Remember, the Congo is an Economic War, and Darfur is a Resource War; How Far from Your Door Does the Shadow of Hell Fall?

Image: Frida Kahlo, Love Embrace of the Universe




Remember, the Congo is an Economic War, and Darfur is a Resource War; How Far from Your Door Does the Shadow of Hell Fall?

By Richard Power

On 2-19-09, in her remarkable on-line diary, Mia Farrow posted this anonymous "Tribute to a Humanitarian" from a woman in Somalia:

If you see a world torn by famine and war and feel in some way responsible, you know the meaning of love.
If you see people with little or no hope and believe their survival is somehow linked to your own, you know the meaning of brotherhood.
If you feel those of us who have been blessed with abundance should share with those less fortunate, you know the meaning of charity.
If you can travel to the end of the world to bring hope to those who would otherwise never know it, you know the meaning of courage.
And if you can see a smile in the faces of those who should have no reason to smile, you know that there is still time."

But of course there is more than humanitarianism involved in agitating and advocating for the people of Darfur and the Congo.

There is also "enlightened self-interest."

Remember, the Congo is an economic war, and Darfur is a resource war. (Of course, both conflicts are about resources, but in the Congo the fighting is over control of minerals resources for commercial exploitation, and in Darfur the fighting is over water and other resources to simply sustain life.)

Now that you have witnessed just how rapidly the planet's most powerful economies can be brought to the edge of the abyss from within, and you are also beginning to comprehend just how insidiously the planet's mildest climates and most abundant environments can be severely undermined, certainly you can get your mind around the poignant truth that what is happening to the women and children of Darfur and the Congo today could happen to the women and children of the West tomorrow.

In recent days, the inner call to champion the cause of the planet's forsaken women and children, particularly those at great peril in Darfur and the Congo, has generated some inspired action.

For example, George Clooney skipped the Academy Awards and went to the White House instead:

After touring Darfur refugee camps in eastern Chad last week, Hollywood heartthrob and two-time “sexiest man alive” George Clooney met separately with both President Obama and Vice President Biden on Monday night.
Mr. Clooney says he urged the two to seize the opportunity for Darfur peace that he says could arise with the International Criminal Court’s decision next week on whether to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes charges.
Clooney then told reporters that Mr. Obama would appoint high-level, full-time envoy to Darfur. ...
The Tinseltown star even laid out priorities for Obama and Biden, according to CNN:
• An envoy working full time on bringing peace to Darfur – someone “getting up every morning with their sole job to find peace in the area,” he said.
• Persuading China to leverage its investment muscle in Darfur to push for peace.
• Pressing Egypt, the African Union, and Europe to strengthen diplomatic efforts in the region. Christian Science Monitor, 2-24-09

And after meeting with Eve Ensler and Dr. Denis Mukwege (who are doing a Pain Into Power Tour to raise awareness about the Congo crisis), New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote a powerful column that drew a lot of attention to the crisis in the Congo:

Perhaps we’ve heard so little about them because the crimes are so unspeakable, the evil so profound. ...
“These women are raped in front of their husbands, in front of their children, in front of their parents, in front of their neighbors,” said Dr. Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist who runs a hospital in Bukavu that treats only the women who have sustained the most severe injuries. ... Dr. Mukwege visited me at The Times last week. He was accompanied by the playwright, Eve Ensler, who has been passionate in her efforts to bring attention and assistance to the women of Congo. ...
Ms. Ensler spoke of her encounter with an 8-year-old girl during one of her trips to Congo. The girl’s father had been killed in an attack, her mother was raped, and the girl herself was abducted. The child was raped by groups of soldiers over a two-week period and then abandoned.
The girl felt too ashamed to allow herself to be held, Ms. Ensler said, because her injuries had left her incontinent. ...
Despite the presence in the region of the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world, no one has been able to stop the systematic rape of the Congolese women.
If these are not war crimes, crimes against humanity, then nothing is. Bob Herbert, NY Times, 2-21-09

Meanwhile, Farrow herself has recently launched a Darfur Archive to record oral history from elders within the refugee camps.

Visit her site, http://www.miafarrow.org, for further information on this great undertaking. The site is a sacred spring of vital information and direct personal experience.

From Farrow's 2-22-09 post, "What you should know about Congo" --

The conflict in eastern Congo, the deadliest in the world since World War II, is being fueled by a multi-million dollar trade in minerals that go into our electronic products from cell phones to digital cameras.
•Tin – used inside your cell phone and all electronic products as a solder on circuit boards. 53% of tin worldwide is used as a solder, the vast majority of which goes into electronics. Armed groups earn approximately $85 million per year from trading in tin.
•Tantalum (often called “coltan”)– used to store electricity in capacitors in iPods, digital cameras, and cell phones. 65-80% of the world’s tantalum is used in electronic products. Armed groups earn an estimated $8 million per year from trading in tantalum.
•Tungsten – used to make your cell phone or Blackberry vibrate. Tungsten is a growing source of income for armed groups in Congo, with armed groups currently earning approximately $2 million annually.
FACTS ABOUT CONGO
400,000 Congolese have fled their homes due to violence in 2008.
500,000 Number of Congolese that die each year as a consequence of war.
1,100 Number of rape cases reported every month.
46 The average life expectancy for a woman living in the DR of the Congo.
22 Number of armed groups involved in the 2008 ceasefire agreement.
1 Number of times women are mentioned in the ceasefire agreement.
0 Number of times sexual violence and rape is mentioned in the ceasefire agreement.
$144 million Yearly profits by armed groups from trade in Congo minerals.

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

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For an archive of Words of Power posts on Economic Insecurity, 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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Mary Black and Dolores Keane : Dé Danann - Hard Times Come Again, Written by Stephen Foster in1885, Performed @ Siar an Bótha, National Stadium,1985

Mary Black and Dolores Keane: Dé Danann - Hard Times Come Again, Written by Stephen Foster in1885, Performed @ Siar an Bótha, National Stadium,1985



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This is Not What Jefferson had in Mind -- Mainstream & Business News Media Fail in Covering Greatest Challenges of Our Time

Jefferson Memorial at Sunset

Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis. Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union. ... "We witnessed the collapse of the financial system," Soros said ... "It was placed on life support, and it's still on life support. There's no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom." Reuters, 2-21-09

"If we don't deal with climate change decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," the eminent economist said.
His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off mass conflict.
"Somehow we have to explain to people just how worrying that is," the British economic thinker said. Associate Press, 2-21-09

This is Not What Jefferson had in Mind -- Mainstream & Business News Media Fail in Covering Greatest Challenges of Our Time

By Richard Power

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson made a profound and provocative statement on the vital role of the Fourth Estate: "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." -Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.

Well, it is two hundred twenty plus years later, and the US mainstream news media is not fulfilling the role Jefferson envisioned for it. Instead, it has served as a framing and filtering device with which to shape public opinion within the body politic, to the benefit of a narrow band of interlocking corporate interests and to the detriment of what the Founders’ termed the “general welfare.”

Consider two recent examples related to the greatest challenges of our present time.

The US mainstream news media spent most of the last decade pretending that climate change was still a subject of serious scientific debate, when in fact the overwhelming consensus of the world's scientific community was that the time for debate was long past, and the time for action was rapidly running out.

And now this year, not next year, not four years from now, this year, in Copenhagen, the great nations much reach a meaningful and actionable consensus on how to come to grips with this crisis.

And what do we get from George Will, a person who has been fortunate enough to be given prominence on the air waves and in the Op-Ed pages?

In the Washington Post yesterday, conservative columnist George Will chastised Energy Secretary Stephen Chu for “doomsaying” about global warming, arguing that concerns about climate change are just “eco-pessimism.” As evidence to support his point, Will claimed that “according to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.” But, as TPMmuckraker notes, the Arctic Climate Research Center (ACRC) quickly disputed Will’s claim ... In its statement, the ACRC added that “It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.” Think Progress, 2-16-09

(BTW, incredibly, the Wash Po says it is standing by Will and his "facts.")

Meanwhile, as Rory O'Connor remarks, the US business news media also spent most of the last decade looking the other way while the financial sector, and with it the economy, began swirling down the global drain:

Just as our mainstream news reporters failed to do their job in alerting us an impending and fairly obvious disaster prior to the war in Iraq – and then ‘embedded’ themselves with the very people they were supposedly reporting on during the invasion and subsequent occupation — so too did our complaisant business press, which by and large missed the story of the disaster now threatening the very pillars of the global capitalist system itself.
Complicity, careerism, access, ratings, deregulation, glory, money, corporate and conglomerate media ... the reasons behind our pusillanimous press coverage of the run up to the financial meltdown are much the same as those underlying the run up to war – and so are the results. Business reporters ‘embedded’ on Wall Street — as enamored of titans of commerce as their Pentagon press peers were with Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell – are now piling bad information on top of no information. Once again, we-the-people are paying the price in treasure and sadly, in some cases, blood. Rory O'Connor, 2-18-09

Let us work to make certain that Robert Parry's warning and exhortation are heeded in the corridors of power during these precious days of progressive ascension:

For those of us who have criticized the U.S. mainstream media for failing to resist right-wing pressure over the past three decades, there is a sad sense of vindication watching the downward spiral of so many once-venerable newspapers. But this trend carries with it a new threat to American democracy.
The core problem is this: as flawed as the MSM has been – as complicit as the New York Times and the Washington Post were in many of George W. Bush’s war crimes, for instance – journalists for mainstream news outlets provide most of the factual information that the rest of us rely on.
No Internet-based news outlet, including our own Consortiumnews.com, can claim that it has the capability to do the daily news reporting that is now done by the mainstream news media.
And the serious threat to American democracy is that as the MSM is reduced to a shadow of its former self, the influence of the well-funded right-wing media will grow disproportionately.
The Right has followed a three-decade strategy of building and maintaining its own media infrastructure – and though some right-wing outlets might stumble, most of them are sure to survive with hefty subsidies from wealthy right-wing foundations and business interests.
By contrast, the American Left largely has stayed on the sidelines of what the Right calls “the war of ideas.” The Left has invested far less money in media institutions and think tanks than the Right has. Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com, 2-19-09

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Congo Crisis Update: Global Witness Pressures Cell Phone Manufacturers to Accept Responsibility & Act -- Responsibly

Read Mission Song. John Le Carre's extraordinary thriller about the Congo. Click here for the Buzzflash review.

Congo Crisis Update: Global Witness Pressures Cell Phone Manufacturers to Accept Responsibility & Act -- Responsibly

The following excerpt is from a press release issued by Global Witness at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Share it with your cell phone company.
I also encourage you to attend the "Turning Pain To Power" Tour -- i.e., Dr. Denis Mukwege, winner of the 2008 UN Human Rights Prize and Founder of the ground breaking PANZI Hospital in Bukavu in conversation with V-Day Founder Eve Ensler. Click here for the schedule.
-- Richard Power

There is a direct causal link between the metals trade in eastern DRC and atrocities perpetrated by armed groups against Congolese civilians. Recent work by Global Witness and the UN Group of Experts revealed that all of the main armed groups involved in the current fighting in eastern DRC finance themselves through the trade in high-value minerals. These minerals are processed into metals such as tin and tantalum, which are used in the manufacture of mobile phones.
“The surging global demand for mobile phones has been helping to bankroll armed groups in Eastern Congo’s conflict,” said Annie Dunnebacke of Global Witness. “Mobile phone manufacturers need to undertake checks all the way up their supply chains to make sure they are not buying from mines controlled by militias and military units.”...
Global Witness recently wrote to major mobile phone manufacturers as well as mineral and metal traders to ask them what due diligence measures they are taking to ensure that their sourcing practices are not fuelling the conflict. While some firms have pledged to tighten their supply chain control, the mobile phone industry as a whole lacks sufficient measures to guarantee that phones and other electronics are free of conflict minerals. Global Witness, 2-16-09

For a Words of Power Archive of Human Rights Updates, 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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Coltan, Global Witness,Eve Ensler, Medicines Sans Frontieres, Richard Power, Words of Power


Hard Rain Late Night: Brian Eno -- Music for Airports

Hard Rain Late Night: Brian Eno -- Music for Airports



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

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


It has been just over a year since the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a landmark report warning of rising sea levels, expanding deserts, more intense storms and the extinction of up to 30 percent of plant and animal species. But recent climate studies suggest that report significantly underestimates the potential severity of global warming over the next 100 years, a senior member of the panel warned. Agence France Press, 2-14-09

Increasing greenhouse gases could delay, or even postpone indefinitely the recovery of stratospheric ozone in some regions of the Earth, a new study suggests. This change might take a toll on public health. Terra Daily, 2-12-09

California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said ... LA Times,2-4-09

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

By Richard Power

You think my choice of "delusional" to characterize the opposition to the economic stimulus package is over the top? Really? Did you know that both the US Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO supported swift passage of the bill? In other words, the traditional bread and butter constituency of the Republican Party (i.e., the business community) and the traditional bread and butter constituency of the Democratic Party (i.e., the labor movement) backed it, and yet only three Republican Senators joined with the other side of the aisle to vote yes.

It does not matter if the motivation for the opposition was ideological (i.e., Kool-Aid induced) or cravenly political (i.e., do or die positioning for the 2010 mid-terms), or both (which is most likely); whatever the motivation, it was delusional. The US economy is on the brink of a Great Depression and if it falls, it will take the global economy with it. So I say "delusional." If you are negotiating with someone who has been drenched in gasoline, and is intent on lighting a match because it will burn away the gasoline, well, then, you are dealing with a delusional person. (I am not even going to go into the financial meltdown here, just read Stiglitz.)

Would the stimulus package be more effective if it were $1.5 trillion and/or had less (if any) tax cuts included? Certainly. But right here, right now, that is not the point.

The point is that the economic stimulus package is of profound importance and urgency, and yet the overwhelming majority of Republicans in both houses of Congress speak of it as if it is business as usual. They seem to be willfully attempting to limit its impact by bad-vibing it with the US populace. And the populace, as ever, is at the mercy of a mainstream news media, which concocted an on-air debate stacked 3 to 1 with Republican viewpoints, and only 5% of those given access to the air waves were economists. (See While Journalists Risk Their Lives Across the Planet, the US Mainstream News Media Continues to Misinform & Misdirect on the Economic Crisis.)

Imagine what awaits us when the time comes to pass meaningful climate change legislation later this year.

Let us hope that Senators Specter (R-PA), Snow (R-ME) and Collins (R-ME) draw at least once more on the political courage to follow conscience and common sense. And let us hope that a few more centrist Republicans are willing to join them.

I write a great deal about climate change and sustainability, and have for years, but I do not write much about solutions. Solutions abound. But they are of little use if we do not avail ourselves of them. Individual responsibility and right action are vital, but it cannot compensate for a failure to summon national and global responsibility and right action.

The problem is in the collective psyche, and the body politic. There is the deep denial. There is also misinformation. The denial feeds on the misinformation, and the misinformation is fueled by the denial. It is a feedback loop.

My interest in climate change, sustainability, economic security and human rights is not political, it is shamanic. Unless enough of us grok the oneness of all life, unless we find that "100th Monkey" we are lost. Everything and everyone, everywhere, is connected. Science and Shamanism both affirm this planetary truth.

Without energy security, we cannot achieve environmental security. Without environmental security we cannot achieve energy security. Without both energy security and environmental security, we cannot achieve economic security. All three are interdependent.

We must flip the switch in our collective psyche before it is too late.

Now that we have been successful in meeting the first of the four critical deadlines I identified in Left-Handed Security (i.e., the 2008 election in the USA), we must press to met the next one, and that is to achieve a meaningful global agreement resulting in drastic cuts in the human race's greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2009. (The third deadline I highlight is 2015, the world's stated due date for halving poverty by achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals; and the fourth deadline is tomorrow morning, because every dawn that rises is another deadline passed for the great nations to intervene on behalf of the people of Darfur,)

Just as I do not spend much time on solutions, I do not spend much time on good news either. Because it is vital that all of us understand that this is an emergency.

The news on climate change is very bad.

While the USA wasted the last eight years pretending there was a debate about it, climate change has gotten way out ahead of our ability to mitigate it. At this point, whatever we say in front of the children, we are really talking about a) adapting to a seriously different planetary climate, and b) limiting as best we can the extremity of the predicament that will confront us down the road.

As we head rapidly toward the next great deadline, it is of paramount importance to remember that the economic security crisis and the climate security crisis and the geopolitical security crisis are one monster, with three heads; and that there is both a silver bullet to slay it and a holy grail to heal us from the wounds it has inflicted. We need a new economic model, one that is green and hallows sustainability. The blind pursuit of profit has failed us as a society. The demonization of all government and any regulation has been proven to be a cruel deceit.

We will need statesmen and stateswomen of both political parties, willing to risk ending their political careers by casting the right vote in a time of great national and global peril.

If you have not already joined the Alliance for Climate Protection, Al Gore and I urge you to do so. Click here.

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

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

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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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While Journalists Risk Their Lives Across the Planet, the US Mainstream News Media Continues to Misinform & Misdirect on the Economic Crisis

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

The global economic crisis has become the biggest near-term U.S. security concern, sowing instability in a quarter of the world's countries and threatening destructive trade wars, U.S. intelligence agencies reported ... "Time is our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic intrests," the report said. ... There have been anti-government protests in Europe and the former Soviet Union, and growing economic strains in Africa and Latin America ... Reuters, 2-12-09

While Journalists Risk Their Lives Across the Planet, the US Mainstream News Media Continues to Misinform & Misdirect on the Economic Crisis

By Richard Power

The Obama administration has indeed brought change to Beltwayistan. It was poignantly evident at President Obama's first news conference.

The symbolism was subtle but profound. The President called on the Huffington Post for a question, and Ed Schultz was seated next to Helen Thomas in the front row.

The message within that symbolism was direct and simple: "Thank you, and your help is still desperately needed."

Because although change has come to the White House, it has not come to the US mainstream news media (yet).

Oh, there are a few beacons of reality on TV, but they are a precious few: Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are carrying Edward R. Murrow's torch into the 21st Century on MSNBC, and Jack Cafferty continues to personify common sense (even when I don't agree with him) in the midst of CNN's vapidity.

Meanwhile, throughout the world, professional journalists and citizen journalists alike risk their lives to speak truth to power:

Chinese bloggers are defying censorship efforts and taking delight in ridiculing the state television station CCTV. ... The problem for CCTV is that the blaze that burned down part of its new headquarters was its own fault. ... Embarrassed CCTV officials tried to censor coverage of the fire, but thanks to the millions of Chinese users on the Internet, the story got out anyway. Members of the public armed with camera phones, text messages, and email filled the void. One blogger, Wang Xiaofeng, wrote that "Even though the fire was up to their eyebrows, they were still trying to hide the truth... in this breaking news, the official media was defeated by the citizen media." Radio Netherlands, 2-11-09

In Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, journalists are becoming increasingly vulnerable to physical violence as a result of their work, says a U.S.-based media watchdog in a new report ... Last year, at least 41 journalists were killed and more than 100 lived behind bars, according to the 341-page [Committee to Protect Journalists] CPJ report, "Attacks on the Press in 2008". Inter Press Service, 2-10-09

If there is another Tiananmen Square protest and massacre, it will be streamed, real time, wireless, over the World Wide Web, on open source platforms, in clear text, with simultaneous translation, and it will not be so easily spun or so quickly forgotten.

But in the USA, the US mainstream news media persists in pushing an agenda of misinformation and misdirection on the most urgent issues:

[A] Media Matters for America review of the Sunday talk shows and 12 cable news programs from January 25 through February 8 found that during 139 1/2 hours of programming on Sunday mornings and weekday afternoons and evenings, of 460 total guest appearances in discussions about the economic recovery legislation and debate in Congress, only 25 were made by economists — a mere 5 percent. Think Progress, 2-12-09

So it is imperative that the alternate news media, especially the blogosphere and progressive talk radio, continue to deliver the truth.

Thom Hartmann, whose daily Air America radio show is a national teach-in on history, politics and economics, has been doing an extraordinary job of providing context and continuity.

Recently, economist Ravi Bhatra, a frequent guest, suggested progressives not be too frustrated with the Obama administration for its adherence to the ideas of Larry Summers, Larry Geithner and others who are part of the problem.

Bhatra said this is not the time for new ideas, because no matter what is done it is going to get much worse before it gets better, and that if the Obama administration were to try new ideas now those ideas would just get blamed for the inevitable bottoming out.

Now you are not going to hear that on the network news show next Sunday morning, or from the nightly cable news anchors or their panels of talking heads either.

But you can listen to Hartmann for free on the Internet, you can tune in on the air waves if you are fortunate to have a progressive station in your area, or you can subscribe to Air America's premium service and download the podcast.

And then of course there is the indefatigable Amy Goodman.

Here is an excerpt from a very insightful interview she recently did with another worthy economist, Jamie Galbraith:

AMY GOODMAN: Professor James Galbraith is still with us, economist, University of Texas. His book, The Predator State. Explain the bailout and what you think should happen today.
JAMES GALBRAITH: Well, the crucial question is, on what terms does the Treasury plan to guarantee or to repurchase or to otherwise deal with the bad assets that the banks have? These assets are mortgage-backed securities. They are securities derived from subprime loans that were made in an atmosphere of regulatory laxness and complicity and fraud, basically, during the Bush administration, which came to take over the system of housing finance and to infect it with assets which nobody trusts, which nobody can value. And nobody really knows what’s in the files, what’s on the loan tapes of those—that underlie those securities. So the question that I think we need to ask is, before we issue a public guarantee, does the Treasury of the United States plan to conduct a meticulous audit of the assets that underlie the securities that they’re expecting to take off the banks’ books, so that we, the taxpayer, can have an idea of what, if anything, these securities are worth?
And the problem is that when you—the little bit of checking that has been done appears to reveal that a very large fraction of these securities contain, on the face of it, misrepresentation or fraud in the files. And so, we are looking at an asset which nobody, no outside investor doing due diligence on behalf of a client for whom they have some responsibility, would touch. And that is the issue. That’s the problem.
If that is indeed the case, then I think it’s fair to conclude that the large banks, which the Treasury is trying very hard to protect, cannot in fact be protected, that they are in fact insolvent, and that the proper approach for dealing with them is for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to move in and take the steps that the FDIC normally takes when dealing with insolvent banks.
And the sooner that you get to that and the sooner that you take these steps, which every administration, including the Bush administration, actually took in certain cases—replacing the management, making the risk capital take the first loss, reorganizing the institution, guaranteeing the deposits so that there isn’t a run, reopening the bank under new management so that it can begin to function again as it should have all along as a normal bank—the sooner you get to that, the more quickly you’ll work through the crisis.
The more you delay and the more you try to essentially prop up an institution whose books have already been poisoned, in effect, by this—the practices of the past few years, the longer it will take before the credit markets begin to function again. And as I said before, the functioning of the credit markets is absolutely essential to the success of the larger package, of the stimulus package and everything else, in beginning to revive the economy. Democracy Now, 2-10-09

For an archive of Words of Power posts on Economic Insecurity, 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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Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant -- Just Can't Last & Build A Levee (David Letterman, 2001)

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant -- Just Can't Last & Build A Levee (David Letterman, 2001)



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Congo Crisis: Eve Ensler Raises Awareness, Medicines Sans Frontieres Denounces Cowering Peacekeepers; Hopefully, Susan Rice & Samantha Power Will Act

Read Mission Song. John Le Carre's extraordinary thriller about the Congo. Click here for the Buzzflash review.

Shocked by the extreme violence of the LRA, MSF teams do not comprehend the inaction of the "blue berets" to protect the people. During the November 1, 2008, attack on Dungu, the UN blue berets remained holed up in their base. Furthermore, the MONUC contingent has never intervened to protect people in towns under attack, even as the attacks multiplied. The number of UN troops has remained virtually unchanged since their deployment in July, 2008, despite the dramatic deterioration of the situation. Medecins Sans Frontieres, 2-4-09

The disturbing stories that have come out of the Congo defy imagination: women and young girls being raped by militia men in front of their families; rape victims ranging from as young as six months to as old as 83 years; women and girls faced with unwanted pregnancies and raped intentionally by men known to have AIDS. There is also a devastating epidemic of women and girls whose vaginas and reproductive organs have been completely destroyed from being violated with guns, bottles and sticks, often resulting in a condition called fistula, a rupture that results in the uncontrollable leakage of urine and feces. The traumatized rape victims are then further stigmatized and ostracized by their families and communities. Women's Media Center, 2-7-09

Congo Crisis Update: Eve Ensler Raises Awareness, Medicines Sans Frontieres Denounces Cowering Peacekeepers; Hopefully, Susan Rice & Samantha Power Will Act

By Richard Power

For eight years, we had to endure the travesty of a regime in Beltwayistan that said the UN had to "be fixed" when what they really meant was that they wanted it to either be completely subservient or simply dismantled.

Now, with committed professionals like Susan Rice at the UN and Samantha Power at the White House, perhaps we can indeed address the issue of "fixing the UN."

Rice and Power represent a truly 21st Century perspective of the inter-relationship between national security, sustainability, human rights and economic opportunity. (Click here for more about Rice and here for more about Power.)

A good place for them to start (besides Darfur, of course), is to demand answers and action on this disturbing report from Medicines Sans Frontieres:

Tens of burned villages; hundreds civilians stabbed or clubbed to death; men, women and children abducted. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) continues to unleash violence against the people of Haut-Uélé. The intensity of this targeted violence against civilians has prompted the humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to denounce the UN peacekeeping force for its inaction with regards to protecting the population. ... Medecins Sans Frontieres, 2-4-09

And as a follow-up they could bring writer Eve Ensler's "Turning Pain into Power Tour" into the corridors of power, or at least sit in the front row when the event comes to D.C. (and bring the press with them):

With all the bad news facing the world right now, you might prefer not knowing the horrific details of these women’s stories. “Yes, it’s difficult to hear about,” says playwright/activist Eve Ensler, “but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hear.”
It is precisely because Ensler feels not enough people are aware of the atrocities taking place in the Congo that she, and her anti-violence against women organization V-Day, are going on the road this month, in a five-city U.S. tour featuring her in conversation with Dr. Denis Mukwege, a heroic gynecologist and the director of Panzi Hospital in eastern Congo who treats, performs surgeries and offers counseling to the women there. Together Mukwege and Ensler will expose the extreme cases of violence against women in the DRC -- to date an estimated 400,000 women and girls have been raped -- and relay the stories of survivors who are coming together and breaking the silence. ...
The “Turning Pain to Power Tour” -- beginning February 11th in New York City before moving to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and Washington D.C. -- supports a joint V-Day and UNICEF campaign to expose the devastating impact of rape on Congolese women's health, their families and their communities. The organizations call for specific measures to end impunity for perpetrators and to economically and socially empower women and girls so they can lead in the prevention of sexual violence and in the rebuilding of a country devastated by conflict. Women's Media Center, 2-7-09

For a Words of Power Archive of Human Rights Updates, 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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Economic Insecurity Update: Of Obama & Sullenberger; Meanwhile, Stiglitz says "Nationalization is the only answer. These banks are ... bankrupt."

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


It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge. Paul Krugman, 2/5/09

"I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV — if you’re headed for a cliff, you’ve got to change direction. Think Progress, 2-5-09

"When you hear these attacks deriding something of such obvious importance as this, you have to ask yourself, 'are these folks serious?' Raw Story, 2-5-09

[Paul Krugman says] "Now the centrists have shaved off $86 billion in spending — much of it among the most effective and most needed parts of the plan. ... My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years." Think Progress, 2-7-09

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

By Richard Power

Over this last week, as I watched Obama first offer the open hand of friendship and collaboration to those who have dug the ditch he is trying to pull us out of, and then clench the righteous fist when they chose instead to toy with catastrophe by bad vibing the stimulus package, and seeking to blunt its impact, I kept thinking of Chelsey Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who recently performed that extraordinary emergency landing in the chilly Hudson River, after an accidental encounter with a flock of birds took out both of his plane's engines.

Imagine what Sullenberger would have been up against if Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had been his co-pilot or Eric Cantor (R-VA) had led a passenger revolt?

Perhaps McConnell would have been screaming that Sullenberger should let the air currents decide, or Cantor would be insisting that the best way to stay in the air would be to jettison the carry-on luggage.

Their economic and political philosophies have been proven to be dangerous and delusional. Why are they being treated with any credibility whatsoever on the air waves?

But that's a silly question, isn't it? They are treated as if they have credibility because they represent the interests of the corporate media, their advertisers and the inter-locking boards of directors that rule them all.

Last week, Think Progress released a report showing that, in the debate over the House economic recovery bill on the five cable news networks, Republican members of Congress outnumbered their Democratic counterparts by a ratio of 2 to 1. ... In a new analysis, Think Progress has found that Republican lawmakers outnumbered Democratic lawmakers 75 to 41 on cable news interviews by members of Congress ... Think Progress, 2-6-09

Meanwhile, even what Obama is trying to accomplish, in the face of this irresponsible opposition, is, of course, only a beginning; in itself it is not nearly enough.

In reality, the stimulus package should be much larger, and include more infrastructure projects. But that's not all.

Consider this insightful Deutsche Welle interview with Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, who is also a former Chief Economist for the World Bank and lead author of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

Deutsche Welle: Economists Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb, who predicted the global economic downturn, have called for a nationalization of banks in order to stop the financial meltdown. Do you agree?
Stiglitz: The fact of the matter is, the banks are in very bad shape. The U.S. government has poured in hundreds of billions of dollars to very little effect. It is very clear that the banks have failed. American citizens have become majority owners in a very large number of the major banks. But they have no control. Any system where there is a separation of ownership and control is a recipe for disaster.
Nationalization is the only answer. These banks are effectively bankrupt.
Deutsche Welle: The Institute of International Finance estimates that the private flow of capital to developing countries will shrink by about two-thirds. Are we facing a situation where we could see a total collapse of many developing countries?
Stiglitz: I think many governments of emerging nations actually have a much better central banking system than the United States. They realized the risks of excessive leverage, excessive dependance on real estate lending and so they took much more prudent actions. Many developing countries also built up large reserves and are in a better position to meet this crisis than they were a decade ago.
But some will face very difficult times, potentially defaults. Some of these countries are suffering from having paid too much attention to what has gone on in the United States. Truthout, 2-6-09

For an archive of Words of Power posts on Economic Insecurity, 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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Late Night Hard Rain: Emmylou Harris -- Born to Run (Letterman, 2003)

Hard Rain Late Night: Emmylou Harris -- Born to Run (Letterman, 2003)



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

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Africa, the Cradle, Yes, but Not the Grave; Two Stories of Rising Power from the Lost Eden

The Sun (NOAA)


Nicole Kidman, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador

As a step towards gender equality, three officials were sworn in on 27 January as administrators of the new Gender Observatory in Rwanda. UNIFEM, 1-28-09

Affordable solar power, an environmentally friendly alternative, is promising to light up the parts of Africa which power cables do not yet reach. Independent, 1-30-09

Africa, the Cradle, Yes, but Not the Grave; Two Stories of Rising Power from the Lost Eden

By Richard Power

New power must rise for humanity to overcome the spiritual, economic, environmental and geopolitical challenges that seem to overwhelm us here at the beginning of post-history --

Not the hegemonic power of empire, but the multilateral power of community;

Not the Treasure of Sierra Madre power of fossil fuels, but the clean, free and abundant power of the sun, wind and tides;

Not male power, but female power ...

To restore the balance in the psyche, it must be restored in the body politic,

To bring a new bounty into our daily lives, the energy that fuels our economic engines must be swapped out.

Here are two stories of hope from Africa, one about solar power spreading across the continent, and one about the establishment of a Gender Observatory to ensure the integration of women into the power structure of the resurrected Rwanda.

Africa, that Lost Eden turned Inferno, may yet lead the way.

As a step towards gender equality, three officials were sworn in on 27 January as administrators of the new Gender Observatory in Rwanda. UNIFEM has been a strong advocate for the establishment of the Gender Observatory, in conformity with article 185 of the National Constitution of Rwanda.
The newly appointed Chief Gender Monitor, Oda Gasinzigwa, explained that the Observatory will work hand in hand with other government institutions, such as the National Institute of Statistics, to ensure that gender is mainstreamed at all levels and gender disaggregated data is collected to inform policy processes. “We will cut across all sectors of the economy, identify gender performance and give reports that reflect the gaps in the development system which will be a basis for decision making,” she said. UNIFEM, 1-28-09

Both off-grid and out of the way, the villages of Nyashimba and Yichobela are all but cut off from the rest of the world because they don’t have access to electricity. Affordable solar power, an environmentally friendly alternative, is promising to light up the parts of Africa which power cables do not yet reach. ...
Developing solar power in Africa is being eagerly pursued by international organisations including the World Bank and the United Nations and a host of smaller NGOs such as the UK’s Ashden Awards, a sustainable energy initiative whose support was the catalyst for the spread of the technology through northern Tanzania. Independent, 1-30-09

To find out more about the global effort to empower women in society and government, I refer you to UNIFEM and its recent report, Progress of the World’s Women 2008/2009, Who Answers to Women? Gender and Accountability.

For a Words of Power Archive of Human Rights Updates, 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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