General News

The Kerry Initiative Is A Joke: The US Is Still "Israel's Lawyer"

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I wonder what it is that other people see about Secretary of State John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough that I’m missing. The fundamentals haven’t changed. The Palestinian Authority’s goal is to achieve a peace agreement with Israel in which it (yet again) recognizes Israel and Israel agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories of the West Bank (including east Jerusalem) and Gaza. This has been the Palestinian position since theOslo agreementof 1993, the one that produced the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat. The Palestinians have never changed their position.

General News

Psycho Drama: Kerry's Pathetic Accomplishment

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Secretary of State Kerry is desperate to make an announcement of renewed talks, any talks. As ever, his #1 concern is looking good (literally and figuratively).  Prime Minister Netanyahu just wants Kerry off his back because he is anguished over the just-announced EU sanctions which will penalize Israeli institutions that support the settlement enterprise.  If the sanctions actually take effect, he will look weak and, even worse, he could be viewed as having produced the “delegitimization” of the occupation. This is what I think happened:
Kerry: Bibi, my dear friend, please do me a solid. Just let me announce negotiations.

General News

The Pain Of The Zimmerman Verdict & I'm So Glad My Sons And Grandsons Aren't Black

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There is nothing that would have mitigated the pain caused by Trayvon Martin’s murder. Sure, these things have been happening forever but, once we saw his face and knew the circumstances, and once the right jumped in to denigrate him and defend George Zimmerman, the stakes were raised. How one felt about Trayvon and Zimmerman became a litmus test about how one felt about basic equality and justice for African Americans. Not long ago, acquittal would have been as predictable as the sunset. But Barack Obama’s election to the presidency twice made some of us (not the smartest of us, I’m afraid, including me) believe that it was a new day.

General News

No Jury Trial in Beale Case

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Last October, I was arrested for civil disobedience with eight other people during an anti-drone demonstration at Beale Air Force Base. Charges were dropped against four of my co-defendants. The case against the remaining five of us continues.

General News

Samantha Power Sells Out To Lobby To Win UN Job

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The month of March 2002 was a terrible time in both Israel and the West Bank. Some 100 Israelis were killed by Palestinian suicide bombers. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched a military operation in the West Bank killing some 500 Palestinians. Children made up a significant number of the victims on both sides. The prospects for an end to violence, let alone peace, appeared lower than at any time previously.

General News

Tax Day Demonstration Against Drones

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Our trial was originally scheduled for today, but it’s been postponed. Still, today, April 15, Tax Day, is a good day for a demonstration against drones. The drone program consumes billions of our tax dollars. Our government cuts programs that promote the common good and serve basic human needs, while it pours billions into hi-tech robotic killing machines that destroy human lives and communities halfway around the world. To find out more about my motivation for taking this action, go to “Why I Crossed the Line at Beale.”

Christianity

Hope and Guantanamo

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Those of us who live freely here in the United States may not realize how connected we are to the prisoners in Guantanamo. Their pain and their struggles may seem to have nothing to do with us. But we are connected to them, and to the people killed by U.S. drone strikes and other victims of our country’s foreign policy. I am a citizen. I pay taxes. I vote. I remain silent or I speak out. Our government can only take such actions through the active participation or the silent complicity of the people.

General News

Day of Action to Close Guantanamo

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Today, April 11, is the National Day of Action to support the Guantanamo hunger strikers and to call for Guantanamo to be closed. This effort is sponsored by Witness Against Torture and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Find an action near you and/or call President Obama urging him to fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo. There are phone numbers below, along with a script for callers to use. Support the hunger strikers and end indefinite imprisonment without trial.

Culture

About Death, II

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Rather, I take comfort in having been here at all. That the universe came into existence, and that the combined forces of particles, atoms, gravity, the strong force and the weak force, molecules, cells, DNA, evolution, weather patterns and the like have enabled me to exist.
These are the forces so much more powerful, creative and long-lived than my own little self. These are the forces to which I feel compelled and privileged to bow in gratitude.

Culture

Amour, Death, Song

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Perhaps that is all we are: just a song sung by the universe. Does a song – does my ego – really want to last forever? Thankfully I’ve grown a bit since I was seven, and now I think not. We – I – will end, and if the song is as sweet as ripe cherries there might be a faint wish from us or others that there be a little more. But if we live with awareness and gratitude, compassion and love, we will face the end of the song with grace, knowing that the composer and performer is not us, but forces vastly larger, more creative, and (almost) infinitely more enduring.