Wednesday, January 4
Eighteen Months and Counting
Just in case you haven't noticed from the usual impassioned posts here - we at ethiopundit are not fans of the Ethiopian regime. We started this blog out of a sense of utter revulsion with what had become the fate of Ethiopians who emerging from a past 3,000 years old were mired in the second generation of dead end bloody despotism.
In blog time a month can feel like a year and when we started this blog eighteen months ago we had no idea we would still be writing it and that anyone would actually be reading it.
We have been pleasantly surprised on both counts.
We can't pride ourselves on how massive our readership is but the folks who do read are a pleasure whether we know them or not. Thanks for reading and interest - communicated or not, thanks for your emails (even the 'arada / clever' cadre ones giving editorial advice ever so sincerely) and thanks for all your links too.
Over the past year and a half we have had contact with academics, officials, reporters, a host of talented bloggers as well as the interested and curious on just about every subject we have covered that have been drawn here for whatever reason and we must say thanks once again to all.
Students and their teachers have been the best correspondents and bless the younger ones who thought for even a single misguided moment that "that ethiopundit website said so" was sufficient citation of fact or proof of theory - it certainly is not.
We say at times that we are usually right and on the side of the angels because we usually are. Not because there is something special about us but because we try to pay attention to reality and what has actually worked in actual human experience.
As far as we can tell what is far more important than what anyone ever says about anything is what they do - especially governments. Simply put human beings deserve to be as free as possible and as free from want as possible simply because human beings exist. That is the essence of the natural rights of mankind.
Some systems like that defining the past two generations in Ethiopia define themselves by everything that is good and noble in word but in deed can never be anything but bloody tyrannies. That is the essential shared nature of Meles and Mengistu - after all they are totalitarians - fascist or communist? Take your pick.
Simply put nothing delivers on the holy mission of man attaining his natural rights like liberal democracy, the rule of law and free markets. That is almost a 'holy trinity' (forgive us) for ethiopundit that has stood every test of time.
Nothing accomplished by men can be perfect but man has discovered some things that work better than anything every found before or since or indeed anything possible - and Ethiopians deserve their share of them now.
That is what ethiopundit is all about ... oh and we like airplanes too. Our standard has generally been writing what we would want to read and as we said we are delighted to be read at all most of the time ... even in the Gibee.
We certainly don't give ourselves credit for changing a single mind in the past months but it has been interesting being along for the ride as the Ethiopian government, by just being true to its own brutal self, has awakened and caused common wisdom to see the obvious that the government is rotten to the core.
That was enough self congratulation to last for another eighteen months wasn't it?
....................................
On a lighter note here are some escapist masterpieces:
The Graduate - Dustin Hoffman
Up In Smoke - Cheech & Chong
She's Gotta Have It - Spike Lee
Party Girl - Parker Posey
&
Kanye West - 'Gold Digger'
Panjabi MC - 'Beware of the Boys (Mundian to Bach Ke)'
Res - 'They-Say Vision'
Teddy Makonnen - 'Yasteseryal'
In blog time a month can feel like a year and when we started this blog eighteen months ago we had no idea we would still be writing it and that anyone would actually be reading it.
We have been pleasantly surprised on both counts.
We can't pride ourselves on how massive our readership is but the folks who do read are a pleasure whether we know them or not. Thanks for reading and interest - communicated or not, thanks for your emails (even the 'arada / clever' cadre ones giving editorial advice ever so sincerely) and thanks for all your links too.
Over the past year and a half we have had contact with academics, officials, reporters, a host of talented bloggers as well as the interested and curious on just about every subject we have covered that have been drawn here for whatever reason and we must say thanks once again to all.
Students and their teachers have been the best correspondents and bless the younger ones who thought for even a single misguided moment that "that ethiopundit website said so" was sufficient citation of fact or proof of theory - it certainly is not.
We say at times that we are usually right and on the side of the angels because we usually are. Not because there is something special about us but because we try to pay attention to reality and what has actually worked in actual human experience.
As far as we can tell what is far more important than what anyone ever says about anything is what they do - especially governments. Simply put human beings deserve to be as free as possible and as free from want as possible simply because human beings exist. That is the essence of the natural rights of mankind.
Some systems like that defining the past two generations in Ethiopia define themselves by everything that is good and noble in word but in deed can never be anything but bloody tyrannies. That is the essential shared nature of Meles and Mengistu - after all they are totalitarians - fascist or communist? Take your pick.
Simply put nothing delivers on the holy mission of man attaining his natural rights like liberal democracy, the rule of law and free markets. That is almost a 'holy trinity' (forgive us) for ethiopundit that has stood every test of time.
Nothing accomplished by men can be perfect but man has discovered some things that work better than anything every found before or since or indeed anything possible - and Ethiopians deserve their share of them now.
That is what ethiopundit is all about ... oh and we like airplanes too. Our standard has generally been writing what we would want to read and as we said we are delighted to be read at all most of the time ... even in the Gibee.
We certainly don't give ourselves credit for changing a single mind in the past months but it has been interesting being along for the ride as the Ethiopian government, by just being true to its own brutal self, has awakened and caused common wisdom to see the obvious that the government is rotten to the core.
That was enough self congratulation to last for another eighteen months wasn't it?
....................................
On a lighter note here are some escapist masterpieces:
The Graduate - Dustin Hoffman
Up In Smoke - Cheech & Chong
She's Gotta Have It - Spike Lee
Party Girl - Parker Posey
&
Kanye West - 'Gold Digger'
Panjabi MC - 'Beware of the Boys (Mundian to Bach Ke)'
Res - 'They-Say Vision'
Teddy Makonnen - 'Yasteseryal'
# posted by ethiopundit : 1/04/2006
