Below I share some of my talk at a Mosque the other day. The fact that this talk happened at all is a tribute to the good people playing a leadership role in this community.
Editorials & Actions
Never Give Up Working for Peace by Jonathan Granoff
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NEVER FORGET VIRTUE, NEVER FORGET HIROSHIMA, NEVER GIVE UP WORKING FOR PEACE
08/08/2017 11:14 pm ET | Updated 1 day ago
There are historical matters toward which our ongoing attention is worthy because of their relevance today. Here are some examples:
1. The courage and benefit of Socrates’ sacrifice to uphold the rule of law demonstrated by his refusal to escape his prison cell and willingness to drink deadly poison, a penalty arising from a trial in which he was unjustly adjudicated guilty. He personally sacrificed his life to highlight forever the importance of the rule of law for his and any society. 2.
Editorials & Actions
The Pentagon’s Success Story
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Editor’s note: Thanks to our media ally TomDispatch.com we present another analysis of American military power–no, not about atomic wars, but about overthrowing governments around the world. Can the Pentagon Win When Putsch Comes to Shove? A Rare Pentagon “Success” Story
By Nick Turse
Winning! It’s the White House watchword when it comes to the U.S. armed forces. “We will give our military the tools you need to prevent war and, if required, to fight war and only do one thing — you know what that is?
Editorials & Actions
Trump’s Christian Nationalism–and how to effectively counter it
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Editor’s note: this important article below shows a troubling development in American society. Yet like so much that comes from our leftwing allies, it shows no understanding of why these scary politics have emerged and how it could be responded to by the Left. Please read my book The Left Hand of God–Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right. For 31 plus years we at Tikkun have been sharing an analysis which emerged from the research I led at our parent body, the Institute for Labor and Mental Health: capitalist society’s scientism (not science but the creation of a religious worldview we call scientism–the notion that everything that really exists or can be know must be verifiable or falsifiable by empirical observation or be measurable) reduces all values to merely subjective emotional preferences that have no place in the public sphere, thereby freeing the capitalist order and its corporations and super-rich to accumulate money (the ultimately real and measurable reality) without regard to the human consequences. The result is to create a huge crisis for people all around the world and in the advanced industrial capitalist societies as they are told that their lives have no meaning or purpose except to serve the powerful and rich and to strive to become one of them.
Editorials & Actions
Republicans’ Immigration Plan: A Whiter America
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Republicans’ immigration plan: A whiter America
By Emile Schepers
Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican immigrant who has lived in a church to avoid immigration authorities for the past three months, speaks after leaving the church May 12, in downtown Denver. Supporters say that Vizguerra has won a two-year deportation delay. | David Zalubowski / AP
On Wednesday August 2, President Trump announced his supportfor Senate Bill 1720, which aims to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act in line with the aims of a so-called “skills-based immigration system.” It purports to re-center U.S. immigrant admissions with a focus on those with high levels of education or in-demand economic skills, limit family-sponsored immigration to spouses and minor children, and sharply cut the number of people granted refugee status. Trump was flanked at the announcement by the bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and its only co-sponsor to date, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga. The bill, also called the RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act, which was originally introduced in February and is now re-introduced with Trump’s blessing, is not aimed at undocumented immigrants, but at people trying to come legally to the United States.
Articles
America’s Wars by Tom Engelhardt
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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?
Editorials & Actions
Israel Freak Out About Hebron
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Editor’s note: Uri Avnery is chair of the Israeli Peace Movement GUSH SHALOM and a frequent contributor to Tikkun. Abe, Izzy & Bibi
15/07/17by Uri Avnery
THE WHOLE thing could have been a huge practical joke, if it had not been real. All of Israel was taken in. Left, right and center. All the newspapers and TV networks, without exception.
Economy/Poverty/Wealth
G20 in Hamburg
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FIRE AND RIDDLES AT HAMBURG
Berlin Bulletin No. 130, July 10, 2017
Victor Grossman, Berlin
The concert hall in Hamburg’s wonderful new Elbphilharmonie edifice resounded with Schiller’s thrilling Ode to Joy and world brotherhood in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Nineteen heads of state were there for a G-20 conference; only Erdogan from Turkey was missing; he may not appreciate Beethoven or was too busy worrying about the huge peaceful march to Istanbul, a first major response to his repression. All other leaders and their spouses heard the music; even Donald Trump was seen for a TV moment with half-closed eyes, in euphoric enjoyment of Beethoven, we assume. Or why else?
Christianity
Is Christianity today creating atheists?
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[Editor’s note: While Tikkun is a Jewish magazine and it is also an interfaith and secular-humanist welcoming magazine, many of whose authors and readers are not Jewish. While we claim not special expertise on the problems facing Christianity, some of our authors are outstanding Christian thinkers and activists, so they may be in a better position than our tiny staff to judge whether the articles below are crossing some line which we at Tikkun should not be crossing. Let us know. Meanwhile, while the details are quite different, the Muslim and Jewish communities also have major defections caused by the failure of some of their mainstream institutions to embody the highest values of the Jewish and Muslim traditions, usually for failing to actually embody their own teachings about the sanctity of all human beings on the planet. Just saying….
Editorials & Actions
Outrage at Israel’s Decision to Prevent Mixed Gender Prayer at the Wall in Jerusalem
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Editor’s Note: There was a powerful article by Nicole Zimmerman in Ha’aretz on Thursday critiquing American Jews for getting so upset about the rights of non-orthodox Jews to pray at the Western Wall (the Kotel) while never getting upset in this powerful way about the ongoing 50 years of oppression of Palestinians.
June 30th, 2017
As Shabbat approaches at the end of this very difficult week, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) expresses its continued outrage at the shortsighted, hostile, and divisive decision of the Israeli government to rescind the agreed upon plan for the development of an egalitarian, pluralistic worship space at the Kotel in Jerusalem. We also oppose, in the strongest possible terms, the Conversion Bill now under consideration, which would essentially hand absolute control of conversions to the ultra-orthodox who do not recognize any conversions performed by other Jewish denominations, including Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Renewal.
Editorials & Actions
Protecting Egypt and its Coptic Christians by James Zogby
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Editor’s note: Tikkun presents this note from the Arab American Institute in part because it highlights the need of people of the world to stand up in defense of Christians in the Middle East who are often under attack from some (not all) Islamic forces in the region. The precarious situation of Christians, particularly in Egypt, but also in other Middle Eastern states, mirrors that of Jews in those same states in the 1900s until they fled to safety in Israel in 1948 and thereafter. Sadly, these Christians have no place to which they can safely flee, and sadly the establishment of the State of Israel, providing sanctuary for Jewish refugees, came into existence under conditions which produced 800,000 Palestinian refugees, many of whom continue to live in refugee camps around the Middle East. by James J. Zogby Chair, The Arab American Institute
In many ways, the future of Egypt will be shaped by how the government and the majority of Egyptians treat the country’s minority Christian community. Will Egypt be an open, tolerant, and creative society?
Editorials & Actions
U.S. Imperialism–Changing Direction?
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Editor’s note: As in all articles published by Tikkun, except our editorials, Tikkun does not necessarily agree or endorse the views we publish. We choose our articles to present views that are rarely aired in the mainstream media and which might contribute to the healing and transformation of our world that Tikkun seeks. But we don’t have staff or resources sufficient to ensure that the views and facts presented in our articles are accurate or that they will for sure lead to the world we want. Sad, but with a total of 2.5 people working at Tikkun, it’s the best we can do!–Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor
US Imperialism: Changing Direction?
By Zoltan Zigedy
Developments over the last few weeks further remove the fog obscuring the foreign policy objectives of the US ruling class. A series of seemingly unrelated events casts light on the goals of US policy makers in an era of intensifying international rivalries.
Editorials & Actions
Embracing the Chaos & Finding Your Mission in the Midst of our Society’s Spiritual Crisis
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12 Reasons to Embrace the Chaos and Move Forward in Life
BOB MIGLANI
“What’s the point?”, I sometimes ask myself. It’s such an uncertain world out there. I mean, “It all looks so bleak. Why should I even bother to try to move forward in life or my career? Why should I try to improve my circumstances when I don’t think it will lead anywhere?
Articles
Will the Neo-Cons’ Long War Ever End?
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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.
Editorials & Actions
What would war with Korea look like?
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Here’s a reasonable question to ask in our unreasonable world: Does Donald Trump even know where North Korea is? The answer matters and if you wonder why I ask, just remember his comment upon landing in Israel after his visit to Saudi Arabia. “We just got back from the Middle East,” he said. In response, reported the Washington Post, “the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, put his forehead in his palm.” Which brings us back to North Korea. As pollsters working for the New York Times recently discovered, were President Trump to have only the foggiest idea of that country’s location, he would be in remarkably good company. Of the 1,746 American adults the polling group Morning Consult queried, only 36% could accurately point to North Korea on a map of Asia.