Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/other_voices/editorials__actions/page/28/)
This Holiday Season Let’s Redefine Over-Consumption
By Rev. Brooks Berndt
A common lament around this time of the year is the rampant consumerism of a culture that bombards us with messages to buy more and more. As the complaint often goes, holidays like Christmas and Chanukah lose their original meaning as we get lost in a marketplace of inflated wants and needs.
America to Working Class Whites: Drop Dead! by Barbara Ehrenreich December 1, 2015. It’s the American mean season. No question about it. Racism.
Juan Cole on the Top Ten Differences Between White Terrorists and Others
1. White terrorists are called “gunmen.” What does that even mean? A person with a gun? Wouldn’t that be, like, everyone in the US? Other terrorists are called, like, “terrorists.”
2. White terrorists are “troubled loners.” Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners. 3. Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen. Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion. 4. The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed. Advertisement
5. White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.
November 30, 2015 Paris, France
Demonstrations for Environmental Sanity Around the World as Paris Talks Open
We did it! Despite losing our flagship Paris event, this weekend’s Global Climate March still broke records as the largest climate mobilisation in history! From São Paulo to Sydney, 785,000 of us shook the ground in over 2,300 events in 175 countries, united in one voice calling for a 100% clean energy future to save everything we love. It was front page media worldwide, and the impact is already being felt at the summit here in Paris. It’s nearly impossible to describe the powerful and diverse beauty of humanity that rose up yesterday, but these photos help:
London, UK
This is the movement our world has been waiting for. Many countries, from Bangladesh to Ireland, saw the largest climate marches in their history. In Australia, 120,000 people marched, in India, over 100,000. And in towns across the planet small groups of us joined together in beautiful local events.
Editor’s Note: Tikkun does not endorse any candidate or political party–we are not allowed to do so as a 501-c-3 nonprofit. But we do from time to time present alternative perspectives on candidates or parties and on the stances that they take on various pressing issues. The New York Times recently praised the immigration ideas of Bernie Sanders, a U.S. Senator seeking the Democratic Party nomination for President. So we went to his website to get the following version of that plan.–Rabbi Michael Lerner
A Fair and Humane Immigration Policy
BACKGROUND
We are a nation of immigrants. I am proud to be the son of an immigrant.
Editor’s Note: In the article below, the author claims that the U.S. has been responsible for 20 millions deaths since World War II. I’m doubtful about this claim, but also believe that we all have a responsibility to do the research to find out what part of this claim is true and what part an unfair extension of U.S. responsibility. If the claim extends to giving the U.S. responsibility for every death caused by a country to which the U.S. gave arms and military support, there may be a stronger case than I’d care to believe. On the other hand, I do believe that we in the U.S., by allowing the almost unchecked spread of weapons inside the U.S., have some level of responsibility when a small percentage of our citizens use those arms against each other to wound or kill. Extending this principle internationally may extend the area of our responsibility.
Uri Avnery
November 28, 2015
The Reign of Absurdiocy
There is no such thing as “international terrorism”.
To declare war on “international terrorism” is nonsense. Politicians who do so are either fools or cynics, and probably both.
Terrorism is a weapon. Like cannon.
How Canada is Dealing with the Refugees
by John Trent
A little while ago, Rabbi Michael Lerner wrote to U.S. citizens via Tikkum to encourage them to:
“Please call your Senators to tell them you Welcome Syrian Refugees and urge them to vote “NO” if a bill comes to the Senate for a vote to make it more stringent to accept refugees from Syria and Iraq to the US. Refugees coming to the US are already subject to lengthy, stringent clearance requirements. In the busyness of preparing for the holidays, let us not forget these are people who have lost everything. Imagine being bombed and having no place to go, and one after another country saying “we do not want you.” It is winter, it is cold, and many are sleeping outside, waiting at the borders of several European countries …and we live in the wealthiest country in the world and can afford to take in a significant number of the homeless. And “no,” these refugees do not present a danger to the general public–we already have careful policies in place to ensure that we would not be accepting people who are ISIS operatives intent on hurting us.”
So, for the sake of comparison, what is going on with the neighbours in Canada? During the past 10 years, the Conservative Government of Stephen Harper had gradually cut back the number of refugees accepted by Canada. In the past few years it accepted very few Syrian refugees. They seemed to have some reason for disliking them, because each year Canada takes in more than 200,000 immigrants and refugees.
Fear, doubt and “the Muslims” (Vayishlach 2015)
by:
Rabbi Zalman Kastel National Director of the Together for Humanity Foundation
Late one evening this week, I received yet another Facebook private message expressing hostility towards Muslims and Islam. This kind of hostility is often driven by fear, a combination of healthy self-preservation instincts given the terrible deeds of some, and misunderstanding due to an absence of meaningful contact with Muslim people. More generally, fear in peoples’ lives may be driven by self-doubt. In cultures that value confidence, feeling afraid can make one feel ashamed; hostility can serve as a more acceptable mask.
As he travelled home to the land of his birth, the Biblical Jacob became afraid and distressed about his brother Esau coming toward him with 400 men. His fear was of being killed in an attack but his distress is interpreted as relating to the prospect of him killing his attackers.[i] Yet that interpretation is questioned by other scholars who ask why Jacob should be distressed about killing assailants in self-defence? [ii] I find this second line of commentary disturbing.
Johan Galtung
Violence In and By Paris: Any Way Out? EDITORIAL, 23 November 2015- TRANSCEND Media Service
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
The atrocity in Paris seems to trigger the word “terrorism” with a higher frequency than ever, in the media, from the politicians. Doing so, they sign their intellectual capitulation: trust me, I am not going to try to understand anything. Watching politicians on 56 US TV channels in Georgia there was not a single word analyzing why?; like underlying conflicts and traumas. Nor conciliation and solution.
A word about how to make your Thanksgiving spiritually meaningful and deep from Rabbi Michael Lerner
No matter how difficult it may be in a world filled with pain and cruelty, in a world just partially recovering from the latest terrorist attacks (and mourning also all those killed not only by those the media defines as terrorists but also those who have been killed by the drones and the bombings from the militarism of many many national armies and air forces, and all those tortured by “intelligence” operatives, and all those unjustly imprisoned in the US and around the world) there are moments when it is important to stop looking only at all the problems and to dedicate some serious time to focus on all the good. And that’s part of what Thanksgiving could be about for you this year. Life is so amazing, and our universe so awesome, filled with realities that transcend our capacity to comprehend, and inviting us to awe and wonder and radical amazement! Give yourself and your friends a day dedicated to truly feeling those kinds of feelings! I don’t mean only a moment of sharing “something we all appreciate” during the traditional meal.
Editor’s Note: Want to energize the discussion at whatever Thanksgiving celebration you are having or are attending? here’s a conversation piece you could read or send out in advance along with the piece I sent you Tuesday evening about how to make your Thanksgiving more meaningful spiritually.And I can’t help but feeling proud of American Jews who seem to be overwhelmingly rallying against the xenophobia that has swept much of America in the form of wanting to block Syrian refugees from coming to the U.S. From the Holocasut Museum and the Orthodox Union to Tikkun and the Jewish Renewal movement, Jews are strongly lining up against the xenophobes and supporting the opening of our doors ot Syrian refugees. Here is an important discussion piece for Thanksgiving by Elizabeth Heineman that shows the complexities involved in invoking the Holocaust to make one’s points about any particular contemporary reality. –Rabbi Michael Lerner
When Holocaust Memory Misfires
by Elizabeth Heineman
They splash up on my Facebook feed with predictable regularity: reminders of the link between anti-refugee sentiment and the Holocaust. The story of the MS St. Louis, which carried Jewish refugees across the Atlantic only to be turned back to Europe, where many of its passengers were slaughtered.
Please call your Senators to tell them you Welcome Syrian Refugees and urge them to vote “NO” if a bill comes to the Senate for a vote to make it more stringent to accept refugees from Syria and Iraq to the US. You can call the Capitol Switchboard but do it soon at 202 224-3121. If you do not know the names of your two senators, just give the Capitol operator your state and you will be connected. You can also call their state offices by googling them to get the phone number. Many of them will be in their home states over Thanksgiving and might be in their state offices on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
Refugees coming to the US are already subject to lengthy, stringent clearance requirements. In the busyness of preparing for the holidays, let us not forget these are people who have lost everything. Imagine being bombed and having no place to go, and one after another country saying “we do not want you.” It is winter, it is cold, and many are sleeping outside, waiting at the borders of several European countries.
Challenge a Neo-Con Foreign Policy for the Middle East
November 23, 2015
By Robert Parry
As the Islamic State and al Qaeda enter a grim competition to see who can kill more civilians around the world, the fate of Western Civilization as we’ve known it arguably hangs in the balance. It will not take much more terror for the European Union to begin cracking up and for the United States to transform itself into a full-scale surveillance state. Yet, in the face of this crisis, many of the same people who set us on this road to destruction continue to dominate – and indeed frame – the public debate. For instance, Official Washington’s neocons still insist on their recipe for “regime change” in countries that they targeted 20 years ago [ https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/09/how-israel-out-foxed-us-presidents-4/ ]. They also demand a new Cold War with Russia [ https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-crisis/ ] in defense of a corrupt right-wing regime in Ukraine [ https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/13/carpetbagging-crony-capitalism-in-ukraine/ ], further destabilizing Europe and disrupting U.S.-Russian cooperation in Syria.
Editor’s note: President Obama, you freed Jonathan Pollard, as we at Tikkun had been calling for for several decades though we oppose his politics and worry that he may someday turn violent against us in the peace movement. There is no such danger from Leonard Peltier. Please free him now as a Thanksgiving gift to the world–Rabbi Michael Lerner
Free Leonard Peltier
by John Iverson
This Thanksgiving Day there will be prayers and a rally at the White House for Leonard Peltier. We ask Obama review the case for clemency of Anishinabe-Lakota political prisoner Leonard Peltier. If the President can pardon a turkey he can surely look at facts and free Leonard
In 1973 I participated in the Wounded Knee occupation for seven weeks.