Ddjango's Blog (23)

Fallen from a Great Depth

I am lying on my couch, trying to read. I do that a lot these days. Trying to read. Trying to accept that this is a slow time for me, a season of healing from old wounds and more recent ones, some self-inflicted. Trying to find a place of peace in an ecology that has shunned peace.

Although the blank screen saver has darkened the computer behind me, I can still hear you within the infinite waves of Twitter ever changing the guard; ranting, cajoling, flirting, pushing out… Continue

Added by ddjango on January 12, 2010 at 9:34pm — No Comments

Nobel: "Put Up or Shut Up"

I have thought very carefully before adding my voice to the discussion about the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace. What I've discovered is that few, if any, have written or talked about the irony of the award, concentrating on whether Obama "deserved" the prize.

It is obvious that Obama has not "earned" it. But that's not the point. As many have noted, the Peace Prize has indeed been awarded in the past on an "aspirational" note in the hope that certain efforts had sown the most… Continue

Added by ddjango on October 15, 2009 at 2:21am — No Comments

Firing Up the Fear Factory

Does anyone else find it more than a coincidence that lately the fear factory in Washington has stoked the fires up pretty close to a meltdown? The last time there was as much collective dread, I believe, was during the 1962 'Cuban Missile Crisis', a few days in October forty-seven years ago when the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction was challenged and stretched to a literal snapping point. We could hear the Nuke War Clock ticking down in our sleep. At that time, our national… Continue

Added by ddjango on October 4, 2009 at 6:29pm — No Comments

The Silence of Freedom

I know I'm not the only one, but I have to ask ...

Who's watching the store? Who is leading the Cabinet? Who is corralling the Democrats? Where does the buck stop? Instead of a presidency, we've bought into nothing more than a traveling wild west variety show, complete with gunslingers and the Snake Oil Salesman-in-Chief. The deluge of words over the weekend was simply over the top. For once, Faux Noose had the right idea in snubbing… Continue

Added by ddjango on September 23, 2009 at 1:01am — No Comments

Elegy

I was "introduced", you might say, to the Kennedys when I was thirteen, in 1960.

My father, who had supported Eisenhower in 1952 and Stevenson in 1956, was supporting Kennedy in the 1960 election. JFK and my dad both graduated in the Class of 1940 from Harvard. Although I was born in California, to where my father had escaped his Bostonian parents after World War II, there was a little Kennedy in both of us. I inherited mine from my dad, of course. As for him, it was impossible to grow… Continue

Added by ddjango on August 30, 2009 at 6:44pm — No Comments

Antiestablishmentarianism

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their father's conquered. ~ Thomas Jefferson…

Continue

Added by ddjango on August 24, 2009 at 2:30am — No Comments

Reclaiming the Vote

In my previous post (Oblahma: Time for a Moratorium on Talk), I asked, "If there is no really discernible difference between the real agendas of the Democratic and Republican parties, what do we do about the prospect of elections in 2010 and 2012?" Let me suggest a partial response to the question ...

There is strong evidence at present that, in spite of the anger in the electorate, our… Continue

Added by ddjango on August 6, 2009 at 11:47pm — No Comments

Oblahma: Time for a Moratorium on Talk

Did I read somewhere that the Obama administration just passed the 200 day mark? Hmph. I'm more interested in knowing whether someone has been keeping track of how many words he's thrown at us and the rest of the universe since he took office. A million? Two?

But it's not just him. A few minutes ago, I ran screaming from Twitter, stuffing in earplugs and tying a bandanna over my eyes. To do what? Write words about words. Blah blah blah ...

I want a moratorium. I want… Continue

Added by ddjango on August 6, 2009 at 11:42pm — No Comments

Military-"Medical" Madpractice

Physicians at Guantanamo violate medical ethics: study

(AFP) – July 24, 2009

WASHINGTON — The use of physicians at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay has forced medical professionals to violate their ethics codes, according to findings published Thursday in the UK journal Lancet.

The roles that medical professionals have been called on to play at the controversial detention facility "has damaged the integrity…

Continue

Added by ddjango on July 28, 2009 at 1:59pm — No Comments

Crimes of Conscience

Somewhere, somehow, during the past few months, we passed a final "point of no return".

If there truly was hope in the certain prospect of regime change, from the Bush/Neocon travesty to the Obama/Neoprogressive administration, it lay in the promise of confession, reconciliation, and redemption. It lay in the chance that the new presidency and a changed Congress would fully repudiate the self-destructive sins of at least two thirds of a century of dishonor, disinformation,… Continue

Added by ddjango on July 12, 2009 at 10:50pm — No Comments

The Quality of Murky

For the first time, I'm actually quite afraid at having Barack Obama occupying the office of President of the United States. I hate to say it, but McCain was right - Obama doesn't have the experience needed for the job under the present circumstances.

At some not too distant point, this man is going to have to stand alone, break away from the chains of all his controllers and sycophants, agonize as he has never done before, and make a decision which will have incalculable… Continue

Added by ddjango on June 27, 2009 at 11:46pm — 2 Comments

Emergency Fundraiser. Please help!

Yours truly has been looking for work since November, after having been laid off. Many of you know what that's like.

On July 2, I will receive my final unemployment benefit check and thereafter will have no income. Although I will still have my small apartment and food stamps, I won't be able to pay my utility and web connection costs, nor my telephone costs.

Under those circumstances, my blog,… Continue

Added by ddjango on June 21, 2009 at 8:12pm — No Comments

Postcard from TwitIran Square

My introduction to the power of Twitter was the Israeli rape of Gaza a few months ago. I was asked by a long-time blogger friend (who has risen to lofty heights on most of the Twitter rating charts) to help retweet on-the-ground news coming from the war zone. The adrenaline rush was incredible. Addiction. Yes. Physical, emotional, mental. It took me a couple of days (or in Twitter parlance, "daze") to see and accept it for what it was. But for this, like all addictions, recognition of… Continue

Added by ddjango on June 18, 2009 at 2:17am — 2 Comments

Deathics

Sometimes I want to just hug my Google feed reader and give it a big kiss. With no specific skill, just through trial and error, I've been able to put together a set of blog- and search-based feeds that constantly surprise and delight me.

This morning, my reader faithfully delivered "How I Met the Superman" by John C. Wright. It's a piece about the… Continue

Added by ddjango on June 8, 2009 at 10:43pm — No Comments

On Rivers of Rage

It seems that in every bend and corner of the nation, spring torrents have left us running on rivers of rage.

One of the few lessons I have actually learned indelibly (in a life just chock full of opportunities for learning), is that my own rage is harmful - certainly to the object of that rage, but more so to myself. Especially if that rage is borne on the leather wings of self-righteousness and self-justification. At the very least,… Continue

Added by ddjango on June 2, 2009 at 3:50am — No Comments

Evilution

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. ~ Ellen Glasgow

I really couldn't help but chuckle, listening to Weekend Edition, when Daniel Schorr declared that Obama had "disappointed progressives". He cited the president's re-deal of military tribunals. Heh. If that's the only thing that's upsetting the proggies, they're still under the sedative-hypnotic spell of Oxybama, a drug that wipes memory, causes hallucinations, and distorts reality into some… Continue

Added by ddjango on May 25, 2009 at 11:42pm — No Comments

An Open Letter to Germany

Dear Germany,

I am worried and need your help.  

With elections in a few weeks, there is little talk about Germany's troops in Afghanistan nor of the current leadership's support for the terrible U.S. war, which threatens only to expand under the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama.  

We in the Peace Movement in the United States once again find ourselves unable to influence the policies of our own government. But you, dear Germany, are in a key… Continue

Added by ddjango on May 22, 2009 at 2:17am — No Comments

The Great Imposition

It is for each of us to choose who we follow and what we believe at this point. If you see a bunch of drunks playing with fireworks, you have to decide if you’ve had enough beers to want to join them or whether there might not be some other way to occupy your time. ~ Les Visible,…

Continue

Added by ddjango on May 19, 2009 at 10:53pm — No Comments

Welcome to the United States of Bilderberg

This weekend, in an out of the way luxury hotel in Greece, some of the richest and most powerful people in the Western world are convening to decide the fate of that world. Among others, the US Secretary of the Treasury is in attendance, with one other so-far-unknown representative from our country, to receive instructions from these gods of empire and finance. On the outside, Alex Jones and some hangers-on are shouting righteous epithets through bull-horns from across the street.… Continue

Added by ddjango on May 17, 2009 at 8:51pm — No Comments

AlieNation and IsolNation

The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself. ~ Saul Alinsky

In 1956, I was nine years old when the screen adaptation of Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit was released. These notes from Wikipedia ...