israel, hezbollah & mutually assured destruction: wrestling with pigs: jeff goldstein and deb frisch

MONDAY

working hard, moving slow, 5 weeks of
woodshed left, tick tock tick tock

a blessing on both their houses - part II

i keep revising that piece i did a couple of days ago
on the recent conflict in the middleeast

i keep trying to capture the nuances and dont
quite have it yet - so many players, so many agendas

and feel like i was kinda flippant about the war
but the longer it goes on the less flippant i feel

i would just like the killing
stopped please - i call on those who can

no fancy words, no narratives riffs

just people dying again and
i feel like whatever i say is just words

god that i in truth had the power
god in truth that i were a magician of legend

i would stop the killing
and the suffering too

its all in my head now

but my generations will know this power
or my name aint rickydoc

in struggle
rickydoc flowers

FRIDAY

didnt do a lick of work yesterday, touchup but no real work,
guess that 30 page day burnt me out, a luta continua

whitehouse director of lessons learned: overpaid and underplayed:

recent list of whitehouse employees and their payscales
had the following folk - this is not irony, this is not satire
this is not a joke - this straight up commentary

the whitehouse actually has a director of lessons learned
im in a state of acute amazement here

deborah nimala misir    ethics advisor      #114,688
erica m.bornburg      ethics advisor      $100,547
stuart baker     director for lessons learned  $106,641
melissa m. carson   director for fact checking      $46,500

i cant begin to imagine what his job description says

only in the surreal bush admin would the director for lessons learned
get a 100 thou a year, not to mention the ethics advisors (2 of them)

what do they do - they must sit at they desk playing computer games all day
if it is a joke i guess the joke is on us:

may not be a joke but
it sure is funny

in struggle
rdoc

THURSDAY

im about 40 pages behind schedule, but everything is relative, yesterday
i was 60, but i finally hit a relatively clean patch and did some catch up


a blessing on both their houses: part i

dont know what to say about the situation in the middle east
i dont see how either one of them can easily back down

historically its taken the usa to stop israel but the bush
admin has taken a handsoff position so its good to go

have to wait until they wear each other out - prove they can
take the pain - cut the swap and bury the dead

this is so unfortunate

both sides have a case and there are no easy answers here
i guess like the rest of the world i will just cross my fingers

and hope

gotta respect hezbollahs taking pressure off palestinians by
bringing it on themselves - but so many agendas at play

this was not a good move, no winners here
iniitial abductions apparently designed to pressure both israel and moderates
banking on israels either not reacting or overreacting

israel decides to inflict pain by killing civilians and infrastructure

as do pitiful rockets, sad little lethal proclamations of resistance
both sides making points not progress

now i generally stay away from comments on the israel/palestine thing

this one of those cant win conflicts- say anything real about israel
and you liable to get jacked

by jews, palestinians and/or blackfolk
(only palestinian i know is suheir and id hate to get jacked by suheir)

but now that ive stepped into this particular minefield i might
as well say some things that will make any jackings worthwhile

one i think israel is wrong the way it treats the palestinians

morally you owe them more than that, you took their land
and you not even trying to compensate for that initial wrong

instead you jackbooting them into submission and thats just wrong

now that said i object strenuously to the terrorism and the killing and i
understand israels concern for its survival

as i understand the palestinian need to do something, anything
and not just take the way israel treats them w/o registering their protest
in a manner that makes israel listen

i just hate the palestinians forced into that particular evolutionary track
and i think its dangerous to the world to let that fester

also i believe that israels vision of their future, this eternal domination,
this eternal suppression, is not viable - this does not constitute longterm survival

youve gotten a little too attached to wielding absolute power
and your little window dressing dont fool nobody

israel pulls back from gaza and leaves basically an open air prison
and expects the palestinians to be grateful - that aint gon work either

but i find targeting of civilians on either side totally unacceptable
both of you locked into this eye for an eye thing, this mutually assured destruction

i think israel, you would be appalled if you realized just how fascist
your behavior appears when it comes to the palestinians

where did you learn these moves

but i also think the palestinians would get more traction
if you were to do a martin luther king civil rights movement on
the israelis

okay okay, im glad i amused everybody

but if the palestinians were to confront israel with mass marches a la king
with a mass movement designed to achieve enfranchisement, civilrights and agency

agency is the word i used
took me some pondering before i settled on it

it would change the destinic equation,

and along with that i would abandon the 2 state
solution, that dont scare israel

one state, one people
use your demographic power to get whats coming to you

like the hispanics doing here, take your time, invest a
couple of generations

now having said that i dont see how that would work either
because both sides have just gone batshit fanatical about it

two people who cant live together
and simply must

the move is on israel, the power
agreed that the culture of violence complicates the matter

but right now its the only option that moves things
everything else just domination games on israels part

the drawback from gaza, the wall, the palestinian authority, everything
blatantly designed to suppress the palestinians forever

got to open up some legitimate options
gotta get real, gotta take some chances

the palestinians are not going to disappear
and eventually yall gon have to really deal with it
instead of staying stuck in that old mythos

its a survival thing i know
so i know the moves got to be cautious

but true moves they must be
your generations depend on it

word by
rickydoc conqueroo

wouldbe prophet of the
hoodoo way

watch yourself, everybody else will

this blogging situation with jeff goldstein on the right
and deb frisch on the left is a sad cautionary tale

apparently they got into a flame war and she started
talking about brutalizing his kid and the rightwing blogspace
crucified her

apparently her m-o was to go on rightwing blogs and stir it up with them
in this case she lost her sense of proportion and started talking crazytalk

but the problem with crazytalk in the blogspace is that its on the record

let me tell you i know, ive said things on this blog that made me wonder
who was that - fortunately im not into fighting w/other bloggers, aint my thing

and when i find myself inadvertently caught up in a flamewar i back out right away
my daddy always said never wrestle with pigs, you just get dirty and the pig enjoys it

this is a cautionary tale on many levels
now she is famous for sleezy activity and the rightwing is gleefully eating her lunch

using it to attack progressive bloggers and academics and making
a pretty good case for a personality disorder on her part

all us bloggers would like to claim our 15 mintues of fame but im
pretty sure this is not what she had in mind

she ended up resigning her adjunct position at the univ of colorado
and her efforts to get out from under the trap have been clumsy

i feel sorry for her, she shot herself in rthe foot and will need
grace under pressure she will need to flip this script

she trying but so far her clumsy efforts just dig her deeper in the hole
i hope she will learn something from this and perhaps the rest of us too

a rightwing voice could turn this kind of thing into a fox news career
but hopefully progressive voices are held to a higher standard of honor

this is also a cautionary tale for progressive efforts to match the tenor
of talkradio and fox news - do we really want to go there

both participants come off looking like wingbats, or moonbats as the case may be
but she left herself open for a rightwing assault and now shes going down

something about this blogging/internet thing that
encourages you to let it all hang out

its like you having a conversation with yourself and its not really public
but it is, ruthlessly so - best you keep that in mind at all times

as for the schoolhouse, i kinda assume folk on the job reading my blog sometime and i
dont say things i think will violate the norms of my world and cause me to lose respect

if anything i would like to impress them

i figure i get some leeway for being a serious artist, which is what they want me to be, thats what they pay me to be - but my belief in the rhetorical responsibilities an artist/intellectual aspiring to historical stature are probably higher than theirs - or anybody elses for that matter

just the other day i said some intemperate things about a colleague at the job
and left enuf clues for anybody who wanted to figure out who i was talking about

i had to really consider that one, decided i wanted to say those things not only to you
but to him - the hoodoo in me trying to save him anyway and unlock his true potential

so i figure if i catch flak for it i can handle it

as a young hoodoo i used to go around saving people all the time, whether they wanted
to be saved or not, in my hoodoo maturity i only help those who ask for it

by saying what i wanted to say on my blog it was like i was leaving it to the gods - i said it
but i didnt really say it - it was on my marginal blog that nobody reads anyway

the ease of pushing that send button mean sometime
things go out and as soon as they gone you wish you had
thought about that one a little more 

now its out there in the eternal cybersphere
and nothing you can do but brace yourself

just the other day i received an intemperate email from somebody i care for
and irritated i sent one right back and we both ended up having to apologize and
ask that the jury disregard that last one . . .

moral of the story: when you letting your inner blogger hangout
be careful of what you say, it feels private but its very much public

very much on the record

and the strategic incivility that goes for political dialogue these days
is nothing but a trap for the unwary - live by the word, die by the word

specially for progressive academics, the forces of the right
always ready to use you as a posterchild for everything thats
wrong in rightwing america

strident fanatics like churchill and frisch are easy kills
not so rickydoc - i do not sit with my back to the door

by publicly claiming to be a hoodooman, and being an academic in todays climate
i figure ive left myself open to rightwing attacks if they so choose

and im very conscious of  conducting myself in a manner
that brings honor to the profession - all of them

moral of the story: watch your back
ima watch mine

rdoc

TUESDAY
i dont even know how many pages im behind now, let me see what
i get today, then i might have enuf nerve to make the count

what goes around comes around

jihad video says there is connection between that rape and
the subsequent beheading of troops from that same unit

who knows, both side liars and the truth aint in them

but reciprocity in war is front and center
in another little pertinent drama

apparently top military lawyers have long complained about
the bush administrations way of war and will get a chance
to comment at upcoming hearings

primary concern is that it puts their own captive troops in jeopardy
of being treated in a like manner

“this was the concern all along of the jags,” says admiral guter, retired navy jag. "“it’s a matter of defending what we always thought was the rule of law and proper behavior for civilized nations.”

admiral hutson, another retired navy jag, advises against congressional intent to finesse recent supreme court decision with legislation designed to get around article 3 ofthe geneva convention, says its 

“unbecoming for america to have people say, ‘we’re going to try to work our way around this because we find it to be inconvenient. If you don’t apply it when it’s inconvenient, it’s not a rule of law.”

current jags scheduled to testify in front of congress
what on earth will they say

if they have any military honor whatsoever, they gon
say the emperor naked as a jaybird

rdoc

Comments

[deb]

never wrestle with pigs.

damn. wish i'd thought a that sooner.

Peace.

Deb

[rickydoc trickmaster]

hello deb
figured you be along sooner or later

noted your agressive response strategy
of commenting on commenters - both on your
own blog and theirs

an effective strategy to show you still on it
and will not be intimidated out of the game

i believe the tone is off though
that cocky tone is not what you want

you got to do the penitent thing
the ive learned lessons and ive grown thing

a deeper more assured sensibility
a new you, less bombastic and
more reflective - effective

cant stay where you are
in truth why would you want to

surely you see its limitations

use the hammer
to truly grow

my apologies for lecturing at you
feel free to reject what doesnt work for you

the hoodoo in me just couldnt resist it
clearly you aspire to be a progressive force

and i wish you well

rdoc