Full moon today.

Feel the vibes and feed the thread!

In the Wilhelm translation of the I-Ching, in the hexagram of “Grace,” there’s a line that always fascinated me.

Love is the content, justice the form.

I’m probably paraphrasing that, but am too dulled out from the Big Apple Cold Snap of 2009 to go look it up.

Love is the content, justice the form.

I’ve written a lot about justice, about social justice, about accountability for the crooks who stole power in the US, all that.

Haven’t written a lot about love, though, about why justice has anything to do with love.  What it is we’re trying to create in our culture, our society, our government, that we can love?  Hard to even imagine loving anything right now about our laws and how they are enforced, about politicians, the media, so hard to see through the “chatter” of our corporate run discourse what is really going on, what there is to love.

And why is it, I wonder, that I can be so moved in my heart by love, by caring about my neighbors, my brothers, my sisters, and then someone says something hateful or does something destructive and that bright light of love is so easily overshadowed and replaced by pain and rage?

Love is the content, justice the form.

And why is it, I wonder, that such a seemingly small thing as that bright point of love, surrounded too often in a sea of hatred and destructiveness, why does it keep returning just as I despair of ever feeling it again?  How can something be that strong, so strong against even annihilation, destruction?

From Dee over at Citizen Orange a report about one of our private prison systems, and it’s not good news:

A Prison Uprising is underway at the Reeves County Detention Center (RCDC). This is the second uprising in 2 months. The detainees say prison conditions are inhumane and they lack needed medical treatment. The trigger setting them off in December was a prisoner dying.

This center is located in Pecos, Tx, an extremely “out of the way” location. It houses approximately 2,400 minimum security inmates and immigration detainees. It is operated by the GEO group. GEO attempted to cover up the reason for the prisoner’s death by saying the young prisoner died of natural causes. The detainees, risking their lives, protested.

As I have previously reported, the GEO Group, is an international corporation that operates prisons around the country and is frequently in the news for its abuse of prisoners in its care resulting in many preventable deaths. At least eight people died at the Geo Group-operated George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania, the state’s only privately run jail. Several of those deaths resulted in lawsuits by family members who say the facility did not provide adequate medical care or proper supervision for inmates.

Prisons for profit.  Let’s not also forget one of Halliburton’s prisons, the Hutto facility in Texas (hmm, Texas again?) being only one of the most egregious, children imprisoned — for profit.

Lot of cleaning up to do.  But for so many, it’s too little, too late.

Open thread is open!

(Key to the Highway, Eric Clapton, 1991 courtesy of YouTuber rajiobaka)

In practicing solidarity, some strange things happen!

Well I am not even going to try to generalize because I can’t.

So I’ll do this first person singular.  It’s all about MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Hee.

I haven’t read Martin Luther King or Ghandi so I am pretty ignorant of the training involved to gain a state of mind where you know how to resist and how to yield.  How to confront violence with awareness and respond to it in a way that is not violent even when physical.

Physical violence.  That seems astonishing, the ability to stand there without choosing either fear or anger when someone is trying to physically harm you … I can hardly imagine that but I know this is a state of mind that can be attained because too many of my brothers and sisters have attained it and written about it and such.

But anyway, I am not near there, so I won’t write about confronting physical violence.  My typical response to physical violence is as a graduate of the Three Stooges School of Self-Defense and not very practical in large groups!

I’ll speak to a far more shallow aspect that millions of Americans have been experiencing for a long time now, arguments, in conversation with friends, family, etc., that have been aggressive in a very hurtful way — if you get hurt it hurts and if you are the hurter, that hurts, too!

Meh.

(crossposted from DKos)

I’ve been working on the project Petition for a Special Prosecutor which for me has entailed writing a lot about justice, the intersection of justice and politics and justice and the practice of law.

Of course, due to the excellent work of blogger Valtin, the profession of psychology has also come under scrutiny, as the American Psychological Association did not protest when some of their members validated torture by participating in it at Gitmo and elsewhere.

The profession of law has been soiled by the work of folks like John Yoo, yet he has not been disbarred and I haven’t heard any official protest by the American Bar Association when it comes to lawyers writing legal papers justifying torture.

Ethics.  It is to laugh.

Our noble professions.  Doctor.  Lawyer.  Journalist.  All professions with ethical codes of conduct and a certain level of social privilege conferred upon their practitioners.

Oh, and let’s not forget accountants, shall we?  They have principles to adhere to as well.  I think they didn’t do a good job when it came to oh, say, Enron.  Just to name one example.

Here’s something about the code of conduct for lawyers in New York State (all emphasis mine):

The Code of Professional Responsibility consists of three separate but interrelated parts: Canons, Ethical Considerations, and Disciplinary Rules. The Code is designed to be both an inspirational guide to the members of the profession and a basis for disciplinary action when the conduct of a lawyer falls below the required minimum standards stated in the Disciplinary Rules.

From NOLA blogger Raymond Ward at Minor Wisdom this:

The coolest thing I’ve seen in a while is the Photographic Dictionary. While most dictionaries define words with other words, “the photographic dictionary is dedicated to defining words through the literal, figurative, and personal meanings found in each photograph.” Go have a look, but be prepared to find yourself transfixed. (Hat tip to Slaw.ca.)

Open Thread is Open!

I remember when Bill Clinton got elected, one of his first acts was to reverse the international “gag order” on family planning.

After 12 years of Reaganomics, oh I was so unbelievably happy to see sanity restored.

I know there are various views of Clinton here, both positive and negative.   And simply mentioning his name usually calls forth comments to that effect.

But this essay isn’t about Bill Clinton.

This essay is really just a bunch of disconnected thoughts.  Hearing one of Obama’s first moves was to reverse the international “gag order” gave me the strangest feeling of deja vu and brought up my recollection of how happy I felt back in January of 1992.

So this time around, I wasn’t as euphoric.

Regardless of how good I feel about Obama, this essay isn’t about him either.

I say re-establishing because there is presently no rule of law.  I mean that literally.  I don’t know what rules now in our country, but it is not the law.  There are people with power and other people who have no power and are therefore subject to the authoritarian political and police structure we now have in place.

There is no law which covers all equally.  Nor are there any laws now which protect all equally.  At this moment, if those in authority wish, they can act against us in a way where we are not protected by the law — but they are, of course … they are.  If we whistle blow they will have the protection of all the lawyers they wish and no doubt many judges.

There are many arguments from my fellow liberals who oppose prosecuting those who have committed torture by their authority, if not at their own hands.  The political argument is especially revolting, but I am not writing about that tonight.

The argument I’m referring to is viewing this struggle as motivated by revenge.

From Tolouse Street, a wonderful reflection on Mardi Gras in The Spirit of the Mask:

For Caslos Casteneda, entry into Don Juan’s hermetic world required a medicine man’s chest of hallucinogenic plants to break down the initiate’s dependence on the mind paths of a trained academic. For entry into the secret heart of Carnival the gateway is not as Odd. You must simply find or make a mask, one that calls you to wear it, that dictates the costume that accompanies it, that leads you to surrender yourself to the spirit of the mask.

It need not even be a mask. My “mask” this year is a tri-corner, Asian-styled hat. I do not have the costume, but I already see the costume. When you can see the character in the object, when you can see yourself in the character, you will have found the one.

Without that mask, you can only be The Tourist. We see them at Carnival common as sparrows, and the camera is their mask. They come, take Carnival’s blurry picture and go home with fabulous hangovers. They see Carnival pass them by, but they are not of Carnival. They are like Lucky Dog vendors, a bit of the backdrop. Perhaps they have fun. I imagine they do. They do not experience Carnival.

Open Thread is open!

“Shake a Hand,” made famous by Faye Adams (not allowed to embed),  here sung by LaVerne Baker and Jackie Wilson, courtesy of YouTuber sandfordway)

Sometimes while prowling back alleys you find things that don’t bear the light of day, brass ritual cymbal turns out to be a trashcan cover, exotic seafood dinner is really rotten fish guts.

Yet perhaps there’s some truth to these lies.

Here in NYC the sun has gone down.  That’s the time to prowl.

There is a revolution of the seasons, winter turns to spring, spring to summer.  There are revolutions in the course of humankind, kings and queens are replaced by other kings and queens.

And then there is a revolution in consciousness.  No, not evolution, revolution.  First you gotta get the bad stuff out, clean the muddied well, then you can go to the evolution part!