WARNING: This essay contains meta.
Change is a funny thing.
You can work for it, court it, try to nudge it along, seduce it, try to bludgeon it into existence, etc…
But when it comes right down to it, we have very little effect on the BIG changes of the world. They seem to come out of nowhere, and often seem to make no sense at the time. And, quite often, we do not even know they have in fact occurred until much later. We only know them by their effects, and then look back and seek causes for those effects.
When the big changes come, when a Change Quake happens that affects the whole world….ripples and aftershocks follow, spreading out from whatever the epicenter is this time….and spreading all around the world ….and into our lives.
Everybody’s lives.
Until the historical evidence is in all we can do as mere humans is try to understand it the best we can, analyze what is going on, see how it affects us, and try to adjust.
My analysis of what is going on in the world? I firmly believe we are in one of those times. In fact I believe we are in a veritable swarm of Change Quakes and ripples and after shocks. The main effect of which we can see at this time goes back to the utter fascism of Bush being replaced with….well whatever Obama turns out to be.
But those are just surface effects….signs, if you will…of a time that is without a doubt going to change all of our lives. The actual changes occur on a deeper level, one that we are ill-equipped to understand.
Change Quakes occur. They take time to ripple out, for the effects to be felt and sort themselves out…and then the results of those effects, the reactions cause change in and of themselves. Which of course, cause more changes and the chain reaction is on.
We may have had one of those effects of change here last night. Living in the hyper time of blogging, we feel the effects of such things relatively quickly, compared to most of the humans on the planet.
Last night newpioneer wrote a call out diary, and ek responded.
ek went off on some people over the issue that is closest to his heart, torture. Things got heated.
Since I was engaged in the irresponsible activity of sleeping. On The Bus took responsibility and acted. Perhaps precipitously, as she admits, but she did what she felt was right and cut of the comments. Leaving aside for the moment whether she did the right thing or not. A behind the scenes blog Admin war broke out. Essays were deleted and chaos ensued.
Was newpioneer wrong to write a call out diary? Was ek wrong to to respond in a heated fashion to being called out? Was On The Bus wrong to try to stop a blog war by taking a pretty radical admin decision to cut off comments?
Who was “excellent” and who wasn’t? I don’t think any one was truly excellent in this matter. I do think everyone was truly HUMAN though. We strive for excellence….and we ALWAYS fail, sooner or later. That is the one undeniable feature of being human….we WILL fail. All of us, no matter who we are, or who we would like to be.
I woke up this morning to a series of e-mails, the upshot of which is that ek has quit. At least for now.
Normally I would try to leave this sort of thing behind the scenes, but since peoples comments and diaries were deleted, I don’t think it is right NOT to say anything.
But I am also not going to go into detail or engage in gossip. What’s done is done. If a healing process can be initiated, it also will take place behind the scenes, as it should.
As this Change Quake at DD sorts itself out, the only advice I can give is to use this kind of dramatic change as a tool and a call for all of us to self-examine.
“Bad” shit happens, it is part of the process of change. A process that no one can stop.
The Changes that the planet is going through, and the even greater changes to come….and their effects on each and every one us…are going to challenge us all. There is just nothing we can do about that.
Though we like to THINK we have control, in a way we don’t. All we control is our own actions, and our actions are just 1/seven billionth of what happens here on earth.
And sometimes…and this is where compassion comes in…we can’t even control that. Situations WILL occur where we have to make decisions, are forced by events outside of our control to react. And we cannot always control our reactions, though it is a lovely goal.
Last night was ugly, and it hurts. I don’t really know what to do about it. Except to keep walking, keep working, and keep trying to make the best difference I know how to make. This Change Quake will affect DD, but none of us really knows how. Or how it will shake out.
But I do want to remind ALL of us who may be…hell who will be…tempted to judge one side or another or one posters actions or anothers…that NONE of us are perfect. That NONE of us are ALWAYS capable of being excellent to each other.
We are ALL fallible humans. That was proved again last night, and not by one person alone.
In my belief system (which I have no interest in imposing on anyone) when “bad” shit happens, it is to teach us. And so at this juncture, the only thing I really know to do is to ask all to try and learn.
And prepare for the Change Quakes to come, with that learning in hand.
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before the comments started rolling in an thought hmmmmmmmmm.
Nobody is perfect. Posting the essay was not excellent.
And I would say this to ek’s face…. he has been telegraphing his part of the meltdown for a long time. The tone of his comments over the topic has gotten increasing harsh. He often saw torture apologists “hiding” under the bed. ek hurt a lot of people who really admire him. Maybe the admiration was silly and misplaced but it was there. I think OTB recognized that and did what she was thought was right for the community as a whole. She was not the one who lashed out either by writing that diary or flipping out int he comments.
I also read the essay…….
I found nothing in it worthy of the vitriol that it produced……
what I heard was injured spirits on all sides…..
it appears to me that a great deal of the injury stems from a powerlessness to actually create the changes that we feel must occur…….
and the interaction of various folks sensitivities about that…..
…for my participation in the fray. Yes, the essay was a direct challenge, but rather obviously posted by someone (of good value to us all) whose feelings were very hurt by previous exchanges I didn’t see or participate in. As I tried hard to express, there are more than one or two issues of concern these days, and while we may all know they’re each important, it’s unreasonable for any of us to insist that everybody drop their own attempts at activism and change on issues they maybe CAN affect to take up that person’s pet issue exclusively. Besides, name-calling and insults aren’t particularly useful anyway if that’s your goal.
…but my seriously south of the border friends don’t call me “Tough-As-Nails” for nuthin’ – my itty feewings are fine, ek can’t hurt ’em. Investing emotion into one’s own interests and causes is what keeps us working hard and often fighting hard for change we feel is necessary. Investing too much emotion on internet exchanges on a multi-issue [ideological, not detail] forum is foolish. As a Professional Fool, I am qualified to say so!
Carry on, and good job kudos to OTB. I was wondering when one of you would step in! §;o)
Live and learn, that’s all you can do sometimes. I thot it was an example of how an issue can be discussed in good and bad ways, depending on how the debate is approached. Ek went off evidently because of comments about the torture photos, altho I’m not completely sure of how it started. On this site (as opposed to DK), it should have been a topic logically discussed even with opposing viewpoints. I’ve learned alot about this political blogging thing in my almost 2 years at it, and still screw up all the time. In the wise words of my good Indian friend, “Life is like that”.
for losing my cool.
i honestly tried to maintain.
alas, none of us are perfect. dammit.
for confronting someone in your living room. it’s sometimes hard to grasp while I’m sitting here in my own. please accept my apologies.
I hold no grudges, and my anger with ek is will fade. of course 2 wrongs never make a right, and regardless of the “he started it” no “HE started it”… the resulting comments were painful beyond belief.
of course I knew what ek’s reaction would be – that was my point. it was wrong of me to handle it this way. for that, I’m sorry, ek. I hope you will accept my apology as well.
to everyone whose heart was hurt, it was my responsibility by posting the essay and I’m truly, truly sorry.
thank you Inky for kindly pushing for me to delete. it won’t happen again.
Bobby
The world hadn’t ended. Today is a brand new day. Yesterday is history. History is for lessons to be learned. The only failure is not trying to learn.
The nice thing about this site – one of them – is the passion people bring. Passion is good. Feel strongly. Just always keep an open mind and a forgiving heart.
“We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view. Tangled up in blue.” Bob Dylan
Shanti, people.
But I’m very sorry it happened, whatever it was.
In pondering the basics, it occurred to me that posting a, what 3,000-word essay (longer?) whose sole purpose is to “get even” with another online poster, is probably not an “excellent” choice of action to take.
In this sense. If you have a big beef with someone, state it once, cleanly, then let them reply.
And, I might add, what was the purpose in the beginning, of posting such a rant? To “get even” with the person, to antagonize them, to humiliate them, to embarrass them in front of many others? — And don’t get me wrong, I understand totally, I mean totally, that that is a very powerful, very normal reflex.
Or was the purpose more like, “Hey, you did this thing, it bugged me greatly, where do we go from here? I’d like you to tone that down, that behavior, is that possible?”
The goal of the first purpose, reduced to bare bones is to goad or cause more pain.
The goal of the second purpose, reduced to its essence, is to repair or remediate a relationship. Or maybe to ask for a higher level of behavior.
I will say this. It’s very few people, very few people, who could read an essay that was essentially (and I didn’t read it all), something like 20-50 barbed arrows or spears aimed directly at oneself — and not react with anger, despair, an attack in response.
Very very few people. They’d have to be some sort of saint or something. And most of us aren’t that, we’re just human.
My personal advice to someone thinking of posting an essay like that, not that anyone asked, I know no one did, is
a) email the particular person privately, keep it off the public sphere
b) email whoever you think their coworkers or co-creators, or “boss(es)” are, privately. Keep it off the public sphere
c) work those channels, and not just once, before you go public
d) before you go public, write that essay, fine, sure, then
1) print and post on trees around your house
2) store on your hard drive
3) delete
Computers let us get out our feelings really explicitly, and really quickly. But that doesn’t mean we should SHARE the results, with anyone.
3D example: If my friend makes me REALLY mad, I feel like strangling them. That doesn’t mean I should share those hand motions with my friends. I should keep those feelings to myself.
Hope this makes sense.
My advice to me and everyone else — when observing events of this nature, stay focused in compassion for every person involved in every way.
Sounds to me like that’s what buhdy did above.
I hope as many people as possible can join him.
As I heard a rabbi once ask, “Would you want to sit in heaven for all eternity next to someone who was perfect?”
I think every person in the audience laughed, because no we wouldn’t. So if this event allows some of us to re-remember that none of us are perfect, we all make mistakes, and to be willing to be welcoming to anyone who may’ve made mistakes recently — that seems like a big positive to me.
by last night would be an understatement. I read the diary and the comments. I wanted to respond to everyone and tell them to just stop because what I was reading was too painful. It still is. I didn’t comment because there was nothing I could say, at that point, that would quiet the storm or calm the quake. Then other things in life intervened and I had to take my leave of the intenet until now. I read this and decided to wait until the words stopped stinging to comment.
E.K. is obviously very passionate about torture, he is also obviously very human and hurting. His few comments here since his banning from GOS have been few and terse (another understatement, I know), not everyone is aware of everything that led up to that. This is not a defense of his behavior or of anyone else’s, including mine for being silent, just an attempt for some perspective.
I am with buhdy that none of us are perfect and that we are very human and capable of making mistakes.
Newpioneer, thank you for deleting the essay.
OTB, thank you for trying to be a peacemaker even if others might disagree.
I am still trying to adjust to my off line life that has under gone some radical changes in the last year. I may now have to adjust to radical changes in my internet life. Life is a bed of roses. Roses have thorns.
this is all making me think of Cannery Row.
With buhdy playing Doc.
Nor did I read the comments.
But I have now. And I am afraid that it is confirming something that I don’t want, which is that I am coming to the realization that I don’t much fit in here anymore.
I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, as a general rule. I think harping on them is a fucking waste of time an effort. And I’m seeing more and more of it…so I read less and less.
My favorite writers don’t write much here anymore. And who can blame them: most often few people here are seeming to read what they have to say.
This used to be a nice place.
I, somehow, did not see the essay of which you speak, nor the comments therefor! I have just learned of some dissension amongst the ranks!
I do know you try to be fair for the most part, buhdy. I think we all struggle to say and act appropriate in these most trying of times. Our civil liberties and the demise of a so-called democracy are “on the table.”
We, every single one of us, have reason to be angry and a want and a need to lash out. We, the so-called “middle class” HAVE BEEN HAD, not once, but over and over. Sometimes, unfortunately, it seems that people lash out at each other — just part of the inherent part of the entirety of the problem. There are other ways, of course, such as getting on the phone to your representatives, and others — let THEM know how you FEEL — they’re the ones most deserving of our sentiments — even, if they ignore, at least you will have been heard.
We need to realize WHAT we are doing! What purpose does it serve to attack one and another? Our anger really has nothing to do with any of us, for the most part. To what and where is your anger most appropriately directed?
i haven’t been here or in orange much lately, just been too busy with school work or fighting the flu. i poked in here last night but missed what ensued later. this makes me very sad. i didn’t realize until last night that ek had been banned over there and was relieved to see him here. and now i won’t? oh.
i’m sorry for whatever happened and for everyone involved in it, but at the moment, selfish as it sounds, i’m mostly sorry for me because i will miss ek dearly. on saturday i made the most delicious tomato sauce i have ever made – because of a thread about cooking tomatoes that he pointed me to one evening this summer. i didn’t understand why he wasn’t popping up in “what’s for dinner” on saturday particularly after i thanked him for the link that lead me to this phenomenal sauce. and on sunday when he was still scarce i looked at his profile and saw the sad news about gift subscriptions.
ek, if you’re reading i didn’t read last night’s essays, but i understand the frustration and general malaise. i feel it too, and perhaps it, as much as the busy school schedule, is why i have i have taken to lurking more than anything these days – writing a tad more here but next to nothing in orange. for the first time in a very long time, it has all started to overwhelm me. perhaps it is the number of people around me who are suffering and for whom i can do very little to make a difference. i don’t know, but ek, if you are reading, i wish you well, whatever you choose. thank you for making me laugh and think and act and hope. it has all been very very much appreciated. peace to you.
I’ve been thinking all day about what to say here and I keep rewriting this comment in order to keep it short and low on details. I feel that I owe the community an explanation of my role in this. I take responsibility for my actions and I’m sorry if I was an ultimate cause of ek leaving the blog. I didn’t want him to leave. I was just trying to check his behavior.
I acted because a few commenters in newpioneer’s essay were calling out the Admins to step in and do something. I went to our Admin forum to talk with ek behind closed doors. His behavior was out of control and I didn’t want the comments to go on unchecked all night so I made the executive decision to turn off the ability for everyone to post comments in that essay. I thought this was more fair than suspending ek’s ability to make comments at all. Normally this kind of thing is buhdy’s decision – or has to be agreed on by a group of Admins. By acting alone I was stepping out of the bounds of our process and abusing my power… for the good of the blog, imo. It was supposed to be a temporary measure until buhdy could address the situation in the morning. I’m going to stop there. If anyone has any questions for me I will try to answer them.
… don’t even know why I picked this song for my anime essay tip-jar, since it didn’t really go with the diary, but it kind of goes with this better. And actually, though I crossposted the essay from ProgressiveBlue, the tip jar started here.
i believe the point of the essay(newpioneer’s) has been lost in this scuffle.
the same point of my original reply to ek in his oct.10 news digest.
it never was (to me) about torture & releasing the photos. it never was about any of the superfluous BS that was brought in as slings and arrows.
THE rule here is “be excellent to each other”
& this rule should apply to everyone here.
(just as we, as liberals/progressives, are demanding the law apply to everyone, even those at the highest levels of our government….
same deal here in my mind)
this was what i read as the main point of that essay.
this is where the problem originated.
there are ways & ways to say something, to get your point across.
some are excellent, others… not so much.
being accusatory, jumping to conclusions, haranguing people…. imo are NOT excellent.
mistakes were made on all sides with/from all involved parties.
but.
when more than one person tells you to stop, step back, take a breath….
when more than one person says ‘hey, that’s not nice/fair/excellent’
people who have never been your enemies….
people who have supported you & your work….
maybe there’s a damn fine reason for it.
when friends push back it’s out of concern
and reply when I was sober(which isn’t often so I’ll keep it brief).
Hornbeck was wrong.He made serious and unfounded accusations against two individuals,Miep & newpioneer, whose only offense was to advocate in good faith on behalf of the victims of torture.Remember them?The victims.The real human beings caught between the rock of US foreign policy and the hard place of history.
I found his behavior,in that instance,to be unacceptable.
It’s unfortunate that Hornbeck quit,I thought he was made of sterner stuff.
Personally I hope that he reconsiders.I also hope that he takes the advice of many of his friends (I count myself among them) and tempers his considerable passion with reason and empathy.
Cal
but that wont stop me from jumping in… 😛
When I first read this essay from buhdy yesterday, I thought to myself, gee, lucky for me I had my invisible Cone of Protection around me, so I missed it. I believe I did see some of the comment-o- sation that preceded or precipitated newpioneer’s call out essay.
So I have a lot of thoughts actually. (and should say, these thoughts have been percolating for months)
Perhaps newpioneer is aptly named.
Perhaps this is a DD Baptism by Fire for him.
Perhaps this is a … another …mhmmm … moment for all of us. A challenge I’ll say.
I see where newpioneer apologized. I see where a couple of others also apologized for their contribution or fanning of the flames.
I see where ek has not apologized (afaik) and has apparently decided to pack up his marbles and go home.
That’s my micro-view of it.
But I want to shift to a macro-view…
I keep thinking of underdog’s essay titled What Do We Do Now? (or something like that) and my reply then was: “we figure it out.”
As Buhdy has said above: We strive for excellence. Sometimes we fall short. Sometimes we fail.
We (the DD “we”) are out of balance, right now. the yin yang of this place has gone all to heat. budhy is trying to put some ice on the wounds, but we are all bruised and weary it seems.
meta jesus indeed… where’s the love?
so… what’s next?
I say we forget about it and move on.
I’m glad the whole thing got deleted.
This blog started as a departure from the stale orthodoxy of orangeland and developed into the home of a kind of home of vanguard thinking in progressive politics. People here are unafraid to voice what they think. Sometimes that runs into others who are very attached to their thoughts. What else is new?
It seems very normal that once we’ve gotten out of safe shallow waters that we’d get a little spooked and a little rattled. Thinking what we think and engaging in the kind of dialogues we engage in is stretching the envelope and we need to continue to do so. But we are thinking dangerous and revolutionary thoughts here; don’t underestimate the psychic effect of these thoughts and realizations. Personal shit has to come up as a result. We need to give each other permission to get really shitty — we have to go through it we have to call each other out or we can never hope to be effective. And that’s the issue here, in my view. How do we become effective leaders? How do we take the knowledge and use it to be a genuine opposition movement in an atmosphere wherein the left has practically given away the fight.
We have to become stronger. We have to air it out. If you are pissed at what I have to say let me know that. I’m not here to be right I’m here to join in a common enterprise. Show me up and I’ll respect you — I need to find out where you are right not where you are wrong. That should be our attitude. The one essential aspect of spiritual growth is to realize just in what way we are each assholes. Each of us is, as Gurdjieff used to say an “idiot”. Life has shown me that this is invariably the case.
I’m not too interested in getting into the “why-forS” and the “what-fors.” Every single one of us has a responsibility to ACT in the way that besuits our very REAL sentiments. That is OUR privilege, thus far.
My comment above was limited in that it was very late, but I do not retract from that. I simply want to add a couple of things.
Ek hornbeck, who I visited way too infrequently was a kinda’ icon of DD. He was there, he was wry, he gave us much. Had I know or read how intimately he related to and hated our “TORTURE,” perhaps, I, too, would have been seemingly “unspoken.” And, so, whatever Ek hornbeck may have said, I have to say, that “sight unseen” I would probably honor Ek’s remark!
In the same instance, I would have to also applaud Magnifico, both he and ek hornbeck have been so enormously contributory to DD — I feel a great indebtedness to their absolutely tireless and “now” efforts.
I was taught, early in life — we must never look a “gift horse in the mouth.”
Thank you, ek, for everything and, I guess, what I’m trying to say is, I understand how and why you feel as you do.
Hope you WILL come back to us! 🙂
You call out IDEAS not PEOPLE.
You will continue to lose good people, in fact, the very backbone of the blog that way. Vocal minorities can spoil the waters.
Ek was absolutely tireless in creating the tone of this blog, and creating content. You should have your admin’s backs against petty “ha ha, mad you mad” essayists.
I was going to stay out of this, but having read the comment stream this morning I am appalled at how you let him be treated. I am equally appalled that the essayist now gives disingenuous “apologies” for having started it with a PERSONAL CALL OUT ESSAY, after you let him win. You let him attack and run off one of your primary contributors.
Wow, man. Grow a backbone here, make a rule about personal attacks or people like newpioneer will run off anyone with whom they disagree one by one.
History proves it, as one can see by the pathetic remains of one of our previous haunts.
But I am going to do it.
Everybody has weighed on on who was wrong who was right.
What does it mean to be a community member? It is more than making comments and writing essays.
Frankly I think if we can’t be excellent to one another how are we supposed to change things, really? I have read several times that we shouldn’t have to “be nice”. The issues are too important for that. The stakes are too high.
Really are they? Are we fighting such an important fight that we cannot pause and laugh at our selves, reach out to one another when things are hot and say,” hmmmmm, maybe I was harsh, maybe I need to re-think that. OMG. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I have to think about what you? Maybe both of our experiences are valid.
Maybe “being nice” once in a while would not kill us, diminsh our committment to things we hold dear.
Why do I miss the greatest shitstorms?!
I used to be a fucking magnet for shit like this but now I read this with no background and I can’t see ek hornbeck’s hidden comments and I really wanna see those!
I seem to be the guy that gets told he’s an asshole because another asshole egged on the group and then 4 months later they find out that the other guy IS and HAS ALWAYS BEEN the asshole the whole time.
Just wanna see if I got myself anutter collar ya know 😉
Damn it! I always miss out on the best friggin meta here!
Next time send me an e-mail or somethin….