Hospitality: Everyone’s right and everyone’s duty

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Editor’s note: In light of the Obama Administration’s 7 years of aggressive searches to find “undocumented” workers and arrest and expel them (more expulsions than the last three presidential administrations combined) and in light of the failure of the U.S. and most of the world community to open its doors more generously to the refugees from countries terrorized by Al Queda and the ISIL–Islamic State or by the drone attacks and bombings by those countries waging war against ISIL or Al Queda or against the Syrian dictatorship of Assad, I thought it appropriate for us to reread Catholic liberation theologian Leonrdo Boff’s recent statement about the moral obligations to hospitality (an obligation deeply embedded in Jewish law and embodied in the Biblical figure of Abraham who is said to have opened his tent in all four directions so he could spot anyone passing by who might need hospitality which he generously offered). In this regard, the decision of many U.S. politicians, including Republican governors of many states, to close their doors to Syrian refugees is a particularly offensive response to the ISIS terrorist acts in Paris, since the refugees are themselves fleeing these same terrorists.–Rabbi Michael Lerner
Hospitality: everyone’s right and everyone’s duty 
Leonardo Boff
      Theologian-Philosopher
   As always, the global refugee problem presents an ethical imperative of hospitality at both the national and international levels. We are witnessing a human migration much as occurred during the decay of the Roman Empire.

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After Paris: A World That Has Lost Its Ethical Direction

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AFTER PARIS: A World That Has Lost Its Ethical Direction & Spiritual Foundation and a Media that Cheerleads for Fear and Militarism

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

For many years, we at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives have warned that the domination and power-over strategies to achieve “homeland security” have been tried for over 7,000 years and all they have produced is more wars and violence, interspersed with short periods of peace that have, with the help of the sensationalist and natioanlist  media and professional apologists for the existing inequalities, managed to hide from public view the degree of covert structural violence that every system of inequality and domination embodies. (Please read Cynthia Moe-Lobeda’s important study Resisting Structural Evil–Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation published by Fortress Press to get a full understanding of how deeply our own daily lives in Western societies are built on the exploitation and impoverishment of people around the world). We  have called for a new approach to “homeland security”—the Strategy of Generosity, as manifested in part in our proposed Global Marshall Plan (please download the full version and read it at www.tikkun.org/gmp). Until the powerful countries of the world are seen as mainly driven by a desire to care for the well-being of everyone else on the planet and the wellbeing of the planet itself, and care not only out of self-interest but also out of a new consciousness in which we all come to truly understand our mutual interdependence and oneness, what we saw in Paris this past week is destined to be an increasing reality in the coming decades. The Global Marshall Plan we support would have the U.S. take the leadership with the advanced industrial countries of the world in working with local communities throughout the developing world, donating 1-2% of our Gross Domestic Product each year for the next twenty to once and for all end (not must ameliorate) global poverty, hunger, homelessness, inadequate education, and inadequate health care–and repair the damage done to the environment of 150 years of irresponsible forms of economic development sponsored by colonial and imperialist and materialist oriented capitalist, socialist and communist societies alike.

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The New Abnormal–Reflections on Paris

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The New Abnormal–Reflections on Paris

Posted on November 14, 2015by Prof. Michael Nagler

 

We are hearing expressions of shock and sympathy for Paris on all sides, which is appropriate as far as it goes – but it’s not nearly enough. It is clear now that instead of lurching from crisis to crisis, we need to get off this disastrous path. After expressing our condolences we should be saying, “Let us now pledge ourselves to get to the root of this problem” – and have the courage to follow that inquiry wherever it leads. When Mahatma Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule in 1909, as it were firing his first shot across the bow of the empire that he would finally sink, he addressed the now classic essay not to the British (the original was published in Gujarati; only when the British banned it did he bring out the English translation, ironically, and reach a vastly greater audience) but to his own countrymen. And he told them, “The British did not take India; we gave it to them.” His purpose was not to offend but to awaken them, namely to the fact that they were not helpless, as they supposed.

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Cosmological Wisdom & Planetary Madness

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Editor’s Note: Sean Kelly presents a brief overview of the evolution of the consciousness of the universe and its current crisis as humanity continues to destroy the life-support system of Earth. It is a deep and profound article worthy of reading fully to the end. –Rabbi Michael Lerner

 Cosmological Wisdom and Planetary Madness

Sean Kelly

 

Introduction:

It is a bitter irony of our times that, just as the collaborative effort of natural scientists and other researchers have revealed the outlines, at least, of a comprehensive cosmology,[i] we should find ourselves plunged into a maelstrom of unparalleled planetary madness. The madness: runaway catastrophic climate change, an accelerating mass extinction of species and generalized ecological deterioration, and a brutal, empire-driven regime of planetary apartheid. The wisdom: among the proposals for “Big History” type grand narratives[ii], Swimme and Berry’s The Universe Story (1992) that I will draw from in these pages.

Editorials & Actions

Jay Janson says: Veterans Day: Honor Capitalism’s Genociders Assassins Invaders Bombers of Children? Hell No!

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​J​
Jay Janson says: Veterans Day: Honor Capitalism’s Genociders Assassins Invaders Bombers of Children? Hell No! November 10, 2015

 
​[​
Editor’s Note: In sharing articles in Tikkun, we often print articles with which we don’t agree
​ to make Tikkun a lively forum for ideas​
. This
​article ​
is a classic case. Though Jay Janson has a very strong point in critiquing the way that veterans lives have been sacrificed to serve the imperial goals of America’s elites (as has been true for veterans in almost every war in history as people died to serve their own country’s elites), it is not true when thinking about the veterans who served the North in the Civil War nor those who fought the Second World War.

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Kissinger the War Criminal

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Editor’s Note: From time to time I will be posting articles here from TomDispatch. http://www.tomdispatch.com,  a very wonderful website run by Tom Engelhardt who works with The Nation magazine. Sometimes I will include commentary from Tom Engelhnardt about the piece he has chosen to highlight, sometimes just the article itself. In the article on Kissinger below, you will first find Engelhardt’s comment, then the article about Kissinger by Greg Grandin. This piece seemed particularly appropirate to put on our Tikkun website on Kristallnacht annviersary–the anniversarly of the 1938 assault on Jews by Nazis that moved the fascist attack from racist discrimination to widespread violence against Jews in Germany on November 9-10 1938. Henry Kissinger wears his Jewish identity proudly, yet played an important role in the genocidal war against the Vietnamese, a war that I personally struggled aginst (eventually ending up in federal penitentiary for my non-violent role the anti-war movement).

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Remembering Kristallnacht

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Editor’s note: Kristallnacht is the name of the night and following day Nov.9-10 1938 when the Nazis launched full scale assault on Jewish stores, Jewish homes, and Jews walking the street in Germany. From the time Hitler took power in 1933 there had been increasing assaults on the rights of Jews (banning them from the universities, firing them from teaching jobs, jobs as doctors in hospitals, working for any government funded program or institution, forcing them to wear yellow stars) but it was only at Kristalnacht that every Jew in Germany was forced to face the fact that their lives were in danger. Around the world Jews and humanity had been alerted that the Nazis would stop at nothing in their assault on Jews. No wonder, then, that so many Jews today feel sickened when they read of physical assaults in Israel itself  on random Palestinians and random refugees from Africa and Asia residing in Israel. Joe Newman doesn’t touch that in what he writes below, but his reminder that “Never Again” might apply to never again for anyone not just Jews, brings to mind the way that some Jews are willing to close their eyes to the suffering that a segment of the Jewish people, in the name of the entire Jewish people, are perpetrating against another people! But there the comparison must stop–Israel is not acting like the Nazis were–Palestinians living in Israel still have employment, vote, and live in conditions far better than most people living in surrounding Arab countries (and for that reason, Israeli Arabs make clear that their demand is for equal treatment, NOT to move to an Arab country).

Editorials & Actions

Obama and Netanyahu: A bad deal for peace, for Israel, for Palestine and for the U.S.

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Editor, Tikkun Magazine

Obama and Netanyahu’s “Make Nice” Meeting: Bad for Peace, Bad for Israel

Posted: 11/09/2015 8:24 am EST Updated: 11/09/2015 8:59 am EST

Editor’s Note: Though I published this in the Huffington Post before the meeting, the outcome was exactly as predicted. Netanyahu affirmed his “commitment” to a two state solution, which he has said for years as he continues to expand Israeli settlement in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and continues with a cabinet filled with overt racists against Palestinians and other refugees. Obama promised him huge new military hardware, as predicted. Netanyahu is paid off for being obnoxious toward the President and arrogant toward the Palestinian people (the latter being the ultimate losers in all this). Of course, I have compassion for Obama, see him as a decent human being, just as I have compassion for the Jewish people still so dominated by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and seeing the Palestinians through the framework of our past suffering.

Editorials & Actions

Hillary Clinton on the Need to Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel

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Editor’s note: Not everyone is rejoicing at Hillary Clinton’s choice to embrace the Israeli government
at the moment when Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with President Obama. See below Hillary’s statement  the statement from one prominent Israeli critic of the Occupation. How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel — and Benjamin Netanyahu

Hillary Clinton

November 4, 2015

We have recently marked the 20th anniversary of the assassination of then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, a good friend, a courageous warrior and a great statesman. This somber anniversary, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington on November 9, is an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and governments of the United States and Israel. The alliance between our two nations transcends politics.

Editorials & Actions

Say “NO” to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

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,

We at Tikkun’s Network of Spiritual Progressives are part of the Citizens Trade Campaign coalition of forces that have challenged the Clinton Administration and now the Obama Administration in their proclivity to  create trade policies that are destructive to the environment and to the well being of working people here and around the world. The latest such is the Trans-Pacific Partnership which, while having some positive aspects, would restrict countries from passing important environmental and health care related legislation that might interfere with corporate profits. This latest effort to give multinational corporations powers that supersede the powers of national governments is one more reason we need the ESRA–Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The ESRA would, among many other important measures,  overturn any such international agreement that has been approved by the U.S. government or will be approved in the future–please help us get it endorsed after you read it at www.tikkun.org/esra. 

Rabbi Michael Lerner issued the following response about the newly released full version of the TPP:

The TPP agreement violates a basic command of the Bible: that human beings must protect and act as stewards for the earth. Instead, it provides a path for corporations to overturn the most moderate environmental restraints on corporate avarice, much less the far more stringent actions that environmentalists tell us are needed to even begin to reverse climate change and preserve the earth for future generations.

Editorials & Actions

Dr. Jill Stein on Israel, Palestine and The Middle East

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Tikkun does not endorse candidates or political parties. But we do seek to inform you of perspectives that have been publlicly articulated. Here is Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, articulating her stand on what she would do were she to be president. We have repeatedly tried to get an interview with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and several Republic Party candidates  on these and related issues without any success. So the best we can say is that our readers should compare Jill Stein’s statement with others running in all of the political parties, particularly anyone whom you have chosen to support for the nomination to be your party’s candidate for president of the U.S.

 
Dr. Jill Stein on Israel, Palestine and The Middle East
 

Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein
says U.S. Policy Towards Israel, Palestine and the Middle East Must Change.

Editorials & Actions

Prime Minister Netanyahu: Have You No SHAME?

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Netanyahu: Have You No Shame? By Rabbi Michael Lerner  Oct. 25, 2015

Israel’s Prime Minister attributing the Holocaust to Palestinian influence over Hitler is a “Blood Libel” level lie. In the Middle Ages, some Christians claimed that Jews were kidnapping Christian children and using their blood to make Passover Matzah (which in Jewish law would make the Jewish kidnapper a murderer, deserving the death penalty, and the Matzah itself unkosher, because Jews are forbidden to eat blood). This “blood libel” lie has been repeated by anti-Semites and sometimes is accompanied in bookstores with a book called  “The Elders of Zion,” who purportedly met and planned to rule the world.

Editorials & Actions

Uri Avnery on Israeli Racism

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Editor’s Note: The sad reality of racism in Israel has been known to many of us for decades–a tragedy for a people which has suffered so much from the racism directed against us. Its first manifestation was in the scorn and discrimination with which Sepahrdic/Mizrachi Jews escaping from Arab countries were treated by Ashkenazi Jews who shaped the Yishuv (the pre-1948 Jewish settlements in Palestine). It has reached monumental proportions in contemporary Israel, yet most Israelis pretend that it is only a reaction to the the insecurity that they feel in relationship to the Palestinians, denying the other element that is a major part of the psychodynamics of the conflict, namely the guilt that Israelis feel at being oppressors which is then denied, repressed, cut-off, and manifests in racist portrayals of those they are dominating and hurting. Yet finally in the last few years that racism became harder to deny as it manifested toward African refugees seeking asylum in Israel and the many other non-Jews who Israel imported to fill the menial jobs that would no longer be filled by Palestinians once Israel decided to cut off the  Gaza- or West Bank-located Palestinians from working in Israel. Now this latest incident demonstrates the racism ever more clearly, and tragically.

Editorials & Actions

Dissecting Obama’s Most Recent TPP Lies

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Dissecting Obama’s Most Recent TPP Lies

EDUCATE! BARACK OBAMA, TPP
By Dean Baker, www.cepr.net
October 21st, 2015

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Above Photo: From PopularResistance.org. The early signals from the Obama administration are that the nonsense will be flowing fast and thick in its effort to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). We got an indication of the level of the nonsense factor in a CNN article reporting on the administration’s efforts to promote the still secret agreement. CNN cites a column that President Obama had in a New Hampshire newspaper that told readers:
“…trade is a substantial driver of New Hampshire’s economy. Over 20,000 American jobs are currently supported by goods exports from New Hampshire, with 32 percent of Made in New Hampshire goods exports shipped to TPP partners.”
What exactly does it mean for over 20,000 New Hampshire jobs to be supported by exports?

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The Assault on Youth in the U.S.

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Henry Giroux on:
Youth in an Authoritarian Age: Challenging the politics of disposability:
Following the insight of Hannah Arendt, a leading political theorist of mid-20th century totalitarianism, a dark cloud of political and ethical ignorance has descended upon the United States. (1) Thoughtlessness, a primary condition of authoritarian rule, now occupies a privileged, if not celebrated, place in the political landscape and the mainstream cultural apparatuses. A new kind of infantilism now shapes daily life as adults gleefully take on the role of unthinking children, while children are pushed to be adults, stripped of their innocence and subject to a range of disciplinary pressures that saddle them with debt and cripple their ability to be imaginative. (2)

Under such circumstances, agency devolves into a mind-numbing anti-intellectualism evident in the banalities produced by Fox News infotainment and celebrity culture, and in the blinding rage produced by populist politicians who support creationism, argue against climate change and rail against immigration, the rights of women, public service workers, gay people and countless others. There is more at work here than a lethal form of intellectual, political and emotional infantilism. There is also a catastrophe of indifference and inattentiveness that breeds flirtations with irrationality, fuels the spectacle of violence, creates an embodied incapacity and promotes the withering of public life. To read more articles by Henry A. Giroux and other authors in the Public Intellectual Project, click here.