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EDITORIALS
A Living Wage—Not a Minimum Wage
MICHAEL LERNER
We hope Democrats will succeed in raising the minimum wage to $10.10, but we realize that more is needed to end poverty. Fight for a living wage!
Pope Francis and the Christian Renewal He Seeks
MICHAEL LERNER
Pope Francis has legitimated a powerful critique of global capitalism, drawing attention to its anti-spiritual, anti-God, anti-ethical essence.
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RETHINKING RELIGION
The Tikkun Passover Supplement
MICHAEL LERNER
The Jewish liberation holiday, Passover, has messages for anyone seeking to heal the world. This supplement expands on the Haggadah (Seder guide). For the short version that appeared in this print magazine, click here. For our greatly expanded web version of this supplement, click here.
Loving-Kindness to the Thousandth Generation
ANA LEVY-LYONS
Violence can take on a life of its own, rippling in unexpected directions. But our religious traditions teach us that love proliferates exponentially more.
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POLITICS & SOCIETY
Political Posters for the Twenty-First Century: A Spotlight on the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative
PAUL VON BLUM
Surveillance. War. Immigration. Palestine. Social justice heroes. Occupy. The political posters of the Justseeds collective take on all this and more.
What Do the Suicides of Fifty-Year-Old Men Reveal?
MARGARET MORGANROTH GULLETTE
Suicide has become a public health emergency for middle-aged men in the United States, exposing a deeper economic and existential crisis.
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SPECIAL SECTION: DOES AMERICA NEED A LEFT?
Does America Need a Left? An Introduction
MICHAEL LERNER
America needs a spiritual Left—not a soul-deprived, economistic, and narrowly rights-oriented movement that plays into the hands of the Right.
Why the Left Needs America: A Response to Eli Zaretsky’s Why America Needs a Left: A Historical Argument
JAMES LIVINGSTON
To be effective the Left must learn to retell the story of America’s founding. In that sense, the Left needs America more than America needs a Left.
The Past, Present, and Future of the American Left
ELI ZARETSKY
Retelling a liberalist story of America’s founding will never yield what we need: a self-aware Left with a proper conception of capitalism.
Enter the Alter-Left: Reviving Our Revolutionary Nerve
CHAIA HELLER
Anti-neoliberal mobilizations in Latin America, WTO protests in Seattle, and Occupy Wall Street have catalyzed a promising force: the Alter-Left.
Joining the Party for a More Powerful Left
JEREMY VARON
The Left spends too much energy deciding whom to exclude. Let’s build a pluralistic, big-tent Left that embraces all with liberal-Left political faith.
Prospects for a Resurgence of the U.S. Left
BARBARA EPSTEIN
How can the Left overcome its fragmentation? Forming a coalition against neoliberalism and environmental degradation is one way to start.
Climate Disaster Demands an Ecological Left
JANET BIEHL
Scorching heat, floods, and wildfires are not just environmental crises—they’re social ones too. We need a Left that sees the primacy of this threat.
What Kind of Left Does America Need?
STANLEY ARONOWITZ
Reviving our radical imagination, launching a political education program, and creating a new political formation must be the priorities of today’s Left
Liberalism and the Left
TIM BARKER
Younger leftists will work to preserve our country’s social welfare architecture—but we’re also setting our sights on revolutionary ends!
Online Exclusives
Don’t miss the web-only articles associated with this special section on “Does America Need a Left?”: thoughtful contributions from David Banks, Howard Brick, Maxine Chernoff, Ron Eglash, Rebecca Kaplan, Ann Larson and Henry Ostrom, Kurt Newman, Bruce Robbins, and Blair Taylor. To read them, click here.
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CULTURE
BOOKS
Faith and the Metaphor Muscle
Writing to Wake the Soul: Opening the Sacred Conversation Within by Karen Hering | Review by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
A Secular Analysis of Evil
Trauma Bond: An Inquiry into the Nature of Evil by Lawrence Swaim | Review by Marilyn Glaim
Joyful Poems of Leave-Taking and Transience
Without a Claim by Grace Schulman | Review by David Danoff
POETRY
The Sand Dancers (web-only) by Grace Schulman
Joe Louis’s Fist by Peter Balakian
The Legend of How the Tao Te Ching Came Into Being on Laotse’s Journey Into Exile by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Jon Swan
TIKKUN RECOMMENDS
Three Perspectives on Israel
My Promised Land by Ari Shavit, Goliath by Max Blumenthal, and The Negotiator by Gershon Baskin
Two Thought-Provoking Art Books
Chagall: Love, War, and Exile by Susan Tumarkin Goodman, and Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica by T.J. Clark