Politics & Society
Barack & Michelle: Filling Up Our Senses with Senselessness…Again
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Barack and Michelle Obama have a bad pattern of exploiting the sufferings of the wounded for-pay soldiers to shore up their own “patriotism brand.”
Judaism
AIPAC Keeps Its Skulduggery Secret
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I have been thinking about that secret meeting Mayor De Blasio had with AIPAC, the meeting Andrew Sullivan brilliantly analyzed here.
And the more I think about it, the happier the meeting makes me. The reason is simple. Both De Blasio and AIPAC decided that the meeting should be kept top secret. De Blasio kept it off his schedule and banned reporters from the room. AIPAC did the same.
Culture
Pete Seeger: A Personal Remembrance
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I could scarcely believe my ears when staff members at Tikkun told me that Pete Seeger had just called to ask if he could perform at the first national Tikkun conference in New York City in 1988. I had raised my son on Seeger’s music, and had myself been moved by some of his radical songs. He was already a legend, and I was already a fan when I was in high school.
Healing Israel/Palestine
Shulamit Aloni: Israel's Most Principled Elected Official
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Shula Aloni was the most principled Israeli elected official I ever met, a champion of the downtrodden and a fearless fighter for the rights of Palestinians.
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.
Healing Israel/Palestine
ADL: Standing-up to Israel Haters at The Economist
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Throwing red meat to Israel haters is not a liberal act. How the heck did so many liberals get confused on that score? Or are they really liberals in the first place?
General News
Scarlett Johansson vs. Oxfam
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A high-profile controversy bubbled over this week into the mainstream over actress Scarlett Johansson’s endorsement of the carbonate-it-yourself company, SodaStream. While the controversy itself is rather narrow, its meaning and implications are far-reaching, as I’ll explain in a moment. But first, allow me to explain the controversy … Johansson has become the celebrity face of SodaStream, an Israeli company which has its factory in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. This week, SodaStream made a promotional push in advance of her upcoming Super Bowl ad for the company, which considers Johansson a “brand ambassador,” going so far as to describe the relationship between the two as a “love story” between a socially conscious company and a passionate consumer.
General News
AIPAC Is Self-Destructing
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While the fate of the Senate’s Iran sanctions bill remains uncertain, one thing appears clear: AIPAC is alienating allies on Capitol Hill with its intense and self-destructive lobbying efforts. That alienation has reached peak volume as a result of AIPAC’s bitter, partisan attack against DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of the lobbying outfit’s most reliable allies in the House. Why is she being attacked? Wasserman Schultz has yet to make a public pronouncement as to which way she leans with regard to the sanctions bill. And behind the scenes, it has been reported that she’s trying to dissuade Democrats from supporting the bill, which, given her appointment by President Obama to head the DNC, seems more than expected.
Politics & Society
Size Matters
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In the last 30 years, there has been an exponential increase in private wealth, and in size and reach of the mainstream culture’s propaganda and reality molding machine; the de-centralized but highly coherent set of values-based messages and cultural cues – compete and win, dominate and control – in which we are immersed. This blog contextualizes these trends; making the magnitude of these trends – and their effect – more transparent.