Politics & Society

Peter Gabel on Andy Stern

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Peter Gabel’s article “A Labor Leader Loses His Way” on current conflicts in the labor movement is one my favorites among all the articles I have been involved with at Tikkun since arriving in early 2007. I was working up to writing a kick-ass post about it hoping to get people to go to it and not be put off by the amount of labor history in it (if you don’t think you are interested in labor history skip to the heading Choices the Leaders Could Have Made), when someone left a comment heavily criticizing the article and saying it looked like Tikkun had lost its way. I got carried way beyond the 3000 character limit in writing a comment in reply, so decided to put my whole comment here as it says some (!) of what I wanted to say here anyway. Two key quotes, first, to give you a flavor of the article. Gabel writes,
I am now sixty-two years old and have been involved in social and political activism for my entire adult life, and not once have I been involved with a progressive movement or project that did not undermine itself and, in many cases, destroy itself by succumbing to the ghost of its own internalized humiliation, the legacy of the under-confirmation that every one of us suffers from as a result of being shaped within a social world in which we have been trained to doubt the lasting presence of the other as a reciprocating carrier of love, acceptance, and recognition.

Spirituality

Dreaming of Peace, Taking Notes

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A mature student at the University of Missouri (MU) sent us two poems that I liked, but couldn’t fit into what we were calling our “college issue”–the current issue of Tikkun that is being promoted in over 600 college bookstores. So I have posted them on our poetry site, here. Of his two poems, ‘Dreaming of Peace, Taking Notes’ and ‘A Prayer,’ Brad Jacobson writes: “Both of these poems are inspired by my experiences in Israel. The first poem is built around being in a tailor shop in the Old City of Jerusalem. The second poem is about my jog along the beach in Jaffa.”

Politics & Society

Why Second Wave Feminism Was Great

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Nancy wrote a very pertinent comment to my post of yesterday and my response got so long I am writing it here. She talked about the way that second wave feminists (those of the baby boomer generation)  institutionalized advances in ways that first wave feminists (19th and early 20th century) could not do. Of the first wave, she wrote:
They just didn’t get around to creating structures that would last past their time, and as a result, we lost their wisdom and had to invent it all over again. I think there’s something more there to be brought out than the creation of new structures. It’s something about how it was that the second wave changed their own lives to such an extent that they could and did dedicate themselves to building such structures.

Politics & Society

Two kinds of transformative experientialism?

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I was talking with Peter Gabel, radical law professor and Tikkun’s Associate Editor, this week about the contrast between the word and the experience, the talk and the walk. I was saying the word is hugely important in social change, but in the end comes to little on its own. Preaching love isn’t powerful on its own. Doing love is. I cited one of my favorite set of practices for learning how to do love: Nonviolent Communications classes (NVC).

Politics & Society

Just How Important is it to Match the Walk with the Talk?

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I was raised in a religious milieu in which it was thought that ‘personal change’ was the primary way to create a world without war, hunger, and class conflict. “You will never cure war in the world,” I was taught, “until you cure war in the home.” Leaders who had unresolved issues of ego, arrogance, resentment, desire for praise and so on in their personal lives, who could not get on with their own families and colleagues, could not create peace or unselfish social reform. So we had no idea what to do with leaders like Martin Luther King, who was a sexual philanderer, or the Kennedy brothers. From today’s New York Times:
Born to one of the wealthiest American families, Mr. Kennedy spoke for the downtrodden in his public life while living the heedless private life of a playboy and a rake for many of his years.

Politics & Society

Progress in CIA Torture Cases

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I’ve been on vacation for ten days and apart from one post about the netroots and health care have given not a thought to Tikkun Daily. So it’s great to be back and to get a press release like this one in my inbox. I am posting it whole. It’s from Physicians for Human Rights, a great group. Rights Group Applauds Appointment of Prosecutor in CIA Torture Cases
Health Professionals Must Also Be Investigated, Says PHR
Cambridge, MA — Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes actions taken which demonstrate that the Obama Administration is committed to ending the use of abusive interrogation techniques and to initiating a process of holding accountable those responsible for the regime of torture.

Health

What the Netroots Are Missing on Health Care

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Here’s a smart piece by Jeff Cohen that says the netroots and liberal campaigners for health care this summer have made a huge mistake by pushing for a public option instead of going all out for Medicare for All. If everyone who wants universal health care pushed for Medicare for All, maybe we would come out of it at least with a decent public option. If we all just push for a decent public option, maybe we’ll come out of it with a toothless public option or no public option at all. Had liberal groups sent out millions of emails building a movement that posed an existential threat to the health insurance industry, Senator Baucus and Blue Dog Democrats and their corporate health care patrons might well be on their knees begging for a comprehensive public option – to avert the threat of full-blown Medicare for All. The article was written two weeks ago but is still totally on the money and is worth highlighting today, the first day of the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh.

Health

Dear Rabbi Saperstein

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Dear Rabbi Saperstein, I didn’t mention it in my blog post this morning about the press conference for the religious campaign for health care reform, but you said something I wanted to ask you about. A reporter from Gannett or somewhere mainstream asked if by emphasizing the moral imperative to provide universal healthcare, the campaign was going to judge any Senator or Representative who failed to vote for the final reform package as “immoral.” It was a loaded question, that could have made a nice headline in conservative newspapers: Religious Left Accuses Republicans of Immorality. Jim Wallis answered first and got fairly close to saying that it would indeed be morally unacceptable to fail to pass some version of universal healthcare, though he didn’t want to specificy which version. He didn’t want to rank various options in terms of how much they might actually embody care for patients’ health.

Health

Obama and the Religious Health Care Reformers

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Just been on a fascinating conference call with Jim Wallis and David Saperstein and others, organized by PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. They announced a major step up of their campaign for universal health care, and a coup for this movement: President Obama will join them on a conference call and audio webcast next Wednesday, August 19. You are invited to join the call! Details will be posted at a new website: faithforhealth.org. Details of the rest of the campaign, including first TV ad to be placed by this coalition on health care, many local events etc.