Editorials & Actions

Wiki Leaks Show How the Ruling Class Shapes the Democratic Party–and how to challenge that

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Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton
What John Podesta’s emails from 2008 reveal about the way power works in the Democratic Party. BY DAVID DAYEN
October 14, 2016

The most important revelation in the WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta’s emails has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. The messages go all the way back to 2008, when Podesta served as co-chair of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. And a month before the election, the key staffing for that future administration was almost entirely in place, revealing that some of the most crucial decisions an administration can make occur well before a vote has been cast. MOST POPULAR

The Religious Right’s Devotion to Donald Trump Will End the Movement As We Know It
Donald Trump’s Campaign Has Become a Cult
Mike Pence Isn’t Qualified to Be President, Either
For Fairer Courts, Address Prosecutor Bias
Why Bob Dylan’s Songs Are Literature

Michael Froman, who is now U.S. trade representative but at the time was an executive at Citigroup, wrote an email to Podesta on October 6, 2008, with the subject “Lists.” Froman used a Citigroup email address.

Editorials & Actions

American World of Frustration by Tom Engelhardt

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Editor’s note: As Jews enter the High Holiday season (Rosh HaShanah, Oct 2nd eve,  the beginning of ten days of reflection on our lives and how far we may have strayed from our own highest values), it is also a period of reflection on our communal “sins” (actually, the Jewish concept of “sin” is that of thinking of ourselves as an arrow aimed at a target of being the most loving and compassionate and generous person we could possibly be, but which has now gone slightly off course and is missing the target, so the period from Rosh HaShanah through Yom Kippur, Oct. 12, is one of trying to get that arrow back on course, a mid-course correction, a soul tune-up). Part of that process is getting a clearer sense of where our society has gone astray. In the article below, in a tone that reflects deep frustration, our ally Tom Engelhardt takes on some of the dimensions of where we have missed the mark, by not really holding accountable the political leadership that we helped elect. The point, of course, is not to make ourselves feel bad, but to think of steps that we must take to correct where our society has gone astray.

Editorials & Actions

Decoding the Federal Budget by Jeffrey Sachs

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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.

Editorials & Actions

Now What? After the Presidential Election – The Tikkun Strategy Conference and 30th Anniversary Celebration in Berkeley, Ca. Nov. 12 and 13

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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!

Editorials & Actions

Interview with Jill Stein, Green Party Candidate for U.S. President

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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.

Articles

War or Peace: The Essential Question Before Voters on November 8th

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In the 1992 presidential election, the campaign team of Bill Clinton had the remarkable insight to simplify the choice before the American electorate in November, encapsulating the whole thought process in the phrase “it’s the economy, stupid.” Following this advice, voters ignored the foreign policy triumphs of President George H. W. Bush’s administration, including the recently won war against Iraq to liberate occupied Kuwait, and the slightly more remote “victory” in the Cold War, which Bush recalled to the nation in the forlorn hope of eliciting gratitude. Indeed, going into the elections, the economy was anemic, for cyclical reasons, and it was not to the incumbent’s advantage that this fact be highlighted.

Editorials & Actions

Glenn Greenwald on Why the Saudi Regime and Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to the Clinton Foundation

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Why Did the Saudi Regime and Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to the Clinton Foundation? By Glenn Greenwald [ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/staff/glenn-greenwald/]
Aug. 25 2016, 7:42 a.m.
 
As the numerous and obvious ethical conflicts surrounding the Clinton Foundation receive more media scrutiny, the tactic of Clinton-loyal journalists is to highlight the charitable work done by the foundation, and then insinuate — or even outright state — that anyone raising these questions is opposed to its charity. James Carville announced [ http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/james-carville-clinton-foundation-attacks-227305 ] that those who criticize the foundation are “going to hell.” Other Clinton loyalists insinuated that Clinton Foundation critics are indifferent to the lives of HIV-positive babies[ https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/768556490202505216 ] or are anti-gay bigots [ https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/768556697120047104 ].

Editorials & Actions

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U.S. MILITARY NOW SAYS ISIS LEADER WAS HELD IN NOTORIOUS ABU GHRAIB PRISON

Joshua Eaton
Aug. 25 2016, 10:56 a.m.

Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

IN FEBRUARY 2004, U.S. troops brought a man named Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badry to Abu Ghraib in Iraq and assigned him serial number US9IZ-157911CI. The prison was about to become international news, but the prisoner would remain largely unknown for the next decade. At the time the man was brought in, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba was finalizing his report on allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib’s Hard Site — a prison building used to house detainees singled out for their alleged violence or their perceived intelligence value.

Editorials & Actions

Obamacare Undermined By Its Deal To Allow Profits for Insurance Companies While Forcing People to Participate

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Obamacare’s Faltering for One Simple Reason: Profit

Jon Schwarz
Aug. 27 2016, 8:05 a.m.

Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

There have been dozens if not hundreds of news articles about Aetna leaving the Affordable Health Care Act’s online marketplaces in eleven states, and whether this signals serious problems for Obamacare down the road. But none of them have truly explained that what’s happening with Aetna is the consequence of a flaw built into Obamacare from the start: It permits insurance companies to make a profit on the basic healthcare package Americans are now legally required to purchase. This makes Obamacare fundamentally different from essentially all systems of universal healthcare on earth. (There is one tiny exception, the Netherlands, but of the four insurance companies that cover 90 percent of Dutch citizens, just one is for profit.)

Why does this matter? The answer is complicated but extremely important if Obamacare is going to avoid collapsing.

Editorials & Actions

US Media Propaganda Paving the Way for Military Escalation In Syria

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editor’s note: War is not the way to peace.  Try a Strategy of Generosity worldide (see www.tikkun.org/gmp) and download the full color description of the strategy

“Human rights” propaganda campaign paves way for military escalation in Syria
19 August 2016
Photographs and video of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh have rapidly become ubiquitous in the media in the US and Western Europe after being distributed by a group aligned with the CIA-backed Islamist “rebels” in Syria. The toddler is shown sitting somewhat dazed in the orange seat of a new and well-equipped ambulance, his face covered in dust and tinged with what appears to be dried blood from what was reportedly a cut to his scalp. Video shows him waiting unattended as a number of photographers and videographers record his image to be broadcast around the world. Clearly, those in charge sensed that the boy, with a mop of hair covering his brow and a cartoon t-shirt, provided a marketable image.

Editorials & Actions

Clinton Picks Advocate for TPP and Fracking to Set Up Her White House

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[ https://theintercept.com/2016/08/16/hillary-clinton-picks-tpp-and-fracking-advocate-to-set-up-her-white-house/ ]

The Intercept_
Unofficial _Sources

IMAGE [ https://prod01-cdn04.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/08/ken-salazar-hillary-ft-3-article-header.jpg ]
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Hillary Clinton Picks TPP and Fracking Advocate To Set Up Her White House
Zaid Jilani [ https://theintercept.com/staff/zaidjilani/ ]
Naomi LaChance [ https://theintercept.com/staff/naomilachance/ ]
Aug. 16 2016, 1:56 p.m

Two big issues dogged Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary: theTrans-Pacific Partnership [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/15/politics/45-times-secretary-clinton-pushed-the-trade-bill-she-now-opposes/ ] trade agreement (TPP) and fracking [ https://theintercept.com/2016/05/23/hillary-clinton-fracking/ ]. She had a long history of supporting both. Under fire from Bernie Sanders, she came out against the TPP [http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/politics/hillary-clinton-opposes-tpp/ ] and took a more critical position [ http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/03/hillary-clinton-debate-fracking ] on fracking. But critics wondered if this was a sincere conversion or simply campaign rhetoric.

Editorials & Actions

The Greatest Show on Earth How Billions of Words, Tweets, Insults, and Polls Blot Out Reality in Campaign 2016

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In the last year, untold billions of words have been expended on this “election” and the outsized histories, flaws, and baggage the two personalities now running for president bring with them. Has there ever been this sort of coverage — close to a year of it already — hour after hour, day after day, night after night? Has the New York Times ever featured stories about the same candidate and his cronies, two at a time, on its front page daily the way it’s recently been highlighting the antics of The Donald? Have there ever been so many “experts” of every stripe jawing away about a single subject on cable TV from the crack of dawn to the witching hour?

Editorials & Actions

Adolph Reed on Bernie Sanders and the New Class Politics

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An interview with African American scholar Adolph Reed on Bernie  Sander’s Campaign and the New Class Politics 
Bernie Sanders’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was historic. The expectations were, to say the least, modest. One year ago, ex-Obama chief strategist David Axelrod didn’t hesitate to mock his candidacy saying that “people will have a fling with Bernie. Bernie is like a great fun date because you know he’s not going to be around town too long, and I think you’re going to see people flirt with that.”

But, against all odds, within months Sanders would raise over $200 million in small contributions, and win more than thirteen million votes (43 percent of the total) and twenty-three states. Though he fell short of the nomination, Sanders left an impact on a generation of new voters and the political discourse in the country. What exactly that will mean for the Left and the country’s labor movement remains to be seen.

Editorials & Actions

Patriotic Muslim Dad Hails Dead Son’s Participation in U.S. Crime Against Humanity in Muslim Iraq

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Patriotic Muslim Dad Hails Dead Son’s Participation in US Crime Against Humanity in Muslim Iraq
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When she was Senator, Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton voted for the US invasion of Iraq, an obvious international crime against humanity that would take the lives of a million and half innocent Muslims, probably half of them children. Last week her nominating Democratic Convention, featured a Muslim father, whose son was killed participating in US crime against Muslim people ranting about what a bad guy her opponent Donald Trump is and praising himself and his son as patriotic, though Trump had spoken out against the illegal and criminal invasion of Iraq.Here below, are the very terse, concise, precise, unequivocal, brief to the point, clear and easy to understand Nuremberg Principles of International Law, mostly written by Americans, signed on to by all nations and first used to hang a number of Nazi leaders of a Germany, that invaded only some twenty nations – US since has invaded perhaps more than as twice that number.[1] (Few Americans are interested in this comparison)Principle IAny person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.Principle IIThe fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.Principle IIIThe fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.Principle IVThe fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.Principle VAny person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.Principle VIThe crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:(a) Crimes against peace: (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).(b) War crimes:Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.(c) Crimes against humanity:Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connectionwith any crime against peace or any war crime.Principle VIIComplicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime againsthumanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.(Your author’s mentor and dear friend, Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark has stated that by Article Six of the US Constitution, the Nuremberg Principles of International Law are an integral part of the law of the land.)Later in the week, the monolithic wars justifying US media, for decades force fed and controlled by the CIA,[2] brought out information that seemed to indicate Donald Trump’s unwillingness to participate in a previous US genocidal crime against humanity to prevent Vietnam from having the communist government it has today and has had since Americans got tired of killing and being killed in what was French Indochina colonies before World War Two.Do readers recall what America’s beloved heroic champion Muhammad Ali said about his refusal to be drafted during the US war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia?”Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars.