What Endless War looks like

“I’m sure we can all agree that we must endure years more of civil liberties assaults, endless war, bulging military budgets, suffocating government secrecy, a sprawling surveillance regime, and the slaughter of countless more Muslim children in order to save ourselves from this existential Lone Wolf threat. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that endless war, drone attacks, occupying countries, and engineering regime change is precisely what causes and fuels these threats in the first place. Indeed, NYPD’s Police Commission Raymond Kelly claimed that “Pimentel’s talk did not ‘turn to action’ until recently” when he “clearly ‘jacked up his speed after the elimination’ of the Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by an American drone strike in September.” In other words, what little Terrorism does exist is caused directly by our own actions — the very actions justified in the name of stopping Terrorism.”

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

Maybe the US Citizens should pay special attention to Mr.Greenwald. Seems one of the few sane voices coming from across the Atlantic lately. Him and Jon Stewart. Which says a lot…

By the way, i don’t have any specific knowledge or background info about Mr.Greenwald but as far as Presidential Candidates go, couldn’t he be the option for the sane broader middle-class citizen which doesn’t want to choose between the Koch-funded nutjobs of the religious far-right and the hypocritical utterly-incompetent and cynical messiah-complex “falcon” Obama?

Ilya Zhitomirskiy, 1989 – 2011

Ilya Zhitomirskiy

“This weekend we lost one of the brightest minds of the technology world, and one of our best friends. Ilya Zhitomirskiy was a crusader—or, as he called himself, a Dragonslayer—for freedom, privacy, and openness on the Internet. He believed in the power of technology to make the world a better place. And through the creation of Diaspora, he did.

His passions were infectious. His parties epic. He “dreamed a better, freer future, and threw himself completely into building what he dreamed.”[1] The thousands of tweets and hundreds of news articles reporting his passing are a testament to the influence of his words and the strength of Diaspora’s vision. “Every time I saw Ilya, he had a new plan to save the world. He was optimistic without irony.”[2]  It pains us greatly that we will no longer be graced by the bright-eyed idealist in the American flag shirt making us all believe in the open web.

As Ilya himself said, “There’s something deeper than making money off stuff, being a part of creating stuff for the universe is awesome.”

While his life ended, his vision and passion live on. The world needed his voice. We’ll miss you Ilya.

There are memorials planned for Friday, Nov. 18  in San Francisco, and Sunday, Nov. 20 in Philadelphia. In life, Ilya brought people together. In death, he would have wanted the same thing. Everyone is welcome.

If you would like to speak, share a memory, or anything else, please email us at remembering_ilya@joindiaspora.com “

Diaspora*

That Diaspora has lost one of its early founders when it needs so much more work while it shows so much promise, is saddening. But i must admit that what shocked me most was seeing that such potential, such promise faded away in a body that was born 9 years later than me. The guy was 22 years old. Tragic.

My condolences to his family and friends.

You can get more info on how to honor his memory on the Diaspora page created for the purpose.