The Madness Continues and Jesse Williams Speaks Truth

In December of 2014, I wrote an essay where I connect police violence against African-American people to racism as a social psychosis. In other words, racism has made most people in the United States crazy, police included. (http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2014/12/09/blue-on-black-violence-racial-bias-and-societal-psychosis/) I discuss an essay – “A Superhumanization Bias in Whites’ Perception of Blacks” published in the journal “Social Psychological and Personality Science.” Fast forward to July 2016, and in the space of two days, two African-American men, in two cities, in two different parts of the country – Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in a suburb of Minneapolis/St. Paul– have been shot and killed by police.

Two-State Solution's Chance Disappearing as Israeli Settlements Grow

Today, the West Bank and greater Jerusalem are inhabited by 370,000 Jews and 2.8 million Palestinians. The Jerusalem Report declares that. “Dotan’s film is horrifying because of the contradictions between the tranquil and wonderful landscapes and the dreadful conditions of the Palestinians. But also because of the contrast between the soft-spoken words expressed by the settlers—some of them bordering on messianic hallucinations—and the true reality of Israeli colonialism, racism, discrimination and economic exploitation of Palestinians. The film also touches…on how Jewish terrorists emerged in the last 30 years…They assassinated Palestinian mayors, killed innocent civilians, planned to bomb Palestinian school buses and the mosque on the Temple Mount.”

"African Exodus" Film Documentary

On June 20, 2016, I was privileged to see a screening of the film African Exodus directed by Brad Rothschild at San Francisco’s Sundance Kabuki theater, sponsored by Right Now: Advocates for Asylum Seekers in Israel and Ameinu. This troubling and moving documentary exposes the plight of African refugees fleeing to Israel to escape the horrific civil wars in Sudan and Eritrea. Some 60,000 refugees and asylum seekers found their way to Israel hoping to find safe haven and 45,000 remain. Many live in south Tel Aviv near the central bus station in squalid conditions, in limbo, and often going hungry. The Israeli government has labeled them “infiltrators” and denies them work permits.

The Free State of Jones and the Brexit

Friday, June 24, 2016, I went to the first showing of the movie “The Free State of Jones” at my local movie theater. It was the day after the shocking vote in the United Kingdom where a majority of voters expressed their wish to exist the European Union. It was an OMG – Oh My God – moment for me. Why do I, sitting here in the United States, care what happens in the UK? It must be all that Masterpiece Theater on PBS, all that Downton Abbey and Poldark and Wolf Hall.

New Poems from Ari Banias: "An Arrow" and "Bouquet"

 
“AN ARROW”
Too often I’d like some direction
but am ashamed of this fact, still I ask for it,
men are supposed be bad at admitting
they’re lost though why men agree
to fulfill this is lost on me. Who cares what men are. Can’t we
scrap this whole enterprise, seriously
top down management
small talk, normative dating. A little box
I fill in over and over, like feeding pennies into a slot
it leads somewhere I think
I’m saving them. For when?

Why go to Russia?

Since 1983, Sharon Tennison has worked to develop ordinary citizens’ capacities to avert international crises, focusing on relations between the U.S. and Russia. Now, amid a rising crisis in relations between the U.S. and Russia, she has organized a delegation which assembled in Moscow yesterday for a two week visit. I joined the group yesterday, and happened to finish reading Sharon Tennison’s book, The Power of Impossible Ideas, when I landed in Moscow.
An entry in her book, dated November 9, 1989, describes the excitement over the Berlin Wall coming down and notes that “Prior to the Wall’s removal, President Reagan assured Secretary General Gorbachev that if he would support bringing down the Wall separating East and West Berlin, NATO would not move ‘a finger’s width’ closer to Russia than East Germany’s border. With this assurance Gorbachev gladly signed on.

We Can Stop This Violence

During the G. W. Bush years a friend of mine lamented, “We have a war President, a war economy, and a war culture.” Yes on all three; but he might have gone on to add, the key is culture. If our culture did not promote violence the way it does we would not elect a war president, we would build our economy on very different, sustainable and just principles; we would find ways to avoid conflict and use robust, creative ways of dealing with it when it surfaced. In all this our belief system, or mindset is the key ¾ and there are signs that we’re beginning to notice it.

Grieving the Orlando Massacre

True solidarity needs to go beyond standing with the victims of hate crimes, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, xenophobia and all the other variants of hatred. True solidarity should lead us to the imperative to develop strategies to heal the distortions and pains that lead people into communities of hate.

Dissolving Tyranny Instead of Voting For It

According to the masters of the moral universe who have housed themselves in the Democratic Party, that bedrock foundation of all human wisdom and enlightenment, I shall forever wear a Scarlet B on my chest. B for Bush.
I was one of the “Nader Spoilers” of 2000, one of the 97,421 Floridians who cast a vote for Ralph Nader. If those of us in this group – the “Scarlet B Community” – had voted for Al Gore instead, George W. Bush would never have been president of the United States. I don’t dispute that math. But I do roll my eyes at the partisan emotions behind it, as if Al Gore had the political heft to save this country’s early 21st century descent in proto-tyranny. Barack Obama’s magnetic persona and persuasive ability – and I would say his intellect too – far surpasses that of Al Gore, with all due respect to the former VP, and even he could not stop it.