Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/page/193/)
Posts about politics and social change, from a spiritual progressive perspective
The only hope for now is working to achieve the two-state solution. The process would need to start with the United States demanding an Israeli settlement freeze and not backing down as in the past. Once the freeze is in effect, the Palestinians would return to negotiations. Hamas would have the option of joining once an agreement is reached.
If we voted for him, then isn’t there a very strong responsibility to confront him over policies that seem to favor America’s wealthy and their corporate empires?
As a photojournalist, Syed wants to show society how “covered” women can relate to more secular American women. Syed wanted to expose readers to these powerful women’s personal lives. “I want them to see themselves,” says Syed.
It was then that I had the startling realization that there is really no reason why Dr. King did what he did and I, or anyone else, can’t. That may have been the day I took on with explicit clarity the responsibility to do all I can to contribute to the dreams I have, some of which I have carried in one form or another since I was a small child.
My lessons had finally come full circle. From 1989 when I thought it was ridiculous for anyone to claim that American soldiers would participate in torture and assassination, to 2003, when it was clear that we had, and soon thereafter the world would be horrified by the images of torture smuggled out of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, and today we sit and watch while unmanned drones assassinate people by the scores.
The feminist mantra, the personal is the political, has always struck me as incomplete. It was Teilhard de Chardin who first said “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” The ‘personal is the political’ assumes an incomplete worldview, a cosmology of separation where the individual is forced to turn to the political as the end we seek – as though we were fundamentally political beings.
Does that mean the Israeli election changed nothing?
Absolutely not. It changed a great deal because Netanyahu did so poorly. Yes, he will likely remain as prime minister but in a far weaker position than he was before the election. Prior to this week’s election, Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu party held 42 seats. It is now down to 31, a dramatic decline and a personal repudiation of the prime minister who leads the party.
If this legislation passes, the Canadian government will cease to recognize First Nations treaty rights and Canadian First Nations potentially could lose the rights to their land, among other things.
Obama’s inauguration today provides the opportunity for a tentative overview of his still uncompleted two-term presidency. To be sure, he will always be remembered as the first African-American president, but what else will we remember him for? In this regard let us consider his domestic and his foreign policy achievements separately.
That so many are honoring Aaron Swartz, and recognizing his noble aims for a more open society, is a heartening testament that at least some of us still believe there’s more to citizenship than showing up to the train platform at the right time. Yet the question must be asked: What about the victims of government persecution who aren’t so sympathetic?