Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/page/71/)
Posts about politics and social change, from a spiritual progressive perspective
We cannot escape our destiny and it is divine. It will perhaps happen during our lifetime and we all have a part to play in it if we will but surrender to what is deepest within us: a Unified Field of love and soul consciousness or, as Emerson wrote, “The thread of all sustaining beauty that runs through all and doth all unite”.
Eli Lake, formerly a senior national security correspondent for Newsweek and current columnist for Bloomberg, decided today to represent in a single Tweet all that is toxic within the American Jewish community when it comes to discussing Israel. Lake, himself Jewish, responded to fellow Jewish journalist Glenn Greenwald’s critique of congressional Iran-deal supporters with the following, vile description:
What caused Lake, who is no fan of the Iran deal, to parrot anti-Semitic language and direct it toward a fellow Jew? He took exception to Greenwald’s suggesting that some Republican members of Congress are prioritizing Israel’s interests over those of the United States in opposing the Iran deal. Now, the dual loyalty charge sometimes thrown at American Jews who support Israel is an anti-Semitic trope which intends to cast Jews as traitors. However, Greenwald was not making such a charge.
Trump said that while Jeb Bush married a Mexican-heritage woman, he will be the first U.S. presidential candidate to marry a woman from Pluto. He isn’t quite sure, however, whether the coupling will produce children. If it does, though, he argues that since the United States is now a post-racial and post-xenophobic nation, any of his possible future offspring will not suffer any sorts of obstacles from a biplanetary marriage.
Read pieces by Uri Avnery and Jeffrey Sachs on the Iranian Nuclear Deal, with an introduction by Rabbi Michael Lerner. “Iran will have a nuclear weapon that will keep Israel or the US from attacking it–a sad prospect, but probably the likely outcome whether or not there was a nuclear deal with Iran. Unless…”
When an historic nuclear agreement with Iran was announced on July 14, Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, immediately lambasted it as a “historic mistake.” He then warned that Israel would not be bound by it, and pledged to lobby Congress to oppose it. And he did so after claiming that this opposition was on behalf of “the entire Jewish people.”
We think of parks as a sensible response to urbanization and industrialization and of conservation as a logical solution to destruction of resources. Yet why were Congregationalists so interested in these issues? How did their religious values shape these movements?
When it comes to passing gun regulations, the United States Congress is a group of cowards. Congress-members of both parties use the second amendment as a fig-leaf to cover their cowardice while they dance to the tune of the National Rifle Association. Republican senators, with the exception of perhaps four, are completely in the pocket of the NRA. Democrats who will vote for gun regulations pay homage to “responsible gun owners” and “second amendment protections” before they speak about Band-Aid measures to prevent gun violence. The cost of this legislative cowardice is high.
The Clergy Climate Letter provides one way for people of faith to rally around common moral and religious values centered on earth stewardship and care for creation.
Dear black Americans,
I’m a white, Jewish man from Pittsburgh who, over the last year, has watched videos of Eric Garner being murdered, read about Tamir Rice being murdered, and shuddered over Ferguson after Mike Brown was murdered. On television and online, I’ve been confronted with disturbing images of black bodies being destroyed. And I’m telling you, I can’t bear it any longer. I can’t bear to learn any more details about Sandra Bland. I’m sick to my stomach, losing sleep, feeling unsteady. Yet you keep showing me images, telling me stories. And I have to look away.
“Low carbon” and “no carbon” energy and energy efficiency should be paid for by abolishing war. Lawrence is right to insist that the U.S. should view problems and conflicts created by climate change as “opportunities to work together with other nations to mitigate and adapt to its effects.” But the madness of conquest must end before any such coordinated work will be possible.