Editorials & Actions

America Third by Michael Klare

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | February 14, 2017

America Third 
Donald Trump Is Giving the Phrase “Multipolar World” New Meaning 
By Michael T. Klare

If there’s a single consistent aspect to Donald Trump’s strategic vision, it’s this: U.S. foreign policy should always be governed by the simple principle of “America First,” with this country’s vital interests placed above those of all others.  “We will always put America’s interests first,” he declared in his victory speech in the early hours of November 9th.  “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first,” he insisted in his Inaugural Address on January 20th.  Since then, however, everything he’s done in the international arena has, intentionally or not, placed America’s interests behind those of its arch-rivals, China and Russia. So to be accurate, his guiding policy formula should really be relabeled America Third. Given 19 months of bravado public rhetoric, there was no way to imagine a Trumpian presidency that would favor America’s leading competitors. Throughout the campaign, he castigated China for its “predatory” trade practices, insisting that it had exploited America’s weak enforcement policies to eviscerate our economy and kill millions of jobs. “The money they’ve drained out of the United States has rebuilt China,” he told reporters from the New York Times in no uncertain terms last March.  While he expressed admiration for the strong leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he decried that country’s buildup of advanced nuclear weapons.

Editorials & Actions

Through the Looking Glass How Can We Recognize Our Friends in the Mixed-Up World of Donald Trump?

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | February 9, 2017

By Rebecca Gordon

(an article from our media ally TomDispatch.com)

You know you’re living in a looking-glass world when former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks out against one of Donald Trump’s executive orders. He’s a good example of how past adversaries of movements for peace and justice are lining up against our current adversary, the new president. The United States, Cheney told radio host Hugh Hewitt, should not exclude people from our territory on the basis of religion.  That was just a few days after Trump had signed an executive order entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” Such a move, said Cheney, “goes against everything we stand for and believe in.”

In the same interview, Cheney revealed the origins of his personal affinity for Muslim refugees. His own ancestors, he said, arrived on this continent to escape religious persecution. “They were Puritans,” he explained, adding, “There wasn’t anybody here then when they came.”  No one?

Editorials & Actions

Sometimes even a sociopath speaks truth

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | February 7, 2017

Editor’s note: here is a perspective on some of Trump’s statements that may help us understand why some people continue to see him as a champion challenging the mush of the establishment. What the author below fails to see is that the truth he expressed below is mixed with so many other distortions (e.g. about the threat of terror from Muslim immigrants) that it has the effect of legitimating the lies that regularly pour out of the mouths of our president and his advisors. Dear All,​

Trump again states obvious fact. In response to Bill O’Reilly, who calls Putin a killer, Trump looks O’Reilly straight in the eyes and responds:

“What do you think, our country’s so innocent?” 
“You think our country is innocent?” 

“Well, take a look at what we’ve done…a lot of people were killed…there are a lot of killers around, believe me”

American journalists and politicians are willfully pretending to be innocent and unaware of the glaring facts of mass murder and displacement of millions by their leaders to achieve political agendas. Trump is going to call it as he sees it.

Editorials & Actions

Reflections on Trump from a UK rabbi

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | February 5, 2017

THE PEOPLE VS. TRUMP
Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah
 

A ‘Reality TV’ star has become President of the United States. Is it a joke? When ‘President Trump’ was featured on ‘The Simpsons’ in the year 2000 the spectre was supposed to make us laugh – and perhaps also, to make us think… Can we ever know what the future holds?

Editorials & Actions

Rabbi Lerner Dialogues with Keith Ellison, candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | February 1, 2017

Editor’s note: Tikkun magazine, as a non-profit, does not endorse candidates for public office nor do we affiliate with any particular political party. We are the voice of Jewish, interfaith, and secular humanist spiritual progressives who seek a world of love and justice. To fully understand what we have in mind, please read www.tikkun.org/covenant and join our interfaith and secular-humanist-and-atheist welcoming NSP–Network of Spiritual Progressives. We do, however, take an interest in the discourse that exists in the liberal and progressive world, and so wanted to interview one of the candidates for the position of chair of the Democratic National Committee, Congressman Keith Ellison, who shares some of the concerns that have been raised by Tikkun and the NSP over the course of the past thirty years. So this is one of many dialogues that Rabbi Lerner has had with Congressman Ellison over the course of the past twelve years.

Editorials & Actions

The Clear and Present Menace of SciLence

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | January 27, 2017

 

The Clear and Present Menace of SciLence

David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM
FollowDavid L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM 

Founder, True Health Initiative

 

I heard from a public health colleague this week, whose work and time are partly funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that the CDC did not want to be acknowledged as a funding source in a research paper addressing gun violence. Apparently, CDC scientists have marching orders to be more concerned about unflattering facts about gun violence, than about gun violence itself. That’s ideology 1, epidemiology 0. The score does not improve after that. In high-profile media coverage you have likely seen, we learned that the Trump Administration had, in an early indication of its ominous priorities, effectively issued gag orders to the USDA and the EPA. Apparently, we the people are to be kept uninformed not only about guns, but also about such matters of minor importance as our food supply, and the environment. And perhaps everything else, too, since the White House message to the press was: just keep your mouth shut. The new normal, apparently, is to stand our ground- except where facts are concerned. We want no part of those. Let’s be clear, silence where science ought to be is a grave threat to us all. Those of you who are avowed fans of science as I am need no convincing. To anyone else: well, there is no one else. Just about everyone is a fan of science, it’s just that some don’t realize it. Everyone using the Internet; everyone who has ever flown on a plane or driven across a suspension bridge; anyone who has ever gone out to enjoy the spectacle of a perfectly predicted eclipse or meteor shower…is a fan of science. So, too, is everyone who has ever thrown a light switch. Apparently, the switch is being turned off in the White House to keep disquieting facts in the shadows. The EPA, for instance, told us about lead in the water in Flint, Michigan. In a world where the EPA is muzzled, we might still be in the dark about that. The USDA tells us about food-borne outbreaks, and recalls. Silence, in this case, aids and abets the designs of salmonella.

Editorials & Actions

Who Trump Wants on the Supreme Court

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | January 25, 2017

Editor’s note:  Judge Pryor is one of the 3 top candidates Trump is said to be considering for the Supreme Court.  The Freedom From Religion Foundation has issued a report on him which we are reprinting below. We support a strong “separation of church and state” (we put the quotes because we mean to include separation of the public arena from all religions, not just Christianity, and because we hold that not just for the U.S. but for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, India, Pakistan, and the list  goes on to include every country where religion is being forced upon people by the state. At the same time, we believe that religious values have the same right as other values to contend for support in the public sphere (some of which we support, others of which we don’t support). The big mistake of the separationists is that they have confused these two things, and in their desire to keep religion out of the public sphere they’ve often pushed religious values or any other kinds of values out of the public arena or our educational system.

Editorials & Actions

Abby Caplin: The Day America Killed Itself

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | January 22, 2017

THE DAY AMERICA KILLED ITSELF
 

by Abby Caplin

 

 

The day America killed itself,

I watched reruns of What’s My Line,

where Dorothy, Bennet, Martin,

and Arlene sat blindfolded, trying to decide

who the mystery guest was. I stared at the Worchestershire sauce

in the fridge thinking,

Of course it has expired. I bought it

years ago, a carbon copy

of petroleum in a bottle.  

When America killed itself, the talkers

on TV couldn’t figure what happened

to all their fine-tuning,

all the polls that said

otherwise. But I’ll tell you what happened—

the guy said

the election was rigged,

rigged,

didn’t say how

exactly, but he let the message hang

 

like a dagger thrown

between a woman’s legs, and then

he won.