Winter Solstice 2010: Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself

Available Now: Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself


The political, economic and religious structures with which we frame our shared reality have caved in on themselves. With our genius and our ignorance, we have created an impossibility; and we are fueling it every moment of every day. There is no way out of this impossibility, because what could lead us out is leading deeper into it at every twist and turn. We cannot turn, we cannot change course. We cannot stop sliding backward, and yet we cannot stop hurtling forward. Our problems have become our solutions; our solutions have become our problems. This impossibility is our crisis. It has a created a singularity. What will come from this singularity? If anything but extinction (or near extinction) comes from this crisis, it will be because something unforeseen, unprecedented, miraculous and utterly new emerges from this singularity, i.e., from within us, in the midst of our meltdown, after everything has gone on full-tilt. We are the singularity, and we are poised here in anticipation of what will emerge from the unthinkable, unimaginable collapse of our collective self. Therefore, we must learn to see in the dark. -- Richard Power, Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself

Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself

My seventh book, Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself is now available.

Part spiritual manual, part poetry, and part social manifesto, Between Shadow and Night is a representative reflection of my personal life’s work so far.

For centuries, humanity has savaged itself and its environment. Now our madness has caught up with us. Mega-fires, mega-droughts, mega-storms, mega-floods. Rape as a weapon of mass destruction. TV and radio as weapons of mass disinformation. Genocide, gendercide and ecocide. These are not Biblical prophecies, these are current news stories. Water scarcity, food insecurity, overpopulation, extreme poverty, collapsing infrastructure, predatory capitalism, perennial war. Humanity is in crisis. The planet is in crisis. Will we push the planet beyond its breaking point, and in the process snuff out our own future? Or will the planet respond to the existential threat that our ignorance poses, and save itself by pushing us beyond our breaking point? Both outcomes are plausible; sooner or later, perhaps even in this century.

Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself is now available.

Between Shadow and Night considers the human condition at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, and celebrates some simple truths that could help us redeem our civilization and revive our world. The book is organized into seven sections.

"User’s Guide to Human Incarnation: Technology of Falling Awake, Parts I, II and III" is a series of talks on the spiritual quest.

“Gaia or Global Ghost Dance?” is an exploration of themes and issues related to re-orientating social, political and economic priorities around human rights and the rights of Mother Earth.

I have also included three shorter pieces, “Beyond The Razor’s Edge: A Sequel,” “Lost Years of Jesus” and the title piece, “Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself.” These brief excursions into the creative imagination provide some further context for the principles and strategies suggested.

Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace; it will be available in additional distribution channels on-line and in bookstores soon.

ISBN-13: 978-1453744840
ISBN-10: 1453744843

-- Richard Power

Gaia or Global Ghostdance? Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself

Available Now: Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself


The political, economic and religious structures with which we frame our shared reality have caved in on themselves. With our genius and our ignorance, we have created an impossibility; and we are fueling it every moment of every day. There is no way out of this impossibility, because what could lead us out is leading deeper into it at every twist and turn. We cannot turn, we cannot change course. We cannot stop sliding backward, and yet we cannot stop hurtling forward. Our problems have become our solutions; our solutions have become our problems. This impossibility is our crisis. It has a created a singularity. What will come from this singularity? If anything but extinction (or near extinction) comes from this crisis, it will be because something unforeseen, unprecedented, miraculous and utterly new emerges from this singularity, i.e., from within us, in the midst of our meltdown, after everything has gone on full-tilt. We are the singularity, and we are poised here in anticipation of what will emerge from the unthinkable, unimaginable collapse of our collective self. Therefore, we must learn to see in the dark. -- Richard Power, Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself

Gaia or Global Ghostdance? Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself

My seventh book, Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself is now available. Part spiritual manual, part poetry, and part social manifesto, Between Shadow and Night is a representative reflection of my personal life’s work so far.

For centuries, humanity has savaged itself and its environment. Now our madness has caught up with us. Mega-fires, mega-droughts, mega-storms, mega-floods. Rape as a weapon of mass destruction. TV and radio as weapons of mass disinformation. Genocide, gendercide and ecocide. These are not Biblical prophecies, these are current news stories. Water scarcity, food insecurity, overpopulation, extreme poverty, collapsing infrastructure, predatory capitalism, perennial war. Humanity is in crisis. The planet is in crisis.

Will we push the planet beyond its breaking point, and in the process snuff out our own future? Or will the planet respond to the existential threat that our ignorance poses, and save itself by pushing us beyond our breaking point? Both outcomes are plausible; sooner or later, perhaps even in this century.

Between Shadow and Night, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself is now available.

Between Shadow and Night considers the human condition at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, and celebrates some simple truths that could help us redeem our civilization and revive our world. The book is organized into seven sections.

"User’s Guide to Human Incarnation: Technology of Falling Awake, Parts I, II and III" is a series of talks on the spiritual quest.

“Gaia or Global Ghost Dance?” is an exploration of themes and issues related to re-orientating social, political and economic priorities around human rights and the rights of Mother Earth.

I have also included three shorter pieces, “Beyond The Razor’s Edge: A Sequel,” “Lost Years of Jesus” and the title piece, “Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself.” These brief excursions into the creative imagination provide some further context for the principles and strategies suggested.

Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace; it will be available in additional distribution channels on-line and in bookstores soon.

ISBN-13: 978-1453744840
ISBN-10: 1453744843

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

-- Richard Power

Valentina Lisitsa - Chopin Nocturne E Flat Major Op.9 No.2

Valentina Lisitsa - Chopin Nocturne E Flat Major Op.9 No.2

Winter Solstice 2010: Valentina Lisitsa - Chopin Nocturne E Flat Major Op.9 No.2

Valentina Lisitsa - Chopin Nocturne E Flat Major Op.9 No.2

Truth and Beauty went to Oslo and Cancun, Looking for an Uncracked Mirror; Not Finding One, They are Now Miles from Nowhere in a Land of Make-Believe

Diego Rivera's Portrait of Ruth Rivera (1949)

When old age shall this generation waste, thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe ... "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn (1890)

Truth and Beauty went to Oslo and Cancun, Looking for an Uncracked Mirror; Not Finding One, They are Now Miles from Nowhere in a Land of Make-Believe

By Richard Power

Extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is madness, just as perpetuating Bush's military adventures is madness. But then so is turning over control over the House to the zombie legion formerly known as the Republican Party, and increasing their number in the Senate. And that is what the American electorate chose to do in the 2010 mid-terms. (Yes, if you didn't vote, you voted for that zombie legion.)

Meanwhile, POTUS appears ineffectual, or is it disingenuous? Or is it both? Or neither? Is he playing a game so deep game even he can't follow it? Some have begun to wonder if the progressive movement will blow apart, next year, in the snows of New Hampshire.

So as this once great nation prepares to hand over the House Speaker's gavel to a blubbering buffoon, it is understandable that Truth and Beauty would want to look elsewhere for reason and conscience. Unfortunately, dropping in on the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo and the U.N. climate crisis conference in Cancun offered little distraction.

The madness, it seems, is pandemic.

An Empty Chair in Oslo can Cause an Empire to Tremble

I remember the slaughter of the innocents on Tiananmen Square in 1989, just as vividly as I remember the slaughter of the innocents on 9/11. Both atrocities remain unanswered, at least in any appropriate way. Indeed, our responses to both tragedies have been monumental failures. Much blood and treasure was squandered in what on the surface might appear to be a misdirected and duplicitous effort to avenge 9/11, but which is in reality was an extension and entrenchment of U.S. military power in the Persian Gulf and along the Silk Road, and a further engorgement of the military-industrial complex (one that a true Republican warned us against). And what would have been an appropriate response to 9/11? Bringing us the heads of Bin Laden and Zawahiri, and making Bush, Cheney and Rice accountable for ignoring numerous and unambiguous warnings in the weeks before the attack. That would be a good start.

Since the massacre on Tiananmen Square, much business has been undertaken, ostensibly as a means of engaging the Chinese and encouraging them to embrace civil society. Remember? That was Bill Clinton's idea: "constructive engagement." Well, the U.S. is awash in goods that read "Made in China." Hundreds of fortunes have been made, many millions of U.S. jobs been lost forever, and from rare earths to solar energy, China is positioning itself brilliantly for 21st Century dominance. "Constructive engagement," Clinton argued, would open up China and make it kinder and gentler. Ask the Uighurs or the Tibetans, or the the people of Darfur.

Yes, it brought China closer, it caused China to embrace what is nearest and dearest to the soul of the American people, but that's not "democracy," or "human rights," no, apparently it's predatory capitalism. Yes, this has revealed itself as our most cherished ideal. Clinton's policy of "constructive engagement" has not only lead to the Chinese embracing that cherished ideal of predatory capitalism; it has also helped us to grow closer to them, we are after all rapidly becoming a one-party political system (ideologically if not organizationally). How else do you explain POTUS characterizing an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest as job-creating stimulus? So it is fitting that POTUS would chose to have Clinton flack for his tax cut deal with the zombie legion.

Ah, well, back to Oslo and Cancun.

In Oslo, the Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, but he is in prison, and his wife was put under house arrest so she could not attend in his absence, as did Aung San Suu Kyi's son in 1991 and Andrei Sakharov's wife in 1975. (And yes, I understand that Liu Xiaobo is no Aung San Suu Kyi or Andrei Sakharov, and that some of his views are disturbingly "neo-con." He freedom to espouse them must be INVIOLATE. Free speech is NOT money, but it is priceless.)

Nonetheless ...

China, how weak you are, and how small, to be scared of an imprisoned man of non-violence, and to feel the need to put his wife under house arrest. Your empire will not last long if you remain such a sissy. Time moved slowly for the last two millennia, but it is moving very fast now.

The empty chair at yesterday's Nobel peace prize ceremony is a needed reminder of two things. First, despite its huge advances and ever-growing integration into the global economy, China operates on a very different set of values from our own. And second, for all its successes at home and abroad, the opaque and authoritarian regime in Beijing sees Liu Xiaobo and the values he represents as a threat to its continuing hold on power. Independent, 12-11-10

If a Western Journalist Digs Far Enough Does He or She End Up in China?

Are Beijing's "values" really all that different? Are we slouching away from Bethlehem and toward Beijing?

Consider the plight of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange is not a criminal under the laws of the United States. I was the first one prosecuted for the charges that would be brought against him. I was the first person ever prosecuted for a leak in this country–although there had been a lot of leaks before me. That’s because the First Amendment kept us from having an Official Secrets Act. . . . The founding of this country was based on the principle that the government should not have a say as to what we hear, what we think, and what we read. ... If Bradley Manning did what he’s accused of, then he’s a hero if mine and I think he did a great service to this country. We’re not in the mess we’re in, in the world, because of too many leaks. . . . I say there should be some secrets. But I also say we invaded Iraq illegally because of a lack of a Bradley Manning at that time. FireDogLake, 12-13-10

Consider the implications and consequences of the Wikileaks affair.

Above a chyron that read "ASSANGE: JOURNALIST OR TERRORIST," a CNN "reporter" interviewed the indomitable Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), who was once upon a time delivered the Presidential Daily Briefing to G.H.W. "Poppy" Bush:

DON LEMON: You really think we --- and I'll say we, I'm a journalist --- you really think we have it wrong and that he [Assange] is actually not a pariah and we should be praising him and following his lead rather than calling him a pariah?
RAY MCGOVERN:Yeah, actually, with all due respect, I think you should be following his example. Seek out the secrets. Find out why it is that my tax-payer money is going to fund trafficked young boys performing dances in women's clothing before the Afghan security forces who we are recruiting to take over after we leave. Take a look at the documents and see the abhorrent activities that our government has endorsed or done through its contractors. And then tell me you don't think the Americans can handle that. Well I think they can handle it. But they can't handle it if they don't have it. Brad Blog, 12-13-10

The Other Empty Seats in Oslo

Seventeen other countries joined China in its boycott, demonstrating China's growing economic and geopolitical power; the list of no-shows is revealing in many ways:

Saudia Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, our "strong allies" in the war IN, OF, BY and FOR terror, for whom we are to believe we have shed our blood and spilled our treasure, joined China in its boycott. The Palestinian Authority, which should do better than succumb to a selective application of concern over human rights, boycotted the ceremony. Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, for whom the sands in the hour glass are dwindling down, boycotted the ceremony. Iran boycotted the ceremony. Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, knows why. The boycott also include the Sudanese (China's darling), whose leader is wanted by the ICC for genocide. And oh yeah, speaking of genocide, Serbia too skipped the ceremony. Cuba was also a no-show. Yes, the US embargo is STUPID, but let this serve as a good reminder not to overly romanticize the regime. Venezuela too stood somewhere else, in solidarity with China. Is Chavez is only interested in human rights when it furthers his ambitions? He would not be unique in this foible. Putin's Russia also stayed away. Yes, Putin's Russia, where one government official recently expressed the opinion that Assange should win the Peace Prize. If Assange had won, of course, ironically, all of these governments would have shown up for the ceremony, and many of those in self-righteous attendance for Liu Xiaobo would have boycotted.

So no, there was no uncracked mirror in Oslo in which the truth and beauty of humanity could be seen. On to Cancun ...

Creating 1,000 Cochabambas

After the failure in Copenhagen (yes, despite official protestations to the contrary, it was a failure of collective will, particularly of the U.S.A and China), an alternate World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was held in Cochabamba, formulating a more aggressive approach to the crisis, driven by some of those countries who will suffer the harshest and most immediate impact, as well as by environmental justice and indigenous rights organizations from throughout the world; together these entities, drafted a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth to bring before the U.N. General Assembly for adoption in the same manner that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. Following on collective failure of will in Copenhagen and a call to environmental revolution in Cochabamba, what could be expected from the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Cancun? There was an agreement of sorts, and a resolve to press on to COP17 in South Africa next year. There are those who see Cancun as a success, and those who see it as another failure; the truth, of course, is dangling by a frail thread somewhere in between the two assessments.

"Cancun may have saved the [UN]process but it did not yet save the climate," said Greenpeace International Climate Policy Director Wendel Trio. Guardian, 12-15-10

The first lesson of the Cancun talks is that the governments of the world can in fact work together on global warming, even though decoupling civilization from greenhouse pollution is a herculean task. However, the second lesson is that their leadership only gets humanity so far. Only the full mobilization of the present generation can overcome the institutional barriers to change and protect our fragile civilization from the raging climate system our pollution has created. The Cancun compact has restored hope around the world, but now the actual work has to begin. Climate Progress, 12-11-10

I think Evo and my Bolivian coca farmer friend would agree that if we are to avoid ecocide, we cannot rely on government officials meeting in plush golf resorts. Instead, the solutions will come from organic farmers and social entrepreneurs. They will come activists who confront corporate polluters. They will come from passionate environmentalists putting even more pressure on their governments. They will come from those fighting for climate justice on their communities around the globe. Ultimately, they will come from a grassroots global movement steeped in the values of mother nature. Media Benjamin, CODEPINK, Common Dreams, 12-11-10

It is time to deliver the message of Cochabamba to the people who are capable of creating change, of creating 1,000 Cochabambas. Shannon Biggs, Global Exchange/Climate Justice, 12-12-10

In Cancun, the beauty and truth of our common humanity could be glimpsed in the shards of reflective glass, some of the flashes came from the faces of delegates working tirelessly inside the process, other flashes came from the faces of the activists forced into the streets. But the mirror of Cancun was cracked, just as the mirror of Oslo was cracked.

Which leaves truth and beauty miles from nowhere with little time left to green this civilization, and/or to humanize it, before it devours its own heart, and collapses under its own crushing weight.

The struggles for human rights and for the rights of Gaia are interdependent, one cannot be won without the other, and both are essential to our survival. Yet, there is no meaningful discourse on how to honor either in the halls of Beltwayistan, or on the air waves of Infotainmentstan, which brings us full circle to our puzzling POTUS, and the blubbering buffoon who is going to take over the speaker's gavel next month, and an electorate which sent Rand Paul to the U.S. Senate and Russ Feingold and Alan Grayson into private life.

Madness.

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.

Wikileaks is Fair Game, & Cancun Can't; "The Nation's Hoop was Broken ... No Center Any Longer for the Flowering Tree."

Fair Game

The nation's hoop was broken, and there was no center any longer for the flowering tree. Black Elk Speaks (Chapter 19)

Wikileaks is Fair Game, & Cancun Can't; "The Nation's Hoop was Broken ... No Center Any Longer for the Flowering Tree."

By Richard Power

Not to write about the story of the Wikileaks revelations would be cowardice; but to become consumed by it would be to play a fool's game. So a few relevant remarks, and then on to a more important story, one, which is, of course, barely mentioned on the air waves of Infotainmentstan, or in the empty rhetoric of the made (and women) men of Beltwayistan.

Whether the Wikileaks revelations prove to be of as great historical significance as the Pentagon Papers remains to be seen. Whether or not Julian Assange will measure up to the moral stature of Daniel Ellsberg also remains to be seen. But the rank hypocrisy of the power structure's denunciation of both demands a response.

What could be more obscene than the specter of Assange topping Interpol's Most Wanted List while George W. Bush prances on to TV sound stages to shuck with Oprah and jive with Matt Lauer? George W. Bush should be battling indictments both in U.S. federal court and in the I.C.C., not mocking human decency on a book tour.

To add injury to this insult to intelligence, at the same time, Fair Game, a compelling (and factually accurate) political thriller, by "Bourne Identity" director Doug Liman, and starring Naomi Watts as covert CIA agent Valerie Plame and Sean Penn as Ambassador Joe Wilson, goes largely ignored during its stint in first-run theatres. (I have embedded Robert Greenwald's interview with Valerie and Joe below.)

Let me break it down for you, if you are OK with Scooter Libby doing no prison time, and Rove and Cheney not even getting indicted in the Plame affair, and yet you call Julian Assange and Bradley Manning criminals, from my perspective, you are a hypocrite.

NOTE: For further commentary on Wikileaks, I refer you to Colleen Rawley (who's earned a hearing for her views) in Take Off the Blindfold. Don't Be Afraid to See the Truth! and to Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! interview with Noam Chomsky, embedded below.

Meanwhile, I promised you a story that deserves even more of your attention ... Consider some headlines that the likes of NBC Meat the Press, CBS Fork the Nation and CNN's Wolf Bluster didn't deem suitable to share with you:

Climate change could push staple food prices up 130%, report warning comes as many countries fear instability caused by rising food prices and shortages
Guardian, 12-1-10

Climate deaths more than double in 2010 Reuters, 11-29-10

World migrants could total 405 million by 2050, climate change migrants boost numbers of global refugees Reuters, 11-29-10

Climate change could cut clean water to three billion people Reuters, 11-28-10

A Billion People Will Lose Their Homes Due to Climate Change, Guardian, 11-28-10

Yes, while many in Beltwayistan and Infotainmentstan expended their hot air surplus on saving the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of the populace, while denying an extension of unemployment benefits and seeking to forestall retirement for all the wage slaves who still do have jobs, the world was meeting in Cancun for COP16, the official follow-up to the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Crisis summit.

And, of course, the news from there is not good:

The UN climate talks in Cancún were in danger of collapse last night after many Latin American countries said that they would leave if a crucial negotiating document, due to be released tomorrow, did not continue to commit rich countries to emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol. John Vidal, Guardian, 12-4-10

Big holes remain in some of the most basic but contentious issues in a UN-backed scheme to prevent deforestation, fueling speculation of a weaker than expected forestry agreement at the Cancun climate talks. Stacy Feldman, Solve Climate, 12-3-10

Oh, of course, by the time you read this, the participants will likely have concocted some innocuous document that they can all sign, and the whole sad spectacle will stagger down the road to COP17 in South Africa next year.

But the truth is that time is slipping away.

On Friday night, Bill McKibben of 350.org tweeted from Cancun: "Every COP the US says 'weaken the deal so we can carry the Senate' but they never do. Time to just cut the US out and get to work?" Sadly, yes. Still think the U.S.A. is leading the world on Climate Change (or Human Rights)? Leading it where? To hell?

Want to do something about the Climate Crisis? Want to know what should be in serious climate action legislation for the USA? For the seven critical elements, click here.


The Million Letter March for Effective Climate Legislation



Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now!: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership"



Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films Interviews Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson



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: The Doors - Spanish Caravan

Hard Rain Late Night: The Doors - Spanish Caravan

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


Related Posts

NOTE: Here are just a few of over sixty Words of Power posts that have addressed the issue of Aung San Suu Kyi's freedom, and the tragic plight of the Burmese people.

The Day After The Day After Aung San Suu Kyi's Birthday, & the Day After That; Freeing Her is Not a Moral Imperative; It is an Existential Imperative

Bigger Question than "Can We Save Burma & Darfur" -- Will the Nation & the Planet Go the Way of Burma & Darfur? Can We Save Ourselves from Ourselves?

While Palin Rattles A Saber She Should Not Have Been Given; Aung San Suu Kyi Quietly, Peacefully Delivers Another Blow to the Burmese Thugocracy

Burma Crisis Update: One Question -- Is Aung San Suu Kyi Alive and Safe in the Chaotic Aftermath of Cyclone Nargis?

Burma Crisis Update: Two Weeks Into the Crackdown, China Has Not Tempered the Thugocracy's Hand; Chevron Has Not Even Slapped Its Wrist

Hard Rain Journal 9-27-07: Aung San Suu Kyi was Elected in 1990, Al Gore was Elected in 2000 -- Consider What Has Befallen Both Countries Since

Human Rights Update 6-12-07: Remember Aung San Suu Kyi, Honor Her Sacrifice, Reflect on Your Own Freedom & What You Choose to Do With It

Words of Power #24: Lost Symbols, Part One – Aung San Suu Kyi, AQ Khan, & The World Tree

News and analysis from Democracy Now! - Burmese Pro-Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi Freed After 15 of Past 21 Years in Detention



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

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)

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

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.

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Samhain

Leonora Carrington - Samhain Skin (1975)

Samhain. Halloween. Día de Muertos.

The time of twilight power. Opening doors between worlds.

Celtic new year. End and beginning.

The rainbow serpent devours its own tail. The great crows speak. The sacred dances with the profane.

The wheel is turning, ever onward, from ages too ancient to name, into futures too distant to even imagine.

Light and darkness, life and death, and that which envelopes both pairs, pervading both, imbuing each with the other.

Can you feel it?

Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.

You can also visit Richard Power author's page at Amazon.com.

2010 Mid-Term Elections: I'm Done Making Excuses for the Electorate. Is This A Nation of Fools?

Rene Magritte, Clear Ideas, 1958


The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen – and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related. George Monbiot, The Tea Parties: Deluded and Propelled by Billionaires, Guardian, 10-25-10

The United States Chamber of Commerce is running an unprecedented $75 million campaign to unseat progressives from Congress, in defense of a big-oil agenda. As a ThinkProgress investigation has learned Chamber’s donors — who send their checks to the same account from which the political campaign is run — include multinational oil corporations, and even oil companies owned by the Kingdom of Bahrain. Think Progress, 10-23-10

"On Tuesday, I asked Sarah Palin to use her influential voice to stop attempted incidents of domestic terrorism incited by right-wing extremists like Glenn Beck. By telling Beck, 'I stand with you,' Palin -- Fox News' star contributor -- now associates herself with acts of violence and the insane conspiracy theories and hate speech behind them. David Brock, Media Matters, 10-28-10

2010 Mid-Term Elections: I'm Done Making Excuses for the Electorate. Is This A Nation of Fools?

By Richard Power

Fellow citizens, I am finished making excuses for you.

Over the last decade, I focused my ire on the US mainstream news media and the US political establishment. Oh, I was correct in my analysis of their roles in our decline and fall.

The US mainstream news media did abandon the role Jefferson envisioned for a free press in a democratic society, and chose instead to bend minds and fabricate "consensus" for its corporatist overlords.

And the political establishment in Beltwayistan did abandon the representation of the electorate, and chose instead to do the corporatists' dirty work of scuttling the commons and undermining the rule of law.

But all along I kept giving you a pass.

"If you knew better, you would do better," I told myself; if the nightly news anchors and Sunday morning punditry hadn't played you, you would have acted differently, and in a wiser, and more humane way. If your leaders had shown more courage of vision in their own words and deeds, you would have responded, I also told myself; you would have followed them, and protected them against the viciousness that lies in wait for those who dare to lead in the direction of the truth.

Maybe I was wrong about you. We will know more on Election Day, November 2, 2010.

Either way, I am done making excuses for you. What happens now is your responsibility. It is in your hands. You do have a real choice, a meaningful choice; and it is not a choice between one ideology and another, it is a choice between sanity and madness, and between life and death.

Is this a nation of fools?

Bitter Irony

The bitter irony of the 2010 mid-term election is that the U.S. House of Representatives under the Speakership of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is the one body of the U.S. federal government that actually moved forcefully, and with clarity of mind, on the moral imperatives before us; and yet, it is also the one that almost every propapunditgandist in Beltwayistan wants you to believe is already lost. Madness. Madness upon madness, really.

After all, we are just now finishing a long campaign cycle in which the only candidates who brought up the greatest national security threat of our age, i.e., the Climate Crisis, were those who seek to convince you that it is a hoax. Well, Speaker Pelosi and the House passed a meaningful Climate Change bill that would have re-asserted US leadership on the dire issue of global urgency, only to have it killed in the U.S. Senate.

Go down the list of vital issues; one every one it was the House that delivered the best and the most. For example, yes, POTUS signed healthcare reform that will reduce the federal deficit by almost a trillion dollars, ensure that 30 million US citizens who were uninsured won't be, build or expand 10,000 free clinics, and get rid of not only the sadistic "pre-existing condition" and the crushing ceiling on lifetime costs, etc.; but Speaker Pelosi and the House passed one with a PUBLIC OPTION. It was stripped out, of course, in the compromise that had to be crafted to make even reconciliation work.

Social Security

Social security is not broken. It could operate without a hiccup for the next thirty years. But if for some reason you want to think ahead for a change, what should you do to ensure its robustness for the conceivable future? Raise the retirement age? Cruel and unnecessary. Cut benefits? Certainly, not to those who need that check. Privatize it? Insanity, except for those on Wall Street who would profit from the privatization, and don't need (or don't think they need) a social safety net. So what needs to be done? Raise the cap on what the wealthy pay into the social security system. Period. Yes, it is that simple.

Austerity vs. Stimulus

If you wrap yourself in the sanctimonious call for fiscal austerity, but don't want to to repeal Bush's tax cuts, or deal with the insanity of the two foolish military adventures that Joe Stiglitz now says is costing upward of $4-$6 trillion dollars, you are a hypocrite. If you wrap yourself in the sanctimonious call for fiscal austerity, but want to repeal a health care reform law that the CBO has said will reduce the federal deficit by almost a trillion dollars, you are a hypocrite.

Fiscal austerity for its own sake will not turn around our economic decline. Indeed, it will make our circumstances worse. The rich will continue to get richer, the middle class will continue to get squeezed out of existence, and the poor will be devoured. But if we pursue the avenues of reducing the deficit I have mentioned, we will also have the wherewithal to write the check for the massive stimulus (that's right, the Obama stimulus was effective in buying us some time, but it was too small to turn this around, and yes, some of us told you so). With that stimulus money, we could rebuild are collapsing infrastructure and transform this nation into one that runs on green energy. We could jump-start our economy long enough to take a hard look at foundational damage done by the canard of "free trade" (i.e., deindustrialization) and decide how best to deal with it in a 21st Century way.

"Unqualified, and Unstable"

Keith Olbermann delivered a magnificent Special Comment for you to ponder in the final hours before the mid-term election; in his remarkable screed, he aptly described the "Teabagger" phenomena as "a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward** to hanging union organizers, or backward to the Trusts and the Robber Barons."

Olbermann also provided a litany of ghastly indicators of what kind of foulness has been loosed upon you:

The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate for senator from Nevada, Sharron Angle, compared rape to, quoting, "a lemon situation in lemonade." She would deny an abortion even to a teenaged girl who had been raped by her own father. The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate to be the only Congressman in Delaware, Glen Urquhart, said "there is no problem that abortion can't make worse. I know good friends who are the product of rape." ... The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate for the Senate in West Virginia, John Raese, explained, "I made **my** money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it." ... The Tea-Party-and-Republican-candidate in the Indiana 9th, Todd Young, says "Social Security, as so many of you know is a Ponzi scheme." ... The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate for Senator in Alaska, Joe Miller, says ... unemployment insurance is unconstitutional ... Mr. Miller also called Medicaid unconstitutional ... Mr. Miller also claims Social Security is unconstitutional ... Mr. Buck of Colorado said the 17th amendment "took us down the wrong path." The 17th amendment, of course, permits the direct election by the voters of U.S. Senators ... The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate for Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul wishes to repeal the 14th amendment because it interferes with a private business's right to ban black people from its premises, and also because it allows anyone born here in America to be American. Olbermann: If the Tea Party wins, America loses, MSNBC Countdown, 10-27-10

None of these statements were taken out of context. Any of one these statements alone should disqualify the individual who uttered it from representing you in the House or the Senate. Any one of these statement alone cancels out any other reason you might have for voting for any one of these candidates. And yet, how many of these individuals do you project will be elected on November 2nd? Tragically, absurdly, most of them, possibly all of them.

Yes, indeed, whatever happens in this mid-term election, I'm done making excuses for you, America. You should never have allowed it to get this far.

Republicans are to blame for allowing their party to be taken over by sociopathic corporatists (ala Ayn Rand) at the top and a reincarnation of the John Birch Society at the bottom; Democrats are to blame for allowing their own party to be dangerously compromised in the desperate struggle to compete for campaign cash; Independents are to blame for listening too much to the likes of Tom Friedman, David Brooks, David Gergen, Bob Woodward, and Jim Lehrer, and being lulled to sleep by their fairy tales about the political center.

The truth about the political center is that it has taken refuge in the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party actually has a left, a center and a right. But it doesn't work, because this is not a one-party system. So by the time a policy position comes out of the Democratic Party in one or the other legislative body, it has to be comprised yet again to deal with the reality of a Republican Party gone wholly hard right. So by the time any legislation is passed, it is right of center at best; and in the process, the entire political spectrum keeps getting shoved farther and farther to the right. (In the past, the best legislation has come out of a creative tension between true liberalism and true conservatism.)

The Republican Party has gone over the cliff, do not let it drag you down with it.

Listen, it's not "big government" that threatens you at this moment in our history, it is predatory capitalism, which has subjugated government as its agent and you as its chattel.

So yeah, I'm done with you, either way. Finished. Oh, I will continue to speak out, continue to try to reach people, but I won't go easy on you anymore, and if the worst happens next Tuesday, I certainly won't expect anything more than even worse from you in what future remains. But if you do rise to the moment, and send these psychos back home to the hell of their own minds, maybe we can work together to save the nation and the planet.

Make sure you watch this brilliant short video: Save the Future

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

Hard Rain Late Night: Esperanza Spalding - Body and Soul (Sao Paolo, 2008)

Esperanza Spalding - Body and Soul (Sao Paolo, 2008)

As the 21st Century's 1st Decade Ends, the Planet Sizzles & Human Rights Goes Up in Smoke; Yet, However Inevitable It Seems, Failure is Not an Option

Mark Rothko - Earth and Green (1955)

As the 21st Century's 1st Decade Ends, the Planet Sizzles & Human Rights Goes Up in Smoke; Yet, However Inevitable It Seems, Failure is Not an Option

By Richard Power

The first decade of the 21st Century seems to be ending in chaos and delusion. It is difficult to conclude otherwise. The overarching theme has been one of massive failure, both nationally and internationally, a failure of collective conscience, a failure of political will, and yes, even a failure of common sense.

The latest round of climate talks, in Tianjin, China, did nothing to break the stalemate of last year’s failed Copenhagen meeting -- an outcome that was as predictable as it is maddening. The reality is that the most powerful delegates had nothing to lose from prolonging the standoff. But the one point of consensus, sadly, was a mutual disregard for the fate of millions of the world’s poorest people, who have the most to lose as the planet melts down. Michelle Chen, Color Lines, 10-16-10

[Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground (wunderground.com)] doesn’t pull punches: “The ignorance and greed that human society is showing in this matter will be to our ultimate detriment and possible destruction,” he says. Climate Progress, 10-16-10

“What we need more than anything else is a mass movement of young people,” Peter Goldmark, director of EDF’s Climate and Air Program ... “My generation has failed,” he says flatly. “We are handing over the problem to our children. They—and their children—will live with the worst consequences of climate change. Make no mistake, global warming is happening right now. It is only going to get worse.” Climate Progress, 10-14-10

The failure has not just been on the issue of the Climate Crisis, and the underlying Sustainability Crisis, of which climate change is simply the most urgent dimension (the others include population, food security and water); the failure is also related to great nations' utter disregard for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whenever its tenets prove inconvenient.

Article 3 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty & security of person."

This defining document was adopted by U.N. General Assembly in 1948. It stands as the Conscience of the Human Race. You cannot serve it by violating it, or avoid it by ignoring its existence. It is not an ideal, it is the interior reality of the human spirit; deny, denigrate, and defile it, and you deny, denigrate and defile yourself.

Max Ernst - Fishbone Forest (1927)

But a generational failure in leadership has allowed the security situation in Darfur to continue to deteriorate, while those responsible for GENOCIDE still rule in Karthoum:

China has mounted a strenuous diplomatic campaign to block the publication of a U.N. report that claims that Chinese ammunition has been shipped into Darfur in the past year, in clear violation of U.N. sanctions, according to several U.N. diplomatic sources. Washington Post, 10-16-10

The Lord’s Resistance Army is operating in Darfur, a member of the National Assembly has said. MP Mohamed Adam said that a group of LRA forces entered the market of Birao town in Central African Republic (CAR), on the border with Sudan. They seized food supplies and headed to the Sudanese border. The lawmaker considered that these movements constitute a security breakdown. Radio Dabanga, 10-18-10

A generational failure in leadership has allowed the Congo to become the "rape capital of the world" (15,000 women raped in eastern Congo last year) in process of pursuing tantalum, tungsten, and gold for cell phones and other electronics:

Many of Congo's rape survivors took to the streets Sunday to speak out against sexual violence in a country where it has become a weapon of war. "My heart is in pain, why are you raping me?" sang the rape victims, many of whom left hospital beds to join the march in eastern Congo. CNN, 10-18-10

Lieutenant Colonel Mayele, was arrested in an operation by Indian peacekeepers with the MONUSCO mission on October 5. [Margot Wallstrom, UN special envoy on sexual violence against women in conflict] praised the Indian soldiers and called the arrest of Mayele an "important precedent". "When commanders can no longer rest easy in the certainty of impunity, when it begins to cross their mind that they may be turned in by their own, for commissioning or condoning rape, this is the moment when we open a new front in the battle to end impunity," she said. Agence France Press, 10-15-10

A generational failure in leadership has allowed Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to remain under house arrest for 15 out of the last 21 years, while the Junta thugs continue to oppress Burma's long-suffering people, and grow rich on the plundering of its natural resources.

“She told me she wants to use Twitter to get in touch with the younger generation inside and outside the country,” he said. “She wishes to be able to tweet every day and keep in touch.” Suu Kyi has no phone line or any access to the Internet, though she has a laptop computer, Nyan Win said. He described her as computer- and tech-savvy and adept with electronic gadgets. Under the rules of her detention, Suu Kyi is allowed to read state-controlled newspapers and private local news journals and magazines, to listen to the radio and to watch state-run television but she has no satellite dish to receive foreign broadcasts. AP, 10-18-10

[NOTE: Aung San Suu Kyi is due to be released on Nov. 13th, several days after the "elections" that she has asked her fellow citizens to boycott. The whole world will, likely, NOT be watching, but some of us will be vigilant.]

Yes, after the night of hope at the Millennium was canceled out by the sociopaths who seized the White House in the 2000 election, and the second night of hope eight years later, in Grant Park, was canceled out by the oligarchy's last line of defense in the U.S. Senate, it is difficult to believe that we can pull out of this steep downward spiral. But just as a parent puts on a brave face for his or her children, so must we; and just as a parent cannot give up or walk away, we must create hope where there is none. Yes, we must do the impossible now that the possible has been allowed to slip away.

Everything and everyone everywhere is connected. Pull any of the threads completely free and the whole grotesque tapestry will begin to unravel.

Here are some urgent tasks ...

If you are a U.S. citizen, on November 2nd, I implore you to vote FOR science and AGAINST superstition, FOR courage and AGAINST fear, FOR the future and AGAINST extinction.

It has become very easy to distinguish one from other.

Meet The Deniers: The Top Climate Races This November, Think Progress, 9-17-10

Governors 2010: Climate change deniers threaten the Northeast RGGI climate compact, Climate Progress, 10-17-10

Climate denialism explained, Peter Daou, 10-18-10

Have you joined in the 100 Days of Action on Sudan? Actor and activist George Clooney has claimed that Sudan is "90 days away from disaster" during a visit to the White House. You can help George Clooney and Jon Prendergast prevent the next Darfur. Go to http://www.sudanactionnow.org/take-action and send a message to POTUS to ratchet up the pressure.



To follow events in Darfur and Sudan, go to Mia Farrow's site, it is the real-time journal of a humanitarian at work; the content is compelling, insightful and fiercely independent.

For more info on what is going on in the Congo, and how to end it, go to Enough's Raise Hope for the Congo.

To follow events in Burma, go to Irrawaddy, and while you are at it, support this non-profit media group in its efforts to deliver "accurate and impartial" news about this troubled nation and its neighbors.

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.