Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/page/176/)
Posts about politics and social change, from a spiritual progressive perspective
Let’s get John Kerry to set up camp and demand that Netanyahu prove, before the Israeli public and the world, that he’s ready to sit down for final status negotiations with Palestinian leaders. If we get 100,000 signatures, the White House will respond to this issue and Netanyahu’s claim. If you are with me, please sign.
Despite the Obama Administration’s attempts to define PRISM’s consequences narrowly, it is fair to speculate that the burden will fall unfairly on communities of color. Like domestic surveillance under Ashcroft, PRISM collects electronic communications and also stores information indefinitely, a process which again risks wrongly classifying and targeting communities of color.
As we saw in Seattle and San Francisco, pinkwashing is a growing movement that shows no signs of abating. How can we challenge it when it arises?
We have to recognize it. Ben Daniel gives us three warning signs. Pinkwashing:
1. Brands Israel as gay-friendly to attract investment, tourists, and media
2. Justifies and normalizes the occupation
3. Tells a story about “gay Palestine” where Israel is seen as the hero
Then, we have to resist it. Somerson tells us:
1. Insist on a power analysis
2. Investigate where funding is coming from
3. Center Queer Palestinian voices
Together we can stop Brand Israel.
That’s not to say the morality-play theory of Krugman and Conn is irrelevant. On the contrary, it fits into the pattern of conservative fears quite easily. If every new experience that brings pleasure is bound to be followed by pain; if every burst of excess is bound to provoke punishment; if the only way to avoid punishment and pain is a limited, constricted life of constant self-denial; then the world must indeed look like a dangerous place, full of pitfalls everywhere, with every step a risk that wise people will surely avoid. That’s the kind of world the myth of homeland insecurity gives us.
The freed slaves and all the generations since the first Juneteenth celebrate freedom. At the same time as we honor and celebrate the continuing struggle for the freedom of all humankind, we rededicate ourselves to a universal goal of justice and peace, both now and into the future. President Obama’s speech before the Brandenburg Gate on Juneteenth 2013 spoke this rededication.
Calderone’s move to ask McChrystal for comment so soon after Hastings’ death immediately struck me as mildly inappropriate, given the former general’s connection to Hastings. More than that, however, it struck me as something – a comment from McChrystal – that would have virtually no journalistic value or significance.
The role of the United States should be to support unconditional negotiations involving all sides with no stated goal other than to end the killing. (Expecting the Assad regime to negotiate when we say the goal of negotiations is its removal is absurd). Helping to end the slaughter of innocents (by both sides) through diplomacy is the only appropriate role for this country. It is also an essential role. Dictating solutions to any other country’s civil war is nothing but 19th century imperialism, no different than President McKinley’s war to “liberate Cuba.”
I will pray and hope for an end to your bleak night, / I will advocate for peace in small ways with humble pleas to the powerful, / I will support the caregivers on your sad and savaged ground—as will so many. / I will not forget you, Syria, will not stop aching for you.
As a frustrated Senator Gillibrand and her congressional colleagues try to bring greater transparency to the epidemic of sexual assault in the military with utterly piecemeal approaches, we need to set our sights on a far higher goal: disincentivizing wholly amoral men in our society – who have no inner qualms whatsoever with getting paid to make war – from joining the U.S. military in the very first place; amoral men, it must be said, who possess the sheer temerity to constantly assert that they love our country.
In my experience, which is neither vast nor tiny, any time the question of how we relate to our own and other people’s race is raised, complexity and pain come to the room – before, during, or after the event. I myself have been in a major quandary about how to find useful ways of supporting these conversations, and am doing less than I used to in this area, because I have rarely seen the pain that arises, both for people of color and for white people, be engaged with in ways that supported significant transformation. I am grateful to a few colleagues of mine that are continuing to engage in the inquiry year after year, in the NVC and Diversity retreat, where I believe they are breaking ground in creating a space where radical honesty, complete care and respect for everyone in the room, and deep learning for all happen regularly. Slowly, I have some hope that their lessons will support others, as well as me, in conducting race dialogues that are truly fruitful.