Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/page/77/)
Posts about politics and social change, from a spiritual progressive perspective
Birthwrong is simultaneously a criticism, a parody, and a genuine alternative to Birthright and the many other organizations running similarly uncritical Israel tours. We aimed to celebrate life and history in the Jewish diaspora, particularly in Spain. The key principle of the trip was non-Zionism, rather than anti-Zionism.
Imagine a protest rally where organizers wore “F— Christianity shirts” and were encouraged to bring weapons to the rally in support of Second Amendment rights. Now, replace “Christianity” with “Islam,” and you have the Draw Muhammad contest in Phoenix, at the same Islamic community center that so-called lone shooters Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi once attended.
It’s true that commercial hip-hop is often sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, and violent. The same is true of contemporary cinema, television, sports, and wider American culture. This is precisely why we should create spaces for our students to critique these messages.
The earliest Buddhist attitude toward untamed nature was one of suspicion. “If nature is ever employed in early Buddhist texts, it is almost always in terms of impermanence, decay, and as something to be avoided.”
“Environmentalism is just another religion” say some seeking to rebut people who link climate change to human activity. What about organizations such as Jesus People Against Pollution, which cite Scripture? Are their views grounded in the Bible?
As with any movement, it’s important to glean wisdom and turn to those who are leaders in their own right for inspiration. The speakers in this series offered a profound sense of hope as well as real-world steps for action, which deeply resonated with the summit’s attendees.
Five global banks agreed to pay more than $5 billion in combined penalties and plead guilty to criminal charges to resolve a long-running U.S. investigation into whether traders colluded to move foreign-currency rates for their own financial benefit. Not only are most of these fines tax-deductible, and many of them amount to less than the profits made from their law-breaking behavior, but the revolving door between executives and the Federal Government continues to spin.
Are not the opponents of living wages, paid sick leave, are not the antagonists of giving working folk a decision-making power over the means of production and distribution frequently the antagonists of folk of color — and we might add of women, LGBTQ folks, immigrants, and others? At this hour, Dr. King’s legacy still speaks to us, in particular concerning leveling inequality and creating an alternative economics.
Though the Catholic Church has scratched, tarnished, and clouded the stone that is the Emerald Isle with its wheel of oppression, the people have spoken loudly and clearly, and by so doing, have dismantled some of the spokes on that wheel and have polished the stone to brilliance once again. In what can only be seen as an historic vote, for the first time anywhere in the world, the people of the Republic of Ireland voted overwhelmingly, by a majority of 62 percent to 38 percent, to sanction marriage for same-sex couples with all the legal benefits and responsibilities already granted to different-sex couples (thereby dismantling a spoke on the wheel of Catholic oppression). An estimated 60.5 percent of the eligible 3.2 million registered voters turned out to the polls. Though the Irish government passed civil partnership legislation in 2010, which could have been rescinded by future legislative actions, this popular referendum now constitutionally codifies the legal standing of same-sex couples. In another clear defiance of the doctrines and warnings of the very powerful Catholic Church, a similar referendum was taken in 1993, which for the first time in that country decriminalized same-sex sexuality (dismantling another spoke), and in 1995, legalized divorce (dismantling yet another spoke).
Debt and guilt are powerful tools. In the case of debt-fueled growth, damage to the environment, to the vulnerable, to self-realisation, we find the real reason to resist the marketising of the mind and the guilt-priming of the economy.