Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/articles/page/8/)
We received this from our media ally Portside:
The Trump Administration’s Most Prominent Jews Disgrace Themselves
Dana Milbank
August 18, 2017
Washington Post
What Gary Cohn, Steven Mnuchin and Jared Kushner did – or, rather, what they didn’t do – is a shanda. They’ll know what that means, but, for the uninitiated, shanda is Yiddish for shame, disgrace.
This is Yehuda Magid’s review of the important book by
Sara Yael Hirschhorn and below a response from Hirschhorn:
City on Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement
Harvard University Press, 2017, pp. 350
Yehuda Magid, PhD Candidate, Dept. of Political Science, Indiana University/Bloomington
Despite Israel’s attempt to erase the green line and normalize the Jewish-Israeli presence on the West Bank, the Israeli settlement enterprise continues to represent the single most intractable and sensitive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. American administrations from both major parties have long recognized this reality. Most recently, President Trump surprised both supporters and opponents of the Israeli settlement enterprise when he told the Israeli daily Israel Hayom that settlements “don’t help the [peace] process” and that he did not believe that “going forward with…settlement [expansion] is a good thing for peace.” While much attention has been paid to American support and opposition to Israeli settlements, little consideration has been given to the direct involvement of American-Jews in the Israeli settlement project.
Rather than applying mindfulness as a means to awaken individuals and organizations from the unwholesome roots of greed, ill will and delusion, it is usually being refashioned into a banal, therapeutic, self-help technique that can actually reinforce those roots.
Editor’s note: Below, another analysis of America’s wars from our media ally TomDispatch.com. As you know, the way to overcome all this is not only to protest against this militarism, but to convince the Left that it needs to promote an alternative path to Homeland Security. That’s the point of our Global Marshall Plan www.tikkun.org/gmp which proposes that we replace the Strategy of Domination which has been tried for the past 10,000 years and doesn’t work with a Strategy of Generosity so that the U.S. becomes known as the most generous country in the world rather than just the most powerful dominator. Until we insist that this is a major part of what liberals and progressives are presenting to the Americna people, the fear that ISIS and Al Queda have generated (the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers remain ever-present in the consciousness of Americans as a source of fear about safety, and the ruthlessness of ISIS and its clones does give even the most nonviolent people a reason to wonder what could change all this) will not abate and the militarists will keep winning inside not just the Right, but the Center of the Democratic Party as well. (side note: we give the same advice to Israelis: want security?
The drugs were part of, maybe the essence of, cool. They fused with the jazz, the smoky dark interiors, the nodding knowingness of a beckoning life.
In this article, originally published on Gush Shalom, Uri Avnery begins to move closer to our worldview–that peace can better be secured through generosity of spirit than through military domination. That’s why we advocate in the U.S. for a Global Marshall Plan as a partial embodiment of the strategy of generosity, and we think the same approach could secure Israel’s security far more powerfully than any military technology. Read our Global Marshall Plan, endorsed by Congressman Keith Ellision, one of Bernie Sanders’ appointees to the Democratic National Convention’s Platform Committee who in this past February came within a few votes of becoming the national chair of the Democratic National Committee and is now one of its vice-chairs. www.tikkun.org/gmp (download the full version there). And Adam Keller gives you a personal reflection on his decades as an Israeli peace activist. — Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor Tikkun Magazine rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com
Eyeless in Gaza
by Uri Avnery
I HAVE a unique confession to make: I like Gaza.
Are liberals having second thoughts about immigration? Posted Jul 03, 2017 by David L. Wilson
Topics: Immigration , Inequality , Labor ,Media
On June 20 The Atlantic posted an article by Peter Beinart claiming that the Democrats had “lost their way on immigration.”
Beinart is a respected liberal centrist—of the sort that supported the 2003 Iraq invasion until it started going bad—so the article created a stir among opinion makers. Rightwingers at Breitbart and National Review gloated. Liberals took Beinart’s thesis to heart: Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum endorsed the article, and Thomas Edsall quoted it in the New York Times. A Chicago Tribune columnist cited it as an “important essay.”
It’s true that Beinart makes some good points. He suggests that the Democratic Party’s current pro-immigrant stance is largely just pandering to Latino voters.
Celebrating July 4th in the Trump Years: Make it Inter-Dependence Day to Challenge the Ideology of Right Wing Ultra-Nationalism
by Rabbi Michael Lerner editor Tikkun magazine
A July 4th “ Seder”
In past years, faced with July 4th celebrations that are focused on militarism, ultra-nationalism, and “bombs bursting in air,” many American families who do not share those values turned July 4th into another summer holiday focused on picnics, sports and fireworks while doing their best to avoid the dominant rhetoric and bombast. During the Trump years we all have a moral obligation to
use this holiday to challenge the “America First” ultra-nationalist worldview that Trump and Right-wing activists are trying to popularize as they shift the mainstream dialogue from its previous center-right blandly pro-capitalist worldview to an extremist right-wing nationalism, already mobilized against environmental protections, that could provide the foundation both for new wars (against Iran, North Korea, or even Russia or China) and for an assault on whatever remains standing of the New Deal of the 1930s (workers’ rights to organize unions, safety and health regulations, Medicare, retirement benefits, public education, social security, etc.)
Yet the key to challenging this direction is to not fall into two traps that have limited the support for liberal and progressive forces: a. thinking that the alternative to ultra-nationalism is to focus only on what is wrong with America, thereby handing to the extremists the banner of being the only pro-American voice; or b. demeaning all those who have supported Trump as racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, antiSemites or just plain stupid. The shaming and blaming only strengthens the support of many for Trumpist politics, and must cease. Instead, we need to reclaim all that is good in America, and reframe that in terms of celebrating July 4th as Inter-dependence day. We in the Network of Spiritual Progressives believe that that there is much worth celebrating in American history that deserves attention on July 4th, though it is rarely the focus of the public events.
We at Tikkun were glad to hear Senator Bernie Sanders unequivocally condemn the shooting by Bernie supporter, James Hodgkinson, who injured five Republicans, one of them a Congressman, who were part of the Republican Congressional group going to play a for fun annual baseball game with Democratic Congresspeople in Washington DC this morning, June 14th. In his statement, Senator Sanders said: “I am sickened by this despicable act. Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society, and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. Real change can only be obtained through nonviolent action and anything else runs counter to our most deeply held American values.” We at Tikkun are fully aligned in our opposition to violence of any sort and condemn it in the strongest possible terms. We do so on spiritual, religious, and ethical grounds. Human life is sacred and should be protected and helped to flourish.
Editor’s Note: Sadly, Tikkun does not have enough staff to be able to verify the claims made in our articles by various respected authors. Nor does Tikkun always agree with their political perspectives. Our aim is to foster vigorous discussion of issues and perspectives that are rarely aired in the mainstream media, and to encourage an attitude of compassion and generosity of spirit toward those with whom we disagree and to support an ethical and hopeful attitude toward the possibilities of healing and transforming our world. We have not taken a stand on BDS directed at Israeli policies, though we hope to encourage a vigorous discussion of that call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in a future issue of the magazine. We do strongly oppose Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank and have called upon people around the world to join us in supporting “One Person/One Vote” for all Palestinians living under Israeli rule in elections to the Knesset, hoping that such a call will encourage Israelis to recognize that they must either actively support the creation of an economically and politically viable Palestinian state independent of Israel or must become a democracy and allow the millions of Palestinians currently disenfranchised to shape Israel’s future.
June 5, 2017
America’s Long War or Global War on Terror has taken some ugly turns as the West’s continued war-making in the Muslim world leads to new terrorism against Western targets, with no end in sight, explains Nicolas J S Davies.
By Nicolas J S Davies
The recent news from Kabul (in Afghanistan), from Manchester and London (in England), from Mosul (in Iraq), from Raqqa (in Syria), from Marib (in Yemen) and from too many devastated and traumatized communities to list makes it only too clear that the world is trapped in an unprecedented and intractable cycle of violence. And yet, incredibly, none of the main parties to all this violence are talking seriously about how to end it, let alone taking action to do so. At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.”
After 15 years of ever-spreading conflict has killed two to five million people, the main perpetrators are still getting away with framing their violence entirely as a response to the violence of their enemies. How much violence and chaos will the world accept before people start holding their own leaders morally and legally accountable for decisions and policies that predictably and repeatedly result in massive loss of life, cities reduced to rubble and shattered societies? The neoconservative vision of a “Long War” or “generational conflict” to reshape the Middle East and other parts of the world has, in effect, created its own reality, as its proponents in the Bush II administration promised. The new crony-capitalist order they envisioned has taken root in places where entrenched ruling classes were already predisposed to it, like the Persian Gulf monarchies. But wherever the would-be new rulers of the world – the U.S., NATO and the Arab royals – have made good on their threats to impose their new order by force, the results have only confirmed the soundness of the United Nations Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force and the urgency of actually enforcing it.
Editor’s Note: Glad to share with you another article from our media ally TomDisptacht.com with an introduction from Tom. I can’t really say “enjoy” because the message is so disturbing!– Rabbi Michael Lerner
In the first paragraphs of George Orwell’s famed novel 1984, Winston Smith slips through the doors of his apartment building, “Victory Mansions,” to escape a “vile wind.” Hate week — a concept that should seem eerily familiar in Donald Trump’s America — was soon to arrive. “The hallway,” writes Orwell, “smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats.” Smith then plods up to his seventh-floor flat, since the building’s elevator rarely works even when there’s electricity, which is seldom the case. And, of course, he immediately sees the most famous poster in the history of the novel, the one in which BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. (“It was one of those pictures… so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move.”)
Now, imagine us inside our own “Victory Mansions,” an increasingly ramshackle place called the United States of America in which, like Smith, we simply can’t escape our leader. Call him perhaps “Big Muddler.” He may not be looking directly at YOU, but he is, thanks to a never-ending media frenzy, remarkably omnipresent. Go ahead and try, but you know that whatever you do, however you live your life, these days you just can’t escape him. And if Donald Trump’s America isn’t already starting to feel a little like that ill-named, run-down building in a future, poverty-stricken London, then tell me what it’s like. Can’t you feel how rickety the last superpower on planet Earth is becoming as our very own Big-Muddler-in-Chief praises himself eternally for his “achievements”? Here’s just a small sample from a recent graduation address President Trump gave at the Coast Guard Academy.
IT’S NO SECRET that the past several decades have witnessed growing economic inequality and deepening economic insecurity for a very large section of working people both in the U.S. and other capitalist countries around the world. Yet what most analysts miss are the hidden injuries of class that become dramatically intensified when the underlying psychological and spiritual dysfunction of global capitalism interacts with economic insecurity. Right-wing, ultra-nationalist, fundamentalist, and/or racist movements gain support as more people begin to lose faith in the efficacy of democratic governments and turn to authoritarian leaders in the hope that their own fears and pain can be alleviated. This has been happening around the world, not just in the U.S. As a nonprofit we are prohibited from endorsing any political candidate or party, so the reflections here are not meant to influence your voting in 2016, but to shape an agenda for how to build a healthier and more just society in the coming decades. In his presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders addressed some of these economic inequalities by advocating for New Deal-type reforms, but he shied away from any systematic critique of the capitalist order itself.
WE ARE DEEPLY CONCERNED about the path our country is going to take under Donald Trump’s leadership. The racist, sexist, and xenophobic signals given during the 2016 campaign led to an escalation of acts of public hate against Latinos, Muslims, and Jews. Much of what liberal and progressive social change movements have worked for these past decades is about to be substantially reversed and dismantled. We cannot expect that militant demonstrations or protests by themselves are going to help much until we understand more deeply why a larger majority of Americans have not been willing to give liberals and progressives the kind of electoral victories necessary to actually implement the Left’s policies and programs.
The U.S. mainstream media voiced moral outrage when Russian warplanes
killed civilians in Aleppo but has gone silent as U.S. warplanes
slaughter innocents in Mosul and Raqqa, notes Nicolas J S Davies. By Nicolas J S Davies
April 2017 was another month of mass slaughter and unimaginable terror
for the people of Mosul in Iraq and the areas around Raqqa and Tabqa
in Syria, as the heaviest, most sustained U.S.-led bombing campaign
since the American War in Vietnam entered its 33rd month. The Airwars monitoring group has compiled reports of 1,280 to 1,744
civilians killed by at least 2,237 bombs and missiles that rained down
from U.S. and allied warplanes in April (1,609 on Iraq and 628 on
Syria). The heaviest casualties were in and around Old Mosul and West
Mosul, where 784 to 1,074 civilians were reported killed, but the area
around Tabqa in Syria also suffered heavy civilian casualties. In other war zones, as I have explained in previous articles (here and
here), the kind of “passive” reports of civilian deaths compiled by
Airwars have only ever captured between 5 percent and 20 percent of
the actual civilian war deaths revealed by comprehensive mortality
studies.