Culture

Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone – Sharing a New Post by George Lakey about Class War

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During one of George Lakey’s train-the-trainer for social activist workshops, people kept mentioning that some tactic or other was a “high-wire” concept for them. After around the third time I heard that, I finally asked “What does she mean by high-wire?” George reached behind him, pulled out a soap box, and explained “What if I told you that I wanted you to take this soap box and walk over to 16th and Mission, stand up on the box, and just start talking to everyone who passes by?” “That would make me very uncomfortable.” I responded.

Healing Israel/Palestine

An Open Call for the Elections and Uri Avnery's "Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan"

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In the coming two months we welcome submissions (to me at RabbiLerner.tikkun@gmail.com) about what and who spiritual progressives should be backing in the coming elections. Below we print the article sent to us by Uri Avnery on Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand. Like every such article, we do not claim this to be an official Tikkun perspective, but rather an interesting take, in this case from the leader of the most intellectually coherent Israeli peace movement–Gush Shalom.

Politics & Society

Video: System Change and Sustainable Cities

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Over the years I have been privileged to publish a number of articles on emerging democratic economic alternatives in Tikkun — and how many of these also intersect with some of the social and philosophical principles of leading Jewish theorists like Martin Buber. For those who are interested, here’s a talk that builds on such work, on my book America Beyond Capitalism, and on ongoing research to suggest that the emerging historical era offers hope of a slow and steady construction, from the ground up, of a “new economy” based on democratic and ecologically sustainable principles.

Empathy

A 53 Year-Old's View of the Upcoming Election (and this 53 year-old is a little scared)

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With Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as a running mate, this election has become very personal for me. In this posting, I’d like to share how the field looks from my perspective, using my 53 year-old lens, colored by my life experience and where I am in life right now. And, I think there are a lot more people like me that might want to take a glance at their choices through my lens because I am beginning to agree with the pundits, that this is one of the most important elections in a generation. I’m a 53 year-old gay man, Jewish, married for over 20 years to the same Presbyterian husband, living in a “ticky tacky house” on a hill in Daly City that’s around five years from being paid off. I started life in the housing projects in Rockaway New York, subsidized apartments built to help the working poor.

Gender and Sexuality

Why the ACA is the Most Important Women's Civil Rights Bill Since the 19th Amendment

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In the last year, attempts have been made in the US House of Representatives and the state of Arizona to defund Planned Parenthood. “Personhood bills” have been introduced in the same time frame in Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Colorado seeking to ban both birth control and abortion. Bills were also recently introduced in Georgia and Tennessee to criminalize miscarriage, potentially making it a capital offense. And who can forget Virginia’s effort to force medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds on females with the temerity to seek medical care? The ACA may be the most important piece of civil rights legislation effecting women since we gained the right to vote in 1920.

Culture

The Temple of Want: What Do We Worship?

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Thinking about politics and wars and the big systemic problems always leads me back to thinking about human behavior, and social behavior. Maybe it is the psychotherapist in me — always analyzing the world around me from a psychological and behavioral stance. So, thinking about leadership and the things we bow down to lead me to think about the human psychology of want, envy, fear, and power and the spiritual and psychological question that comes when we pause to get a distance view of Western culture. Which I think, also, ends up being a spiritual issue of western culture.

Education

Philanthropic Photography Celebrates SF’s Warrior Mothers

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There is citizen journalism and then there is photographic philanthropy, and they each serve a purpose. I have been covering Occupy events in my area by shooting photos and making them available on flickr, as well as tweeting them around. A few publications have asked me to post to their sites as a citizen journalist, but I haven’t taken that step yet. April 26, though, I shot an event that wasn’t about Occupy. It was a photographic exhibit called “Facing Forward” by volunteer Marsha Guggenheim that displayed beautiful profiles of women who had graduated from the Community Health Worker Training Program of the Homeless Prenatal Program, alongside short blurbs about their success stories.

Politics & Society

Wisconsin after the Recall Beatdown: Down but Not Out

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It is election night in Madison, Wis., and I am standing where it all began, in front of the state Capitol here in the heart of America’s rebel dairyland. Earlier today was the recall election against Gov. Scott Walker, the viciously right-wing governor whose legislative attacks on public workers and unions sparked a grassroots rebellion in early 2011 involving hundreds of thousands of angry Wisconsinites. The Wisconsin uprising, through its occupation of the Capitol and its sheer massive numbers, inspired people across America and beyond to fight for economic justice in bold new ways, paving the way for Occupy Wall Street in the fall. For me, the movement was as beautiful as it was personal — I’d gone to college in Madison, taught in the Milwaukee public schools, and organized events in Green Bay. Scott Walker was attacking my old teachers, my students, and my friends.