Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/politics__society/page/30/)
Editor’s Note: As we’ve noted each time we post something about the election, we are NOT endorsing any candidate or party, but allowing members of our community to explain why they have chosen who they’ve chosen to support. JANUARY 29 ,2016
BY DAVID SWANSON
Jill Stein’s platform more viable than Bernie’s
David Swanson conducted this exclusive interview with Jill Stein for American Herald Tribune.
Failed States and States of Failure
“We Destroyed the Cities to Save Them” and Other Future Headlines
By Tom Engelhardt
One of the charms of the future is its powerful element of unpredictability, its ability to ambush us in lovely ways or bite us unexpectedly in the ass. Most of the futures I imagined as a boy have, for instance, come up deeply short, or else I would now be flying my individual jet pack through the spired cityscape of New York and vacationing on the moon. And who, honestly, could have imagined the Internet, no less social media and cyberspace (unless, of course, you had read William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer 30 years ago)? Who could have dreamed that a single country’s intelligence outfits would be able to listen in onor otherwise intercept and review not just the conversations and messages of its own citizens — imagine the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century — but those of just about anyone on the planet, from peasants in the backlands of Pakistan to at least 35 leaders of major and minor countries around the world? This is, of course, our dystopian present, based on technological breakthroughs that even sci-fi writers somehow didn’t imagine. And who thought that the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street were coming down the pike or, for that matter, a terror caliphate in the heart of the former Middle East or a Donald Trump presidential run that would go from success to success amid free media coverage the likes of which we’ve seldom seen?
Editor’s note: Tikkun as a 501-=c-3 non profit does not take stands in support of candidates or political parties. But our readers do have positions and we are happy to put any coherent and insightful piece of writing about the elections, candidates (for president) and political parties up on this website and/or to send it out to our broad readership. But what we put up here or send out does NOT represent Tikkun’s position though it may represent the position of some of the members of our editorial board, but may not. Meanwhile, Steve Weisman, whom I haven’t seen for many decades, was one of the brightest leaders of the Free Speech Movement. It was he who asked me (21 years old and in my first year as a graduate student in philosophy at U.C. Berkeley), on December 2nd, 1964, to lead the Chanukah service at 1 a.m. in Sproul Hall during the FSM sit-in to shut down the university, and then around 6 a.m. he asked me to climb down a rope with him from the second story of the building so we could explain to the thousands of students standing outside what we were seeing as the police arrested and brutally hurt many of the nonviolent demonstrators who had taken the nonviolent resistance pose sitting on the floors of the hallways of this University of California administration building.
Editor’s Note: We at Tikkun have been involved for the last decade in supporting the important work of the SOA, the religious progressive organization that challenges the U.S. government to shut down its school (formerly known as the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, and operating out of Fort Benning in Georgia) that trains torturers and murderers who go back to Central and South America and uses the latest techniques and equipment that they’ve learned at the School of the Americas to intimidate, torture or murder those whom they consider a threat to the oligarchs whose oppressive rule they are asked to protect. The SOA organization brings thousands of people to Ft. Benning the weekend before Thanksgiving each year to protest and demand that this horrific school be closed by the US Army. The demonstration also mourns the thousands of people killed by the actions of the graduates of this horrific institution.–Rabbi Michael Lerner
Twelve of the Eighteen Former Military Arrested in Guatemala are SOA Graduates
Michael,
Last week, eighteen former military officials were arrested on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in one of the largest mass arrests of military officers Latin America has ever seen. Twelve of them were trained at the SOA. The arrests happened one week before the January 14th inauguration of newly elected President Jimmy Morales, of the National Convergence Front (FCN). Morales, whose party has close ties to the military, faces pressure in the face of the current developments. Morales’ right hand man, Edgar Justino Ovalle Maldonado, who is also the FCN party co-founder, newly elected congressman, and retired colonel, is also facing similar charges, though he was not arrested because of his immunity as a congressman.
America Revisits the Dark Side
Candidates Compete to Promise the Most Torture and Slaughter
By Rebecca Gordon
They’re back! From the look of the presidential campaign, war crimes are back on the American agenda. We really shouldn’t be surprised, because American officials got away with it last time — and in the case of the drone wars continue to get away with it today. Still, there’s nothing like the heady combination of a “populist” Republican race for the presidency and a national hysteria over terrorism to make Americans want to reach for those “enhanced interrogation techniques.” That, as critics have long argued, is what usually happens if war crimes aren’t prosecuted. In August 2014, when President Obama finally admitted that “we tortured some folks,” he added a warning.
Editor’s note: Amitai Etzioni’s article below is a powerful critique of approaches we often take in Tikkun magazine. We welcome this kind of challenge to the vision we put forward, particularly at www.spiritualprogressives.org/covenant. Please read that along with this article. One question we have to ask Etzioni: what level of consumption reduction would be sufficient to prevent humanity living in capitalist socieites around the globe from continuing the destruction of the life support system of the planet that is a regular feature of the capitalist marketplace’s endless search for profits–and how could that search be stopped as long as capitalism depends on private investment to fuel its bottom line and meet the growing demands from all around the world for a standard of living comparable to that in the U.S. Middle class? The New Normal
Amitai Etzioni
If the people of the world cannot return to what is being called the ‘old normal’ (paid for by strongly growing economies), what will the new normal look like?
Editor’s Note: Tikkun magazine is a 501-c-3 non profit that is precluded by law from endorsing political candidates or opposing them. But we are not precluded from publishing articles by our readers who take strong stands about electoral issues. We have a tiny staff and do not have the capacity to verify empirical claims made by our authors–so it’s up to you to make those inquiries on your own. On the other hand, as the magazine that came into existence as “the voice of Jewish liberals and progressives and the alternative to Commentary magazine and the voices of Jewish conservatism and conformism in American society,” even though we are now ALSO both a Jewish voice AND an INTERFAITH voice for secular humanists and militant atheists AS WELL as for Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and any other religion that cares about human rights, social justice, environmental sanity and peace, we have a special interest in challenging fascism and other anti-democratic or hate-promoting social movements whether they be in the U.S., Israel, or any other society. So we are proud to present below one such inquiry into whether we are now facing the emergence of a fascist movement in the U.S., and welcome responses from our readers and invite other analyses including those that challenge we are printing here.
Kids’ Questions on a Lockdown Planet, Thinking the Parentally Unthinkable
Dealing with your child in the world of San Bernardino hysteria, the Islamic State, and Donald Trump — by Frida Berrigan,
— Frida Berrigan,
Fear? Tell me about it. Unfortunately, I’m so old that I’m not sure I really remember what I felt when, along with millions of other schoolchildren of the 1950s, I ducked and coveredlike Bert the Turtle, huddling under my desk while sirens howled outside the classroom window. We were, of course, being prepared to protect ourselves from the nuclear obliteration of New York City. But let me tell you, I do remember those desks and they did not exactly instill a sense of confidence in a child.
Forgiveness involves seeking forgiveness for ourselves after genuine repentance, and then forgiving others. Forgiveness does not mean giving others a continuing right to oppress or hurt other people. We can both forgive those who tortured prisoners or supported economic or political policies that caused the death of thousands and nevertheless still insist that they be punished for their behavior. The practice of forgiveness frees us from the burden of carrying with us negative feelings that may limit our capacity for empathy and weaken our ability to love. It is not meant to disempower us from the righteous indignation at global capitalism that is destroying the life-support system of Earth and at those who accumulate huge amounts of wealth while turning their backs and closing their ears to the cries of the homeless, the hungry, the refugees, the powerless.
Editor’s note: Tikkun is a nonprofit and prohibited from supporting candidates or political parties. So we don’t. But we can publicize views from our readers and writers on these issues, or from others. We welcome anyone with a coherent argument to present to us articles supporting presidential candidates in any major political party including Republicans, Greens and Democrats. Mail them to me at RabbiLerner.tikkun@gmail.com We do not have the staff to investigate the truth or falsity of claims being made on behalf of any political party or candidate.
The US and the Rise of ISIS
by Prof. Stephen Zunes
The rise of ISIS (also known as Daesh, ISIL, or the “Islamic State”) is a direct consequence of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. While there are a number of other contributing factors as well, that fateful decision is paramount. Had Congress not authorized President George W. Bush the authority to illegally invade a country on the far side of the world that was no threat to us, and to fund the occupation and bloody counter-insurgency war that followed, the reign of terror ISIS has imposed upon large swathes of Syria and Iraq and the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Beirut, the Sinai, San Bernardino and elsewhere would never have happened. Among the many scholars, diplomats, and political figures who warned of such consequences was a then-Illinois state senator named Barack Obama, who noted that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would “only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda” and other like-minded extremists. It is ironic, then, that most of those who went ahead and supported the invasion of Iraq anyway are now trying to blame him for the rise of ISIS.
America’s Reckless War Against Evil
Why It’s Self-Defeating and Has No End
By Ira Chernus
Oh, no! Not another American war against evil! This time, it’s the Islamic State (IS). After the attacks in Paris, Barack Obama, spokesman-in-chief for the United States of America, called that crew “the face of evil.” Shades of George W. Bush. The “evildoers” are back.
Emperor Weather
Turning Up the Heat on History
By Tom Engelhardt
For six centuries or more, history was, above all, the story of the great game of empires. From the time the first wooden ships mounted with cannons left Europe’s shores, they began to compete for global power and control. Three, four, even five empires, rising and falling, on an increasingly commandeered and colonized planet. The story, as usually told, is a tale of concentration and of destruction until, in the wake of the second great bloodletting of the twentieth century, there were just two imperial powers left standing: the United States and the Soviet Union. Where the other empires, European and Japanese, had been, little remained but the dead, rubble, refugees, and scenes that today would be associated only with a place like Syria.
America to Working Class Whites: Drop Dead! by Barbara Ehrenreich December 1, 2015. It’s the American mean season. No question about it. Racism.
Juan Cole on the Top Ten Differences Between White Terrorists and Others
1. White terrorists are called “gunmen.” What does that even mean? A person with a gun? Wouldn’t that be, like, everyone in the US? Other terrorists are called, like, “terrorists.”
2. White terrorists are “troubled loners.” Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners. 3. Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen. Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion. 4. The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed. Advertisement
5. White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.