Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/page/78/)
Posts about politics and social change, from a spiritual progressive perspective
Professor Henry A. Giroux’s commencement speech to the class of 2015 at Chapman University: “Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice? Or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? “
On May 11 of this year, CBC News published an article in which its senior Washington correspondent, Neil Macdonald, wrote that Canada’s Harper government “is signalling its intention to use hate crime laws against Canadian advocacy groups that encourage boycotts of Israel.” Macdonald drew this conclusion after an e-mail exchange with Josée Sirois, an aide to federal Public Security Minister Steven Blaney. Macdonald asked Sirois to clarify a comment that Minister Blaney made in a speech delivered at the United Nations General Assembly Session on Anti-Semitism on January 22 of this year. In this speech, Blaney stated that “Canada has taken a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination including in rhetoric towards Israel, and attempts to delegitimize Israel such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.” Macdonald asked Sirois to clarify what “zero tolerance” meant in this context.
Memorial Day seems a fitting time to review the movie “Goodkill,” now playing in theaters around the country. The movie, based on actual events, portrays a morally-conflicted and psychologically-tormented operator of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or “drones”), played by Ethan Hawke. Even though the plot includes some obvious Hollywood enhancements, it presents some basic facts about drone warfare, facts that are little known to the U.S. public. For instance, drone operators accidentally kill civilians, but sometimes see that civilians (including children) are present and proceed (or are ordered to proceed) anyway. “Signature strikes” do not target individually-recognized terrorists, but groups that fit a particular profile.
As a U.S. citizen, I am to some degree complicit in U.S. systemic violence, and who gives two hoots about whether or not I enter the White House. This is not about being pure; the historical trauma and injustices we face are not new. My hope is in the refuge of awareness and awakeness.
The reinforcing messages sent from “breastaurants” like Twin Peaks and Hooters are quite clear”: inscribed gender roles and promotion of socially constructed norms of female beauty, which are exclusionary hegemonic ideologies in terms of body size and shape and standards for skin and hair type. These establishments endorse a consumeristic colonization of women’s bodies for the edification of the objectifying male gaze.
Across the cultural landscape, powerful dreamers everywhere are tapping into this same deep truth. Just two quick examples: the young organizers who formed Dream Defenders in 2013 to “develop the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise our independent collective power” chose a fierce and evocative name for their work. Earlier this spring, when Black Lives Matter called for voices to “help imagine a world where black life is valued by everyone, our rights are upheld, and the beauty and power that is our blackness is celebrated,” they called their action “In a world where Black Lives Matter, I imagine…..”
Their arrival to the Promised Land has not meant complete freedom and escape from injustice for the Ethiopian community in Israel. An Art Gallery feature from photographer Galit Govezensky.
The Christian response to nonviolent direct action in 1963 sounded similar to many critiques of Baltimore’s uprising today: yes, injustice is wrong. But we must be patient. Don’t stir up trouble. But when you come to a dead end, nonviolence teaches you to look for a resurrection.
The pristine waters in the Gulf of Alaska will be irreversibly damaged by the Navy’s Northern Edge war games. National security is the usual justification, but aren’t food, biodiversity, and a sustainable income part of national security as well?
During the Combatants For Peace event, families from both sides speak their grief and tell their stories of loss, in all the wars, translated into Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The event was streaming live, co-hosted by a young Israeli woman and a Palestinian. Knowing that despite fierce and vicious criticism of this alternative ceremony there are more and more people who attend and watch with every passing year feeds my hope that there may yet be a collaborative future.