Dissent of Didymus

New Year, Same Invasions

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:32:00 +0000

Happy New Year. Or at least it is for some. While the atrocities of Israels relentless attacks on Gaza have today resumed, I came across this link (cheers Jarrod) in support of Israeli youth who are refusing to join the army after 12th grade as the government enforces conscription on both genders.

While it does nothing to lessen the actions of the Isreali government, it does highlight the fact that across the world, there is a generation of young people (without dreadlocks, communist badges or Che Guevara t-shirts) who are choosing life over death, peace over war and making courageous stands for humanity - even if it means ending up in jail as it does for these young people....for further info, see this website

But the main reason for this post was a slideshow of images I put together after attending an Invasion Day rally here in Brisbane on Sat. 26th Jan. For non-indigenous Australians, traditionally this day is called Australia Day; people paint their faces and drape themselves with the flag of Empire.

Meanwhile vast numbers of first Australians, who are the true custodians of the land and the many nations that existed long before white fella's arrived, are still living in appalling conditions, left with the pain and heartache of mysteriously unresolved 'deaths in police custody' cases, and face an incarceration rate 13 times higher than the rest of Australia's population....

Thankfully this Jan 26th, the streets weren't only lined with red white and blue flags....

enjoy & peace.

Sounds are provided by the Melbourne based activist urban-roots crew Blue King Brown.

Online mp3 - Dissent of Didymus performing 'History Spat in my Face'

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:57:00 +0000

You can find my performance of 'History Spat in My Face' online at the awesome Cottonmouth Blog Page:

Click Here

May you feel enlivened. Might take a couple of listens to overstand the bigger picture, or is that bigger rhyme?

Peace!

T.

Cottonmouth VIII

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:41:00 +0000

The blog is resurrected after nearly a year of absence....in that time I've managed to finish my MA (and pass....phew), apply for permanent residence in this nation, and get married, so no I don't feel bad for the lack of posts considering!

First up, thanks to all who came out to Cottonmouth last night, it was great to see so many out supporting live art in Perth.....especially those who were gracious enough to turn up so early and catch the spoken word first act on!

The highlights for me was Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig sharing poetry in Arabic about (among other things) the reality of Darfur (and western ignorance to it). It was good to hear someone bring such a confronting, mournful piece.

In other poetry news, applications for the 08 National Poetry Slam Perth heats are now open! It's a chance for ANYONE to step up and perform an original two minute piece in one of the least competitive environments I've been in...in the hope of getting to the national finals, as the awesome Vivienne Glance did last year....hope to see you at the heats at the Bakery!
Email and info can be found here: http://www.writingwa.org/about/programmes-services/aus-poetry-slam/

Finally, caught up with a mate Ray yesterday and was able to get hold of a rawcus CD by his band Blac Blocs.....check them out here; http://radicalhack.com/blacblocs/?q=node/2
It's great to hear that in an age when punk panders to providing a soundtrack to the ad campaigns of the Empire, that some bands still 'get' what having any association to 'punk' is all about. If you play this at the proper volume to appreciate it (ie: 11) expect complaints from the neighbors (and the cops...)

I shall endeavor to update more regular like from now on, in the meantime, check the myspace:
www.myspace.com/dissentofdidymus ....... and keep a look out for the debut Dissent of Didymus mixtape, due out Oct/Nov. at no good music outlets....

Woody Guthrie speaks the truth!

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:27:00 +0000

Jesus Christ – music and lyrics by Woody Guthrie.

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land
A hard-working man and brave
He said to the rich, "Give your money to the poor,"
But they laid Jesus Christ in His grave

Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand
His followers true and brave
One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot
Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave

He went to the preacher, He went to the sheriff
He told them all the same
"Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the poor,"
And they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.

When Jesus come to town, all the working folks around
Believed what he did say
But the bankers and the preachers, they nailed Him on the cross,
And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

And the people held their breath when they heard about his death
Everybody wondered why
It was the big landlord and the soldiers that they hired
To nail Jesus Christ in the sky

This song was written in New York City
Of rich man, preacher, and slave
If Jesus was to preach what He preached in Galilee,
They would lay poor Jesus in His grave.

As far as ‘rebel jams’ and songs of political dissent go, I am more often a devotee of Rage Against the Machine or System of a Down; but there is something irresistibly awe inspiring about folk legend Woody Guthrie’s song, Jesus Christ. Penned (from what I can gather) in around 1940, this has to be one of the very first songs ever recorded with such blatant Christi-anarchy leanings.

I’m not wanting to peg Woody out as a closet Anarcho-Jesus Freak, don't worry. However the weight of his tune is prehaps given more credibility knowing that he wasn't a 'party-line-towing' member of the God squad. Ok, so the theology of the ballad is unashamedly slanted heavily to the left, in favor of the poor and working class; which it could be argued is the most authentically Christ like you can get– but that’s another debate! Although, according to the Biblical texts we have access to, Jesus didn’t explicitly tell EVERYONE to sell their possessions and give to the poor (I think it was more a case of misplaced priorities for a particular rich geezer which carries a relevant symbolic reference for us all...) the message here still stuck me as a pretty profound one.

While the issue of whether those who nailed Jesus to the Cross were literally ‘bankers and the preachers’ is debatable, what’s for sure is that those who did ‘drive the nails in’ were those whose comfortable, safe and padded lifestyles were shaken to the core by the offense of Jesus’ confrontational message. The reality is, if Jesus turned up preaching unconditional love for your enemies in New York today, he might not be crucified (after all it’s not the Roman empire!) but you can be sure he’d be forced into an orange jump suit and held on a rather infamous island just off the cost of Florida…

And the challenge that this song offers is still relevant. After all, if your oh-so-comfortable life (mine too!) is that padded maybe we should get up off our cushions and have a look at who’s being smothered beneath the comfort of our reclining leather coated lazy-boy? Are the shoes and jeans we wear made at the expense of exploited workers in Indonesia or Vietnam? Is the meat on our dinner plates made available to you by the abuse and maltreatment of beautiful animals, fashioned in love by the father of creation? How does this measure up to our so called ‘beliefs’ and ideals? What use are beliefs if they remain abstract and are not applied daily?

And that’s the beauty, and simplicity of making a change to our world; it’s down the small choices that every one of us makes one by one that affect the bigger picture. By applying the ideals of non violence and striving to live out our desire for justice. But it takes courage to stand up and be counted for that which singles you out as different, an outsider, a ‘looser’, a weaker breed. The reality is that you are only made a looser or viewed as weaker by an success system that is based upon self interest and material gain.

But as Walter Wink has demonstrated throughout his writing, turning the other cheek does NOT mean letting the Empire walk all over us. Passivity does NOT mean being passive. It means working harder to find creative, non-violent and authentic responses to the accepted status quo. It means things like trawling the internet to find fair trade shoes, and choosing to opt out of the abusive and environmentally catastrophic meat and dairy industries. It means not betraying that which we profess with our mouths; not being the ‘dirty little coward’ of today, even though we were for most of last week, and the week before, and the week before.

The use of poor Jesus in the closing line is particularly interesting; this a Jesus devoid of any real estate or physical possessions, one who is laid bare upon the cross; killed for unreservedly loving people in a radical way. And then we think it’s a big deal to implement that love into our lives beyond the pews of a Sunday morning. It’s not a big deal, it’s the only deal.

Gerorge Bush Hears Voices....

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:57:00 +0000

The Iraqi's hid WMD's.....very well....and other lame excuse for a war for Oil.

Uncensored Video footage of clashes in Burma

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 02:57:00 +0000

Video showing violence from Police in Rangoon...

Tragedy comes to Burma: Please act now.

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:43:00 +0000

This is wrong. This is not how the world is supposed to be.
I will spare you the history lesson, that's what wikipedia is for...but seriously,
what's happening in Burma rings with the same grief stricken cry as Cambodia, Rwanda, South Africa, Croatia....

I hope and pray that we will not witness anything like the mass murder on the scale of other tragic genocides and events of mass murder in the past century, but for as long as Burma's influential neighbors (the most important of those being China) are content to simply turn a blind eye to the countries internal policies, that fear remains a very real one. While China still has the ghost of Tiananmen Square to haunt it, it will be keen to avert the worlds attention from it's appalling record of human rights which is still continuing.

One fearless source of truth one what's happening in Burma right now is Ko Htike's blog...he has been tracked and blocked by government sources, but he's still publishing posts, you can find his blog with shocking pictures of the situation on the streets of Rangoon here: Ko Ktike's Blog

Also, if you haven't already, please sign this petition on behalf of the citizens and monks of Burma, hundreds of whom have been carted off in government trucks in the last 48hours, following violent night raids on monasteries.

Petition

There is also a brilliant blog here which details the shocking treatment of monks by the military over the past few days: with bowl and robe

Feeling useless in a situation is not an excuse to do nothing. The monks of Burma have shown immense bravery and courage by standing up to the oppressive military regime in their country using nonviolence (the image of Monks walking their Alms rounds with bowls turned upside down in defiance and protest at accepting food from their government is such a powerful striking image. this is a military government which of course continues to deny Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi her rightful place as democratic leader of her country.

You can also read the Dalai Lama's open letter of support to the Burmese people here : Letter

Photoblog: Guluwalk Perth 2007

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 04:40:00 +0000

Photoblog :
Perth Guluwalk 23rd September 2007

GuluWalk is an annual international event which aims to raise awareness of the plight of abducted and abandoned children in northern Uganda who are often forced into becoming child soldiers. There is a wealth of information about Guluwalk on their website here.

GuluWalk started with just two people in July of 2005 and has now grown into a worldwide movement for peace. The movement was inspired by 'night commuter' children in Uganda who flee from their rural homes to sleep in towns such as Gulu each night in order to be safe from the threat of being abducted and forced into becoming child soldiers.

It was awesome for a London lad like myself to see so many people turn out, decked in a sea of Orange clothing to march in solidarity for the 7km route (which was symbolic of the distance the Ugandan children have to walk every day in order to have a safe nights sleep)

The four legged walkers got doused in orange for the occasion too...

Even the traffic lights turned orange for the day...

Some walked...others rolled...

Rocking the streets of Highgate...

Approaching the city skyline...

Turning heads in Northbridge...

Thanks again to all who organised the day...
To find out more about the 'Invisible children' and to get involved with
Guluwalk near you go to:
www.guluwalk.com or Invisible Children @ Myspace

Serj Tankian - Haunting new video.

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 01:14:00 +0000

Serj Tankian (enigmatic front man of metal band System of a Down for those of you unsure of who he is....) is set to release his first solo album next month.

Entitled 'Elect the Dead', a title which some suggest is pleading for us to learn from the wisdom of the past to help solve current global challenges; the album is a more eclectic mix musically, but is still set to provide stinging social commentary. The first single 'behind empty walls' has a video that really does speak for itself, and here it is for your awakening;

Love Your Enemies (after you've spent almost 4 years killing them.)

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 11:40:00 +0000

During a meeting with English PM Gordon Brown, the head of America's armed forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus said yesterday that it is apparently time to get "to grips with the obvious idea that you reconcile with your enemies".....now where does that idea sound familiar from? Too bad it's cost over $450 Billion and taken 75,000 civilian deaths and to reach such a 'radical' logic....maybe next year we'll hear him saying that he's gonna beat his machine gun into a plough?

"Iraq's problems will require a long-term effort," Gen Petraeus said. Presumably, he did not taking the time to stop and apologise on behalf of the military power that is causing most of these 'problems'....well you can only ask for so much at a time I suppose....

Still, it's pretty cool to know that 'the Powers' of the Empire really are just as good, just as fallen, and just as redeemable as the rest of us....the men with the big guns can't deny the simple logic of reconciliation instead of continued destruction.

An Inconvenient Truth: We Are Eating Our Planet to Death

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 11:06:00 +0000

This post is merely a redirection to a well presented,easily readable, and very well sourced article about the benefits of plant based (ie;vegan) diet and why it it's important in light of all the environmental issues that are being churned over in the media.....

I'll be doing a fair bit of reposting links etc on this page, as I don't see why you should try to reinvent awesome dissent that's been eloquantly put together....but I promise to have original thoughts from time to time too....

An Inconvenient Truth: We Are Eating Our Planet to Death - Click for article

Your thoughts, critisisms and comments are actively encouraged....

America, Secret Wars and Doing 'God's' Will..

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:34:00 +0000

Originally posted on myspace 7/12/06

Now I'm not much of a history buff, but I was shocked by something this week, and I've done my best to condense it down into a myspace/blog sized digest....

So yeah, listening to a lecture by Howard Zinn this week (author of A People's History of the United States) and apparently, the USA had a 12 year war with the Philippines at the turn of the last century?!? Since when was this public knowledge or am i just WELL out of touch?!?!
Yeah, guided by the eventually assassinated William McKinley, 25th President of the USA, who felt 'led by God' to 'take' the country, as a supporter of the president remembers (though there's debate over the accuracy of this quote, the sentiment is there...) :

"there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos (sic), and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly."

Ahhh, yes 'Christianize' them, by shooting, imprisoning and torturing thousands of them....that would be JUST like the Christ that i know then......and still he slept soundly? Really? Well that's a relief then?!? Is this ringing any bells with anyone, a (not so) elected leader of the 'free' world feels that 'God' is telling him to invade a countries to keep the world safe....hmmm....

And why did the USA even have any interest in the Philippines in the first place, ahhh, well in the 1800's you could BUY countries if you happened to be uh, white and ohhh, rich too. So the USA had purchased the entire country (as a colony) from the Spanish in December 1898 for the tidy sum of $20 million....only problem was, the Filipino’s had been fighting for their independence from the Spanish for years already and took issue with this so called 'purchase'....the cheeky little B&S*^(£'s !

So then, as you do, the USA sent in 11,000 troops who proceeded to 'occupy and subdue' the country, although they never officially declared the war as a 'war'....under the ground that the Filipino’s (who happened to be fighting what they viewed as an occupation) were classed as 'insurgents'..........insurgents? really....now where have we hear that term used before?
ARE THE ALARM BELLS OF FAMILIARITY RINGING YET?!?!? And they say history repeats itself, what a nostalgic little phrase, wonder if there's any truth in it?

Filipino casualties on the first day of Philippine-American War Feb 5th 1899

Well despite America's far superior military strength and firepower, the 'official' unofficial war lasted two years although fighting continued for a further decade, with the USA loosing over 4,000 soldiers and the Filipino's suffering losses of over 16,000 + an additional 500,000-1 million civilian casualties of war, to famine, concentration camp detainment and disease... I’d be interested to hear what Filipino’s of today think about America’s little insurgency scuffle, and the similarities with the current Middle East climate are more than a little obvious....

Funny that we never got taught this at school.....after Harold got an arrow in the eye in 1066 i can't really remember much apart from how the Americans saved the day in WWII and how unfair the stock market crash was on middle America.... Unfortunately the ‘powers that be’ in America so frequently seem to sell the people they claim to represent painfully short. Again and again. Those poor American leaders, they've been so nice to the world for so, so many years, wonder why there's such hostility towards them now? (pssst.....all is not as it seems folks....)

Shrug....well, sorry for the history lesson, i just found that all a bit interesting...oh well, back to Fox news.....

Discovering new music...

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:24:00 +0000

Thanks to my new brother's Harry & Jarrod for introducing me to Kev Carmody.

Rebel Jams of the finest order, armed with his voice and one 'facist killing machine'...definatly worth checking out, especialy for all you 'poms' back home...

Musical Dissent...

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:19:00 +0000

The Beef With Vegetarians.

noreply@blogger.com (dissent of didymus) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:36:00 +0000

In the pages of my student newspaper a few months back, a response was published to a previous article called "Ten benefits of being a vegetarian" from a seemingly devoted meat eater who took it upon themselves to rip the piss rather joyously out of the growing number of individuals in our society who choose not to eat meat. While trying to be vaguely funny, the author of said piece managed to unequivocally prove the missing link in the battle ground between vegetarians and their meat eating counterparts; humour.

Firstly, the single biggest reason for a lack of people being persuaded to 'Go Veggie!' (or shock horror; Vegan.) is due to the inability of my herbivorous brothers and sisters to laugh at themselves. Second, and of near equal importance is the need for Veggie's and Vegans not to react with raised voices and wagging fingers when their flat mates cry; "But kebabs taste good!". The crazy guys who barks at shoppers on most city streets to 'accept Jesus before they burn in hell' takes that approach, and from the pages of myspace to tv skits, look what it earns them; nothing but mockery.(not to mention harm to the representation of their so called 'cause'.)

As both a vegan and incidentally, someone who finds faith and inspiration through Jesus Christ, I find myself cradling my head in my hands with embarrassment as much with the things people do in the name of Jesus as with the way my dietary choice is misrepresented. And today dear reader, I would like to set the record straight; not all Christians support the actions of nutty street preachers or war mongering politicians, and not all vegans had their humour glands forcibly removed at birth!

Vegetarians, let alone vegans are very often mocked by carnivores for eating 'rabbit food'. On top of that there is the ridiculous notion of veggie 'chicken style' nuggets, which are surely even more pointless than the existence of non alcoholic beer. They ridicule us for being self righteous, do good-ers who seek to make the rest of flesh eating world feel guilty for grabbing a burger for lunch.

And why are we mocked so frequently? Because, a lot of the time we DO act like self righteous bastards looking down from our high horse (who incidentally, we do not keep in a confined stable, or rear on GM feed) at the unenlightened McDonalds loving, leather wearing, milk drinking world that is so far beneath us.

It's time to wake up folks, if we've got a bad rep; it's up to US to fix it. It's up to each one of us to show the world that actually, contrary to popular stereotypes, Vegans aren't all dread locked, dope smoking anarchists who can't wait for the chance to chuck petrol bombs at science labs screaming; 'Animal Liberation!' at the top of their legume fuelled lungs.

Look, I know we want to protect innocent animals from being butchered simply for the gluttonous palette of the Supermarket shopping "meat and not very much veg please" public. And as herbivores, we know that a vegetarian diet simply IS healthier; that it significantly reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease and impotence. But we're not going to convince the world by force, or by flyering them with top ten lists (well meaning as they are). Sadly we are also not going to convince them on the strength of Vegan chocolate (which tastes and looks like solidified horse crap for anyone who hasn't tried it).

Never the less, we also believe that a vegetarian diet is a more enlightened choice because of the devastating effects the livestock industry has upon the earth. There's huge scale deforestation, the forced eviction of poor communities to make way for grazing land, the thousands of litres of clean water that (in our view) are wasted on feeding cattle, while children die daily of thirst and dysentery. But despite these injustices, I beg you; don't loose your sense of self deprecation. Keep your ability to look in the mirror and grin at the slightly weird individual staring back, and we'll press our case by more sophisticated methods, not by angry marches on parliament buildings.

My plea is an urgent one. If we don't address this problem now, I can see what's coming. Vegetarians will be imprisoned for inciting food related hatred, and burning effigy's of Bernard Matthews & Ronald McDonald in the streets following the publication of cartoons that have a poke at our dietary beliefs. There will be a mainstream backlash to Vegans. We'll be banned from taking Soya milk or any other liquids on air planes. They'll extradite our recipe book authors, accusing them of stirring up nutritional segregation; and worst of all, Tony Blair will appear on the telly, telling us that we have to integrate into the mainstream of beef loving Britain or leave.

Lets not let it reach that point fellow bunny huggers. Lets embrace the ridicule and be honest; cheese substitute tastes like something scraped from the scrotum of Satan himself, but this isn't a reason to not promote healthy, nutritious alternatives to meat and dairy products.

Also, read up on your beliefs, so that when you're asked about your 'freakish' diet, you can offer some facts rather than just emotional exploitation. Heck, if you're really daring you could come up with a vegan ending to the classic 'Why did the chicken cross the road' quip; bet that'll catch them off guard. One of the more cynical motto's I live by at the moment, is rather than even trying to save the world in some naive hippy way, I see the choices in my diet as way of fucking up the world a little less. It serves a double purpose: the swearing makes you me sound serious, but with such a potty mouth all the cool kids will let me sit with them in the canteen too (as long as I don't eat salad, coz that's for pussies innit?).

It was a bearded (and probably rather un-cool) individual named Leo Tolstoy, a man more famous for writing books that double up as door stops than for his side splitting one liners, who said "A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite." So why not attempt to live by that healthy and conscious example, and prove to the world with actions rather than judgemental words that we can live healthier, shag for longer and combat global poverty, all by making a simple choice that comes down to our appetite; well that's if you fancy taking advice from blokes with beards.....but that's ANOTHER story...