Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/other_voices/editorials__actions/page/6/)
The Destructive Power of Nationalism
Eric D. Weitz
A review of:
Anatomy of a Genocide:
The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz
by Omer Bartov
Simon & Schuster, 2018
“Human life is cheap” in Casablanca, says Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) to Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) in the renowned film. In Buczacz, human life was cheap, and then some — expendable, worthless, targeted for obliteration.
Being Edged Toward War With North Korea
by David McReynolds
One feels a bit helpless trying to deal with Trump and his push toward war – who is listening? If you think the points I’m making should be shared, by all means share them widely.
There are three essential points, and many secondary ones.
First, Trump has made a major issue of the fact that North Korean missiles could carry nuclear weapons that could strike the continental US. That is true, but somehow missing from this effort at panic, is the fact that both China and Russia have long had nuclear tipped missiles that can hit any point in the US with great accuracy.
On Relinquishing Hope for a Palestinian State Alongside Israel
By Jeff Warner and Eric A. Gordon
Donald Trump’s December 6, 2017, decision on Jerusalem—to establish the United States Embassy there against our own past policy and world consensus—and his following tweets, supported by Congress, have implications for U.S. Middle East policy that have finally convinced us that the two-state solution, a Palestinian state alongside Israel, is indeed a fantasy. What Happened
Achieving a sovereign, economically viable Palestinian state had always been a long shot, arguably ever since 1948, and more so after 1967. The disparity between rich, politically connected, militarily strong Israel and poor and weak Palestine, allowed Israel’s leaders to block any possibility of a Palestinian state. It has been clear for decades that Israeli leaders turned away from peace initiatives to fulfill their openly expressed goal to control all the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. There is no political will in Israel among either the leadership or the people to allow a Palestinian state, nevertheless, two-state advocates worked tirelessly to change that situation by promoting significant pressure from the U.S. and Western democracies.
Editor’s Note: While the article below by Alfred McKoy details the decline of U.S. international status and power during the Trump regime, my reaction is to ask: what attitude should spiritual progressives take to that decline? On the one hand, there are many anti-imperialists who will actually cheer on this development after decades of wishing to constrain the destructive impact of American power with its primary goal of promoting the international interests of American corporations in particular and the global capitalist system in general. What could be better than to have American power decline, some are asking. That this is being facilitated by a dictatorial, racist, sexist and idiotic President Trump is worrisome because of the still strong possibility that he might stumble into nuclear war, endangering not only Americans but all life on the planet. Yet, in the long run, the anti-imperialists argue, if Trump can be restrained, his presidency may go down in history as the moment the U.S. stopped running the world, to the benefit of many in nations around the globe!
This article was first published by the New York Times, under the title “In My Chronic Illness, I found Meaning” on Jan 10, 2018. It did not include the prayer on able-ism. Learning to Be Sick
Elliot Kukla
I became disabled overnight in a car accident. The car accident was a dream, but the disability was real.
I dreamed I was driving through the ravaged streets of Oakland at the end of the world.
[Tikkun Introductory note: As is true of all articles published or emailed out from Tikkun, the positions articulated are not those of Tikkun magazine unless they come as editorials from Rabbi Michael Lerner. Our desire is to provide a large tent for liberals and progressives, Jewish and interfaith and secular humanists and militant atheists to engage in presenting their views on politics, culture, social theory, environment, literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism (and other religions including scientism, Marxism, empiricism) and strategies to bring environmental sanity, peace and social justice and heal, repair and transform our world (this is the meaning of the Hebrew word tikkun). Israel/Palestine is, Of all the topics that cause division and discord, one of the most prominent. Subscribers and donors have left us in the past either because we published articles or took position that were too critical of Israel or too challenging of some of the strategies and discourse used against it, too critical of the Palestinian posiitons or too supportive of them. We have never identified ourselves as a pro-Zionist publication or an anti-Zionist publication.
America’s health is declining — and corporations are stoking this crisis Jeffrey D. Sachs || December 27, 2017
America’s powerful corporations made a killing with the passage of the Republican tax cuts. The tax cuts will hand trillions of dollars to the companies and their moneyed owners following a massive corporate lobbying campaign. Yet the US government announced this month an even graver corporate killing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US life expectancy fell again last year for the second straight year, declining 0.1 year between 2015 and 2016. And make no mistake — America’s health crisis is the result of greedy corporations and their reckless practices.
Manuel Zelaya: An Open Letter to the American People
December 22, 2017By José Manuel Zelaya RosalesPeople of the United States:For the past century, the owners of the fruit companies called our country “Banana Republic” and characterized our politicians as “cheaper than a mule” (as in the infamous Rolston letter). Honduras, a dignified nation, has had the misfortune of having a ruling class lacking in ethical principles that kowtows to U.S. transnational corporations, condemning our country to backwardness and extreme poverty. We have been subject to horrible dictatorships that have enjoyed U.S. support, under the premise that an outlaw is good for us if he serves transnational interests well. We have reached the point that today we are treated as less than a colony to which the U.S. government does not even deign to appoint an ambassador. Your government has installed a dictatorship in the person of Mr. Hernández, who acts as a provincial governor–spineless and obedient toward transnational companies, but a tyrant who uses terror tactics to oppress his own people.
The Bnai Brith statement below, like that of the American Jewish Congress and other mainstream Jewish organizations, should remind you of why it is so important to have Tikkun in the public arena. When the UN voted overwhelmingly on Thursday, Dec. 21, to condemn the Trump Administration’s decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel without in any way acknowledging that any peace agreement with Palestinians must include recognition of Jerusalem as ALSO the capital of a future Palestinian state, the “Israel is always right and its policies must be given 1000% support” voices of most of the mainstream Jewish (and Christian evangelical) movements congratulated Trump. Of course Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, but it should also be recognized as the capital of the Palestinian people and will be eventually the capital of a Palestinian state, no matter how many decades it takes for Israel to reconcile with the Palestinians in a spirit of generosity and open-heartedness appropriate to a state that calls itself “the state of the Jewish people.” We, on the other hand, congratulate the United Nations for taking this stand.
A UN security council resolution calling for the withdrawal of Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has been backed by every council member except the US, which used its veto. The unanimity of the rest of the council was a stark rebuke to the Trump administration over its unilateral move earlier this month, which upended decades of international consensus. The Egyptian-drafted resolution did not specifically mention the US or Trump but expressed “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem”. A spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, responded to the veto by saying it was “unacceptable and threatens the stability of the international community because it disrespects it”. The UK and France had indicated in advance that they would would back the text, which demanded that all countries comply with pre-existing UN security council resolutions on Jerusalem, dating back to 1967, including requirements that the city’s final status be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
We who are male are born into a society in which men are more privileged and powerful than women. This patriarchal society gives men the right to enjoy unearned advantage over women. Patriarchy defines what roles men and women play, sets the limits of opportunity, and determines the protections that women receive. Men of all races and of every religion and nation are complicit in patriarchy which permeates every aspect of culture, especially our religion. No men are exempt from unfairly getting the unearned benefit conferred by systems of patriarchy and privilege when women speak up against the system. No women are exempt from unjust suspicion, criticism, and hostility when they speak against institutional sexism and concrete statements or acts that denigrate or demean women or remain silent when they could be advocates and practitioners of justice.
Don’t Despair. Hope is the Chanukah and Christmas Message…so don’t let the light go out!!! A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner
Honestly, do you know anyone who has not been struggling with some form of pessimism, despair, or even Trump-caused-depression? Sad truth: there are lots of reasons to be upset! The Trump Administration has at times looked like it is heading toward nuclear war. It has promised to underfund Obamacare and make it collapse so that it can then step in with the Republican alternative, in the process cutting off care for 24 million people.
Opinion
Letters to the Editor, Dec. 9
San Francisco Chronicle
December 9, 2017
Of course, Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel. But it is also the capital of the State of Palestine, currently occupied by the Israeli army and unable to exercise its sovereignty in the Arab parts of Jerusalem that will some day be an integral part of the Palestinian state. American Jews who seek an end to that struggle recognize that a lasting peace with justice for both sides can only be achieved through a new spirit of generosity and repentance from both sides. President Trump has weakened the hands of those who seek peace through negotiations and has given a gift to Hamas and to the Israeli settlers.
By Ruth Ray Karpen
A Review of Ending Ageism or How Not to Shoot Old People
By Margaret Morganroth Gullette
Rutgers University Press, 2017
Forty years ago, Erdman Palmore, a senior fellow at the Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, published a series of questions – the Facts on Aging Quiz – designed to provoke group discussions about aging and old age. To his surprise, the quiz revealed that most Americans knew very little about the aging process and harbored many misconceptions, most of them negative. Among the most common misconceptions were that the majority of old people (age 65+) were bored, angry, irritated and unable to adapt to change and that at least 10% of them lived in nursing homes. For years Palmore and other gerontologists, used the quiz in classes and public forums to educate people about the facts of aging. They knew from previous research that the more knowledge people gain, the less negative and the more positive attitudes they hold about aging. In 2017, Americans still need to be educated, perhaps even more so, if the proliferation of negative behaviors and hate speech toward old people is any indication. Of all the prejudices that divide us, ageism is still the most universally shared and tolerated. It can be hostile and overt, like the Facebook comment that “anyone over the age of 69 should immediately face a firing squad,” or more subtle and passive aggressive, like the birthday card that makes fun of getting old, the comment that a retired colleague has “let herself go” or your own disgust at the wrinkles and brown spots on your face. These are mere bagatelles, however, compared to the most serious forms of age bias. Consider these facts of contemporary life in America:
Midlife men, especially those once considered at the peak of their ability and experience, are now widely discriminated against in the workplace. In some places, such as tech companies in Silicon Valley, discrimination starts at the age of 35. Among the Facebook groups that focus on older adults – approximately 25,000 members – 74% “vilified” older adults, according to one study, and 37% thought they should be banned from public activities like driving and shopping.
Rabbi Michael Lerner’s insightful critique of Trump’s arrogant recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.