Month: April 2002

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Peace bloggers. We have an official name, now. Of course, can’t have a term without a definition, and my definition of a peace blogger is anyone who believes, as Hodja did, that everyone in the Middle East conflict is right. And we believe this because we know that no one in the Middle East conflict is completely wrong. Takes two sides to make a war. Takes two sides to make a peace.

I guess peace starts with us, doesn’t it?

Unlike the typical warblogger, peace bloggers don’t always talk about peace. We don’t always talk about the Middle East. We don’t always talk about this story or that in the “biased and misrepresentational press”. In fact, there’s a lot of folks who are “peace bloggers” in heart, mind, and soul who don’t talk about the Middle East at all. And you know something, that’s just cool.

It seems to me that If you subscribe to an extremely narrow view of what’s right and wrong, why you’d have to spend pretty much all your time defending your view. So folks like Glenn Reynolds who focus on the Middle East and the evil Arabs and the wrongness of leftist-pinko liberals (me! me!) kind of have to because they’ve placed themselves on a ledge of belief that doesn’t have a lot of give, sure as heck doesn’t have a lot of take, and no room at all for movement.

How many warbloggers can stand on the head of a pin?

I know. It does seem as if there are a lot of warbloggers and they get a lot of buzz and a lot of hits per day and we can feel a bit overwhelmed at times. However, I’m finding that the warbloggers also link to each other in a kind of (close your eyes, AKMA) masturbational frenzy of self link love that’s a bit, well, kinky. However, that’s cool, too.

(I grew up in the generation that firmly believed in “whatever turns you on, as long as you don’t scare the cows”.)

Just because we’re peace bloggers doesn’t mean we have to spend all of our time refuting the warbloggers and crying out for peace. If you’re a peace blogger and read something that you feel strongly about, then post your thoughts, say the words, hum the tune. However, don’t feel you have to speak out just to balance the warblogger word count.

Remember the Vietnam war? Now what was it we were fighting for?

A peace blogger blogs for peace anytime they talk about their dog, show a picture, say a poem, sing a song, debate Post-Modernism, promote a book, talk about our significant others, talk about our kids, our jobs, our friends, about sex (we really do need more sex in weblogging), technology (Radio doesn’t count), and generally talk about life and what about life turns us on.

Always with the remembrance that wars result in people who have had their lives turned off. And nothing…nothing…nothing…will ever justify this.

Honk if you want peace, babies.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I found an excellent essay, Vietnam War Retrospective that discusses photojournalism’s effects on the Vietnam protest movement. Among some of the events recalled by the author, Frank Cossa, is the following:

We saw a callow, fair young man slip a flower into the rifle barrel of a helmeted MP standing guard in front of the Pentagon; a literal demonstration of “flower power” in a gesture of perfect absurdist grace. (We never did see the Pentagon “levitate” as the Yippies promised it would on that occasion, but some of us are convinced that it gave a slight shimmy).

I remember these images very well — flower children, eyes glazed by love and peace (and liberal doses of grass), gently putting daisies and carnations into the rifles of very young guardsmen, most of whom hadn’t a clue how to respond to such action. The image was very powerful, and an effective companion to other photojournalist efforts that showed dead Vietnamese children and women and dead American soldiers as well as injured or dead protestors.

After all, without love, what were we fighting for?

Peace Bloggers speak out:

AKMA – BTW, thanks for trying in Doc’s comments, Rev

Jonathon – who really shouldn’t eat sardines and vegemite, followed by lamb and potatoes when sick

Eric – Off to jury duty next week, poor boy

Chris – My favorite chicken who clucks most elegantly

Kath – Who suggests we should send the current Middle East leaders to Pluto

Mike Golby who introduces us to a new South African, Nithia Govender as both discuss the choice South Africa made for peace. Gives hope.

Elaine – who has taken to peace blogging most passionately

Steve who, like Jonathon, specializes in the delicately subtle as compared to the clamorously loud (the latter being my own particular approach).

Rogi — who pointed out this interesting new bug that really looks like a bug and gets 1 litre/100 km.

And Karl – Who wrote the peace bloggers creed:

Read both sides. Get to the truth. Form your own opinions. And if you can – be courageous and speak them. But make sure you read both sides to the story. Don’t trust writers that do not declare their biases.

Don’t add to the data smog people – help cut thru it.