The Day After: 350 is Still the Most Important Number in Your Life & the Lives of Everyone You Love. Do You Know Why?

What does the number 350 mean?
350 is the most important number in the world--it's what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ...
Is 350 scientifically possible?
Right now, mostly because we’ve burned so much fossil fuel, the atmospheric concentration of co2 is 390 ppm—that’s way too high, and it’s why ice is melting, drought is spreading, forests are dying. To bring that number down, the first task is to stop putting more carbon into the atmosphere. That means a very fast transition to sun and wind and other renewable forms of power ...

Is 350 politically possible?
It’s very hard. It means switching off fossil fuel much more quickly than governments and corporations have been planning. Our best chance to speed up that process will come in December in Copenhagen ... 350.org

The Day After: 350 is Still the Most Important Number in Your Life & the Lives of Everyone You Love. Do You Know Why?

By Richard Power

I participated one of the 5,200 events held on the Global Day of Action for 350.

A crowd of a few hundred people gathered on the Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco. Angry young poets spoke, joyous young dancers performed. Volunteers pedaled stationary bikes to power the sound system. Demonstrators formed the number 350.
I stood among them, silently chanting a thousand year old, Tibetan mantra; very powerful, and very appropriate since the Himalayan glaciers are melting.

Many of us have been beating this sacred drum for a long time now. So where was everybody else?



And what is there to say about the Pew Research poll that infers that the number of Americans who see global warming as a threat has plunged 20% over the last two years?

Many people are just burnt out from the psychic stress of the struggle against the Bush-Cheney cabal. Many people are just weighed down with anxiety over the economic hardship of this period. And yes, perhaps some among us, seeing the irrational, shamelessly selfish and almost unassailable resistance against efforts to bring meaningful and urgently needed health care reform to the USA, simply find it is easier to block out the even bigger problem of climate change. They have chosen, instead, to turn their backs on the world and lose themselves in making up little stories about the shadows on the wall of their caves.

In a healthy civil society, an enlightened mainstream news media would framed the Climate Crisis issue as a threat equivalent to or greater than nuclear proliferation, and these two issues would dominate the national security debate; and that national security debate would be interpenetrate simultaneous debates on economic security, energy security and environmental security.

An enlightened mainstream news media, i.e., responsible, independent, serving the informational needs of the citizens in a democratic society, would have heeded the consensus of the scientific community, stood up to the near-sighted profit interests of the energy sector and made the the Climate Crisis an inescapable issue for all of us.

But instead, well, just consider the way that the rest of the US mainstream news media rallied around Faux News when the Obama White House rightly pointed out that the Murdoch-Ailes machine was NOT a news organization, but an "opinion" (i.e., propaganda) organization. Indeed, doesn't this complicity reek of monopoly, instead of "price-fixing" the US mainstream news cartel is "agenda-fixing."


(Also, do not underestimate the influence of the likes of ill-informed Climate skeptic George Noory. Although no Art Bell in wit or style, Noory is, like Rush Limbaugh, on hundreds of radio stations, and listened to by tens of millions of people.)

As Richard Sclove suggests in Why the Polls on Climate Change Are Wrong, when people are given sufficient, high-caliber information they grok the situation and demand meaningful action from their governments:

Climate change polls typically spend a few minutes on the phone asking a random sample of people a couple of superficial, often leading questions, frequently interrupting dinnertime. The process elicits off-the-cuff reactions to complex issues that are profoundly consequential to life on our planet. It's a dubious way to gather opinion on a sober subject like climate change, and many understandably shrug it off with some cynicism.
World Wide Views on the other hand is a citizen deliberative process distinct from polling, and expanded for the first time to the global level. Unlike polls or this summer's over-heated Congressional "town halls" on health care, World Wide Views participants received balanced expert information in advance, based on the Fourth Assessment Report of the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Then they spent an entire day learning together, in neutrally facilitated deliberations, prior to voting on policy recommendations.
Here are some of the key U.S. results from World Wide Views:
* 90% of U.S. participants say it is urgent to reach a tough, new agreement at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December and not punt to subsequent meetings.
* 87% said that by 2020 greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and other developed nations should be cut 25-40% or even more below 1990 levels (the Kerry-Boxer Senate bill would cut US emissions only 20% below 2005 levels).
* 71% want nations that fail to meet their obligations under a new agreement to be subject to severe or significant economic sanctions.
* 69% believe the price of fossil fuels should be increased. Richard Sclove, Why the Polls on Climate Change Are Wrong, Huffington Post, 10-23-09

For more results from the World Wide Views on Global Warming, click here.


Go to Stand w/ Howard Dean for more information on how to participate in the struggle to bring meaningful healthcare reform to the USA.

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

I also urge you to participate in some way in the International Day of Climate Action on 10-24-09. Go to 350.org for more information.

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

Bill McKibben, Richard Sclove, 350, Healthcare Crisis, Climate Crisis

350 in New Zealand



350 in Bulgaria



Maasai Mara Children sing for 350

The New Obama-Biden Darfur Policy: Is It Hope Wrapped in Danger or Danger Wrapped in Hope?

Rebel and Sudan government forces have been massing in Sudan's Darfur region, raising fears of new violence, peacekeepers said a day after the United States demanded concrete moves towards peace in the territory. Reuters, 10-20-09

More than 70 shoeless students - some in socks, others in pedicure flip-flops, and about two dozen flaunting nothing but the soles of their feet - walked through the halls of Solomon Schechter High School of Long Island Wednesday to help raise awareness about genocide and displacement in Darfur. Newsday, 10-21-09

The New Obama-Biden Darfur Policy: Is It Hope Wrapped in Danger or Danger Wrapped in Hope?

By Richard Power

So what do I have to say about the new policy of the Obama-Biden administration as announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week?

Honestly, it is difficult for me to get past the invasion and occupation of Iraq when listening to Hillary Clinton.

She voted for that foolish military adventure without equivocation. She has not shown the least repentance, nor has she experienced any real accountability.

I knew better, and said so, prior to the invasion, and I was operating entirely on open source intelligence. And think about the ability to discern truth-telling and grasp of reality in others? Paul Wolfowitz is telling you one thing, and Hans Blix is telling you the opposite; whose side of that argument do you end up on? Seriously? And that was the sum of it all prior to the invasion.

To say she was deceived or somehow simply mistaken is to insult her intelligence. To say she voted for it for as political cover (at that time, it was the safe vote) is to insult her character. I do not want to insult either. I am for her, and I want to see her in a different light. But it is going to take something spectacular to bring me to that place.

So having her present this new policy does not give me a good feeling. I would have been more comfortable hearing it from Susan Rice or Samantha Power. (Or were either one or both of them on the losing side of the reportedly intense internal debate that led to the new policy's formulation?)

And then there is Special Envoy Scott Gration. (See Darfur Crisis: Why has the Obama-Biden Administration Put Pollyana in Charge of US Policy on Darfur?) I have no doubt he has excellent credentials, but his public utterances in recent weeks have been, well, buffoonish; and I have no idea why someone who appears to be a Pollyana has been appointed to this vital position.

But putting my lack of confidence in these two personalities aside, what about the new policy itself?

I will hold my tongue -- for now. I want to be proven wrong.

I will defer to those whose work I respect, and who have direct experience and hands-on expertise.

Mia Farrow is currently posting from Gaza on that humanitarian crisis, and has yet to comment personally.

Eric Reeves has not weighed in yet.

But John Prendergast of the Enough Project has offered his insights, and like Farrow and Reeves, I value his practical view and trust his comprehension of the challenge that the Darfur Crisis epitomizes.

So here is the summary of his commentary, with a link to the full text:

The Principal Danger
Crafting a sensible policy approach on paper is a necessary but insufficient step. The conduct of the administration’s Sudan policy has been deeply troubled to date. The day-to-day diplomacy has often been ill-disciplined and created considerable confusion among key actors as pressing timeliness loom and major components of core agreements remain largely unimplemented. At best, the completed policy review is a chance to start anew, and get the policy and diplomacy back on track. At worst, it is an effort to rhetorically paper over an issue that has been treated as a fairly low foreign policy priority by the administration.
Allowing the status quo in Sudan to continue is a recipe for a return to war between the North and the South. If the Obama administration doesn’t build a multilateral coalition around this policy, doesn’t recognize the dangers of the increasing attacks in the South and the NCP’s hidden hand in sowing instability in the South in advance of the referendum, and is not willing to utilize multilateral and unilateral pressures (which have a history of working) early enough to make a difference, nation-wide war will be inevitable. U.S. policy objectives, so sensible on paper, will go up in smoke as Sudan burns again. John Prendergast, THE FIERCE URGENCY OF IMPLEMENTATION:
THE NEW U.S. POLICY IN SUDAN, Enough Project, 10-19-09

As always, 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.

For an archive of Words of Power posts on the Crisis in Darfur, 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.

Enough Project, Darfur, Sudan Genocide, Eric Reeaves, Scott Gration Mia Farrow, John Prendergast,

Hard Rain Late Night: Alan Stivell - Tri Martolod (festival des Vieilles Charrues)

Hard Rain Late Night: Alan Stivell -- Tri Martolod (festival des Vieilles Charrues)



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Alan Stivell, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Too Big to Fail? The Climate. The Human Race. Our Collective Conscience (Darfur). Health Care Reform. Our System of Government.

(Image: Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey)

People should use the climate change crisis as an opportunity to become human again, setting aside the addictive and self-destructive behaviour that has damaged their souls, the Archbishop of Canterbury said today. Dr Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England and leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, told an audience at Southwark Cathedral that people had allowed themselves to become "addicted to fantasies about prosperity and growth, dreams of wealth without risk and profit without cost". Dr Rowan Williams says Climate Crisis a Chance to Become Human Again, Guardian, 10-14-09

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

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars ... Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:
• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion
TOTAL: $3.92 trillion Cory Doctorow, 11-25-08

Too Big to Fail? The Climate. The Human Race. Our Collective Conscience (Darfur). Health Care Reform. Our System of Government.

By Richard Power

Unfortunately, from the "Single Bullet" to the "Success of the Surge," our pseudo-civil society is often more comfortable with convenient lies than inconvenient truths.

Among the most glaring of these convenient lies (or perhaps more accurately, "half-truths") is that the institutions caught up in the Wall Street meltdown of 2008 were "too big to fail."

At this point, most of us, right, left and center, are skeptical about the "too big to fail" canard. (For more on this fiasco, read Matt Taibbi's great work on Goldman-Sachs, et al, e.g., The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits.)

But it is unlikely that we have heard the end of "too big to fail," so let us exploit this argument to push for action on some other things that are truly "too big to fail."

The planetary climate? Certainly, "too big to fail."

Without it, we wouldn't be in position to bail out Goldman-Sachs and appoint its brainiacs to run the nation's economy on behalf of an administration elected to deliver CHANGE.

Yes, the planetary climate is "too big to fail."

And so we are going to have to fork it up; and if we don't, Goldman-Sachs and its ilk won't be our biggest problem, or even among our top ten problems.

If the planetary climate is allowed to fail we will be circling back to the beginning of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, i.e., just a bunch of armed apes. Indeed, it is not just the future that we are in danger of losing but also the past.

Bill McKibben of 350.org, the man orchestrating the Biggest Day of Action the World has Ever Seen on 10/24/09 understands:

It's eight days to our global climate day of action and I'm just headed back from Nashville, where I spoke to the annual meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation ... The Scots just published a list of 10,000 historic sites, dating back to the Neolithic, that may disappear as the oceans rise. A one foot rise in sea level, and the Washington Mall could flood regularly. But it goes deeper than that. Our sense of the people who came before us derives in part from the fact that we share the same world ... We won't be able to farm in the places we used to farm, or fish in the places we used to fish—even if we survive, we'll be moored on a new, presumably artificial, island with no real link to the past ... All around the world people are using historic places as backdrops: the pyramids, say, or (this just in) the ruins of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Iraq ... Bill McKibben, How Climate Change Kills History, Mother Jones, 10-16-09

Imagine what the equivalent of the bailout, a few trillion dollars, could do to reduce our carbon footprint and launch a green economy.

The human race? Certainly, "too big to fail." After all, it's us, it's all we've got.

And there is an excellent way, powerful and inexpensive, to make a profound difference in deciding the fate of the human race:

Sending more girls to school may help poor countries get out of the economic slump faster, the NGO Plan International says in a new report. Just a one percent rise in the number of girls attending secondary school boosts a country's annual per capita income growth by 0.3 percent ... Investing in education promises an attractive return. "An extra year of education increases a girl's income by 10 to 20 percent; it is a significant step in breaking the cycle of poverty," the report says ... Moreover, "wages of women are well spent," the authors of the report note. "Women reinvest 90 percent of their income back into the household, where men reinvest only 30 to 40 percent." IPS, 10-16-09

The initiative that the NGO Plan International proposes would be a drop in the bucket of the multi-trillion dollar financial industry bailout. You could probably fit in all of the UN Millennium Development Goals and still have some spare change for free broadband wireless for everyone.

There are several other significant aspects of our shared reality that are simply "too big to fail."

Most notably, our collective conscience is failing in Darfur. Can we really afford that hit to our spiritual well-being? Doubt it. (To those capable of reading the auras of whole species, we are looking pretty sickly.)

Nevertheless, it has been reported that Secretary of State Clinton is going to announce a "new" Darfur strategy on Monday. We are going to be told that Darfur has a "crime" problem now, not a GENOCIDE problem. We are going to be told that we need to use "incentives and pressure" and "strict time lines" (sort of like public option "triggers"?), we are going to be told to that to "change the behavior of the Khartoum government — we are going to have to work with a government responsible for so many atrocities” (i.e., make nice with men other indictment for crimes against humanity).

According to the NYT, there were months of fierce debate within the administration. Well, the wrong side of that debate seems to have won out. (Why am I not surprised?)

And as for US Special Envoy Scott Gratton (see Why has the Obama-Biden Administration Put Pollyana in Charge of US Policy on Darfur? ), the NYT reports:

Summing up the administration’s approach, he cited what he described as an old African proverb. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, you have to go with someone,” he said.
“We want to go far,” General Gration said, “and to do that we are going to have to go with Khartoum.” New York Times, 10-16-09

Well, Special Envoy Gratton, if you are going far with Bashir and the thugs in Karthoum, then you will eventually arrive at the gates of Hell, because that's where they are headed.

And then there is the struggle to reform the US health care system, one that our allies in Europe and Japan view with appalled astonishment, one that threatens to sink our economy all by itself.

Certainly, health care reform is "too big to fail."

Although in regard to the Crisis in Darfur, recent signs from his administration are very disappointing; this weekend, President Obama's own rhetoric on the Health Care Crisis sharpened, and that is somewhat encouraging:

It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, “Take one of these, and call us in a decade.” Well, not this time. The fact is, the insurance industry is making this last-ditch effort to stop reform even as costs continue to rise and our health care dollars continue to be poured into their profits, bonuses, and administrative costs that do nothing to make us healthy – that often actually go toward figuring out how to avoid covering people. And they’re earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exception from our anti-trust laws, a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing. Obama rips health insurance lobby as ‘deceptive,’ ‘dishonest,’ ‘bogus.’ Think Progress, 10-17-09

And the price tag for not allowing health care reform to fail would be much less than the several trillion dollars it cost to ensure that Goldman-Sachs, et al could get back in the pink, maybe a trillion or so.

Of course, we won't be able to do our part, as a nation, to save the planetary climate, or the human race, or our collective conscience, or our health care system, unless we can save the republic itself from the filthy lucre that is choking the life out of it.

Our system of government is definite "too big to fail."

And, ironically, in this instance, the action requires saving money NOT spending it.

In a wonderful response to Michael Moore's call to action in "Capitalism: A Love Story," Linda Milazzo explains:

At the end of Capitalism: A Love Story ... Mike issues this challenge to his audience: "You know, I can't really do this anymore - unless those of you who are watching this in the theater want to join me. I hope you will. And please, speed it up." ... But what is Mike's challenge? Here's his response to that question when asked by Chris Matthews on Hardball on MSNBC: "I want them [the American people] to start pressuring our Congress people to get the money out of Congress. We need publicly financed elections and we need the people deciding how this democracy is run." ... We can do this. We can step up to Mike's challenge. Right now in the House and Senate there is key campaign finance legislation called the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA - S. 752 in the Senate and H.R. 1826 in the House) ... If passed, this bill allows federal candidates to run for office without relying on large contributions, big money bundlers, and donations from lobbyists. Candidates will be free from constant fundraising to focus on constituent needs ... Linda Milazzo, Huffington Post, 10-17-09

The human race? Why it's simply "too big to fail." Likewise, the climate is "too big to fail." So we MUST fund education for girls in poor countries, right? And we MUST commit to 350 parts per million as the safe upper limit for carbon in the atmosphere, right? Remember, "too big to fail"? No argument, right? The alternative is unthinkable, right?

Go to Stand w/ Howard Dean for more information on how to participate in the struggle to bring meaningful healthcare reform to the USA.

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

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

I also urge you to participate in some way in the International Day of Climate Action on 10-24-09. Go to 350.org for more information.

As always, 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.

For an archive of Words of Power posts on the Crisis in Darfur, 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.

Michael Moore, Darfur, 350, Healthcare Crisis, Climate Crisis, Matt Taibbi, Bill McKibben

Helen Keller was Not Deaf or Blind; But Much of Our Body Politic Is, Otherwise We Would Be Hearing the Voices of Vidal & Fisk

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the over- coming of it.

Every- thing has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

-- Helen Keller

Helen Keller was Not Deaf or Blind; But Much of Our Body Politic Is, Otherwise We Would Be Hearing the Voices of Vidal & Fisk

by Richard Power

Awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize is powerful magic. I hope it has the desired effect of empowering and protecting him in his dealings with those who see force as the first choice instead of the last resort, and at the same time pressing him to not follow the line of least resistance on human rights, economic security, climate change and other vital issues.

The bold and inspiring gesture could not come at a more critical moment. From where we are right now, with the proper leverage we could turn slowly turn from bad to better; without it, we will quickly slide from bad to worst.

In an provocative interview with the Times of London, one of our literary giants, Gore Vidal has laid it out:

Today religious mania has infected the political bloodstream and America has become corrosively isolationist, he says. “Ask an American what they know about Sweden and they’d say ‘They live well but they’re all alcoholics’. In fact a Scandinavian system could have benefited us many times over.” Instead, America has “no intellectual class” and is “rotting away at a funereal pace. We’ll have a military dictatorship fairly soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together. Obama would have been better off focusing on educating the American people. His problem is being over-educated. He doesn’t realise how dim-witted and ignorant his audience is. Benjamin Franklin said that the system would fail because of the corruption of the people and that happened under Bush.” Times Online, 9-30-09

And not only are we "rotting away" and perhaps stumbling toward "military dictatorship," the Almighty Dollar isn't almighty anymore. Indeed, the All-Seeing Eye on the back of the greenback seems to have blinked.

In his recent article on "The Demise of the Dollar," one of our journalistic giants, Robert Fisk writes:

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies ...
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars ...
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said ... Robert Fisk, The Independent, 10-6-09

Note both of these pieces are from the British press.

Over the years, many of us in the the alternative news media and progressive blogosphere have focused about the failure of the US mainstream news media (MSM) in its vital role as watchdog of democracy, and of the dreadful consequences, i.e., the informational malnourishment and diminished capacity of the US body politic.

But, of course, it is not only the MSM that has failed us, it is also the educational system.

The demise of the MSM is the result of the corporatist monopolization and the organizational cultures that resulted from it.

The demise of the US educational system is the result of the right-wing's decades-long assault on the role of government and the meaning and value of taxes, as Paul Krugman elucidates in a recent op-ed piece:

American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.
Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual — a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis — its effects exacerbated by the penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior that passes for “fiscal responsibility” in Washington — deals a severe blow to education across the board ...
There’s no mystery about what’s going on: education is mainly the responsibility of state and local governments, which are in dire fiscal straits. Adequate federal aid could have made a big difference. But while some aid has been provided, it has made up only a fraction of the shortfall. In part, that’s because back in February centrist senators insisted on stripping much of that aid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the stimulus bill. Paul Krugman, The Uneducated American, NY Times, 10-8-09

Not only have we failed to sustain our public education system economically, we have also failed to adequately protect it first from the right-wing zealots who attacked the humanist foundations of the system itself, and later from the religious extremists who attacked the nature of science itself.

The toxic cocktail of a compromised news media and an abandoned educational system has not only blunted our sharp edge in science and technology, it has also robbed us of vital insights into the character and heritage of our nation.

How many of our fellow citizens understand that Thomas Jefferson considered newspapers more important than governments (see 1787 letter to Edward Carrington) and said that banks were more dangerous than standing armies (see 1816 letter to John Taylor)?

It is in this context that I draw your attention to a revered icon of American life, Helen Keller. Indeed, she was recently honored with a bronze statue at the US Capitol. But in the laudatory speeches that accompanied the unveiling of the statue, no mention was made of her lifelong commitment to socialism, pacifism, feminism, labor activism and sex education. What little MSM coverage of the event there was did not mention her radical politics either.

To put it simply, "We, the people" are not being told what we need to know, "We, the people" are not being taught what we need to learn, and in the process, "We, the people" are being robbed of the richness of who we are.

Here is are some excerpts from a Democracy Now! interview with Kim Nelson, a Professor at University of Wisconsin (Green Bay), who has authored numerous books on Keller's life and work:

GONZALEZ: Can you tell us about this other side of Helen Keller that most Americans probably are not aware of?
KIM NIELSEN: Sure. Helen Keller was an incredibly active, political, passionate woman. She became involved in politics very early as an adult and continued throughout the rest of her life. Once she was finished with college, she became incredibly concerned about economic inequalities, as you said, joined the Socialist Party, affiliated with the IWW, became a suffragist on behalf of women’s suffrage. She sought to educate women about venereal disease, a very taboo topic at that time, and continued similarly the rest of her life ...
JUAN GONZALEZ: She wrote some essays, including “Why I Am a Socialist," and laying out her viewpoints on her political—her adopted political views?
KIM NIELSEN: She did. She wrote the essay, as you said. She wrote quite a bit. She wrote about working conditions. She wrote about the lives of people who were poor. She wrote about living conditions. She wrote some about racial inequalities. It was incredibly frustrating to her that she had a hard time selling those things. People wanted to read about her life as a woman with a disability, particularly her life as a child with a disability. But she was able to market some of those materials. She gave speeches. She spoke at rallies. She did as much as she could. And then, in the Teens, she went on the vaudeville and the Chautauqua circuit and spoke quite a bit there about socialism, about war. She spoke out against World War I as a pacifist. She critiqued it as a money-making venture for industrialists. And she gathered great crowds wherever she went ...
JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, her involvement in the feminist movement and the battle over women’s rights to vote, but at the same time she was critical of the—of just seeing democracy as exercising that right to vote.
KIM NIELSEN: Yes, she was very interested in women’s rights and suffrage and worked on behalf of that in the Teens, nineteen-teens. She was affiliated with the National Women’s Party and Alice Paul, sort of the radical arm of the suffrage movement, and was picketing the White House. She encouraged women to vote in the 1920s. She felt that voting was important, but, as you said, not all. When she traveled post-World War II, she traveled over fifty countries around the globe and always visited women’s organizations there, feminist organizations in the countries to which she traveled. She sought to encourage women in those countries to vote, particularly in countries where women could not vote. She encouraged women’s employment, women’s education and, as I said, women’s education about their bodies and physical illness, venereal disease, support for women in prenatal care. Those were always very important issues to her.
Democracy Now! 10-8-09

Hard Rain Late Night: Sinnead O'Connor -- Irish Ways & Irish Laws

Hard Rain Late Night: Sinead O'Connor -- Irish Ways & Irish Laws

Sinead o'connor - irish ways
by thenelaware

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Sinead O'Connor, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Darfur Crisis: Why has the Obama-Biden Administration Put Pollyana in Charge of US Policy on Darfur?

The Janjaweed are preventing the escape of the displaced, trapping them in the mountains or on trails leading to the desert or country side, leaving them to wander without food, shelter or water. The displaced are often carrying their babies on their back and running with their young children, equipped only with the clothes they have on and little else to defend themselves if caught. Alysha Atma, Today Darfur, Salem-News, 10-2-09

“We've got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries, they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk,” Gration stated. The Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy is extremely saddened by Gration’s proposal and naïve remarks about Darfur and the Sudanese government. Damanga Coalition, 9-30-09

For a range of reasons, Khartoum may calculate that this is a moment in which to accomplish its longstanding goal even as this would precipitate a massive human catastrophe, since adequate security could not, and would not, be provided. Eric Reeves, Redefining Darfur's Agony: A Shameless Betrayal

Darfur Crisis: Why has the Obama-Biden Administration Put a Pollyana in Charge of US Policy on Darfur?

By Richard Power

There is much to focus on.

Once again, Kali dances within the Ring of Fire: devastation from a tsunami in Samoa, devastation from a typhoon in Manila, devastation from a massive earthquake in Padang.

Meanwhile, in Beltwayistan, efforts to address health care and climate change are obstructed at every turn by those who have sold out the people and the planet for filthy lucre.

But I choose, instead, to turn your attention to Darfur.

This is my seventy-ninth post on the crisis in Darfur. And those I have written since the swearing in of President Obama and Vice-President Biden are, in some ways, the most indignant of all.

Because among the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Hell of Darfur, one in particular stands out, overshadowing all the others: it is the death of conscience.

And unfortunately, the Obama-Biden administration has done little to bring it back from the dead. Indeed, it seems as if they have picked up shovels and started to bury it.

US Special Envoy Scott Gration says some recent remarks (see Darfur Crisis: The Waters of Denial are Too Shallow to Hide the Nakedness of Either Special Envoy Gration or General Agwai, Let Alone Both of Them) were taken out of context. Well, apparently there is an awful lot of context that we all have to carry around in order to accommodate him; much more context, in fact, than his efforts have provided for the protection of Darfuri women and girls as they gather firewood.

Scott Gration is, at best, a Pollyanna.

Consider the facts on the ground:

They strategically attack the villages – bombing, shooting, wielding any brand of weaponry, attacking the villagers and then block the roads and trails leading to the IDP and refugee camps.
Janjaweed and pro militia ride on camels, horseback and trucks terrorizing the citizens of Darfur as they try to flee on foot, blocking their only means of safety.
The Janjaweed are preventing the escape of the displaced, trapping them in the mountains or on trails leading to the desert or country side, leaving them to wander without food, shelter or water.
The displaced are often carrying their babies on their back and running with their young children, equipped only with the clothes they have on and little else to defend themselves if caught.
It is reported the Janjaweed had raped 47 women and girls, 13 of them very young girls.
One girl, age 13 was gang raped by 7 men of the pro government militias – she later died as a result of the trauma, her parents could not get her to El Fasher for medical treatment. Alysha Atma, Today Darfur, Salem-News, 10-2-09

This is Darfur now. Not two or three years ago. Now. Do you understand?

I am confident that you do.

And it is difficult to believe that US Special Envoy Scott Gration doesn't understand. I can only assume, sadly, that his seeming lack of comprehension is willful.

Consider this excerpt from a recent statement from the Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy:

Gration believes that positive cooperation with the Sudanese government is the best way to end the genocide: “We've got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries, they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk,” Gration stated.
The Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy is extremely saddened by Gration’s proposal and naïve remarks about Darfur and the Sudanese government. It is clear that Gration and the Obama administration fail to realize or choose to ignore the severity of the genocide and rampant corruption within the Sudanese government. As fellow Darfur activist John Prendergast bluntly criticized Gration in the report, “They [The Sudanese Government] do not respond to nice guys [like Gration] coming over and saying, 'We have to be a good guest ... they eat these people for dinner.”
It appears that Gration and the Obama administration have no plans to hold the Sudanese government and President Omar Al-Bashir accountable for their crimes against humanity-killing more than 450,000 innocent people thus far. Damanga Coalition, 9-30-09

This is Obama's Special Envoy, not Bush's. Do you understand?

I know Eric Reeves understands.

Consider these brief excerpts from his recent post on Redefining Darfur's Agony: A Shameless Betrayal:

Gration has recently claimed to have been misrepresented in his views on the issue of returns, as well as other issues to which he spoke before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (July 30, 2009). But in fact notes from two meetings Gration held in Darfur with UN and nongovernmental organizations in July 2009 clearly reveal a push for early returns, a position that caused such deep consternation that these organizations took the highly unusual step of allowing the notes to become public, thereby creating the opportunity to dissociate themselves from Gration’s comments and assessments ...
Sadly, what we have in the efforts of Special Envoy Gration is a deliberate politicization of humanitarian issues in a bid to create a more tractable negotiating party in the Khartoum regime. That Gration is capable of deliberate distortion is clear from a remark he made in his Radio Dabanga interview (September 15, 2009), in which he declares (as he has elsewhere) that, “he never said anything [about] lifting the sanctions and removing Sudan from the list of state-sponsored terrorism.” This is outright mendacity, and a telling revelation of diplomatic character ...
In yet another example of what is either egregious ignorance or an unconscionable expediency, Gration says nothing about what is widely known within the humanitarian community, viz. that resources for girls and women who are victims of sexual violence were almost entirely eliminated with the March 4 expulsions ... Eric Reeves, Redefining Darfur's Agony: A Shameless Betrayal

As always, 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.

For an archive of Words of Power posts on the Crisis in Darfur, 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.

Enough Project, Darfur, Sudan Genocide, Eric Reeaves, Scott Gration Mia Farrow