Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Sustainability Crisis Update: The Simple Truth is that Water is Life, if the Water Runs Out, Life Ends -- "What does it take frighten people?

Blue Covenant: the Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water (Click here to buy it from Buzzflash)

Sustainability Crisis Update: The Simple Truth is that Water is Life, if the Water Runs Out, Life Ends -- "What does it take frighten people?"

From Erin Anderssen writing in the Globe and Mall, news of important recognition for Maude Barlow, a visionary advocate on this life or death sustainability issue and author of Blue Covenant: the Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water:

She rattles off a grim list of worries, barely pausing for breath: water supplies in Africa guarded by dogs and chain-link fences while families go thirsty, the vital Murray-Darling Basin in southeast Australia crumbling into desert, the mighty Colorado River in the United States drying up to a trickle.
"The water crisis is deepening everywhere," sighs the 61-year-old activist and head of the Council of Canadians, who has tasted tear gas and faced down stun guns in defence of universal access to clean water. What scares her most is that the problem will not get fixed for her grandchildren.
This week, Ms. Barlow was named senior adviser to the United Nations on water issues - a new position created by General Assembly president Miguel d'Escoto, who raised the subject of water as a human right in his first UN speech in September. Ms. Barlow, who has been meeting with Mr. d'Escoto unofficially since August, agreed to take the position without pay.
"With my heart and soul, I believe it is the single most important environmental and human-rights threat of our time, and it's the one hitting now," she says on the telephone from Winnipeg, where she was attending a conference. "There is nothing 'in the future' about this [issue]." Erin Anderssen, Globe and Mail, 10-25-08

In deep water
1.1 billion people have no access to clean drinking water.
The World Health Organization has found that contaminated water contributes to 80 per cent of all sickness and disease worldwide. Half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by people with an easily preventable waterborne disease.
In China, 80 per cent of major rivers are so polluted that they no longer support aquatic life.
By 2050, based on a population growth of three billion people, humans will need an 80-per-cent increase in water supplies to feed themselves.
In 2006, 200 billion litres of bottled water were consumed globally - a 200-per-cent increase since the 1970s.
For the price of one bottle of Evian, the average North American could buy roughly 4,000 litres of tap water.
Less than 5 per cent of plastic bottles around the world are recycled.
Source: Blue Covenant: the Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, by Maude Barlow


SOME RELATED POSTS:

World Water Day 2008: 1 Hamburger Requires 2,400 Liters of Water to Produce; Meanwhile, Children Walk 6 Meters Every Day for 6 Liters of Water

Sustainability Update: Rainwater Saves Lives; Maybe Even Your Own Some Day

Sustainability Update 11-17-07: The Distance from Southern California to the Azawak Valley? Near & Getting Nearer with Every Drop of Water.

Sustainability Update 8-14-07: Water, Water

Sustainability Update 7-29-07: Geopolitics & Sustainability have Taken Over Your Future -- Whether You Choose to Acknowledge It or Not

GS(3) Thunderbolt 7-19-07: In Darfur and Japan -- The Earth is Singing A Promise & A Warning, But Who is Listening?

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

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

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

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

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

Hard Rain Journal 8-18-06: Water, Water Nowhere, & Only A Few Drops to Sell --- An Update on the Water Aspect of the Global Sustainability Crisis

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

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Hard Rain Late Night: Buddha Bar VII, Kirpi -- The Song

Hard Rain Late Night: Buddha Bar VII, Kirpi -- The Song



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

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Sunday, October 26, 2008

Darfur Crisis Update: Beyond What You Can Comprehend?

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

Darfur Crisis Update: Beyond What You Can Comprehend?

By Richard Power


Like many others, I have been trying to raise consciousness about Darfur for several years now.

Sometimes I feel as if I have exhausted the language of outrage, the language of despair, and even the language of love. At such moments, it feels as if there are no more words left to articulate what we are seeing (or more accurately, turning our eyes away from). But this morning, I found a new voice, a new language, the language of awe.

Because what I am reading now in the reports from Darfur is beyond comprehension.

What do I mean by "beyond comprehension"?

No, the people of Darfur are not being herded into boxcars to be shipped to the ovens. No, their flesh has not been stretched over lampshades for sale in the open markets in Karthoum. Apparently, as long as genocide does not look like what common knowledge and popular culture can recognize as genocide from movies and news reels than it can be allowed to continue.

So, actually, lampshades and boxcars would not be beyond comprehension. The collective psyche of the West would say, "Oh yes, Anne Frank and Schindler's List, let's go, we must do something."

But what is happening is not so easily identifiable, and so it is not being comprehended.

And yes, what is further awe-inspiring is that I am hearing these words from my mouth, and from my keyboard, rather than from Katie Couric or Anderson Cooper or any of the other frightened people that feign to provide you with important news of world events on a daily basis. It is damning evidence of their failure to inform you.

And yes, what is happening in Darfur is painfully relevant to your life and your prospects now and in the forseeable future. Because Darfur is a quiver of red-dipped arrows of warnings. It is a warning about sustainability crisis, in particular the issue of fresh water. It is a warning about climate change and its impact on human life. And it is a warning about the danger of allowing the great nations to play by empire rules, e.g., merciless pursuit of natural resources, shameless traffic in weapons, etc., in a rapidly changing world desperate for an enlightened, post-empire consciousness.

Here are the two recent stories from Darfur, which have launched me into the language of awe --

If you follow Words of Power, you know that the UN Millennium Develop Goals (MDG) is one of the global stories keep track of. (See UN Millennium Goals Update -- Archive). The year 2015, the date set for achieving the MDG, is one of those deadlines that the human race must not fail in meeting. The struggle to achieve the MDG was already in trouble before the world financial crisis, now, as the financial crisis deepens, it is likely that this struggle will be gravely compromised.

But that is not the worst of it, the worst of it is the kiss of the hypocrites.

Eric Reeves, one of the indefatigable and unimpeachable truth-tellers on Darfur, explains:

Incredibly, the regime committing genocide in Darfur is now meant to be in charge of a critical U.N. poverty- and disease-eradication program. ...
But the largest and most influential group of developing nations has added an ill-considered and wholly gratuitous burden to the challenges of the MDG. They have selected the Sudan regime—which continues to perpetrate genocide in Darfur in front of the eyes of the world—to be chair in the coming year. ...
Is this a regime capable in any way of speaking credibly to the developed nations of the West about achieving Millennium Development Goals? Who could possibly think that these génocidaires have the moral standing to support these crucial global ambitions and needs, given their own domestic ambitions? These are questions to be asked as well about Khartoum’s destructive attitude to the African Union, whose military forces are the ones that have been targeted in Darfur. ... Khartoum has defied both the A.U. and the U.N.
Eric Reeves, New Republic, 10-12-08

If you follow Words of Power, you also know that the plight of "Child Soldiers" is another issue of great importance to me personally (For example, Human Rights Update: "For every two children released, five are abducted and forced to be child soldiers, said Amnesty International.")

Well, in a mind-blowing confluence of horrors, 30,000 children abducted by the "Lord's Army" in Uganda have been sold as child solders, porters, and sex slaves in the Sudan.

Mia Farrow, a relentless, passionate advocate on Darfur (and related human rights crises) explains:

Some 30,000 children, who were forcibly conscripted into the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda, were sold in the troubled Darfur region in Sudan, Parliament heard yesterday.
"Some of these children are in Darfur being used as child soldiers, porters and others sold as sex slaves to the Sudanese," Dr Stephen Kagoda, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Internal Affairs told the Parliamentary Defence Committee. "In fact, that's why (LRA leader Joseph] Kony fears to come out of the bush because we shall ask him to show us our children." ...
Meanwhile, the committee heard that some Ugandan children were being trafficked out of the country in exchange for their kidneys and other organs for economic gains. "Human trafficking is real and is serious in Uganda today. Our children are being trafficked for organ transfers by a racket of people pretending to be generous," Dr Kagoda said.
Mia Farrow, 10-22-08

The numerous hell-realms that have been allowed to fester and grow in Africa have begun to bleed into each other. If you think that what is happening in Africa now will not visit the other continents and the developed world, well, you are living in a dream that will be interrupted abruptly sooner or later.

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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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Climate Crisis: "The global financial crisis has pushed climate change off the front pages despite new evidence ..." "Time is running out."

Frida Kahlo's Roots


The Five Poisons (Sanskrit: pañca-kleśa; Tibetan: Japanese: go-shō), also known as the Five Disturbing Emotions are:
1. Passion ( desire, greed, lust, etc.)
2. Aggression (anger, hatred, resentment etc.)
3. Ignorance (bewilderment, confusion, apathy etc.)
4. Pride (wounded pride, low-self esteem etc.)
5. Jealousy ( envy, paranoia etc.)
All Buddhist schools teach that through Tranquility (Samatha) meditation the kilesas are pacified, though not eradicated, and through Insight (Vipassana) the true nature of the kilesas and the mind itself is understood. When the empty nature of the Self and the Mind is fully understood, there is no longer a root for the disturbing emotions to be attached to, and the disturbing emotions lose their power to distract the mind.
Kleśā, Wikipedia

The Climate Crisis: "The global financial crisis has pushed climate change off the front pages despite new evidence ..." "Time is running out."

The hour glass has been turned over. The sands are almost all at the bottom. When they have finished falling, regrets will not earn us anything. The human community must summon the strength of will to deal with both the Climate Crisis and the Global Financial Crisis, and even more than that, it must summon the strength of will to understand how and why these two beasts are connected at the hip. Both are really sustainability issues. But there is something even more dangerous than drilling for more oil, building more coal-burning plants and felling more forests, and that is the deepening of the five poisons within us. They are, after all, the ingredients of the toxic soup from which these two beasts emerged. -- Richard Power

Here are excerpts from two important stories:

The global financial crisis has pushed climate change off the front pages despite new evidence that it is happening faster and with stronger impacts than previous projections, a new report warns.
Meanwhile, some political leaders in Europe, Canada and elsewhere are saying that now is not the time to make sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions because the global economy is heading into a recession.
"It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it's vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious," said Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, professor of Climatology and Environmental Sciences at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
The new data is so compelling that van Ypersele, the newly elected vice chair of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has urged the European Union to aim for a lower temperature target than the 2 degrees C they adopted in 1996.
That will require emission reductions beyond the 20 percent lower than the 1990 baseline by the year 2020 that the EU has as a target but is struggling to meet.
Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service, 10-22-08

Time is running out. If the European Union is unable to resolve internal differences over its ambitious emissions reduction plan, then global climate talks could suffer, say experts. The world needs European leadership. ...
That vision, though, may now be in danger. With just six weeks to go before representatives from around the globe gather in Poznan, Poland to work towards a successor to the Kyoto Protocol -- a process known as the Copenhagen process after the location chosen for the 2009 climate summit -- the European Union is having trouble passing a final version of its emissions reduction package. A number of EU members are demanding changes, exceptions or opt outs, meaning the bloc's role as a global climate protection leader could be compromised.
"If the European Union does not get its act together on a clear climate agreement and it does not continue pressing ahead globally, that would relax a lot of pressure on the US," Christian Egenhofer, a climate change expert who is a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "And that could very well lead to Copenhagen being a non-event."
Charles Hawley, Der Spiegel, 10-22-08

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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Hard Rain Late Night: Annie Lennox -- Into the West (Academy Awards)

Hard Rain Late Night: Annie Lennox -- Into the West (Academy Awards)



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

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Monday, October 20, 2008

Do Not Miss the Deeper Significance in the Endorsements of Powell & Buckley

Image: Salvador Dali, Premonition of Civil War


Do Not Miss the Deeper Significance in the Endorsements of Powell & Buckley

By Richard Power


The endorsements of Colin Powell and Christopher Buckley are of profound importance. Although, I suggest, perhaps not for the reasons you might think.

There are many on the left and the right who will see these endorsements as hypocritical or self-serving.

But for me, they are of profound importance -- because they bring with them three great revelations --

First, if you ever doubted those of us who have warned you since 2000 that something was/is terribly wrong, I suggest that these endorsements offer the most damning proof of all. Both of these men have crossed a Rubicon of their own. They are not switching sides. As public figures, they are standing alone in the white heat. Yes, for Powell it was long overdue, and for Buckley, who was forced off the magazine his father founded, it is perhaps surprising that the moment ever came, but it did. It was the second time around for Powell, and this time he seized it. Neither of these men can go back -- at least not to the Republican Party as it is. They can only go back, like relief workers, after the great implosion, to clear away the rubble and lead the survivors to the hastily assembled tents. Why did they speak out? Why did they finally cross the Rubicon? Because they did not want to become our equivalent of the "good Germans" whose silence enabled the physical and mental brutality of the Nazi party to get out of control. Of course, they will not acknowledge this so openly, and if confronted with it they would likely reject the analogy out of hand, but you can see it in their eyes, you can hear it in their voice -- right, left, center -- this is the moment to make a stand. They choose not to stand with those yelling "Kill him!" and waving toy monkeys at the cameras. They choose not to stand with the Michelle Bachmans and yes, sadly, the John McCains, who are stirring up this brutishness.

Second, what I hear in both men's voices is a poignant and luminous loyalty. You might find that odd. After all, the knock on Powell is that it was his loyalty to Bush that made him stay on and not resign over the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But as I viewed Powell's Meet the Press appearance, and even more revealing, his curbside interview afterward, I realized that what motivated Powell then and now was not political loyalty or familial loyalty, it was loyalty to the military. His loyalty was to the military. That is why he stayed on to be devoured by the foolish desert adventure he could not prevent. He could not walk away because the military (which also fiercely opposed that foolish desert adventure) could not walk away. He did not stay out of loyalty to the political dynasty which he was attached to; he stayed out of loyalty to the military.
And Buckley? Viewing his appearance with CNN's vapid Howard Kurtz, I realized that Buckley took this stand out of loyalty as well -- loyalty to his own intelligence and intellectual integrity, and yes, loyalty to the intelligence and intellectual integrity of his father, as well as to the Conservative culture and philosophy largely shaped by his father; a culture and philosophy that has become as distant from the abomination that now dominates the right-wing as it was from the China of Mao or Russia of Stalin.

Third, viewing the principled stands of these two men, with whom I disagree on many issues, reflected something back to me that I am surprised to see, a loyalty to something deeper, something that does not belong to either side, but to all of us, and is at the center of what we are. I commend the political acumen of Obama. With it, he has created a space for this opening to occur. Perhaps, on the other side of this national political exorcism, we can establish once again a spectrum of left, right and center, within which each is grounded in integrity and common purpose. Perhaps there still is something that unites us, and calls us to something higher, at least at the moments of greatest peril -- "E Pluribus Unum." Perhaps.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

It is what the Founders did.

Here are the You Tube posts of the two interviews mentioned:





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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Sunday, October 19, 2008

If We Fail to Establish Accountability & Sustainability, the Future is Grim not just Economically & Environmentally, But Spiritually & Psychologically

Image: Yves Tanguy, The Dark Garden, Le Jardin sombre. 1928.


On October 16 1998, a magistrate signed a warrant for the arrest of Senator Augusto Pinochet and changed the course of history. The former Chilean head of state was arrested a few hours later, at the request of a Spanish prosecutor who charged him with a raft of international crimes, some dating back to the early 1970s. Philippe Sands, Guardian/UK, 10-16-08

By all accounts, the steady growth in the world economy - much of it driven by phenomenal economic expansion in China, India, and other nations - was producing a corresponding increase in demand for energy of all forms, especially greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels. ... The good news is that economic hard times will cause people to drive less, fly less, and otherwise consume less energy, thus lowering expectations for greenhouse-gas emissions. ... But there is a downside to all this as well. Most serious is the risk that venture capitalists will refrain from pouring big bucks into innovative energy projects. ... Governments could also have a hard time coming up with the funds to finance alternative energy projects. ... Michael Klare, Foreign Policy in Focus, 10-17-08

If We Fail to Establish Accountability & Sustainability, the Future is Grim not just Economically & Environmentally, But Spiritually & Psychologically

By Richard Power


One of the life or death deadlines is drawing near.

This is a time of great danger and great promise.

A crowd of 100,000 showed up at the Archway in St Louis, on the banks of the Mississippi, for Obama. (Click here to view some incredible photos.) Later, the same day a crowd of 75,000 showed up for him in Kansas City.

Will the USA choose reason or madness?

And if it chooses reason will it allow its choice to be stolen away as it was in 2000 and 2004?

And if it does not allow its choice to be stolen from it again, will we survive the reich-wing blowback that they are stirring up on the stump?

Meanwhile, whatever happens, there are more life or death deadlines just past this one.

For example, the planet as a whole must act -- significantly, unequivocally -- on the climate crisis in 2009.

The realistic odds of that are slim to none, and yet, there is no alternative.

And then there is another deadline, a spiritual test for the people of the USA, will we allow those who started a war on false pretenses and perpetrated torture in our name simply walk away and live out there lives without accountability in courts of law?

Politics is politics.

Even if Obama-Biden is sworn in, it is only collective that will force accountability for those who have so wronged the US Constitution, dishonored the US military and committed war crimes in our name.

Even if Obama-Biden is sworn on, it is only collective that will force a national drive to sustainability on the accelerated timeline that our dire circumstances demand.

It will, indeed, be a spiritual test, i.e., a test of conscience, and a psychological test, i.e., a test of clarity of mind.

"We, the people ..." had better surprise ourselves.

If we fail to establish accountability and sustainability, the future will be grim not just economically and environmentally, but also spiritually and psychologically.

Here are excerpts from two important pieces relevant to these issues, one by Philippe Sands on torture, one by Michael Klare on what the global economic crisis impacts the global climate crisis.

Writing in the Guardian, Philippe Sands explains the Pinochet Principle and its role in our near future --

On October 16 1998, a magistrate signed a warrant for the arrest of Senator Augusto Pinochet and changed the course of history. The former Chilean head of state was arrested a few hours later, at the request of a Spanish prosecutor who charged him with a raft of international crimes, some dating back to the early 1970s. Over the next 18 months, one dramatic development followed another. The House of Lords rendered three landmark judgments in the space of five months; home secretary Jack Straw defied expectations by giving a green light to the continuation of proceedings that could lead to Pinochet's removal to Madrid; Pinochet made a dramatic appearance in the dock at Belmarsh magistrate's court; and eventually Straw decided that Pinochet was too unhealthy to stand trial and he was returned to Chile in April 2000. For the rest of his life he was dogged by legal proceedings. ...
The legacy of the arrest warrant signed in Hampstead 10 years today, is the Pinochet principle, that no one is above the law. It may one day come to haunt the very people who sought to set it aside. If, that is, they ever dare to set foot outside the United States.
Philippe Sands, 10 Years of the Pinochet Principle, Guardian/UK via Common Dreams, 10-16-08

Writing in Foreign Policy in Focus, Michael T. Klare explores on the possible impact of the deepening global economic crisis on the already dire climate crisis:

Will the crisis be good or bad for the environment, especially with respect to global warming? ...
By all accounts, the steady growth in the world economy - much of it driven by phenomenal economic expansion in China, India, and other nations - was producing a corresponding increase in demand for energy of all forms, especially greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels. ...
The good news is that economic hard times will cause people to drive less, fly less, and otherwise consume less energy, thus lowering expectations for greenhouse-gas emissions. ...
But there is a downside to all this as well. Most serious is the risk that venture capitalists will refrain from pouring big bucks into innovative energy projects. ...
Governments could also have a hard time coming up with the funds to finance alternative energy projects. ...
Indeed, leaders of some European Union countries are calling for a slowdown in efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases due to the burgeoning economic crisis ...
At some point, the price of gasoline will fall so low that many drivers will once again engage in the wasteful driving habits they may have given up when the price of gas soared over $3 per gallon. ...
It's unclear at this point whether the crisis will do more good or more harm for the environment. ... Many people are waiting and watching what happens in the global financial markets. Likewise, the verdict is still out on the ultimate impact of the crisis on the environment.
Michael Klare, Foreign Policy in Focus via Common Dreams, 10-17-08

See Also

35 Years After the Coup, Salvador Allende, Who Died A Martyr for Democracy, Elected "Greatest Chilean in History" -- Tragically, USA Chose Reagan

Lurching Toward Economic Debacle in the North, Striding Toward Green Democracy in the South

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

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

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

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Hard Rain Late Night: John Lennon -- Working Class Hero

Hard Rain Late Night: John Lennon -- Working Class Hero



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

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Saturday, October 18, 2008

Election Security Update: How Bitter can the Irony Get? Will the Democratic Party Finally Fight the Criminality of Right-Wing Vote Suppression?

Image: Themis, Goddess of Justice


Election Security Update: How Bitter can the Irony Get? Will the Democratic Party Finally Fight the Criminality of Right-Wing Vote Suppression?

By Richard Power


How bitter can the irony get?

To have ACORN, a grassroots community organization which struggles for the basic rights of the poorest among us become the object of a right-wing smear campaign, and have that filthy water carried by the mainstream news media in a country that has seen the last two presidential elections stolen by those who are now crying foul.

That would be bitter enough, but it is even worse.

Because the Democratic Party, the traditional champion of the downtrodden turned the other cheek when Florida was stolen in 2000, and then, after promising it would fight if it happened in 2004, proceeded to turn the other cheek again when Ohio was stolen.

And now, in 2008, when the popular voter uprising is so overwhelming that it will be difficult for the right-wing to steal the election (although, of course, it is still possible that they have disenfranchised a sufficient number of voters), it is the Democratic Party that will be accused of stealing it. And the Party leadership has only itself to blame. Indeed, through participating in the HAVA farce they helped enable what is happening.

And if we are fortunate enough to have Obama-Biden sworn in, the right-wing will do what the Democratic Leadership was too polite or too timid (or too compromised) to justifiably do to Bush-Cheney, i.e., it will claim the Obama-Biden presidency is illegitimate.

That is how bitter the irony can get.

Here are two important stories --

From the Obama campaign, a powerful message to the Attorney General:

The current spate of trumped-up allegations of "voter fraud" coming from John McCain's campaign and his Republican allies and the FBI's decision to investigate represents exactly the same sort of politicization of justice that is at the root of an ongoing investigation into the firing of federal prosecutors, Barack Obama's campaign alleges.
Obama attorney Bob Bauer has asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to expand the authority of the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the US Attorney firings to also include the fraud allegations. ...
On a conference call with reporters Friday, Bauer slammed the "illicit involvement of senior law enforcement officials" in leaking the details of the so-called fraud investigation. The Obama lawyer noted that the leak came "literally within 24 hours" of McCain's statement at Wednesday night's debate that ACORN was threatening the "fabric of our democracy."
Raw Story, 10-17-08

Meanwhile, some vital context from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast, two champions of voter's rights who did not suffer from the deep denial that the Democratic Party leadership has been hiding behind over the last right years:

Passed in 2002, HAVA was hailed by leaders in both parties as a reform designed to avoid a repeat of the 2000 debacle in Florida that threw the presidential election to the U.S. Supreme Court. The measure set standards for voting systems, created an independent commission to oversee elections, and ordered states to provide provisional ballots to voters whose eligibility is challenged at the polls.
But from the start, HAVA was corrupted by the involvement of Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, who worked to cram the bill with favors for his clients. (Both Abramoff and a primary author of HAVA, former Rep. Bob Ney, were imprisoned for their role in the conspiracy.) In practice, many of the "reforms" created by HAVA have actually made it harder for citizens to cast a ballot and have their vote counted. In case after case, Republican election officials at the local and state level have used the rules to give GOP candidates an edge on Election Day by creating new barriers to registration, purging legitimate names from voter rolls, challenging voters at the polls and discarding valid ballots. ...
The recently enacted barriers thrown up to deter voters include:
1. Obstructing Voter-Registration Drives ...
2. Demanding "Perfect Matches" ...
3. Purging Legitimate Voters From the Rolls ...
4. Requiring Unnecessary Voter ID's ...
5. Rejecting "Spoiled" Ballots ...
6. Challenging "Provisional" Ballots ...
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast, Rolling Stone, 10-30-08

Visit Steal Back Your Vote, download the comic book, distribute it to everyone you know who gives a damn.

To follow developments in election security issues on a daily basis, I refer you to the fantastic work of both Brad Friedman (Brad Blog) and Mark Crispin Miller (Notes from the Underground).

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 Archive of Election Security Posts, click here.

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

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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Gore & Krugman, Peace & Prosperity: In This Election & After, Will the USA Heed the Message the Nobel Committee has Been Sending These Last Two Years?

Diogenes of Sinope Carried a Lamp thru the Streets of Athens in the Daylight, Some Legends say He was Looking for an Honest Man, Others say He was Looking for a Genuine Human Being.


Gore & Krugman, Peace & Prosperity: In This Election & After, Will the USA Heed the Message the Nobel Committee has Been Sending These Last Two Years?

By Richard Power


In October 2007, Al Gore was named winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. (Click here to read his Nobel address.)

Now, in October 2008, Paul Krugman has been named winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics.

Taken together, and coming as they do in consecutive years, these two choices, informed by global conscience, consensus and common sense, constitute a poignant and compelling challenge to the USA as a whole, yes, as a whole, i.e., the US electorate, the US political establishment, the US business community, and in particular, the US mainstream news media.

Will the US electorate throw off its self-doubt and shell shock, and instead, in a voting booth uprising, seize what was stolen from it in 2000 and 2004?

Will the US political establishment let the lobbyists get the "mailbox is full" messages and the form letter replies, and instead, heed the cry of those two vital but endangered elements of societal health, the natural world and the middle class?

Will the US business community for once lay down the math of the quarterly earnings, and instead, do the math of that other desperately important equation, i.e., what equals survival?

And will the US mainstream news media close the doors even to its own misguided self-interest, and instead, just turn on the cameras and the mikes and tell the people the damn truth about ugly realities such Climate Change and the Cult of Milton Friedman?

Imagine the world we would be living in today if the USA had heeded Gore on the Energy and the Environment and Krugman on the Economy years before the Nobel Committee did.

Imagine the world we would be living in today if the likes of Gore and Krugman had won the Oval Office and the Treasury, instead of the Planetary Consolation Prize.

There is still time. But very little. The window is narrow. The heat is rising, and so is the debt. And the sick among us are getting shrill and growing dangerous as reality dawns all around them. (Click here and decide for yourself.)

Let me make this simple.

Remember Sesame Street?

The letter for today is "E" --

"E" as in Either we understand and act on Energy and the Enviroment and the Economy, or it will be the End of this "E Pluribus Unum."

Say "NO!" to fear and self-deceit.

Here are brief excerpts from two stories about Krugman's Nobel Prize issued by sources free of the taint of the media monopolization largely responsible for bringing this once great republic to such a sorry state --

This year’s Nobel Prize for Economics to Paul Krugman achieves the near-impossible: it marks a continuation of past traditions even as it signals
a break from them. In keeping with the tradition of the Nobel in economics, which is to award the prize long after the scholastic work, it has been given for work done almost three decades ago in developing ‘new trade theory’ and ‘new economic geography’.
At the same time, in a break from the past, it has gone to someone who is almost a household name in most of the English-speaking world, a feature usually reserved for winners of the Nobel peace prize and, to a lesser extent, the Nobel in literature. ... With nerves on edge all over the world, it is no wonder Krugman has a fan following few other Nobel laureates in economics can lay claim to.
Krugman is the common man's economist, Economic Times, 10-15-08

Most of the discussion going on on the Internet after the announcement of the prize committee, however, was not about Krugman's scientific achievement, but about the strong positions he took as a columnist, author and blogger. ...
Back in 2000, a year after he joined The New York Times, Krugman spent a great deal of effort "trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign's claims about taxes, spending and Social Security", as he wrote in a column this year. ...
Just recently, Krugman stressed that "the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse." Many observers are now wondering if the decision of the Swedish prize committee is sending a political message as well.
With recent publications, Krugman has influenced the arrangement of the federal plan to spend 700 billion dollars to cushion U.S. credit markets -- a topic he is long familiar with as his dissertation was on international finance.
Wolfgang Kerter, Nobel Honours Man Who Told Bush to "Please Go Away", Inter Press Service, 10-14-8

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

Some Posts Related to Economic Security

Economic Insecurity Update: Woods & Forests Are Being Felled Mercilessly, We Will Miss None More Than Bretton Woods

Economic Insecurity Update: Breaking It Down -- The Shock Doctrine Full-Throttle

From Wall Street to Galveston: "Sometimes the aftermath of the storm is worse than the storm itself ..."

Economic Insecurity: Will the Cult of Milton Friedman (and Hidden High Priestess, Ayn Rand) be Smashed? -- "None of This Had to Happen ..."

Economic Insecurity: Stiglitz on the Three Trillion Dollar War; Its Devastating Impact & Its True Winners

Economic Insecurity Update: False Religion of Laissez-Faire & Milton Friedman, Its Most Persuasive Cult Leader, Have Led Us to a Monetary Jonestown

Economic Security Update: Brazilian Super Model Gisele Bundchen Joins Warren Buffet in Ditching the Dollar

Economic Security Update: "What do Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen and the People's Republic of China have in common?"

Randi Rhodes Interviews Naomi Klein -- "Not just the craziness of the Bush gang ... the logical culmination of a 25 year war on the state ..."

Hard Rain Journal 5-22-07: Economic Security -- Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying

Hard Rain Journal 6-6-07: Future Economic Security, Both Short Term & Long Term, Requires Choosing Conscience & Common Sense Over Racketeering

Hard Rain Journal 10-30-06: Economic Security -- GAO Chief Warns Economic Disaster Looms

SPECIAL EDITION: Words of Power Interviews Nomi Prins, Author of "Jacked: How 'Conservatives' are Picking Your Pocket"

SPECIAL EDITION: Generation Debt -- Why Now Is A Terrible Time To Be Young, Words of Power Interviews Anya Kamenetz

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

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Hard Rain Late Night: Lucinda Williams -- C'mon (Netherlands, October 2006)

Hard Rain Late Night: Lucinda Williams -- C'mon (Netherlands, October 2006)



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

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Saturday, October 11, 2008

Economic Insecurity Update: Woods & Forests Are Being Felled Mercilessly, We Will Miss None More Than Bretton Woods

Migrant Mother/Pea-Picker in the Dust Bowl, Photo by Dorothea Lange, 1936


The world financial system is teetering on the "brink of systemic meltdown", the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned in Washington.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn said rich nations had so far failed to restore confidence, but he endorsed a new action plan by the G7 group. ... Speaking in Washington on Saturday, Mr Strauss-Kahn said: "Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest US-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown."
BBC, 10-11-08

Economic Insecurity Update: Woods & Forests Are Being Felled Mercilessly, We Will Miss None More Than Bretton Woods -- Chomsky on the Lessons to Learn in this Present Crisis

By Richard Power


The woods and forests of the world are being felled mercilessly. And it is both a spiritual and environmental crime. But there is one wood we are missing right now more than all of the others -- Bretton Woods. Sadly, most of us do not even know its name, let alone its importance.

This unfortunate time of dangerously deepening economic duress contains within it a profound opportunity for each of us and all of us. Do not miss it.

Here are some excerpts from a worthy contribution to our ruminations on the current crisis in US and global financial markets, with a link to the full text. It is from the indefatigable and impeccable Noam Chomsky and published, poignantly, in the Irish Times (the major newspaper on that blessed island where world politics and economy is discussed intelligently 24x7).

In this piece, Chomsky provides brilliant insight into some of the critical lessons available to "We, the People" in these dire circumstances.

In a functioning democratic society, a political campaign would address such fundamental issues, looking into root causes and cures, and proposing the means by which people suffering the consequences can take effective control. ...
Financial liberalisation has effects well beyond the economy. It has long been understood that it is a powerful weapon against democracy. Free capital movement creates what some have called a "virtual parliament" of investors and lenders, who closely monitor government programmes and "vote" against them if they are considered irrational ...
John Maynard Keynes, the British negotiator, considered the most important achievement of Bretton Woods to be the establishment of the right of governments to restrict capital movement.
In dramatic contrast, in the neoliberal phase after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, the US treasury now regards free capital mobility as a "fundamental right", unlike such alleged "rights" as those guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: health, education, decent employment, security and other rights that the Reagan and Bush administrations have dismissed as "letters to Santa Claus", "preposterous", mere "myths". ...
"Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business," concluded America's leading 20th century social philosopher John Dewey, and will remain so as long as power resides in "business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity and propaganda".
The United States effectively has a one-party system, the business party, with two factions, Republicans and Democrats. There are differences between them. In his study Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Larry Bartels shows that during the past six decades "real incomes of middle-class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working-poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans".
Differences can be detected in the current election as well. Voters should consider them, but without illusions about the political parties, and with the recognition that consistently over the centuries, progressive legislation and social welfare have been won by popular struggles, not gifts from above.
Those struggles follow a cycle of success and setback. They must be waged every day, not just once every four years, always with the goal of creating a genuinely responsive democratic society, from the voting booth to the workplace.
Noam Chomsky, Common Dreams, 10-10-08

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

Some Posts Related to Economic Security

Economic Insecurity Update: Breaking It Down -- The Shock Doctrine Full-Throttle

From Wall Street to Galveston: "Sometimes the aftermath of the storm is worse than the storm itself ..."

Economic Insecurity: Will the Cult of Milton Friedman (and Hidden High Priestess, Ayn Rand) be Smashed? -- "None of This Had to Happen ..."

Economic Insecurity: Stiglitz on the Three Trillion Dollar War; Its Devastating Impact & Its True Winners

Economic Insecurity Update: False Religion of Laissez-Faire & Milton Friedman, Its Most Persuasive Cult Leader, Have Led Us to a Monetary Jonestown

Economic Security Update: Brazilian Super Model Gisele Bundchen Joins Warren Buffet in Ditching the Dollar

Economic Security Update: "What do Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen and the People's Republic of China have in common?"

Randi Rhodes Interviews Naomi Klein -- "Not just the craziness of the Bush gang ... the logical culmination of a 25 year war on the state ..."

Hard Rain Journal 5-22-07: Economic Security -- Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying

Hard Rain Journal 6-6-07: Future Economic Security, Both Short Term & Long Term, Requires Choosing Conscience & Common Sense Over Racketeering

Hard Rain Journal 10-30-06: Economic Security -- GAO Chief Warns Economic Disaster Looms

SPECIAL EDITION: Words of Power Interviews Nomi Prins, Author of "Jacked: How 'Conservatives' are Picking Your Pocket"

SPECIAL EDITION: Generation Debt -- Why Now Is A Terrible Time To Be Young, Words of Power Interviews Anya Kamenetz

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

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Friday, October 10, 2008

Bridgette Bardot to Sarah Palin: "You are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe."

Bridgette Bardot

Bridgette Bardot to Sarah Palin: "You are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe."

NOTE: In response to an inquiry from a good friend in the blogosphere, whose views I deeply respect, here is a clarification -- I post this story on Bardot's open letter to Palin, because it is fascinating to me, not because I am naive about Bardot. Just in case you still think of Bardot just as a powerful cultural icon from the Sixties, with a fierce passion for animal rights, consider this excerpt from Indopedia's biographical note on her: [Bardot] is also one of the most celebrated supporters of Jean-Marie Le Pen of the right-wing Front National political party, with which her husband is associated. With the publication of her 2003 book, A Scream in the Silence, the reclusive Bardot has come under considerable fire for racist, anti-Muslim, and anti-gay comments." For me, to read such a vitriolic rebuke of Palin from someone who has embraced the likes of Le Pen is, as I said, fascinating. It tells us something, perhaps something important. But this post is not meant at all as an affirmation of Bardot's other more anti-social views; it is meant only to provoke thought (Of course, it also gives me an opportunity to post images of Bardot. Perhaps it is not too late for her redemption. She is clearly conflicted.) BTW, in the archives of Words of Power you will also come across posts citing the views of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), both of whom have held and do now still hold many views which I consider ugly and absurd. Nevertheless, their opposition to dangerous people in power or close to taking power is important and useful. So I will continue to reserve the right to explore the edge. -- Richard Power

From Agence France Press --

French film legend turned activist Brigitte Bardot took a swipe at Sarah Palin on Tuesday, saying the US vice presidential candidate was a disgrace to women.

"I hope you lose these elections because that would be a victory for the world," Bardot wrote in an open letter to Republican John McCain's running mate in the November vote.

"By denying the responsibility of man in global warming, by advocating gun rights and making statements that are disconcertingly stupid, you are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe," wrote Bardot.


The screen icon from the 1960s, who now heads an animal rights foundation, went on to assail Palin for supporting Arctic oil exploration that could jeopardize delicate animal habitats and for dismissing measures to protect polar bears.

"This shows your total lack of responsibility, your inability to protect or simply respect animal life," Bardot wrote.

In a final salvo against Palin, the 74-year-old ex-star picked up on Palin's depiction of herself as a pitbull wearing lipstick and said she "implored" her not to compare herself to dogs.

"I know them well and I can assure you that no pitbull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are," Bardot wrote.


Agence France Press, 10-6-08

Et Dieu... créa la femme, Roger Vadim, 1956

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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Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant -- Verdi Cries (1990)

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant -- Verdi Cries (1990)



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

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Thursday, October 09, 2008

Campaign '08 Update: Overcoming the Triple Threat to the Election of 2008

Jefferson Memorial at Sunset


The US government's debts have ballooned so badly the National Debt Clock in New York has run out of digits to record the spiralling figure.
The digital counter marks the national debt level, but when that passed the $10 trillion point last month, the sign could not display the full amount.
BBC, 10-9-08

Campaign '08 Update: Overcoming the Triple Threat to the Election of 2008

By Richard Power


Obama has already won in the struggle for the hearts and minds of the US electorate.

Even the corporate news media's own polling can't hide his ascension.

Negative ads will not dampen the turn out this year.

Nor will the Bradley factor, i.e., those who will not admit to pollsters that they will vote against Obama, because of his race, but will do so once they are alone in the voting booth. Indeed, I foresee a reverse Bradley effect, i.e., Republicans and Independents who will not admit to pollsters that are going to vote for the Democratic ticket, because they never have before, but they are going to this time because they are so embarrassed and so guilt-ridden by what has happened over the last eight years. And the fact that Obama is black will even make it easier and better for them, because it will give them a genuine reason to feel good about themselves. It will be, for many Republicans and Independents, a redemptive moment.

It is also important to remember that this is, after all, not the ascension of a progressive but a centrist. The election and swearing in of Obama will not put the progressive movement into power, it will put an enlightened centrist in power and thereby restore the balance. Along with a significant increase in the size of the Democratic majority in the US Senate, it is a critical first step in restoring the Republic. And yes, events may drive him to the progressive end of the political spectrum, just as they drove the newly elected Roosevelt, who also ran as a centrist.

But there is a triple threat that stands between all of us (i.e., patriots left, right and center) and the first step to the restoration of the republic: 1) violence against the candidates, 2) the theft of the election itself, and 3) martial law. There is evidence that all three elements of danger are in play. Although it is unwise to ever underestimate the power of the people once the mass of it finally moves to throw off the foul and the foolish, it is also unwise to underestimate the ferocity of a rapid beast that has been cornered.

Here is evidence of each of the three dangers of which I speak:

1. At recent rallies, both McCain and Palin have allowed taunts of "Terrorist" and "Kill him!" to be directed at Obama without challenging them.

Fox News’ political reporter Carl Cameron is on the trail with John McCain. Reporting from a live McCain rally this evening, he said:
You’ll hear the booing behind me. In recent days, when Barack Obama’s name has been mentioned, it has gone from boos and hissing to actual chants and calls of traitor, criminal, and even terrorist.
The McCain campaign says they don’t condone it, they don’t want to see it happen, but it’s happening more and more every day.
The crowd reaction may have something to do with the frequent charges from the McCain campaign that Obama “pals around with terrorists.”
Think Progress, 10-8-08

The point is not what the campaign says officially, the point is that neither McCain nor Palin has addressed it directly either in the moment or afterward. Indeed, McCain has underscored it by referring chillingly to Obama as "That one!" in their recent debate. And, of course, Fox reporting this story is really Fox spreading the word and encouraging more of the same behavior.

2. The massive Republican effort to cancel out the will of the electorate through caging, which has been investigated and reported tirelessly in the blogosphere, is now being acknowledged even in some mainstream news media (MSM), e.g., CBS and the New York Times.

We've been reporting on the GOP's October "Surprise" over the last few days (challenges to Democratic voter registrations in a number of states, and, perhaps more notably, their bogus PR campaign to charge that ACORN, a community organization who heroically registers millions of low-income voters who nobody else bothers to, is committing "voter fraud". See here, here and here, for example.)
But the November Surprise, as we've been trying to warn for many months (if not years), will undoubtedly be the thousands who show up to the polls to vote on November 4th, only to find out that they have somehow "fallen off" the voter rolls.
We've urged folks to check their registrations, even if they recently voted in a primary election, to make sure they haven't been purged (info on how to do that quickly in all 50 states, right here.) ...
Today, the New York Times has published a scathing report, based on a detailed investigation revealing that "Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law".
Brad Friedman, NYTIMES: THOUSANDS OF ELIGIBLE VOTERS ILLEGALLY REMOVED FROM VOTER ROLLS, Brad Blog, 10-9-08

Of course, the MSM still shies away from the story of how two consecutive national elections were stolen. That's why it is imperative that you understand who Stephen Spoonamore is, you must hear the story he has to tell and you must share it with as many of your fellow citizens as you can. It is worth noting that the MSM could not have so disregarded these crimes if the Democratic Party itself had not chosen to hide from the truth, which was both a moral failure and a political miscalculation on the leadership's part.

3. And yes, there is also the spectre of martial law, either before the election or more likely before the inauguration. Concern about this long-shot possibility has been ratcheted up by the fact that the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Remember, in the last several years, Posse Comitatus and Habeus Corpus have been neutered, the Insurrection Act of 1807 has been modified, and a series of executive orders related to martial law have been signed by Bush.

Here is a powerful piece from Naomi Wolf, read it in its entirety and share it with those who have an open mind and give a damn:

.. . I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks. ... U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout bill:
"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."
If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.
Naomi Wolf, Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out "Crowd Control," AlterNet, 10-8-08

My only caveat to Naomi's brave piece is the conviction that the decisive majority of men and women in the officer ranks throughout the US military understand that their oath is to protect and defend not any particular individual, or any specific office, but the Constitution of the USA itself, and, indeed, to protect and defend it against *all* enemies foreign and domestic.

Yes, they are deployed. But perhaps, in reality, they will ensure an orderly transfer of power.

So hope for the best, but nevertheless, prepare for the worst.

Tune in to the Thom Hartman Show -- via podcast, Internet or AM radio -- for clarity of analysis as events unfold.

Follow the narrative of election security issues on Brad Blog and Mark Crispin Miller's Notes from the Underground.

Buy copies of Naomi Wolf's Give Me Liberty from Buzzflash and pass them on to your friends and colleagues.

Do whatever you can wherever you are, whoever you are, to TURN OUT THE VOTE.

Do whatever you have to do to make you and yours as ready as you can be for disruption and upheaval.

Odds are, in spite of the triple-threat, change for the better is unstoppable.

And once it comes, if it comes, do not be satisfied with simply "better," lean in and push hard for the best.

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 Election Security, click here.

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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

One Quarter of All Mammals Face Extinction; Meanwhile, the Number of Humans Living as Refugees or Internally DIsplaced People is Soaring

Image: Frida Kahlo, Love Embrace of the Universe


One Quarter of All Mammals Face Extinction; Meanwhile, the Number of Humans Living as Refugees or Internally DIsplaced People is Soaring

By Richard Power


The consequences of climate change, in particular, and the sustainability crisis, in general, are beginning to hit warm-blooded species from the Iberian Lynx and the Caspian Seal to the Homo Sapien:

"A quarter of the world's mammals are threatened with extinction ...The report, the most comprehensive to date by 1,700 researchers, showed populations of half of all 5,487 species of mammals were in decline. Mammals range in size from blue whales to Thailand's insect-sized bumblebee bat. "Mammals are declining faster than we thought -- one in four species is threatened with extinction worldwide," Jan Schipper, who led the team, told Reuters ..." Alistair Doyle, Reuters, 10-6-08

"The welfare of the world’s poor and uprooted people is increasingly at risk as the international community struggles with a combination of adverse economic, social and political trends that threaten to trigger even more displacement in the years to come, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres warned ...Climate change, extreme poverty and conflict are increasingly inter-related, he said. As a result, forced displacement is on the increase, and along with it demands on UNHCR." Refugees and displaced top 37 million, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 10-7-08

Some Related Posts

Sustainability Update: The Constitutional Rights of Pachamama?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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Sunday, October 05, 2008

Climate Crisis Update: In Deep Denial, & Seemingly Rushing Toward Oblivion

United States of Climate Change, Sightline


Climate Crisis Update: In Deep Denial, & Seemingly Rushing Toward Oblivion

As the two recent news stories excerpted here indicate, we are not only failing to come to grips with this crisis, we are in deep denial and seemingly rushing toward oblivion. Human carbon dioxide output jumped three percent from 2006 to 2007, while forests and seas sucked it up at a lower rate than in the 20th Century; and to aggravate the problem further, massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic melts. There is still time to make a profound difference in the future of civilization (such as it is). But the window is narrow and getting narrower. -- Richard Power

The world pumped up its pollution of the chief man-made global warming gas last year, setting a course that could push beyond leading scientists' projected worst-case scenario, international researchers said ...
The new numbers, called "scary" by some, were a surprise because scientists thought an economic downturn would slow energy use. Instead, carbon dioxide output jumped 3 percent from 2006 to 2007.
That's an amount that exceeds the most dire outlook for emissions from burning coal and oil and related activities as projected by a Nobel Prize-winning group of international scientists in 2007.
Meanwhile, forests and oceans, which suck up carbon dioxide, are doing so at lower rates than in the 20th century, scientists said. If those trends continue, it puts the world on track for the highest predicted rises in temperature and sea level.
The pollution leader was China, followed by the United States, which past data show is the leader in emissions per person in carbon dioxide output. And while several developed countries slightly cut their CO2 output in 2007, the United States churned out more.
Seth Borstein, Associated Press, 9-25-08

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane - sometimes at up to 100 times background levels - over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
Steve Connor, Independent, 9-25-08

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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