Tea With Sarkozy and Lou Dobbs

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“Alongside the already heated debate over the place of Muslim, African and Asian immigrants in European societies, the debate about the Roma could call into question one of the basic tenets of the European Union: the rights of its 500 million citizens to cross internal borders.” - The New York TImes, Dispute Grows Over France’s Removal of Roma Camps

Interesting how when the Western European countries wanted to roam the world availing themselves of whatever resources or opportunities could be found, it was considered a golden age of civilization, but as the scions of empire find their way back to our door steps, sans plagues, and swords, and guns, mind you, it’s some kind of unholy invasion.

Ju$tice Down In After Market Trading

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“We are the people of the civil rights movement. We are the ones that must stand for civil and equal rights, justice, equal justice. Not special justice, not social justice. We are the inheritors and protectors of the civil rights movement. They are perverting it.” - Glenn Beck as quoted in The New York Times

How does one even respond to the idea that Glenn Beck is a protector of the civil rights movement? Laughter? Tears?

“Equal justice” in Mr. Beck’s context would seem to indicate a belief that justice is a stand alone commodity whose value should be determined by market forces, not a facet of human interaction where suffering is caused and can be alleviated, and if justice is a product of social interaction, then the idea that social justice is not something we should be working towards is, to me, absurd.

Time Heals

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Silent too long -

Wrecked by implausible pause. 

Too long . . . 

Then gap becomes goal. 

Unfilled space rotates on temporal axes

And, like an Esher drawing, 

Agonist becomes antagonist.

The warmth, the heat, the light.

The broken karma,

The ruptured surface,

The abrupt transitions;

The casual, flaccid attempts at forgiveness;

The tension of abstracted rage,

A mild soporific;

The synthetic overture,

The formal, empty reply.

Engagement as a source of energy,

An input,

Becomes a gaping maw,

Gulping at even stray efforts,

Feeding off impotent attempts

To relate something to

Nothing

Fighting With Words

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“A profound distrust of everything that is merely verbal often causes a personal word to a brother to be suppressed. What can weak human words accomplish for others? Why add to the empty talk? Are we, like the professionally pious, to ‘talk away’ the other’s real need? Is there anything more perilous than speaking God’s Word to excess? But, on the other hand, who wants to be accountable for having been silent when he should have spoken?” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Believing profoundly in language, I find myself in strange conflict with the words funneling from my mind to my mouth, or more specifically the way those verbal impulses seem to lose value the closer they get to resolving into sound. What seems profound, or kind, or helpful as it bubbles up out of the weird grey being of mind, feels flippant, self-serving, or even hurtful as it rests on my tongue, and I can’t bring myself to foul the air with it.

Grace and kindness and love are too important to be hollowed out by practiced wit and feigned concern, or twisted by ignorance and inattentiveness. Bonhoeffer puts ‘listening’ well before ‘proclaiming’ in his list of things an individual living in community should strive to do. I think I will try to do the same.

A Cold Sunday Morning

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“(The "deal" that was ultimately rammed through was nothing more than a grubby pact between the world's biggest emitters: I'll pretend that you are doing something about climate change if you pretend that I am too. Deal? Deal.)” - Naomi Klein, For Obama, No Opportunity Too Big To Blow

And whereas the mainstream media has paid almost no attention to the one year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead - the consequences of the invasion and the recent protests, and attempts to protest against it - thankfully Amy Goodman and Dear Noam think it’s worth continuing to pay attention to the plight of the Palestinians.

Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now!, Gaza: One Year Later

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When Wombats Attack! Next on FOX!

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When safetyBecomes another word for hate, And hate Infects the dialogue of creation - When creation expresses Only the darker nature of our souls, And we de-cohere in fear From any unity we may have found - When we stand alone Against, Forgetting what it means To stand together For.

For being human, Being fully human, Was never about being safe, But the risks we take In the name of grace To find strength beyond our fear.

Progressive Disappointment

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It’s been interesting listening to progressives these last several weeks as Obama-san announced his Afghan Surge while receiving the Nobel Peace Prize then swooped back to Europe a week later to ‘save’ the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, all while the Senate wrapped up its debate on health care to pass a reform bill which sent insurance company stocks through the roof. Most of the people on the far left had reservations about Obama-san from the beginning, knowing he was not an actual progressive, but a centrist with liberal leanings. Still, coming out of the nearly decade long John Wayne theme park ride that was Saint George, there was an inescapable hope in the social justice camp that change was really coming.

The encouraging bit has been watching the left re-gird itself and prepare to struggle as fiercely now in the face of Democratic flavored Corporatocracy as it did against the tarter Republican version.