Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/other_voices/page/20/)
I found the following on the internet, do not know who authored it, but do believe that it is accurate in reporting who voted against lowering costs for prescription medications by allowing them to be brought in from Canada which offers the very same drugs we get, but at a substantially lower cost. That’s one advantage Canadians get by having their government rather than the market shape their health care system.
From Alfred Gluecksmann of the ArgentumPost.com
Israel Embassy in the UK Caught Plotting To “Take Down” a Senior Tory Minister
While the US “Fourth Estate” MSM in collusion with the” Deep State” is busy disseminating U.S. best interests by by engaging in damaging Russophobia hate and fear mongering so-called “news” based on unsubstantiated content (see “The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer” by The Intercept’s illustrious Glenn Greenwald whose reporting on the NSA for The Guardian earned it the Pulitzer award) , the real news about the exposure of major consequence of the scandalous threat made by an Israeli diplomat of the Israeli embassy in London who was caught discussing the possible “take down” of a British minister for his criticism of the international law violating settlements in illegally Israel occupied Palestine, remains scandalously largely ignored in the US media. This is even more astounding during these critical times when the UN Security Council in its historic Resolution 2334 has, without opposition even from the United States, thanks to President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, excoriated Israel for its continuing violation of international law by its brazenly defiant continuing construction of illegal settlements, something which also constitutes a violation of the Geneva Fourth Convention. This comes at a time when, incredibly the President “elect” who lost by 3 million votes when the votes are counted on the democratic one man/one woman vote basis, has in conjunction with advice from his orthodox Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner…, decided to pick a man for the post of U.S. ambassador for Israel the colossally unqualified David Friedman. David Friedman is an ultra right-wing, fundamentalist, Zionist extremist who is hell-bent to raise hell by his stated objective to move the United States embassy, against the most fundamental interests and principles of the United States from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. No country in the world has dared to even suggest such an illegal move which would have literally catastrophic consequences and would destroy all possibilities for a final peace plan to take effect, and therefore this represents the groundstone for the take over of all of Palestine by what will then become the Apartheid “state” of Israel, an unsustainable entity in a world which long ago dissolved its last Apartheid state of South Africa (notably Israel engaged in lucrative deals with said racist white supremacist state and went as far as proliferating and assisting in assembling in said Apartheid state the technology for the weaponization of nuclear energy – see “The Unspoken Alliance : Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa” by the brilliant and dedicated Jewish author Sasha Polakow-Suransky ).
Rev. Rohr is one of the most creative thinkers in the contemporary Christian world. He seeks to do for Christianity what many of us in the Jewish Renewal movement are seeking to do for Judaism, namely make it spiritually alive and ethically coherent with the highest aspirations of our Abrahamic religions: for a world based on love, generosity, social and economic justice and environmental sanity. To see what that would might look like, please read www.tikkun.org/covenant. –Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, Tikkun
How Jesus Interpreted Scripture
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Biblical messages often proceed from historical incidents, but the actual message does not depend upon communicating those events with perfect factual accuracy. Any good writer knows that! Spiritual writers are not primarily journalists.
By Jonathan Rosenblum
Beginning in 1979 in Seattle, WA, Jim Levitt expertly fabricated custom aircraft parts and tools, helping make the Boeing Company one of the most successful businesses in the world. But in 2013, corporate executives issued a threat: They demanded that Levitt and his fellow machinists surrender their pensions, and that Washington State political leaders hand over a record $8.7 billion in tax benefits. In exchange the company promised to keep production jobs in-state. The Democratic governor of Washington, along with virtually the entire political establishment, caved in to the blackmail. So did Levitt’s international union leadership – they had bargained the deal secretly with the company.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/12/23/pope-francis-capitalism-is-terrorism-against-all-of-humanity/
Collective Evolution December 23, 2016
Pope Francis: capitalism is “terrorism against all of humanity”
Alanna Ketler
Once again, Pope Francis has made global headlines, shocking reporters late Sunday after blaming the “god of money” for the extremist violence that is taking place in Europe and the Middle East. A ruthless global economy, he argues, leads disenfranchised people to violence. Responding to a question from a journalist about whether or not there is a link between Islam and terrorism, more specifically addressing the fatal attack on a priest by a Muslim extremist in France last week, Pope Francis said, “Terrorism grows when there is no other option, and as long as the world economy has at its center the god of money and not the person.” “This is fundamental terrorism, against all humanity,” he continued. “I ask myself how many young people that we Europeans have left devoid of ideals, who do not have work. Then they turn to drugs and alcohol or enlist in [the Islamic State, or ISIS],” he said.
Editor’s Note: Russia’s dictatorship is a far cry from the hopes that the Russian people had when they overthrew their communist regime and bought into the neo-liberal fantasies sold to them by global capitalism. The subsequent history has led many Russians to regret that they didn’t try to replace an oppressive oligarchy claiming to be communist with a democratic socialism instead of a new capitalist dictatorship. Yet none of that is reason to dismiss Russia’s legitimate fears about NATO encirclement and the neo-con thirst for yet more wars to advance an imperialist agenda to serve global capitalist economic expansionism. Russia’s disgraceful and murderous policies in Syria are good reason to hope that Putin, Assad and their allies should be brought to justice for crimes against humanity, but that is not a good reason for the US and Nato to take steps which might accidentally lead the U.S. into a nuclear war with Russia–a point that led some otherwise decent people to not want to support Hillary Clinton who represented the side of the Democratic Party more aligned with those imperial interests than with the aspiration of many Americans to not be involved in more wars. But those forces are just as strong in the Republican Party, so there are many who fear the worst as Obama leaves office by further stroking tensions with Russia (if he was so concerned about the “integrity” of our democratic voting system he should have begun a campaign as soon as he was elected in 2008 for a constitutional amendment that would have replaced the electoral system with a direct vote for Congress and that would have incorporated the ESRA’s plan to ban all money from elections except public funding, and he should have insisted that the 2016 election was not valid until all those who had been prevented from voting in the racist states had been allowed to vote–and certainly should have made known to the American people what the Russians were suspected of doing in September when he learned about it, rather than let their alleged manipulation of the elections stand).
A Return to Hope in Troubling Times: Chanukah and Christmas
Honestly, do you know anyone who hasn’t been suffering from a case of acute despair, depression or cynicism about the world in the past few months? *For some it might have started long, long ago, when three of the more hopeful public figures of the 20th century, President Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr were assassinated between 1963 and 1968. *For others, it may have come when President Clinton abolished welfare for the poor and embraced globalization and elimination of protections against Wall Street and the “too big to fail” banks’ irresponsiblity that would economically devastate much of middle American while making it in the interest of corporations to abandon the workers who had made their goods and relocate in other countries that could pay their workers much less by avoiding unions and environmental protections. *Or when President Bush lied us into a war with Iraq. *Or when President Obama refused to create a single-payer “medicare for all” health program and instead created a plan that allowed insurance companies to raise their rates to make huge profits (thereby discrediting the system enough to allow demagogues to benefit from its unpopularity, or when he failed to bail out people who were losing their homes and instead bailed out Wall Street or when he failed to cancel the pipeline threatening Native Americans but only postponed it, or when he failed to issue a blanket pardon to young immigrants to whom he had originally promised safety in the U.S. or when he prosecuted instead of rewarding whistle blowers but failed to prosecute those who had ordered torture at Guantanamo and many other US military sites around the world thus setting the stage for the return of torture in the next presidential administration, or when he failed to launch a campaign for a constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college or a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics).
Editor’s note: here is another important article from our media ally tomdispacth.com and the introduction is written by its editor Tom Engelhardt Sadly, the Left can point out the problems, but has no serious strategy to change the consciousness of Americans so that they might not go further down the road toward a self-destructive society. We at Tikkun have that strategy–a plan that could split the Right, because not all of those who moved in that direction in 2016 are actually racists, sexists, homophobes, Islamophobes, antiSemites, or otherwise deranged. Many, in fact, are not any of these things. But to reach them, we need a significant change in the culture and consciousness of the Left. We have the strategy for how to do that.
Taking on Trump
By Ted Glick
There is only one way that I can see Trump succeeding with his outrageous efforts—such as his Cabinet nominations–to turn back the clock to the 50’s, or further: if most of us who supported the Bernie movement of 2015-2016 shut up, take no action, allow this pathological liar to do what he wants to do without any serious resistance.
I can’t see that happening, I really can’t. There are too many of us. 15 million voted for Bernie in the primaries, and there are hundreds of thousands of us, at least, probably more like millions, who, irrespective of Bernie, see ourselves as activists for a better society, a new world, a more just, peaceful and environmentally sustainable future.
I know that Bernie isn’t shutting up.
Religion and Education Around the World
Large gaps in education levels persist, but all faiths are making gains – particularly among women
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Dec. 13, 2016) – Jews are more highly educated than any other major religious group around the world, while Muslims and Hindus tend to have the fewest years of formal schooling, according to aPew Research Center global demographic study that shows wide disparities in average educational levels among religious groups. At present, Jewish adults (ages 25 and older) have a global average of 13 years of formal schooling, compared with approximately nine years among Christians, eight years among Buddhists and six years among Muslims and Hindus. Religiously unaffiliated adults – those who describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – have spent an average of nine years in school, a little less than Christian adults worldwide, the study finds. These gaps in educational attainment are partly a function of where religious groups are concentrated throughout the world.
An interesting speculative piece from our media all TomDispatch.com
Cops of the Pacific?
The U.S. Military’s Role in Asia in the Age of Trump
By Tim Shorrock
Despite the attention being given to America’s roiling wars and conflicts in the Greater Middle East, crucial decisions about the global role of U.S. military power may be made in a region where, as yet, there are no hot wars: Asia. Donald Trump will arrive in the Oval Office in January at a moment when Pentagon preparations for a future U.S.-Japan-South Korean triangular military alliance, long in the planning stages, may have reached a crucial make-or-break moment. Whether those plans go forward and how the president-elect responds to them could help shape our world in crucial ways into the distant future. On November 18th, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s most conservative prime minister since the Cold War, became the first foreign head of state to meet with Donald Trump after his surprise election victory. The stakes for Abe were high. His rightist Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has run Japan for much of the last 70 years, has been one of America’s most reliable, consistent, and subservient allies.
Don’t Let Trump Ruin Your Holidays
By Rabbi Michael Lerner
Don’t let the latest outrageous appointment to his administration of racists and anti-Semites or the oppressive policy “the Donald” plans to implement as soon as he takes office, or the upsurge of hate crimes after the election ruin your opportunity to rejoice at all that is good in our world and in your own life! How about starting with this to put things in perspective: a very clear and strong majority of Americans voted for Hillary Clinton–she won the popular vote by over one and half million. So celebrate the fact that the American voting majority preferred her to Trump, and if we lived in a democracy, she would be taking office in January. After Al Gore similarly won the majority and still was not allowed to become president, the Dems could have used the first two years of the Obama presidency, when they controlled both Houses of Congress, to start the process of amending the Constitution to both end the electoral college (added to the Constitution to prevent a majority from eliminating slavery in southern states, and continuing to give American racists disproportionate say in public policy) and to end the role of money in politics (the ESRA–Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would do that, please read it at www.tikkun.org/esra). And it’s not too late for President Obama to proclaim: “Hillary Clinton is the real president of the majority of Americans, so I’ve asked her to appoint a Cabinet composed on the kinds of people she would have had helping her run the government, so that they can articulate for the American majority the policies and practices the majority voted for.
Jeffrey D. Sachs makes it clear why we need to switch to a low-fuel economy.
LESSONS OF NOVEMBER
Gennady Shkliarevsky
Several days have passed since New York real-estate tycoon Donald J. Trump became a new President-Elect of the United States. The high drama of his election has generated a great deal of hype, hysteria, anxiety, and even re-enactments of apocalypse replete with car torches, broken windows and looted stores. The liberals are in despair and the Democrats are in disarray, scrambling for answers that may explain their demise and searching for policies that may lead them out of their current conundrum—needless to say, all without much success.
Explanations for the phenomenon of Donald Trump are a mix of pseudo sociology combined with statistical voodoo practices. They stitch together a narrative that is trivial and wrong. It tells the all-too-familiar story about the rapidly advancing society on the march toward a bright technological future and some less fortunate members of our society who have either failed to anticipate changes or have few means to cope with them. It is a familiar story of the downtrodden whose response to the rapidly changing conditions reaches into reactionary values of sexism, racism, and xenophobia.
As it is, this narrative spewed from the pages of major liberal publications and news media has ignored some obvious facts: that supporters of Donald Trump are not all white and not all poor, that many of them have gainful employments and are not necessarily intolerant toward minorities, women or foreigners. Why are these misperceptions and misrepresentations? These are generally not intentional distortions of reality designed for political manipulation. They are, what one could call, honest mistakes–acts of self-deception—that provide intellectual comfort and gratification but not much else. They give one the narcissistic pleasure of observing one’s own image projected on reality wrapped in an aura of knowledge and intellectual respectability.
These misrepresentations would be harmless and even amusing had they not concealed the dangers of intellectual laziness and smug arrogance. And these qualities are neither harmless nor amusing. They create an illusion of mental safety and intellectual invulnerability amidst the danger of our tumultuous world. This world will not leave such laziness and arrogance unpunished. It will exact a price in pain, suffering, and human lives.
So, what lessons one can draw from the experience of the last several months? What insights are there to be derived from the high drama of the political theater of this season?
Stop Shaming Whites and Men! by Rabbi Michael Lerner RabbiLerner.Tikkun@gmail.com
It turns out that shaming the tens of millions of people who were supporters of Donald J. Trump is not a good political strategy. The liberal and left world was 100% right to be fighting racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia. But the way that it did so often involved blaming or seeming to blame all whites and all men, and that contributed to the anger that exploded in the U.S. during the election and to the result: a Trump presidency that may soon be very destructive to the values that liberals and progressives hold dear. Already we are seeing violence in the streets and in the schools of America and the unleashing of violent attacks on minorities on women by some who were influenced by Trump’s rhetoric–though again it is not ALL Trump’s supporters who are involved or who support such violence, just as it was the case in the 1960s that it was not ALL of the anti-war movement that was involved in the violence that a section of the anti-war demonstrators practiced.