Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/global_capitalism/page/14/)
In this article we share our experience, as longtime developers of restorative practices in a San Francisco County Jail, of the deputized staff who have assisted in bringing about a new vision. We recognize how a profession that is unavoidably brutal can, with the right institutional leadership, encouragement, and training, take steps toward becoming the noble vocation that many correctional officers long for it to be.
At the top of one of Rio de Janeiro’s favela shantytowns—one of several recently occupied by heavily armed military police units—an uneasy gathering begins. This simplest, most ancient of social patterns describes an intention—to recognize the other, to share meaning, to invite truth-telling. Guided by precise questions drawn on the wall for all to see, the participants edge forward in that most counter-intuitive of social discourses: dialogue.
Among the nations whose regimes it has demonized, the United States has gone to war with North Korea, North Vietnam, Panama, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and sponsored a guerrilla war in Nicaragua and an invasion of Cuba. The current demonization by Western leaders of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has increased the chance of war in the Middle East by inflating Israeli fears that Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons with which to eradicate the Jewish state from its Muslim neighborhood.
As I join many in my community in the annual post-feast January slim-down, it occurred to me that this is a fitting moment to reflect on how expansive market culture is damaging the health of our families.
The ecological and economic problems we face are rooted in a series of reductionist steps, which have shrunk our imagination and our identity, our purpose on the earth, and the instruments we use to meet our needs. We are first and foremost earth citizens.
Climate change and extinction are both too narrow. We need to move beyond ecological concerns to reach out to the ever-larger proportion of society focused on eradicating injustice and poverty. We need to reach out to those who now live in fear of losing their livelihoods and homes.
To live the good life, according to the dominant Israeli ideology, is to be sufficiently secure from physical threats, which is why each and every aspect of life in Israel is carried out under the tutelage of the notion of security. What this security is for, what higher end it serves, is a question seldom asked and never answered.
Should our energy be focused on finding new spaces to occupy and create encampments? Should we be focused more in our local neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces? Is there a way to both occupy public space with horizontal assemblies yet also focus locally and concretely?
When my teacher and mentor at the Jewish Theological Seminary Abraham Joshua Heschel told me and others that he had been “praying with his feet” when he participated in the Selma Freedom march in 1965, he confirmed for many a way of overcoming the dichotomy between my religious practice and my radical politics. In many ways, the anti-war movements of the Sixties and early Seventies of the last century felt like that kind of community prayer. I had that experience again at my various visits to Occupy Oakland, most intensely this past Wednesday, November 2, 2011.
In calling for a general strike on November 2, Occupy Oakland took quite a risk. Generations have passed since the last wave of general strikes in the United States, and in many ways political consciousness could not be more different. Historically, mass labor actions have depended on large-scale organization among workers, a clear list of demands, and broad community support. Moreover, changes in labor laws and union membership rates make the kind of well-structured actions seen during the height of the labor movement all but impossible. Bottom line: if you’re looking for reasons why November 2 was not a truly traditional general strike, they’re not hard to find.
Especially this year, here in Guatemala, Yom Kippur is not so much the Day of Atonement as it is the Day of Discipline. For if there’s one lesson I have taken so far from my short time here in Guatemala, it is that of discipline.
Our ruling elites believed that it was necessary to squash all hopeful, prophetic, or visionary discourse. They attacked our ability to imagine people caring for each other rather than focusing narcissistically on themselves. Now, however, the loss of faith in each other that generated our society’s emotional and spiritual depression has managed to cripple the rational capitalists as well.
Who can defend health insurance companies? There is no business case, no health care case, no moral case to support their ongoing existence. They make their profits by avoiding taking care of sick people — by refusing to issue policies, canceling policies, or denying payment. The health insurance industry must go.
First, I want to congratulate the President of having said some important things to challenge the “free market fundamentalists” and pointing out that the kinds of problems we are facing requires a community to share its resources to take care of the weakest and most vulnerable. Had he been speaking this way consistently and based his programs on the ideas he articulated tonight, he and the social programs to which he refers would be in much better shape today. Second, what he has proposed is way too little to make a difference, and way too late to help shape public opinion. What we need is a New New Deal program, spending $2 trillion, and including the kind of WPA (Work Progress Administration) that FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) use to employ hundreds of thousands of people during the Depression of the 1930s. So his speech tonight was like an elephant giving birth…to a chicken.