General News

Moral March Poses Urgent Questions to Progressives

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Nearly 100,000 people took to the streets in Raleigh, North Carolina on February 8 in a Moral March to say “NO” to the state’s sharp right-wing political turn and “YES” to a new, truly progressive America. They weren’t just marching for one issue or another. They were marching for every issue progressives care about: economic justice; a living wage for every worker; support for organized labor; justice in banking and lending; high quality, well-funded, diverse public schools; affordable health care and health insurance for all, especially women; environmental justice and green jobs; affordable housing for every person; abolishing the death penalty and mandatory sentencing; expanded services for released prisoners; comprehensive immigration reform to provide immigrants with health care, education, and workers rights; insuring everyone the right to vote; enhancing LGBT rights; keeping America’s young men and women out of wars on foreign soil; and more. All this in Raleigh, a metro area of barely more than a million people. It’s as if a million and half turned out in New York or DC, or a million in San Francisco.

General News

"When Palestinians used violence, a U.S. author's wife paid the price. Now he's championing Palestinians' use of nonviolent opposition (boycotts). For this, his book events are being cancelled. In America."

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When Carole Zawatsky, CEO of the Washington, DC Jewish Community Center (DCJCC), informed me that my March book event had been cancelled due to my political views, I was stunned. However, when she explained that one view in particular precipitated her decision – my position that Palestinians’ use of nonviolent opposition (boycotts) is legitimate – I was no longer just stunned. I was deeply saddened.

art

Theaster's Way

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Theaster Gates has been dubbed “the real-estate artist,” so when I went to the Studio Museum of Harlem on January 16th for the activation of See, Sit, Sup, Sip, Sing: Holding Court (2012) — tables, chairs and desks salvaged from a now-closed public school on Chicago’s South Side, I believed the hype but still wasn’t sure what to expect.

art

Keystone XL has a Job for You! (video satire)

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[youtube: video=”g4YUVmYBYlA”]
When Keystone XL’s top job recruiter comes to town, he reveals just what types of jobs the controversial oil pipeline would really create. Oil executives like to claim that the Keystone XL would create thousands of jobs. But in a project fueling so many environmental and health risks, only one man is honest enough to say exactly what those jobs would be. Hint: they’re not in construction. It’s true, Keystone XL has a job for you!

General News

For Philip Seymour Hoffman

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Actors help us to see our humanity. They put on various masks and characters acting within the contexts of various life situations. The best of them guide us to a deeper human truth that allows us to understand ourselves better. When we understand ourselves better, the hope is that we will make better moral decisions and thus do our part to advance the moral evolution of humankind. Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the best and most important actors of our time, is dead, apparently from a heroin overdose.

General News

US Jews Celebrate Same Sex Marriage While Israel In Uproar Because Bibi's Son Is Dating "Out"

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A front page article in today’s Ha’aretz struck me with the thought that, no matter what happens with the peace process, it is becoming impossible to expect non-Orthodox (i.e. 90-plus per cent) of young American Jews to identify with today’s Israel. There, on page one, was a photo of a beautiful young couple in their early 20’s who are seriously dating. One is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s son. The other is a Norwegian girl who happens not to be Jewish. Sweet looking kids.

General News

Christian Fundamentalists Are Irrelevant: Only Jews Matter On Israel

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I am always amused when I hear people say that right-wing Christian fundamentalists are part of the Israel Lobby, that Congress is just as intimidated by them as they are by AIPAC and its satellite organizations. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Yes, millions and millions of fundamentalists may “support” Israel (not Jews, mind you, who they rightly consider to be dangerously secular) but their support, such as it is, is meaningless. Here’s why. Christian fundamentalists do not vote based on Israel.