Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/the-economy/page/20/)
The “fiscal cliff” and fixing the deficit are all the rage these days. No sooner is the election over than Washington insiders and media pundits start talking about a so-called inevitable “grand bargain” that would cut Social Security, Medicare and other public programs we all depend on in exchange for modest tax increases on very high incomes.
During the next four years, we pray that the president will address some crucial concerns that we have about what is happening to the poor. There was a lot of talk about helping the middle class, but neither candidate gave much attention to the needs of the poor during the campaigns leading to the election. We want to remind the president that there are millions of Americans who have been left without medical insurance, and millions of children. It is imperative for the president to address this matter.
As I write this, my plane has just taken off from Heathrow, seven hours after its scheduled departure. I spent six of them on the tarmac, trying to soothe the part of my brain that was spinning a story about British Airways’ incompetence. That was fairly challenging: during the previous hour, I’d stood in the aisle of an overheated and airless bus wondering why it was taking so long to board, when it was at last announced that the flight would be a little delayed because the door had been damaged when the boarding stairs were wheeled into place. Through the bus window I could see the hapless ground crew, including the man who towed the staircase, idly ambling up and down the stairs in an unsuccessful attempt to look innocent and helpful.
We live in a time of great ingenuity, incredible scientific advances that extend life, repair damaged cells, modify food supplies, expand the limits of our universe and yet we’ve lost touch with the most important thing in life – the thing that keeps us all alive – our humanity. Consider the reality of our world today:
The United States has the second highest child poverty rate worldwide
The prison-industrial complex warehouses human beings like animals only to have them either released into society without any greater skills than which they arrived, or left to languish until their final breath
We are warehousing and torturing animals in the name of increasing food supplies without a care for how that impacts the animals, the planet or our own health. We are destroying our planet, food and water supply
Our corporations’ profits exceed reasonable needs while their employees cannot afford to put food on their tables
1% of the population owns 99% of the wealth
We are buying and building bombs instead of supplying food, shelter, education, and health care
The list goes on and on but need I really say more. We seem to have arrived at a place where getting, achieving, taking and winning are more important than caring, concern, generosity and love. And I am left wondering, “when did this happen?”
Want to give your spirits a lift by doing something different? Put your zip code and email in here today and they let you know where you can turn up to show solidarity tomorrow. Feel good working off a bit of that tofurkey. Not sure they deserve the help? Check out their video:
The Hyatt Corporation is subcontracting jobs and forcing workers into poverty. Housekeepers endure crushing workloads that hurt their bodies. Where non-union workers are organizing to improve their circumstances, Hyatt has refused to remain neutral. On July 23, 2012 workers called for a global boycott of Hyatt hotels. We have heard stories of Hyatt abuse from many workers and find them very compelling. We support the workers’ boycott.
What will Obama do with his (and our) electoral victory? The answer depends on understanding Obama. There are two theories, which lead to divergent expectations as to how Obama will handle the “fiscal cliff.”
Dear President Obama and Democratic Members of Congress,
I invite you to embrace the radical notion that there are fundamental truths and values that the vast majority of US citizens believe in and support. They have chosen you to be the messenger and implementer of those ideas in the form of legislation and actions on a federal level. Now is the time for you to step out of a politics based on fear and limiting beliefs and into the very real possibility and actuality that when you choose to stand in a politics of love, your actions will be celebrated. This is what a politics of love looks like:
1. Genuine care for the well-being of all, both in the US and abroad.
Recently two seemingly unrelated events came together: I volunteered for Measure D to raise the minimum wage in San Jose to ten dollars an hour, and I watched another episode of the BBC’s excellent production of War and Peace. In the episode I watched, a wealthy family, the Rostovs, is crating up their numerous possessions, china, furniture, dresses, vases, and clocks, to flee Moscow in the face of Napoleon’s oncoming troops. They look out the window: a long line of wounded Russian soldiers is wending its exhausted way through the city – now abandoned by most of the rich. At first, the family watches, curious, as the soldiers drag and are dragged past their front door. Then the daughter, Natasha, a person of great spirit and integrity, asks what it could hurt to let the wounded be brought inside and laid on the floor; the family is leaving the city anyway for their country estate.
A first step in challenging all of this craziness is to retake our democracy, and I like the NSP’s approach–a constitutional amendment, the ESRA, which requires public funding of all elections and bans all private donations from individuals or corporations, thus eliminating money as a factor in the outcome.