Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/other_voices/page/22/)
Editor’s Note: Our correspondent from Berlin gives us a picture of the dangerous rise of fascistic and racist forces and the problems faced by a splintering Left. Might this be a warning sign for politics in all the capitalist countries in the coming decades?
Editor’s Note: So many people avoid thinking about the federal budget because they didn’t do so well in math in high school and so thinking about it brings up feelings of inadequacy. Others avoid it because the details can become so boring and take so much energy. But read this one article by Jeffrey Sachs and you’ll see that a. you CAN understand it, and b. that it is crucial to understand to know what is really going on in American politics. Of course, what is missing so far is a strategy for how to change all this–but that is the focus of our “What Next for Progressives After the Elections?” day at the Tikkun 30th anniversary conference and celebration (more details at www.tikkun.org/30thcelebration Please do read this article below.
Click here to register. Now What—After the Election? Join Us for Tikkun’s Strategy Conference and 30th Anniversary Celebration
November 12th and 13th in Berkeley, CA (Co-Sponsered by the Metta Center for Nonviolence)!
What: A two-day strategy conference for liberals and progressives about what direction the left should take after the results of the November election and a ceremony on Sunday to give out the Tikkun Award to a few of the many people whose lives are embodying Tikkun’s message of global healing and transformation. This year’s awards feature noted peace activist and singer Holly Near, award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone (most recently, the new movie “Snowden”), Rabbi Arik Ascherman (for 21 years chair of Rabbis for Human Rights), Stanford history professor and editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Clayborne Carson, cultural anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Aaron Davidman (creator of “Wrestling with Jerusalem”), Fania E. Davis (co-founder and executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth), and more!
Bombs Away!
Their Precision Weaponry and Ours
By Tom Engelhardt Thanks to TomDispatch.com our ally
On the morning of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda launched its four-plane air force against the United States. On board were its precision weapons: 19 suicidal hijackers. One of those planes, thanks to the resistance of its passengers, crashed in a Pennsylvania field. The other three hit their targets — the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. — with the kind of “precision” we now associate with the laser-guided weaponry of the U.S. Air Force. From its opening salvo, in other words, this conflict has been an air war. With its 75% success rate, al-Qaeda’s 9/11 mission was a historic triumph, accurately striking three out of what assumedly were its four chosen targets. (Though no one knows just where that plane in Pennsylvania was heading, undoubtedly it was either the Capitol or the White House to complete the taking out of the icons of American financial, military, and political power.) In the process, almost 3,000 people who had no idea they were in the bombsights of an obscure movement on the other side of the planet were slaughtered.
Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, has traditionally been a time to prepare for teshuva (repentance, self and world transformation, returning to one’s highest self). In preparation, we will be providing a variety of “takes” on this process. We also invite those who do not have a spiritual home to consider attending Rabbi Lerner’s High Holiday services–info available at www.beyttikkun.org/highholidays. And if you have a poem, prayer, or thought piece that you feel would benefit others in this process, send it to RabbiLerner.tikkun@gmail.com (he might use it at the Beyt Tikkun service or, space allowing, on our website).
Ron Hirsch
Reflections on Yom Kippur and Mideast Peace
As Jews around the world observe Yom Kippur, at levels of ritual observance ranging from the Haridim at the Wailing Wall to a reform temple in the U.S. Midwest to those who do not go to synagogue but in some way observe the Day of Atonement, it is important for each individual, for Israel, and for the world that the observance go deeper than even the most fervent practice of ritual and belief.
For Yom Kippur to have its intended impact, each person must understand and experience the spiritual lessons and meaning of Yom Kippur. What are those lessons?
Conducted by Tikkun Editor Rabbi Michael Lerner and Tikkun Managing Editor Ari Bloomekatz in August, 2016. __
JILL STEIN
I’m feeling so much appreciation for your work here as I look over some of your website and some of the really important things you’ve been talking about forever.
RABBI LERNER
Thanks you, Jill. As you know, Tikkun is a 501-c-3 nonprofit, and contributions to make Tikkun able to continue to function are tax-deductible. So we are not allowed by IRS rules to endorse a candidate or be identified with a candidate or, a political party.
Oliver Milman argues us that the soaring temperature of the oceans is the greatest hidden challenge of our generation.
The impeachment of a dignified and innocent President by a mentally and financially corrupt pack
Leonardo Boff
Theologian-Philosopher
Earthcharter Commission
Once upon a time there was a nation that was great in terms of her territory and her cheerful people who, nevertheless, were unjustly treated. The people suffered misery mostly in the great peripheries of the cities and deep in the interior of the country. For centuries it had been governed by a small wealthy elite, who never cared about the fate of the poor. As a mulatto historian put it, the people was socially«castrated and castrated again; bled and bled again». But slowly Brazil’s poor began to organize, in every type of movement, accumulating social power and nourishing a dream of a different Brazil.
This concept has never, to our knowledge, been scientifically proven. People just assume it to be true. Research has shown, however, that cooperation, not competition, is much more effective in terms of motivation, a key element regarding business innovation and efficiency(2). Competition does, of course, motivate people and market capitalism has proven this, but it motivates them in very problematic ways. Cooperation motivates people through successful relationships, recognition, esteem, mutual goals and mutual achievements.
“Most Progressive Dem Platform in History” Hawkish on Foreign Policy
Posted: July 27, 2016
Stephen Zunes
Image by Joeff Davis
The Democratic Party platform may indeed be, as some have proclaimed, the “most progressive” in the history of the party—at least on various important domestic issues. But some of its foreign policy planks reflect a disturbingly hawkish worldview consistent with those of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Declaring that “we must defeat ISIS, al-Qaeda and their affiliates,” the platform calls for the United States and its allies to “destroy ISIS” strongholds in Iraq and Syria. There is no acknowledgement that these strongholds are in heavily populated urban areas, thereby risking large-scale civilian casualties, and no mention that the rise of these extremist organizations are a direct consequence of previous U.S. military interventions in the region. Regarding Iran, while there are many legitimate criticisms of that country’s reactionary regime, the platform appears to go overboard with its accusations, such as the claim that “Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism.” Many analysts would give that designation to Saudi Arabia, with whom the platform says the U.S. should “strengthen its security cooperation.”
It also says the party will “push back” against Iran’s “support for terrorist groups like Hamas.” While there was a brief period of some limited past Iranian support of that Palestinian Islamist organization, there is no apparent evidence that it continues.
America’s True Role in Syria
by Jeffrey D. Sachs
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in Ankara with Turkish President Erdogan last month. (Photo: Turkish Govt/via Twitter)
Syria’s civil war is the most dangerous and destructive crisis on the planet. Since early 2011, hundreds of thousands have died; around ten million Syrians have been displaced; Europe has been convulsed with Islamic State (ISIS) terror and the political fallout of refugees; and the United States and its NATO allies have more than once come perilously close to direct confrontation with Russia. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has greatly compounded the dangers by hiding the US role in Syria from the American people and from world opinion. An end to the Syrian war requires an honest accounting by the US of its ongoing, often secretive role in the Syrian conflict since 2011, including who is funding, arming, training, and abetting the various sides. Such exposure would help bring to an end many countries’ reckless actions.
Ediotr’s Note; We found this analysis of why Western powers got involved in the Syrian war in EcoWatch. We then asked Tikkun contributing editor Stephen Zunes for his response. Both are printed below. One thing stands out for us: though Obama assured me when he met with me in 2006 that he would support Tikkun’s proposed Global Marshall Plan (www.tikkun.org/gmp), once elected he allowed the militarists to frame the alternatives in foreign policy in ways that ignored the impact a Strategy of Generosity could have had in preventing the emergence of ISIS (ISIL or The Islamic State) and hence the muddying of the lines between a popular democratic opposition to the Assad regime and a Sunni struggle to achieve dominance through meeting the brutality of Syrian Prime President Assad’s regime with even greater brutality. The nonviolent generosity approach to the region, had it been a central part of Obama’s agenda in his first two years in office when he had a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, could have precluded the rise of ISIS and other Sunni extremist groups and made it easier for the democractic opposition in Syria to rally the majority of their own country against the human rights violating regime of Assad in Syria.
Most folks, who voted for Brexit, worried about the costs of globalization, feared open borders bringing mass migration into Britain and agonized about ‘faceless’ bureaucrats in Brussels threatening their national sovereignty. Those who voted to remain in the EU, and others who were appalled at the eventual outcome, reacted predictably. Most blamed manipulative politicians, Britain’s infamous tabloid press, xenophobic Little Englanders or even the ill informed rubes who didn’t know any better. Pundits bemoaned the end of post WW2 internationalism; the downing of protectionist shutters; the resumption of nationalistic passions or even the return to the bad old days of European wars and collective bloodletting. Some political scientists questioned the use of a single referendum and said Cameron should have asked for three, spaced, so people would have time to consider the ramifications. Presumably having faith that after casting one (trial balloon of a) vote, we would reflect and make the second (slightly more deliberate one) after which, we would be in a better position to make the third (and finally intelligent) vote. Phew, third time lucky. Playing rock, paper, scissors for as long as it takes to get the right result. Does the democratic process have to look like a visit to one of Trump’s casinos to make it work for us?
Black Lives Matter Platform and Israel
By Cherie Brown
In the new Black Lives Matter Platform, there is a section on International issues that focuses on Israel. The platform describes the current oppression of Palestinians and the ongoing occupation by labeling it genocide. The use of this term, ‘genocide’, stirred up enormous upset amongst many Jews, both from the mainstream Jewish community and the progressive Jewish community.
Many Jews alive today had relatives who were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust in the middle of the 20th century and find the use of the term genocide to describe what is happening to Palestinians offensive. Some Jews (like the JCRC of Boston) responded by saying they will now have nothing to do with Black Lives Matter. Other groups, Truah, for example, took offense with the use of the term genocide but called for continued support of Black Lives Matter and ongoing dialogue about the disagreements.
Ethnic cleansing is not legitimized by the Torah
by Rabbi Zalman Kastel
“Spikes in your eyes and thorns in your side” (1) is what the Torah predicts the remaining original inhabitants of the land of Canaan will be to the Israelites if the Israelites do not drive them out as God instructed them to do when they conquer the land. One man recently interpreted this verse in the presence of a few Jewish people, as being instructive for our times. When we heard him say that, quite a few eyes turned to me for a response and I knew that I must examine this verse and find its meanings. I promised to share my thoughts at my Saturday afternoon ‘Shiur’- Torah learning discussion. Let me be clear that this post is not about what people should or should not do practically.