Jobs? Afghanistan? Healthcare? Climate? Where & When Will Something Turn in Our Favor? It Better Be Here & Now

Odilon Redon's Primitive Man (Seated in Shadow)

The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they’re not getting anything for it. Think Progress, 11-24-09

Few Americans are aware that, just before he was assassinated, Kennedy had decided to pull all troops out of Vietnam by 1965. The Pentagon was hell bent on thwarting such plans ... Ray McGovern, Obama: Profile in Courage or Cave-In, Common Dreams, 11-24-09

Former DNC Chair Howard Dean told the Huffington Post on Monday that Senate Democratic leadership was "in deep trouble" on health care, even after Majority Leader Harry Reid cobbled together over the weekend the 60 votes needed to get legislation to the floor ... Sam Stein, Huffington Post, 11-23-09

The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will lead to long-term changes in the climate system that will persist for millennia. Our growing understanding of the balance of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans and terrestrial systems tells us that the greater the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the greater the risk of long-term damage to Earth's life support systems.
Full text: Climate science statement, Guardian, 11-24-09

Jobs? Afghanistan? Healthcare? Climate? Where & When Will Something Turn in Our Favor? It Better Be Here & Now

By Richard Power

The weeks and months ahead are perilous for the Obama-Biden administration, and those who want them to succeed, as I do, must speak out forcefully and forthrightly.

The economic stimulus package was not big enough, it did not include enough infrastructure projects or enough green energy projects, and too much of it was wasted on tax cuts. Many of us knew this, and said so at the time.

Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) recently spoke eloquently and courageously on the attitude that must be cultivated now:

We’re never going to decrease the deficit until we create jobs, bring revenue into the Treasury, stimulate the economy so we have growth ... The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they’re not getting anything for it ... If we pull our punch, as they did in the mid-30’s, we shouldn’t be surprised if history repeats itself. Think Progress, 11-24-09

Turning another leaf in our sheaf of national woes, Obama's decision on next steps in Afghanistan is nigh; and on the 46th anniversary of JFK's assassination, Ray McGovern has written a powerful piece on the lessons learned from the little known history of his decision-making on Vietnam:

Faux history has it that President Lyndon Baines Johnson's infusion of hundreds of thousands, up to 536,000, combat troops into Vietnam was a straight-line continuation of a buildup started by his slain predecessor. Kennedy did raise the U.S. troop level there from about 1,000 to 16,500 "advisers" - a significant increase.
But as he studied the options, cost, and likely outcomes, Kennedy came to see U.S. intervention in Vietnam as a fool's errand. Few Americans are aware that, just before he was assassinated, Kennedy had decided to pull all troops out of Vietnam by 1965.
The Pentagon was hell bent on thwarting such plans ... Ray McGovern, Obama: Profile in Courage or Cave-In, Common Dreams, 11-24-09

And then there is this year's struggle to deliver meaningful healthcare reform to the USA; it has revealed a shocking depravity in Beltwayistan.

There is great suffering in the land, and obscene profits are being reaped from it.

Nevertheless, our profligate political class is doing everything it can to protect the insurance companies who have brought the US healthcare system to this wretched circumstance. This is the same profligate political class that did not think twice about authorization after authorization for a three trillion dollar war against the wrong enemy; now it insists it would be fiscally irresponsible to guarantee you the same right to healthcare that citizens benefit from in every one of the other great democracies.

The grim reality is that the split in the Senate is not 60 Democrats to 40 Republicans, it is actually more like 60 corporatists or, perhaps more accurately, neo-corporatists to 40 small "d" democrats.

The focus now is on four neo-corporatists who happen to have a "D" after their names and on two neo-corporatists from Maine who happen to have an "R" after their names. But they would not have so much power if so many other neo-corporatists who happen to have a "D" after their names had not already so weakened and delayed the Senate's health care reform bill that it even if passed it may become a liability, unless Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Harken (D-IA) prevail in the conference committee.

In a recent interview with Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, former DNC Chair Howard Dean explained that unless Harry Reid (D-NV) has "some magic up his sleeves" the Democrats are in "deep trouble" and their only options seems to be a bad bill or losses in 2010:

"I think if you passed the Senate bill tomorrow it would be OK. But then the problem is they don't have any defense for their members in 2010," Dean said, noting that the public option would not become operational until 2014. "On the other hand, if they drop the public option [to placate moderate members], I think they lose seats." Sam Stein, Huffington Post, 11-23-09

I have confidence in Howard Dean's assessment, just as I have confidence in my conviction that if he were White House Chief of Staff instead of Rahm Emmanuel, the struggle for health care reform would have gone quite differently.

Yes, this sordid process has revealed a great deal about the corruption of our system of government; and yet, this week we learned even more appalling news:

Corporate front groups and large business trade associations are funneling their resources into defeating health reform. Even though health reform will lower costs for small businesses and boost worker productivity economy-wide, it appears that corporate entities influenced by major polluters are hoping that the defeat of health care legislation will slow President Obama’s agenda and derail their true enemy: clean energy reform. Think Progress, Coal-Fueled Chamber Of Commerce Demands Lawmakers Defeat Health Reform In Order To ‘Stop’ Clean Energy Bill, 11-21-09

That's right, the Chamber of Commerce has been stoking the engines of resistance to healthcare reform, not just to provide cover for the lords of the insurance rackets, but also to thwart an even more deadly enemy: action on climate change and green energy.

Indeed, this most recent revelation is just one more piece of damning evidence in a well-documented history of Climate Crisis disinformation, denial and obstructionism on stretching back over the last decade

Yet, most people will not hear of it on the air waves, or read about in the newspapers, instead they will read about the release of hacked e-mails from some climate scientists, and they will be misled.

For clarity on the hacked climate science e-mail story. I refer you to two very humorous pieces, one by the irascible George Monbiot of the Guardian, Global Warming Rigged? Here's the Email I'd Need to See, and the other from the blog Carbon Fixated, Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Renaissance and Enlightenment ‘thinking

Meanwhile, Words of Power will stay focused on the reality of the human condition.

If we do not come to grips with the Climate Crisis NOW, it will not matter whether or not you can find a job or take advantage of a robust public health insurance option or be openly gay while serving in the military.

But alas, we are not coming to grips with it, and sooner than later, if we continue to hide from the truth, there will be hell to pay.

Indeed, it is already on the way.

As I write this post, news is breaking that President Obama will go to Copenhagen for the showdown on the Climate Crisis, on his way to accept his Nobel Peace Prize. Let us hope that history looks back on those two appearances as crucial rather than cosmetic.


Yggdrasil, the World Tree

This week an important statement came out of the scientific community of the U.K., and like the scandal of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce using health care reform as a human shield in its war against action on climate change and green energy, this important statement was drowned out by the convenient story of the hacked climate science e-mail and the exploitative framing that accompanied it.

Here are some brief excerpts from that important statement from the scientific community of the U.K., with a link to the full text:

Some countries and regions are already vulnerable to climate variability and change, but in the coming decades all countries will be affected, regardless of their affluence or individual emissions. Climate change will have major consequences for food production, water availability, ecosystems and human health, migration pressures, and regional instability. In the UK, we will be affected both directly and indirectly, through the effects of climate change on, for example, global markets (notably in food), health, extent of flooding, and sea levels.
The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will lead to long-term changes in the climate system that will persist for millennia. Our growing understanding of the balance of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans and terrestrial systems tells us that the greater the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the greater the risk of long-term damage to Earth's life support systems. Known or probable damage includes ocean acidification, loss of rain forests, degradation of ecosystems, and desertification. These effects will lead to loss of biodiversity and reduced agricultural productivity. Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases can substantially limit the extent and severity of long-term climate change.
The 2007 IPCC assessment, the most comprehensive and respected analysis of climate change to date, states clearly that without substantial global reductions of greenhouse gas emissions we can likely expect a world of increasing droughts, floods and species loss, of rising seas and displaced human populations. However even since the 2007 IPCC assessment the evidence for dangerous, long-term and potentially irreversible climate change has strengthened. The scientific evidence which underpins calls for action at Copenhagen is very strong. Without co-ordinated international action on greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts on climate and civilisation could be severe.
Full text: Climate science statement, Guardian, 11-24-09

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

Have you met Al Gore at the Wall yet?

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

Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Climate Crisis, George Monbiot, Ray McGovern, Health care reform, Chamber of Commerce

Hard Rain Late Night: Shakira -- Objection & Objection (Tango)

Hard Rain Late Night: Shakira -- Objection & Objection (Tango)

Shakira Objection (Live)
by Ben0it35

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

Crimes Against Humanity, Crimes Against Nature: Ideas on How to Spend the $300 Million for the Bush __residential Library

Salvadore Dali's The Slave Market w/ Disappearing Bust of Voltaire

The roof above Freedom Hall, which is a gathering point in the center of the building, will be shaped like a lantern and will be lit up at night. It will be emblematic of the Bush presidency ... The Bush Foundation will pay for construction, which is estimated to be about $300 million. It will operate the Bush Institute, while the National Archives will run the library and museum after construction is complete. Dallas Morning news, 11-18-09

The scientists report a 29 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel between 2000 and 2008 (the latest year for which figures are available), and that in spite of the global economic downturn emissions increased by 2 per cent during 2008. The use of coal as a fuel has now surpassed oil and developing countries now emit more greenhouse gases than developed countries - with a quarter of their growth in emissions accounted for by increased trade with the West. Terra Daily, 11-18-09

In the first study of its kind, climate scientists looked at how much pollution the world could afford to produce between now and the end of the century in order to keep temperature rises within a “safe limit”. Telegraph UK, 11-16-09

Crimes Against Humanity, Crimes Against Nature: Ideas on How to Spend the $300 Million for the Bush __residential Library

By Richard Power

Two years ago, as I was publishing Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Greed, Fear & Ignorance in this Era of Global Crisis, I framed the offering around four critical deadlines for humanity: the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the December 2009 Copenhagen summit on global climate change, the 2015 target date for achieving the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDG), and today, tomorrow and the next day, in other words, every day, the sun rises without decisive action on behalf of the Darfuri people.

Well, the U.S. electorate did choose reason over madness in 2008, but the other outcomes aren't looking too good.

In recent days, world leaders have been preparing public opinion for failure in Copenhagen. (They will call it progress, but it will be delay, and at this point, delay is failure.)

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

Concerning the U.N. MDG, frankly, if radical and urgent progress on climate change, e.g., plans to mitigate its impact in Africa and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, the positive impact of the U.N. MDG will be lost in the perfect storm to come.

So lately, I have been taking stock, and asking myself how I should adjust my perspective, and re-frame my message.

Despite the acknowledging the bitter truths articulated in two hard-hitting pieces, one from Der Spiegel and one from Bill McKibben, writing for Mother Jones, I do not fault President Obama.

Obama's announcement at the APEC summit that it was no longer possible to secure a binding treaty in Copenhagen, is the result of his own negligence. Der Spiegel, 11-17-09

The real tip-off of Obama's unwillingness to lead, however, has been the endless spinning of his climate negotiators. Bill McKibben, Mother Jones, 11-17-09

No, I do not fault Obama. I feel for him, and I fear for him. (Please view this extraordinary Rachel Maddow interview with Franklin Schaeffer: Frank Schaeffer Warns Against the Latest Threats From the Religious Right to President Obama )

Two stories that recently came across the wire put our predicament in a broader and fairer context: 1) a scientific study revealing that 29 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel between 2000 and 2008, and 2) the Bush Foundation announced it plans for a $300 million Bush __residential Libary.

Yes, not only did we lose eight years we could not afford to lose, during that painful period, there actually was an acceleration of the human activity instigating the Climate Crisis.

Well, I have some ideas for the Bush __residential library:

Perhaps a marble book burning pit with a perpetual flame should dominate the outer courtyard; visitors could toss copies of Darwin's Origin of the Species, the IPCC Assessment Reports and J.K. Rowlings' seven Harry Potter novels into it.

Perhaps on the way into the Library, you should pass a mock wall of stars, a reproduction of the CIA Memorial Wall, as it stands at CIA HQ in Langley, but in this Bush __residential Library version, you could peel back the stars and expose the names and covers, just as Scooter Libby did in the Plame affair, and on your way out of the exhibit, you could receive a parchment with a facsimile of the __residential order giving Libby clemency.

Imagine looking down as you enter the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Room to see that the glass floor on which you are walking overlays a giant copy of the Geneva Accords; imagine looking down as you enter the "Massive Domestic Surveillance Program" to see that the glass floor on which you are walking overlays a giant copy of the Bill of Rights.

Imagine strolling through the Katrina Room, which would consist of wall-size high definition TV screens projecting muted cable news footage from the streets of the Ninth Ward in the days after the levees broke. On your head-set, instead of cries for help from the poor and the downtrodden, you would be listening to a dramatic reading of Bush FEMA Director Micheal Brown's e-mails; at the conclusion of each e-mail, you would hear the sound-byte of Bush saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Perhaps in the 9/11 Room, you could stand on a pedestal, amid billowing stage smoke, and grab the bull horn for a Karaoke version of Bush's speech from ground zero; and, yes, looking under your feet you would see a giant copy of the August 6th PDB. Reverberating in that gruesome echo chamber would be the Condi Rice sound-byte: "No one could have foreseen terrorists flying airplanes into buildings."

Of course, the 9/11 Room should lead directly into the Iraq and Afghanistan Rooms, in these exhibits you would walk on the names of the men and women of the US military who died in these foolish military adventures. The exhibits would consist of two dark tunnels with no lights at the end; the only visual effect on the walls of these tunnels would be illuminated counters tabulating the actual cost of each by the second. And if you dared to walk down to the end of either tunnel? You would find a cul-de-sac.

And in the Global Warming Room, well, there would simply be a stairwell, lined with small terrariums with dead frogs floating in slowly boiling water; and the end of the downward staircase would just be a ledge, which would drop off into an abyss, a seemingly bottomless pit ...

There would be many other exhibits, of course: e.g., the Meltdown Room (concoct your own derivatives, print your own money, and receive an obscene bonus and a golden parachute as you leave the scene of an economic crime); you would also need a Florida 2000 Room, an Ohio 2004 Room, a Bush Tax Cuts Room, and so much more.

But this really isn't about Bush and Cheney either.

It is really about a political establishment so corrupted by money and a mainstream news media establishment so compromised by its corporatist culture that two disturbed men could be allowed to seize power illegitimately, hold it for eight years, trashing the nation and the world throughout, and then, in the end, walk away without fear of investigation or indictment.

Where do we go from here?

I don't know.

Meanwhile, to maintain the context and continuity of the time-line I have kept over the last decade, here are some recent news stories that poignantly underscore the scope and catastrophic potential of the Climate Crisis:

The persistent drought affecting some 90 percent of Argentine territory has slain cattle in the hundreds of thousands and caused forest fires, drastic restrictions on water use and local disputes over water. IPS, 9-12-09

Rising sea levels caused by global warming could inundate up to 250,000 homes in Australia, according to a study released Saturday that warned airports, hospitals and power stations were at risk. Agence France Press, 11-14-09

Australian officials issued their first ever 'catastrophic' wildfire evacuation warning on Tuesday, as a parching heatwave intensified over the country's south. Strait Times, 11-17-09

The consequences of global warming are particularly dire for a region that contributes 35 percent of the nation's total grain production and 41 percent of China's gross domestic product. The region, which cuts across the length of China, is also home to rare and endangered species such as the giant panda and the Yangtze River dolphin. Associated Press, 11-10-09

Investing billions today to protect threatened ecosystems and dwindling biodiversity would reap trillions in savings over the long haul, according to a UN-backed report issued Friday ... "Five hundred million people who will have to be looked after. What are you going to do if -- more likely 'when' -- that problem hits you?" asked Sukhdev. Agence France Press, 11-13-09

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

Have you met Al Gore at the Wall yet?

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

Bush Library, Darfur, Climate Crisis, Franklin Schaeffer, 9/11, Katrina, Valerie Plame

The Body Politic has a Psyche, It Must be Healed; a Former Nun, a UN Special Rapporteur & a Yogini Show How

Image: Frida Kahlo, Love Embrace of the Universe

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace. Wangari Maathai

Human beings the world over need freedom and security that they may be able to realize their full potential. Aung San Suu Kyi

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Gautama Buddha

The Body Politic has a Psyche, It Must be Healed; a Former Nun, a UN Special Rapporteur & a Yogini Show How

By Richard Power

The Tibetans chop up their dead and feed them to the vultures in the high places. The vultures feast, and then soar far into the limitless sky, until they disappear into the clouds. It is called "sky burial."

The wings of the vulture are profoundly symbolic. One wing represents emptiness, and the other wing, compassion. A bird cannot fly without both of its wings. Compassion keeps emptiness honest, emptiness keeps compassion balanced.

This is how the mystic lives in the world.

Occasionally, someone from one dimension of my life or another will remark, "I didn't know you were so political," or ask "When did you become so political?"

The truth is that I am not political at all.

Oh, I understand that world. I even have an aptitude for the horseracing/handicapping aspect of it (I am Irish, after all). Yes, I could have followed that trail.

In my youth, I was passionately involved in Democratic Party reform politics in New York, and worked closely with people who went to either the White House or the Cabinet, some under Carter and others under Clinton.

But I took a different trail, and if humanity and the Earth had not been so poorly served by the leaders of business, government and religion over the last twenty years, no one beyond my immediate circle of personal friends would know my political views.

I would rather be writing about the paintings of Frida Kahlo and the music of John Coltrane than speaking out on the moral failures of the US mainstream news media. I would rather be savoring the arcane subtleties of obscure Vajrayana texts than highlighting the anti-social behavior of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But unfortunately, at this time in history, for me, the political is inescapable, and it will be for awhile yet.

My interest in it, however, is Shamanic not ideological.

Another type of resistance I occasionally encounter is the view that somehow "politics" and "struggle" are by definition at cross-purposes with any journey into oneness.

I experience it differently.

The realization of the oneness of all life led Jesus to the path of non-violence ("Peter," he declared, "put up your sword"); but the realization of the oneness of all life also led Krishna take the reins of Arjuna's chariot and drive the young prince into battle on the plains of Kurukshetra. Different circumstances demand different responses from different personalities. There is no fixed pattern.

Increasingly, though, the detour through the political realm is coming full circle into the spiritual and psychological dimensions of the human journey, and for me, chronicling one is becoming inextricable bound up with chronicling the other.

I have gathered three stories here for you. They concern our common humanity, and taken together they carry a powerful message that is both spiritual and political, yet neither dogmatic or ideological.

None of them will be headlines in the US mainstream news media, nor will the message they carry be championed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

It is up to you and I to look into our own psyches, and consider our own karmic wheels, and then determine what they call forth from us.

2008 TED Prize winner Karen Armstrong, a former Roman Catholic nun, has manifested her vision and published the Charter for Compassion:

Ceremonies were held in 32 countries to mark the publication of the document, which it is hoped will inspire decision-makers as well as grassroots campaigners to promote equality and fairness. The text includes calls on men and women to do the following:
* restore compassion to the center of morality and religion;
* return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate;
* ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures;
* encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity, and
* cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings ~ even those regarded as enemies. Radio Netherlands, Charter sets out global campaign for compassion, 11-12-09K

In a recent GRITtv interview, the indefatigable Laura Flanders talked with Deirdre Summerbell, who is teaching yoga to survivors of the Rwandan genocide:

In Rwanda, the bodies of women were too often the site of battles–rape and abuse were used as weapons of war. Trying to overcome that trauma, the women and children–many of whom are HIV-positive–have an almost unimaginable struggle.
When Deirdre Summerbell was approached about teaching yoga to the women in Rwanda, she was skeptical, but she decided to try it. “Yoga is slow medicine but it is medicinal in character,” she says now of Project Air, where she helps women and girls reconnect with their bodies and heal their spirits.
Summerbell joined us in the GRITtv studio to talk about her project and her plans to expand it into the Congo and other areas of the world, like Gaza and Afghanistan. GRITtv w/ Laura Flanders, Bodies as Battlefields: Yoga in Rwanda, 11-13-09 (You can view the interview on the other end of this hyperlink!)

Raquel Rolnik, a UN special rapporteur from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who had been blocked from touring the U.S.A. by the Bush-Cheney cabal, has now been allowed to do her job by the Obama-Biden administration:

A United Nations special investigator who was blocked from visiting the US by the Bush administration has accused the American government of pouring billions of dollars into rescuing banks and big business while treating as "invisible" a deepening homeless crisis.
Raquel Rolnik, the UN special rapporteur for the right to adequate housing, who has just completed a seven-city tour of America, said it was shameful that a country as wealthy as the US was not spending more money on lifting its citizens out of homelessness and substandard, overcrowded housing.
"The housing crisis is invisible for many in the US," she said. "I learned through this visit that real affordable housing and poverty is something that hasn't been dealt with as an issue. Even if we talk about the financial crisis and government stepping in in order to promote economic recovery, there is no such help for the homeless."
She added: "I think those who are suffering the most in this whole situation are the very poor, the low-income population. The burden is disproportionately on them and it's of course disproportionately on African-Americans, on Latinos and immigrant communities, and on Native Americans." Guardian, UN Investigator Accuses US of Shameful Neglect of Homeless, 11-13-09

I do not know if these stories will compel you to bold action or deep meditation, or both. Only you can know what they call forth from you.

All I hope is that they do indeed reach you.

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

Raquel Rolnick, Charter for Compassion, Karen Armstrong, Diedre Summerbell

Hard Rain Late Night: Emmylou Harris -- A Diamond in My Crown

Hard Rain Late Night: Emmylou Harris A Diamond in My Crown



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

Emmylou Harris,You Tube, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

The Adversary is Not Ideology or Demographic, It is at its Most Innocent, Fear, at its most Disappointing, Apathy, & at its Worst, Sociopathy

Image: Heronymus Bosch, Hell, Courtesy of Radio Netherlands

As Canadians mark Holocaust Education Week, it is a sobering thought to realize that the genocide in Darfur has lasted longer than the Holocaust itself. Mia Farrow, Cycles of Violence, Toronto Star, 11-4-09

Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed. George Monbiot, Climate Change Deniers Are Not Skeptics - They're Suckers, Guardian, 11-5-09

The Adversary is Not an Ideology or a Demographic, It is at its Most Innocent, a Paralyzing Fear, at its most Disappointing, an appalling Apathy, & at its Worst, a vicious Sociopathy

Ha! Fooled you? I have noticed that when "Darfur" or "Climate" are in the headline, the number of hits for a new post drops off typically by half from the average number of hits if something like "Cheney" or "Jefferson" or "Healthcare" were in the headline.

Why?

Others, whose words and deeds I respect, are asking similar questions.

Mia Farrow is an impeccable source that Words of Power often references in regard to the Crisis in Darfur.

In an op-ed for the Toronto Star, posted during her recent visit to support the work of two Canadian Jewish organizations involved in Darfur activism, Farrow puts Darfur in its proper context, and by so doing delivers one answer -- apathy. Indeed, an apathy that "astonished" Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winning Holocaust survivor then and now.

As Canadians mark Holocaust Education Week, it is a sobering thought to realize that the genocide in Darfur has lasted longer than the Holocaust itself. And it continues unabated.
The post-World War II cry of "Never Again" has tragically become "Again and Again." But in today's wired world, we cannot retreat behind claims that we don't know what is happening. ...
As Elie Wiesel wrote in amazement about the Holocaust: "The victims perished not only because of the killers, but also because of the apathy of the bystanders. What astonished us after the torment, after the tempest, was not that so many killers killed so many victims, but that so few cared about us at all." Mia Farrow, Cycles of Violence, Toronto Star, 11-4-09

The provocative and indomitable George Monbiot is a source that Words of Power frequently references in regard to the Climate Crisis.

In a recent column for the Guardian, in which Monbiot explores the motivations of global warming deniers and also the apparent rise in their number, he cites fear as the hidden engine of such phenomena.

A study by the website Desmogblog shows that the number of internet pages proposing that man-made global warming is a hoax or a lie more than doubled last year ... On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently ranked at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 in the global warming category. Never mind that they've been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on? ...
Such beliefs seem to be strongly influenced by age. The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming, that it's caused by humans, or that it's a serious problem ...
A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult to repress thoughts of death, and that people might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival ... could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the last two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it? George Monbiot, Climate Change Deniers Are Not Skeptics - They're Suckers, Guardian, 11-5-09

This is my eighty second post on Darfur and my one hundred seventy fifth post on the Climate Crisis. These posts have been not only an attempt to provide context and continuity, as well as appropriate emphasis, on these stories, but also to find new language (i.e., new metaphors, new arguments, new analogies) and search for the most efficient triggers (e.g., spiritual, psychological and economic) with which to reach more and more people. It is my shaman's drum.

And yes, what we do battle with (whether over Darfur, or the Climate Crisis, or health care reform) is not an ideology or a demographic, it is fear, apathy and illness deep within the human psyche.

I will continue to gaze into the fire and tell you what I see.

I will continue to beat this drum.

Together, our minds will impact the collective mind.

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.

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.

Mia Farrow, Darfur, Climate Crisis, George Monbiot, Elie Wiesel

A Year After Grant Park: Somewhere Between Cannery Row & Desolation Row, Standing at a Bus Stop on a Street with No Name

Cannery Row in Monterrey, California is a poem, a stink and a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream ... Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody." John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row -- Bob DyLan, Desolation Row



A Year After Grant Park: Somewhere Between Cannery Row & Desolation Row, Standing at a Bus Stop on a Street with No Name

By Richard Power

Unsatisfied with merely denying adequate and affordable health care to their fellow citizens, the Cult formerly known as the Republican Party is now ramping up to thwart the rescue of our species.(See "The Audacity of Nope" at Climate Progress.) This is not ideology, it is pathology.

But worse yet are those who enable the acting out of this pathology.

For example, the Creigh Deeds of the Democratic Party.

For example, the Diane Sawyers of the US mainstream news media.

Did you know that Creigh Deeds, the defeated Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia, was running ads AGAINST the President's climate and energy bill, and even argued that a health care public option was not necessary, and threatened to "opt-out" for Virginia?

By the end of his campaign, Deeds was running ads attacking Obama’s clean energy agenda, saying Obama’s “cap and trade bill” would “hurt the people of Virginia” ... During the final gubernatorial debate, [Deeds said:] “I don’t think the public option is necessary in any plan ... I would certainly consider opting out if that were available to Virginia ...” Think Progress, 11-4-09

No wonder it was a blow-out.

As for Sawyer, consider her interview with Al Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, former Vice-President and global champion of action to mitigate the potentially devastating impact of climate change:

ABC’s Good Morning America host Diane Sawyer sandbagged Vice President Al Gore this morning ... Smiling, Sawyer introduced a mocking clip from the Fox News pundit. “Here’s Glenn Beck,” she said ... BECK: I’m siding with PETA on this one. Once again asking Al Gore if you really want to save the planet, Al, why don’t you put down the cheeseburger and pick up the veggie burger? Time for, maybe, soy milk and tofurkey?
Sawyer somehow failed to note that Beck denies the science of climate change and has claimed efforts to build a green economy are “fascism.” Think Progress, 11-3-09

And how is Sawyer going to be rewarded for her idiocy? Why, she has been named the anchor for the ABC Evening News.

It has been a year since many of us wept with joy, and throngs of our fellow citizens gathered in Grant Park to hear Barack Obama's victory speech. Where is the nation now?

Surely, sometime in your life, you have been waiting at a bus for too long -- in the dark, in the cold -- trying to get to a hospital to visit a loved one, or trying to get to a job interview that you were going to be late for. And you were there, waiting, waiting, seemingly forever; waiting for a bus, not knowing if you missed it, not knowing it's still running. Well, that's where this nation is now. Standing at a bus stop on a street with no name, waiting in the cold and the dark ...

What will happen to this country if Obama fails because he listened to Geithner on the economy, McChrystal on Afghanistan and Rahm Emmanuel on health care?

Listen to the warning of Noam Chomsky, the USA's leading dissident intellectual:

Noam Chomsky, the world's leading dissident intellectual, has warned the grievances exploited by far-right extremists need to be taken seriously by their left-wing opponents.
Speaking at the annual Amnesty International lecture in Belfast, Professor Chomsky noted: "There is now a mass of people with real grievances who want answers and are not receiving them. A common reaction in elite educated circles and much of the left is to ridicule the right-wing ­protesters, but that is a serious error.
Dr Chomsky said history had shown it was a grave mistake not to answer the calls of people mired in poverty, who are susceptible to the argument that rich liberals are giving their money to illegal ­immigrants and the shiftless poor. Herald Scotland, 11-4-09

Consider, also, the warning of Sy Hersh, the USA's leading investigative journalist:

The army is also “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have [President] Obama boxed in,” Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh told several hundred people in Duke University’s Page Auditorium ... “A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble,” he said ... “If he gives them the extra troops they’re asking for, he loses politically,” Hersh said. “And if he doesn’t give them the troops, he also loses politically.” ... “He’s either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon,” Hersh said. If he doesn’t, “this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency." Herald-Sun, 10-14-09

Several months ago, I drove down to Monterrey to meet with a colleague. I arrived early, so I went down the road to Cannery Row to kill some time.

I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. My mind wandered to a wall poster that I hung in my room in the 1960s: it was a close-up of John Steinbeck's face, like weathered leather, wearing a sailor's cap, smiling with the grim happiness of a man freed from illusion.

In my youth, I read all of his books. The short novel Cannery Row, with its poignancy and its gentleness, was my favorite. What would it read like now, I wondered. So that afternoon, when I got back to San Francisco, I bought myself a copy, and read straight through it.

Remarkably, it struck me as even more beautiful, and even more haunting: Doc, the solitary proprietor of the Western Biological Laboratory. The homeless men who lived in the flophouse down the road. The prostitutes who lived in the brothel down the road. The gopher who lived in the garden down the road The Gregorian chants. The rattlesnakes in their cages ...

Rereading Cannery Row was a profound experience. I felt as if I had come full circle, as if I now knew from experience what I known then from ... from what? Memory? Full circle. Furthermore, it occurred to me that I had arrived at the age of the Steinbeck pictured in that poster hanging on my wall way back when. Full circle.

So I took stock, I was alive. And although Steinbeck has been gone for decades, his work clearly lives on. Even Cannery Row still exists; yes, of course, its physical reality is now that of a whitewashed, gentrified tourist site, but the ghostly imprint of another time is still there for those with ears to see and eyes to hear. Yes, you can still read Cannery Row, and you can even visit its sanitized vestige, but the America it belonged to is gone, long gone. Lost forever.

As I finished taking stock, I heard a song in my mind:

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row -- Bob DyLan, Desolation Row

Like first time I read Cannery Row, the first time I heard this song was in the 1960s.

Desolation Row was the defiant, joyful cry of an outsider. It celebrated the existential verities of the human condition, and it prophesied some of what was to come here in America.

(Sadly, in 1965, when this song was written, there was also Democrat in the White House, and his name was not Kennedy.)

The land in which we live now imbues the Creigh Deeds and the Diane Sawyers with great opportunity and responsibility, and they fritter it away.

This is not my land, this is not your land.

Unless ...

What should Obama do about Afghanistan?

What should Obama do about the Masters of the Universe who run the financial rackets, and have a stranglehold on our economy, our political system and our healthcare system?

What should Obama do about the global warming deniers?

I don't know.

I am not going to chastise President Obama. I think I can see where he is pinned.

No, I do not know what he should do.

But I do know what Doc, Steinbeck's protagonist in Cannery Row, would do.

He would drive 500 miles down the coast to harvest octopus. He would travel all night, stopping at diners here and there. Listening to the radio, listening to his fellow human beings. Always moving forward. But at his own pace. Then, before sunrise, he would wade into the surf, and roam the tide pools until he had collected enough octopus to fill the order.

And maybe that's what I should do too.

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant -- Carnival

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant -- Carnival

Natalie Merchant - Carnival [live]
by Jo_Bidjoba

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

Natalie Merchant,You Tube, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power