General News

Heads, Hearts, and Inverted Democratic Assumptions

By |

Editor’s Note: Tikkun does not and cannot oppose or endorse any candidate. By the time this article sees daylight, I will have cast my ballot in the Massachusetts Democratic presidential primary. I’ll be making my decision in the voting booth, and even then I won’t tell you who got my vote, because I’m so far unconvinced by either candidate. This election cycle, as the Republican Party has gone completely off its rocker, I’ve listened to Democratic friends make impassioned pleas for either Clinton or Sanders. The one common point of agreement has been the framing of the election as a heart-vs.-head issue, with Sanders as the progressive, inspiring heart and Clinton as the cool, compromising head.

Politics & Society

How the Christian Right Interprets and Tries to Legislate Religious Liberty

By |

Last week, a Texas Senate committee convened a special hearing to explore ways to “protect” religious freedom.
That’s a noble aim and in a state as religiously diverse as Texas, home to the country’s largest Muslim and second-largest Hindu populations, probably a necessity. But this Senate committee, called in part by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton, was actually not about strengthening current anti-discrimination laws that protect religious liberty.

Politics & Society

Political Revolution, South American Style

By |

To achieve a political revolution – effecting a real change in society’s priorities – it is vital to have some hope that such a change is even possible. Latin America, and particularly South America, shows us that it is possible. Voters in South America have elected presidents who were not the U.S. first choice. That is good news for the people of South America. As John Perkins’ book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man detailed, heads of state who were cozy with the United States arranged loans for U.S. contractors to develop projects that locals did not want or need, but which were paid for with resources – natural and financial – that otherwise would benefit the people.

Culture

SF Police Murders (Murderous Police in the City of Love)

By |

No city is immune from the American epidemic of police killings that has only recently begun to gain wide attention — not even a liberal bastion like San Francisco. In her latest post, TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon, whose new book, American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes, will be published in April, takes a look at officer-involved killings in the “City of Love.”

Politics & Society

Michael Moore, Bernie Sanders, and the Place of Single-Issue Politics

By |

Having already cycled through a wide array of ad hoc political pejoratives—unrealistic, anti-feminist, anti-Obama, socialist (but in the bad way)—the Clinton campaign unveiled a new Sanders burn recently: single-issue candidate. This tag, of course, is no more charitable or honest than the previous ones. Like any serious candidate, Sanders offers an array of policy prescriptions and articulates them with varying levels of specificity.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Reflections on Israel 2016

By |

Present day Israel has discarded the rational, the universal and the visionary. These values have been subordinated to a cruel and oppressive occupation, an emphatic materialism, severe inequalities rivaling the worst in the western world and distorted by a fanatic, obscurantist and fundamentalist religion which encourages the worst behaviors rather than the best.

Culture

The Jewish Progressive Tradition: Examples from Chicago's Labor and Socialist Movements

By |

We crafted the essay below from personal and historical experiences for a series of talks on Jewish radicalism in the United States. Rather than survey a growing literature on labor and leftwing politics we chose to write about four Jewish radicals representing different twentieth century moments. Our thought was to glean insights(and perhaps inspiration) from reflections upon these four lives. Subsequent to the lectures given and the article drafts written, Senator Bernie Sanders, a New York/Vermont Jewish progressive, and a socialist,from an immigrant family background has surfaced as a viable candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for president. In many wayshis backgroundand political visionisnot dissimilarfrom that of Hannah Shapiro, Jack Spiegel, Herb March, and Jay Schaffner even though the paths taken by these four differed from Sanders.

Healing Israel/Palestine

A Day of (Un)Rest in Hebron

By |

This incident was one of the many egregious attacks on Palestinians that we, two Jewish American women, witnessed while we were spending time in Hebron working with activists at the YAS Center and documenting the daily human rights violations that they face.

Culture

California’s Dirty Secret Comes to Light: Environmental Racism Meets Black Lungs Matter

By |

With the Democratic presidential candidates taking aim at the lead poisoning in Flint and with the ongoing revelations about Republican Governor Rick Synder’s role in the disaster, one might form the impression that environmental racism has a partisan divide, but those involved in the protests in California know a different story. The Rev. Laurie Manning of Skyline Community Church UCC in Oakland has been active in struggles against both fracking and the proposed coal terminal. In November, she joined an interfaith coalition to deliver a letter to Brown that called for a halt to fracking. On Tuesday of last week, Manning addressed a rally outside Oakland’s City Hall in seeking to delay consultant work that could bring the city closer to having a coal terminal. In her remarks, Manning spoke of the pride she felt about Governor Brown’s environmental leadership in Paris, but then asked, “Why would we want to be complicit in prolonging and accelerating this environmental and humanitarian health crisis?”