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 18 Aug 2005 @ 17:45, by scotty. Violence, War
Like a lot of people I've been watching the forceful evacuation of the Jewish settlers from Gaza.
My heart went out to the soldiers and police officers men and women alike who have shown such patience, compassion and courage in doing such a difficult and what must be for them a heart breaking task.
Bless 'em.
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9 Aug 2005 @ 00:58, by bkodish. Violence, War
In the August 8, 2005 NY Times, an article by Dina Kraft,
Coping With Adult Conflict in Gaza Can Be Child's Play, disgustingly demonstrates the Times policy of equating the Palestinian terror culture with that of the beleagered Israelis.
The attitude of moral equivalency expressed in this article truly frightens me. More >
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 5 Aug 2005 @ 09:53, by jazzolog. Violence, War
People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long course of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.
---St. Augustine
To begin with oneself, not to end with oneself;
To start with oneself, but not to aim at oneself;
To comprehend oneself, but not to be preoccupied with oneself.
---Martin Buber
The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad.
---Salvador Dali
Regular readers of my online ramblings expect something close to fun on Saturday mornings. True, sometimes there's a Friday evening release from the White House, meant to be overlooked, that I try to underline, but usually I try to spread the happiness of reaching another weekend...and maybe even some cash in the pocket from payday. It's difficult today though. The past 2 hours of reading the papers and the blogs have left me grim...and I'm preparing to share.
If that's not your cup of tea or coffee today, allow me to refer you to the delightful op-ed piece in this morning's Times about a novelist's revery of a very cold lake in the summertime. [link] And the Internet is buzzing with lots of coverage of Novak's stomping off the set of a live CNN broadcast yesterday as Carville began tightening the screws. Wonder what could be bothering him. [link] More >
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 8 Jul 2005 @ 01:24, by jmarc. Violence, War
Vik Rubenfeld of The Big Picture writes today
about how the terror attacks on London point out
an obvious fact. The current approach is not working.
Sure, there have been successes. We've put out a few
fires, beating back the Taleban, and finally removing
the mass murderer Saddam, but we can see that these are
just small victories in a much larger battle. More >
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7 Jul 2005 @ 14:06, by nemue. Violence, War
Yet again innocent people are torn apart by bomb blasts this time in beautiful London. There has been multi attacks with both a bus and the underground hit. The latest reports say that perhaps 15-20 people have died and the injured numbers many more. These were innocent people on their way to work. One has to ask the question yet again what does this achieve except misery, pain and more dangerously hate.
It saddens me to read many of the posts on various web sites to night where people are venting their anger against Muslims and various other groups. This serves nothing other than propagating hate of one group by another. Little has been said about the pain and loss of those impacted by this tragedy. .
I pray for those who have left this earth and I would hope that their passing (yet again) has not been in vain. I also send prayers to the families who have lost their loved ones as a result of the senseless act.
More shame on the human race.
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 10 Jun 2005 @ 09:25, by jazzolog. Violence, War
In the presence of eternity the mountains are as transient as the clouds.
---Robert Green Ingersoll
One bird sits still
Watching the work of God:
One turning leaf,
Two falling blossoms,
Ten circles upon the pond.
---Thomas Merton
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know nothing else but miracles---
To me every hour of night and day is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
---Walt Whitman
Bush in Ohio again yesterday.
Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
My right wing friends may be surprised to learn that since "they dropped (the Downing Street Minutes) out in the middle of (Tony Blair's) race," as Bush angrily put it the other day, I have been replying to emails and message boards about them by urging great caution. I say "surprise" because we on the left always are characterized in panic and hysteria by the right. What I've been writing in reply is that the incriminating evidence in the memo seems to be fixed upon the single word "fix." I just have used the word in that very sentence in a way that gives rather a different meaning than "let's fix the horserace"---or let's do something that will assure we will win and the others lose. Or let's fix the election. Essentially in the UK I think writers of minutes and memos are more likely to use the word "fix" in the sense of "affix" than we are over here in the States. Therefore, I've felt the sense of the memo can be construed to urge its readers to concentrate on finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, rather than just make stuff up.
However, now that I've seen both Bush and Blair respond to the issue---and a couple more days have passed---I've decided to get a bit suspicious. Blair and his team did not go into what "fix" might mean in the UK, and Bush just got customarily pissed that anyone would question his tactics. It seems to me this president does not possess the character to entertain either criticism or objection. I think it is the main trait the left finds so dangerous about this guy. He sits there dumb and confused until he gets a message in his ear, and then starts talking, usually derogatorily about a person rather than an issue, eventually gets angry, and then lashes out. There are diagnoses for people like this...and I find it an unnerving kind of personality to be revealed in the most powerful person on earth.
Most of you reading this now subscribe online to Truthout. I hope you send them some money from time to time. (It's easy and you feel so much better.) Truthout sends so much stuff each day that I want to underline the article written yesterday by William Rivers Pitt about the Memo. You might have missed it or, like us, been very busy with daughter graduations and such. His essay is the best summary of the Downing Street Memo that I've seen...and even if you too are cautious about calling the memo the smoking gun or some kind of evidence of chicanery, I think it will do you good to read it...and save it to read again. Have a great weekend! More >
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24 May 2005 @ 18:25, by bkodish. Violence, War
A Belgian correspondent of mine shocked and educated me several years ago, when he said that the Israeli army stood in the same position toward the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza as the Nazis stood in relation to the Jews in 1939.
He was not a radical leftist by any means but--as I have since gathered-- a rather typical mainstream European one. Educated, 'progressive' and grossly ignorant of the antisemitism he was spouting.
Despite my admonitions, he appeared impervious to the obvious differences between Israel's seige by the Arab world and the Nazi Juggernaut. He was unwilling to admit that he didn't sufficiently know the history either of 20th Century Europe or of the Middle East. He felt insulted with the implication that he had uncritically absorbed the assumptions of anti-Israeli propagandists.
He resisted my suggestion that his "Israel is an apartheidt state" rhetoric echoed the dehumanizing rhetoric of Nazi Jew-hatred. More >
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8 May 2005 @ 21:58, by swanny. Violence, War
As I hang around the shack today
I hear tales from the media on the spector
of the end of World War II and the 60th year commemoration
of the event.
It makes me wonder if perhaps a kind of insanity takes
hold or took hold in those days.
The media endless overanalysis makes me somewhat disgusted
as they seem to want to squeeze out whatever of whatever.
I look then not at the whys and wherefore but to the reality
and lessons. The fallacy of war that I speak then is the assumption that by the killing of others that something some goal or objective can be
achieved. True we must defend ourselves no problem there but this whole idea that killing actually solves problems is absurd. The problems just takes on another form or dimension then or one then has to deal with the damage and fallout and victums and relatives of that solution.
Hilters "final solution" perhaps is a eptitomy of that kind of erroneous thinking and false profit. Ethnic cleansing and the like point to the error and insanity of thinking killing others actually solves problems or anything.
If anything killing others only esasterbates the situation. It produces no growth no insight no truth no victory even. Indeed it in actuality robs one of the opportunity to really reach some mutual understanding and common ground with others, be they foe or freind. It denys us this even if we are the one left standing denys the ability and opportunity to grow in maturity and wisdom turth and truly understand if though perhaps not fully agree with anothers point of view. Victory in war and such then is a misnomer of sorts. War and such is then perhaps a symptom then of some flaw of person charactor or thinking or ideology
and a means to nothing but the status quo or worse. If we are truly to grow as a worthy inhabitants of this planet we will have to see beyond these so called final solutions into perhaps really sitting down and trying to find more constructive and positive ways of mutual coexistence. Ways like dialogue and deliberation. Ways that do not dimish our virtue and honor and truth and love but enhance it. Yes democracy is a bad system but the best one we have at the moment. Yet even still to impose a good thing, is that a good thing? or does the simple act of imposing bespeak and diminish
the whole principle and means of it.
At any rate as Don Juan said the only clear
fact for us all is that life is altogether to short in this unfathomable universe. More >
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23 Mar 2005 @ 16:09, by vaxen. Violence, War
I thought I'd rip this article from the wonderful folks at [link] because so many of my compatriot Americans are so dumbed down by 'media,' so saturated with 'PR' spin, that they have not taken, even a moment aside, to consider much of anything let alone the meaning of life.
Cindy Sheehan is a 'mother' who writes well, is passionate, loves life ,and deserves to be heard. I'd like to take sheaves of her writings and shove them down every 'Congress' members throat. I'd like to do the same for the glorious Commander In Chief! I never had much respect for 'Commanders' and I have a whole lot less now. May they all rot in hell is the way I feel.
Terry Schiavos' name has been blinged about in the asylum yet it's OK to send young men and women overseas to be murdered in the name of American tyranny. Don't make the mistake and think that we are in Iraq, or any where else for that matter, because of 'Democratic' altruism or to push 'Democracy' down peoples throats who know its' lies and do not want it.
So excuse me L.R. for this RIP. I hope everyone here will take a taste of Cindies' brew and remember...
It could be you! More >
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5 Mar 2005 @ 11:13, by swanny. Violence, War
"Thou Shalt Not War!"
03-05-05, 04:10 am (PDT)
Hmmmm
This ....
Is this not one of the 10 commandments?
No it does not say
Thou shalt not war...
But is that not what is implied or
meant by "Thou shalt not Kill"....
Sure we can debate over the sematics
and technicalities....
yet I suspect that the intent of
this commandment was meant to "cover"
or include war.
Sematics yes yes....
If we can not war though how else can
we settle our differences and grievences.
War seems rather decisive and neat, winners
and losers and such. Who wants to get in to
all the grey or gray areas. But it is pretty
black and white though saying thou shalt not kill
or thou shalt not war is pretty black and white too.
What is the penalty of "warring" besides the
"hell" that it is?
hmmmmm It almost seems war and warring and the punishment
of war and warring is war and warring itself.
War and Warring is an act, crime and punishment all and of
and in itself. Maybe that is the reason that we shouldn't war
because War is hell.
There you have it then
Thou shalt not war.... because war is hell. More >
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