Rabbi Lerner is going to be speaking in Massachusetts the weekend of May 20-22nd, and wants to invite you to come hear him at one of these events!
Editorials & Actions
Victor Wechsler-Grossman on Refugees–our correspondent from Berlin
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The Refugee Crisis
WHO IS TO BLAME, May 12 2016
Back in 1963 Bob Dylan (soon to be 75) wrote a bitter song; Pete Seeger also sang it often. It asks, after the death of a young boxer: “Who killed Davey Moore? How come he died, and what’s the reason for?” Then came the alibis of all those responsible, from the manager and media to the boxing crowds: “Not I… Don’t point your little finger at me.” Europe today, though not dead, is in deep disarray, heart-rendingly for very many and menacingly for the world. Here, too, one might inquire: How come? Who is to blame?
Editorials & Actions
Daniel Berrigan z’l Dead at 94
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Daniel Berrigan was one of the most inspiring figures of the anti-war and social justice movements of the past fifty years. He died on Saturday, April 30, 2016, and will be sorely missed by all of us who knew him. I was first introduced to him by my mentor Abraham Joshua Heschel in 1968 when he and Heschel and Martin Luther King had become prominent voices in the Clergy and Laity Against the War in Vietnam. He told me that he had been inspired by the civil disobedience and militant demonstrations that were sweeping the country in 1966-68, many of them led by Students for a Democratic Society (at the time I was chair of the University of California Berkeley chapter). Over the course of the ensuing 48 years I was inspired by his activism and grateful for his support for Tikkun magazine.
Editorials & Actions
Drone Whistleblowers Step Out of the Shadows
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Pratap Chatterjee, Inside the Devastation of America’s Drone Wars
Posted by Pratap Chatterjee on Tikkun’s media ally: TomDispatch.com
A note from Tom Engelhardt: In our part of the world, it’s not often that potential “collateral damage” speaks, but it happened last week. A Pakistani tribal leader, Malik Jalal, flew to England to plead in anewspaper piece he wrote and in media interviews to be taken off the Obama White House’s “kill list.” (“I am in England this week because I decided that if Westerners wanted to kill me without bothering to come to speak with me first, perhaps I should come to speak to them instead.”) Jalal, who lives in Pakistan’s tribal borderlands, is a local leader and part of a peace committee sanctioned by the Pakistani government that is trying to tamp down the violence in the region. He believes that he’s been targeted for assassination by Washington. (Four drone missiles, he claims, have just missed him or his car.) His family, he says, is traumatized by the drones. “I don’t want to end up a ‘Bugsplat’ — the ugly word that is used for what remains of a human being after being blown up by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone,” he writes. “More importantly, I don’t want my family to become victims, or even to live with the droning engines overhead, knowing that at any moment they could be vaporized.”
Normally, what “they” do to us, or our European counterparts (think: Brussels, Paris, or San Bernardino), preoccupies us 24/7. What we do to “them” — and them turns out to be far more than groups of terrorists — seldom touches our world at all. As TomDispatch readers know, this website has paid careful attention to the almost 300 wedding celebrants killed by U.S. air power between late 2001 and the end of 2013 — eight wedding parties eviscerated in three countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen). These are deaths that, unlike the 14 Americans murdered in San Bernardino, the 32 Belgians and others killed in Brussels, and the 130 French and others slaughtered in Paris, have caused not even a ripple here (though imagine for a second the reaction if even a single wedding, no less eight of them and hundreds of revelers, had been wiped out by a terror attack in the U.S. in these years). Any sense of sadness or regret for Washington’s actions, when it comes to the many killed, wounded, or traumatized in its never-ending, implacable, and remarkably unsuccessful war on terror, is notable mainly for its absence from our world. So it’s an extraordinary moment when any Americans — no less a group that has been deeply involved in prosecuting the drone war on terror — publicly expresses empathy for the “collateral damage” inflicted in that ongoing conflict. Pratap Chatterjee brings genuine news today from the heart of America’ s drone wars, from those who should best be able to assess the grim reality of just what Washington has been doing in our name. Tom
Drone Whistleblowers Step Out of the Shadows
In Washington’s Drone Wars, Collateral Damage Comes Home
By Pratap Chatterjee
In a trio of recent action-packed movies, good guys watch terrorists mingling with innocent women and children via real-time video feeds from halfway across the world. A clock ticks and we, the audience, are let in on the secret that mayhem is going to break loose. After much agonized soul-searching about possible collateral damage, the good guys call in a missile strike from a U.S. drone to try to save the day by taking out a set of terrorists.
Editorials & Actions
Pro Hillary vs. Pro Bernie
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Tikkun magazine is a 501-c3 and hence prohibited from taking stands in support of or opposition to any candidate or political party. But we can and do present analyses of positions taken by political candidates and also allow our writers and readers to explain why they’ve decided to support candidate x or y. Below we present a pro-Hillary position by Tom Hayden and a pro-Bernie position by Art Pena. Since Pena is less well known, he gets to go first. Why I Support Bernie by Art Pena
Many people prefer Bernie, and don’t like Hillary, but are planning to vote for Hillary anyway because, in spite of what the polls say, they think she has a better chance of beating Trump in a general election. They fear a Trump presidency so much that they are willing to support Hillary, the establishment candidate, as the “lesser of two evils”.
Editorials & Actions
Bernie Sanders Speech to the Vatican and Hillary Clinton’s Speech to National Action Network
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Tikkun magazine does not endorse candidates for public office nor does it support any political party. Bernie Sanders Speech to the Vatican April 16
I am honored to be with you today and was pleased to receive your
invitation to speak to this conference of The Pontifical Academy of
Social Sciences. Today we celebrate the encyclical Centesimus Annus
and reflect on its meaning for our world a quarter-century after it
was presented by Pope John Paul II. With the fall of Communism, Pope
John Paul II gave a clarion call for human freedom in its truest
sense: freedom that defends the dignity of every person and that is
always oriented towards the common good. The Church’s social teachings, stretching back to the first modern
encyclical about the industrial economy, Rerum Novarum in 1891, to
Centesimus Annus, to Pope Francis’s inspiring encyclical Laudato Si’
this past year, have grappled with the challenges of the market
economy.
Editorials & Actions
My Democracy Spring–a report from a Tikkunista at the D.C. Demonstrations for Money Out of Politics
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My Democracy Spring
by Michael Kramer, a member of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-Without-Walls
It started with an email many months ago about protesting the fact that what the people want has no influence in legislation, while money very much does. If we could get 1000 people willing to risk arrest for a protest of this sad state of affairs, then let’s do it! We got well over 1000 within 2 weeks, and 3000, ultimately. I arrived at the required preparatory meeting (for people intending to risk arrest) a few minutes early, and there was a group of about 30 people on the street waiting for the doors to open. Many had participated in the march from Philadelphia with a crowd that, reportedly, started at about 150. The crowd had grown and shrunk along the way, swelling to about 250 on the last day. There was great praise for the logistics: sometimes there was enough money to put everyone up at a motel, other times on church floors. The food was far better than expected – at least as good as at home. Marchers were joined by hundreds of others who arrived to participate in the protests at the Capitol this week, and the time of action at the Capitol would start the next day. Chatting with people waiting to enter the preparatory meeting, I met some from Washington (state), North Carolina, Michigan, New York, California, and Florida, converging here to be arrested for the sake of promoting a change from the existing plutocracy to the representative democracy that our constitution defines. I’d be surprised if any state was not represented. The attendance at this meeting was over capacity, so after about the first ~200, people had to be turned away for another meeting that was hastily set up. Other meetings would run twice daily for those who arrived later in the week. Presentations, discussions, and activities covered the history and effectiveness of civil disobedience, body language and tactics for dealing with the police, the legal implications and consequences of the coming action, and connection with each other, sharing why we had (individually) come. I was choking back tears a lot of the time, just over the inspiration of seeing so many who care about the miserable state of affairs in which we find ourselves – that big money donors have continued to increase their power in government at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. Bribery of our representatives has been legalized and given pretty names. Lobbyist.
Editorials & Actions
Destroying the Remaining Decency in the Israeli Army by Uri Avnerygues
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Uri Avnery
April 9, 2015
The Case of Soldier A
IT SEEMS that everything possible has already been said, written, proclaimed, asserted and denied about the incident that is rocking Israel.
Everything except the main point.
THE INCIDENT revolves around “the Soldier of Hebron”. Military censorship does not allow him to be called by his name. He may be called “Soldier A”.
Editorials & Actions
Are We In a New World? Tom Engelhardt on American politics 2016
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Entering Uncharted Territory in Washington
Are We in a New American World?
By Tom Engelhardt
The other week, feeling sick, I spent a day on my couch with the TV on and was reminded of an odd fact of American life. More than seven months before Election Day, you can watch the 2016 campaign for the presidency at any moment of your choosing, and that’s been true since at least late last year. There is essentially never a time when some network or news channel isn’t reporting on, discussing, debating, analyzing, speculating about, or simply drooling over some aspect of the primary campaign, of Hillary, Bernie, Ted, and above all — a million times above all — The Donald (from the violence at his rallies to the size of hishands). In case you’re young and think this is more or less the American norm, it isn’t. Or wasn’t.
Editorials & Actions
Clinton, Sanders, Trump and Cruz on Israel and US Foreign Policy
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Editor’s Note: It’s important for us to know what the foreign policy of the next President is likely to be. Since the wars we in Western countries helped create or finance in the Middle East, our interventions in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine,etc for the past fifty years, and the fallout from those wars and interventions, will inevitably play a significant role both in foreign policy and in domestic policies concerning “homeland security,” it’s worth our time to study carefully what the leading candidates are saying on these issues. The talks below given on March 21, 2016, are worth reading and re-reading to get the feell and direction you can expect should one of these people be the next president of the U.S.
For a Tikkun Network of Spiritual Progressives approach to foreign policy, please read our proposed Global Marshall Plan at www.tikkun.org/gmp and for our specifc plan for how to bring peace to the Middle East, please order our book Embracing Israel and Palestine at www.tikkun.org/eip. Hillary Clinton
It is wonderful to be here and see so many friends. I’ve spoken at a lot of AIPAC conferences in the past, but this has to be one of the biggest yet, and there are so many young people here, thousands of college students…
(APPLAUSE) … from hundreds of campuses around the country.
Editorials & Actions
What Can We Learn from the Presidential Race?
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What Can We Learn from The Presidential Race? Michael N. Nagler
I have never voted Republican, but I stand with those Republicans today who are aghast at what Donald Trump has done to the level of political discourse in this country and the future of their party. I also stand with the smaller number – but I will have more to say on this in a second – who realize that Mr. Trump did not spring from nowhere but is in fact the logical extension of the direction in which this party has been going for some time. After all, as Rosalyn Carter said astutely of then-Governor Reagan when her husband was running against him, “The trouble with that man is that he makes us feel good about our prejudices.” Is this not exactly what Mr. Trump is doing? The only thing different now is the greater openness of the appeal to egotism and prejudice. And therein lies its value as a teaching moment. A number of people, most recently the President of Mexico (of whom I’m not otherwise an admirer) have compared Mr. Trump to Hitler. Well, to use an important term in the field of peace studies and nonviolence, Hitler inadvertently did one useful thing: he delegitimized racism by carrying it out on such a scale that the world was shocked. To delegitimize is not necessarily to eliminate – that takes a bit more work; but the possibility here, if we would only make use of it, is that this year’s campaign could delegitimize prejudice, vulgarity, and incivility (they’re closely connected). As conservative columnist E.R. Dionne writes (March 7, 2016), “the crudest, most vulgar, and most thoroughly disgusting campaign in our nation’s history.” It has therefore created an opportunity for us to restore some dignity to our political culture.
To do that, however, we have to get deeper into what is driving this race to the bottom that has made this year’s campaign a national disgrace.
Editorials & Actions
Juan Cole: Hillary goes full Neocon at AIPAC– suggesting Trump isn’t militaristic enough
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Hillary Clinton goes full Neocon at AIPAC, Demonizes Iran, Palestinians
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | March 22, 2016
I once heard Hillary Clinton give her AIPAC speech at a university. It doesn’t change much, just as US policy toward the Mideast doesn’t change much. She was still a senator then. Much of the audience was Middle East experts, who could barely keep themselves from gagging. Clinton used her speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee meeting, the gathering of some of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, to lambaste Donald Trump for saying he’d try to be neutral in heading up negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Editorials & Actions
Gideon Levy on Israel’s Influence on America
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In his keynote address to the March 18 “Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?” conference, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy described where he would take, and what he would say to, a U.S. congressional delegation to Israel. He would take them, Levy said, to meet the Abu Khoussa family in Gaza, whose 6-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son were killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home. He would tell them about 16-year-old American Mahmoud Saalan of Tampa, Florida, who had been shot dead at a military checkpoint by Israeli soldiers, allegedly for carrying a knife. And, Levy said, he would also take the American legislators to Hebron, because “I never met an honest human being who had been to Hebron and didn’t come back after a few hours in shock.”
Days later and blocks away, members of Congress and three of the four remaining presidential candidates were professing their undying allegiance to Israel at the yearly policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel’s Washington, DC lobby. Aware of this annual parade of elected U.S. officials, Levy knew that, in his remarks at the National Press Club, he was describing a “virtual tour of those congressmen who would never come to listen to me and will never let me take them around.”
Levy’s presentation at the 2015 conference “The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the U.S.?
Editorials & Actions
Philip Roth’s Warning About US Fascism
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Philip Roth’s warning
by Arthur J. Magida
Posted on Mar. 16, 2016 at 8:43 am
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Cover of Roth’s “The Plot Against America”
Slightly more than a decade ago, Philip Roth warned how fascism would come to America – legally, of course, since we’re a nation of laws, and attached to a hero, a legend, a star: the aviator ex machina himself, Charles Lindbergh, since Roth was writing about the U.S. in the late 30’s and early 40s, the years when Lucky Lindy’s popularity peaked. Roth cautioned about all this in his 2004 novel, The Plot Against America — an almost plausible schematic of a Nazi takeover of the United States. We foolishly paid no heed to Roth’s prophecy because we’re supposedly too smart, too wedded to democracy, too cynical of salesmen pitching quickie panaceas, and too… well, too gosh darn decent to let that Nazi stuff sully our certainty that we’re a beacon for the world, a gleaming city on a hill. No way, we crowed, thumping our chests in pride: it can’t happen here.
Editorials & Actions
The Alzheimer’s Party by Trish Vradenburg
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A third party the Dems and GOP can get behind: Alzheimer’s Party
UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, a nonprofit devoted to stopping the progression of Alzheimer’s by 2020, is calling to unify around the “Alzheimer’s Party.” (NJ Advance Media wire services)
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updated March 17, 2016 at 12:37 PM Reprinted with author’s permission from the New Jersey STAR LEDGER
By Trish Vradenburg
My role in life has been to cancel my husband’s vote. George grew up in Colorado – God’s country as he calls it – where being a Republican is served with mother’s milk. I, on the other hand, was raised in New Jersey, the Garden State, populated with people who, after hearing both sides of every argument, chose to be Democrats. And then we met each other and, well, somehow in the heat of passion I forgot to ask about party affiliation. Not that it would have been a deal breaker since I assumed that once we married I could break George’s silly habit of voting with the elephants.