Politics & Society

Students in 32 States Rally to Defend Public Education

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Students, workers, grade school teachers, and professors are marching in defense of public education throughout the country today, with more than 100 events taking place in 32 different states. Hundreds of people gathered at the state capitol in Sacramento this morning to call on the state legislature to reverse the budget cuts and layoffs that are undermining California’s elementary schools and public universities alike. Meanwhile, here in the East Bay, students, teachers, and workers from UC Berkeley, Laney College, Fremont High School, Alameda High, and other local schools have rallied together at the Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland. Demonstrations, sit-ins, teach-ins, and walk-outs are taking place across the country, from Oregon, to Texas, to Vermont (visit Student Activism for a nationwide map of today’s events). Here’s an excerpt from the call to action at the heart of this coordinated National Day of Action to Defend Education:
The politicians and administrators say there is no money for education and social services.

Culture

Constraining Play: How Surrealist Art Can Nourish Our Political Imaginations

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In one image a winged bird flaps her wings but remains rooted to the ground. In another a fork-headed monster rushes by, a small bird fluttering at its heart. Nearby a masked bundle of writing appears to be stuck in a toilet bowl. These are just a few of the uncanny creatures that emerged three years ago when some friends and I started playing “exquisite corpse,” a collaborative drawing game invented by surrealists in the 1920s. So many of the drawings evoke unexpected scenes of constraint.

Politics & Society

Highlights from the Feb. 15 Spiritual Progressive Conference

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Hundreds of warm voices rang out Monday at the University of San Francisco as spiritual progressives sang together and debated how best to push our society toward a vision of economic justice, environmental sustainability, ethically oriented institutions, and a foreign policy based on generosity rather than militarism. Hosted by the Network of Spiritual Progressives and Tikkun, the one-day conference in San Francisco included in-depth strategy sessions about how to develop a constitutional amendment to establish that corporations are not persons and how to support Obama while pushing him to live up to his progressive campaign promises. You can read Michael Lerner’s report on the conference to learn more about the proposed amendment and discussions about it. Here are some photos to give a feel for the event itself:

The day was just a foretaste of the visionary analysis and vigorous debate set to take place during the NSP’s four-day national conference, June 11-14 in Washington, D.C. Presenters at the upcoming conference will include dynamic speakers from the conference cosponsors, which include The Nation, Yes! magazine, Peace Action, Pace e Bene, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Code Pink, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Shalom Center, Democracy Matters, OpEdNews, the Backbone Campaign, the Metta Center for Nonviolence Education, and 350.org.

Inter-Culturalism

Beyond Militarization: Dr. King and Post-Earthquake Haiti

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MLK Day is drawing to a close. Have all the tributes and videos shaken us up, radicalized us, and renewed our resistance to the systems of imperialism and racism that Dr. King fought in his day? At its best, MLK Day leads us to hear King’s powerful call for justice resounding in the present moment, to hear him urging us to dismantle our racist judicial/prison system and end the mass incarceration of black men, to oppose U.S. imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to take seriously his idea that militarism leads to the “spiritual death” of a nation. At its very worst, the memorialization process reduces King’s legacy by offering a saccharine history lesson that leaves people thinking that King did all the necessary work and racism is over. Jack & Jill Politics has done a particularly smart job of projecting Dr. King into the present rather than freezing him into the past.

Buddhism

How to Reclaim Christmas, Chanukah, and Other Holidays

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Red-and-white striped poles spring up in the vacant lot on my block every year, even before I’ve fully digested Thanksgiving dinner. Topped by floodlights, these oversized candy canes tower over the neighborhood, a blinding reminder that Christmas is coming. Next time I check, the tree sellers will have finished setting up shop there, erecting their bristling forest of dead pines under the dazzling lights. Paired with the blitz of “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” ads that tend to flood my inbox and mailbox, this surreal invasion of my neighborhood always makes me feel like Christmas is breathing down my neck. How did the commemoration of a homeless baby’s birth turn into this garish and materialistic extravaganza?

Culture

Can Progressive Education Thrive Under Arne Duncan?

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All fifty states are buzzing with news about the $4.35 billion in federal education grants now available for school improvement initiatives. The Obama administration released the final rules for its Race to the Top competition Wednesday, outlining how states can prove themselves worthy of the grant money. States that experiment with charter schools, track student gains over time, use standardized tests to evaluate teachers, and overhaul struggling schools by dismissing teachers en masse are poised to rake in the most money. California and Wisconsin have already sought to become more competitive by changing their laws to allow teacher pay to be linked to student test scores. It’s great that our executive branch is finally funneling some money toward education — what a welcome change from the last administration!

Christianity

Right-wing Christians Celebrate Anti-Abortion Add-on to Health Bill

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The Religious Right is cheering last night’s passage of the Stupak amendment, which threatens women’s reproductive rights by severely limiting insurance companies’ ability to cover the cost of abortions. “This is a huge pro-life victory for women, their unborn children, and families,” announced the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian public policy group that lobbied hard for the amendment. “We applaud this House vote.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also played a major role in persuading lawmakers to adopt the amendment, which 64 House Democrats and 176 Republicans voted to attach in their last-minute wrangles over the Affordable Health Care for America Act. John Nichols raised serious concerns about the Catholic bishops’ involvement, writing this in his post for the Nation:
The tortured final negotiations put serious cracks in Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” between church and state, as abortion foes such as Pennsylvania Democrat Jason Altmire openly acknowledged that they would not vote for health-care reform legislation unless they were told it was appropriate to do so by Catholic bishops in their home districts.

Buddhism

Interfaith Youth Conference: What a Thrill!

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In one room, young Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, secular humanists, and others cluster in a circle to learn strategies for facilitating constructive interfaith discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Down the hall, more young people — bareheaded or wearing headscarves or kippot — crowd together to discuss multifaith intentional living communities, learn about the Baha’i faith, create videos about youth-led interfaith activism, and train to volunteer as advocates for undocumented immigrants. Talk about a rich space for conversation. All this happened during one morning of the Interfaith Youth Core’s 2009 conference, which took place October 25-27 at Northwestern University, just north of Chicago. The conference brought high school and college students engaged in interfaith work together with religious leaders, politicians, and authors interested in interreligious cooperation.

Culture

The Yes Men Strike Again

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CNBC interrupted its usual program today for a shocking bit of breaking news: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had decided to stop opposing the Kerry-Boxer climate bill and instead “throw its weight behind strong climate legislation.” What great news! Could it be true? In this case, it wasn’t: the Chamber’s supposed about-face was concocted by the Yes Men, a clever group of activist pranksters whose new movie, “The Yes Men Fix the World,” hits theaters nationwide this week. By snookering numerous media agencies, the Yes Men managed to shift the public’s sense of the possible.

Politics & Society

Ending the War in Afghanistan

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Will the “war on terror” never end? Back in 2001, just after September 11, my college classmates and I traveled to Washington to protest the impending invasion of Afghanistan. We all knew that military retaliation was around the corner, and we dreaded the years of violence and bloodshed to follow. We wanted to tell our government that launching a war was not the way to make us feel safe. And we wanted the United States to think twice before raining bombs on civilians and giving millions a new reason to hate us.