Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/page/179/)
Posts about politics and social change, from a spiritual progressive perspective
However, whether such companies can save governments money is not the central issue. What’s at issue here is the corrupt, immoral dynamic that fuels such contracts: the concept of treating inmates as commodities that must be grown for profit.
This is a call to conversion because Chris Hedges warns not only of the economic, social, and environmental results of corporate domination, but also of the spiritual effects: “habit, cowardice and hubris.” He also points a way forward: “Rebel. Even if you fail, even if we all fail, we will have asserted against the corporate forces of exploitation and death our ultimate dignity as human beings. We will have defended what is sacred.”
President Obama has voiced his support for LGBT rights to be included in any comprehensive immigration bill. But Leahy’s amendment has been sharply criticized by members of the Gang of Eight, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida. While some national organizations support the amendment publicly, he said, behind closed doors there’s pushback against it.
Between every two people in the world is a unified field. The role of the interfaith activist has been to explore and cultivate that field and, in the process, to appreciate and emphasize the commonality – but not ignore the differences – of our faiths and beliefs. Locating a field of shared love and concern is the key to both interfaith and intrafaith harmony.
Put simply: Israel chooses to leave security to its professionals. And not to a gun-wielding citizenry. Which is why after a lone-gunman shooting, such as the one which happened yesterday, Israel’s response was not an NRA style call to “Arm the victims!” Rather, it was a call to get more guns off the streets. It’s a call America would do well to heed.
Riverside, our crises have arrived. There is the seemingly external crisis of climate change, which many deny; and the crisis internal to the church, namely, to hear together one word why Riverside must exist for a whole world; one word, deeper than all our differences. This word is very near. How will you hear it?
I understand that my position as stated here is rife with contradiction. I oppose BDS but I endorse Hawking’s support for it.
But here’s the thing. I would not support Hawking’s protest if my own government was taking action against the occupation. If the Obama administration was using its leverage to get Israel out of the occupied territories or, at least, to stop the illegal settlement enterprise, there might be no need for any kind of boycott. After all, given our massive aid to Israel, our consistent support for Israel at the United Nations and our adopting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies on Iran, we have powerful leverage.
However, if we are to survive as a society, if our planet is to survive, we are going to somehow have to become smart enough to rely on reason, and not empathy, to make our most important decisions. Yes, we will always be moral. And empathy will always, as an emotion, focus our attention on the personal stories we encounter. As it should.
But our survival depends, paradoxically, on our ability to overcome our emotionally-informed morality. On our ability to look at climate change statistics and say, “Yes, I must act. Immediately.”
A human rights based approach could assist both Israel and the Palestinians. This is because human rights contain reciprocal responsibilities against irredentism, as well as requires a commitment to state unity. Also, human rights do not exclude a partition of Israel. In fact, they can help to facilitate this but in a manner that comports with other important rights, such as the rule of non-discrimination. Human rights merely require that human groups treat each other with what legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin termed “equal concern and respect.”
The cynic observer can’t help but wonder: If self immolation no longer works as an agent for change, then is it still worth the price?
At its most profound the act stands as the highest form of human compassion, a confirmation of life by giving up one’s own. At its most incoherent self-immolation becomes more expressive of the frustration of the powerless. The individual, enamored by death, possessed by anger, elicits neither horror nor pity but cynicism. After all, to burn with passion is very much different than to be consumed by rage.