Words of Power: November 2010

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Aung San Suu Kyi Walks On ... Remember the Power of the Butterfly, Because that is What the Struggle for Human Rights is ...

Aung San Suu Kyi: the private photo album (Guardian)

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom
Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can't sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight
Walk On, written by U2 for Aung San Suu Kyi in 2000

Aung San Suu Kyi Walks On ... Remember the Power of the Butterfly, Because that is What the Struggle for Human Rights is ...

By Richard Power

For years, Words of Power has documented the agony of Burma and demanded the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. She was finally released a week or so ago.

It was a moment for tears of joy.

Except for sharing a few news stories and an occasional comment on Facebook and Twitter, I have held back writing about it until now.

As I type this, Suu Kyi is walking and speaking freely. I hope that whenever you read this, she still is walking and speaking freely. Of course, she is not satisfied with her own freedom; she wants a future for her people. So if you read this some decades from now, and she is gone from this world, I hope history will report that she died in peace in the new society she birthed for that long-suffering people.

The bitter irony is that she was the safer, in some ways, in captivity.

“Before the Depayin incident in 2003, there wasn't a state of mind in the military or other forces to assassinate her though she faced a series of verbal harassment,” said Win Tin, one of the party's founders and secretary of the NLD. “But after the Depayin incident, we saw that there had been a state of mind to assassinate her.” ... Citing the assassination of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as an example, Win Tin said: “As a political leader who always deals with the people, she can be assassinated by a killer who is hiding in the crowd at any time.” Since her involvement in Burmese politics in 1988, Suu Kyi has faced a number of threats on her life. Irrawaddy, 11-14-10

And yes, the Burmese junta is still in power. With their sham referendum, they have simply traded in military uniforms for suits. (Perhaps donning business suits is the first honest act of their reign of terror and corruption. The use of military force was just the most efficient means to their desired end. It is their own obscene profit and protection that they are really focused on, not the national security or prosperity of their people.)

And tell me, with the double-cover of this phony "election" and the release of the world's most high-profile political prisoner, do you really think there will be any pressure for real democratic reform from the likes of Chevron, Total and the other corporations East and West, or the regional powers China and India, all of whom have underwritten the slaughter of Buddhist monks, and the willful neglect of the victims of typhoon Nargis, and numerous other atrocities by doing uninterrupted business with the regime?

Consider these two recent news stories:

Burmese authorities ordered more than 80 AIDs patients and staff to leave a shelter hours after they gave Aung San Suu Kyi, the freed democracy leader, a rapturous welcome. The patients and staff, who need permits renewable monthly to live at the shelter on Rangoon's outskirts as they are not from the former capital, were told to go after the Nobel laureate's high-profile visit. Telegraph, 11-21-10

The government watches her obviously and aggressively, trying to cramp her style as she returns to daily life. Across the road from her headquarters, in a couple of shacks which are now an ad hoc police station, a group of plain-clothes security policemen is always gathered. They are equipped with expensive stills and video cameras, and anyone who goes in or out of the headquarters is filmed and photographed ... Like secret policemen almost everywhere, the Burmese security are at one and the same time clever and grossly obvious. Like the Chinese security police, who seem to be in charge of training the Burmese, they are often good and often incompetent at following you. Good, because they are assiduous and there are large numbers of them; incompetent, because they know they have the power to do anything they want and this makes them stand out in any crowd. Most obvious of all, many of them are equipped with garish little orange mopeds, made in China, which only the police can use in Burma ... John Seymour, Telegraph, 11-21-10

So yes, I did indeed weep tears of joy when I heard the BBC interview with Aung San Suu Kyi , and saw the sea of humanity waiting for her at her door. But no romanticism, please! The road ahead for the Burmese and all of care for them is hard and perilous. The physical freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi is such a fragile fact, and a delicate balance.

Fortunately, her spiritual freedom is adamantine, as has been proven over the many years of trial and tribulation. "Aung San Suu Kyi is already free," I wrote often, during the years of her captivity, "it is those who oppress her who are in prison." That is the truth.

This is a moment to savor, and each moment beyond the moment of her release is another moment to savor. Do not let one savory moment slip by. Celebrate this.

Remember the power of the butterfly, because that is what the struggle for human rights is; it is the power of the butterfly. So beautiful it can take your breath away, and yet so short-lived (a few weeks or months at the most); so delicate, and yet so powerful it can ride jet streams and traverse oceans, using the sun as a compass, and its own generations as its vehicle.

Yes, remember the power of the butterfly, and listen to what it teaches.

The physical liberation of even one individual (especially one who has dedicated her life to the All and the One) for however brief a time, is a profound shift in the collective psyche; and it is a shift that cannot be reversed, however long its fulfillment is delayed.

In longyis and sandals, Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters ran the 400 yards to the front gate of her home. One woman, a portrait of "The Lady" pinned to her shirt, wept as she ran, calling out her name. They pushed against the ancient, sagging bamboo fence, singing and chanting, "long live Aung San Suu Kyi".
Despite years of house arrest, and the long hours yesterday waiting for the release order to finally come, inside her lakeside compound her inner circle were not prepared. They begged the crowd to sit and to be patient while they found something for their leader to stand on. After 10 minutes, she appeared, in a lavender top, only her face and shoulders visible above the fence. The crowd roared. Here was the excitement, the enthusiasm of the Burmese people, so palpably missing from last week's election, embodied in a smiling 65-year-old woman, standing on a chair at her front gate, with flowers in her hair. Guardian, 11-13-10

You Tube: Walk On - U2

Saturday, November 06, 2010

On Pelosi, Olbermann, the Bear Totem, & Yes the Implications & Consequences of the Bloody Mid-Term

Daryl Hannah in Clan of the Cave Bear

Come now and let’s visit Washington’s red light district, headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the front group for the plutocracy’s prostitution of politics ... And until we get clean money we’re not going to get clean elections, and until we get clean elections, you can kiss goodbye government of, by, and for the people. Welcome to the plutocracy. Bill Moyers, Welcome to the Plutocracy, Truthout, 11-3-10

I could see that the Wasichus did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the Earth was their mother. Black Elk Speaks

On Pelosi, Olbermann, the Bear Totem, & Yes, the Implications & Consequences of the Bloody Mid-Term

By Richard Power

As devastating as the Citizens United decision has already proven to be, and as lethal as it could prove to be in 2012, it was not the only decisive factor in 2010.

In California and Connecticut, progressive principle and political professionalism trumped obscene infusions of personal wealth from CEOs Whitman, Fiorina and Linda "Repeal the Minimum Wage" McMahon

Nor was the political cowardice of Democrats the only other decisive factor; three of the bravest and most daring of Democrats were defeated: Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) and Senate candidate Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA).

No, the third decisive factor in many regions, I am sorry to say, was indeed human ignorance.

Did you not vote in this election? Did you vote "R" for Senate, Congress or Governor in this election? I urge you to ponder the process by which you make your political decisions, in the light of what is written here (and the stories I have linked to).

Are we so fickle that we can’t even stay the course for four years to really bring about change? Are we so dumb that we want to go back to the disastrous policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney? Yes and yes. That sums up Tuesday’s election results: Fickle and Dumb. Bill Press, Election: Fickle and Dumb, 11-3-10

Here are some further reflections on the bloody mid-terms and some of the plot twist in the immediate aftermath.

Bear Totem

Christine O'Donnell was, as she insisted, not a witch (as in Wiccan) but she was, without a doubt, dabbling in political black magic because that is what the teabaggers are in actuality. (NOTE: I don't use the term "Tea Party" because those involved seem willfully ignorant of the historical context of the Boston Tea Party, or the message it might hold for us today.)

Sarah Palin, of course, is a high priestess of this political black magic cult.

Have you seen the post-midterm video for SarahPac? A short, but powerful potion brewed by some Leni Riefenstahl of the You Tube era, it ends with a growling Grizzly standing, menacingly, on its hind legs.

The bear totem is powerful; but Palin cannot lay claim to it. Bear's medicine will not work for her. She does not understand Bear's power, or his gifts.

Bear rose in the human psyche many ages ago. And yes, Bear has much to teach America, it offers us its medicine alongside Bison, and Eagle, and Wolf, and Elk, and Fox, and Wild Turkey, and Prairie Dog, and Deer, and Raccoon, and Mountain Lion, and Wild Pig, and yes, Rattlesnake.

But Palin's crypto-fascism does not belong to the Bear; it has nothing to do with the mystical truth of the Bear totem.

The legends of King Arthur belongs to the Bear. The name "Arthur" is from "Arcturus," i.e., "Guardian of the Bear." Arthur established the Round Table, a vision of an egalitarian fellowship, and he wielded Excalibur, which was bestowed on him by the Lady of the Lake, a pagan demi-goddess.

It is the circle of life that is sacred to the Bear.

Arthur was Celtic (Welsh) legend before he was English legend, and the original Graal quest was not for the chalice from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper; no, in some tales it was a search for a magical cauldron, in other tales it was a search for a supernatural sow.

Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear, and the other novels in her Earth's Children series, belong to the Bear; in them, Auel celebrates the naked wisdom and savage beauty of the indigenous and the primordial -- yes, the wisdom and beauty of Eden.

Pelosi

I urge you to stand behind Speaker Pelosi in her bid to be minority leader in the upcoming House of Representatives to be sworn in January 2011. This is no time to turn to the weak-kneed, or to succumb to self-doubt. Pelosi has been a much more effective leader than either POTUS or Harry Reid over the last two years.

It's great to see somebody who doesn't adopt the typical DC defensive crouch when things get tough. Some politicians are chameleons, cold blooded creatures who'd rather take on the protective coloration of their opponents than stand and fight. Not her ... Pelosi lost the Speaker's gavel through no fault of her own, after the Senate nullified some of her greatest achievements and the big-money interests spent mega-millions to bring her down. The money boys won that gavel - for now - but that doesn't mean her work is done. The Democrats need her leadership, the President needs her guidance, and the country needs her voice. Richard (RJ) Eskow, Fighting Spirit of Nancy Pelosi, Huffington Post, 11-5-10

Olbermann

MSNBC's move against K.O. is a travesty. Consider Faux News' $1 million donation to the RNC. No FCC investigation. Consider Glenn Beck's fantasizing aloud about the beheading of POTUS. He is still on the air.

I do not care a whit about a chump change ethics violation in an environment in which supposed "journalists" report that "we have always been at war with Eastasia."

Look, it is likely that MSNBC is making a move against K.O., Maddow, Schultz, etc. Mark my words. I said in 2008, that if Obama-Biden had not won, the corporate overlords would have moved against them then. Well, now it is 2010, and the House has fallen, and POTUS is perceived as weak and ineffectual. The cruel irony is that K.O. and Maddow have done what journalists should, they have reported the truth, they have held POTUS and the Democrats to the light of truth for better and worse, and been wrongly excoriated by POTUS and all his men (yes, men -- Gibbs, Axelrod, Emmanuel).

It is outrageous that General Electric/MSNBC would suspend Keith Olbermann for exercising his constitutional rights to contribute to a candidate of his choice. This is a real threat to political discourse in America and will have a chilling impact on every commentator for MSNBC.
"We live in a time when 90 percent of talk radio is dominated by right-wing extremists, when the Republican Party has its own cable network (Fox) and when progressive voices are few and far between.
"At a time when the ownership of Fox news contributed millions of dollars to the Republican Party, when a number of Fox commentators are using the network as a launching pad for their presidential campaigns and are raising money right off the air, it is absolutely unacceptable that MSNBC suspended one of the most popular progressive commentators in the country.
"Is Rachel Maddow or Ed Schultz next? Is this simply a ‘personality conflict' within MSNBC or is one of America's major corporations cracking down on a viewpoint they may not like? Whatever the answer may be, Keith Olbermann should be reinstated immediately and allowed to present his point of view." Sen. Bernie Sanders, 11-15-10

Bold Progressive has a petition to sign.

Results of the Referendum

In my last two posts before the 2010 mid-term elections, I asked Is This A Nation of Fools? and suggested This Election is NOT a Referendum on POTUS or Speaker Pelosi, It is a Referendum on Us.

Well, the results are in, and they are mixed.

The U.S. House of Representatives is lost to reason and goodness for the next two years.

(Just in case you have forgotten exactly who and what John Boehner is, watch this video clip about the time he handed out tobacco industry checks on the floor of the House.)

Floridians certainly live in a state of shame; they elected a teabagger, Rubio, to the Senate, and a disgraced hospital executive to the Governor's mansion, while voting the brave Rep. Alan Grayson out of office.

Kentuckians live in a state of shame. They elected a teabagger, Rand Paul, who questions the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act, to the Senate of the United States.

Pennsylvanians too live in a state of shame. They elected something more dangerous than a teabagger, they elected the former President of the Club for Growth (a.k.a. "Club for Greed") instead of the brave Rear Admiral Joe Sestak.

The cheese-heads of Wisconsin clearly live in a state of shame, defeating the brave Russ Feingold.

But there were other states in which the American people avoided shame, and chose life over death, and reason over madness: teabaggers Angle, O'Donnell, Paladino and Miller went down in flames.

And there is the promise of California.

California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer defeated challenger Carly Fiorina by a ten-point margin on Tuesday, winning a total of 3.7 million votes, more than the combined vote total of ten Tea Party senate candidates. Jon Weiner, The Nation, 11-3-10

California is the only place in the country where climate and clean energy activists aggressively pushed their message across the board in the face of strong, well-funded opposition by Big Oil. Prop 23 lost by more than 20 points. Whitman and Fiorina were crushed running on an explicit dirty-energy agenda and/or running against candidates with an unabashed clean energy agenda. Brad Johnson, Climate Progress, 11-3-10

In an Oakland theater renovated while he was mayor, and against a backdrop of students from two high schools launched while he was mayor (an art school and a military academy), Governor-elect Jerry Brown delivered a poignant victory speech:

And I see a California once again leading on renewable energy, leading on education. We are all God's children and while I understand politics, I will always carry with me my sense of that missionary zeal to transform the world -- that's always been my calling. That's what it's all about -- the vision. I'm hoping and praying, and I know this breakdown that's gone on for too long in Sacramento will pave the way for a breakthrough. That's the spirit that I am going to take with me as I go back to Sacramento 28 years later -- full of energy, full of creativity, and ready to solve our problems. Jerry Brown, 11-2-10

California, of course, belongs to the Bear (again).

Jerry Brown's victory speech, 11-2-10

Welcome to the Clan.

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.

Hard Rain Late Night: Jefferson Airplane - Wooden Ships (1969)

Monday, November 01, 2010

Vote "R" for Renfield? This Election is NOT a Referendum on POTUS or Speaker Pelosi, It is a Referendum on Us

Tom Waits as Renfield in Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola)

Today's Republicans are far from Dirksen and that's a shame. Beyond political differences with Obama and the Democrats, they've been making war on reality itself, which should be a major issue of the campaign's final days ... If there's an antidote to this denial and to the paid lies that fuel it, it's citizen participation ... If we're silent, we allow reality itself to become hostage to delusion and our country and planet to pay the price. Paul Rogat Loeb, Republican War on Reality, Truthout, 11-1-10

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

Vote "R" for Renfeld? This Election is NOT a Referendum on POTUS or Speaker Pelosi, It is a Referendum on Us

By Richard Power

Defeat Feingold, and re-elect Vitter? Privatize social security? Eliminate the minimum wage? Give "pre-existing conditions" back to the health insurance racketeers? Is this who you are, USA? Really?

"We, the People"? This election is NOT a referendum on POTUS or Speaker Pelosi; it is a referendum on us.

Are "We, the people" competent to lead? If control of the House of Representatives passes to the Renfield Party, and Boehner is elected Speaker, we will have the answer; and it will be a much greater tragedy than whatever tragedy (e.g., Afghanistan, no public option, DADT, etc.) caused you to "not vote."

The Republican Party is gone; in its place there is a "Renfield Party," it serves the appetites of its corporatist overlords, who, like vampires, are draining the blood out of your economy, your government, your industrial base, your critical infrastructure, your biosphere, and inevitably your common humanity.

The teabagger Renfield's stream of consciousness sounds like this: "Master needs a cut in his capital gains tax, Master suffers so, Master says I need to privatize my social security, Master is so kind, Master says he will invest it for me, Master says he just can't afford 'no pre-existing conditions,' all God's children are just going to have to 'man-up.' Master knows best. Master needed my job too, he sent it to China, but that's OK, I have boot-straps, and Master is getting the government off my back, Master knows best, Master says the market is a magic place, Master is going to abolish the Department of Education and break the choke hold of those Marxists from the teachers union ..."

Vampires make for excellent erotic fiction, but they make for a tragic political reality.

There is no excuse for not voting, not voting is voting for the most reactionary forces within this country, and voting against the future. And there is no excuse for voting "R" either; it is a vote for death, a vote for despair, a vote for ignorance and fear in the service of greed.

If you think there is no difference between the Parties, or that the difference is not significant enough to call forth your vote, then you really need to sit down and re-evaluate your sources of information.

If "We, the People" return control of the House of Representatives to the Greedy Oil-Drenched Plutocrats (GOP), then it is not POTUS' failure, or the Speaker's failure, it is ours.

If "We, the People" cannot discern the difference between news and propaganda, then we do not deserve the nation the founders gave us.

And of progressives in particular, I ask how is allowing USA to move backwards a rational response to the USA not moving forward fast enough?

Not voting is voting "R"! And "R" for Renfield.

This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness ... Beyond the politics, the crucial difference between the 1990s and now is the state of the economy. When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the U.S. economy had strong fundamentals ... Today’s situation is completely different. The economy, weighed down by the debt that households ran up during the Bush-era bubble, is in dire straits; deflation, not inflation, is the clear and present danger. And it’s not at all clear that the Fed has the tools to head off this danger. Right now we very much need active policies on the part of the federal government to get us out of our economic trap. But we won’t get those policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts — cuts they have already announced won’t have to be offset with spending cuts. So if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid. Paul Krugman, Divided We Fail, New York Times, 10-12-10

You can't stomp on us.

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