Yourself What has Happened to Your Culture?

By Richard Power


Once again, you and I are confronted with a savage and pervasive ignorance.

Life is all about the choices we make.

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) has the freedom to come and go, to speak and choose.

What has Palin done with that freedom?

Palin, like about 60 percent of Alaska voters, favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Her environmental credentials are, at best, mixed. She favors what we in Alaska call "predator control," including, if necessary, the hunting of wolves from the air. Just recently her Dept. of Fish and Game pulled some wolf cubs from their den and shot them as part of a program to improve moose survival. Washington Post, 8-29-08

Sarah Palin wants to let the polar bears die, too. On global warming, she's aligned with" most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints" America Blog, 8-29-08

Aung San Suu Kyi's freedom is very different. It is the inner freedom of an imprisoned dissident; it is a mute freedom of heart, mind and spirit.

What has Aung San done with her freedom?

She has gone on a hunger strike.

Weigh the US mainstream news media coverage of Sarah Palin's political ascension against its coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi's hunger strike; then ask yourself, "What has happened to this culture?"

Of course, it is big news that a politically obscure, ideologically radical, former topless beauty queen, who is under investigation by her own state government, would be named as the VP candidate of the Republican Party.

Miss Wasilia 1984


But it is also big news that a beautiful, articulate and courageous Nobel Peace Prize winner, the duly elected leader of her country, chooses to go on a hunger strike because she refusesto bow to the rule of thugocrats who have held her prisoner for years.

And yet, there is barely a brief mention.

Aung San Suu Kyi is your parent, your child, your lover, your teacher, your conscience.

What will you do to help her?

Will you at least remember her day by day, google her name to follow her plight, and go tell her story to your loved ones and your colleagues?

Will you ask yourself what must it be like to choose to go on a hunger strike and what circumstances would lead you to make such a choice?

When someone wants to discuss Gov. Palin will you offer them the choice of discussing the struggle of Aung San Suu Kyi instead?

Burma's detained opposition leader and democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi continues to refuse food deliveries, even after nearly two weeks of receiving her last supply on August 15, her party leaders said.
"As far as we know, she has not yet accepted any food supplies," Nyan Win, spokesperson of her party – the National League for Democracy – told Mizzima on Friday.
However, it is still not clear why she is refusing food supplies.
"Everything is still unclear, and we are still trying to get confirmation about her situation and why she is refusing supplies," Nyan Win added.
But meanwhile, the government has refuted the information that Suu Kyi is refusing to accept food supplies saying it is rumour. Besides, the military junta also said Suu Kyi has not submitted any demands.
But news that Suu Kyi is fasting is spreading and causing great concern both at domestic and international levels.
Mizzima, 8-30-08

For a Words of Power Archive of Human Rights Updates on Burma and other crises, click here.

For an archive of Words of Power posts on Campaign '08, click here.

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

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

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Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Last Best Hope for The Last Best Hope

Image: Salvador Dali, Premonition of Civil War


If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next commander in chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have. ... John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell — but he won't even go to the cave where he lives. ...
I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.
Barack Obama, 2008 DNC, 8-28-08

The Last Best Hope for The Last Best Hope

By Richard Power


It was a brilliant, powerful and historic speech. Think Abe Lincoln. Think Muhammad Ali. Obama said everything that John Kerry didn't say in 2004, and he said some things that have not been said since Jack Kennedy said them in 1960. Obama is the champion of a citizen uprising that is perhaps the last best hope for the last best hope.

And yet, for me, although Obama's speech was the most powerful speech of the night (Gore's, too, deserves high praise), as well as one of the most historic of our times, it was not the most important speech of the final night of the 2008 DNC; Susan Eisenhower's was the most important.

I have referenced Dwight Eisenhower's prophetic farewell speech numerous times; but here was his grand-daughter, a tall, strong, eloquent woman in an elegant red dress, liberating herself from political thralldom to those who have so despoiled the Republican Party and so dishonored the US Constitution, the US military and the heritage of all patriots.

If enough Republicans hear her poignant message, those who stole the elections of 2000 and 2004 will not have the opportunity to steal this one.

Here is the text of her remarks, the speech is now a cherished artifact in the Words of Power archive:

I stand before you tonight not as a Republican or a Democrat, but as an American.

The Eisenhowers came to this great country in the 18th century, settling first amid the hills of Pennsylvania and later on the plains of Kansas. Like many of your ancestors, they built our nation and served it in times of national crisis and war.

I grew up in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where my parents and grandparents, Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, chose to live after Ike's retirement as supreme commander, Europe, during World War II and as President of the United States. It was also where Abraham Lincoln gave his historic address. On the killing fields of Pickett's charge, our country came of age and assured for all time that our nation would survive as one.

Yet, today the divisions in our country are deep and wide. Our cohesiveness as a nation is strained by multiple crises in finance and credit, energy and health care. These problems, which threaten American prosperity and well-being, are as relevant to our national security as any conflict overseas.

At the same time, we have knowingly saddled our children and grandchildren with a staggering debt. This is a moral failing, not just a financial one.

Overseas, our credibility is at an all-time low. We urgently need to restore our international leadership position and the leverage that goes with it to address urgent problems before they become crises.

We must advance a new and compelling vision for the 21st century. But rather than focus on these critical strategic issues, our national discourse has turned into a petty squabble.

Too many people in power have failed us. Belligerence has been a substitute for strength; stubbornness for leadership; and impulsive action has replaced measured and thoughtful response.

Once during the Eisenhower administration, Ike was under fire from his critics for moving too slowly in responding to political pressure. After a visit to the oval office by Robert Frost, the famous American poet sent the president a note: "the strong," he wrote, "are saying nothing until they see."

I believe that Barack Obama has the energy and the temperament to lead this country. He knows that we can either advance on the distant hills of hope or retreat to the garrisons of fear. As our standard bearer, he can mobilize a demoralized America and inspire all of us to show up for duty. Discipline will be required, as will compromise, flexibility and quiet strength.

Barack Obama has already articulated a powerful vision for our nation's future and our standing in the world.

The task before our next president will be overwhelming. But no undertaking will be more critical than bringing about a sense of national unity and purpose, built on mutual respect and bi-partisanship.

Unless we squarely face our challenges, as Americans together, we risk losing the priceless heritage bestowed on us by the sweat and the sacrifice of our forbearers. If we do not pull together, we could lose the America that has been an inspiration to the world.

On December 1, 1862, in his annual message to Congress, Abraham Lincoln immortalized this thought when he said: "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."

Let us respond this November to President Lincoln's challenge.

Let us restore the hope and bring the change that our nation so desperately needs.

Thank you.
Susan Eisenhower, 2008 DNC, 8-29-08

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 an archive of Words of Power posts on Campaign '08, click here.

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Saturday, August 23, 2008

Climate Crisis & Sustainability Update: Today, the Polar Bears, Tomorrow, the Humans


Frida Kahlo's Roots

Climate Crisis & Sustainability Update: Today, the Polar Bears, the Day After Tomorrow, the Humans

By Richard Power


The polar bears as struggling for survival as their hunting grounds melt away from underneath them. Meanwhile, from Spain to the Himalayas, there is stark and immediate evidence that it is the humans who will soon be struggling.

It is in your own enlightened self-interest to be concerned about the possible extinction of other species. And it is a disturbing sign of human ignorance and spiritual immaturity that climate related stories do not lead the mainstream news every day.

Here are excerpts from four important and developing stories, with links to the full text. Read them, ponder their implications and then act with courage and urgency.

Scientists patrolling the skies off Alaska’s northwest coast say they observed nine polar bears swimming in open water, prompting some environmentalists to raise concerns about the species’ survival in a warming world. ...
”One of the bears was seen swimming at least 60 miles from the shore ..." the WWF quotes Geoff York, the polar bear coordinator for the advocacy group’s Arctic Programme, who says that polar bears that stray too far from land are at risk of drowning, especially if there is a storm.
Christian Science Monitor, 8-22-08

Spain is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years. Climate experts warn that the country is suffering badly from the impact of climate change and that the Sahara is slowly creeping north - into the Spanish mainland.
Yet in Spain itself there is little consensus about what is to be done. Indeed, such is the disagreement that journalists and politicians alike are calling it "water wars".
A farmer and politician, Angel Carcia Udon, said: "Water arouses passions because it can be used as a weapon, a political weapon, just as oil is a political weapon".
And water in Spain has set region against region, north against south and government against opposition.
Sue Lloyd-Roberts, BBC, 8-18-08

Climate change poses a serious threat to essential water resources in the Himalayan region putting the livelihoods of 1.3 billion people at risk, experts said Thursday.
The mountainous region, home to the world's largest glaciers and permafrost area outside the polar regions, has seen rapid glacial melting and dramatic changes in rainfall, experts at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm said.
"Himalayan glaciers are retreating more rapidly than anywhere else in the world," said Mats Eriksson, programme manager for water and hazard management at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
Agence France Press, 8-21-08

A spectre is haunting the cities and villages of most developing nations, warns a senior official of a World Bank-affiliated organisation.
"It's the spectre of a food, fuel and water crisis," says Lars Thunell, executive vice president of the Washington-based International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank group.
"I believe we are at a tipping point," he said, because the scarcity of water poses a threat to the food supply just when the agricultural sector is stepping up production in response to riots over food prices, growing hunger, and rising malnutrition.
Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, 8-22-08

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

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

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

To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.

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

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

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

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

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The Biden Primer

Gene Tunney, world heavyweight boxing champion from 1926-1928 who defeated Jack Dempsey twice, first in 1926 and then in 1927.


The Biden Primer

By Richard Power


Bravo.

Obama has chosen well.

Here is everything you need to know about Joe Biden distilled into three sections:

1.

Politico is sort of an artificially flavored blog.

Evidence of its mainstream DNA is the way in which it buried the lead in its story on the VP announcment. (Buzzflash unearthed it.)

Here is the real news in the Politico post, cut and pasted from the last few sentences of that piece:

"He knows McCain better than anyone else. He intimidates McCain more than anyone else. He can call McCain out better than anyone else on some of his positions," said Biden’s pollster, Celinda Lake, in a recent interview.
Richard Ben Cramer, in his masterful look at the 1988 race, “What It Takes,” wrote that even from boyhood, Biden was not to be underestimated.
“He was little too, but you didn’t want to fight him — or dare him,” he wrote of Biden. “There was nothing he wouldn’t do. Joe moved away from Scranton, Pa. in ’53, when he was ten years old. But there were still a lot of guys in Scranton today who talk about the feats of Joey Biden. ... Joey would never back down.”
Politico, 8-23-08

2.

From Steve Clemons' Washington Note:

John McCain got right on the edge of class warfare language along the lines that his pal (though resigned from the campaign) and potential Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm did when the former Texas Senator accused Americans of being a "nation of whiners".
In recent days, John McCain has said that the folks he considers rich are the ones with assets of more than $5 million. And he also apparently has forgotten the number of houses he owns.
Compare this to Joe Biden who in 2005 was ranked 99th out of 100 senators in terms of personal wealth.
And amazingly in 2006, Open Secrets lists Biden as 108th out of all US Senators (i.e., negative 8! How did he do that?) with a near negative value on total income and assets.
Biden has not enriched himself through marriage, book deals, land swaps, or even betting on Intrade.
That's an interesting contrast to Senator McCain -- sort of like it used to be between Democrats and Republicans.
Washington Note, 8-22-08

3.

Watch these terrific clips of Biden hitting hard on CNN, and on the Senate floor, and share them with your fellow citizens:





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 an archive of Words of Power posts on Campaign '08, click here.

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

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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Benazar Bhutto Dead & Unavenged, the Innocents Slaughtered on 9/11 Dead & Unavenged; Harriet Miers? Lobbying for Pakistan. Musharraf? Seeking Asylum.

Former White House chief counsel Harriet Miers is now a lobbyist for the Embassy of Pakistan and the Pakistan Peoples Party. On her foreign agent registration short form for Locke Lord Strategies, a subsidiary of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, the former Supreme Court nominee cites her work as part and parcel of Locke Lord's effort to "promote better understanding of the country's recent political, social, and economic developments" and line up state visits to Washington. Influence, The Business of Lobbying, 8-18-08

Benazir Bhutto in Karachi (AFP Photo/Amir Qureshi
Copyright AFP/Corbis)


Benazar Bhutto Dead & Unavenged, the Innocents Slaughtered on 9/11 Dead & Unavenged; Harriet Miers? Lobbying for Pakistan. Musharraf? Seeking Asylum.

By Richard Power


The irony is bitter.

The USA has spilled its blood and fortune in Iraq, which had no nuclear weapons, but does, of course, have oil. The USA has been rattling its saber at Iran, which also has oil but does not (yet) have nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, which has no oil, but does have nuclear weapons, has slipped deeper and deeper into the shadow of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Yes, the USA has squandered all of its post-9/11 capital on Iraq and Iran, two nations that had nothing to do with the slaughter of the innocents on 9/11; meanwhile, the USA continues to arm and ally itself with Pakistan, which still provides safe haven for the perpetrators of that horror.

And yes, Harriet Miers, who handed the August 6th, 2001 PDB to George W. Bush, and should, arguably, be in jail for contempt of Congress on other matters, is now lobbying for Pakistan.

Furthermore, the architects of this madness want you to give their fellow travelers four more years in the Oval Office; they want you to think that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. I wish I could think that the Neo-Cons didn't know what they were doing, I wish I could think that they were simply stupid. Unfortunately, the truth is much worse.

The world lost more than the sum of Benazir Bhutto's beauty and dignity the day Musharraf's security forces allowed her to be assassinated. In Pakistan's post-Musharraf environment, the poisoned fruit cultivated under his protection is falling into the laps of Al-Qaeda & the Taliban.

I urge you to read these two harrowingly insightful stories from the Asia Times. They will help you get your mind around Pakistan's descent into chaos. After all, Bob Schieffer and George Stephanoupolis won't be providing you with any meaningful context on Sunday morning, will they?

As if on cue, the Taliban launched two of their most daring attacks in Afghanistan on the day that Pervez Musharraf resigned as president of Pakistan, opening up a political vacuum in that country and throwing into doubt its continued cooperation in the United States' "war on terror".
Over 100 Taliban ambushed French soldiers on patrol with Afghan National Army troops at Sarobi, just 50 kilometers south of the capital, Kabul, killing 10 Frenchmen and injuring 21 in a battle that raged for more than 12 hours. ...
This is clearly a government of disunity, destined to endless feuding and paralysis - a situation militants will exploit to the full, as they have since Musharraf shed his uniform last November.
One of the key tactics of Islamic militants is to exploit political power vacuums, economic crises or any other problems to push a country towards disintegration.
In Pakistan and Afghanistan, this process is underway.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, 8-21-08

It is well known that Bush repeatedly praised Musharraf as the most loyal ally of the United States against terrorism, even though the Pakistani military was deeply compromised by its relationship with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamic militants.
What has not been reported is that the Bush administration covered up the Musharraf regime's involvement in the activities of the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear technology export program and its deals with al-Qaeda's Pakistani tribal allies.
The problem faced by the Bush administration when it came into office was that the Pakistani military, over which Musharraf presided, was the real terrorist nexus with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Gareth Porter, Asia Times, 8-21-08


Related Posts

Hard Rain Journal: Bhutto, Bin Laden, 9/11, What Should Have Been Uttered From the Well of the US Senate Several Years Ago, & What Must Be Done Now

Musharraf is Not Serious About Investigating Benazir Bhutto's Murder; But that Should Not Surprise You, He was Not Serious About Keeping Her Alive

Osama Bin Laden, the Terrorist, is Safe in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, the Democrat, was Not; Musharraf Truly is Bush-Cheney's "Strong Ally"

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

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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Der Spiegel: Gorbachev & Shroeder Offer a Dose of Reality on the "New Cold War" & the Conflict in the Caucasus

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


Der Spiegel: Gorbachev & Shroeder Offer a Dose of Reality on the "New Cold War" & the conflict in the Caucasus

By Richard Power


No, the agreement to place US missiles in Poland does not make either country safer. And no, it was not inevitable that Russia would become our geopolitical adversary.

The truth is that US policy toward Russia has been tragically flawed since the end of the Cold War. Poppy Bush and Bill Clinton made profound misjudgments, and the wrongness that blossomed from those profound misjudgment have been sorely exacerbated by eight years of Neo-Con insanity.

It would be good if you could rely on the US mainstream news media to provide you with insightful perspective on urgent issues of war and peace. But you can't.

You can listen to progressive talk radio, e.g., Thom Hartmann, Ring of Fire, and Peter B. Collins, you can comb the blogosphere, e.g., Buzzflash, the Washington Note and Juan Cole's Informed Comment, and you can read the world press, e.g., Asia Times, the Independent and Der Spiegel.

Here is a strong dose of reality from two enlightened leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev and Gerhard Shroeder, via Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Schröder, who is at fault for the Caucasus war?
Gerhard Schröder: The hostilities undoubtedly have their historic causes, as well, and the conflict has had several historic precursors. But the moment that triggered the current armed hostilities was the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. This should not be glossed over. ...
SPIEGEL: That may well be, but something else is now at stake: Russia has never overcome the loss of its superpower status, and in recent years it has felt cornered and humiliated by NATO. During the wars in the Balkans, the Iraq invasion by the "Coalition of the Willing" under Washington's leadership, the Kosovo declaration of independence ...
Schröder: ... don't forget the development of an American missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic ...
SPIEGEL: ... the Kremlin has been forced to look on. Isn't it possible that an economically and militarily strengthened Moscow now sees US friend Saakashvili as the best possible opportunity to retaliate against the West? And that Putin wants to assert imperial claims?
Schröder: In my view, there have indeed been serious mistakes made by the West in its policy toward Russia. Can we conclude that this bears some relationship to the recent events in the Caucasus, as Russia's response, so to speak, to the Georgian provocation? I think it's wrong to combine these two notions.
SPIEGEL: You don't share the newly erupted fear among many in the West of a "Russian threat?"
Schröder: No, not at all. There is a perception of Russia in the West that has very little to do with reality.
Der Spiegel Interview w/ former German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder, 8-18-08

Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction. ...
The planners of this campaign clearly wanted to make sure that, whatever the outcome, Russia would be blamed for worsening the situation. The West then mounted a propaganda attack against Russia, with the American news media leading the way.
The news coverage has been far from fair and balanced, especially during the first days of the crisis. Tskhinvali was in smoking ruins and thousands of people were fleeing -- before any Russian troops arrived. Yet Russia was already being accused of aggression; news reports were often an embarrassing recitation of the Georgian leader’s deceptive statements. ...
Mr. Saakashvili had been lavished with praise for being a staunch American ally and a real democrat — and for helping out in Iraq. Now America’s friend has wrought disorder, and all of us -- the Europeans and, most important, the region’s innocent civilians -- must pick up the pieces.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Der Spiegel, 8-18-08

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

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Sunday, August 17, 2008

Sustainability Update: Dead Zones & the Rise of Slime Threaten This Ocean Planet


Photo: NASA

Dead Zones & the Rise of Slime Threaten This Ocean Planet

Earth is an ocean planet. Consider these two important stories and the dire consequences they portend. Humankind must change the way it lives, or it will not live much longer in any way worth living. -- Richard Power

Human activities are cumulatively driving the health of the world's oceans down a rapid spiral, and only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing.
Such is the prognosis of Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in a bold new assessment of the oceans and their ecological health.
Publishing his study in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Jackson believes that human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par with vast ecological upheavals of the past.
He cites the synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, ocean warming, increased acidification and massive nutrient runoff as culprits in a grand transformation of once complex ocean ecosystems.
Terra Daily, 8-18-08

Man-made pollution is spreading a growing number of suffocating dead zones across the world's seas with disastrous consequences for marine life, scientists have warned.
The experts say the hundreds of regions of critically low oxygen now affect a combined area the size of New Zealand, and that they pose as great a threat to life in the world's oceans as overfishing and habitat loss.
The number of such seabed zones – caused when massive algal blooms feeding off pollutants such as fertiliser die and decay – has boomed in the last decade. There were some 405 recorded in coastal waters worldwide in 2007, up from 305 in 1995 and 162 in the 1980s.
Robert Diaz, an oceans expert at the US Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, at Gloucester Point, said: "Dead zones were once rare. Now they're commonplace. There are more of them in more places."
Guardian, 8-15-08

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

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Michael Moore: How the Democrats can Blow It in Six Easy Steps

The Candidate, A Film by Robert Redford (1972)


Michael Moore: How the Democrats can Blow It in Six Easy Steps

Here is an abbreviated version of Michael Moore's astute analysis, along with a link to the full text. It may be my last comment on this election, particularly if, as David Sirota writes, Obama says "Bayh Bye" to victory. -- Richard Power

A blueprint for losing the most winnable presidential election in American history ...
1. Keep saying nice things about McCain.
2. Pick a running mate who is a conservative white guy or a general or a Republican.
3. Keep writing speeches for Obama that make him sound like a hawk.
4. Forget that this was a historic year for women.
5. Show up to a gunfight with a peashooter.
6. Denounce me!
I remember poor John Kerry not even being able to admit, when asked by Larry King, if he had seen Fahrenheit 9/11. "No," he said, "I haven't. . . . I don't plan to, right now." But he had indeed seen it. I sat there watching him say this, and I just felt sorry for him and for the election he was about to lose.
We can't take four more years of this madness, Barack. We need you to be a candidate who will fight back every time they attack you. Actually, don't even wait till you have to fight back. Fight first! Show some vision and courage and smoke them out. Keep asking why these lobbyists are McCain's best friends. Let's finally have a Democrat who's got the balls to fire first.
Michael Moore, Rolling Stone, 8-13-08

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 an archive of Words of Power posts on Campaign '08, click here.

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Saturday, August 16, 2008

CEOs 10-1 for McCain; US Troops 6-1 for Obama -- What Does This Tell You?


Pat Tillman

CEOs 10-1 for McCain; US Troops 6-1 for Obama -- What Does This Tell You?

By Richard Power


If you comb the blogosphere or tune into progressive talk radio, than you may well have come across both of these stories; but when you put them together they become a third story, one bigger and more compelling than either one presented in isolation:

CEOs are donating ten times as much for McCain than Obama.

US troops stationed overseas are donating six times as much for Obama than McCain.

The arithmetic is simple. The reality it reveals is stark.

Business leaders are not served well by those who only tell them what they want to hear. CNBC and the Wall Street Journal have failed them.

US military personnel, on the other hand, have no choice but to see what is unfolding before their eyes and reverberating in their ears. They know the "success of the surge" is partly an illusion and partly an irrelevancy.

Tell your friends and colleagues.

Because the US mainstream news media certainly will not provide this context, or ask the hard questions that arise from it.

Here is the documentation:

The Hill reports that the CEOs of the 100 biggest Fortune 500 corporations have given approximately 10 times as much to John McCain as they have to Barack Obama. McCain has received $208,200 from these chief executive officers; meanwhile, Obama has taken in $20,400 from the same group of people ... Think Progress, 8-16-08

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul. Open Secrets, 8-14-08

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 an archive of Words of Power posts on Campaign '08, click here.

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

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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Darfur Crisis Update: Georgia, Off-Shore Drilling & the Darfur Olympics -- Glimpses into the Psyche of a Nation Lost in Its Own Mind

Image: Tara, the Green Goddess of Mercy, and Her Twenty-One Emanations


Rape is increasingly being used as a tool of war in ethnic conflicts in Darfur and Myanmar, wrecking families and communities, two women Nobel peace laureates [Jody Williams and Wangari Maathai] warned Tuesday. ... The duo, accompanied by actress-activist Mia Farrow and other rights campaigners, visited clinics and refugee camps to hear first-hand the plight of women affected by the violence in the two areas. ...
"It is very, very painful and for the women, it is pain you live with all your life ..." Maathai said.
Agence France Press, 8-12-08

Darfur Crisis Update: Georgia, Off-Shore Drilling & the Darfur Olympics -- Glimpses into the Psyche of a Nation Lost in Its Own Mind

By Richard Power


We live in a world in which women and children have become worse than the victims of war, they have been the primary targets. And yet, somehow, normal broadcasting is not being interrupted or even adjusted.

Incredibly, you are being led to believe that there are more important stories.

There aren't.

But nothing should surprise us.

We live in a nation that has lost touch with reality.

We have been told by the world's leading scientists, economists, and military and intelligence analysts that runaway climate change is the greatest threat we face and that radically and urgently reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is a do or die imperative.

And yet, what has come to dominate the national debate in the run-up to the presidential election?

Off-shore drilling.

And although that should be sufficient evidence of a nation which has lost its way, consider also the air play on the carnage in Georgia. Pundits, network anchors, politicians, one after another, shamelessly denouncing Russia's unilateral aggression -- as if the invasion and occupation of Iraq was somehow of a different moral order.

Well, the reality is that the situation in Georgia is very complex, and if you scratch below the surface you will find the fingerprints of the mischief-maker in chief and his minions.

We are rapidly hurtling toward another Cuban Missile Crisis; unfortunately, the likelihood that someone of JKF's caliber will be in the Oval Office when it comes is increasingly iffy.

Keep two simple truths in mind, and you will see your way clearly: 1) whatever position the "Neo-Cons" stake out is as far from the reality of the situation as the twisting of facts will allow; and 2) if you turn their position inside out you will find the right course of action.

No, nothing should surprise us.

Certainly not the sad fact that the US mainstream news media and the US political establishment are ignoring Mia Farrow's extraordinary "Darfur Olympics."

What would it have cost the networks to run these powerful digital videos delivered direct from the threshing floor of 21st Century genocide?

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

They would not need to interrupt their coverage. It could run it as a sub-text, they could even hide as they do behind positing talking heads with opposite points of view, as if there was moral equivalency.

But they have all done either nothing or next to nothing.

As I said, this should not surprise us.

For those of you who are not comfortable being swept away in the hype over just how many gold medals Phelps will win, here are two of Mia's "Darfur Olympics" episodes, with a link to the full series.

Darfur Olympics: Women of Darfur

Day 7: The Women of Darfur


Darfur Olympics: Childhood in Darfur

Day 6: Darfur's Children


For more information on the Darfur Olympics, click here.

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

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

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

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

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

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Monday, August 11, 2008

Darfur Crisis Update: "We are saying to the Chinese and the Russians: Please stop your guns."

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

Darfur Crisis Update: "We are saying to the Chinese and the Russians: Please stop your guns."

Here is a statement that Bob Costas won't be reading you from the Olympic Village in Beijing; instead, Mia Farrow has brought it forth from the desolation of Darfur -- Richard Power

The Oumda Al-Fathi and the other Oumdas (Leaders) of the refugees in the camp presented me with a document. It is in Arabic but this is the translation:

1. We agree with the decision of the International Criminal Court.

2. The refugees have no link to the International community. But they must listen to our voices, not the voice of Omar Al-Bashir.

3. Arrest all the guilty people immediately.
a We are connected to the IDP community in Darfur. They do not have the freedom to speak.
b We do not like African forces. We do not like the AU.

4. Disarm the Janjaweed and the military.

5. Those who occupied our land and homes must leave. Our homes must be returned to us, and our belongings.

6. We refuse to accept Government of Sudan in any humanitarian agency.

7. Stop infiltration of camps. People are entering, representing themselves as Chadians but they are Sudanese spies.

8. We need secondary schools. Our children are only given schooling up to 8th grade. If they are uneducated this means there will be more war in the future. (Education is the way for people to find things in common other than their ethnicity.)

9. We are requesting (demanding) other return of our belongings which have been taken from us. Compensation

10. They must arrest Omar Al-Bashir as quickly as possible or he will kill more. Just now we have heard many people are being killed.

Those who refused to celebrate Omar Al-Bashir during his visit to Darfur, he has killed them.

We are saying to the Chinese and the Russians: Please stop your guns.

We are very poor Darfuri people. We are trying to survive. This is our right. Our right must be before other things.

To the African people. Where have they gone? Where were they when we were being killed, when we have been violated? They have to see things with our eyes. Today it is the Darfurian people but tomorrow it could be them.
Oumda Al-Fathi and Other Oumdas (Leaders) via Mia Farrow, 8-10-08

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

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

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

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

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

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Saturday, August 09, 2008

Will the US Electorate Lay Down in the Poppy Field Sowed by Right-Wing Propagandists & Tilled by the Corporatist Media?

Jefferson Memorial at Sunset


Will the US Electorate Lay Down in the Poppy Field Sowed by Right-Wing Propagandists & Tilled by the Corporatist Media?

By Richard Power


So will the US electorate lay down in the poppy field sowed by right-wing propagandists and tilled so dutifully by the corporatist media?

Well, what do you think? How does it feel? What does recent history tell you? What do our present circumstances foretell?

In Berlin, Barack Obama single-heartedly re-connected the US psyche with the psyche of the planet as a whole, and our European allies in particular. In Berlin, Barack Obama single-heartedly re-aligned US aspirations with those of the civilized world.

But within 72 hours, Steve Schmidt, the Rove acolyte in control of McCain's message, had succeeded in not just distracting the public with Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears but insinuating them into the campaign itself.

It is time to get out your list, and start reading it aloud in the town square.

Yes, you have a list.

All of us in the progressive blogosphere and on progressive talk radio have our own version of the list.

Here is a partial iteration of mine --

There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the slaughter of the innocents on 9/11 is likely the direct result of criminal negligence in the White House.

There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the invasion of Iraq, and all of the carnage and chaos that followed -- including thousands of US military deaths, and perhaps one million Iraqi deaths, not to mention the trillion dollar cost of this ongoing debacle -- was unnecessary and predicated on lies.

There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets where Bush and McCain were as New Orleans was destroyed in the deluge.

There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets what happened to the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Accords, FOIA, FISA, and the meaning and power of Congressional subpoenas.

There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets that the Bush-Cheney regime was illegitimate from its inception, and that unprecedented (and unconstitutional) executive power was offered up to men who were sworn into office under false pretenses. (Florida was stolen in 2000, and Ohio was stolen in 2004.)

There will not be much of a future for US democratic institutions if the electorate forgets the firing of the DoJ attorneys, the persecution and imprisonment of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, or the betrayal of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

There is so much to remember, but it all boils down to one word -- catastrophe.

And McCain has embraced this catastrophe every step of the way.

If the electorate embraces him, it embraces even greater catastrophe.

And it looks as if the electorate is indeed capable of it.

Here is some important accompanying documentation:

Seven August 6ths ago, Mr. Bush was on his month-long at Crawford, Texas when he was given a report that which he either did not read, did not understand or did not believe.
It‘s first paragraph mentioned, “His followers would the example of the World Trade Center bomber, about bring the fighting to America.” Its second paragraph referred to the individual profiled in the report as one, quote, “to retaliate in Washington.” Its 10th paragraph detailed sensational but uncorroborated threat reporting, including that the individual wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft.
Its 11th notes “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” And its 12th and final paragraph mentions, “A call to our embassy in the UAE in May, saying that a group of bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.”
The president‘s daily briefing seven years ago today, August 6th, 2001, entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.” mentions bringing the fight into America, retaliating in Washington, wanting to hijack a U.S. aircraft, preparations for hijackings, surveillance done in New York, groups of supporters in the U.S. planning attacks”—all the information you could have wanted. All of it in George Bush‘s hands, seven years ago, today, with 36 days left to interrupt or alter 9/11.
So, when you rhetorically ask, as Mr. Posner did in his exceptional book, “Why America Slept,” the answer is actually a correction. America did not sleep, George Bush slept.
Keith Olbermann, MSNBC Countdown, 8-6-08

Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker — revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.
In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources.
During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected ...
Think Progress, 7-31-08

A forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery and probably came from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a new transcript of a conversation with the Central Intelligence Agency's former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer.
The transcript was posted Friday by author Ron Suskind of an interview conducted in June. It comes on the heels of denials by both the White House and Richer of a claim Suskind made in his new book, The Way of The World. ...
Raw Story, 8-8-08

In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.
After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.
"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.
NY Daily News, 8-2-08

In his book, "Lawless World," author Philippe Sands writes that the purpose of the meeting was focused on the need to "identify evidence that Saddam had committed a material breach of his obligations under the existing UN Resolution 1441."
"I think no one would be surprised at the idea that the use of spy-planes to review what is going on would be considered. What is surprising is the idea that they would be used painted in the colours of the United Nations in order to provoke an attack which could then be used to justify material breach. Now that plainly looks as if it is deception, and it raises some fundamental questions of legality, both in terms of domestic law and international law."
Christian Science Monitor, 2-3-06

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 an archive of Words of Power posts on Campaign '08, click here.

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.

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Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Monbiot: "Everything now hinges on stopping coal. ... The industrial revolution has gone into reverse."

Celtic Triple Spiral/Triple Goddess Symbol


Climate Crisis Update: "Everything now hinges on stopping coal. ... The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity. The industrial revolution has gone into reverse."

Here is the lead from a very important piece by George Monbiot, please read, click through to the full text, and then share his message with your friends and colleagues -- Richard Power

As soon as I have finished this column I will jump on the train to Kent. Last year Al Gore remarked: “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.” Like hundreds of honorary young people, I am casting my Zimmer frame aside to answer the call.
Everything now hinges on stopping coal. Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Unless we either leave it - or the carbon dioxide it produces - in the ground, human development will start spiralling backwards. The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity. The industrial revolution has gone into reverse.
It is not because of polar bears that I will be joining the climate camp outside the coal plant at Kingsnorth. It is not because of butterflies or frogs or penguins or rainforests, much as I love them all. It is because everything I have fought for and that all campaigners for social justice have ever fought for - food, clean water, shelter, security - is jeopardised by climate change. Those who claim to identify a conflict between environmentalism and humanitarianism have either failed to read the science or have refused to understand it.
George Monbiot, The Stakes Could Not Be Higher. Everything Hinges on Stopping Coal, Guardian, 8-5-08

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.

To participate in the 350 campaign, 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 million 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 dialogue with friends, family and colleagues.

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Saturday, August 02, 2008

Climate Crisis & Sustainability: Say No to Milk & Steak and Pay NOT to Cut Down the Rainforests

Image: Frida Kahlo, Love Embrace of the Universe


Climate Crisis & Sustainability: Say No to Milk & Steak and Pay NOT to Cut Down the Rainforests of the Amazon and the Congo

By Richard Power


In times of crisis, imperatives are also opportunities.

This decade and the next few represent an era of unprecedented crisis.

Consequently, we are being confronted with profound imperatives that offer extraordinary opportunities.

If we turn away from the industrial agriculture model relied on to mass produce milk and steak, we not only deal a blow to from 12 to 14 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions, we also contribute significantly to our own physical and psychological health, as well as to alleviating the suffering of four-legged creatures.

A simple glass of milk on the breakfast table can carry high environmental costs. Because of this, some farmers and scientists are looking for ways to reduce the impacts of agriculture and livestock, which are responsible for 12 to 14 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases. ...
The intestinal fermentation in ruminant livestock, like cattle, releases into the atmosphere methane and nitrous oxide, two potent greenhouse gases. Further emissions come from animal manure and urine, the burning of plant biomass to clear pastures, rice production and biological and chemical processes occurring in soil.
The two gases contribute 70 percent of the emissions coming from the agricultural sector. Methane and nitrous oxide, respectively, have 21 and 300 times more "greenhouse effect" than carbon dioxide, the principal gas associated with climate change, released primarily by vehicles, industry and electricity production. ...
Inter Press Service, 8-2-08

Likewise, if we turn away from cutting down the rainforests, we not only deal a blow to 20 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions, we also contribute significantly to the survival of indigenous peoples, as well as to cultivating and perpetuating the bio-diversity so vital to the physical and psychological health of the planet as a whole.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched an international fund on Friday to finance conservation and sustainable development in the Amazon as deforestation rates rise. ...
The government hopes to raise $1 billion within one year and as much as $21 billion by 2021, according to Brazil's National Development Bank (BNDES), which will manage the fund.
It is open to companies, countries and nongovernmental organizations.
In September, Norway will make the first donation -- $100 million -- said Eduardo Bandeira de Mello, head of Environment and Social Responsibilities at BNDES.
Brazil has for some time urged industrialized nations to help pay for the conservation of the Amazon.
Reuters, 8-1-08

Turning to a 21st Century sustainable agriculture model, and turning away from cutting down the forests of the world, also offer dynamic business opportunities for those willing to look ahead instead of behind.

The Congo basin contains the world’s second largest tropical forest and is of incalculable importance not only in terms of biodiversity and resources for local people but also as a giant carbon store that is essential for climate protection. Yet over 25 percent of this precious ecosystem is controlled by the logging industry with the majority in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo – two countries suffering from endemic corruption. Greenpeace, 7-30-08

To download the Greenpeace report, "Conning the Congo," 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.

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

To participate in the 350 campaign, 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 million 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 dialogue with friends, family and colleagues.

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