David Penner

Nov 22, 2024 | dissidentvoice.org | David Penner

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. ― Aeschylus, AgamemnonOne of the most disturbing trends I have witnessed over the course of my forty-nine years is the hijacking of American education by unholy anti-democratic forces, and its transformation into a battering ram used to assault solidarity, literacy, and reason without which democracy cannot survive.

Oct 27, 2024 | dissidentvoice.org | David Penner

A deathly silence beneath the cold tin drum, The enveloping shroud that kissed the haunted Air, untold billions that rained their crimson Rain on callous ground, their bones bereft Of white, clock by clock, burning the soul’s soft Flaxen tallow; the last Mohican child, the last Gazan widow tore, and the last napalm strike That bore a hole and rent the world; 9 East 71st: A maid to be sacrificed, unending was The dark, her tears cascading like flickering Pearls of naked dew – unborn the...

Oct 11, 2024 | dissidentvoice.org | David Penner

We all were sea-swallow’d, though some cast again, And by that destiny to perform an act Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come In yours and my discharge.” ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest (II.i.) While Washington’s two favorite pit bulls, the Banderite entity and the Zionist entity, are being used to perpetrate a genocide in Gaza and wage an increasingly dangerous proxy war on Russia, it is important to acknowledge the role of Zionism and neoliberalism in the unleashing of these...

Sep 3, 2024 | dissidentvoice.org | David Penner

The Vietnam War protest movement left us with a number of timeless anti-war songs, which are, despite the absence of a draft and large numbers of American soldiers dying, still extremely pertinent as they underscore the growing dangers posed by Washington’s pathological addiction to war.

Jul 24, 2024 | dissidentvoice.org | David Penner

In my youth I studied for many years as a classically trained oboist, and one day during the Yeltsin years whilst watching the squirrels in Washington Square Park it suddenly dawned on me that the stereotype of the classical musician being an elitist snob had an element of truth to it, and that there was something fundamentally wrong about the fact that most of us lived in a bubble utterly indifferent to catastrophic political and socio-economic problems.