Top Political Strategists Don Juan and Black Elk say Fight with One Arm, Goad with the Other; A Guide to the 2010 Mid-Term Elections

Henri Rousseau, The Snake Charmer, 1907

Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls, but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over walls; they don't demolish them.Don Juan/Carlos Castenada

And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me. Black Elk Speaks

Top Political Strategists Don Juan and Black Elk say Fight with One Arm, Goad with the Other; A Guide to the 2010 Mid-Term Elections

By Richard Power

This is not politics, this is shamanic battle. The disinformation that drives the woebegotten people termed "Teabaggers" is toxic, so is the greed that drives CEOs like Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman to spend millions of dollars (as well as pander to those woebegotten teabaggers) to win a job that would pay them chump change.

Can you move at two different speeds at once? Can you articulate two different agendas at once? Can you live in two realities at once? Because that is what our circumstances demand of us, especially those of us who are either progressives or mystics, or both.

If you are a mystic, I suggest that you must not only hold the powerful, imminent truth that all is a oneness, you are also going to have to choose sides in the fierce partisan struggle that is at the center of our political life, while not losing hold of that mystical truth.

If you are a progressive, I suggest that you must stand with POTUS and the Democrats against the onslaught of the U.S. Chamber of Horrors, the Rove and Armey machines, the Koch Brothers, the teabaggers, etc., while at the same time, pushing POTUS and the Democrats HARD to the Left, from the Left, because it is to the Left that our economic, environmental and geopolitical realities have fled for sanctuary; yes, our economic, environmental and geopolitical realities are living like political refugees in the basement of the Church of Common Sense and the Golden Rule. (The maligning attacks from POTUS and all of his men, e.g., Axelrod, Emmanuel, Gibbs, etc., are not evidence of the Left's irrelevancy or marginalization, they are evidence that the Left's critique reflects a broad consensus within the progressive movement.)

The deeper you journey into the heart of life, both spiritual truth and political truth become ever more paradoxical. In these realms, to advance further, you don't resolve paradox, you embrace it.

In a recent Democracy Now! interview on the US Is Becoming an "Underdeveloping Nation," Chilean Economist Manfred Max-Neef articulated the harsh truth of our economic reality:

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think we need to change?
MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Oh, almost everything. We are simply, dramatically stupid. We act systematically against the evidences we have. We know everything that should not be done. There’s nobody that doesn’t know that. Particularly the big politicians know exactly what should not be done. Yet they do it. After what happened since October 2008, I mean, elementally, you would think what? That now they’re going to change. I mean, they see that the model is not working. The model is even poisonous, you know? Dramatically poisonous. And what is the result, and what happened in the last meeting of the European Union? They are more fundamentalist now than before. So, the only thing you know that you can be sure of, that the next crisis is coming, and it will be twice as much as this one. And for that one, there won’t be enough money anymore. So that will be it. And that is the consequence of systematical human stupidity ...
AMY GOODMAN: And if you’re teaching young economists, the principles you would teach them, what they’d be?
MANFRED MAX-NEEF: The principles, you know, of an economics which should be are based in five postulates and one fundamental value principle.
One, the economy is to serve the people and not the people to serve the economy.
Two, development is about people and not about objects.
Three, growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth.
Four, no economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services.
Five, the economy is a subsystem of a larger finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible.
And the fundamental value to sustain a new economy should be that no economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life. Democracy Now, 9-22-10

Mark Hertzgaard, environmental correspondent for The Nation, recently articulated the harsh truth of our environmental reality:

In fact, every child on earth born after June 23, 1988 belongs to what I call Generation Hot. This generation includes some two billion young people, all of whom have grown up under global warming and are fated to spend the rest of their lives confronting its mounting impacts. For Generation Hot, the brutal summer of 2010 is not an anomaly; it's the new normal ... No matter how many solar panels, electric cars and other green technologies we humans may embrace, the fact remains that more severe climate change is locked in for decades to come ... It's not that we weren't warned. I date the beginning of Generation Hot to June 23, 1988 because that is when humanity was put on notice that greenhouse gas emissions were raising the temperatures on this planet. The warning came from NASA scientist James Hansen's testimony to the U.S. Senate and, crucially, the decision by the New York Times to print the news on page 1, which in turn made global warming a household phrase in news bureaus, living rooms and government offices the world over. Mark Hertzgaard, Generation Hot, Huffington Post, 9-23-10

Of course, in our current crisis of crises, incremental progress is not enough, but to undo even the modicum of incremental progress achieved is sheer madness ... For example, in regard to the Climate Crisis, we must change the debate from should we do anything to what more must we do, how can we mitigate the worst of what is coming, and how quickly can we adapt to a planet we have negatively impacted for generations to come ... But to simply turn our backs on sanity, and elect people who deny the reality of Climate Crisis (and the Sustainability Crisis we would be gripped by even without the impact of greenhouse gases), well, that is condemning your own children's children to a Darfur-like hell realm.

You must fight, and fighting means voting.

If you live in California, understand we are at the point of the spear of destiny. If you do not live here, help us. Donate directly to the campaigns of Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown, rather than to the Democratic Party.

JONES: Koch Industries has promoted awful environmental policies. They’ve been literally poisoning rivers, poisoning streams, and making money off of that. They’ve promoted now this awful economic idea that if you grow new industries in California you somehow hurt the economy. That’s nuts. And now they’re promoting bad politics by backing I think extreme movements in the United States. Here you have a bad actor, three strikes and you’re out. They’re bad on the environment in terms of their practices, they’re bad in terms of their economic philosophy they’re trying to shove down the throats of California ... If you think things are bad now, what will happen when the people are screaming and yelling at these Tea Party events are actually in charge of your government, and in charge of your life, and in charge of your kids’ future? That is, maybe you have some hope fatigue, but you got a lot of reason to be fearful enough I think to stay involved and to get involved. I don’t think you want the Tea Party running your community, running your family, running your government. Think Progress, 9-25-10

Here are lists of the most critical climate-related electoral battles this November.

Seven key climate races in the Senate (with the 538.com estimated likelihood of a Republican pickup):
(92%) PA: Joe Sestak v. Pat Toomey
(72%) CO: Michael Bennet v. Ken Buck
(52%) NV: Harry Reid v. Sharron Angle
(42%) CA: Barbara Boxer v. Carly Fiorina
(33%) WI: Russ Feingold v. Ron Johnson
(30%) WA: Patty Murray v. Dino Rossi
(20% Democratic pickup) NH: Paul Hodes v. Kelly Ayotte
Eight key climate races in the House:
(76%) NM-2: Harry Teague v Steve Pearce
(63%) IA-3: Leonard Boswell v Brad Zaun
(63%) IL-14: Bill Foster v Randy Hultgren
(62%) CA-11: Jerry McNerney v David Harmer
(58%) IN-9: Baron Hill v Todd Young
(43%) FL-22: Ron Klein v Allen West
(26%) NM-1: Martin Heinrich v Jon Barela
(26%) IL-17: Phil Hare v Bobby Schilling Think Progress, 9-17-10

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? go to 350.org for the answer.

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

Remember to listen ...

Kaieteur Falls, Guyana, May 2004 Photo Credit: Sorenriise at en.wikipedia

Remember to listen to the primordial waterfall that flows uninterruptedly behind the wall of societal sound. At any moment, wherever you are, whatever you are doing ... Feel its cool mist on the face of your mind, taste its sparkling essence in the chalice of your heart, bathe your body in its cleansing current. This life is ephemeral, but sacred. Cherish its fleeting embrace. The journey of self-discovery is an encounter with the divine. -- Richard Power

Autumn Equinox: The Great Wheel Grinds on in Darfur, in Beltwayistan, in the Oceans, & at the Poles; Are We Turning Toward the Truth or Away from It?

Medicine Wheel, Bighorn National Forest, Big Horn, Wyoming.

Autumn Equinox: The Great Wheel Grinds on in Beltwayistan, in Darfur, in the Oceans, & at the Poles; But Are We Turning Toward the Truth or Away from It?

By Richard Power

The Earth spins on its axis; and we experience the revolutions as days. The Earth orbits the Sun; and we experience the revolutions as years. Light turns toward darkness; and darkness turns toward light; in the course of a day, we experience these revolutions as dusk and dawn, in the course of a year, we experience these revolutions as the equinoxes. Furthermore, everyone and everything everywhere interpenetrates; even the polarities embrace, e.g., when Fall comes to the Northern Hemisphere, Spring arrives in the Southern Hemisphere.

There are cycles within cycles, "reality" is fractal.

In Beltwayistan, the Great Wheel grinds on ...

I did not believe that this country could forget the lessons of the Great Depression or the War in Southeast Asia, but I was wrong. Not only have we forgotten the lessons, and repeated the mistakes (albeit in different contexts); even worse, there does not appear as if there will be any serious investigation or meaningful accountability for those responsible.

As Election Day 2010 approaches – as the United States wallows in the swamps of war, recession and environmental degradation – the consequences of the nation’s three-decade-old decoupling from reality are becoming painfully obvious.
Yet, despite the danger, the nation can’t seem to move in a positive direction, as if the suctioning effect of endless spin, half-truths and lies holds the populace in place, a force that grows ever more powerful like quicksand sucking the country deeper into the muck – to waist deep, then neck deep. Robert Parry, America's Decoupling from Reality, Consortium News, 9-17-10

In Darfur, the Great Wheel grinds on ...

In 1994, there was a genocide in Rwanda. In 2007, campaigning for his wife Hillary, Bill Clinton reminded us that Rwanda was his greatest regret, and actually said that "had he listened to his wife ... history might have been different." According to Bubba, Hillary "had wanted the United States to intervene." (Boston Globe, 12-11-10)

And yet here we are ...

In a major foreign policy address on September 8, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the country as a "ticking time bomb." Yet it may already be too late. The “bomb” has been ticking for over five and a half years, and neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has been willing to devote the appropriate attention to defuse it ... Eric Reeves, Sudan Research, 9-10-10

The "ticking time bomb" remark caused a stir, but on closer scrutiny, the full text of Secretary Clinton's remarks reveal little has changed in the Obama administration's approach.

Clinton's statement is little more than an upgraded diplomatic version of U.S. Special Envoy Scott Gration’s declaration that the way to “engage” with Khartoum is by means of “cookies”: "Kids, countries—they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement." Yet in the year since Gration made these notorious remarks, and set the course of U.S. policy, the regime has accelerated violence in Darfur, restricted humanitarian access even more severely, blocked reports on humanitarian conditions, and become even more hostile to the UN peacekeeping force (UNAMID). For good measure, the regime oversaw its continuation of power by engineering a massive electoral travesty in April. Eric Reeves, Sudan Research, 9-10-10

I did not believe that the people of Darfur could be worse off today, with Barack Obama in the White House, than they were two years ago, but they are. Not because the Obama administration's policy is worse than the Bush administration's, but simply because it is insufficiently different, and so the situation has continued to deteriorate. Gration, who is reported to be a personal friend of Obama, continues to *inGrationate* himself to this fugitive from the rule of international law.

Clearly, in regard to Sudan and Darfur, "U.S. strategic interests" (misguided ones) are trumping the human rights imperative, and Gration's happy talk can't distract from this ugly truth. It is tragic, but it is also typical. And yes, I pray I am proven wrong.

Of course, the Obama administration is not alone in its appeasement.

Human rights activist Mia Farrow recently posted a photo of the UN General Secretary shaking hands with Bashir. What kind of message does that send, sir?

And then there is the Arab League.

A meeting of the Arab league foreign ministers today endorsed a resolution reaffirming its position in rejecting the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir for war crimes and genocide allegedly committed in Darfur. Sudan Times, 9-17-10

Throughout the planetary biosphere, in the melting glacier fields, on the bleaching coral reefs, by raging fire, roaring flood, creeping desert and rising methane, the Great Wheel grinds on ...

The closer it comes, the worse it looks. The best outcome anyone now expects from December's climate summit in Mexico is that some delegates might stay awake during the meetings. When talks fail once, as they did in Copenhagen, governments lose interest. They don't want to be associated with failure, they don't want to pour time and energy into a broken process ... George Monbiot, Guardian/UK, 9-21-10

In 1977, in the midst of crisis, President Jimmy Carter gave a prime-time speech from the Oval Office (as the great Thom Hartmann often reminds his listening audience):

Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren ... Two days from now, I will present my energy proposals to the Congress ... Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy ... Jimmy Carter, The President's Proposed Energy Plan, 4-18-77

As both a powerful symbol and a practical first step, Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the White House; and yes, one of the first steps that the Counter-Revolutionary Ronald Reagan took was to have those panels removed.

Recently, environmental thought leader Bill McKibben found one of President Carter's solar panels, and together with a band of young climate activists from 350.org, McKibben drove it across country to the Obama White House in the hope that this President would accept the symbolic gift and exploit the teachable moment. Nah.

To their queries, the bureaucrats refused to provide any answer. At all. One kept smiling in an odd way and saying, “If reporters call and ask us, we will provide our rationale,” but whatever it was, they wouldn’t provide it to us.
It was all a little odd, to say the least. They refused to accept the Carter panel as a historic relic, or even to pose for a picture with the students and the petition they’d brought with them. Asked to do something easy and symbolic to rekindle a little of the joy that had turned out so many of us as volunteers for Obama in 2008, they point blank said no. In a less than overwhelming gesture, they did, however, pass out Xeroxed copies of a 2009 memorandum from Vice President Biden about federal energy policy.
I can tell you exactly what it felt like, because those three students were brave and walked out graciously, heads high, and kept their tears back until we got to the sidewalk. And then they didn’t keep them back, because it’s a tough thing to learn for the first time how politics can work. Bill McKibben, The Enthusiasm Gap in the White House, Tom Dispatch, 9-16-10

Two days ago, I celebrated my 57th birthday.

I hope to live to see the Great Wheel turn one more time; no, not the wheel that turns from one season to another, that is just one of the little wheels -- the Great Wheel is the one that turns from Ignorance to Understanding.

Meanwhile, 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 for the answer.

And 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.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Deja Vu


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

Hard Rain Late Night: John Coltrane - Blue Train (1957)

Hard Rain Late Night: John Coltrane - Blue Train (1957)

Fiorina, Whitman & Most Other Republicans on Ballot in 2010 have an Energy & Climate Security Policy, It's Dick Cheney's: "Survival of the Richest"

Young male Pacific Walruses in Alaska U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2005

Tens of thousands of walruses have come ashore in northwest Alaska because the sea ice they normally rest on has melted. AP, 9-14-10

Yves Tanguy - Storm (Black Landscape), L'Orage (Paysage Noir) (1926)

"All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name." -- Black Elk Speaks

Fiorina, Whitman & Most Other Republicans on Ballot in 2010 have an Energy & Climate Security Policy, It's Dick Cheney's: "Survival of the Richest"

By Richard Power

Do you acknowledge the law of gravity? Do you acknowledge that the Earth is round? Do you understand the scientific method?

Yes? Well then, if you are a Californian, how can you cast a vote for Carly Fiorina or Meg Whitman? Both of these bonus-cashing, job-exporting CEOs have embraced climate denialism in one way or another.

Furthermore, this embrace is not simply a cynical play for fossil fuel industry money, or pandering to their ignoramus base; no, this embrace of climate denialism is of the same cloth as Dick Cheney's. Fiorina, Whitman, Cheney and their ilk know, and have known all along, that the Climate Crisis is real, they simply think they have gamed it out, and that the affluent and the elite will survive, and that there are too many poor people in the world anyway.

Do not deceive yourself, this is not short-sightedness, or ignorance; it is something much worse, it is a cold, sociopathic calculation about the long-term. A depopulated planet will consume less oil, less fresh water, less food; and with the polar ice caps gone, there will be plenty more accessible oil to drill. This is the ugly, hidden truth of the corporatist propaganda war against the science of climate change.

Just one flaw in this thinking (aside from its utter moral depravity): none of us will escape the destructive impact of the Climate Crisis, NONE OF US.

Nor is it just Fiorina and Whitman who embrace this suicidal energy policy.

A comprehensive Wonk Room survey of the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate finds that nearly all dispute the scientific consensus that the United States must act to fight global warming pollution ... Many of the Senate candidates are signatories of the Koch Industries’ Americans For Prosperity No Climate Tax pledge and the FreedomWorks Contract From America. The second plank of the Contract From America is to “Reject Cap & Trade: Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.” In reality, a carbon cap-and-trade market — by rewarding work instead of pollution — would increase jobs, lower electricity bills, restore American competitiveness, and forestall a climate catastrophe. Think Progress, 9-13-10

This is madness, madness that constitutes a crime against nature and our own species, madness that must somehow be constrained.

There are too few conservative Republicans like George Schultz, who has chosen the path less traveled, that of a statesman.

George Shultz on Prop 23: “Those who wish to repeal our state’s clean energy laws through postponement to some fictitious future are running up the white flag of surrender to a polluted environment.” ... It is pretty hard to find a conservative Republican willing to speak out bluntly on the urgent need for action on climate change and clean energy. It is doubly hard to find one with the credentials of George P. Shultz who was President Reagan’s secretary of state from 1982 to 1989 — and President Nixon’s first budget director. Shultz deserves a great deal of credit for signing on as cochair of the effort to kill Prop 23 and making clear that failing to do so “would be a catastrophe.” Climate Progress, 9-13-10

There are two important dates coming up to mark on your calendar, election day on 11/2/10, and prior to that, there is a global day of action on 10/10/10, being organized by 350.org. Vote for life, and for the future, and for reason on 11/2/10; vote against ANY and ALL candidates that embrace climate denialism and/or support Proposition 23.

To find out more about the global day of action on 10/10/10, go to 350.org. There you will learn why "350" is the most important number in your life, and in the life of all those you love.

It is now too late to thwart the Climate Crisis (the window was a DECADE ago, when Al Gore was elected President of the U.S., uh, oh, what a coincidence ...), but it is not too late to mitigate the worst of its destructive impact, and rescue the future from the clutches of the psychological illness that grips the present.

Otherwise, we will find ourselves paraphrasing Pastor Niemöller:

"It came first for the rainforests, I didn't speak up because I don't hug trees.

Then it came for the glaciers, I didn't speak up because I don't ski.

Then it came for the coral reefs, I didn't speak up because I don't scuba dive.

Then it came for the soil, I didn't speak up because I don't farm.

Then it came for me, and by that time, there was nothing left to sustain me or to fight for."

A User's Guide to Human Incarnation (Part II, September 2010)

The three statues inside the ninth century Mendut buddhist temple, Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia, at the center is 3 metres tall statue of Dhyani Buddha Vairocana, at the left is Boddhisatva Avalokitesvara, at the right is Boddhisatva Vajrapani (Photo Credit: Gunkarta Gunawan Kartapranata, October 2008)

Here is an audio recording of the second in my series of three talks on A User's Guide to Human Incarnation: The Technology of Falling Awake, delivered in September 2010.



See Also

A User's Guide to Human Incarnation: The Technology of Falling Awake, delivered in September 2010, Part I.

Parts 3 of the series will be posted soon.

Dissed and Marginalized by POTUS' Inept Inner Circle, Progressives Must Rally (Again) to Save POTUS & the Democrats? Yes.

Eugène Delacroix's 'La Liberté guidant le peuple' (1830)

Peak oil has happened or will happen some time around this year, and its consequences could threaten the continued survival of democratic governments, says a secret Germany military report that was leaked online. Raw Story, 9-2-10

Glenn Beck’s got me worried again about fascism in America. His so-called restoring honor rally last weekend assumed that somehow America has been dishonored, and that is a classic trope of fascists ... As if the rally wasn’t enough, Beck continued on his crusade during the week. Check this comment out: Beck said, "There are a lot of universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the children as terrorists are in Iran or North Korea." Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, 9-4-10

Dissed and Marginalized by POTUS' Inept Inner Circle, Progressives Must Rally (Again) to Save POTUS and the Democrats? Yes.

By Richard Power

California? The Nation? The Planet? Darfur?

Dissed and marginalized by POTUS and his inept inner circle (Gibbs, Axelrod, Emmanuel), the progressive base must now save POTUS and the country (again) in mid-terms? Yes.

Consider the *state* of California.

A dagger was plunged into the heart of California in 1978 (the year I moved here), when Prop. 13 provided corporate welfare for commercial property under cover of tax relief for homeowners. That dagger was twisted for emphasis, and plunged even deeper in 2003, when the California electorate was led into a socially engineered recall, which deposed Grey Davis, a decent man who had been popular until the double-whammy of a budget crisis, caused by Prop. 13, and artificially induced electricity crisis (caused by the market manipulation of Enron and others).

Now a third plunge of the dagger is being readied.

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

Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, two former CEOs who personify the job-killing, profit-gorging, government-crippling, planet-abusing business kulchur that has brought California and the USA to near ruin, are spending many tens of millions of dollars of their own ill-gotten gains to defeat Sen. Barbara Boxer and State Attorney General Jerry Brown, two career public servants, with distinguished records of principled service.

And to add insult to injury the one good deed that Schwarzenegger (the political amateur who replaced Davis) did during his disastrous reign is in jeopardy of being undone by another poison pill proposition.

An oil company headed by conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch has contributed $1 million to the campaign to suspend the state's landmark climate change law. Flint Hills Resources does not have any oil interests in California but is a big opponent of climate change legislation around the country. San Jose Mercury News, 9-4-10

Starting to get the fuller picture of what has happened here?

As California goes, so goes the nation. Remember, the Reagan Counter-Revolution came to power here first.

So will the battle for Senator and Governor here signal the end of all hope, or the beginning of the reversal of the illness that has seized the US body politic?

The odds are not good. Faux News is a 24x7 propaganda catapult, and the six hundred plus radio stations that have been spewing toxic talk over the air waves for over a decade have poisoned many weak hearts and minds. Add the Citizens United ruling to this lethal cocktail, and well ... it may be curtains on this great experiment, this sweetest fruit of the Age of Reason ...

Meanwhile, the global sustainability crisis deepens.

Every major goal that international bodies have established for global environmental policy as of 2010 has been postponed, ignored or defeated. Sadly, this year will quite possibly become the warmest on record, yet another testimony to human-induced environmental catastrophes running out of control. Jeffrey Sachs, Scientific American, 9/10

And the situation on the ground in Darfur continues to deteriorate.

Amidst a rapidly deteriorating security and political climate, and at the height of the rainy season and “hunger gap,” Darfur’s people face severe challenges to survival, both in camps and rural areas. Recent events at Kalma camp portend increased violence directed against Internally Displaced Persons throughout Darfur, and Khartoum’s new “peace from within” plan ominously recalls similar plans during the genocide in the Nuba Mountains (1992-99). The UN refuses to provide substantial data and reports on humanitarian conditions in Darfur, continuing a trend of over a year. For its part, the US is “de-emphasizing” the Darfur crisis and shifting its focus to the southern self-determination referendum. Eric Reeves, Sudan Research, 8-31-10

And yet, it can even be worse. Just allow John Boehner to replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, and send Carly Fiorina to Beltwayistan and Meg Whitman to Sacramento, and you will see how much worse it can get, and how fast. Right now, it is very bad, but we have some leverage and a place to stand. If we lose the House or are further weakened in the Senate, or if POTUS fails to be elected to a second term, and the 5-4 corporatist edge on SCOTUS is institutionalized for another generation, well ...

And those of you who think it might be better to stay home, and let it all turn back to the Greedy Oiligarch Plutocracy (GOP), in order to hasten some more radical change, you are as deluded as the tea-baggers who are following Beck and Palin over the cliff into a hell-realm.

For your further consideration, I offer these two bitter ironies:

Health Insurers Are Backing Republicans With Campaign Donations By 8:1 Margin, Think Progress, 8-27-10

Sorkin: Why Wall St. Is Deserting Obama, New York Times, 9-1-10

Which side are you on? Yes, it is another moment to choose sides.

Vote in November, and influence everyone you can to vote in November. We must buy ourselves more time.

Joni Mitchell - California (BBC, 1970)


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.

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

Hard Rain Late Night: Ani Choying Drolma - Tara Mantra

Hard Rain Late Night: Ani Choying Drolma - Tara Mantra