As the Oil Industry Waterboards Our National Psyche with the Gulf Eco-Catastrophe, Isn't It Time to Choose the Real World Over "Real Politik"?

These photos are from CODEPINK's Flickr album "bp houston action 040"



If BP fails to plug its ruptured offshore oil well, intense underground pressure would be enough to pump vast quantities of thick brown crude into the Gulf of Mexico for months, even years. If even BP's backup plans fail, it would cause a pollution disaster "heretofore unseen by humanity," said one expert. The Hill, 5-26-10

The truth is that there’s not much more that President Obama can do to stop the eco-disaster now hitting the Gulf of Mexico. But his response to our fossil fuel-driven crises — so far — can still be deemed grossly inadequate. That’s because the Gulf spill is actually one of two environmental catastrophes now unfolding, and Obama doesn’t seem to understand how they are related. Climate Progress, 5-26-10

Thirty years of conservative message dominance is a function of the right's ability to master outrage. Now is the time for Democrats and progressives to muster (and master) the kind of outrage worthy of this calamity. Peter Daou, Huffington Post, 5-23-10

As the Oil Industry Waterboards Our National Psyche with the Gulf Eco-Catastrophe, Isn't It Time to Choose the Real World Over the False Meme of "Real Politik"?

By Richard Power

I am grateful to the women of CODEPINK.

In their recent action outside the BP offices in Houston, these brave activists manifested an urgency and directness appropriate to the current emergency.

Looking for a creative way to expose the company's criminal behavior (and entice the media, who rarely cover protests in Texas), Diane was inspired by the example of a group of women from Nigeria who took over a Chevron oil rig and threatened to strip naked if the company didn't hire more local workers and invest in the community. Faced with just the threat of nudity, Chevron gave in. "If the Nigerian women could use their bodies on the Niger Delta, why can't we do it in downtown Houston?" Diane reasoned. Media Benjamin, Common Ground, 5-28-10


Meanwhile, the U.S. military suffered its one thousandth death in Afghanistan this last week; a U.S. Marine on foot patrol in Helmand province. For what? The so-called "war on terror," that foolish adventure in which we battle on against an enemy that we also embrace as our ally?

Well, there is another answer, even more absurd, that has presented itself this Memorial Day:

KIRCHNER: I said that a solution for the problems right now, I told Bush, is a Marshall Plan. And he got angry. He said the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats. He said the best way to revitalize the economy is war. And that the United States has grown stronger with war. Think Progress, 5-28-10

Ignorance and malevolence make for a lethal cocktail.

And yet, no federal prosecutor will move against Bush or Cheney; no congressional hearings worthy of the heritage of Watergate or Iran-Contra (featuring Kirchner as a star witness) will be convened. Indeed, it will not even be mentioned on ABC This Weak in Revision, CBS Fork the Nation, NBC Meat the Press or CNN Lost Edition.

But at this juncture, the point is no longer Bush and his co-conspirators, the point is this illness in our body politic, the one that has allowed so many abominations to be foisted upon us. It is, after all, the same illness that has brought us healthcare reform that rewards the insurance companies, financial reform that rewards the banksters, and a climate crisis bill that rewards the fossil fuel industry.

It is the also same illness that allowed Rwanda in the 1990s, and Darfur now.

The story of U.S. policy during the genocide in Rwanda is not a story of willful complicity with evil. U.S. officials did not sit around and conspire to allow genocide to happen. But whatever their convictions about "never again," many of them did sit around, and they most certainly did allow genocide to happen ... Policy analysis excluded discussion of human consequences. "It simply is not done," the authors wrote. "Policy—good, steady policy—is made by the 'tough-minded.' To talk of suffering is to lose 'effectiveness,' almost to lose one's grip. It is seen as a sign that one's 'rational' arguments are weak." Samantha Powers, Bystanders to Genocide, Atlantic, 5-30-10

According to Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, the number of Sudanese displaced has reached 4.9 Million. Yet, the US government watches in silence as Al-Bashir’s inauguration is scheduled for May 27, 2010.
Khartoum has continued with business as usual, while many have repeatedly protested the outcome of the recent elections. Darfur and South Sudan has seen a substantial increase in violence leaving several hundred dead. Alysha Atma, Salem-News, 5-21-10

(Arguably, our appetite for colton, oil and other resources has resulted in the loss of ten million African lives in Congo, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda in recent decades.)

It is the same illness that blinds us to the ugly realities of "global free trade." Despite Tom Friedman's lullaby, the evidence is all around us -- not only in our own abandoned factories, but also across our southern border, in the devastated farmlands of Mexico, and as far away as the hell-realms where Silicon Valley's coolest technologies are assembled by Chinese laborers.

A series of apparent suicides has shaken the management of Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer that builds parts and assembles products for many Silicon Valley firms. Hundreds of thousands of people live and work at a Foxconn factory complex in southern China, in what critics say are sweat-shop conditions ... They build cult products for global digital brands like Apple, Nintendo and Dell, ranging from the iPhone and iPad to the Notebook. Der Spiegel, 5-28-10

So what is this illness?

Clinging to the false sense of separateness; and all that flows from it, e.g., fear, greed, violence.

And what is its antidote?

Opening up to the oneness of all life; and all that flows from it, e.g., reason, compassion, humor.

From Gautama Buddha to Albert Einstein, whether the healing was framed as spirituality or science, this truth has blazed relentlessly, and we are its mirrors and its handmaidens.

Isn't it time to eschew the false meme of "Real Politik" and embrace the Real World imperatives of universal sustainability and human rights instead?

What have we got to lose?

Everything is being taken from us.



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.

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

Have you met Al Gore at the Wall yet?

I encourage you to find out why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love: go to 350.org or Google "Bill McKibben" for the answer.

Richard Power's True North on the Pathless Path: Toward 21st Century Spirituality is available from Amazon.com

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available from Lulu.com.

CODEPINK Exposes the Naked Truth about BP



BP, CODEPINK, Tom Friedman, Climate Crisis, Nigeria, 350, Sustainability, Darfur

Three Verities & A Common Denominator: Learn from the Circumstances of Burma & Darfur; Or You Will Experience Them Here

Gustav Klimt, Mermaids (1899)

With the Gulf spill now one month in, some lawmakers and environmentalists are starting to question why BP is still in charge of the containment and clean-up effort. Mother Jones, 5-20-10

Wherever she turned, she found sheriff's deputies blocking the beach access roads—until she hit a beach at Grand Isle, and literally stepped into the mess. Mother Jones, 5-20-10

BP is now in charge of U.S./international waters? Perhaps they should change the name of the company to Poseidon ... CBS news team threatened w/arrest by Coast Guard who said they were acting under BP authority. Medusa Musings, 5-19-10

Loop current is now drawing the BP oil disaster to Florida Keys - Toxicologist: “We could be getting to the point that puts coral over the edge”; Masters: "a major ecological disaster ... cannot be ruled out." Climate Progress, 5-18-10


Three Verities & A Common Denominator: Learn from the Circumstances of Burma & Darfur; Or You Will Experience Them Here

By Richard Power

It has been almost two weeks since my last post.

I tried to communicate with you, but I couldn't. I couldn't see, I couldn't speak. I wondered why. Then realized, it was the oil. It blinded me. It sickened me. It suffocated me. Everything went black. It has been a month now.

It is a crime against nature, and a crime against humanity.

I do not use either term in a cavalier fashion.

But do not expect meaningful accountability for BP, or those in the US government that enabled them -- at least not in the near future.

After all, there has been, as of yet, no meaningful accountability for debacles of Iraq or Katrina, nor any meaningful accountability for the Wall Street meltdown and the deregulation that led to it.

Although there is still hope, it is what Gandalf called "a fool's hope."

If you want a glimpse into one of our likely futures, don't look to the false memes and flimsy chimera proffered up by the political establishment, or echoed in the mainstream news media; look, instead, to the grim present of those forsaken lands already in the throes of the planetary meltdown we initiated.

So what is going on outside of Beltwayistan and its drunken, disjointed kabuki?

Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest.

Aung San Suu Kyi is making a final bid for freedom, lawyers said Tuesday after submitting a request for a special appeal against her house arrest.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has already lost two appeals against an August 2009 conviction, most recently at the country's High Court in February. Her last legal option is the Special Appellate Bench, a multi-judge panel in the remote administrative capital of Naypyitaw. AP, 5-11-10

Image: Aung San Suu Kyi, TIME 100

The women and children of Darfur are arguably in greater imminent danger today than they were two years ago.

Hundreds of refugees have fled after reports of a build-up of Sudanese army and rebel fighters near a strategic town in Darfur, peacekeepers said ... The security situation has deteriorated in the strife-torn territory after peace talks between the government and rebels stalled in February. Reuters, 3-12-10

And in the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental catastrophe continues unabated, and threatens an almost inconceivable devastation.

It’s extremely questionable whether 210,000 gallons a day is, in fact, “the best estimate.” Independent satellite analysis experts Dr. John Amos and Dr. Ian McDonald have estimated from surface imagery that the BP disaster is increasing at a rate of over one million gallons a day ... Think Progress, 5-13-10

Oil from a blown-out well is forming huge underwater plumes below a visible slick in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists said as BP wrestled for a third day Sunday with its latest contraption for slowing the nearly month-old gusher. One of the plumes is "as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots," the New York Times reported. Huffington Post, 5-16-10

Like the over-arching Climate and Sustainability Crisis that frames it, the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf was avoidable.

... an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.
Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP. Huffington Post, 5-13-10

Well, there are a few verities to remember ...

First, remember that disasters don't just end when the headlines fade away, especially in this age of economic and environmental meltdown. The Climate Crisis is, in effect, an echo chamber of disasters; and it has created a continuum of danger and misery for a significant and spiraling percent of the human race.

Tens of thousands of Bangladeshis, mostly fishermen, left stranded on embankments damaged by a cyclone a year ago, are still fighting a grim battle to survive, with the flow of aid to helm them spotty at best. Reuters, 5-16-10

The UN warned that a drought which has devastated Mongolia during one of the worst winters for decades could continue for another year, as it appealed for 18.1 million dollars in aid. UN interim humanitarian coordinator Rana Flowers said the aid appeal presented to donors in Geneva would assist nearly 800,000 Mongolians, mainly herders and their families who have lost the livestock they depend on their survival ... "It really is an example of climate change at work," she claimed. Agence France Press, 5-12-10

From the Photo Archive of Mia Farrow's Journeys in Darfur and East Chad.

Second, remember, human rights abuses are aggravated in this continuum of danger and misery.

Dar Dar, 19, is one of scores of young women from Irrawaddy Division who have been forced into prostitution since Cyclone Nargis ravaged the region in 2008 ... According to estimates, the cyclone killed 140,000 people, destroyed 450,000 houses and left 800,000 people homeless. Irrawaddy, 5-3-10

Local groups of Burmese people have started helping drought-stricken people, but the military remains inactive as ponds and rivers dry up in many parts of Burma due to high temperatures and the late monsoon. Irrawaddy, 5-14-10

Third, remember, in hell-realms like Burma and Sudan, the promise of the democratic process is cynically manipulated, and instead of being allowed to empower people, it is used as a facade to cover-up the ugliness of the ruling thugocracies, and the complicity of the great nations that underwrite them.

What we have seen in the several months leading up to Sudan’s national elections (April 11 – 15), and now in the several weeks since this electoral travesty, is a relentless re-commitment by the Khartoum regime to prevail militarily in Darfur. These brutal men are convinced that there will be no significant consequences to their resumed counterinsurgency strategy, and who can fault their thinking? The accommodating election assessments from various international actors only confirm the regime’s evident belief that there is no international will to halt atrocity crimes in Darfur ... Eric Reeves, Sudan Research, 5-13-10

The Burmese government has rejected the role of international election observers in the upcoming election this year, according to state-run newspapers ... "The nation has a lot of experience with elections,” Thein Soe is quoted as saying. “We do not need election watchdogs to come here." Irrawaddy, 5-12-10

And what is the common denominator for the peoples of the USA, Burma and Darfur?

Oil, water, wage slaves and other vital resources.

Do you really think we would be exempt, here, from the devastation?

They have turned their predatory attention to this place.

What shall we do?

What does a people do when its leaders are afraid?

And which fate is worse, to have a government led by sociopaths, or a government led by those who are either naive enough to think they can reason with sociopaths, or simply afraid of them?

It is a rhetorical question, of course. It is certainly better to have a government that is naive or a afraid; because at least there is still hope.

"Fool's hope," perhaps.

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.

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

Have you met Al Gore at the Wall yet?

I encourage you to find out why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love: go to 350.org or Google "Bill McKibben" for the answer.

Richard Power's True North on the Pathless Path: Toward 21st Century Spirituality is available from Amazon.com

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available from Lulu.com.

BP, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Climate Crisis, Burma, 350, Sustainability, Darfur

Hard Rain Late Night: Annie Lennox - A Thousand Beautiful Things

Hard Rain Late Night: Annie Lennox - A Thousand Beautiful Things

Time to View the Political Spectrum Not from Left to Right, But from Science to Superstition, & from Reason to Madness

Louis-Ernest Barrias' Nature Revealing Herself to Science (1893) stands in the Musée d'Orsay (Paris); created out of marble, Algerian onyx and malachite (Photo Copyright © 2006 David Monniaux)

The researchers dug up snow from decades past ... they found so-called micro- meteorites — tiny specks just a fraction of a millimeter across that nonetheless carry important clues to the birth and evolution of the solar system. Scientific American, 5-6-10

We have met Neanderthals, and they are us – or about 1 to 4 percent of each of us. That is one implication of a four-year effort to sequence the Neanderthal genome – essentially setting out in order some 3 billion combinations of four key molecules that together represent the Neanderthals' genetic blueprint. Christian Science Monitor, 5-6-10

A European telescope has discovered a star nearly ten times the size of the sun ... According to current scientific views, stars cannot become bigger than eight times the size of the sun. Vast quantities of gas and dust surrounding the young star mean it could become hundreds of times bigger, forming one of the brightest objects in the Milky Way. Radio Netherlands, 5-6-10

Time to View the US Political Spectrum Not from Left to Right, But from Science to Superstition, & from Reason to Madness

By Richard Power

Ten years ago, Tennessee turned its back on its native son, Al Gore, champion of climate crisis action, and gave its electoral college votes to G.W. Bush, champion of climate denialism; and now, the Grand Ole Opry is flooded. (Isn't it ironic?)

Meanwhile, this week, in the Gulf of Mexico, BP's effort to use a giant dome to contain its underwater volcano of oil has failed.

Looks like this cup will not pass from us.

Humanity needs both renewed hope and purposeful courage at this stage of its experiment in "civilization."

There is hope in these three stories of science as revelation, from the strands of Neanderthal in human DNA, to particles of interstellar dust in the ice of the Antarctic, to an evolving Milky Way sun, already larger than anything previously thought possible; hope that science and creative imagination are arriving at the same miraculous moment, just as the quantum physicists have already found themselves listening to the same song as the ancient Taoists.

Have you read Philip Pullman's brilliant His Dark Materials trilogy? Well, now Scientific American says: "Antarctica is really one of the best places to collect interplanetary dust ..."

Have you read Jean Aule's powerful Clan of the Cave Bear? Well, now the Christian Science Monitor says, "A few anatomically modern humans mated with Neanderthals, likely in North Africa or the Middle East as modern humans initially were moving out of Africa."

In Radio Netherlands' report that the Europeans have discovered an "impossibly huge star," there is even more promise. In the mystical traditions of the East and West, there is reference to the planets and stars as beings in and of themselves, i.e., actually super-consciousnesses, higher intelligences, composed of all the individual consciousnesses within them. Each planet and moon within our solar system is alive, and conscious -- in some way incomprehensible to us -- yet. The solar system itself, in turn, is alive and conscious, again, in a way wholly beyond our capability to grasp intellectually - yet.

Well, if everything is alive in the vastness of space-time, if all is consciousness, then we are free to enjoy a very different perspective both on the challenges before us, and on the resources upon which we can draw in overcoming them.

Hope embraces wonder; just as courage turns to face the abyss.

It is in wonder that hope renews itself; and it is in facing the abyss, that courage finds its purpose.

I suggest that it is time to view our political spectrum, not from left to right, but from science to superstition and from reason to madness.

On this spectrum, compromising, meeting in the center, "triangulating," does us no good.

At one end of the spectrum, there is Sarah Palin speaking to Bill O'Reilly on Rupert Murdoch's dime:

“I think we should keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant,” adding, “They’re quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 commandments, it’s pretty simple.” (Faux News, 5-7-10)

It is, of course, historical fact that Jefferson, Paine, Washington, Franklin and others among the Founding Fathers were Deists; they were not Christians, and their view was that Nature was divine and that science and reason were vital elements of its revelation. It is also historical fact that the separation of church and state was fundamental to the U.S. Constitution, in both its essence and its form.

Palin and others who espouse such nonsense, whether in more sophisticated framing or not, show as much ignorance about the historical context and motivation behind the Boston Tea Party (which was an anti-corporatist act of civil disobedience) as they do about the Book of Revelations (which was a poetical text of a particular style, used by its author to address the issues and circumstances of his own time).

At the other end of spectrum, there are those who courageously champion reason and science, those who have diligently done the math, and those who patiently uphold common sense.

Here are some of the voices of courage at this moment of national and global crisis:

Gore on BP disaster: “This is a consciousness-shifting event. It is one of those clarifying moments that brings a rare opportunity to take the longer view. Unless we change our present course soon, the future of human civilization will be in dire jeopardy.” Climate Progress, 5-8-10

"Our problem is not primarily that there's a stuck valve in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. That's a terrible problem," [Bill] McKibben told HuffPost. "The bigger problem is that there's a stuck economy based on fossil fuels that the president hasn't really done anything major yet to fix.... The problem is that the whole system is dirty from beginning to end." Dan Fromkin, Washington Post, 5-7-10

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs. Robert F. Kennedy, Sex, Lies & Oil Spills, Huffington Post, 5-5-10

Rare Moment of Looking Beyond the Beltwayistan Kabuki for Chris Matthews' Hardball: Kennedy & Papantonio - Sex, Lies, and Halliburton


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

Have you met Al Gore at the Wall yet?

I encourage you to find out why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love: go to 350.org or Google "Bill McKibben" for the answer.

Richard Power's True North on the Pathless Path: Toward 21st Century Spirituality is available from Amazon.com

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available from Lulu.com.

Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Mike Papantonio, Climate Crisis, Neanderthal, 350, Sustainability, Anarctica

Eco-Disaster in the Gulf, & A Human Rights Abomination in AZ; Yet Both are Mere Sub-Plots in A Planetary Crisis. Meanwhile, Beltwayistan Feasts ...

Soylent Green, a Richard Fleischer Film (1973)

Major economies are pushing for substantial increases in the price of water around the world as concern mounts about dwindling supplies and rising population. Guardian, 4-28-10

The bad news is that 1.02 billion people are going hungry in today's world of plentiful supplies. The even worse news is that this figure only tells part of the global food insecurity story ... IPS, 4-29-10

Almost 1 billion people live in slums. That’s one third of global city dwellers. From a human rights perspective, slums pose a variety of problems ... P.a.p-Blog, 4-28-10

World leaders have fallen short on a pledge to stem biodiversity loss and have instead allowed alarming declines in species populations, habitat conditions and other indicators ... Agence France Press, 4-29-10

Eco-Disaster in the Gulf, & A Human Rights Abomination in AZ; Yet Both are Mere Sub-Plots in A Planetary Crisis. Meanwhile, Beltwayistan Feasts ...

By Richard Power

It was a troubled May Day in the USA.

Outrage over the human rights abominations perpetrated by the State of Arizona (not just its new immigration law but also its new education policy) reached the gates of the White House:

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) was arrested outside the White House on Saturday during a May Day protest for immigration reform ... The crowd chanted the congressman's name as he was led onto the bus. Gutierrez was wearing a T-shirt that read, "Arrest me, not my friends." Rep. Gutierrez arrested outside of White House in immigration protest, Think Progress, 5-1-10

And yes, the lethal dangers of deregulation, already on tragic display in the coal mines of West Virginia and the gambling casinos of Wall Street, have now turned the waters of the Gulf Coast into yet another sacrificial altar to Greed Incarnate:

“Guestimate” is a euphemism for BP’s whole effort — from buying a rig without the latest backup shut off switch (one that even Brazil requires) to opposing Interior Department efforts to strengthen the voluntary, “trust me,” self regulation the industry got under Bush-Cheney to their rosy worst-case scenario that they sold to the Obama Administration to their post-disaster claims that they could handle a spill. Oilpocalypse Now: WSJ reports BP oil disaster may be leaking at rate of 1 million gallons a day; Spill may exceed Exxon Valdez within days -- not weeks, Climate Progress, 5-1-10

And where was the US political establishment and mainstream news media on the night of this troubled May Day?

Why, they were assembled at the White House Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner, of course.

Don't you remember the night David Gregory became a dancing girl for M.C. Rove?

Don't you remember the night Bush joked that those weapons of mass destruction had to be somewhere while photos of him looking under White House furniture where projected on the screen behind him?

That's what the White House Correspondents Dinner has degenerated into over the years.

And what were they serving up for themselves on May Day 2010?

Why, they were listening to Jay Leno bomb, as the NYPD evacuated Times Square because of a car bomb.

What an apt metaphor.

Leno is a fitting poster boy for the Correspondents Dinner, and by extension, everything else wrong with the Kulchur of Beltwayistan; Leno, after all, is not talented, he is just the mainstream media equivalent of a Mafia made-man.

What the Arizona human rights abomination is really all about is the fact that NAFTA has devastated people south of the border and north of the border (and of all skin colors). Indeed, the only people that NAFTA and the rest of the "Free Trade" boondoggle has truly benefited were either at the White House Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner, or very well represented there.

What the Gulf Coast eco-system disaster is really all about is the undue and unassailable influence that Oiligarchy exercises over our democratic institutions. Indeed, the only people that have truly benefited from the Oiligarchy's velvet vise were either at the White House Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner, or very well represented there.

Likewise, the only people that have truly benefited from the so-called "War on Terror," or as I refer to it, "the War IN, OF, BY and FOR Terror" were either at the White House Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner, or very well represented there.

But, of course, the Arizona human rights abomination, the Gulf Coast eco-system disaster and the evacuation of Times Square, were mere sub-plots in a planetary sustainability crisis that most of the US body politic has not yet come to grips with spiritually or psychologically.

And why?

Well, the answer was there for all to see and hear at the White House Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner.

Aung San Suu Kyi couldn't make it.

She is still under house arrest in Burma.

Although Chevron's best interests were certainly represented.

Nor were the women and girls of Darfur, they are still busy gathering fire wood at the periphery of the refugee camps. They are sent to do it, because they will only be raped, if the men and boys were sent they would be killed.

Ah, but the architects of the Obama administration's weak-wristed Sudan policy were well represented, weren't they?

The real story is the planetary crisis; it is one of sustainability and human rights. These the two principles are interdependent and vital to our survival. Unfortunately, they are neither distracting nor convenient. So here we are, going nowhere -- fast.

Richard Power's True North on the Pathless Path: Toward 21st Century Spirituality is available from Amazon.com

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available from Lulu.com.

Visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant - David Bowie's Space Oddity (Live - 1999)

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant David Bowie's Space Oddity (Live - 1999)